Essential Eames at the ArtScience Museum

Charles and Ray Eames. Their names might not be familiar to those who are not in the creative line. But you'll probably still recognise these:

Hello sexy chairs!

The fact that these chairs have been widely copied reflects the pure genius of Charles and Ray Eames, who came up with the original version in 1950, then the world's first industrially produced plastic chair.

You can see these and more at the ArtScience Museum, which is currently playing host to the Essential Eames: A Herman Miller Exhibition, an exhibition that captures the spirit and philosophy behind this famous couple in design. While most known for their timeless furniture creations, the Eames' influence and innovation also extended to architecture, exhibition design, toy making and film. All these are celebrated in this special exhibition with over 100 artefacts, a number of which are rare and never-before-seen works and images. The highlights of the exhibition for me were a chair that was specially designed and used by Pope John Paul II, some personal letters exchanged between Charles and Ray -- including one in which he proposed! -- and a fascinating little film called Powers of Ten which captures a sense of scale by increasing a measurement by a factor of 10 each time. 

Before we entered the exhibition hall, I thought that the kids would be bored at the exhibition, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. There exhibition was actually quite interactive, with films to watch, toys to play with, and buttons to press, all of which kept the kids rather busy! In fact, between this exhibition and Mummy: Secrets of the Tomb, it was Essential Eames that Noey asked to return to, because "there are so many things to play with!".

Anya with the Brick from the Materials Trail. There were a number of these materials that could be found at the entrance to the different exhibition areas, which the kids could make rubbings of in a provided booklet.

Having fun with the Eames alphabet blocks, which you can also use to build a model of the landmark Eames house and studio.

Listening to one of the short films.

Watching the balls spin round, depicting the orbit of the different planets around the sun. This one was a favourite.

Wandering through the really cool structure, entirely made from cards! (Yes, I was rather afraid he would knock it down.)

Attempting to build their own structure with the Eames House of Cards.

Even the adults really got into it! The two guys sharing the table with the kids looked like they were building a replica of Marina Bay Sands, though I never did ask them if that was the case.

Checking out pictures in a  viewfinder.

Looking at the 100 selected prints by Charles Eames.

Testing out the legendary Eames Lounge Chair. Note the glazed out look? This was easily one of the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat on. I didn't want to get up!

Noey rounded off the day making a huge giraffe mask that the activity corner. We had arrived a little too late to take part in the Playing with Masks activity, but the facilitators kindly allowed him to make one, and helped him a lot too! In fact, I was able to leave him to work on his project while I checked out the showcase by SIM-RMIT on Communication in Design that was on that weekend.

Noey started out tracing the shape of the mask from the sample. He really enjoyed putting this mask together!

I have just realised that for this weekend, in celebration of Singapore's 48th Birthday, Marina Bay Sands is offering free admission to this exhibition from 9 to 11 August 2013. So if you're interested, this is a good time to pop down.

*Essential Eames: A Herman Miller Exhibition is on at the ArtScience Museum till 5 January 2014. Do visit their website for ticketing details. You should also visit the activities page on their website to find out more about guided tours and workshops that are available at no additional charge to ticket-holders. Good if you want maximise your visit!

*This review is written based our experience during an invited media session.

Noah's 4th: Noahsaurus Rex Turns 4!

We had Noey's final big bash on Saturday in the weekend following his birthday. This was the highlight of his birthday celebrations, for him and for me!

After the big party that was his 1st birthday, we had kept Noey's 2nd and 3rd birthdays progressively smaller. Partly from lack of energy on my part (you know, from being pregnant and having a newborn respectively), but also because I figured he wouldn't appreciate it. This year was different. He's older, more able to participate in games, and was really looking forward to turning 4. And yes, I was itching to throw a party too. 

I started the party planning process consulting with Noey about the theme for his party.

"For your party, would you like Dinosaurs, Cars, or Space?" I asked.

"How about Dinosaurs driving Cars in Space?" he countered. 

Nice try, boy.

