Isabel at two weeks

Isabel on the move

What a week!

It is hard to express what it is like to have a new girl in your life(!), but let me do what I can with simple phrases and pictures:


Sleep, open eyes, sleep, drink milk, sleep, dirty nappy, sleep,...

Hannah suddenly seems years older.

How do you fold cloth diapers again?

Isabel's race: British or Chinese???

Have we taken as many pictures as we did with Hannah?

Beautiful soft skin.

Black hair.


Enough words - now take a look at Isabel's 1st week in photos here:

Isabel's First Week

Reflections on yesterday: Daddy's perspective

I say Daddy's perspective as I suspect Cindy will want to write something in the days to come, although I hope she has more positive reflections than 4 years ago: (http://cindychris.blogspot.com/2006/08/hannahs-birth-story_115571046881389819.html and http://cindychris.blogspot.com/2006/08/admission-it-has-begun-when-we-reached.html
and http://cindychris.blogspot.com/2006/08/too-late-for-regrets-at-2pm-male.html)

First of all I am struck by God's goodness yesterday. His provision, his protection, his gift of life.

Actually things really began 8pm on Tuesday 27th July. Cindy felt her contractions were getting worse. Hannah was already asleep so thankfully Cindy's parents could come over and stay with her while we went to hospital.

Cindy was admitted at Prince Court Medical Centre at about 10pm. Bupa medical insurance has proved to be a real blessing! And the midwife/staff nurse was a wonderfully gentle and professional lady that Cindy had met on a previous visit and had already hoped would attend to her.

We watched repeated news stories on the Astro BBC news channel in the labour room, until…

…things got serious at 1am on Wednesday 28th. By 2:06am it was all over. I got to be present at the birth unlike last time. It was amazing, and I'm so glad I could be there. Very emotional, especially seeing Cindy go through so much pain. But the minute the baby came out my heart couldn't help but leap for joy and give thanks to our Creator God.

Our first impression of Isabel was how much she looked like Hannah at birth. And yet how quiet she was! She slept much of the first night peacefully.

We stayed the rest of the night in what can only be described as a hotel room. With a 5 star view.

By the morning, everything was so good that Cindy requested to be discharged that evening. The paediatrician and obstetrician were both happy with mother and baby so they agreed.

In the afternoon Cindy's parents brought Hannah to see her baby sister. Finally, Hannah is a true jie-jie.



We were home by 8:30pm. Less than 24 hours after we left home! And Isabel (and parents) slept VERY well. And if that doesn't deserve thanking God for, I'm not sure what does :-)

Isabel Ju-Yi Wylie

Hannah's 4th Birthday

With 2 weeks left before Baby is due, we thought it wise to organise Hannah's 4th birthday a little early.

Here is Hannah, all ready for the guests to arrive and the party to start.

And a good chance for an overdue family portrait.

A day later, and this is the clear winner of 'My Favourite Birthday Present" (although she hasn't had most of her presents yet!) It is a Barbie art set. Pencils, crayons, pens, pastels and paints.

And it didn't take long before Hannah was begging to put them to good use.

Here is a collection of her artwork so far:

A rollercoaster.

A rocket.

A rainbow doughnut.

The Sun.

Nice work, Hannah. And happy birthday. You have grown up so fast!

Expect our next posting to be all about Hannah's baby sister.

One month...

...from Baby's due date.

What to do on a public holiday?

Friday 28th May. It's a public holiday. Hannah's off school. Daddy's off work. Mummy's on sick leave...

I know, let's go to the airport!

So we pack our bags, pack a picnic and head off down the highway.

We play I-spy, which Hannah seemed to get the hang of. She could guess 90% of the words we threw at her, but her questions were a bit too difficult. Took us a while to figure out that I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'l' was actually 'tree'.

We stop in a lay-by after a good 20 minutes of solid driving and tuck into Mummy's delicious chocolate rice crispy bars. Then we set off again.

We reach the airport around 11:30am. Having heard there was a viewing deck, we goin search of it. It's on the 5th floor (departures), past all the check-in counters, past the shops, past the escalators to customs and immigration, down a long corridor until you finally reach a large windowed hall, from which you can see the domestic and international gates, and the runways on either side. Cool!

