Cassandra's Life Blog

It has been a rainy weekend and we all snug in most of the time at home.

I went shopping for sanders with Cass last weekend. Cass saw this pair and loved it instantly. She tried it on and never wanted to try any other pair. This is her favorite shoe rite now, she keep saying it has 'rainbow' and won't go anywhere without it. :)

After watching the lion dance show, i caught cass performing the drum routine from the lion dance using her color pencils and her chair.

I took my camera to Cass's baby sitter's place when i went to pick her up last week. Here, she's playing with the baby sitter's daughter nicked name 'ah-bui' :). That's Cas's new hair band she got during Chinese new year from the KL cousins. She loved the hair band so much n have insist to keep it on for the next 2 days until she finally snap the hair band into two, about 3 days later.

Every new year, the lion dance team will visit my in-laws place. This year, the lion dance team were a bit late so Cass and i waited even after our afternoon nap time. She had watched the lion dance before that but was not as exciting as she was this year around.

She was a bit scared of the lion as you can see from the photo... but soon after, she asked me where is the lion ? and if the lion went back to sleep already ? hahaha

This Chinese New Year, we've asked Cass to wish Kong-Xi Kong-Xi whenever we meet our friends and family. She is very sweet in the morning with complete kong-xi-fa-chai. Near the after noon, poor Cass has wished at least 50 ppl already. So, in the evening, she got so tired, the weather is so hot and i believe she had enough of the wishes. She is like 'kongxi-kongxi LAAA' :) in the evening.

Here's a funny photo of Cass taking a bow after her dance routine :)

Here's a photo of Cass at 26 months old, holding & admiring the cupcake i made for her. She usually just nimble to top and return the whole thing to me. Now she asked for cupcake every morning now !

Cass loved Circles. She does a lot of drawing in circle and will draw anything using circle. A flower, a snake, a whale are all represented by circles. HAHA.

I finally get Cass to combine multiple circles into a whole picture of a caterpillar.

Starting year 2008, i've planned out a craft sessions for Cass to keep her occupied. This is from the origami book that i've found from the MPH bookstore. She liked the origami dog very much and has insisted that she draw the eye, the ears and even the dogs hair at the back of the paper.

Cass is getting crafty of late and this is the project she completed this morning. She completed the flower project first and then proudly showed it to her dad. Then, she insisted on complete another project (the fish) and again showed it to her dad. I asked if she wanna complete the 3rd one, she must have had enough of it and say no.

Yesterday morning before we went out for breakfast, Cass picked up a 10 cents coin from the floor and told me to put it into her pant's pocket. I asked her what she intend to do with the coin she has, she just smile and ran away playing her things.

After that we went to McD for breakfast and as we were q-ing and discussing what to have for breakfast, Cass suddenly told us she wanna pay for breakfast and repeatedly says : "一块钱, 一块钱, 蔚有一块钱 !!" (one dollar, weih got 1 dollar) and she keep reaching for her pocket.

haha, it was so funny. I told her to keep the 1 dollar and daddy's gonna pay for the breakfast that day and she will go home and keep the money in the piggy bank. She can pay for her breakfast some other time. Oh, i hope you do that too Cass :)

Cass helping out folding her hanky last nite :) I have to say, she's a fast learner. i showed her once and she can already do it the 2nd time successfully without my help. She is also repeating the instruction when folding, 放下来, 关起来. so cute ...

We were waiting in the car yesterday morning to go to the babysitter's place. Our neighbour's son was preparing to go to school and wiating outside the house. I make a comment to Cass and said that : 'koko is going to school'. Cass turned to me and said : 'koko 乖 lor, 去上学. " I'm both amazed and glad that she associate school with 乖.

Then i tried my luck and ask Cass if she wanted to go to school. To add to me surprise, she shooked her head and said : "no-la, go khai-khai' (play).

hahaha ! There you have it Cass, nothing is more important than go out and play !! :)

i've loved the song Bubbly lately by Collin Caillat and has been listening to it for the last couple of weeks. i was sharing with Cass this song on Monday and she started to love the song as well. She requested the song before she sleeps everynite now :) Song is contagious ! You can find a lot of other variation for the song in You-Tube. Here i present to you the variation performed by Cass :)

We started our spring cleaning plan this week. Ar, you see, it has to be a plan, because we do not have a lot of time before chinese new year (4 weeks), i have only 4 weekends to prepare everthing and that include all the cleaning, baking, shopping, running to and forth parents and in-laws place.