Much as I wanted him to have what he wanted, Dinosaurs driving Cars in Space was a tall order! I did some research and decided that Dinosaurs was the theme with the most options, so Dinosaurs it was.

I got down to work.

First, our outfits. I was surfing through Etsy and was delighted to come across some customisable t-shirts with dinosaur silhouettes on them. And they had adult sizes! I congratulated myself on starting work on this party early enough for me to order stuff online from overseas, and placed an order for Papagosaurus, Mamadactyl, Noahsaurus Rex and Naomiceratops. The tees were super cute and I was very pleased with them! 

Of course, when I hit on the idea of painting my own shirts, I was less thrilled about how quickly I'd moved to order these shirts. But hey, at least the shirts were nice! We got loads of compliments on them and I felt they were a nice way to dress to theme without looking ridiculous.

Next up were the games. This met a slight hiccup when someone else beat me to the lunch slot at my chosen venue, which was the function room at my parents' condo. Argh! I was left with the evening slot and decided to go ahead and turn the party into a dinner one instead. The problem was that there would be less time since the party couldn't go on till too late, and I would only have about 2 hours before it got dark outside. I was a little disappointed, but decided to see how much I could squeeze in.

I had a whole bunch of ideas and at one point produced a list of seven activities -- four static stations and three games. My husband persuaded me to cut it down to five activities, gently pointing out that there was not going to be enough time to do everything. In the end, I had to drop one more game because of time constraints, so he was right!

These are what we managed to do:

Dinosaur Dig

This was an "excavation site" with something all kids love -- sand! I filled a big box with playsand, provided some shovels and rakes and got them to dig away! Of course, to give them something to find, I made these babies:

Crayons in dinosaur shapes! Made simply by breaking up regular crayons into silicon moulds and melting them in the oven. I made them two-toned cos I thought they were more interesting that way (and to increase the chances that kids would take the less popular colours). Aren't they use the cutest! I threw a whole lot of these into the sand with instructions that each child was to excavate four dinosaurs and left them to it.

It was a huge hit! The little ones were happy just digging and digging for no reason in particular, while the older ones concentrated on trying to find the colours and designs of the dinosaurs that they liked. There was always a child or two (or four) standing around and having a go.

Design Your Own Paleontologist Bag

This was a paper bag decorating station. The children helped themselves to a brown kraft paper bag, and I left a whole bunch of art materials out, including a set of dinosaur stencils, alphabet stencils, stickers, markers and more markers, and glitter glue. The 5 and 6 year-olds loved this one. Some of the little girls sat and coloured for quite a while, gleefully using up the glitter glue. Easily the easiest activity to put together and the bags came in useful in a later activity, plus doubled up as favour bags too.

Research Library

This was really just a play corner for kids. I filled a big box with toys -- plastic dinosaurs and lego ones (of course), a stack of dinosaur books, many of which I borrowed from the library, duplo blocks, some simple puzzles, a ball or two, and some plastic pith hats with dino prints on them. Just to digress a bit on the hats: I had intended to hand the hats out to the kids when they came to the party, but out of my order of 16 hats, only 12 were delivered. Sigh. So in the end, I left the kids to pick one up if they were interested.

This toy box -- which was an idea I first used for Naomi's 1st birthday -- proved to be very useful for keeping kids occupied during the in-between times when there was nothing to do. The only problem was lugging the box of stuff down, as my husband would attest to!

Dinosaur Egg/Poop Hunt

I decided not to have a piñata for this party, and when I came across this idea of making dinosaur eggs which "hatched" out little dinosaurs, I figured a mass egg hunt would be a good way to round things off and to distribute the treats to the kids! The husband stared at me doubtfully when I started mushing the dough around, but he agreed with me that cracking the eggs open and finding the little dinosaurs would be fun.

The only problem was that everyone who saw the eggs I made thought they looked like poop! Grrr. After the umpteenth comment on my poop-like eggs, we decided that we'd just call them poop!

