Valentine's Day in advance

Now you see it...

... now you don't!

Who says that you have to celebrate Valentine's Day on the 14th of Feb? Places will be super crowded and it normally falls on a weekday which means it will be difficult to arrange childcare alternatives for our children. Once again, we engaged the help of my MIL, SIL and BIL to have an early celebration on a Saturday.

This year, we decided to rekindle one of our favourite pastimes as young adults: KTV. We really miss those days of karaoke-ing with our university friends. It has been difficult to enjoy this ever since we had kids. We tried once before to bring our kids together with us but we ended up letting the children sing songs they knew and liked most of the time. So today, we sang to our hearts' content by ourselves! Yay!!!

Family KTV time
2 years ago

Next, we indulged in a sweet treat at Baskin-Robbins. Between the two of us, we finished a 700g ice-cream cake in half an hour! LOL No need to share with 4 hungry children... We chose the one with the flavour "Chocolate Trilogy" because it had different tastes and textures mixed into one so it was not so cloying for us. 

What celebration for tired parents is complete without a good o' back massage? And that was precisely what we did afterwards. Then, as we passed by the florist, I spotted the elusive royal blue hydrangea, my favourite flowers! I could hardly find ones in the right shade on normal days. Needless to say, my dear Bear bear bought it for me without further ado. *swoon* What a lovely afternoon date with the love of my life!

Ten Year Mark

I have been putting off blogging about my 10th wedding anniversary till today because the uploading of video, slideshow and pictures takes forever. However, it is a very significant milestone for me. So, taking the opportunity of my husband being on leave for the day and that I'm not dead-tired by the time I finished all the chores, I'm now at my computer writing the post.

Ten years ago, my husband and I were on a shoe-string budget for our wedding. All our decorations, hairdo, make-up, photography and videography were lovingly done by our talented friends who offered their expertise as love gifts to us. My husband's suit was a $99 off the rack outfit bought at a neighbourhood tailor shop. My gown was bought at $120 (Singapore dollars) from a third world country's bridal shop during the R&R day at the end of my mission trip. I can still remember my friends' shocked expressions when they asked me what I brought back as souvenir from the trip and I replied, "A wedding dress!"

Ten years later, we can, at long last, afford to have a full-package wedding shoot with cosplaying our favourite anime Sword Art Online thrown in as a bonus. My husband back then had promised me that we would do it for our 5th anniversary but our finances were still very unstable with a new kid every 2 years. Well, better late than never. Hee hee... I'm so thankful that my dear Bear Bear managed to fulfil this dream of ours.

10th Wedding Anniversary Photoshoot

Photos then and now

LEFT: 2007

RIGHT: 2017

I was looking at my glamour shoot photos from when I was 21 years old and I realised that I wore red too as I celebrated my coming of age. How nostalgic!

We did away with a wedding cake in the past, so during our anniversary celebration party this year, I fulfilled a second wish with a gorgeous three-tiered fondant cake which was decorated with my favourite blue roses.

Finally, we purchased Precious Moments figurines to represent each member of our entire family when my husband got the ball rolling by buying the wedding couple one first. This is a really frivolous desire and it makes me want to cry tears of joy that we can actually afford to do such a thing now, something I never dared imagine us to be able to do. It is so appropriate that the words at the bottom says, "You are my dream come true"!

All six of us represented!

All these would not have been possible without our God graciously leading us through the countless tough times for the past decade. Thus, I have made a video to count the blessings that the Lord has showered upon us. May we continue to use our gifts to love Him and serve others!

Greater Independence 2

Now, it is our no. 3's turn to graduate from being bathed by us parents in our bedroom toilet to brushing her teeth and showering on her own every evening! We've been training her to do so since last year and she is finally ready to take a step towards greater independence. With three kids down, there's only one more to go... (Read HERE for the post about the older two reaching the same milestone.)