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.

I pinched this photo from Shann!

Peter Pan and his pal, the butterfly princess!

We ate nearby and by the end of the night, Ryan was deliriously tired (he skipped his nap that day). Still, it was obvious that he had a wonderful time, as did all of us. Thanks for inviting us, Shann!

The sleeves are folded in the photo above - they're actually much fuller, like trumpet sleeves. You can see them in later photos in this post.

The hair - the signature element of the costume - is a lady's pantyhose/stocking. I stuffed the stocking legs with batting, wound them up and sewed each one to the side. Although the hair is the most important element of the costume, I think I only spent about 15 minutes on it!



The tunic has an attached hood as well, just like the movie-version. In fact, it is constructed exactly like the movie-version, as in, it's not a conventional hood. Rather, it is a (somewhat) rectangular piece of cloth with the short ends sewn onto the tunic so there is an opening at the back.

I am quite pleased with the tunic because I made it a point to make a proper garment and not just cobble something together. It reminded me of why I enjoy making costumes so much - I really enjoy figuring out the construction and design, modifying it according to my vision and testing my skills in the execution. There is just one thing I would change if I were to make this all over again - I would make a hood that snaps on and off and in a lighter material.

I realised, however, that there aren't that many people who are familiar with Princess Leia. More often, they know Queen Amidala from the second Star Wars trilogy. There's a real generation gap here and I'm showing my age with this choice - I'm truly a child of the 80s! Someone also said that she looks a bit like a Chinese princess from the time of the Chinese dynasties! Oh well, I'm not discouraged - in fact, I'm even more motivated to preserve the icons of my generation in future costumes - how about some Elvis Presley or some Beatles? Or even some Michael Jackson?



I don't have as many photos of Rachel here compared to photos of Ryan in yesterday's post - it's not easy to pose a wriggly 4-month old baby, hahaha! Having said that, I have a lot more photos of Rachel at the Halloween than I have of Ryan! That's for tomorrow's post but here's an advance peek!

Rachel at Halloween party at Art Bug (photo pinched from Shann)

It feels like I was just posting a weekend update and here I am posting another one! And yes, I will get to writing about our trip to the farm three (!) weekends ago, I will, I will.

Anyway, this weekend was quite a fun one, although we didn't go anywhere special. A few interesting highlights - first of which was that Ryan got called for another audition on Saturday, his third in a week! This one was for a print ad and he did very well at the audition - he was able to strike different poses, show different expressions and he wasn't camera shy at all. Hoping for good news!

Apart from that, much of our weekend was spent on Ryan's Halloween costume. Have you guessed what it is yet? After finishing the hat (and the feather), I sewed the top and the belt. Then, on Sunday, we went to Vivocity to hunt down a pair of leggings and a toy dagger. I didn't find leggings in the colour I wanted but came across a pair of jeans in the right colour which I happily snapped up. Richard's task was to find the dagger but he had no luck at Toys R' Us or Daiso, so we might have to conjure one up from our craft cupboard. The party is on Thursday so stay tuned to see the whole costume!


Let me give a shout-out here to Marie - Richard told me that he bumped into you at Toys R' Us! Thanks for taking the time to say hello! We should get together for a chat sometime!


In other news, I had a bit of a shock this weekend as I realised that Rachel, my babydoll, has gone past the 0-3 month mark! She is 4 months now, which means that she's not eligible for all those lovely newborn and 0-3 months clothing anymore. Not to mention all those itty bitty sewing patterns I pinned on my Pinterest boards which I meant to sew up for her - too late now! This realisation has caused me to go into sewing superdrive - you shall be seeing a lot more sewing projects from now!


Anyway, hope you enjoyed these photos of Ryan taken this morning. We were trying to get him to show us different expressions! He always asks to do "worried face", although I think his "worried face" doesn't look very worried at all! Never mind, all good fun!

Ryan had his last PlayClub session today. It has been a wonderful year (4 terms), filled with fun and good cheer. I did mention in a previous post that I'm not convinced that PlayClub adds much to Ryan's development but it's all good because he had so much fun and there's no doubt that he received tons of love from the teachers. We definitely have nothing but fond memories of good times.

As usual, we were told to dress up for the class, according to the theme, which was The Great Outdoors. The teachers said that we could choose things from the garden, like a butterfly, a tree, ants, etc. or any animal, but we were uninspired by those choices.

Here's what we came up with.

Ryan receiving his graduation certificate and acting the part by showing a fierce scowl.