Baby on board

Tonight we had another party here in the simpang: Misuzu's Baby Shower - arranged by Keira, Nicole and myself. She only has a few weeks to go, so even though we were all partied out after celebrating Oliver on the weekend, we had to cram this in before the baby decides to make an appearance!

It turned out such a lovely night! Even though it's school holidays for many, most of Misuzu's friends could come, and they all made the evening very special for her.

Some details from the venue, the 'Welcome'-sign:



The decorations, which revealed the surprise of what sex the baby is!





The nappy cake:



The gift from us all!



The Baby Shower crew:



Some of the guests:









Everyone enjoyed the food, there was so many different lovely things!





Of course we had a guessing game for the birth date, and the birth weight:



We also had some other baby themed games, people got into deep concentration:







But in the end, we had to settle one game by the help of our dear friend Google..:



A girlie night, just right!





That's it now, from on it's all about waiting, waiting and waiting for the new arrival! Any day baby, any day is a good day! (But I bet on the 21st, just so you know...)

Bieber fever

Yes, the "Bieber fever" has reached our household as well! Tonight we watched the Justin Bieber-movie/documentary "Never say never" together with the kids.



He's quite a phenomenon that Bieber boy! I mean, you must be a success when even 5 year-olds knows the lyrics to your songs... and 37-year olds..! ;) Well, he does have some catchy tunes!

But the kids couldn't quite understand why all the girls in the movie kept crying all the time..?

Over the rainbow

A while back my neighbour Misuzu send me a link to this blog she had found, written by a very crafty lady in the States. This lady is very inspirational, amongst other things she has thrown some super thought-out birthday parties for her kids.
Apparently both Misuzu and I browsed around and got the same inspiration for the next birthday party - only Misuzu beat me to it; today she pulled off (remember, she is 8 1/2 months pregnant!) the most fantastic 'Rainbow-party' for Oliver - the attention to detail was amazing!

Some of the colourful rainbow treats:



The cake, looking like any other cake...



... until you cut into it!



Ooooaaahhhh - so impressive! (It was made by a friend of ours, who already have my order for October! :))



Birthday boy:



Linnea and I did some matching again, as we've done a few times before, always a hit:



The party favours:



I might still go with this Rainbow-theme for Linnea, it's such a joyful, happy theme and Oliver and her don't really share that many friends who would recognize it.
Plus I can just go next door and borrow all the decorations! :)

What's the message?

I'm not quite sure what he is trying to tell us... but recently when Nathan did a(nother) order from Wiggle - it came with a flash luminescent bike shirt for Lucas and a pair of ladies biking shorts, a pair of biking shoes and a pair of biking gloves for me..? Hm...

Well, one thing is for sure - I ain't going anywhere near the roads and the crazy traffic here, I'll be only on the trainer, if even that...

2 already!

I can't believe it's already been two years, (and any day now - Rosebud nr 2 will arrive too!), yesterday was our neighbour Oliver's 2nd birthday and even though he'll have his big party tomorrow, we got to celebrate a little bit with him yesterday too.

We went out for lunch with Oliver and his mum, Misuzu, but the birthday boy slept through most of it..:



He woke up just in time for dessert though!



In the afternoon after the kids came back from school, we went over for another little piece of cake. Oliver did the "Two!", that Lucas used to do (after a bit of prompting):



This year he didn't need help with the candles!



But Lucas got to do the honours when it came to cutting the cake:



Om, nom, nom..!

Miss Mimi

Linnea as well brought home a new school creation that had been finished just in time for the holidays, the elephant "Miss Mimi". (Miss Mimi is the name of the class room assistant...) I asked her if it was a tiger-elephant and she looked at me rolling her eyes and said "Nooo, *sigh*, that's where the people sit on it!". Aha!

Here's Miss Mimi:



And this is what Linnea wrote about her:



"My elfint name is Mis Mimi. I like mi elfint bik os shi is butfal."
(=My elephant's name is Miss Mimi. I like my elephant because she is beautiful.)♥

Proud mama

I'm a proud mama today.
Not only did Lucas come home with this cool little stool he had made all by himself in 'Design&Technology' (impressive!):



And his homework from a couple of weeks back, with a "Gold Award" on it!!! (Since they were talking about constructions, he had to choose a famous building, and research 5 facts about it. We picked the Ericsson Globe together, but he did almost all of the work and the writing by himself!)



But - he made me most proud when he told me that the reason he only came home with one bag of play-doh yesterday (although I had given him money enough for two) was that he had actually given one of his dollars to a friend who didn't have any..!
That's my boy.

