A Fun Day

We all had a great day today. Alex was hilarious this morning while Ben was at school. He loves to look at you sideways and smile because he always gets a big smile in return. How can you not laugh at this?

This afternoon we played at Olivia's house and she and Ben were pretending to take a nap together. (we could laugh at this game because both of them actually DID nap today!)

Awake!

Alex helped himself to a little toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom. I was hoping it would be a while longer until he discovered this particular joy.

And we had lots of laughter at dinner. I usually feed Ben while Lea feeds Alex so the two boys are facing one another. I was clapping my hands up high, but the best Alex could do was clapping his hands on the sides of his face and this is what ensued...

Happy Father's Day!

I hope all the fathers out there got to celebrate with their families yesterday. Our boys told their daddy how much they love and appreciate him, but not quite in so many words. It was said more with wrestling, 3-year old mystery language, and some drool...but the sentiment was there. These kiddos (and their mama) love their daddy!

We had a really nice weekend and even got to enjoy Matt some on Friday because he was dismissed from the office. Turns out the Singapore office won't let anyone come straight from Australia into the office without waiting 7 days because of the H1N1 flu, so Matt came home early Friday and went back to the Perth office this week to get his work done. We got to enjoy a little pool time with the kiddos.


Over the weekend we finally made it to the bar on the 69th floor of the Swissotel here with our friends. It definitely has the best views of the city and was a pretty cool place to have a drink before dinner.

The Marina district and Fullerton hotel.

Boat Quay and the Asian Civilizations Museum. I think the flying saucer building is actually the supreme court here?

The cross shape in the middle is Clarke Quay and then it's high-rises as far as the eye can see. There are a LOT of people living on this island.

We enjoyed the city lights and then took off on our own for a quiet dinner. We're not exactly sure when we'll get another date night because our calendar is looking pretty full for the next couple of months. International moves are pretty involved.

We invited ourselves over to the Dunlaps pool on Sunday...can you tell why? The playground is inside the kiddie pool and Ben had an absolute blast playing in everything and going down the slide as many times as possible. It was really fun!

Ben and Daddy went down the slide in every possible direction.

There's always time for a water gun fight, too. Thanks Dirk and Christina for hanging out with the little people!

Alex is a busy man these days. He is crawling, pulling, cruising, and walking with one hand in mine now. He even let go and tried to walk off on his own today but he's not quite ready for that yet.

I think the skill that amazes us the most is his throwing arm. He can definitely outthrow Ben already but I think he's got a pretty good arm for his age. Maybe a quaterback instead of a linebacker? You decide....watch till the end of the video...

Today's Laughs

Oh, these boys...I don't know how I ever stayed entertained without them. Well, okay, I managed somehow (mouseketball, anyone?).

Ben has this habit of pooping every day during naptime. I can almost always count on him to come to his door about 15 minutes after I leave the room because he wants his diaper changed. Today I had to leave the house during naptime so Lea was here with the kids alone and didn't hear Ben until much later. She went in the room, smelled poop, and asked Ben if he needed a diaper. He said no. He had changed his own diaper. With poop. And he even used wipes. The dirty diaper was in the trashcan and Ben was wearing a clean pull-up. Lea washed his hands first thing but I'm still a bit traumatized by the thought of poop touching who knows what in the room. And I'm thinking that a child old enough to change his own diapers is old enough to use the potty!! If only Ben wasn't so stubborn. But maybe I can really cash in on this change-his-own-diaper deal!

And Alex is my little dancing man. How precious is this??

As soon as the song ends, he grabs the ball because it every time it rolls down a pipe the song starts again.

Our Big News

We're moving....again!! Just three short weeks after we moved locally into this house, Matt was offered a position in Perth, Australia. He's traveled there several times on business and I accompanied him recently for a few days to get a look at the city. It's on the western coast of Australia and pretty isolated from the main population of the country because the eastern coast is about 2,000 miles away. I just checked google earth and Perth is 10,600 miles from Houston, give or take, so it's quite possibly as far from home as we can move.

