That Mom Of Four

I had to give Nyx something to do when she got up at 8am and refused to go back to bed, so I chose Chinese poetry.  This explains why her hair is still deshevelled, haha.  I took this video just after teaching her the poem so the pronunciation isn't spot on yet. She'll still need abit of practice.  

We visited the famous Guggenheim museum which was opened in 1997 and also did abit of shopping in a couple of the city's large indoor shopping malls.  The near 4 hour drive to Bibao was really worth it as we got to enjoy the warm sunny weather and Nyx had so much fun running around the playgrounds and parks.   While we driving towards Bilbao, Nyx and I got into an arguement.  She kept insisting the flyover was really just a big slide.  She has this habit of naming things that she sees when she's in the car such as cows, horses, sheep, houses, giant farm sprinklers, factories, clouds, rain, the sun, the moon, cars, trucks, motorbikes, monuments, etc.  Here's a video of our little arguement.  

Nya's favourite thing to do nowadays is pointing. She will point at something she wants and shout "AAAAhhhh!!!" or "ah" depending on how fast we react to her demands.  So after a few subtle "ah's", if we still don't give her what she wants, it becomes a full-on holler.   Here are two videos I took of her lately.  One of them shows Nya pointing at her daddy man and scolding him, the other one shows her pointing at me and saying "Mama!".  

Its picture time again! Daddy needs a reason to use his 40D, and of late he's been abit lazy to lug the heavy and delicate toy around with us wherever we go.  So this evening he took some pictures of the two babies while they were watching sesame street.  

We had a lunch gathering at La Vache (aka the Cow Restaurant) this aftenoon to celebrate Gina's birthday and also as a farewell for Zane.  Recently we've been having lots of farewell meals and gatherings it seems that everyone is leaving.  There are new faces coming here from Singapore all the time too, its just that we haven't gotten to know them well yet.  So here are the pictures taken from this afternoon.  We'll miss you Zane! See you in Singapore real soon.  

Today we took the two N's to Bordeaux and what a surprise we had. There were pirates everywhere! And even a huge pirate ship full of looty and a pig roasting over a fire next to it.   It was such a coincidence because before we set off for Bordeaux, I had dressed the girls up along with matching scarves tied around their heads, similar to that of pirate fashion. I meant to use them to cover up the "toot" new hairdo's both girls were sporting as we'd just trimmed both their fringes. There was even a life-sized crocodile prowling about and Nyx kept wanting to sit on it.  Thanks to today's meeting with the pirates, Nyx's new favourite words are "Yo ho ho!" and "Argh!...." and "Shiver me timbers!".    

Here's a video of my two N's learning mandarin from some DVDs which I borrowed from my friend Jessica.  And what gems they are! But I find it absolutely neccessary to watch the videos along with them cos as you can see in one of the videos, Nyx kept saying he(2) ma(3) ma(3) instead of he(2) ma(3) for hippopotamus.  These videos were taken when the girls were watching the DVDs for the first time so by now Nyx has got it right.  Nya was able to pay attention to it quite well and not go wandering off to find something to bite either, so I'm quite happy.  

Yesterday we drove to Sarlat and the prehistoric site of La Roc St-Christophe for some sight-seeing.  The scenery at the troglodyte site was absolutely breathtaking and this half mile long structure with its dramatic views was worth the long drive.  It dates back to the Mousterian era and has been lived in by successful generations of man.  Which is why we saw tools and structures used by man from prehistoric and medieval periods.  Nyx was pretty scared of the wax figures in the form of huge bears and cavemen though.  Kept shouting "what's that! what's this! Mummy hurry! Mummy be careful!"