Video Memories of Charmaine

Dear readers,

Happy Monday!

We would like to share some videos taken last year with all of you who are still reading.

Please view it on a new youtube window as I do not know how to resize the width to fit into this blog post.

Godma Jolene

~

These videos were taken in June 2011. Uncle Christopher has kindly sponsored a few days stay at Festive Hotel as a reward for Charmaine for having undergone a major surgery in May 2011. It was also an advanced birthday gift for Charmaine.


~*"Interview" on the couch*~



Some of Little Charmaine's cute antics were captured in this video when she was supposedly watching tv. She did not know that she was being filmed.

Note: I do not know how to edit videos so I'm uploading the raw files as they are.

For some noteworthy moments, you may scroll to:
- 0:28
Some cute actions of Char

- 3:00
Godma Jolene and Uncle Charles disturbed Charmaine with some questions to add more sounds and actions into the video. Charmaine didn't actually know she was being filmed.

- 4:07
Uncle Charles revealed to Charmaine that he was afraid Charmaine wouldn't like him based on his looks and hear what she had to say. So cute!


~*Do you know who is the richest man in the world?*~



Some of Little Charmaine's cute antics were captured in this video when Uncle Charles was behind the camera "interviewing" her. He was asking her philosophical questions which she didn't quite understand even upon explaining. Both of us tried explaining to her in very simple terms and she still seemed lost. Nonetheless I find it very meaningful and worth sharing.

PS: Pardon Charle's command of English. He is Chinese/Hokkien educated. =P


~*Thank you Uncle Christopher*~



Those few days were one of her happiest moments. As you know, Charmaine simply loves Sentosa, Universal Studios and their roller coasters as well as the simulated beach pool at Hard Rock Hotel. Everything combined during that few days stay indeed made her one very happy girl despite all the pain she was suffering from. — at Hotel Michael Resort World Sentosa Island


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These videos were taken on the night of 14 July 2011 which was Charmaine's actual birthday.

Godpa kh and Godma Jolene brought Cyn mommy and the kids to a very deserted place in Singapore to release their wishes into the sky. It was the first time the kids would be doing this and they did not quite know what to expect.

Charmaine was growing weaker by the week and I wanted her to experience a whole new way of making wishes which I was quite certain would bring her joy and hope.


~*Releasing Wish Lanterns on Charmaine's Birthday*~



Video description:
After a long time trying to get the "fuel" to light, we finally succeeded in releasing the green wish lantern into the sky.
"Make the wish come true please" uttered by Charmaine at 0:28 brought a little wrench in my heart whenever I watch this after she is gone.


~*What Charmaine Likes about the Wish Lanterns*~

Video description:
In this video, Cyn mommy was asking Charmaine what exactly she enjoyed about the whole wish lantern experience. She answered that it was mainly the drawing.

Charmaine was undoubtedly very tired even as she lay on her stroller and watch the lantern slowly disappear among the stars. Nonetheless we could all tell that she was really happy for that whole moment of seeing her lantern taking along her wishes with it.

~*Talkative Char Char*~



Video description:
In this video, we released Charmaine's pink lantern. The video is about 5 minutes long with majority of it capturing the gradual floating of lantern up into the sky.
Scroll and listen to what Charmaine had to say from 0:15 -- 0:45, 3:46 -- end
PS: To clarify what Char said, I did not "cancel" my work. lol... Those days were either my off days or else then I took time off or leave.

Some videos

Cyn and the kids are still jetlagged so pardon the lack of updates.

To inject a little light-hearted atmosphere, I've shared some videos here. Click to open in separate windows for video descriptions.

Halloween Cookies with Stephanie

Stephanie has kindly hosted a cookie-session with the kids to prepare them for trick or treat.

Here's the video



Hama test - Negative!

Love, Charlene

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some post cookie-making session photos to add

"Ring ring"

The Skype telephone rang and I was greeted by very healthy-looking Cyn and Jase.



Jo: "Hey! The colour looks so much warmer!"

Cyn: "Yes, we were experimenting with the colour contrast and lighting cos we always look so pale and ghostly on Skype."

blablabla...

Jo: "Where's Charmaine?"

Cyn: "She's busy doing something. I dunno what."

Then Charmaine popped in to complete the family portrait. (As seen above in the bottom 2 pix.)

Then it was her turn to have some screen time.



I didn't know what she did with the colour settings but she slowly disappeared into whiteness. Kinda reminded me of an angel.



As we always have difficulty hearing one another via Skype, we've to use the phone to talk. While the adults talked over the phone. The kids would be making funny faces at the camera and asking if I could see or hear them as well.

Then, they would pester mommy for them to have the phone...






And finally... their MASTERPIECES!



Love,
Jolene

Charmaine's Belated Birthday Video

Sent in by a reader, nicknamed ArtistDing from HWZ forum.
Thank you for the cute video!