This was my very first sight when I walked out the doors of the airport (into cool weather - it's early winter right now). I didn't want to read too much into it, but it definitely reminded me that God is watching over us and leading us to the right place for our family, wherever that may be.

A little farther down the road we saw some wild cockatoos of some sort.

Perth is on the Swan River very near where it meets the Indian Ocean. The city itself was a lot smaller than I expected...smaller than the Ft. Worth skyline and pretty quiet. The suburbs are quite spread out along the hills and rivers in the surrounding areas between downtown and the coast.

The Swan River is beautiful and we found out why it was named so - lots of wild black swans were swimming through it. We also saw freshwater dolphins, pelicans, and several kinds of cockatoos. For an animal lover, that was pretty exciting. No kangaroo sightings but I hear they're all over the place just driving south from the city.

Overall, I thought Perth was a really nice city and definitely a step towards living in the US. It's quiet and the residents enjoy outdoor activities year-round, but it's not cosmopolitan and exciting like Singapore. There will definitely be a lot of things we will miss here, especially these lovely faces:
We had dinner last night with some of our closest friends here and I realized I'd better start taking pictures to remember these times because we won't get to do this much longer. They are (L to R around the table): Christina Dunlap, Lauren (a visitor in town with the Armstrongs), Lou Anne and Scott Dulaney, Dirk Dunlap, Andy Patrick (whose wife and kids are already back in the US for the summer), Patrick Armstrong, Matt, Me, and Farah Armstrong.

I can't think about leaving all of our wonderful friends here yet. We love Singapore and all it has to offer but our friends have made our experience here so unforgettable. It will be very hard to say goodbye.

In kid news, we had moved Alex's carseat to bring home a new coffee table and I decided it was time to turn the big boy around. He is very happy to finally get a view of something other than the backseat when we're driving now.

Of course, sometimes the view isn't enough to keep this boy awake. We drove down one of Ben's favorite roads bordering the nature preserve to watch the monkeys but Alex wasn't quite as interested.

He has mastered crawling with objects in his hands now and this morning he picked up the puzzle piece from the living room, crawled up the stairs, through the dining room and kitchen, out the door (which is always open) to put the piece down the grate. He's become addicted to dropping things down the grate, which just covers an open ditch all around the yard.

A couple hours later while he was testing out some different toys in the grate, Ben made him a bottle of water and fed it to him. It was so sweet! Nevermind that Ben didn't screw the top on all the way and the water poured all over Alex, I was very impressed with Ben's thoughtfulness.

The brothers...

Funny Ben story: Last week I was pushing Ben to school in his red car and we stopped for the mandatory flower picking at the neighbor's bushes. Ben always picks one for himself and one for me on the way to school. We kept walking to school and he turned around, handed me his flower and said, "Will you please hold my flower? I need to drive" then put both of his hands on the steering wheel. This is one responsible kid.

And here's a funny video of Alex puttering around in the playroom. He's playing with Mr. Spoon, the bad guy that spanks Ben when he needs it. Somehow that takes all the authority of my disclipinary tool!

Beautiful Ben

Before I had kids, I had no idea how much a mother can love her children, or how a mom can share her love with her husband and still have an endless supply for her kid(s). So when we added a fourth member to our family I couldn't imagine how I could ever love another baby as much as our precious Ben and now I can't imagine how we lived without beautiful little Alex. There is no question that my love for each of them is infinite. They are both our source of pride and joy. But there are occasions that my love for Ben goes so deep that I can't breathe and it's because I can still picture him smaller than Matt's hand and clinging to life with the tenacity he's had since the minute he was born. He's the miracle we almost lost and when I see reminders of how perfect he is today it makes me so thankful that we can appreciate more than most what an amazing gift we've received.

So why the deep thoughts today? I got a beautiful gift of unexpected pictures from the Dulaneys again, and these were even more fun because they took Ben swimming while Matt and I were gone so these pictures were a total surprise. Oh, how I love this little boy...





And this little (well, big) face just melts my heart. Alex is my little teddy bear and he is all over the place these days. He's very confident but, unlike Ben, he sticks really close to me when we explore outside the house. Ben would always take off and never look back but Alex hovers pretty close to me in different situations. He loves people and is very happy to be handed to new faces as long as I'm nearby, but set him in view of a pretty lady and he'll be waving for her attention in no time. Already such a flirt!

