8 months

Dear Janice,

You're 8 months today. I used to look at an eight month old baby and thought how big, how responsive they are. I can't believe that my little beanie is now 8 months. This month you are really less of a baby, showing us your character, your adoration and your playfulness.
I brought you out today to meet daddy for lunch at Sunnybank, something rather rare for you on a regular week day. It brings me so much warmth to see you really excited to see daddy. You're going to be a daddy's girl because I can see how much your playfulness takes after daddy. I'm looking forward to you heading out with daddy for runs, soccer games and rolling on the grass.

You're generally very independent. You're able to sit and play all by yourself for sometimes up to an hour; sometimes you're contented by me just calling out your name from the kitchen. You're obvious in loving certain toys you have and many times I catch you fiddling with the little details of the toy. The funny thing is that you even press the button on your jungle zoo toy (A present that Gu gu and uncle Adam bought even before you were born) every now and then so that you can be entertained by the music while you play with other toys. You notice details well, like stitches on cushions and even imitated people who wriggles their fingers/waving hand gestures as they converse with mummy.

Sometimes you can be very sticky though. Especially in the evening. I can't leave you further than a metre away. You will cry out to me until I sit next to you as you play. This makes dinner preparation and evenings generally a stressful time for me because of the number of things that need to be done within that one hour, from preparing dinner for everybody, getting you fed, changed and wind down etc. I couldn't have gotten through without the help of daddy sometimes.

Funny things tickles you, like mom's coughing, daddy tossing your bowl, your friends crying. Its fun to make you chuckle because those chuckles are contagious and light up our lives. Our mobile phone memory is slowly depleting because we've been taking videos of your tickled moments so much this month. Many nights after you've fallen asleep, Daddy and I will be hiding in the blankets replaying the videos over and over, we'll never get tired of them.

You've been consistently sleeping through most nights and there were only a couple of occasions through the month that you woke up with a big lenghty hard to settle cry. Most times you've learnt to settle yourself by playing with your bed buddies Mindy, Monkey and Soph. There are times when we miss you so much that we want to grab you out of bed with us, but the consequences that could follow, we decided not to dabble :)

Thank you darling, you've brought so much to us. We look forward to waking up each day to your cheekiest grins (that always come with grinding of your teeth). Little munchkins, I love you more each day.

Love, Mummy

Unstoppable Christian Creed

I must first mention that this was quoted from Ps Shirley's Blog. After reading it again and again, I now believe that this should be every Christian's core values. Thus I am making it my cry as well! Take up your role as a responsible Christian and stop blaming others for your own deliberate faults and flaws!

My name is Kelvin

And I am unstoppable
I don’t flirt with or date the church

I’m not infatuated with the church

I have no illusion that the church is perfect

What I have is a commitment to love God’s church

Not just with words but with my hands and feet

I’ll neither point finger nor look further for the answer’s in the mirror

I believe God’s not dead; He’s building the church he died for

A living miracle of a bunch of imperfect people loving imperfect people

I believe God has called us to build this church without walls

My name is Kelvin

I am a living stone of God’s church

And together we are God's unstoppable Church!

Fear of men or fear of God?

Do I fear men more than I fear God? Have I done the things I am doing because it pleases men or because I know that it pleases God?

When I was prayed over today, the message that God spoke was about that fear that I have in my life, not being able to proceed on with God because of the fear that I have. I used to have such a 'we can do anything with Christ' attitude in the past as a student leader. But now as I have progressed into a different phase of life; married, working and being a Dad, I have that fear within me that the youths that I am ministering to might not be able to learn as much as they want to from me. And at times, that might have caused me to 'dilute' the message so that it might still be pleasing to the ears of people.
But in doing that, I am not helping them to grow spiritually; not helping them to set a higher standard in their Christian walk. I should have said things like 'Church conference will help you grow more if you would make that decision to come and allow God to speak to you' or 'You know this relationship is not something would be pleasing in the eyes of God right now, why do you still want to go ahead with it?' or 'Choose for yourselves this day who you want to serve; God or yourself.

I must remind myself that I hold the responsibility of raising a younger generation of Christ followers who would lead and rock this planet for Christ. And NO ONE is ever too young for God to touch and use!!!!! Please if you are reading this, remind me along the way if you feel that I have forgotten this fact.