Yesterday i took out the ladder and clean the ceiling fan. While i was climbing up the ladder, Cass shouted at me from the ground, "小心,小心 ! 跌倒 !" and she hold out her hand getting ready to catch me if i felt. Haha, it was a funny moment to see her to that, it confirm my suspicious that she had developed her emphaty towards others (one milestone in social development) by caring towards others. It's too bad i didn't have the camera with me (1/2 way up the ladder ...), but it's always happy to see that my gal shows some affections and appreciation toward her old folks once in a while :)

We spent christmas in Thailand this year. It was a fun-filling holiday for us. In the beginning we were worried that Cass will be having some difficult time, but, out of our surprise, she was enjoying every moment of it. She hasd so much fun that she asked to go to the 'hotel' when we were back home.

My mother has introduced this disc (Barbie As the island pricess in you-tube) to Cass. I wasn't aware that she bought the dvd and was surprised to see it. My mom had told me before that it is her role as grandma to pamper Cass and it's my role to discipline her. Ar .. i'm the bad cop here.

I was sceptical and don't want Cass to watch the movie ever. So, without making a big fuss, i shove the disc into the drawer and don't want to mentioned it again (don't want to encourage her too much). After 1 week, nothing happen, i thought she forgotten about it. However, 2 weeks later, she start humming the theme song and dance on her own !! I'm so surprise, does this mean she remembered ? and it took her 2 weeks to process and burst out the song and dance ??

It is inevitable after all i guess. All little gals loved princesses. My boss's 4 yrs old daughter dressed up as a sleeping beauty, my collegue's 5 year old daughter (who is from India) dressed up as mermaid princess, G's best friend's 4 year old daughter absolutely love the mermaid, my cousin's 3 year old daughter have EVERYTHING princess (including the book, bedsheets, shoes and etc). This princess thing is borderless !!

Cass is very sensitive about the whole show. When the princess is happy, she will be enjoying the movie (like melted in it), when the princess is in danger, she will run to me and say that she's scared. I think she somehow see herself in the movie and emphatise the princess danger. what's this magic about princess ? is it the same magic as Harry potter ? and star-wars for boys ? i wonder or is it just the wonder of imagination ? i wonder again ...

Cass has been helpful of late. She will offer her help whenever and whatever. There's no task too difficult or too hard for her. Early sunday morning, she looked out the front-door and saw some leaves on the ground. Straight away she walk out with a broom and start to swip it away.

The other nite when i'm making the kuih-ee, she came to help also. That's the picture of her showing me the resulted kuih-ee. The kuih is perfect :)

i was working from the living room yesterday because it was a public holiday and i was just checking my email quickly. Then i put down my laptop and walk to the rest room. When i came back, Cass is already sitting at the sofa 'working' on my laptop.



I was on a conversation with my team members the other day and i was telling her i hope i don't turn my gal in toa nerd like me. She told me bluntly says, "this is a loss case, she is learning what you're doing and she will most likely be turned into a nerd". Now i see it's becoming to be true ... yikes, what do i do ?? any ideas ?

After much delayed, i've finally found some time to put up the x'mas tree. It was early morning and one of my 1 hour meeting aws cancelled. I took the small window of oppurtunity to setup the x'mas tree with Cass.

It was fun as she's trying to hang the decorations with me and keep dropping it off. one of the decoration fell under that table and she was asking us to get it for her. G ask Cass to laydown, put out her hands to reach it. Cass looked puzzled and stare at her dad. Then she ran to the sofa, laydown there and hope to reach it using her hand. haha, i guess the floor is too hard to lay down afterall.

After about 30 mins, we finally got it standing and i turned on the lights. Cass has another 'AWE' moment when she saw all the lights. Then she started to sing 'jingle-bell' !

This afternoon after she came back from babysitter's place, she went and took off the decorations 1 by 1, put it in her box and ask me to put it back on the tree. It's a fun moment for us all over AGAIN !

Usually we will read bed time stories for Cass, but this time around, (just like any 2-yr old) would do, she wanted to do things on her own in her own way. So, instead of reading to her and/or let us correct her reading, she is reading her own bed time stories :), in her own tone, language, expression and imagination. Welcome to the reading club Cass.

Cass's singing debut in the CAR. The video is taken in the car from a cell phone, can't complain too much about the quality because it's as good as it gets. You can see she's really enjoying the song with all her expression and dance movement.
Enjoy !

Dear Cass has been performing in front of us these couple of months, singing and dancing in her favourite dancing dress.

Her favourite song last month was butterfly when she will flip her arms, running in the house and sing the song at the same time. This month's favourite is the 'hong-hong tai yang' (the red sun) and she will shook her head from left to right when it came to the chorus. Her all time favourite is dancing in her dancing dress together with the piano tune on twinkle-twinkle little stars. The most amazing this is she will take a bow when she has completed her performance.

