I’m not good at doing arts & crafts but I would do it with Qianyi from time to time. We would have some really simple and easy projects to do together. Creating is fun although our “products” don’t appear to be beautiful. 
London is blessed with many beautiful parks. We visited Regent’s Park last Sun. We enjoyed the fragrance of the stunning roses very much. Qianyi loves to go to the park. She said, “It’s park, it’s tree” when she was at Kensington Gardens. Now, she said “It’s park, it’s pretty flowers” when she saw the colorful roses.
The roses there were peach-scented. I kept smelling them. When I told the little one to smell them, she enjoyed it and she kissed them too. After smelling all these beautiful scents, we suddenly remembered all types of allergies could occur during summer including pollen allergy. Qianyi had hives all over her body and her face last Thu. Doc said it should be food allergy. The hives were gone after taking antihistamine. It’s hard to find out what caused it. We decided to leave the rose garden as we didn’t want her to get pollen allergy.
Qianyi loves to play “chasing game” with her daddy. They played it at the rose garden too.
It’s been 16 years since I first met Hubby. He took a day off last Fri to celebrate this special day with me and Qianyi. We decided to visit Wimbledon.
Here’s some photos taken at the tube station.
If only Qianyi were much bigger now, we could buy a ticket and join the crowd at the tennis courts to enjoy the excitement of watching Wimbledon 2008 live. Well, we could only go there to take a look outside. Hubby felt so excited when he saw Marat Safin from afar.
We visited a Nike tennis shop later. The white jacket on Maria Sharapova looked great. But I preferred to have a Wimbledon T-shirt. So, that’s a gift from Hubby on our 16th anniversary.
We had our lunch next to a fruit stall. The little one kept playing with the fruits.
We went to Hyde Park, one of the largest green spaces in Central London last Sun. We took the tube train to Marble Arch to visit Speaker’s Corner at northeast end of Hyde Park. Anybody who has something to say, on any subject can entertain the audience. It was too early when we reached there. There’s only one speaker. Many people were listening and watching. There’s one guy who kept asking questions. Hubby told me there were usually more than one speaker and the discussions would get quite heated. It’s worth a visit!
We started walking back through the park. We stopped by the lake and rented a pedal boat. Qianyi and I sat in the front seats while Hubby was pedaling alone at the back. It’s really relaxing for me and Qianyi.
There’s traffic jam when lots of ducks were swimming across the lake in front of us. I was so worried that we might bump into them.
Hubby told me he didn’t need to go for a jog any more. It was tiring to pedal alone for half an hour. We had our lunch later at the cafe by the lake (shown in the middle photo of the collage below).
We visited Princess Diana Memorial Fountain on our way back. The little one had a good time playing with the water. The wind was strong but it’s sunny. I like London’s parks. I love the spacious green areas, lakes, swans and the cool weather.
We brought Qianyi to Hamleys when it’s drizzling last Sat. As we couldn’t have some outdoor fun, we decided to let her play at the toy shop.
We had our lunch at Garfunkel’s Restaurant. Qianyi and I shared the barbecued chicken pizza. It’s delicious. Qianyi ate quite a bit. Hubby had fish & chips. I tried some of his mashed green peas. It’s yummy!
When it stopped raining, we decided to enjoy a lovely walk in Kensington Gardens. We wanted to take the little one to Diana Memorial Playground but she didn’t want to. She preferred to take a walk. She said, “It’s park, it’s tree” happily.
The swans and ducks were not scared at all when we went near them. Qianyi’s teachers used to warn us not to go near the pond because the fierce swans would attack our kids.
There were lots of squirrels. These squirrels were very brave too. When I squatted down trying to take a pic of a squirrel, it stopped and looked straight into my eyes! There’s another squirrel climbing up to a bench where a man was sitting and reading his book. It went up to the man’s bag first and then stopped moving for a while on his lap. What a sight!
Next, we visited Kensington Palace. I was very interested to see dresses worn by Princess Diana, especially the two famous dresses in the films showing her dancing with John Travolta (he was still very slim then) at the White House in 1985 and with Prince Charles in Melbourne in 1988. The pink and blue silk dress didn’t look very nice but it looked great on her in the film when she was dancing happily with Prince Charles.
Well, we had a good time and started planning that night for another outing on Sun.
