The Bub in the Belly

We spent Friday evening in a most delightful manner. Shann invited us, Alicia and Florinda, and our families of course, to a Chinese New Year celebration party at Artbug, where her daughter, Rou Ern, goes for regular art classes. Flo couldn't make it but the rest of us were there.

I dressed Ryan and Rachel in Chinese traditional wear. We attended a Halloween event last year at the same place, when the children came in all sorts of Halloween costumes, so I expected the children to be decked out in their Chinese New Year finery. However, I guess nobody wanted to use their new clothes until the Chinese New Year is actually upon us because nobody came in Chinese traditional garb.

Here's little Rachel in her silk romper, which she is wearing over a pink cotton romper. I sewed up the silk romper the night before, working till about 1 am. I'll show you better photos of it in a separate post. It's a little too big, so I might sew up another better-fitting one for her to wear during Chinese New Year and perhaps she can wear this one when she's bigger.

Ryan's costume was store-bought (from Giant). The hat doesn't fit very well. Apart from that, I like it very much.



One of the activities was to make a snake-and-ladders game.

Photo from Shann

 Here are the three friends, hard at work.

Photo from Shann

There were other activities too, like English and Chinese speech and drama, and a colouring session conducted in Chinese where they also distributed some hong baos to the children. The party ended about 9 pm.

We ventured out to Orchard Road for dinner. The next day was Rou Ern's birthday so we took the opportunity to have a small cake-cutting ceremony.



If you're wondering about Ryan's expression in the second photo, I think he was confused. The children got very excited when the candle was lit and raced to blow it out straightaway. The adults kept re-lighting the candle and kept telling the children not to blow it out until after singing the birthday song. So every time the candle was lit, Ryan waited for the birthday song to come on, only to have the candle puffed out amid peals of laughter from  his friends... and then the candle would be re-lit and he would wait for the song again. The kids would howl with laughter while the adults would be scolding them. I think he was really confused! But I know he was really looking forward to blowing out the candle. Later that night, when we reached home, it was still on his mind and he was still telling me that he was waiting to blow out the candle!

All in all, a good meet-up. The children had loads of fun and it was a nice way for the adults to wind down after the work week.