Like a pro ! :)

It's interesting how ppl had came out with so many songs about animals for kids. the bla-bla black sheep, the butterfly, the ugly ducklings, the dragonfly, the mouse, the tiger, the horse and on and on and on. and the most impressive thing about all these is that, they are really timeless. How do you explain that the songs that we heard and enjoyed 20-30 years ago are still the favourites for our kids today. Do all kids (different generations even) all tuned in the same for the same type of songs ??

It's school holiday over here in Malaysia till Jan 2nd 2008. Our neighbor's kids came knocking on our door 2 weeks ago and ask Cass to come out and play.

There was some running, see-saw, slide and lots of swinging in the park opposite our house. And then everyone started to bring their bikes out. Cass was curious and happy to be able to ride on the "sport-truck" with the rest. It was fun and lots of laughters.

The kids played like they own the road and we parents basically is the traffic police directly the traffic flow of the whole road. Luckily there wasn't a lot of cars that day and they had a wonderful time.

After 2 hours of sweating, the kids finally settle down and cooling down in the swimming area. Now that's a grand finale ! Cass has a very good sleep that nite !

here's an updated photo of Cass at 2 years old.

Cassie the biker gal !

This is Cass's warm up activity before doing her actual drawing :) gotto make sure all colors are accounted for and in good shape.

i wanna slow down on this blog, after i get to know how the blog content has been mis-used. it was very upsetting to know how information can be used against you. But then i found out how Wei-Lih has been reading the blog and getting to know Cass better. So i thought, what the heck. the benefit of writing it is so much better.

Cass was down with stomach flu last week. She was admitted to the hospital because she cannot consume anything (not even medication) and need the IV.

poor Cass, pls get better and be brave now dear.

It's foggy today. i woke up at 6 am, talk to G for 1 and 1/2 hr (WOW), went to breakfast and drove to work around 7.45 am. It's still grey and dark. I thought a storm is coming but the server in the restaurant told me this is normal California weather. i thought to myself, this is just the perfect weather for Halloween, it's foggy, it's blurry and will add spookiness to the whole thing.

It's grey and blur but it's not grumpy because it's Halloween. It's not grumpy at all because rite after i walk out from my room to the hotel lobby, the receptionist suddenly transform to be wilma from Flintstone. she had the pink/purple hair and a bone as bow !! how funny. On the way to the office, i gave way to a clown with red nose and a circus ring leader. There's a purple witch with pointy hat sitting next to my cub here (not just a witch but also a purple one, how pretentious !), a blonde 'red-indian' chief (what a weird combo, i saw her in the bath room and she was admiring herself in the mirror and i had to give her the compliment... hehe), an Elvis look-a-like, a ranger from Colorado (she really have a back pack ALL the time !) and ultimately, an guy with PJ in the cafeteria. That's a shocker because i was really surprised and kept thinking to myself if this is my office, or am i dreaming.

Feeling the festivity, i wanted to rush down the store later and get something for Cass. hehe

I think the Halloween spirit is a good activity. It built courage and especially creativity and imagination You see in Halloween, you cannot just have costume, you need to have 'unique' costume. and you can be anyone you can be (you can be sandwich also if you wanted to...) It's about being different and have the individualism, unlike in PG, we were asked to conform and compromise.

So you see, it's not a celebration of the dead or creepy death like our 'hungry ghost month', it's actually a celebration of life, living the life and being alive !!

Happy Halloween everyone !!

Cass loved the red sweater we got for her. She will insists on her sweater wherever and whenever we go out.

She especially loved to snuggle and manja with her dad. It is the father-daughter game that they play all the time. Cass will first act sad, so that dad will comfort her and ask her what happen, then she will manja and ask for hug and kisses :)

She's our 'drama-queen'. Insisting we sit near her, pretend play with her, dance and sing along. Cass, it's our blessing to have you around !!

The paintings are under the Saturday morning sun.
We usually let the paintings dry outdoor while Cass taking her bath (due to the paint all over her body).

These are some of the masterpieces from painter Cass. You can see most of the time she does circle, drops of colors and hand prints. What can i say, she's a hands-on person. :)

Cass usually woke up very early in the morning (around 6.30 am) and she is usually bored because all of us are 1/2 awake and not in the mood to play with her.

Because we hope to get a 1/2 hr of peace, we recently introduced painting to her.

So far so good, she has been doing a lot of paintings and i'm her loyal fan and collectors. Her paintings are every where in the house and she loved it when she saw her paintings are 'in display'.

Cassandra checking out the bug activities in the garden. Here she's doing her 'signature move'. Point and ask what's that ?!' :)

Cassandra enjoying the view while having lunch :)