The long overdue family road trip

Warning: Image heavy post!

The last time I remembered doing a road trip like this was when I was really little. I remember that it was a road trip to Desaru with all my aunts. I even remember that one of the days fell on my birthday and I received a Tweety Bird soft toy then. The last holiday that I remember having gone with my parents and both my sisters was the one where we went to Indonesia and that was ages. Also, I remember that the last time I went Genting Highlands, I was still a wee little girl. Small enough to be still riding the 20 sen kiddy joy rides while my father was next door on the jackpot machines!! :P 

This trip kind of took 3 months to plan and coordinate. I brought the idea up during CNY this year and was surprised that everyone did take to it. Big sis was the one who made the hotel bookings and so off we went! :P 

We drove off at about 645am (It was supposed to be 630am but the people who were supposed to give us a ring when they drove off didn't. :{) and met up at the first rest stop when we passed the Tuas customs.

Improvised the "in-flight entertainment" with the iPad! :P The boys probably watched for about 30mins before we reached Melaka.

Our first stop was Melaka. We stayed at Equatorial again. However, with sis' corporate booking this time, we managed to get the premier rooms at the rates that we'd usually pay for the superior. It was really spacious and came with the day bed which, the children slept on that night. Having that extra bed really was a lifesaver now that they boys are quite big. It is quite a squeeze having all 4 of us in a king sized bed already! 

Day bed at Equatorial

As usual, we had brunch at Dim Sum Garden (at Bandar Hilir) and then did some shopping at Pahlawan before checking in. After a good nap, the boys went for a swim and then off we went to Bei Zhan (Jalan Kota Laksamana 2/17, Kota Laksamana) for dinner. This time around, with BiL around, we got to go to the Portuguese Settlement for a stroll. We originally wanted to have dinner there but it started raining at dinner time and so Bei Zhan it was.

 

 

Orange juice and the vegetable + pineapple juice. Signature juices at Bei Zhan. They have another potato + apple juice which I never really liked.

All the kiddos on this trip. One rose among the 5 boys. :D

After an overnight stay at Equatorial, we left for Genting after lunch. Lunch was at this nonya restaurant called Nancy's which I thought the food was just alright. Not exactly fantastic but expensive (compared to Bei Zhan). 

The drive up to Genting was really quite nice. As we made our way up the mountain, the air got cooler and cooler. I think hubby had a great time doing a Grand Prix up the last bit of the mountain! :P

 

This was a super expensive meal we had at the FOOD COURT at First World hotel. 5 bowls of bak kut teh + you tiao and rice cost us RM$100!!! And the soups came in rice bowl sized bowls!!! Also, it was just really very average tasting. So anyone heading to First World Hotel, here's the warning. Avoid this bak kut teh stall in the food court!!!

First World Hotel is a really cheap and tacky looking hotel from outside. Who on earth paints their hotel to look like this??? And its check in lobby is one crowded place. I felt as though I was in the check in lounge of an airport or something! However, I must say that the interior of the hotel is pretty decent and that it is really very convenient to be staying there. The shopping is there, the amusement park is also there. Can't ask for anything more.

We dragged the couch over and draped a sheet over. Small fry slept in the couch for the next 2 nights, giving us more space on the bed. :D He actually enjoyed having a "bed" of his own.

The 3 of them were the only ones that were still within the height limit for this ride.

They went nuts spinning the teacups round and round. Towards the end, I saw Kiefer slumped to the side, hanging on to his dear life! I was giddy just watching them!

This was the ultimate photo of the trip!! :P See my 2nd sis' face? Priceless!

Just the 4 of us here!

Trying to act out the scene from Jurassic Park I. The other boy just didn't go away tho' he saw us taking pictures!! Gonna crop him out when I photoshop this picture! :P

There was some clown-themed thingy going on at the park. I thought they looked horrendous tho'.

Small fry loved following his Josh Kor Kor around on rides.

His first time driving a bumper car on his own. He couldn't get the car to move in the beginning and kept wondering what we we trying to gesture to him. However, once he got it, off he went!

Can't tell that these 2 are just 6 weeks apart in age, can you?

Till our next trip again!!! 

  

Innocence..