There are plans and ideas of having life group nearer to IES, starting a youth service on Sunday and starting shepherding at 530am in the mornings. There is fear rising up within me as I even think about these ideas. Will it eventually happen? What will my leaders think, will my people follow me, will I give up half way? I am praying that these are ideas and inspired by God. And that I am responding because of my obedience towards God. May God give me the strength and perseverance to pray and seek His face until these all come to pass!

Multiplying Christ like people - Will God use me more in that area?

Yesterday was Day 1 of our Church conference 'EXPONENTIAL' Multiplying Christ like people. It was a good time where Ps Wilson was really reaffirming the hearts of the current mentors and also inspiring the future mentors to rise up as well.

It has been such a privilege to serve together with my core team, they have made serving God so much more fun and enjoyable. Today was the start of the guys coming together to develop both their spirit and physical man! It was so encouraging to see Jason, Wenyu, Josh and David meeting with myself to do a short run and 20 counts of star jumps at the Regatta Citycat Terminal. After waking ourselves up with the run, we went on to pray.

I really hope that this would last longer, just that some of the guys live a little further, thus it might be hard to do it on a daily basis, but at least on a weekly basis would be great as well!
In our prayer together, we prayed for:

• God to increase in us as we decrease.
• God to help us surrender our 'idols' in our lives
• God to help the guys in Judah 4 rise up even more to lead and serve the unit
• the upcoming IES July orientation that we'll see 2 groups of guys coming in. firstly guys that are not Christians but have hungry and ready heart to listen and accept the grace and forgiveness of God into their lives, secondly Christian guys whom God has built a strong foundations of convictions that will not weaver who are ready to serve God as His mouth piece together with us on IES.

And at the prayer, I also made a great discovery, that David is a really talented guitarist! He just started learning less than 1 year and he can already play songs like 'Hosanna'!! Praise God for raising up another guitarist!

After all that God has sparked off in the hearts of the males in the group, I really pray that the fire will continue to burn even stronger until the coming of Christ! Thanks guys!

Irresistable

Yes she is. But this is to remind me of God's irresistable presence. I'll blog about it soon. It's too hard to type on the mobile phone without having to end up with a cramped up thumb.

Toys taste good.

This is for you Aunty Estella! Thanks for the lovely dress.Pic taken on her dedication day.

Upgraded to a sippy cup

A week ago, I got called into the Childcare director's office. I thought I was bad when my parents were called to my principal's office when I was in Secondary school for bad results, what is this?Janice not even 1! Anyway, I was told that Janice takes way too long to finish her milk from the bottle. You see, she probably got my genes, I used to drive my mom nuts by taking forever for my meals (like 2-3 hrs for dinner). Janice used to be really good with bottles when she was a new born. But the washing, expressing and sterilizing of bottles was way too troublesome, especially when I was a 1st time mom, trying to juggle a new baby, housework and all the other jing jangs. So after stopping for a month, this little one decided that she wants the real stuff, and will not be compromised by drinking from rubber teats. So, when she had to go childcare, she had no other alternatives, but still with the refusal to suck, she would just chew and play with the teats and let the milk flow into her mouth bit by bit. This milk drinking process takes her more than an hour! So back at the director's office, she said I needed to do something about it. So what can I do? Try new alternatives and so I decided to pluck out all the non spill valves from sippy cups (sippy cups nowadays have built in non spill valves that are supposed to reduce mess, but they are so hard to drink from! Even I had problem sucking) and started giving Janice milk and water from them. I think it's working ok, she now takes 10mins, with some protest if she's taking milk. Milk to her is NOT supposed to cup out from cups/bottles etc. But prayerfully, she'll take in more and give the carers a better time. But first, sigh, supply needs to increase.

The King of Pop has Passed on....

Who would have taught that this day would come so suddenly and quickly. One would only imagine that someone that rich and famous would live till a much longer age due to their never ending wealth helping them to get all the medical assistance they can get to live to 250yrs old.

Michael Jackson was due for a come back concert tour in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The shows for his 50 London concerts were sold out within hours of sale! We can see that this man is still very much loved and worshipped by many people, well at least the British we can say. I won't be surprised if people from all over the world brought tickets just to see Michael once more on stage.

