Christmas Tree

"Hold on everyone! I'll decide what goes on the tree."

It's Christmas! For the first time in K-bao's almost-six years, the family decided to put up a real, live Christmas tree in the house.

K-bao and fam took a trip out to Home Depot to pick out the tree ("At least 7 feet!" insisted K-Mum. "Go big or go home!"), and also stopped by a few retailers to find lights and ornaments. K-bao's good friend Aunt Leslie and Xiao Ah-yi (Aunt Christina) then came over to help decorate the tree and drink hot chocolate.

"Blue is definitely my second favorite color" 

Sister C-bao also joined in the festivities.

Lights! Camera!

Naughty or nice? You decide

Fresh pine! But also fresh ants. And lots of pine needles everywhere. The K-folks will have to decide whether all of this becomes a family tradition. But it was fun while it lasted!

No Foodie

Upon arriving in Singapore:

• K-folks: "Now that we're in Singapore, K-bao, there are all sorts of new foods to try. What would you like? Singapore is about 3/4 Chinese with significant minorities in Malay, Indian and Eurasians. They have great noodles, seafood, curries, and soups." 
• K-bao: "Pizza."  

K-bao is normally a dawdling eater, but put a pizza pie in front of her and she becomes focused and efficient. Three slices is a bad day. Indeed, generally K-Mum is lucky to finish half as many slices as K-bao.

Here she is anticipating her pepperoni pie.

The Ceremony

It's finally here!

Aunt Catherine and Uncle Zech's magnificent wedding ceremony in Singapore is documented beautifully in the above highlight clip.

The bride was stunning, the groom handsome, and of course the little ones did their best to play their part.

The girls make their entrance at 3:19 in the video. Sister C-bao led off the procession, striding resolutely down the aisle without bothering to dispense too many petals, as if late for an appointment. K-bao, on the other hand, took her time, solemnly and gracefully.

In between them was a young lad, a relation of WZ Shu-Shu's, whose gleeful, clearly intentional pitches of the ring pillow was more than made up for by sheer adorableness. And of course, stately Cousin Elizabeth made up the rear, ushering her young cousins ahead.

The bridesmaids then made their appearance, with Matron of Honor Da Goo-Goo (Aunt Esther) finally preceding the bride.

All three young ladies were beautiful in their flowing white gowns. In all, a fantastic experience for young K-bao and her sister.

Below is the original invitation from Xiao Goo-Goo from many months ago:

Munchkin

K-bao also got to see her second cousin, Little C - a.k.a. "The Munchkin" - in Singapore. She had not seen the Munchkin (who is daughter of K-Pop's cuz Auntie Julie) in quite some time, as she resides on the other side of the world, but the two had the opportunity to sit next to each other at the reception dinner. After a few shy minutes, the girls warmed to each other quickly and ended up running around heckling guests and creating havoc on the dance floor the rest of the evening. Naturally, K-bao led the mischief.

A representative clip, with K-bao leading wind sprints across the dance floor.

Family time

K-bao got to catch up with quite a few family members in Singapore. Here she shares a laugh with K-Grandmum and some other women in the family. 

The group took a quick day trip to the wonderful Gardens by the Bay, which was not only beautiful, but beautifully air-conditioned.

Here are the various granddaughters on the same trip, huddled around K-Grandmum and having a good time.



One of the best meals of the trip for our little epicurean was the brunch buffet with K-Grandpop & K-Grandmum at the St. Regis. As usual, K-bao's eyes were several times bigger than her stomach, as she wandered around excitedly from station to station, collecting plate after plate.

Below is the last evening with the always-popular Shu-Shu (a.k.a. Uncle James). This expression on his face is pretty typical of his interactions with the little ones (see, for example, here), as he is usually fending off some overexpressive advances by his little nieces.

And of course, the star of the show, Xiao Goo-Goo (Aunt Catherine). Here K-bao and C-bao, along with cousin Elizabeth, are being hosted by WZ Shu-Shu's family on the eve of the big day.

She also saw Da Goo-Goo (Aunt Esther) just about every day, but didn't get as many pics with her.

Rong-Rong

One of the favorite parts of this trip for K-bao, besides all the attention she received as she walked down the aisle in her pretty Flower Girl dress, was of course the opportunity to hang out with Cousin Elizabeth, a.k.a. Rong-Rong.

Here she sits down to a 1:1 meal to have deep conversations with her intellectual cousin. Notice the thoughtful expressions, witty banter and sophisticated thinking clearly going on.



Here the cousins get up to introduce themselves before showing off their expert dance moves.

At the end of the trip, K-bao was highly reluctant to part with her cousin. On one of the last nights, knowing Rong-Rong was leaving the following morning at 4:30 a.m. for the airport, she tried to extract a promise from K-Pop that he would wake her up exactly at 4:00 a.m. to knock on the hotel door and say her last goodbyes.

When this demand was wisely refused, given the reception night bedtime of 11:00 p.m., she woke herself up anyway in the wee hours, in the dark, and tapped on K-bao's sleepy head in another effort to see her cousin one last time. "What time is it, Daddy? Can we go say goodbye now?" she whispered urgently.  Unfortunately, she was an hour late...and was ushered unhappily back into bed. "We'll Skype her soon!" promised K-Pop in a failing effort to console the little one.

Singapore!

K-bao's just returned from a whirlwind trip to Singapore where she was a flower girl for Aunt Catherine & WZ Shu-Shu's wedding.

It was a fantastic experience for the little one and, like her Taiwan visit in the summer of 2013, worth a few posts. She got to see pretty much the whole fam on K-Pop's side - including her fave, Cousin Elizabeth - and met a number of new friends as well.

Here she is en route:

Clowning around with sister C-bao at a stopover in HK (see video below)

K-Mum packed a suitcase worth of books and coloring pencils for the flight

"Weak sauce! I'm never tired!"

"I can do it, really I can! Hang on a sec...just wait one moment..."