Last night, Hubby surprised me with a bouquet of pink roses. He bought it for me after leaving his office. Although I had told him not to waste money on flowers anymore, I still felt great when I saw the bouquet. It made me feel loved and appreciated. I guess all ladies love to receive flowers. Thanks Hubby! 
Qianyi was very happy to see the lovely roses. She sneezed while smelling the flowers. She was getting very excited. She said “old one” while pointing to my Mother’s Day bouquet on the book shelf and “new one” while looking at the pink roses.
“Feed the birds” (from the musical “Mary Poppins”) is one of Qianyi’s favourite songs. Mary Poppins told the kids about “the bird woman” who sold bags of crumbs on the steps of St.Paul’s Cathedral so that passers-by could feed the birds.
We took off to see St Paul’s last Sat. We wanted to show Qianyi where the scene “feed the birds, tuppence a bag” took place. We didn’t go into the church. Hubby and I had walked around and took a good look inside the church before. Admission’s not free and we didn’t think the little one would enjoy it.
We didn’t see any pigeons that day. Nobody’s feeding the birds. It’s alright. Qianyi had a good time too. She enjoyed climbing up and down the steps very much.
We had a lovely outing to Cambridge yesterday to celebrate Father’s Day. It’s great to bring Qianyi there to see our “old love nest”. We went to Cambridge 1 month after we got married. It brought back a lot of sweet memories being there after so many years. This is the place where we had our 3-year honeymoon.
We had our lunch at an outdoor restaurant. The weather was nice and we enjoyed some free, wonderful music from the buskers.
I missed the beautiful River Cam very much. Punting on the River Cam on such a sunny day was great. All of us had a good time. We took lots of snapshots during the punt. I was lazy to select the nicer photos for this entry, so I posted almost all of them here.
From the photos, you could see that Hubby had definitely enjoyed his Father’s Day. Although we didn’t get to visit many old places, the three of us have had a marvellous time!
Reading aloud is a great way to help improve Qianyi’s speech and language skill. But it’s difficult to get her to sit still for story time. She prefers to read a book on her own. She would look at the colorful pictures and talk a little. She won’t let me read her the words on each page. She would turn the pages pretty fast.
There’s a children’s library nearby. It takes around 20 mins to walk there.
It’s quite small. There’s not enough room for kids to run around. We brought Qianyi there once only because she felt bored there. We always failed to make her sit down to read a book in a library.
I go to the library every 3 weeks on my own to borrow some books for her. It’s usually very quiet especially in the morning. But it’s different on Weds because there’s story time for toddlers. They would sing together first before listening to a story. I could see the kids really enjoyed themselves there. I don’t think Qianyi would like it since she doesn’t like story time.
I managed to borrow some books with lots of pictures. These books are actually meant for younger kids. Now I would practice talking about the pictures instead of reading the words on the page.
When we went through the books together just now, I wanted to make it more fun. There’s a picture where a baby boy was sitting on the floor, holding a big ball in front of him and a small ball on his head. She liked the picture, so I made a small clay ball to put on her head and placed her big ball in front of her. She was sitting in front of the mirror and was very happy. She said “small ball” while pointing to the clay ball and “big ball” to the one in front of her.
I have to read, read, read and talk, talk, talk to help her. I’m trying my best to change myself to be a chatty mummy.
We bought our first classic musical DVD, “The Sound of Music” after we came to London. We love it very much, especially the little one. She can’t remember her friends’ names but she can say the 7 children’s names in the show correctly from the eldest to the youngest.
We bought another two DVDs later, “Mary Poppins” and “Annie”. She has learnt to say some sentences from these musicals. We enjoyed them so much that we decided to buy their CDs as well. When we go back to Singapore, we don’t need to listen to some kiddy songs in the car any more. We can listen to the lovely songs from those classic musicals that we all enjoy.
We introduced her to another two musicals recently, “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”. She likes the two beautiful kids in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” very much. She hasn’t finished watching “Willy Wonka” yet but I’m sure she’s going to love it too.
I enjoy watching the musicals with her again and again. We would talk about the scenes. We would sing the songs and do the dance together. We love to role play too. It’s a great way for her to learn to talk. In fact, my little darling has shown us more cheery and sunny smiles after “making friends” with all the interesting characters in the musicals.
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