The month of March....

has been a busy one to say the least. I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last posting. My how time flies when preparing for a new addition to your household!! Let's see what have we been up to.....(sorry in advance for the long post and all the pictures).

Well, Evan has started having regular Monday morning playdates with 2 new friends. Daniel and Kirsty are a bit younger, but he's been having a good time playing with them. Daniel is 15 months old and Kirsty is 14 months old, but E seems to be about the same size as both of them. We had Daniel over to our house last week and Evan did such a great job of showing Daniel all of his toys and sharing with him. While we were at Daniel's the week before, Evan's favorite toy was one of Daniel's older sister's baby doll and stroller. I was afraid Andrew might have me cut out the playdates if I had him playing with babies :-) Actually, I think he likes the concept of just pushing things around...not that is was a baby doll! The baby shipment for the new nursery came the 2nd week of March, so I've really been busy trying to get it in order along with cleaning out ALL of E's old clothes and sorting them, so I have them organized for our next little one as he grows into them....poor kid getting all the hand-me-downs. I do have to say though that his BeBe and Boss have set him up well in terms of new clothes for the first month or two. So he at least has some new things to start out with. I'll be sure and post pictures of the nursery once it's all completed. My friend here who is an artist is going to paint me a canvas with a safari theme to go with the nursery bedding (thanks Nana for the bedding) and another friend is doing some alterations on the curtains. So I thought I'd wait until it was fully completed to post any pics.

Evan also got one of his favorite Christmas toys in the shipment....thanks BeBe and Boss (or as E has come to call them DeDe and Doss) for the annoying singing Santa. Prior to Easter, we decided to try coloring some Easter eggs. I thought it was going to be a total disaster with food coloring everywhere, but fortunately it wasn't and E had a great time...more so playing with the plastic eggs than actually coloring the real eggs, but nevertheless a success! Only a few green and red stained fingers as a result.

All ready in my art smock to do some egg coloring

Coloring eggs...without making too big of a mess

And the finished product...with a big "cheese" smile

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. Andrew had a long holiday weekend, so we decided to go to Sentosa Island off of Singapore for a few days. We thought it would be a nice last getaway before the new one arrives. Since it was our last vacation with only Evan around, we thought we'd leave Marte and only make it the three of us. Evan had a great time playing in the pool, playing in the sand on the beach (yes, he finally decided that the sand wasn't too icky to touch!!), feeding the fish, going to the aquarium and to this neat water/light show and watching the peacocks during all our meals (they were everywhere on the resort grounds!). There were TONS of kids there....funny to see all the nanny's tagging along with the families as well....so Evan had tons of kiddos to watch and keep him entertained!! There were some really neat water slides, but E was too little to go on them alone and they wouldn't allow the big kids (ie.. Andrew) to go on them with the little ones. That was a little disappointing for Evan (and Andrew), but he had a fantastic time nevertheless. We found out what a little daredevil he is in the water and absolutely has no fear of the water. He would stick he face in the water and then just die laughing. And the kiddy pool started off shallow, but gradually got to be about 3ft deep and Evan would want to just keep walking further into it even though it got close to his face. Needless to say, we had to keep very close the entire time. So....what Andrew and I determined is that vacations definitely aren't what they used to be. No more sitting by the pool, reading a book and sipping a fruity cocktail!! It's all about entertaining the kids and catering to their every need and desire!! Anyhow, as I said, it was a great time and we look forward to many more with two of them.....and the nanny, of course!! Here are a few pics from our trip.

Dad and Evan checking us into the hotel

Mom and Evan riding on the "bus".....if we had a dollar for every time we had to hear "bus" that weekend, we could have nearly paid for our whole vacation!!

E in his new Speedo with built-in floats

Playing in the play center at the hotel

Maybe one of us will learn to play the piano

Finally enjoying playing in the sand!

Mom buried my legs and I didn't even mind it!

Posing with Mom and my yet-to-be-named little brother!

Trying to make a run for it while Mom takes my picture on Easter day!

Since we drove back home on Easter day, we decided we'd have the Easter bunny visit Evan at home and have a small Easter egg hunt for him there. The easter bunny was especially good this year and brought E tons of stuff including this cool little water and sand playing table. He loved every bit of it. He also thoroughly enjoyed his hunt out on our driveway...poor kid and his world of cement!! He wasn't quite sure what he was doing at first, but he loved to go find an egg, open it up, look inside, throw the egg and its contents (just small little egg stuffers ) on the ground and off to the next one. He wasn't the kid who likes to gather all the eggs in his basket and then take a look at them. I guess he was too anxious to see what was in each of them!! It actually got extremely too hot outside after about 15 minutes, so we had another little hunt for him inside where we hid some eggs that had some of his favorite snacks.....juicys and gold fish.....and yes, Dad even put some Bacos in one of them...that was an espcecially good surprise!! All in all, we had a fantastic Easter. It would have been a million times better if we'd been able to spend it with family, but it was still fun celebrating with our own little family! Hope everyone else's holiday was just as wonderful!!!

