Five Little Princesses

Ellie's birthday this year was at the Disneyland Hotel. Five little girls were very excited to make the trip with five even more excited Mummies...
...and a Big Frog and a Little Frog...
Disneyland Hotel is hosting these Princess Makeovers for little girls. Just what these little girls absolutely love to do - dress up, put on makeup, and play pretend. Mama wasn't feeling too well still, and Dada is such a big fan of Katy's, that Katy's Dada also came along. It turned out he was needed to take care of a new little baby brother. Dada is so good with babies. All the Mummies were amazed!

The five little princesses BEFORE their makeover: left to right Zoe, Halia, Katy, Ellie and Laura.
The Birthday Girl Ellie and her Mommy Tiffany (with baby Chloe in her tummy):
Halia and her Mommy Gina:
Katy and Mama:
So, The Makeover:
Step 1 - put on your Princess dress.

Step 2 - Make Up

Step 3 - Hair

Step 4 - Put on your tiara



Step 5 - add more eye make up as demanded by the Diva-in-Training
Step 6 - Pose with the other princesses



Step 7 - Lights! Camera! Action! pose for your solo photo shoot



Step 7 and a half - monkey around and ham it up in your Princess outfit, so the professional camera crew is not able to get a single great shot of you as a Princess, thereby saving your parents hundreds of dollars in not having to buy any of the photo presentation packs!


After the makeover, five tired little Princesses and five tired Mummies, a big frog and a little frog all trooped back to Ellie's house, whereupon the five little Princesses revived themselves, got dressed in their own Princess dresses and played Princess some more!

Zoe's Mummy Liza is a professional cake maker and made the most amazing Rapunzel birthday cake for Ellie, thereby throwing down the gauntlet for Dada in the Amazing Birthday Cake Stakes.
Pinatas were really popular for the fourth birthday party circuit and Katy loved this Princess heart pinata.
What a fun afternoon!

Chop

What happens when Mama and Dada are sleeping in after a late night, and Katy locks herself in a room with her 14 year old Cantonese tutor Jie Jie, away from the watchful experienced eyes of Tia and naan???

Well, Katy cuts off the end of her ponytail. Chop. Just like on her Tangled Rapunzel Barbie. Except Katy's hair doesn't just clip back on again...
Oh well, lesson learned For all of us!!!

Happy Birthday Auntie Debbie and Mama

This year, Mama and Auntie Debbie decided to have a combined birthday celebration since our birthdays are exactly 2 weeks apart. Dada arranged a very special menu from Amuse Bouche and the Mommies were pretty excited to have a nice night out.

Maxine and Yvonne also joined us,
together with the hubbies Rich, David and John coming in as their work schedules allowed.
Carmen came a little late, straight from the airport after arriving from a business trip. Then Adeline and Grace joined us for dessert and drinks on the roof.

We had such a lovely evening.

And even though we didn't quite have the energy to go dancing as planned, we still had a fun night.
The food was superb, and the wines were sublime. The highlight was probably the frog's legs!! They were awesome.

That green fairy again!

Residents of Discovery Bay could have been forgiven for thinking they'd overindulged in absinthe as sightings of a small green winged figure multiplied. But it was just Katy dressed in yet another Tinkerbell Tia creation, ready for her school birthday party and waiting patiently for the bus!

I love Grandma Ed

Tonight instead of a story, Katy asked to look through her photo album - the one that Auntie Holly gave her. It has pictures of Katy's first two visits to Minnesota, when she was 3 months old, and when she was 18 months old.

More importantly, it has pictures of the extended Krauel Family and Katy loves going through and naming everyone in the photos.

For her first big picture of Katy with her Krauel Family, she named all the Aunts and Uncles and called their spouses by their first names without saying Aunt or Uncle. She missed Great Edna. When I asked who that was, Katy said "Grandma Ed". She asked, "is she still old?" I said, "yes", and Katy replied, "I love her."

She seems to prefer to call Great Grandma Edna "Grandma Ed"...

Early morning skate

Yep, she did it again!

Yaay. So that's the first "two-in-a-row". Although she did wake up very early this morning - 5.45am. She very sweetly came into the bedroom to ask Dada how to turn off the iPod. She had been trying but she said she was too short. She had opened her curtains and made her bed as usual.

Mama and Katy had a lovely (very) early morning time together. It reminded Mama of when Katy was a baby and would wake at 5am EVERY day and would demand to be taken outside for a walk. What a long way we've come since then.

We played piano. She's gotta get some lessons soon as she is already becoming a little frustrated with her attempts at playing.

Then we played with Katy's old toys that had been in storage. She found her rollerskates from Nana and Papa and we went out to try them. Then we ended by making daisy chains.

You're The Piano Girl

Finally, after months of asking and waiting and anticipating and excitement, Katy got her "piano". We've decided to get her an entry level digital piano for now. It looks just like Olivia's, so Katy is pretty happy.

The piano was delivered this morning while Katy was at school. It took Katy a while to notice the piano once she got home, but she was pure delight when she did finally notice it had arrived. She wasn't expecting it until later this week.

She immediately jumped on and sang the songs and played the bits she could remember from watching Olivia. She was pleased as punch. She wanted to play with me next to her, with her by herself, with sheet music, without sheet music. Hopefully this will be the start of a long and beautiful and rewarding friendship between Katy and her piano.


Katy did interrupt her playing briefly to let Uncle Bert, Kung Kung & Poh Poh and Dada know the piano had arrived. It was a birthday present from all of us.

Oops, she did it again!

Yup, another night in her bed. And another morning where she woke at 6.30, opened her own curtains, and made her own bed. She's pretty pleased with herself, but playing it low key.

Hotline to Heaven

"If I wake up at night and I get scared, then I can call Kung Tai in Heaven on my iPhone and he will protect me. I call the one that died, who's in Heaven. I can also call the one who is still alive."

How long has it been?

Katy hasn't slept through in her own bed since our trip to Minnesota in July last year (2010).

She Did It!!

We always knew she would.

On her 4th birthday, Katy herself announced to Dada and Mama separately that she would sleep by herself in her own bed all night.

It didn't happen that night (due to a misunderstanding with Tia) or the next (where she did go back to bed after waking, but then came into our bed announcing that she didn't like that).

But last night, she did it! She stayed in bed all night. Around 6.45am, she woke up, opened her curtains, and made her bed, then she came out into the hallway to look around and see who else was around. She got a high ten from Mama twice. She looked so pleased with herself.

It's a start.

We're not in any hurry, and I don't think Katy is either.

Tinker Bell Version 2

The day after Katy's birthday, she was back again for a visit to Disneyland with Tia. She had a different leaf outfit on of course. And Tinker Bell recognised her from the previous day!

Characters Welcome

The highlight of our day was dinner at Disneyland Hotel, where Minnie

Mickey

Piglet
and Tigger spent the entire evening playing with Katy (and the other kids at dinner).
Tigger seemed to take a particular shine to Katy and Katy to Tigger...

Katy also loved the two chocolate fondues...
...and the chocolate Tinker Bell decorations.
But Katy's favourite treat of the night was discovering the soft serve ice cream machine and sprinkles corner.

You really can't ask for a more amazing 4th birthday! Yet, at the end of the night, when we asked Katy what her favourite thing was, she said it was spending the whole day with Mama and Dada.