Charlotte and daddy

daddy's girl she's most certainly not. mummy stay here, mummy do, mummy help me. the only way we could get her to let daddy kiss her goodnight is if we promise i'd stays in the room until she falls asleep and daddy will leave the room. even then, she would wipe daddy's kisses away or ask me to kiss over daddy's kisses. daddy never gives up. he uses reverse psychology to trick Charlotte into letting him do things for her. he would say to her he doesn't want to do something for her and the more he says no, the more she'd say 'daddy do it'. reverse psychology sometimes works, sometimes not. the best part of this is, daddy never stops trying. he would always come up with new ways to get close to his little girl. 

the central coast

we spent the October long weekend at the central coast. it was a last minute trip i booked just one week before the long weekend. i've been wanting to go away on a short trip for awhile but i couldn't justify a weekend away locally when we're only a short distance away from home and the cost that comes with it. secondly, wherever we go, it can't be too far away from home because Charlotte doesn't do well with long car trips.  but this time around, i thought we'd just do it anyway and i'm so glad we did because we had such a great time. 

i booked our accommodation through airbnb so it didn't cost us that much. while it's not a beach front home, it was close to some of the most beautiful beaches. we were in the central coast for three days and we went to a different beach each day. each beach has its own charm and the kids loved them all. Gabriel's face would light up the moment we get to the beach and when we're not at the beach, he'd ask us when we're going. we gave him a bucket and a spade and off he went to chase the waves, build a sand castle and just run up and down the shore lines. as for Charlotte, she was a bit scare of the waves but she's not afraid to touch the sea snails or sea jelly we found in the rock pools. she enjoys building sand castles too. 

after this trip, i realised the central coast is probably the perfect getaway destination for our family for now. there are still many different beaches to explore, i can't wait to go back for our next family holiday and i'm so excited that summer is just around the corner. 

the best gor gor

this is quite a regular occurrence in our household. Gabriel having his breakfast and as i give Charlotte her breakfast, she would demand that she wants to sit on the chair Gabriel is sitting on (because she's a bully like that). before i even had a moment to come up with a way to convince Gabriel to move to a different seat, Gabriel gathered his milk and whatever toy he has with him at the time and move to a different seat, vacating his seat for Charlotte. he makes me so proud every time he does that. i'm so jealous of Charlotte. she makes me wanna have a brother. i hope she would grow up to know that she most definitely has the best gor gor in the world.  

Stripes!

Charlotte loves stripes. every morning when it comes to time to get change, she would point at me and tell me she wants to wear stripes "just like mummy". I wear a lot of stripes but i don't wear them everyday but somehow she's picked up on it and stripes is her favourite print too. I hope she'll continue to like stripes. 

mothers' day 2016

life is full of surprises. like this mothers' day, i received the best mothers' day gift from Charlotte. she gave us a peaceful car ride to the blue mountains and back. we were so proud of ourselves when we made it to the blue mountains with our ear drums still intact. 

i've been wanting to explore and admire the autumn colours at the blue mountains since the beginning of autumn. both Gabriel and Charlotte has never been and it's been that long since we last went to the blue mountains. when Jim asked me what i wanted to do for mothers' day this year, i told him i wanted to go on a day trip to the blue mountain. we all knew Charlotte is not a good traveller and we could end up with a screaming toddler in the car for the whole journey there and back. but we decided to bite the bullet and just do it and deal with it. 

Gabriel's daycare friend, Zoe and her family came with us too. we met at Leura for brunch, walked around Leura town and then made our way to the Everglades Gardens. the Everglades Garden is gorgeous at this time of the year. the maple leaves are at a different stage of turning brown. some of them are turning yellow, orange and red. we had perfect view of the mountain range from the garden. i think this garden will look so different in spring and is definitely worth going again. Leura town on the other hand was not as serene. it was quite busy and it turns out everyone had the same idea for mothers' day. 

i'm so glad we decided to just take the trip because the kids had a ball and i had a lovely mothers day this year. and another bonus is daddy managed to take some pretty good photos of me and the kids. 

Charlotte at 21 months

how time flies...Charlotte is turning 2 soon and i have yet to decide whether we wanna have a party for her. we most likely won't but i'll still make a nice cake for her. i've been pinning lots of ideas. 

at 21 months, she can say so many words and sentences and she is so much fun. she is bossy, she is cheeky and she loves her food. 

she loves music. her favourite songs are rockabye your bear (which she calls bear bear), twinkle twinkle little star, ABC (which she calls Cee Dee), Happy Birthday (which she calls happy see you), baa baa black sheep and shimmy shake. she's the cutest when she tried to sing twinkle twinkle. sometimes i wish she could stay this little and innocent a little longer. 

she's very good with people's names. the educators at daycare told us she knows all the kids' name in the centre. Ethan, Lachlan, Axel, Alex, Jessica, Harper, Arianna, Lloyd. 

she's curious and is already started asking lots of questions especially why. when she can't find one of us, she'll ask where daddy go? when she sees me doing something, she'll ask what mummy doing? she brings me so much joy this little girl, my little ray of sunshine. although she's strong willed and stubborn and feisty at times, i hope these personality traits will help her achieve her dreams and take her to places further than her parents when she gets older. 

hello 2016

i love the first day of the year. it's like you get to start fresh again, it's the time of year where you get to make plans for the year ahead and you are still hopeful that things will go according to your plan.

just like last year, we celebrated the first day of the year at the beach with the kids. we went to Balmoral beach like we did last year. after spending the entire day at Taronga Zoo yesterday, i was very tempted to just take it slow today and chill out at home but who am i kidding? there's no chilling out at home once you have kids. Jim wasn't too keen to go as he was exhausted from yesterday's outing but i really want to keep to tradition of spending the first day at the beach. so i decided to just go and i know the kids would love it. and as we got there, i was so glad we went. 

Charlotte  was too young to enjoy the sand and the water last year because she could barely sit up. but this year, she had a ball scooping sand and checking out sea shells. as for Gabriel, we loved pushing his bulldozer on the sand, jumping up and down in "muddy puddles", chase the waves and checking out rockpools. he didn't want to leave when we told him it was time to go home.  

if the first day of the year is an indication of what's to come for the year, i'm pretty confident it's going to be a great one. no doubt working full time with two kids is going to be hectic. there's new routine to be learnt and i'll probably have to take my multitasking skills to a whole new level but i'm ready for this challenge ahead. i want to do more with the kids in 2016. i want to spend less time at home just plodding along. i want to take them out to new places and experience new things more often. i want to have more YOLO moments and just enjoy them while they are still little.

2016, let's do this!