Many would quickly say that Michael had lived a colourful life, but some would also say that Michael in his success in his career led to his 'downfall' in life. So who is right and who is wrong? Only the man himself standing before the JUDGE would be able to account for an exciting and entertaining life.

Which leads me to think about my own life, is my life exciting? fruitful? desirable? meaningful?

Well, it will get more exciting along the way, I'd say! More of God, Less of me.....that I say is exciting, fruitful, desirable and meaningful!

Qld made History last night 24/06/09

Well, looks like the better team has claimed the title for the 1st time in the history of NRL 4 State of Origin titles in a row!
I must say that last night's game did stir up some emotions within the players. It was after those heated punches that the game started to take form. NSW's performance wasn't that bad. Just that the errors that they made were all within the 10 meters of the try line and the good old experienced team just capitalised on those opportunities.
So how will NSW treat the next and last match would somewhat determine how they are going to perform next year. Will it be a 5th title in a row or will the next NSW's team take it back?
But for now, let QLD celebrate!!!!!

Do we look alike?

Mother and daughter pic. Does janice look more like mummy or daddy?

Queensland's 4th State of Origin series?

Tonight will depict and re-write the history of NRL in Australia, because if Qld wins tonight's game, they'll be the first to be crowned with the 4th Origin title IN A ROW!!!

My wife keeps telling, if NSW wins tonight then it will be nicer to watch the 3rd game. But then if a team is better than the other, it is for the stronger, fitter, smarter, tighter and most cohesive team to take the title. And even if the Maroons takes the win tonight, that does not mean that the Blues should take the last match less serious; if they do, then there is a very lack in professionalism and sportsmanship! So I say go Maroons!!!! make us proud and win the title on foreign soil!

I just received news that the QLD team might be down with stomach virus, so God please let them be healed!

And just a note, sports could easily be rated as a religion here in Australia. Markets are closing early with the simple reason that State of Origin is kicking off at 8pm tonight. And I believe rush hour traffic in Brisbane would start at 330pm today instead of the usual 5pm jam. Saying all that, I love that support and love for the games.

Plans to get Janice to be playing soccer by 2yrs old

Just watched a 2yr old toddler dribble and shoot with a soccer ball! How cool is that! My little dream within me that is hoping that my kids will love the game as well.

I figured that the secret of getting your kids doing the things you want them to is to allow them to watch repeated actions of it. For example, if you want them playing an instrument, let them watch DVDs of people playing the instrument. If its soccer, let them watch close up people playing soccer. I believe that by watching, them are registering the actions and when they are finally up to it, they'll be on their way to play that instrument or sport like a star!

I would be setting aside a Help Janice play soccer and guitar fund, which I would use to buy instructional DVDs! If anyone is interested, please let me know and I'll engrave your names on the DVDs that I'll buy for her, so that when she is famous and getting her awards, she'll remember to thank you all.

Being down to earth, I'll still love her even if she chooses Barbie dolls or cooking utensils in the kitchen. There is a place for everyone to shine where ever they are, just praying that her spirit of excellence would reflect God's honour and grace!

Our Little Merlion - Janice

This morning at about 625am, Janice displayed her Singaporean self and did a 6 times merlion projectile. For those who don't know what the merlion is, go 'Google' it and you'll see exactly what I mean. So early in the morning, we had to remove all the bed sheets and change Janice and mother. Wasn't exactly the morning I had in mind to wake up to.

But somehow Yen and myself can never get too frustrated with Janice, firstly cause she can't help what she is doing and secondly, after all that she had done, she just gives you a smile. You suddenly remember that parenthood is all worth it once again.

So just to mention how applicable Ps Wenan's message was on how our children can help mould and grow their parents' character is so true. Patience and selfless love is something that Janice has taught over that last 7 and a half months. Precious little gem she is!

My Plans vs God's Plans

Isn't it always a struggle when it comes down to that point in life where you are left asking yourself "Is this God's plans for me or am I trying to force my own life's tracks out?" Having blown out candles on a birthday cake at least 28 times, (considering the fact that when I was 1 year old, my parents would have blown the candles for me.) I had to ask myself and God this question.

The times when I wanted to come overseas to Australia to study, was that part of God's plans for me? When I wanted to stay on in Australia to further my studies, was that part of God's plans for me? When I wanted to get attached, get engaged, get married, planned to have Janice, get a job and rise up in leadership. Were all these part of God's divine plans for me?