Wow, I sure do like this Easter bunny guy!!

Our own little Easter bunny!

On my Easter egg hunt in our driveway

Look at all the eggs I found!!

Here are a few other random pics from the rest of the month:

Looking like a big boy with no shirt on

E poses with his shades on our way to KL

E and Dad go for a ride in the "golf cart"

Playing with my new sand and water table

Going out to dinner for our 3rd year anniversary

Getting a little smarter everyday (with a bigger attitude too).....studying my flash cards on my favorite step!

Butterfly Farm Visit

We finally went and tried out the Butterfly farm in Melaka last Saturday while Andrew was playing in a golf tournament (yes, once again we had to hear all day that Dad was in the "golf cart"!). It was a fairly breezy and overcast day, so we thought we'd take advantage of the nice weather. The butterfly exhibit itself was a bit underwhelming, but the park did have these small parakeets, that you could feed, at the entrance that Evan had the most fun with. We couldn't get him passed them to get to the rest of the park which also had some orangutans, fish, turtles, alligators, birds, and some reptiles. Evan did enjoy the other animals, but the parakeets were, by far, the biggest hit with him...as you can tell in the video below.

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Andrew and I had taken E to the zoo a couple of weekends ago and I think it was one of his most fun visits now that he is in to all the animals in his books. He has been to the same zoo several times before, but only now do I think that he is finally starting to grasp all the different looks and sounds of the various animals. Before, he would pay more attention to the people at the zoo rather than the animals themselves!! Of course, he is still a people-watcher, like his mother!

Here he is checking out the fish...

Looking for some more birds to feed....

And not wanting to pose for a picture in the butterfly area...he wanted to go put his hands in the waterfall instead...

End of Chinese New Year Lion Dance

Yesterday marked the end of Chinese New Year and one of the ladies I have crafts with informed us there would be a lion dance at the Renaissance Hotel (our home for a few weeks when we first arrived here in Melaka) to celebrate the end of the holiday. So Marte, Evan and I thought we would attend since Andrew was staying in KL over night for meetings this morning. It is quite an interesting dance they do - which involves a lot of fruit, primarily oranges, and some lettuce...I still need to read up on what all that signifies! AND it was very, very LOUD!! Apparently, the loud music is suppose to scare away evil spirits so that good luck will follow (well, let me tell you... this music must have sent those spirits a'running as fast as they could!!). Evan didn't seem to mind it too much though. He was just fine when all the drumming and cymbal playing started, but then I guess something with the lions frightened him because he gave this huge pouty lip and then couldn't get out of his stroller quick enough. After Marte held him for a bit, he was fine again and then couldn't get enough of it. I guess it wasn't the loudness that bothered him. Although I thought we all might ought to go have our hearing checked afterwards!!

This is Evan's "cheese" face...the one when I tell him to smile and say "cheese"

Also, Evan's old nanny stopped by a couple of days ago to visit with Evan and brought him a new bike. It was so very sweet of her...she said it was his Christmas present, but hadn't had an opportunity to bring it by. I felt completely horrible because I've been so bad about keeping in touch with her as I had promised. She was thrilled to see him and couldn't get enough hugs and kisses from him. Evan absolutely loves his new gift and it only makes him want to be outside that much more often now. This is E saying "where" did that airplane go that I just saw?

Another funny aside from this week is that E has picked up a new set of words lately....."golf cart". You now ask him where his Dad is and he says "golf cart"....hmmm, think Andrew is getting in some golf lately?!!?! I love giving A a hard time about it now. To vouch for him, he doesn't actually get that much golf in, but he came and gave Evan a ride on the golf cart last weekend and now Evan thinks that is where he is all the time!

Evan laughs...."HA HA"

In yesterday's blog, I mentioned how Marte had taught Evan to laugh on cue. While we were playing outside yesterday afternoon I was able to catch him on camera "performing" his laugh.