So poop with hidden dinosaurs it was. The kids didn't care! We rounded everyone up and herded them outside before it got too late. DD explained the instructions -- "pick up 3 pieces of this dinosaur poop, not any real poop you see lying around!" -- and flagged them off! Together with my dinosaur poop were plenty of little packets of gummy sweets which the kids were more than happy to collect too.

And remember those bags they decorated earlier? This is where they came in handy.

There was a separate corner with plastic eggs, filled with more toddler-friendly treats like raisins, fruit treats and little goldfish biscuits for the little ones.

Other activities which I wanted to have but didn't manage to execute:

Decorate a Dinosaur Cookie -- I have some dinosaur cookie cutters which I was going to put to good use. Make some icing and set up toppers like hundreds and thousands and you're good to go! DD vetoed this, and when I came down with a fever for two nights right before the party, I was kind of glad he did.

Pin the Horn on the Triceratops -- The dino version of pin the tail on the donkey. I had the full intention of playing this game, but we realised the night before that there wasn't going to be enough time and had to scrap the idea.

Dinosaur Egg Race -- This was supposed to be an egg race with teams of kids competing to transport an egg on a spoon from a start point to an end point. The small catch to it was that they had to wear a dinosaur tail while doing it! I got a couple of dino tails sewn up by my talented friend Debra, and had borrowed a couple of hers too for the game. But by the time we were done with dinner and ready for this, it started getting dark. So we plumped for the Egg/Poop hunt and shelved this instead. It's a pity cos I think it would have been fun!

After the games, it was time for the cake. My original plan was to make the dinosaur cake again for this party (but in a different colour). But after slaving away at the cake the first time round, I chickened out of making it again and decided to order a cake from Awfully Chocolate for this party instead. I think I gave them some grief over the design. I was hopeful that they could produce a dinosaur driving a car in space, but sadly, my request was rejected. Instead we agreed upon a dinosaur with a rainbow and some stars thrown in. Yes, I do realise that you're not going to get a rainbow and stars in the sky at the same time in real life, but I thought it'd jazz the cake up a bit!

The best part about cakes by Awfully Chocolate is that you don't have to worry about them tasting good. Yum!

Just a quick note on the party favours before I end off. Since the kids were already picking up the plastic dinosaurs in the egg/poop, together with all the sweets, I kept the bag small, with one set of the same dinosaur erasers + stickers + hatching eggs which I also gave to Noey's classmates, a little book from the "How Do Dinosaurs" series (there were 4 titles to choose from), and a little magnifying glass whistle. The whistle seemed like a good idea right up to the point when the kids pulled them out of the bags and started blowing!

And with that, I'm all dinosaur-ed out!

I had heaps of fun with this party, and my only regrets are that I didn't manage to hold this party in the morning, when I would have had more time to carry out everything I wanted to do, and the fact that there wasn't enough food! The latter was a boo-boo on our part, which another story altogether. Thankfully everyone was very nice about it as we fervently made a note not to repeat such an error ever again. I also regret not having a photographer for the day as DD was really too busy to take any pictures, so I have very few nice pics to show for the whole day.

Then again, I don't think a professional photographer would have been able to take a much better photograph of all the kids together than the one we got! It was an exercise in futility trying to get all the kids seated and looking at the camera, but hey, at least we tried!

It was a lot of work but my reward came from knowing that Noey enjoyed himself tremendously. He's now already talking about his 5th birthday party! Oh dear!

***********

I got some questions asking where I got some of my stuff so I decided to update this post with some tips and sources.

• Dinosaur Tees: From Etsy store Priceless Kids
• Playsand: From Far East Flora. It's not expensive, but comes in a 25kg bag. Definitely bring a car to pick it up!
• Crayons: Use Crayola for the best results. Cheap crayons don't seem to melt properly, unfortunately. There are lots of tutorials on the web teaching you how to do this. Just google "How to Make Crayons"!
• Silicon Moulds: From China suppliers on Ebay. I also got a much more expensive made-in-Italy one from Phoon Huat which I decided to use only for food.
• Dinosaur Stencils: From Fun with Dinosaur Stencils. Came across this at a toy store at Tanglin Mall.
• Brown Kraft Paper Bags: From Art Friend. If anyone knows somewhere that I can get them for cheaper (these were $1.50 each), please let me know!

