Gotta Love It!

Stop and Smell the Flowers

I took this picture a few weeks ago - the flower does not belong on that plant but I needed a good background to photograph it against. We have a tree that we walk by each day that drops these amazing little flowers - the picture does not do the flower justice by any stretch. They remind me of a flower made out of icing for cakes with a bright yellow food dye added to the middle!

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Ethan's sick AGAIN! I guess his four hour nap yesterday should have warned me that something was coming on...in fact it briefly crossed my mind when I went to get him up that maybe he was sick. He was fine until the middle of the night when he spiked a fever.

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He's a hard kid to get medicine into! The twins would always slurp it down (how could a kid not like a medicine that tastes like pure sugar?) but E spits it back out and now says, "YUCKY!" I've tried to get creative today by adding it to a smoothie and Gatorade but he takes a few sips and makes a face. SIGH!

He came up to me the other day and said, "HUG!" and than kissed my knee:)

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ONLY 9 MORE DAYS UNTIL BETTY AND TINA ARE HERE!

Deepavali and Little India

On Monday Singapore observed Deepavali with a public holiday. According to my trusty book, "Handbook For Expatriates Working and Living in Singapore" by Goh Kheng Chuan,

"Deepavali, or the Festival of Lights, is celebrated by the Hindus and Sikhs to mark the victory of light over darkness and of good over evil. It is also believed that departed souls descend to the earth during this time. Celebrations of Deepavali vary from group to group among the Hindus and Sikhs. For the northern Indians, Deepavali marks the beginning of a New Year."

A week and a half ago I went with the twins on a field trip to Little India where they learned a little bit of the Indian culture.
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Walking Home From School

There is shop after shop of "yellow gold" jewelry. Interestingly enough these are usually right next to pawn shops. Some of the older Indians invest in the yellow gold during prosperous times and sell it off to the pawn shops during harder times.
Trinity and Kaitlyn were my charges for the trip. Trinity is part of a boy/girl twin set, too!

Eating our food at a traditional Indian restaurant

An Indian market

A henna artist at work

These floral garlands are used to decorate statues for worship or just to decorate a home. They are made of real flowers.

We were all given a little henna flower drawing... It lasts about 3 days before fading.

Pumpkin Patch

Kenton and his friend William find their pumpkins
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The following pictures are of the scenes from "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" that were painted by one of the mom's at school. They were on the walls surrounding the "pumpkin patch". I have to say that I was pretty impressed!

Kaitlyn and our neighbor Jack.

Kaitlyn and her friend Madalyn

Ethan had fun picking up pumpkins and throwing them.

Both classes got to listen to professional actors read a story and than act out a Halloween story. This particular guy was really fun to watch...he had most of the adults full attention!

Kaitlyn fell asleep last night on the couch waiting for Ryan to call.
Kenton talked Lovel into playing a game of chess with him.

Overheard...

Ethan:

"Mom, Mom...WATCH!"

He throws his stuffed monkey in the air and yells,

"AWESOME!"

Throws it again...

"OH, NICE!"

And again...

"AWWW MAN!"

Gotta love having older siblings around to help expand the vocabulary!!

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Ethan recently discovered Kenton's "Cars" race track that was a Christmas gift last year and that Kenton hasn't really ever played with. Well, let me tell you, Ethan has played with it enough today that he's more than made up for Kenton's lack of use! It's kind of cool, actually, because you turn it on and it launches the cars around the track (being a girl I never had such things growing up!) Ethan is a huge "Cars" fan and loves "Queen!" The track has four different cars and Ethan HAD to carry ALL FOUR down to the pumpkin patch today... It was more than his little hands could possibly carry so we had some issues but eventually I strapped him into the wagon so he could at least hold them in his lap!

Speaking of the pumpkin patch we were able to pick out a pumpkin to carve along with a few of the really little ones to put in a bowl on the table for fall decoration. It was a mad rush to find a pumpkin that was carvable before someone else got to it...made it a little hard to get into the spirit of things! We also were able to pick up bulk bags of Halloween candy for next Friday. A local shipping company donated the shipping so that the school was able to obtain the candy at cost. I OF COURSE picked up Reese's Peanut Butter Cups which you can not get here=P

Those are not for passing out to the kids!!!!

Have a great weekend!

BIG...SNAILS!

Meet a Singapore Snail...

And just to give you a reference point for how big this snail actually is...

Usually these snails are seen only at

night but THIS one was lurking around in the middle of the day!