Greetings!
We are thankful for another eventful year. It seems the children are more interesting the older they get, so that our days seem fuller in many different ways. Many things have remained the same as last year - same house, same church, same three children, Emily is in the same school for the second year, Dave has the same job and I am still joyfully unemployed. Sort of unemployed. But more on that later.
This year saw some natural changes in our typical day as a result of the kids being older. Naptimes are irregular, if at all, and crafting with the girls has become more challenging now that Kate wants to participate. We made fewer trips to the library than last year as the mobility of our children increased and their average attention span decreased. We have begun reading aloud stories with more complex plots to the girls and both Emily and Jenna enjoy this. Some of these include the Chronicles of Narnia and many of the Enid Blyton books from my childhood. Another perk of having older kids is being more freely mobile. I have been able to make longer trips for errands, have lunch out with the girls and leave the diaper bag at home.
Early this year, Emily completed her second round of dance lessons with a recital in March. In the spring, Kate turned one and we had a little birthday party with family that the girls helped plan. Kate is as spirited as ever -partly because it is her personality and partly because she wants to keep up with her sisters. She sings several songs, including Jesus Loves Me, Jingle Bells and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. She also likes climbing and drawing with forbidden implements like pens and markers. She recognizes the letter O and calls all the other letters G. Her vocabulary continues to entertain us - she collectively calls all the Disney princesses Prettyrella, is very skilled at bargaining (she says, "Lil bit, please") and will gorge herself sick on berries if allowed.
In the summer, we spent a lot of time exploring new parks and feeding fish and ducks at a few of them. We continued many of our past summer traditions - picking (and jamming) berries, apples and pumpkin and growing tomato plants (we are thankful that there were no caterpillars/worms/vile crawly things). Also, being outside as much as possible.
We also picked and jammed some of the plums from our plum tree. We met up with some of Emily's classmates for playdates and picnics at various parks and at the zoo. We skipped over our annual trip to the State Fair in favor of a visit to the Renaissance Festival and the girls had a blast. At the end of the summer, Emily began her second year in preschool with a field trip to the apple orchard, on which I accompanied her. It was a special treat for both of us. She has new and equally superb teachers and two of her 11 classmates are from her previous class, so she has both old and new friends to learn with. She has begun some simple writing and spelling (with help) and really enjoys drawing. Emily has also lost several teeth and gained one adult one (so far). In September, she celebrated her birthday with her friends - her first party with her peers.
In the fall, we observed Halloween by randomly setting pumpkins around the house and sending the girls out trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. That same weekend we celebrated Jenna's 3rd birthday with Grandma Karen and Grandpa Arne and a blue Hello Kitty cake (by request). We can hardly believe how fast Jenna is growing up. She loves baking and helping out in the kitchen. She is beginning to write her name (with help) and is extremely fond of putting up dance recitals for us. She will be starting preschool in the fall and is very excited. We love how assiduously she does her crafts and how she likes arranging everything into sets or rows.
Dave continues to enjoy his job as a software engineer at Red Hat Inc. He did a fair bit of landscaping of our yard this summer and impressive home reorganization and repairs throughout the year. This was our first year in which we did not visit family out of state - either the girls' cousins in North Carolina or their grandparents in Singapore, largely because of the challenge of traveling with three young children.
I continue to enjoy staying home with the kids. In May I began volunteer work in the church nurseries, taking care of the 12-18 month babies while their parents were in the services. It was initially extremely challenging because Kate was in the same nursery and preferred to have me all to herself. She has since been moved up to the next nursery and I am now enjoying the work much more. It has been two years since I stopped serving the Women's Ministries and I feel like the kids need to be yet older before I resume being a mentor. I am, however, rather tempted to volunteer to run a sewing class in the name of Homemaking! Sewing continues to be a nice source of sanity for me, much as I would prefer to go swimming (but that cannot be done at home while watching three children, pity). I find that I am sewing to meet the frivolous needs of whatever age my kids are currently at - two years ago it was bibs and baby blankets and this year saw an explosion of odd toys and the occasional garment. I intermittently post pictures of these on my craft blog and I have been amused at how its readership has grown this year! I also opened an etsy shop - I caved under pressure from the blog readers - which saw a plodding sort of start and then ended the year with some nice returns.
So yes, I am now only partially unemployed! I am glad I get to sew and sell when I feel like it, because it is hard work when I am so anally perfectionistic about stuff I make! Grrrr. I wish I could take a pill to cure that. All that said, it is really bupbilla - our family blog - though, that I truly enjoy writing, especially with the knowledge that mum and dad (and other faraway friends and family) are reading it and looking at pictures and thus feeling a little closer.
My social circle also saw some changes this year. Our Singapore friends who were here on a study stint, returned to Singapore in May. A friend who was relocated to Singapore in 2007 for work, moved back to Minnesota and the girls have enjoyed meeting with their kids again to play. I made a new friend who lives an hour away who also enjoys crafting (but is saner) Her three girls and ours took to each other so it looks like we'll be planning more meetings in the future! Just before Christmas, I lost one of my favorite old friends in Singapore to cancer. It has been a difficult experience being far away from her while it was all happening but one that also brought me closer to many other old friends in Singapore who knew and loved her with me.
This winter we are having a extended Christmas celebration - we began during the advent season and will finish up after the new year with Dave's brother's (Nathan) family when they move back to Minnesota after several years of living in North Carolina. We are all thrilled to have them so close again, but none are as thrilled as Emily and Jenna (Kate doesn't seem very aware or interested at this point) to have their five cousins with them.
The only other big event before the spring is a probable trip to Singapore to visit family, reconnect with friends, stuff our faces with seafood and all thing spicy, lounge on beaches, get a tan, swim, stock up on sewing supplies, haberdashery, art materials, small electronic components, and enroll for remedial drafting/garment-making lessons with mum and Auntie Laura. I am so dreading the plane rides but am excited about seeing mum and dad and Sean again! And all the cousins and aunts and uncles! And also the um... auntie selling that addictive mee rebus in our hawker center.
And what of the coming year? There are the anticipated things that will shape our schedules, of course - Emily starting kindergarten, Jenna staring preschool, gymnastics and dance for Emily and Jenna, respectively, if they are interested. But otherwise, we'll be doing more of the same - yardwork, sewing, park-visiting, playdates, more reading, more crafting with the kids. And, maybe, even some new stuff , like exercise (sigh) and some decent cooking (i.e. actually using spices). I look back over the year with all its good and hard bits and I count myself so blessed. Next year can hardly be more eventful and rich but we are already looking forward to it. Bring it on!
Thank you all for staying in touch and following along with our capers through this blog and email. We are so grateful for all the correspondence, much as I am disgraceful at responding promptly or at all. We love you all and hope you have a lovely new year. If you are in Singapore and want to meet up, watch this space for updates on our trip dates! Whooooooooooooooo!