 

On a (Play)Date

As friends, you always hope that your kids learn to play together. I think now, at 3 and with some practice in school, Noey is finally at the stage where he has fun with other children.

It took them 3 hours to warm up to each other, but with a dash of extra time and some giddiness from missing their naps, Kristy and Noey became instant best buds for the day. So friendly were they, this playdate evolved into a playDATE, with kisses being exchanged! Oh my. The parents were highly amused.

Not to be outdone, the little ones also had their little circle where they sat together and played with blocks. Or rather, Thaddeus and Natalie played with blocks while Naomi, she just nomm-ed them.

She was quite fixated on that orange piece!

With kids all round -- 7 of them! -- and daddies in attendance, it was surprisingly not chaotic. Instead, the adults got to chat, the kids got to play, there was plenty of food and we rounded off with cake. It was so good, we stayed put for 5 hours!

Ah, all Saturdays should be this good.

Baby Bonanza!

Baby season is upon us!

I know the talk in the papers recently has been about the declining birth rate but from my perspective, it has been babies galore! Only this week, I received news on Tues that WH's little Emily had arrived. (She's always giving birth just ahead of me!)

Then on Thurs, 2 friends welcomed little babies into this world. We were all waiting in eager anticipation of the arrival of Candice's little Thaddeus, but unexpectedly, Yvonne's little Natalie decided to make her big entrance as well! I was super excited the whole morning waiting for the news. Both babies in fact arrived just over an hour apart, at the same hospital. It's really cool since both Mums have (together with PF) been sharing this pregnancy journey with me. It is with great joy that I welcome their babies even as I look forward to seeing my own.

Baby-bumps-are-us! The group of us back in Nov 2010.

Sweet little Natalie in the arms of her Papa. She is a curious little one!

2 more babies to look forward to in Feb before my own, including little Baby Beth! Can't wait!

Swing, Little Monkey, Swing!

It's been a while since I've brought Noey to a play gym. They are fun, but since Noey is perfectly happy with free activities (like the park and playground), I saw no reason to spend money bringing him to one. Besides, following him through the tunnels and down the slides is tiring!

So Noey totally enjoyed himself when we got to visit Little O'Zone when we went to attend little Elijah's birthday party. He charged into the play area and never looked back.

Delighted with the balls which you get to shoot out of air guns, strategicaly placed within the structure.

Way up high!

Watching him climbing up and around easily and effortlessly, I realised that he is finally at the age where he can enjoy these play gyms. He definitely needed less supervision. DD did climb up a couple of times to show him how to use the air guns, but otherwise, he left Noey to find his way around while keeping an eye on him.

Ooo, a long ramp to roll roll roll balls down!

Needing a little help from Mummy in order to attempt the flying-fox-like structure. This was spring loaded and Noey was obviously not heavy enough to get this going. (The sign indicated that it was intended for 4-12 year olds!)

A push and off he goes! Wheee!

It was a good thing we had no intention of leaving Noey to his own devices anyway. While Noey can navigate the physical obstacles on his own without help, he still needs some guidance in his interactions with other kids. Noey was playing in a toy house and he closed the door and window and another boy wanted to open them. Noey let him, then promptly closed the door and window again. And when the other boy tried again to open the door, Noey (accordingly to DD) asked the boy in his loud accusatory voice "Why you open and close the door???". Whereupon the other boy burst into tears. Oh dear. Me thinks my son need to learn some social graces.

We didn't manage to take any pics with the birthday boy, what with me being relatively immobile and DD having his hands full keeping Noey out of trouble. But we certainly had a great time. Thanks for the invite, Elijah!

"Pokey Ball!" says Noey. He found this terribly funny. You know, toddler humour! Can't say I understand it most times!