I took Alex to Fidget's today while Ben was in school. Ben would have been heartbroken to know he didn't get to go to his favorite playground but there's no way I could keep up with both of them in the huge space. Alex definitely enjoyed having all of my attention and a big padded place to roam.

No, Alex, you can't eat EVERYTHING! His favorite thing at the moment besides anything edible is any kind of ball so he was in heaven in the ball pit.

Even more fun that throwing them was tossing them over the side. He gets a lot of entertainment each day dropping things from the crib, the high chair, the stroller...you get the picture....

Once he had enough balls outside, he had to get out and throw them back in. Never a dull moment!

The big news in the Singapore expat community this week is the grand opening of the new Chili's! My favorite mall just got a little bit better. I've always liked Chili's although it wasn't a place we frequented in Texas, but here it's a little piece of home. Everything was just like I remembered, even having to take a pager and wait for a table which is completely unheard of here...the hostess apologized several times for asking us to wait. Most places expect you to make reservations for dinner and sometimes for lunch but in true American fashion, Chili's doesn't take them. I met my friend Christina and had to email poor Matt some pictures of what he missed while he was busy working!

Ahhhh, bliss.....thin crispy chips and a skillet of queso...

And a little piece of heaven to top it off....
Somewhere in the middle we had quesadillas as well but I too busy gorging myself to take a picture. Everything tasted just like home :)

Playin' Around

The boys are into everything these days. It's fun to watch them play together occasionally (but usually not long enough for me to grab the camera) like when they were both interested in this toy. Alex was putting balls in the top as fast as he could and Ben was letting them out the bottom just as quickly. I was really surprised there was no wrestling match over it because they were having a great time doing it together. Maybe there will be more of this in our future :)

And what could be more fun that riding the see saw with Daddy??

Or blowing bubbles at the park? I just love how Alex likes to explore everything with one finger.

He loves bubbles but can't ever seem to catch the ones he wants.

Ben and Daddy had a lot of fun blowing them down for little brother.

And the little monkey went climbing around everywhere. The playground is great for Ben's age but it's going to be a while before Alex can enjoy anything besides crawling around and getting dirty. Luckily, those are two of his favorite activities at the moment so he doesn't feel left out.

Our Entertainment

How did we ever live before these two little faces kept us laughing all day? I'm not happy to wake up at 6am most days (although I'm getting used to it and can deal with it much easier than anything that starts with 5) but it's hard to stay grumpy around this little face. Alex rustles around in bed until he finds his paci and blankie, then he's happy to play for a while. Or stand up and throw them out of the crib and start screaming. I haven't decided what to do about that little game, especially if it starts before naptime because I'm not going to keep going in to find his paci. Any other moms have suggestions? Ben didn't have any sleep necessities until he was a lot older so this is all new to me.

We go to United Square mall about every day now since it's a quick walk and has almost everything we need. They have a bunch of little cars and trains for the kids to ride but lately Ben keeps putting his dollar in this fun machine to get Mentos. He doesn't even eat the mentos, just likes to watch them come out. Good for him, bad for me because I can't resist them!

Alex and Ben rode Thomas together although I'm not sure how much Alex liked it. He held onto Ben the entire time but Ben was too busy driving to notice.

Alex can explore the entire house up to about 3 feet now. It's great fun for him but means lots of bumps and plenty of "no!"s because it's a lot harder to childproof with older toys around and a baby that thinks he can do everything his big brother does.

Our afternoons are usually spent with the hose one way or another. I guess it's making up for not having a pool. They don't seem to mind!

Ben loves to run in the sprinkler! I never see other kids doing this here but we spent our summers in the sprinkler growing up...is that just a Texas thing?

Alex tends to back off a bit once he gets soaked...Ben's a little too crazy for him sometimes.

Sweet boys in the bathtub. They wrestle over every single toy but seem to be happier in the bath together.

Here are Alex's adorable new tricks. He's using both to get attention and it's working!
The Blink

and The Dance