After a while, we start to get hungry, so we venture back to the Departure Hall and stumble on KFC. Would Hannah eat nuggets and mashed potato (she's never been a fan of fast food before)? Yes!

And once that was done, Hannah got to play in the playground, which she had been eyeing all through lunch. How cool is a giant airplane playground? The only problem for Hannah was deciding whether she was going to be a pilot or an air stewardess.

After a goodly time playing here, we went around the shops and headed home.


But what REALLY inspired our trip to the airport?



A new bag! Hannah has been hankering for a pink trolley bag, and she finally got one a few days ago. She couldn't wait until December, but where better to test it out than at an airport?


Hannah went home a very content little girl!

Mother's Day

We celebrated my 4th Mother's Day a couple of weeks ago and I was pleasantly surprised to receive Hannah's little gifts.

I decided to start brainwashing Hannah at an early age, and had repeatedly reminded her that Mother's Day is a time to give Mummy presents. More accurately, a time to remind Daddy to buy Mummy a present until she gets old enough to cook me breakfast in bed.

Sure enough, Hannah burst into our room early Sunday morning to announce she had bought me a gift - Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera" music book. A pretty sophisticated gift for a 4-year-old eh?

Hannah's pink-and-white straw necklace and pink carnation flower still takes center stage on our dining table to this day.

My special Mother's Day prayer is for Hannah to continue to be the lively, cheerful, cheeky little monster-child with an insatiable appetite for love and life.

Holiday Photos

The latest photos of Grandma and Grandpa's holiday in Malaysia are here:





Watch out for impressive Thai Buddhist Temples in the Malay hearland of Malaysia, a GIANT bird cage, 360 birds singing simultaneously in a competition, Sleeping Beauty and Hannah catching the surf.

Bye bye Grandma & Grandpa

The end of a holiday with Grandma and Grandpa who came over from the UK for three weeks.


Hannah had a great time, including her first trip to the East Coast (picture below was taken in Kota Baru).


More pictures to follow soon…

Budding artist

Finally, some signs of artistic talent from Hannah!










This really is the first recognisible picture (of a person) we've seen Hannah draw.

But once she got started, she couldn't be stopped. Next up, a family portrait:










All three of us are in this picture…but we will leave you to identify who's who.

Well done, Hannah!

A New Year, a new life.

Ok, ok it's time for the Christmas tree to come down.

So 2010 is upon us. I still find it funny that a whole decade has passed and we failed to name it!

Anyway, I have a question for parents (or maybe aunts and uncles too):

We are expecting our second child in July. Some of you have had your 2nd…3rd…4th(?) already. So how is it different second time round compared to the first? What do we need to be careful of? What are the special highlights? Do share your experiences and help us prepare for the biggest event in our lives this year.

Christmas is coming

The Christmas season maybe be well and truly upon us but there are only a few signs of it in our home. The most obvious is our modest 4ft tree with decorations and gifts. Well, it does the trick.

Then there is Hannah's highly detailed 3D advent calendar from Grandma & Grandpa. Hannah has been attending to it with devout religiousity each evening!








We don't have any Christmas lights. Call it paranoia over a 3 1/2 year old tearing round the apartment if you will…

But even without lights, we intend to enjoy our celebration of the coming of the True Light into the world. We hope you will, too.

Merry Christmas!




Chris, Cindy & Hannah.

Hannah's first SMS

Ready for it?


,,--,::::~::


Yep, she typed it all by herself. I promise I didn't even help with the tilda.

Not impressed? Well, I suppose what was rather surprising was that she managed to send it from Mummy's phone to Daddy's phone.

Is this just a foretaste of runaway phone bills? Anyone actually experiencing that yet?

Things you can do…

…with an iPhone.

Astonishing.

Well, let me take this opportunity to post a pic on my phone of Hannah in our pool.






After an exciting trip to the beach in PD a couple of weeks ago, Hannah decided she really DID like swimming. Since then, she's been splashing, floating, ducking, kicking and drowning (her word) like nobody's business. Great!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

What is preaching?