Christmas Round-Up

How was Christmas for you this year?

We had a quiet one, and I can't say that it was most ideal. I do so love parties and gatherings, but seeing as some of my nearest and dearest friends are not around this year, and our church doesn't do Christmas, plus the fact that I am somewhat unwieldy myself in my current state, I didn't plan or organise any parties of my own. Ah well.

Still, we did manage to have some of our time-honoured and favourite family get-togethers, which are always good fun.

The usual Christmas dinner with my family took place on the 23rd, and I got to cook, much to my delight and my mother's consternation. She thought it would be easier to just buy everything but since my helper was familiar with some of the dishes, it actually wasn't difficult. I love whipping up a meal for my family and friends anyway, which is something my Mum doesn't really understand. I contributed 4 dishes this time round: Mushroom Soup ala Jamie Oliver (which is really really excellent and was loved by all), my usual Roast Beef, Mashed Potato (specially requested by my sister), and a new dish that I was excited to try out -- a cold Japanese-styled pasta dish that I had just tasted at a gathering with DD's old JC classmates.

Cold Japanese-styled pasta

This dish was super easy to put together. The dressing for the noodles was essentially some bottled creamy sesame dressing (like this) mixed with wasabi, to taste. The chilled spaghetti noodles were then tossed with tobiko (flying fish roe), sesame seeds and shredded nori seaweed. Try it! I think it makes a good side and everyone loved it. Credit to DD's friend Florence for coming up with this.

It was a casual evening of food and conversation, and I closed one eye to the fact that Noey hardly ate anything except Ham for dinner. And only went to sleep WAY past his bedtime at around 11pm.

We spent most of Christmas Eve at home trying, at the last minute, to find somewhere to have dinner with DDMum. Not the best idea, and naturally, every single buffet we tried in town (except Fullerton, which I thought was ridiculously expensive) was full. So we cast our net a little further afield and eventually landed ourselves a table at The Terrace at the Sentosa Resort & Spa (ie. Beaufort, as we all know it). It turned out great -- the atmosphere was relaxed and the food, a seafood spread, was delicious. There were many live stations, one of which was a seafood counter where you had your pick of crabs, mussels, clams, prawns, yabbies and crayfish which you could choose to either steam or barbeque. There was also another counter serving fresh salmon or sea bream which they pan fried to order and served with veggies in some foamy sauce. And with a wagyu beef roast, roasted goose and a whole other room full of dessert, I think we quite ate our fill!

Noey duly finished the backup porridge meal that we brought for him and spent the rest of the time having dessert or roaming the dining area and entertaining himself trying to trigger the automatic sliding door leading to the outdoor seating area.

Oh, and there were carolers too -- our first encounter with any this season. This group was from NUS as they were really pretty good. "Very balanced", as DD put it. Noey was quite enthralled for a bit. He does really love singing Christmas songs so I guess it went down well with him.

Us, food, ice-cream and presents! Noey deemed it a good evening.

We had a good time, though Noey went to bed shockingly late yet again -- something we would pay for the next day.

The last major event of the season for us was Christmas Day itself, where we made our morning pilgrimage to my parents' for our annual Christmas morning gift exchange and paper ripping event. I must admit this is one of the highlights of the season for me, even though, by now, we don't really have that many presents of our own to open. Instead, Noey is the one with the endless stream of presents! I couldn't even cart all of them over, there were so many.

Compared with last year, Noey was somewhat more interested in opening his presents this year. More specifically, he was much more excited about taking the items out of their boxes to play with. He couldn't be bothered with ripping open the wrapping paper. He did make himself rather useful distributing the gifts though.

The rest of us had the fun on his behalf.

The winner of Noey's present of choice prize? Kong Kong's box of 20 matchbox cars.

(Yiyi's oinking piggy bank came a close second. even after he managed to ruin the oinking mechanism, he is still slotting in coins and taking them out again, manually contributing the oinking and clinking sounds himself!)

With the bear from 姨婆, whose name, according to Noey, is "Hugs & Kisses", as branded on its foot!