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Recently, there have been quite a number of feedback from SG saying they can't view the blog. What they see would only be some outlines of videos with no text and photos. I'm also experiencing the same problem on my laptop up till now but everything's fine on my hubby's desktop.

If you are able to view the blog and see this, please let anybody you know who are not able to view that it could be coz they are using the old IE browser. Switch to Modzilla firefox or the new IE to solve the problem. So now whenever I wanna view this blog, I would just switch to firefox browser. It works well. Thanx to the suggestion of one of our readers.

I do not know how else to solve this problem in the long term except totally switching browser.

I've also included this temporary solution in the Facebook group wall to reach out to those who are not able to view the blog to see this. Please help to spread the word around.

Thank you.

Cheers,
Jolene

More videos uploaded

These videos were taken before Charmaine's surgery (18th June). You can click on them to read the descriptions on the right.

Pretend play -- caterpillar


Charmaine in full concentration dancing the fan dance


Pretend play -- Burying the shark


Pretend play -- Shooting


Enjoying herself on kiddy ride before her surgery


Running freely on the night before her surgery... Love her cute smile


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Clearing emails on my hotmail from 3 pages back (beginning July). Please bear with me if I've yet to get back to you.

Love,
Jolene

A photo story: Charmaine's 4th birthday celebration

14th July 2009... a happy occasion for Charmaine and cyn mummy.

For Charmaine, her happiness is of pure innocence. For cyn mummy, her happiness is of eternal gratitude.

~*~

Numerous gifts not just for Charmaine but for Jase as well... really thoughtful of all the donors and guests.



Middle top:
The cute little boy up there is Char's boyfriend. Hehe... She often tells us about him and now we finally saw him in real life.

Middle bottom:
When we saw the T-shirts, we just went "WAHHHH! So cute!!!" Jase has one too which he wore immediately.


What is a party without some dancing? Charmaine sure knows how to party!




A barbie cake...





similar to that from last year.



This was what happened to Barbie when Charmaine insisted on sticking the candles into the cake by herself.




Char was allowed to eat anything she wanted that day. She ate lots of cake. She loved the cream part best.




After eating some cake, little princess started her dance again.



The kids had a whale of a time... The Dora tent was enough to entertain them for hours. Charmaine was so happy to be mingling with her good friends -- something which she has not been able to do for months.






However,



Thanx to all the kind uncles, aunties, kor kors and jie jies who donated the gifts and also for making their way down to celebrate Charmaine's birthday and for making the occasion such a joyous one.

More video clips to look out for. I'm still in the midst of uploading them.

Love,
Jolene

Thank you NUH for granting Jase's wish

Today (or rather yesterday since it's past midnight) was Jase's birthday.

As stated in the previous post by Charlene, a mysterious Mr M sent an email to NUH requesting for Jase to be allowed to visit Charmaine as that was his birthday wish.

Not only was Jase's wish granted, a team of NUH staff actually gathered together outside the ward to sing Jase a birthday song and presented him with a card, a balloon and a gift.



Jase was so shy seeing all the smiley strangers that he hid behind por por.

What the NUH staff did not see was how Jase tore the wrapper eagerly after they had left.



That's our real Jase!

Charmaine also had a card -- a get well card.


Since our little chubby princess had got a mask on, cyn mummy and jase kor kor decided to cover their mouths too.


We don't know if any of you would be reading this. Nevertheless, thank you to the NUH staff involved for taking precious time off your busy schedule to arrange a mini celebration for Jase. Charlene and I are sorry for being a little off schedule as we had to pick Jase up from school. Hope that didn't disrupt anything. It was really very sweet and thoughtful of all of you. Jase got to see his dear mei mei and Charmaine got to see her beloved kor kor.

Love,
Jolene on behalf of Cynthia

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Charmaine, you're really a brave little princess. Continue fighting the bad monster with mummy in the hospital. Saturday would arrive very soon and it'll be home sweet home for you.

Taken on 15th May -- Day 1 of 4th chemo



P/S: Please inform me should there be a need to remove any photos.

Good Friday

Before this, cyn mummy was coaxing the determined charmaine to take her medicine. We all tried coaxing but to no avail too. A while later, charmaine took the syringe herself and we were all so excited. Luckily charlene's fast fingers quickly whipped out my camera and started recording.

Charmaine would be undergoing the 3rd chemo session this week if everything goes according to schedule.

Some Videos of Charmaine After Chemo Round 1

Here are some short videos of Jase and Charmaine taken from my camera with very limited memory space.

There are still quite a few from Cynthia's camera which I've yet to get from her.

To read the description of each video, you can click to view in a separate browser instead of clicking the play button from here. For people unfamiliar with YouTube, the descriptions are on the right. Click on "more info".


On Sunday, 15th March...




On Tuesday, 17th March...