I am preaching (on Joel) this coming Sunday. In my recent sermon preparation, I have intermittently stopped and asked myself "What exactly am I being asked to do when I stand up and preach in church?" Admittedly, I haven't come to a wholly satisfying answer just yet. But one preacher who consistently inspires me, John Piper, has these words to say about "What is preaching?" and I find them refreshing.

I would love others to watch what he has to say and add a comment on this issue. I still feel I have a lot of unanswered questions and maybe you do too.

In an English country garden...

Our holiday (well, it was a holiday for 2 of us, and study leave for 1 of us) in England seems quite a long time ago now (actually we've been back less than a month), but it will take much longer for Hannah to forget about the joys of having a garden.

The neighbour's spare paddling pool made an appearance on particularly hot days, while Dad's tent was a permanent fixture in the middle of the garden.

It wasn't all fun and games. Hannah insisted on doing some gardening - sweeping leaves and watering the flowers.

And then there was the scooter. It took Hannah practically the whole 4 week holiday to get the hang of this, but eventually she did. And it is still in Grandma & Grandpa's house waiting for our next visit.

At the zoo again!

What do you do when your school is closed because of H1N1? Go to the zoo!



On monday morning, the first day of my week off work at BC, I drove Hannah to school to be greeted by masked teachers giving out letters explaining that the school was shut for a week due to a child having H1N1. Time to rethink my week off.

Well, by Wednesday I managed to muster the energy to get Hannah and myself to Zoo Negara for a morning of animal magic. It didn't seem very long since our last trip here, but it was well over a year ago. That time, Hannah called everything "cows" and "ducks". This time her vocabulary was very much expanded. But she was still only really keen to see a select few animals: giraffes, lions, tigers and flamigos. Go figure...

When all is said and done, it was a fun morning out and Hannah was tired enough to take her nap without a fuss when we got home. Well worth the effort, I say.

A Smashing Weekend

"Let's keep it simple."

Or at least that was the plan. Afterall, how complicated can a 3-year-old's birthday celebrations be? To the uninitiated, NOTHING about a child can ever be simple.

So, Hannah's birthday celebrations started on Friday, when Mummy + doting grandparents made a special appearance during her scheduled break.

Not only did we meet the "naughty boys" Hannah kept talking about, we also gave a little extra attention to the poor new kid that Hannah reportedly bullied.

There was also a particular young man I wanted to meet - someone who apparently meets Hannah at the door each morning and carries her bag into class!

What was planned to be a short half-hour treat turned into an hour's nightmare. Multiply a 3-year-old's hyperactiveness by 13, with dripping ice-cream, messy creamy cake and spilling Ribena, we were profusely apologising to the teachers by the end of the session.

Po Po and I spent most of the time catching drips, washing little hands and wiping up cream from the floor. It was utter chaos. Hannah lost her spoon (can you blame her?) and ended up in a heated argument with her arch rival. Someone vomitted.

Somehow we survived, thanks to the skilled competence of the teachers who managed to smile and look cheerful through it all. The children probably enjoyed themselves, but we vowed never to do this again...


Fast forward to Saturday - Hannah's birthday party! ... the second one.

Hannah managed to catch an afternoon nap despite the excitement of having all the family over for her birthday party. She was up and about by 5pm, all dressed up and anticipating the arrival of her guests.

Unfortunately, a series of road blocks in town meant that ALL her guests were late, leaving us to answer repeated questions of "Where's Po Po? Where's Gong Gong?"

When they did arrive though, Hannah had a splendid time, staying up way past her normal bedtime. More pictures on our web album...

Possibly her favourite new toy, a shopping trolley!

Tesco seem to be the only hypermart around with little trolleys for children to push around, so it was a no-brainer to get Hannah the toy version of "Tesco toy shopping trolley and playfood".

Predictably, it is now her #1 toy.

By Sunday, energy levels were running low.

Somehow we managed a full morning in church and a quick dash to Midvalley for some errands before having a nice long nap at home. Hannah's birthday weekend was then wrapped up with a bit of quiet activity (although Hannah's never really quiet) and a quick dip in the pool.

Happy 3rd Birthday sweetie!