Goofing on the tracks

images, editing and gif animation by our fellow goofball, intern Yvonne :D

She's got a Ticket to Ride

(I thought of this concept after seeing the shot and got our talented intern e'von le angelis to complete the look with these awesome illustrations! I wish I can draw like that :p)

Her mummy likes to joke that she has a "25 cents face", meaning one that doesn't smile much. That she is a difficult subject to shoot, is true but only if you need her smiling :p I find Bernice to be quite a good subject for mood shots. Plus she is a beautiful child :) Here she is by the KTM railway tracks which will be closed to the public after today.

the Brat who loves Me

(photo taken with the HTC Sensation smartphone)

When the terrible two tantrums didn't come, we were pleasantly surprised and silently happy. Silent because if you celebrate "out loud", then the opposite might happen :p As we witness others' two year olds behaving obnoxiously, we silently scoffed and marveled at how sweet and adorable ours was. Well one of us must have accidentally displayed our emotions because now that we have past Dylan's 3rd year, all the signs of a brat has started to emerge :s He has bouts of terrible rage and tantrums which he seem unable to control. He would hit out at us or his brother and scream or shout in protest before giving you one extremely evil angry look! When these displays of brattish behaviour happen in public, I wished the earth would just swallow me up.

But then again, he has this other side of him that's cheeky and funny, adorable and clever that makes you wonder if he was possessed that moment ago when he flew into a tumultuous tantrum! Here are some examples of the other side of Dylan.

I was drinking apple juice and his sharp eyes spotted that. He came up to me asking for some. I said no, you already had yours. He then said,"Mummy, sharing is caring!" (a phrase we often use when wanting him to share with his brother) :D

He has been going diaper-less in the afternoons after his nap till bedtime. When we were in the car the other day after picking him from school, I asked if he needed to pass urine. He said no. While daddy was parking the car at our block he suddenly exclaimed that he needs to WEE WEE! I panicked and asked if he could hold it till we get home? He replied exasperatedly, "That's why I don't like LIKE THIS! (points to his diaper-less crotch area) I want to wear pampers!!!" :s

He doesn't let anyone else hold my left hand as that is meant for him (and him alone). When gor gor accidentally holds that preferred left hand of mine he will shout possessively," That's MY MUMMY!" and proceeds to tear off his brother's hand. On occasions when I am tired and can no longer bao bao him, he relents and let's daddy carry. I will then hold Kayden's hand and he will be looking over daddy's shoulder and explaining to gor gor,"That's my mummy, later you give me back ok gor gor?" Haha! All if a sudden, I feel like an object!

When I ask him to do something and he doesn't listen, I'll say,"I'm going to count to 3!" and start counting threateningly "ONE!....TWOOO!!!...." Then that bugger continues counting to 10 while doing whatever I was asking him to before the counting started :-|

Some days he will be very considerate, like when I've been carrying him for some time, he will suddenly say,"Mummy tired, I will walk walk" and he will come down!

When I drop him off in school, he will not let you go without a hug and a kiss. On days when you feel and look like crap, he comes and hug you and say,"My cute mummy!" awwww, how not to love this little brat you tell me?

Retro Radio Baby!

Can't resist posting this shot of baby Jun (9 days young) I shot this morning. He is lying on top of a giant retro radio! Isn't it cute?! And the baby too of cos :D Happy midweek everyone!

Children's Season @ SAM

The Children's Season is an item on my "Things I Die Die Must Do With The Kids" list and we almost missed it! Well, we did missed the one we went to last year at the National Museum but heard from friends that the Art Garden installations at the Singapore Art Museum are way better so earlier this week on my day off, I brought the boys down together with the whole studio :p

Here's a video of what the Art Garden is about in a nutshell.


And yes! It was as fun as it looks! The boys started off by prancing on Walter, the curious colossal bunny. SHHH, we didn't know they were not allowed to touch him as there were no guards around to stop us and you know kids, they were attracted to the big white thing the moment they saw it.


When the museum opened it's doors after a 15 minute wait, we were off to catch the dancing solar flowers installation. There was also an elephant where the kids could decorate with colourful stickers given by the museum staff.






Next came the paper fruits market where we fold and create our choice of 3D paper fruit. Dylan selected an apple and Kay a starfruit. It was terribly tough for us adults to put the fruits together let alone the kids. But finally we got them done, ta-dah! And you could exchange your paper fruit for a real one! But we opted to keep the paper fruits after all that hard work we put in :p






We rushed upstairs to catch the animated shortfilm Lost and Found by Philip Hunt which is about a little boy finding a penguin on his doorstep and his determination to help the penguin find his way back home to the south pole. This magical tale of friendship and loneliness is based on the best-selling picture book by Oliver Jeffers which I am going to buy for Kayden since he enjoyed the film so much :)


Ok, then it was off to the room decorated with toys, sand, artificial grass and styrofoam with walls covered entirely of modular toy train tracks. This was definitely a hit with the boys as they got to build their own tracks and once completed, they were given a battery operated toy train each which would run on the tracks they created. Boys haven I tell you! We were stuck here for the longest time.










This is the Tree of Love which is decorated with papier-mâché animal dolls, created by children and participants from non-profit organisations with the artist. Visitors are invited to add on to the work by penning their hopes, thoughts and feelings on the trees.






Kayden covered the entire giant cake with decors made of fabric in the Mummy Dearest room.




We didn't have time to do the GO! installation as it was past the kiddos' lunch time and somebody was getting extremely grouchy! Don't look like it from these pictures but the end of acceptable behaviour was drawing near :D






So we quickly headed to the colourful room which had big round blocks for the kids to push and colour match to the round circles on the ground. They were busy here for all of 5 minutes :p






And so ends our visit to the Art Garden. We certainly enjoyed the exhibits and interactive installations and can't wait for what they will have lined up for us next year!