Live from the classroom

I got this photo sent to me earlier today, from Linnea's class teacher:



Mrs Williamson wrote that Linnea has been reading to the other children in her class, very cute! She also wrote that it feels like she has been made redundant now! :)

On the verge of ruin

This week at school it's 'Charity Week', where the kids are busy doing different things to help collect money for the children in Brunei with special needs.
Of course, it is a very good cause and I totally support it, even though it's nearly (well, maybe not quite) ruining us:

Tuesday it was Y2 that did 'Bake Sale' - so the kids needed a dollar each to buy a treat at snack time. (AND - us parents needed to provide the baked goods as well!)
Wednesday it was Y1's turn with a 'Toy Sale', so both the kids came home with some pre-loved toys.
Today it was Reception that had 'Play-doh Sale', and both kids got to buy two colours each. It was also the Y3 Popsicle Sale at the same day.
Tomorrow it's another 'Bake Sale' from the Y4 and Y5, so a couple of more dollars there.

I know that the Y2 collected over $500 just on their day, so I'm pretty sure it's going to be a great result overall from this week, and since it's for charity - it's all good. (Even if I have no more dollars in my wallet now... ;))

The Crafty Crew

I have a new highlight in my week - which is when I meet up with these girls:



We have been taking turns the last few weeks, hosting crafty mornings where we meet up and either scrap, or make cards and other projects.
The host puts on lunch as well, so it's been fab - a couple of hours of being a bit creative, plus getting to enjoy yummy food and lots of chit-chat!
Today Benaal treated us to some chicken tandoori pitas, and these amazing looking (and tasting) cupcakes:



Here are some of my creations of today:



The 'crew'!

The animal lover

Linnea has gone from being very afraid of dogs to really loving them, thanks to having our two for the last couple of years.
Yesterday at the hash, one lady brought along four puppies that she was looking after temporarily but needed to adopt away. Linnea made friends with one of them, and this is how she spent nearly two hours yesterday after the run:





He (she?) was very cute yes, but two dogs is more than enough for us.

Zumbathon - The Video

Here's a little movie made at the Zumbathon last weekend. It's our Zumba instructor Kate's daughter Georgia who has made and edited it, and it's brilliant! Puts a smile on my face just watching it!

(You can maybe spot me briefly here and there, I'm in an orange/yellow racerback top and black tights.)

WalkRunCycle 2011

This morning I took part in a popular charity event here in Brunei - the HSBC WalkRunCycle 2011. Around 2000 people had signed up to do either the 45k bike route or the 8k walk/run/bike route.
My friend Maria and I decided a few weeks back to do this run, but we haven't trained for it. In fact, I have hardly been running at all since last summer while in Sweden, apart from the HIIT (=High Intensity Interval Training) I do on the treadmill at the gym at the moment. But I figured, 8k would be doable.

I must admit I had a few second thoughts at 05.20 this morning when the alarm went off and it was POURING down with rain outside... *Sigh*.
But, I got ready and off I went into town:



We were in really good time... had to wait around for quite a bit before we set off. It didn't help either that the organizers decided to "wait for the rain to subside", as it only got heavier by the minute!
It was a bit annoying, since whoever didn't want to run in the rain probably hadn't even bothered to turn up; and the rest of us who were eager, were really rearing to go! The bikers set off 45 minutes late, and us runners 20 minutes late.

I didn't bring the camera for the race itself, only for afterwards. But here is a photo from just before we took off, that I got sent to me from Maria:



And... here we are after the race, down in the parking garage just before we got changed, nicely "glowing"!



Ok, I've only done two big organized races (the Hong Kong 10k and the Singapore Sundown 10k, both last year), and after finishing those you got bananas, fruit juices and other healthy foods. Here, you got this:



Fried chicken, white bread rolls and biscuits...
Mmm, just what you feel like after a run! (Not...)

We then had to wait, again, for the 45k bikers to get back before they would get on with the big Lucky Draw. In the meantime we checked out a few of the games they offered:



Some of the runners/walkers, waiting:



Finally they came! It had taken them nearly 2h40 to go around. (Well, it wasn't a race, they call it a "fun run", so they keep the whole group together and at quite a slow pace.)





So, then it was a big Lucky Draw with some really good prizes: iPad2s, iPhone4s, treadmills, half and full year gym memberships, nice road bikes and more. Unfortunately we didn't win anything, bummer.

In hindsight we should have taken part in the costume competition, considering it was a cool morning. Not many at all were dressed up so the competition wasn't very stiff... I liked the 'Angry Bird', ha ha!



Here we are - well done to us!



Next run we will be doing is the 10k Standard Chartered Bank Charity Run, in July. Right Maria?...