Two more bags

I made another two bags last week. The one below is a grab bag. It was not difficult to make. The finished bag was stiff as I used interface instead of craft fleece as indicated. It was my first attempt using iron on interface. I will make another grab bag but without the interface. I think the fabric is sturdy enough.

 

There are four pockets inside the grab bag.

 

 

 

I made a bag for my boy. It was supposed to be a 30mins boy messager bag. I thought: 'Great, just 30mins.' So when the boys slept, I started working on it at 9pm. At midnight, I was only half way through. I continued the next day. The bag below took me 5hours in total to make it. I find the front pocket too shallow. The next time, I will make it bigger. But I wonder when the next time will be.  

I am taking a break at the moment. I will most probably start making a new bag next week. Will post it once done.

Five stones

As I mentioned earlier in my post, the first thing I made from my sewing machine is five stones. Five stones are basically five little pyramids containing rice or beans inside. To play the game, we toss a stone into the air and try to catch it before it hits the ground. At the same time, we must use the same hand to pick up a stone or more (as the game advances) that is on the floor.

I bought some lovely fabrics and spent about an hour to made about two sets. Yeah, the slowest process is hand sewing the opening after putting in the rice. I guess I am good at making these. But I am a lousy player.

 

I went obsessed and made a jar of stones. Guess how many there are in the jar. If you get it right, there is a free set of five stones for you. Start counting. . . . .

 

Sewing bags

I asked for a sewing machine for Christmas and Father Christmas granted my wish. As a novice, I started making five stones. It was really easy. I will do a post about that later.

 

Now I am into bags. I found some interesting sites with free tutorials on making bags. Thank God for generous people who make an effort to share their talents on internet.

 

This is the first bag I did. As promised in the tutorial, it took an hour. I spent more time shopping for fabrics. It is not very practical to carry but I like that pocket in front. I use it to go to the library or to fetch A1 from school.

 

I bought a book titled 'Me and my sewing machine'. The book showed how to do stitches and hems and seams. At the end, there were various projects. I chose to do the bag illustrated and had done five of such little grocery bags. I love the colorful fabrics.

I also did a foldable grocery bag and had given that away before I took a photo. I have printed two other bag patterns and will try them out. I do not need all these bags and will surely give these bags away as gifts to friends. My mum-in-law requested for a beach bag. I hope to find a beach theme fabric and get it done by summer. Hopefully.... 

 

Sewing is fun.

Merry Go Round

Yesterday we went to Rambouillet which was a town nearby our village. The weather was spring like and everyone was out sitting at the terrace having a drink.

We had afternoon tea, ok, Seb had a glass of wine, I had a beer and the boys had orange juice. I asked the boys if they would like to go on the merry-go-round that was just beside the cafe. They said ok.  A1 never wanted to go on any merry go round but I felt that he had grown up and was curious about this beautiful merry-go-round in the town square.

Seb bought the tickets and for the first time, the boys took a ride on the merry go round. A1 wanted to be on the airplane and A2 chose the horse. We stayed beside the boys. It was a big merry-go-round and the boys had fun. A1 even asked for a second ride. We told him he could only do it once and it was time to go feed bread to the ducks in the castle garden.

The photo below is the said merry-go-round. It was closed when I visited Rambouillet with my friends from Singapore in February. Photo credit goes to Rachel.

  

When we go to Singapore this summer, I will propose the kiddy rides to A1. He refused it each time. I wonder will he accept it by then. 

Sonia Delaunay

The two weeks school holidays starts for A1. As usual, the teacher gave the parents the children's workbooks.

 

I am impressed with what they learn in school. Apart from the usual drawing horizontal and vertical lines; grouping images; coloring the différences etc..they had interesting experiments. One was playing in the snow and observing the frozen state of water. Then melting the snow. And freezing the snow in the freezer to get back to ice state.

 

 Recently, the teacher brought a little mouse to the class and everyone observed what the mouse was doing in its cage. Suggestions were given on what the mouse ate and the children experimented by feeding the mouse with suggested food. They then noted down what the mouse liked and disliked. In the end, they came up with three names and voted for the name 'Curieux' (Curious).

 

I saw this nice painting by A1 in his workbook. I do not know how much help he received but it was nice. The caption said 'Observing the master pièces of Sonia Delaunay and creating in one own's manner'.

 

I googled 'Sonia Delaunay' and realised she was an artist who used strong colours and geometric shapes. These 3 and 4 year old kids were exposed to arts at such a young age. I discovered an artist through my son.  

 

For my first Christmas in France, my sister in law gave me a book titled 'Petite encyclopédie de la Peinture' (Small encyclopedia of paintings). Then, my knowledge of arts were limited to what I learnt during those weekly hour of art lesson in Singapore. Over the years, I had learnt to appreciate arts more with visits to the abundance museums here. From now, I think I will learn more from my sons school work.  

Lo Hei (Prosperity Toss)

This was the second time I had it in my ten years in France. Lo Hei is a popular dish during the chinese new year in Singapore. One usually has it several times during the chinese new year period; with family, colleagues, friends, etc...

