HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

Its officially Valentine's Day today, though its 4:58 am in the morning. As you can see, I can't sleep (since 2 am, duh!) so I decided to log on & update here. Later in the day (early morning), we are going to the zoo, courtesy of free tickets from my sis. I think it will be a good "excursion" & I hope the kids - my son Ryan & his 2 cousins, Ayra & Fuddin will have a wonderful time there. I was trying 2 get Ryan in the mood by saying that we were gonna see the tigers (T-I-G-E-R) soon but he doesn't catch my drift (what do u expect from a 2 year old huh!). It know it will be a tiring day but I also know it will be worth it. Anything 2 put a smile on my son's face ...

As for Valentine's Day, we don't have any plans. As usual we don't buy or give each other gifts as we just dun have the excess funds 2 spare nor do we subscribe to the commercialism of this "lovers" day. I am one of those people that belive Valentine's Day should be an every day thing ... & that businesses are only out to "gain" your $. Everything is over-priced on this day & a lot of the things on sale are tacky & useless. I dun think you need to give over-priced gifts as a symbol of your love. Show someone you care ... in the little things that you do everyday ... not just one day out of a year.

I'm not anti-Valentines', infact I'm all for it ... I'm just not into the spending lavishly kinda act. Maybe its coz we are constantly on a budget but I think even if we are not, we don't go overboard with gifts or such. We have spent Valentine's day having a simple (albeit a cheap) dinner ... all that matters is that we have it together. This year, wif Ryan, there's no such thing as a private couple time as we are not so fortunate to have help in baby-sitting. Even if we did, I would feel bad leaving Ryan behind whilst we have a lovey-dovey time. Hhmm ... maybe when he's much older, we'll see ....

AUSTERITY DRIVE

I decided 2 transfer my austerity drive ideas onto another blog coz I thought it would look so "messy" here. Besides not everybody's interested to know where I found the cheapest baby clothes, etc.

So here's the other blog's address :
http://our-austerity-drive.blogspot.com/

Do drop by if you are keen on our latest effort to "buy-&-live-cheap". I was also thinking of including a section on delicious food too (Anyone who knows me ... knows how I loove food!). I think I will wait & see how things work out wif the new blog. If the blog is alive & well ... & I can find the time 2 update it regularly, I will try to add more sections of interest.

I hope my "thrift & save" ideas helps. Enjoy reading!!!

OK, since I have the time 2 rant for awhile (baby's sleeping), I sure will ...

I was just going through my older posts on the blog & I saw that some of the slides I did on SLIDE was either empty or not moving! Arrggh! I just don't understand these stuff. When I went 2 check on their website, the slides were still there. Am I just stupid or is the program playing tricks on me? Downloading videos on Blogger can also be a real pain. It can't be my internet connection coz I'm on broadband so thats excluded. So whats the problem then?

I simply dun know how to keep up wif these stuff. I'm not extremely tech savy but I do know how to manuever around the Net. Even simple things that I wanna do, I can't seem to do it. I'm also a stickler for formatting & spacing. That simple thing ... I can't even do here. It either refuses to do what I format or it keeps leaving spaces when I don't want it to. Frustrating!

I surf the Net & see such beautiful blogs, full of creative & interesting stuff. Though I wish my blog would look half as good as theirs, I'll be thankful if it does what's its supposed to & not get on my nerves so much. Since I can't spend hours doing up my blog, I just want it to be idiot-proof, simple & does what I tell it too. Hhhmmm ... well it seems like its wishful thinking for now.

OK I think I will leave it up to that for now. At least I got it off my chest .... ha!

Aahh! ... Life ...

Well, this makes me wish, I was on the beach wif hubby ... Hhmmm ... Ryan must be hanging nearby.

SOME RANDOM PICS OF RYAN

Wohoo! Hubby's on leave for the next couple of days so its either a long-well deserved-rest time for me or we might end up packing-cleaning-house ... again. We'll see how things go.

