From Babycentre: If you could hold your baby’s hand this week, you’d notice the swirling lines that make up his unique fingerprints. You’d also see the veins and vital organs beneath his tissue-thin skin. He’s growing… Are your long-lost energy making a comeback? If so, you may soon find out why many women call this the honeymoon trimester. For other women, the discomforts last a while longer yet. Every pregnancy is individual  even women who have been pregnant before find that the second or third are different.

We had a baby scan this week and saw the baby! He was so cute and the scan was extremely clear. Sophie came with us and she got to see it too. She was really amazed and I think we were too. It’s been a long time, more than three years ago since we saw a baby scan! Seeing the baby just makes it more real.

From Left: James, Esther, Eli, Gin, Evan and Sophie. The table was full of food!

Last year, Chinese New Year just passed us by! This year I was DETERMINED with a capital "D" to do something about it! And when I’m determined, I’m determined! Hiak!

Two weeks before, I started planning the menu and hyping it up with friends (Asian friends that is. I tried telling a non-asian friend about it and he was like huh?. :)) I got down with Sophie and made her make some semblance of firecrackers, lanterns and Chinese fans with me… ok we tried. Then I went to the library and borrow a kids’ book on Chinese festivals and menus and I looked at it every night to drool… Finally, it wouldn’t have been complete if James didn’t make a trip to Auckland to buy all the foodstuff.

Left: We made these firecrackers with toilet rolls and crepe paper. Sophie made them on her own, very simple. I just showed her a couple samples.

Right: CNY is not CNY if the kitchen is not FILLED with food. Just looking at it made me so happy. Felt like home…

So on Chinese New Year eve, here was what we had:- steamboat dinner with chicken stock I made, hot pot mix, waxed duck, roast duck, stir-fry veg with chinese mushrooms, prawn mix chicken wings and dumplings! We even had durian after dinner! We ate till we had to roll out of our seats! It’s not a CNY meal if we didn’t eat till we dropped and have leftovers.

Hope everyone had a wonderful lunar New Year celebration with friends and family. We missed everyone back home and it’s really not the same without you guys.

From Babycenter:

Your fetus now looks like a baby, with tiny but fully formed fingers and toes. As his body grows and becomes more developed and functional, he’ll start twisting and turning like an acrobat, cushioned and protected by your amniotic fluid. You, on the other hand, are probably feeling less like a gymnast every day. Leg cramps, which can sometimes be a sign of calcium deficiency, and heartburn (caused by pregnancy hormones that relax the valve which separates the oesophagus from the stomach) may be annoying you during the day and keeping you up at night. Just remember, all this suffering is temporary and it’s all in a good cause you’re having a baby!

This week has been amazing! I feel like I’m in the 2nd trimester already. Energy level is up and I’m feeling pretty upbeat most of the time. Which is super cool because school is in full swing now and we have been really busy! I still need that little lie down in the afternoon but generally I’m good. I’m eating every 2 hrs and feel really greedy most of the time. The cravings are really bad this time. I’ve been thinking of eating that pink triangular steamed thingy with glutinous rice (what is that called!?!), duck porridge (Vic/Dan, the Maggi packs you sent are now coming to use! It’s my supper now.), fish noodles etc etc… HELP!

I’ve been reading this book by the Usborne called Flip-Flap Body Book to Sophie. It talks and shows how a baby grows in the mother’s womb, stage by stage. Pretty cool! A bit cheem for her but she enjoys looking at the pictures. Now she says baby is in the womb, not tummy.

YES! We’re expecting!!!!!!!! Woo hoo!!! Sophie and James are super excited. Sophie kisses my tummy every day. James started thinking about where the baby was going to sleep etc once we found out we were pregnant.

We really feel so blessed. It’s really God’s timing. We kinda told ourselves we’ll start trying end of last year and within a couple of months we were expecting. We found out on New Year’s Day. It was such a great start to a new year.

This pregnancy has been a bit more happening than when I had Sophie. I actually threw up for the first time! Like serious throw up. When I had Sophie, I hardly had any of the symptoms that people talk about - no morning sickness, no cravings (I was really hoping for some so I can make James do something ridiculous for me! HAHA!), no nothing.

But this time, WAH! it comes in full force.

I am hungry like ALL the time and when I look at food, esp dairy, I wanna throw up! Even writing about it makes me feel a bit queasy.