 

Every ingredient has a good meaning and while mixing them with raw fish (usually salmon) using chopsticks, we have to say good things. A good explanation can be found here. The higher we toss, the better. Imagine the mess on the table if the plate was not big enough.

 

On the 15th day of chinese new year, I invited Seb's family to celebrate chinese new year. We had lo hei and they enjoyed it a lot. This was a good starter. Maybe when my mum comes in April, we will toss it again.

Snowman creation

It snowed these few days so we had plenty of snow to practise on snowman building. This morning, after bringing A1 to school, A2 and I made this snowman in the backyard. A2 asked for a carrot for the snowman's nose.

When A1 came back from school, he wanted to make a snowman too. So we did one in the frontyard. He asked for a carrot but I told him to use the plastic bowling pin instead. Handsome had been stealing the carrots. A1 wanted to give the snowman arms but I only managed to find a twig in the snowy garden. Thus, the snowman only had an arm. He had ears and a hat, all made of snow so it is hard to notice them in the photo.

I quickly took photos of the snowmen with the boys. As I expected, once Handsome was out in the garden, there was not much left of the snowmen.

I am proud to say that our snowmen looked pretty decent this time round.

Chinese New Year visit

Chinese New Year 2013 was on 10 Feb. I am so fortunate to have two friends from Singapore visiting. Rachel and Aileen are part of the gang from my University days in Brisbane.

 

I was so happy to have reunion dinner with my family and my two old pals. We had steamboat. The girls bought me lots of Singapore goodies. Aileen surprised me with a box of freshly packed frozen durians. Wow. I had it on a late night chat. It was so good. Seb was surprised the next morning when he smelt something strange in the house.

 

 

The ladies visited Paris, Rambouillet, Chartres, Versailles and even spent a night over at Bordeaux and visited two wine properties. It was cold and rained during most of their stay here. It even snowed on the sunday we were at Notre Dame Cathedrale in Paris.

 

We drank lots of wine as "it was so cheap"; exclaimed my friends. We chatted into the late night and I put on 2 kilograms with all the pineapple tarts, mini spring rolls that my mum made, snacks, and good food that we had in Paris restuarants.

My boys enjoyed their presence and A1 was still asking for Rachel and Aileen after they left. We are meeting soon in July when we are heading to Singapore for summer vacation.

A1's drawings

Recently, A1 likes to draw. Given some pens and crayons and papers, he could spend long periods drawing. He would draw family members including his grandparents.

Seb and I can't draw for nuts so we are not able to guide him much.

I am delighted whenever he presents his drawings. He insists that we place them on the bedboard.

Here are two recent ones.

 

A1 explained that he was drawing his papa. I pointed at the dot and he said it was the bellybutton. He then opened wide his hands showing me what his papa was doing in the drawing.

 

 

After that, he presented another drawing showing me. I asked where my hands were and he said: "Like this"; and he stood straight with his hands by his side.  I also asked about the thing on top of my head and he said that it was a hat. Funny boy.

I like the way he drew smoke coming out of the chimney. He is an observing boy and always draw five fingers on each hand. This was the first time he included the bellybutton.

He is drawing better. A week ago, there was a gap between the house and the roof. And it was a frown on the face. There is still no smile on the face but he is getting there, I hope.

Our Handsome boy

For once, this Sunday was a calm one with no lunch invitation or errands to run. Though there was frost, the sun was coming out. We went for a walk as a family in this cold morning. The temperature was around 3 degrees. A1 was on his bicycle and A2 was on his scooter.

I brought the camera along as I wanted to take some photos of Handsome. He is growing so fast and we hardly took photos of him.

He had a great time in the park running freely and sniffing everywhere. You can see that he is a tall boy in the photo with A1 on his bicycle. Handsome is heavier than my boys now.

Below are some photos of Handsome in action.

Isn't him a Handsome lad?

 

Aquarium at Palais de la porte Dorée

On 30 Dec 2012, we went to the Aquarium at Palais de la porte Dorée. I did not even know it existed. I always thought there was only one aquarium in Paris which we visited on A1's birthday. As Ah Yi, the children's nanny lived in the 12th district and we were visiting her, I decided to find an activity for the boys nearby. That was how I came upon this aquarium on internet.

 

 When we arrived, we were surprised that entrance was free as the place was upgrading its ticketing system. There were not many people and the boys were able to run around looking at all the fishes.

 

 Below was a tank of arowanas.  

 

Here was a tank of marine lives.

There was also a dwelling for turtles and tortoises.

 

The boys looking at the impressive fishes. Some were bigger than A2.

One of my favourite fish: tetra. I used to have them in Singapore.

Look at the sting rays below. The white spots striked out on the black colour. Unique.

 

There was also a big rainforest dwelling for the alligators.

This aquarium was smaller than the one we went to before but I actually liked it better as it was less crowded. There were many pretty species.

When we were done, we met up with Ah Yi for tea and had a good time catching up. As usual, she made chinese dumplings for me (the best I ever tasted), stir fried vegetables with seitan for Seb and braised chicken drumsticks for the boys.