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Happy Valentine's Day

I can't believe how bad I am at keeping this thing updated. I think I'm now so busy reading everyone else's blogs, that it doesn't leave me enough time to update my own. Anyhow, things have been pretty quiet for us here. We had orginially scheduled a trip for the Chinese New Year holiday up to the Cameron Highlands here in Malaysia (the northern part up in the hills), but after scares from several people about how dreadful the drive was going to be due to the holiday traffic (our 5 hour drive could have supposedly turn into 10 hours....and travelling with Evan for 10 hours in a car was not our idea of a vacation!!), we decided to nix our trip and just stay in Melaka. It also looks like we won't be making our expected trip to Australia before the baby gets here either. Andrew's schedule just won't allow for it this month and then the Dr. has directed me not to travel after the beginning of March....so guess Australia will just have to wait. It would have been nice to make the trip with only one kiddo, but guess we are now going to have to do it with 2 of them. I can't imagine living over here and not at least visiting the place once. We had planned on doing a bit more travelling while we were here since Evan was getting older, but the baby sort of put a kink in that plan. Oh well, guess we'll have to bring him back to his roots at some point in his life ...maybe we can see more of the area then!

Pregnancy is going well. I just seem to be getting fatter and fatter each day. My mom and I have been working on getting all the new things ordered for the baby so we can get the movers to pack them up and ship them over here. The crib and armoire arrived today....and the bedding also made it last week. The only thing we are still waiting on is the stroller. I had to order everything over the Internet (excpet the furniture which I actually got the chance to look at while we were home for the holidays) so hopefully we'll like everything we've ordered. I'm looking forward to getting the nursery in order. I don't think we'll do any painting since we won't be here that long and it was just repainted when we moved in.

Evan in his Dad's Elton John sunglasses!

As for the little guy, he is just getting so big. He has become quite the clean freak. He hates to have his hands dirty, so he is constantly wiping them if he gets something on them.....and he loves to get his wipes and either clean the floor or the windows or anything else he can find. He also loves to help Marte vacuum the floors. He also hates to have a dirty diaper lying on the floor. If I don't throw it away immediately, he goes to pick it up and looks for the nearest trash can!! It's great to have such a helper...I love it that he likes things to be clean! Now I just hope I can get him to keep it up when he gets older and needs to keep his room clean!!

Evan also started the Level 4 Gymboree class last week. It is for 16-22 month olds, so he is one of the younger ones in the group. It was funny watching him because in the song we sing at the beginning of class, the teacher now has them jump up and down and kick one foot forward. Evan just watched in amazement at all these other kids doing something he couldn't. He did his version of jumping, but it is one where he never leaves the ground! I think he thought it was pretty cool these other kiddos could actually catch some air!!! Hopefully, he can learn from watching them. He had really outgrown the last class where some of the smaller kids still couldn't even walk. I sometimes just can't believe how fast he is growing.

E has also started to say a few more things like "book" and "birds". He also says "pop" when he plays with bubbles (Of course, his Pop was just thrilled to hear about this!!). He also has the funniest imitations of all his animals....he makes a sound for birds, monkeys, dogs and elephants. He also imitates the sound of a car honking, so Andrew now honks everyday he comes home since Evan loves it! And boys will be boys I suppose, he also imitates the sound of his dad's toots!! Did I mention how lucky I will be to have a house full of boys!!!

We've started playing outside a bit more since the early evenings seem to be a bit more breezy lately and thus not so hot. Evan loves to be outside, but I try to keep him in the driveway and out of the grass since there are still tons of mosquitos around the yard. Poor kid won't ever know what it is like to play in grass. He sometimes walks into the yard and it's hilarious to watch because he does it so cautiously. Since it's a bit squishy, I think he isn't sure what to think about it since he is so used to walking on hard surfaces, like tile, wooden floors or pavement. But we try to fly his kite sometimes and play with bubbles....just so he isn't such a bubble boy that stays inside all the time!

This is E's "I want a snack" face after a nap....unfortunately, his Dad likes to snack on Bacos (yes, those unhealthy bacon pieces), so Evan too now asks for and goes to the fridge for Bacos! I've started to hide them from him now. Although you'll notice in the picture above, he still likes his healthy snacks...like apples.

He loves his bubbles!! Oh yeah, and Marte has also taught him to "laugh" on cue....he does this "ha ha" thing...it's too cute.

No need for a trip to the zoo

Well, I guess our backyard (or back garden...if I'm to use the correct lingo) friends must have missed us because we were welcomed home by about 30 to 40 monkeys the weekend after we returned from the holidays (I started this post several weeks ago, but never got around to finishing it). It seems like they are getting less and less afraid of coming up to the house now (as you can see in some of the pictures below!) . They were everywhere - from the living room patio to the patio connected to the kitchen and even on our outside patio table downstairs. Andrew managed to get a video clip of all of them playing on our back fence, too (last picture below). Enjoy...

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