After making all those decisions, it seems obvious that God does have a wonderful plan for me; for that matter, for each and everyone of us. But in His loving nature, God did not force His plans upon my life, but gently speaks and encourages me to walk in His ways.

No doubt, there have been wrong choices I have made in life, many in fact. But still in God's grace, He has provided some sparing allowances for those human errors and carnal desires. Little bit at a time, God is using both the right and wrong choices to lead me towards His ultimate plan for my life. I can't wait to find out what that plan is, but I know for sure that God has set alight a flame and desire within me to burn for Him as much as I can. He has also laid a strong burden within to reach the youths to mould and train them into the leaders of the next generation. Whether they are the youths of this Aussie nation or even the youths back in Homeland Singapore, I am not sure. But where I am now, I must make full use of the opportunities that God has given.

As God speaks more along the way, may God grant me the courage, confidence and perseverance to follow His plans no matter where I am. May God's plans be my plans as well, may my heartbeat, beat God's heartbeat.

Happy Birthday Darling!

How could I even forget to mention this? My dear husband turned a year older than me a few days ago! We celebrated that day by looking after Janice after her allergic reaction saga, and on the actual day, he ran the whole Life group himself by chairing, worship leading, playing the guitar and teaching. So it was a rush in rush out. And all I could manage was a quick hug and kiss for him. That's one of the things why he is one of my greatest inspirer and encourager. He pushes on no matter what and have never placed himself above us, above his people and ministry too. God has done so much in His life over the years and through Him I have learnt to much too. I am glad I can call this man my husband, lover, and best buddy ever. Happy Birthday.

By the way, I wasn't that bad, thank goodness I managed a little surprise for him before all the saga, 2 days before his birthday. I baked (after so many months!) chocolate soeffle and it was yum! I forgot the pics tho. :)

THE time that doesn't wait

I have say this too, Vic ... Time flies. It really does! So much have zoomed by, right before my eyes. And then, I am sinking deeper below waters. Janice is growing up so fast and I have lost tracks of her many "first times". She is so fast that I am having trouble pulling out my camera to even snap a shot. A mother once advised to get a good camera phone, because that's the only thing you can pull out fast enough, such wisdom. I want to blog about many things, but have not even done it, and now i pull open the blog page during lunch, and I can't seem to pen anything down.

Where should I start from? God has been amazingly good. He spoke through the UL getaway we had last weekend. And then there was the Yoghurt Allergy scare from Janice. Then as mentioned by my dear husband, there was the baby dedication yesterday.

Ok, finished my lunch, looks like I have to procrastinate posting again. lol

Janice's Baby Dedication 2009

Yesterday marked a very important day for Janice, as we; her parents decided to make that commitment to dedicate Janice to our Lord Jesus Christ. In doing that we have committed ourselves to raise her up in accordance to the Word of God with our best abilities and with the empowerment of God.

After the dedication, it caused me to think a little deeper as to how we as parents can help the development and naturing of our child in a Christ like manner. We are trying to serve God to our best abilities and still trying to make sure that we have time for Janice to teach her, nurture her, feed her, clothe her and mould her into who God has destined for her to be.

The big question for me is "WHERE IS THE BALANCE?" Frankly, i believe that the main question of my life. How to balance ministry, family and work. To me, work is of the least importance, but sadly it seems that it takes up most of my time within the week. It's then family and ministry. So it seems obvious that my life is totally out of balance.

The balancing act of life would be the most important lesson any parent can teach a child. But like we all know, our sheep, disciples or child would learn first from our life examples rather than what we sit them down to teach. So when my child sees me leaving the house every morning to fulfill the business of the world, she would surely grow up to think that working would naturally take up most of our time and be the highest priority in any one's life. But if she see me going about my Heavenly father's business, she would then realise that our priority in life would be to do the will of our God.

My prayer would be that God would shower upon us parents loads and loads of wisdom to be able to raise Janice that way He wants us to. And to love and care for her and still direct her to build her security upon Christ Himself.

Janice we love you.

