Details 2

There were light refreshment served in the church courtyard after the ceremony. Above featuring the seafood tartlets that Jake made. Again, our LG was great. They stayed in the kitchen and helped us with kitchen duties and replenishing food etc..making sure guests are well fed. God is very good indeed.


R designed her own wedding invite and the bulletin.

We used all the leftover poms poms, garlands for the buffet tables.

Jake's uncles and aunties who flown from Malaysia wasted no time helping with balloonwork, floristry and also they brought purple tulle with them which made all the difference on door frames.

We probably blew close to 400 balloons. We experimented the week before the wedding to see how many would burst. The 'weaklings' would all bursts on the same day. The survivors would stay on for days ! Only one balloon burst during the whole ceremony. It was during the sermon from P Ken. He went "When God made woman,..." POP goes the balloon . That certainly would make good memory for everyone who attended the wedding.

They also decorated the bridal car. I supplied them lots of clippings and prunings of my bushes and some from the reserve.

The courtyard from the bride and groom's view.

Details

I was very glad that R let me help out in the wedding. I was appointed to look after decor at the church. After scouring wedding craft websites/blogs/forums I was inspired to use several things/concepts for the decor. I was also very blessed a dear friend at church, G loaned me heaps of materials (swags, flounces, loads of white material, artificial flowers for the pew, candle stands , the list is almost endless) so all I needed to buy was loads of tissue papers and ribbons and minimal draping materials. Nat also spent time doing the swags for the pew.
I narrowed the theme down to purple, white and pink.



The aisle were flanked with tissue pompoms and they were surrounded by rose petals. And I spent a few nights doing the heart garlands. All was put to good use.

The cake was a rich chocolate mudcake made by a pastry chef.

We used the leftover rose petals on the cake table.

R's friends helped with ushering. I bought the L-O-V-E blocks during my trip to Wellington from Courtenay Pl. Jake brought the red guest book when he was in Beijing.

Two of the banner that we did using some templates I found in Martha Stewart's websites.

More pics of the wedding

Abel hanging around the foyer waiting for the arrival of the bride while Noel is in the 'waiting' room with P Ken, Bil and Joseph.

Abel and Jake both wear their tux on the day.

bridal car

here's one of my favourite shot of me and the boys during Bil's wedding.

5 more sleeps...

The kids are looking forward to Christmas so much so that Noel had already opened one of his present much to my annoyance!!!!!
Anyways here, we put up the tree a week or so ago with the boys help and I dressed them up in identical santa's little helper outfit.
Are you all looking forward to Christmas?

On ministry front, I am so busy with the cantata. I still have not memorised all the songs.. I doubt I can memorise everything.

Noel , the ring bearer

Here's a collage of photos of the wedding. From top left corner, Bestman Joseph, Ringbearer Noel, and Groom Joe. Then everyone waiting eagerly for the arrival of the bride on the stage. Noel taking his job seriously. When the bride and groom exchanged vows, Noel stood still on his position. No fidgeting, no pulling tongue :) After that, he exited with Lily the bridesmaid and Joseph. You did a great job, Noel.

p/s: He chose to wear a white tux.

The Wedding - Rehearsal

There was a wedding in the family in October. Bil was getting married. Noel was the ring bearer.

Below was the rehearsal at the church two nights before the actual event.

Playgroup -end of September

We were doing rainbow colours in the singing session. Noel here was singing and following the songs while Abel is just fascinated at how the ribbons move when he swing his arm.

Craft today was Hot and Cold. Noel had to make a 'wheel of fortune' thingie where he glued all the hot and cold things before he put the other wheel ontop.

Wacky Wednesday

One of Noel's kindy recently celebrated the kindy's tortoise's 6th birthday. Franklin is his name after a series of children book about a tortoise called Franklin. The theme is Dr Seuss' Wacky Wednesday. I didn't even know Dr Seuss had a book called Wacky Wednesday.

Some example how the kindy was all wacky that day. A plant was in the toilet bowl, trike on the swing, and kids dressed up in all sorts - back to front shirts, togs outside the tee-shirt, mismatched socks etc.

Wacky Noel in his sponge bob top and mismatched tops and slippers.

Abel the explorer

Carrot cake

This is my go-to carrot cake recipe. I usually bake it for the playgroup. It's pretty easy and doesn't use any butter.
here's the recipe:

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
21/2 cups grated carrot
Icing sugar or cream cheese icing

Sift flour, baking powder, abking soda and cinnamon into a bowl. Stir in sugar. Beat eggs and oil together. Add egg mixture and carrot to the dry ingredients, stirring until well combined. Pour mixture into a baking paper-lined 20cm ring tin. (I use a silicon mold) Leave to stand for 5 minutes. Bake at 180 degree celcius for 35 to 40minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Leave in a tin for 10 minutes before turning on to a cooling rack. When cold, dust with sifted icing sugar, or ice with cream cheese icing.

To market, to market he goes..

Caught Abel playing dress up alone. Still clad in his pjs, he took one of his hat and took my hat and walk around pretending he's going somewhere. Next he moved into the playroom to his car and started driving.

playground at Clyde bay wharf

Here's why I think this playground is very neat, it has its own climbing frame that links to slide and the pole, and a separate frame thingie for skateboarding(bottom corner right) and a sand and water play thingie (top left) amongst all the feature. The boys had so much fun there.

To the resuce...

After our gelato treat, we found this neat playground and here Noel reenact his fireman rescue scene many times. He kept going down the pole and even chat up another mum on the playground about his mission.

Day 3 Wellington Pt 2

The boys in the bus coming down from Mt Victoria towards the city. We got real hungry and managed to find a little art studio cafe to have our juice and big sandwich. After that, we walked towards the wharf.

New World supermarket and various other community bodies installed this street art thingie featuring the All blacks from way back in the 60s.

Noel found a ball and kept himself amused while I tried to read the caption on the street art.

Signs

Noel is into studying this sort of picture. He always make a point to stop and study them and tries to interpret them for me be it on the supermarket trolley, in the public washroom, playground, etc. Here, we were walking on the waterfront and he requested that I took a picture of this warning sign for him.