OK the blogs full of photos right, well I just went crazy updating all the pics here, maybe I went overboard but heck I sure aint gonna delete them coz it took me the whole afternoon to get them up here. So folks just enjoy the pics ok ... dun think I have such luxury all the time.

Hhmm ... must write more, muse more, complain more, b***h more ... I need more time in my days!

BUSY DAY - PLAY TIME & COFFEE

Once again, we were at IMM. As usual Ryan can't help but wanna spend time at the playground. Just a few pics ... of Ryan having a good time!

A ride or two doesn't hurt anyone ... but Ryan wants them ALL!!!

Somehow we ended up in town, later in the day. Here are just some pics of Ryan, posing ... rather obediently.

Doing his "Say Cheese" impersonation, its rather amusing. Too bad, most times he ends up covering half his cute face wif his gesture. Well, he tries ...

We had late night coffee with some ol' friends, Lisa & Jason, together wif their kids, Chelsia & Damian. Ryan just loves playing wif the kids. He's taken a liking to Uncle Jason these days too. I guess coz Jason tries to amuse Ryan by having little conversations ... he likes that!

Isn't that Ryan's BFF Barney? What was he doing at Starbucks???

Phew! What a looong day it was! Tiring but enjoyable, especially 4 my lil munchkin.

LATEST TRAIN RIDE

I wanted 2 feature a trip by train that we took, which showed that my son is getting more & more accustomed to the MRT rides. He looks increasingly happier now ... hurray!

Long live the trains!

RYAN'S BIRTHDAY PARTY

A late entry for the round-up of Ryan's birthday ... with a belated party. It was celebrated at my bro's place as two of his sons (Syakir & Syauqi) also had birthdays in January. So to make life easier (mainly for the adults), we decided to do a three-at-one-time celebration.

Who else ... but Barney could complete the party!

Barney party favours - full of sweet, candies & yummies for the youngsters.

Yummy food .. as usual!

The party starts with good food. All together now ...

Some distractions ...
Ryan feeding her cousin Ayra ... a party blower!

Cousin Shami, having a fun time wif his party blower.

Blowing out the candles on the cake ... is a three-way affair (oops! four-way u mean).

Look how happy Ryan looks ...

Presents time!!!

Well, thats the end of the week-long celebration of Ryan's birthday. Here's hoping we can have an even better time on his 3rd special day! Thanx to everyone who made it possible, my extended family who cooked & came with presents for all the birthday boys!

THE MARINA BARRAGE

We finally managed to drop by a new place that hubby wanted to visit. Its called "Marina Barrage" somewhere in Marina South. To get there we had 2 drive through lots of construction & such but if you follow the directional signs, it was a clinch to get there. By foot its virtually crazy to go there but I saw that they provide shuttle service (from where I dunno). They do have a small parking zone for visitors who drive, so that helps.



The place is actually a kind of dam of sorts. Its was a very windy evening, as we reached there. I was surprised that there were lots of people there, some even creating their own picnic areas. Some were kite flying, some took photos (like us). As can be expected there were lots of water features - ones that "sprout" and some even had special lights, which would seem colourful at night. There were also 2 wading pools, for the kids 2 play in. Of course, Ryan insisted on "jumping" in 2 try, so daddy had 2 join him.

Daddy said we should take a photo withe the Singapore Flyer as the backdrop, so here's one. I took one too but it didn't out too good so I'll spare the public the agony ... hehe!

Last few photos b4 we left. As you can see, Ryan was only clad in his diapers (which were wet) coz we decided to change him in the car, b4 we ride on home. Poor boy! I think he was a bit cold. Thou he didn't seem to care as he was busy looking out the bridge. He posed for a while ... & then we decided it was time to go home, as it was getting dark. Daddy promised Ryan that we will come again another day, this time with Ayra, in tow. Now Ryan would love that!