And I’ve been having cravings. Serious cravings. Like chilli crabs. HELP!

And I’m only in wk 9 and I can’t fit into my Miss Sixties jeans anymore. Ya ya the one pair I wear almost everyday. (Rem the Miss Sixties jeans that I kept trying on after giving birth to Sophie to make sure I could fit into it? It finally fit again when Sophie was 6 mths old. Sigh… have to wait long long this time.) Of course if I can’t fit into my Miss Sixties jeans there is no way I can fit into my skinnys. And that means, no clothes to wear! Have to ask my MIL to send the maternity clothes soon. So fast!

Complains aside………… WE ARE SUPER HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Baby’s due date is approximately 25th Aug 2010. We went to the local midwife on Sunday and had a chat with her. I think we’re quite comfortable giving birth here if we need to. We haven’t quite decided if we’re staying or going home, still praying. But whatever it is, we’re coming back to Singapore in Apr/May for a break and I’m seriously going to eat myself silly.

The Family Ministries School (FMS) begins tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to staffing it. 

We’ve got John Rush teaching on Worldviews on family (he did a great teaching of Biblical Worldviews during the last DTS), Ian Hooker back to teach on Parenting, Jono on Communication, Sheryll will be teaching on Learning Styles Multiple Intellegiences (understanding how we learn and how our kids learn, very interesting), Bruce Thompson on Family Counselling and much more.

This time all the school staff have also been invited to share on different topics so James and I will be teaching in a school for the first time. Guess what our topic is? Pre-marital counselling. Funny coz we’ve never done that in a formal way before BUT realised we’ve always done that with our young adult friends in some way or another. So pls pray that the Lord will show us what on His heart for this new generation of counselling couples who are preparing for marriage.

So what would you have wished someone told you about marriage before you got married? Or if you are single, what questions do you have about relationships or marriage?

Btw, if you have some thoughts about this topic, I’d love love to hear your thoughts. Doesn’t have to be a Christian viewpoint. 

I hope that being on staff this time will give me a bit more time to summarise some of the teaching and post them here. The last time the school was so intense mentally and emotionally. I mean there’s no way you can go through a school like that and not have to deal with inherent issues in your own marriage with God and your spouse. So James and I had lots to deal with. Plus all the level 2 homework, intense! So hopefully hopefully, will be able to condense the teaching because it’s been SO good.

Sophie was so thrilled to have her own name tag.

We just got back from the YWAM 50th year Jubilee celebrations in Tauranga. YWAM is 50 years old! It was amazing! More about that in the next post.

But back to my inspiration posts, I saw our school leader doing this. We were praying for the nations using this HUGE gigantic map laid out on the ground. The map was almost the size of 1/2 a football field. Almost a 1000 of us walked across from one side of the map of the world to the other side praying for the nations and everyone had finished walking and I saw him alone, still standing over India (btw, he has been a missionary in India for almost 20 years) and still praying. You can see his heart even as he stood there.

That man is a man of prayer. That’s passion. Btw, he even speaks English with an Indian accent!

The homeschooling books that I ordered from Sonlight arrived in the mail yesterday!!! Almost 30 kg full of books!

Ooo there was so much excitement in the house! Sophie was happily checking out the books and so was I. She could recognise some stories from the books. They were the books that we already had back in Singapore but didn’t bring with us.

Ok more about what I bought: -

I decided to buy the P3/4 curriculum from Sonlight. First of all, because it is such a costly affair, I had to think long and hard about which curriculum to go with.

Several reason why we decided to go with Sonlight:-

One, it’s a Christian company and that’s the foundation of the books and curriculum they choose and plan. Two, they are very big on reading. They believe that children learn best through reading good books, not just textbooks. Hurray for that! Three, they include most subjects e.g language arts, history, science and they recommend third party Math curriculum. Pretty comprehensive. James was quite insistent on us trying to use a complete curriculum so that I don’t have to spent so much time planning and figuring out what to do in our first year of homeschooling. So nice. Four, great support and internet community. Very impt since we’re away. I had a real good experience with their customer support. And lastly, they give a 25% discount to missionaries and hurray to YWAM because all I needed to do was mention YWAM and immediately I got a discount, without even needing to give any proof! So it cost us about S$400 including shipping from the US. I think that’s pretty good considering the amount we needed to pay if we sent Sophie to nursery. Plus they are such great books that we can use in the future.