It was a fruitful day.

Ski suit, rain boots and snowman

It snowed the whole day today. While Seb stayed at home to look after A2, I walked A1 to school in his ski suit and rain boots. I took a bag to bring back the suit and boots but his teacher told me to leave him in them. She told me when the kids played outside, A1 would be dressed. I noticed there were other kids in ski suits too. Even a few parents wore ski suits and ski boots. We had never ski with the kids but I bought this set of ski suit when Seb was in the states recently as Osh Gosh B'osh was having sale. A1 used the ski jacket and now the overalls came in handy.  

When I was young in Singapore, if it rained, I would wear slippers to school and change into my white school shoes when I reach school. And we did not play in the rain. Here, the children play everyday comes rain or shine or snow. What a cultural difference.

In the evening, I picked up A1 by car because I did not want A2 to walk along the slippery and narrow cleared path. Seb was still in office. After the afternoon snack, the boys and I tried snowman making. The snow was compact but it was not easy making big round balls. As each kid wanted a carrot, we had two carrots on a snowman. Looking at the photo above, it looked as though the snowman had been stabbed with a carrot in his tummy. Funny. I am inexperience in snowman making. Hopefully, I will improve with practise. For the next few days, it seems that I would  have plenty of chance to do just that. Snowman building practice.

 

Snowy weekend

It had been snowing the whole day today. We cancelled lunch at a friend's place in Paris as we felt that it was not safe to drive in this weather condition. We stayed put at home and the kids had fun in the garden.   

 

There was 10cm of snow fall. A2 wanted to play with the slide but we told him no. He would get his butt all wet. So, he went to play basketball. This boy plays basketball rain or shine or even snow. A1 tried to make a snowman with his father but the snow was too soft. 

The day before, it snowed during the night. Before we headed to Paris for lunch at a friend's place, the boys played in the snow while Seb prepared the car by clearing the snow and heating it up. It was A2's first experience walking in the snow. It took him a few minutes to step into the snow and walk around.

Our drive to Paris was smooth as it was not snowing and the highway had been cleared of snow. I had a great time catching up with my two singaporean girl friends. The kids had fun collecting snow from the steps on the City Hall of Paris District 15. The girls' mother was surprised that we brought a bag of snow home while she stayed with the baby.

It will snow tomorrow during the day. We are stuck in the village.Good thing there is still food in the fridge. I will just bring A1 to school and A2 to his baby gym by foot.

Tulips

Amazing. I bought these tulips from Carrefour for 2.90€ almost a week ago and  they were still standing.

The bouquet even came with a pill for cleaning the vase and a sachet of tulips food to disolve in the water.

I did not know that flowers from supermarket can be such value for money. 

 A1 asked if these flowers were bought by papa. I told him 'No, mama buys them for herself.' When Seb came home that evening, he was surprised that I bought flowers. Well, at this price, why not.

I am definitely replacing these tulips when they wilter with new ones. They are such a pleasant sight and go well with the new vase I have from Christmas.

Noddy, Oui-oui

 A1 calls him Oui-oui while A2 calls him Noddy. They both watch the cartoon in English more than French. 

Just 2 days before the end of 2012, we went to catch the show 'Oui-oui and the carnival' in Paris. It was the first time A2 watched a live show. The theatre was full of kids. The boys enjoyed themselves a lot. They paid full attention to the show. After 30mins, there was an entr'acte of 20mins. Then followed by act II which was another 30mins. 

 I was worried that A2 might be too young to sit for long but he did very well. The characters played well and I was entertained too. Seb however started to doze off in the second act. When we were exiting the theatre, A1 wanted a Noddy helium balloon. Almost all kids had one. So, we got one for each of our boys.

Lunch was at a Japanese restuarant nearby. After lunch, we headed back home but not before I made a quick stop at Chinatown to grab some asian groceries.

Oyster addict

Christmas and new year celebrations are usually the only time I had oysters. I love fresh oysters and had several during the christmas lunch. 

I felt that I did not have my fill and for the past two weekends, I had been buying them from the market. 

Now I am pretty good at opening these little delights. They are sold in dozens and can be kept for a week. My dozen are gone in a weekend. The ones in France are so fresh and good, I am becoming an oyster addict.

A2 marked the new year

A new year has come. 2013 is declared to be a difficult year in France and Germany. Since I am not working for three quarters of the year, I will not be affected in terms of work. I just hope next year will be better for the economy.

We celebrated New Year's day eve with Anca and family. We had lunch togather and the boys were well behaved. On the second day of new year, I bought some washable felt tip pens for the boys since they had fun using them at Anca's place. 

Yesterday, I was greeted with A2's drawing on the walls after lunch. While A1 was cooking lunch with me, A2 was having a blast scribbling the furnitures, the walls, the stair and the floor. I thought he was playing quietly with the floor puzzle. How wrong was I. Thank God the ink was highly washable and I managed to clean up the mess. Still, it took me a good half an hour to wipe everything off.

I took pictures before wiping the walls. I actually laughed when I saw what he did. If it had been permanent ink, I wonder would I still have kept my cool.