Kelvin coming out of the closet to blog

Been wanting to do this for a really long time, but just never really got down to doing it. I thought that since my wife was updating our lives, I'll just leave her to that cause she has done such a great job.
But it will not be the same if I did some bits of the blogging myself too. Like tell my wife how much I love and cherish her, and also to personally record down on cyberspace for Janice to remember that her dad loves and is crazy over her too. At the same time, family and friends back home of everywhere else in the world can catch up too. And being on facebook really helps too.
Putting things down here can really help me to remember the great and wonderful things God has blessed our family with as well. So may the blogging begin........

Astro Girl

Besides getting a real good head massage from Daddy, Janice often gets a new hair style too.

Accounting 101

Here's Janice attending her ever 1st Accounting Tutorial with Aunty Gillian and Angelene at the office. Pretty good, she had a 5 minutes attention span before she found MYOB just a little bit over her head at the moment. As a "2nd Class" student, she could only sit at the back and observe from afar. I think she would rather prefer a more hands on approach, her fingers were surely itching to tackle the keyboard.

Yummylicious

Recently I introduced myself Janice to some great tasting food. Vegetables that I have never really tried cooking; combination that I really never thought of attempting. Just the look of the colors was invigorating. The thought of feeding my little baby with loads of good stuffs motivated me through the tons of washing (Blender, peeler, baby cubes, containers and many more). No one has told me how tasty squash could be. Mmmm the combination of self minced chicken breast, zucchini, squash and baby spinach soup blended with boiled pasta was so good. I am enjoying tasting each vegetable on its own, pumpkin, carrots, you name it; discovering its individual burst of flavor without oil or the mixing up of flavors in stir frys. Kelvin has been catching me sneaking in big mouthfuls of Janice's food while I prepare them, and many a times, I would gladly finish Janice's food whenever she can't finish, in the name of wastage minimizing, but secretly enjoying.

I like!

Turned Seven Months

My little Darling,

You've turned seven months 2 days ago, and this time, we spent it in Sydney. We had great food and cupcakes on your behalf, and promised you that you'll be enjoying great food with mummy and daddy soon. We believe that you could have somehow inherited some food loving genes from us, but whatever it is, I am sure you'll be influenced in time to come :)

At seven months, I've noticed how focused you are when you play. You're intense and will try to figure out how to move items around your way. You love kicking and moving small objects around. You still love the outdoors tremendously and each time you're out and about on your pram, you'll be intensely looking around, somewhat trying to breathe and take in every single detail of your surrounding. Yet each time out eyes meet, you will break into your grins, which totally melt our hearts.

You eat well generally, and has the best appetite for dinner. I tried to break the habit of eating more for dinner and tried to feed you more for lunch and breakfast, but still, you seem most happy at dinner time. I figured that you're a true blue chinese, you just want your rice (now it comes in porridge or rice cereal form) for dinner. Without it, you day's not complete. Your 3rd tooth emerged this month, so you were a litttle fussy just before that, a trend I realise you'd go through each time a new tooth pops.

We've also started seriously training you to sleep through the night because the Ped said you're gaining weight and growing really well and should not be needing anymore night feeds. So this means, no feeding you after the last feed at about 8 and only next feed you after 6am in the morning. We had to migrate you to your room because each time you cry and I don't feed you, I felt like I was having a cold turkey. So daddy has been doing the hard work, going to your room to soothe you if you don't stop crying. It's been tough, tougher on some nights and we pray that you will learn to sleep through the night soon. You can do it, because you've already done it several times. Such days are like little milestones for us, encouraging us to press on, so that you (and us) rest better at night.

I used to feel guilty leaving you at Childcare, but just seeing how you've grown really warms my heart. I love to see you taking the initiative to reach out to other kids and start talking in your own lingo. Besides doing that, you also snatch their toys away, which we will soon need to teach you more on sharing and playing.

You laugh and love your days when both mummy and daddy are together with you. Sometimes you have a sort of separation anxiety with me and I cannot walk away and have my back to you. You've learnt how to whine and fuss when I walk away, which sometimes made it difficult. On one hand, I feel so super fortunate to be loved by you, but on the other hand drives me a little crazy especially when I have things to do.

I (we) love your company. The Sydney trip was a celebration for Mummy and daddy's 2 years' anniversary. Our lives and marriage is richer because we have you. I love you little buddy, so much that I don't really know how to express in words any more. Yet in practical, God is still teaching me how to do it better. Each month's entry to mark your growth sometimes is more like a milestone for me.

Keep growing, you're doing great.

Love,

Mummy