Next, I deliberated a long and hard over whether to get the P3/4 or the P4/5. The former is for 3-4 year olds and the latter for 4-5 year olds. I "browsed" the books through Amazon and decided on P3/4 instead. I was really tempted to go for P4/5 because being the kiasu Singaporean, I wanted to move one standard above where Sophie was at so that she can grow into it. And P4/5 also come with ABC learning books, readers, some interesting science books and 4 IQ building books plus a year-long curriculum all planned out. Super tempting! However the Read-Aloud books were, I feel, far too difficult for Sophie to sit through. Quite a few of them were Chapter books. I think at 3, that’s a bit too much.

SOOOOOOO, I decided, we’ll do well with the P3/4 read alouds. I prefer that Sophie doesn’t get put off reading and that she enjoys the books. There is a social studies one (Richard Scarry’s What Do People Do All Day), science related books (Our Animal Friends At Maple Hill Farm and A Flip Flap book on Body from Usborne), a couple of sorting and puzzle toys. P3/4 doesn’t come with a year-long weekly curriculum, only a 3 trimester reading list with suggested activities, a little like Before Five In A Row. But it’s great coz with our schedules, I can be a bit more flexible.

For learning to read, Math and Chinese, we’ll just supplement with some workbooks. Btw, Popular back home is great for these pre-school workbooks. We’ve got one for Math and a Chinese. Btw, these Chinese workbooks should come with Pinyin for the instructions. Got me there man! I am also planning to buy Reading Made Easy, comes highly recommended.

We’re all set for the year! Sophie’s been asking to read the books ALL THE TIME!

Anyways I think that whether we homeschool or not, the reading list from Sonlight for each grade is still a great reference for books to borrow from the library/buy for our kids. Btw, P3/4 also came with a story book published by Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF) on a missionary’s experience! How cool is that!

So if you are looking for good books to buy, do take a look at the Sonlight list first. Another good book list is from the next step up from Before Five in A Row called Five in A Row.

Sophie inspired me today.

She snatched a toy from a friend today. She asked for it several times but her friend didn’t respond so she just snatched it. Her friend got really upset and she got really upset and her friend left. Anyways, we had a good talk with her about it and said she needed to apologize. Well, over dinner, we reminded her again and I offered to go with her to apologize but she got off her chair and said, "it’s ok, I can do it by myself" and went over and gave a beautiful apology and they hugged.

I watched her from afar and was really proud of her. If only I can apologize with such grace and humility.

It’s crazy to see our dining hall packed with people! They spill over into our classrooms too.

This week we’ve been hosting 120 young adults from the US who are on a trip around the world in 11mths, starting in NZ. 11 months in 11 countries to do missions! How cool is that?!?! It’s not a YWAM thing but since we’re between schools, we are open to host them. They’ve been sleeping in tents at our doorsteps.

All our staff on the base are on roster to cook to all their meals so it’s been pretty busy around the base. Fun!

2 things inspired me today.

1. Pris’ amazing collection of photos of her cooking over the past few years of being in Germany! Woah! Go Pris!

2. We saw a rabbit! A wild rabbit, just hoppin across the field from us. So cute.

I’m gonna start a daily series on anything that I see or experienced through the day that inspired me.

At the last leadership training I attended, we learnt about hope, having hope and Christianity is about sharing hope. A leader needs to communicate hope. The opposite of hope is being in despair and hopelessness. The world is full of stories of hopelessness and sometimes the more we share about our problems, the less hope we seem to have. One group leadership tip I learnt was, instead of going in a round to ask everyone how their week went where people tend to sympathise with each other and become more and more discouraged, we should instead let one person share at a time and immediately after that, lift their issues up in prayer and pray prayers of hope and expectation that our great God is here and in charge.

For me, sometimes opening my eyes to see things that inspire me gives me hope. I pray that the Lord will open my eyes to remind me of the hope that I have in Him.

Today I saw a girl on the base wearing a t-shirt that says "Women’s Soccer Championship". That inspired me and reminded me that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. Anything. All things. How cool is that. 

This is my season on focusing on the hope that I’ve been called to and I’m looking towards a season of new things and breakthroughs.

So if you feel inspired, join me in blogging about the little things that inspire you each day.