When we were done, we headed to my parents' church for Christmas service. While I was a teeny bit disappointed that I couldn't take Lyn up on her offer to attend her church's Christmas service, it was nice, worshiping as a family on this occasion since we all attend separate churches these days.

Noey was a relatively good boy, though he was obviously getting tired. He conked off after church when we were on-route to lunch and unfortunately, being the poor stroller sleeper that he is, only managed a half-hour nap in total, waking up shortly into lunch.

And that was when the trouble started.

He didn't want to eat, not surprisingly, and when we got home he did not want to sleep. Basically anything we wanted him to do, he did not want to do. Every request/order was met with crying. And screaming. And tantrums. The whole day. I was exasperated and DD lost his cool a couple of times. It was singularly our worst parenting day ever. I was so glad to see it end!

I think we've jut about recovered from all that tiredness. Noey woke up at 10am for 3 days in a row thereafter, sleeping 12-13 hours a night, which is much more than his usual 10 hours. Our nerves have just about settled as well.

And now it's almost the year end! Definitely no late nights for Noey this time round!

Christmas Tidings

Have a good one everyone. I know one carol-singing little boy who will!

Riding Around & Lighting Up The Town

A couple of weeks ago, we got the opportunity to check out the Christmas light-up in town from a different vantage point: the top of an open-top bus.

My dear sister was scheduled to take her pre-wedding photos this month and since she has always been a fan of streets dressed up in fairy lights, she decided that the Christmas light-up would be a perfect backdrop to her photos (no matter that, as my mother pointed out, her wedding is going to be in April and would have nothing to do with Christmas). To accomplish that, she and her fiance Francis (who is a total sweetheart and more often than not willingly accommodates her crazy ideas) decided to charter a whole 55-seater bus. And since there were plenty of spare seats, they invited friends and family along for the ride.

Our ride for the evening.

And our hosts!

Even though it has been a very wet December, my sis and Francis were extremely blessed by the fact that not a single drop of rain fell that day. God was very gracious and heard all our prayers! Right up to the day before, it had rained every single afternoon for more than a week. But the 9th of December brought only overcast skies and when it came time for all of us to board the bus, the weather was cool and breezy and perfect.

Noey was super thrilled to get on but we think the loud music being played on the bus threw him a little. He was a bit subdued to start, but soon warmed up after Papa carried him up and they attempted to smack the decorations hung overhead as we travelled under them.

Gleeful smiles!

This pic is a bit messy but you've got to admit the lights look more impressive from our vantage point.

We travelled round touring Orchard Road and Marina Bay for about 2 hours, during which we enjoyed our bento boxes of food prepared by my mum, sushi, a sausage, and a chicken pie and fruit tart that she made, and drank and made merry. I had only a sip of the pink champagne that was going around, sadly. And there were plenty of photos being taken of course, with my sis' friends being roped in both for group shots and as props!

One with my beautiful sister in her wedding finery.

Noey having a bit of fun with Uncle Francis and the bouquet!

As for the lights themselves, I thought they honestly weren't too impressive. The Marina Bay street decor was certainly nicer than the Orchard Road version. The building decorations themselves though were nothing like what they used to be in the yesteryears. I still recall way back when I was a kid, the shops used to pull out all the stops when it came to their Christmas decorations, with moving parts -- wheels going round and round and elves popping up and down -- music, and huge 3D displays. These days, things seem much more scaled down, with more "classic" designs usually involving a tree structure and simply plenty of lights. I guess the look is classy, but I miss the wow factor I used to get looking at the displays.

Still, travelling around on the bus sure beat being in a car craning our necks to view the light-up and was certainly better than walking around, especially in my current state! I think it's worth thinking about doing this again next year -- I just realised that FunVee conducts these Christmas light-up tours every year and it is more interesting and easier than driving around on our own. A bit extravagant, but it might be fun as a family once-a-year outing. Hmmm, maybe I should just try to convince my sis to rent a bus again!