Had this conversation with Kieran earlier at the supermarket:

K: Why must pay money? (pointing to the groceries)
M: Nothing is free.
K: But I am free!
M: puzzled for a while
K: I am free to play with you!

Such is the innocence of a young child. I sometimes feel bad that I have to show/ tell him what is like in the real world. I often wonder if I say tell him too much that we need money to pay for things, will he end up thinking that money is everything? Where is the balance? I see some children with absolutely no sense of worth (as in the worth of money). I do not wish for my children to grow up that way but yet I also do not want them to think that money is everything. Thus every time conversations that deals with buying things or going on holidays come up, I struggle with finding the balance of showing them that we need to save money for such things and yet not going overboard with stressing the importance of money.

And with the recent Japan disaster, we are also having a hard time stressing to Kieran that the earthquakes are devastating and it is sad that people are losing their homes and their loved ones. Kieran sometimes compares the pictures that we show him from the internet to the movies (like Independence Day) and goes "oohh!". We keep telling him that it is really sad that many children have lost their parents and that the earthquakes are real but I guess he is still too young to understand the severity. I know that he has empathy. I see it when he feels sad when he watches movies. However, I guess he still doesn't understand that disasters really do happen. I can also tell that he is worried about death. He keeps asking why people die. We tell him everyone will die one day. When we grow old we die. And then he'll ask if we are old already. To him, we are "old". I hope we are not frightening him too much. :( We just want to stress to him that he and his brother will have to take care of each other when we are all gone.

Adorable pronunciations by Kiefer

Before I forget how he says these words...

Mummy yuuk!! (*look*)
b-eu (*blue*) car
the notti (*MRT*) train

These are the cute little mispronunciations that I'm gonna miss as he improves his speech. Oh gosh! My boy is growing up too quickly!!





And here's the babe who is so happy that he got his car seat upgraded to a big boy seat! :)

- Posted from my iPhone

The night we saw Pele & Cantona!

Pele and Cantona were in Singapore on tour for the New York Cosmos. They were appearing at the Courts Young Lions vs Geylang match at Jln Besar Stadium. And somehow, hubby managed to get free passes to the match. Even better, we actually got great seats (i.e. one of those exclusive passes type of seats). From where we were, we had a great view of the 2 soccer legends!

Great view of Cantona and Pele at half time.

Hunting for passes to a photo opportunity with the legends at half time. Sadly, we could not find any!! :(

It was a fun evening for the boys as it was the first time they watched a real soccer match live. (I think it was a first for me too!! :P)

That was not cool!

I was fooling around with Kieran as we were stepping out of the lift. I tried to push him back into the lift (after an incident when he went into the lift all by himself and the door closed on him, he would never go or stay inside a lift all by himself). He quickly came out and said, " That was not cool!"

And I thought it was really cool that he used that phrase!! :D

Once upon a time.. Life

I'm so glad that I found these "Once upon a time.. Life" cartoon series. These were the cartoons that I loved when I was a kid. It is a cartoon series that teaches children about life processes in the body. As a biology teacher now, I can say that the facts in the cartoon are largely accurate. Of cos, there are little errors here and there, but they deliver the concepts really quite well!! The entire series showcases different process, ranging from conception to muscle action to immune response. A very interesting series!!

Enjoy this one on the immune system:

It's the Year of the Rabbit!

Happy Chinese New Year to Everyone! This is the season of eating, eating and more eating. Shan't blog about all the food. Will blog about the boys' cny clothes instead.

This is a tradition that I follow in our house. Something for the boys to look forward to every year. I always get new PJs for them for CNY and they get to wear them on new year's eve. And Kiefer's got to be Mr Skeleton for 2 consecutive years! :P Somehow we just manage to pick them up on sale for the last 2 years!

We've been busy last year and I thought that I forgot to buy new clothes for the boys this new year. I was so relieved to see these 2 polo tshirts that we picked up at DL Hong Kong last year in my "shopping drawer"! :P (Yes, I buy the boys clothes whenever I see a bargain throughout the year and I even buy them in various sizes. Thus, when I need new clothes, I "shop" from the drawer.)

These red polo tshirts were from Old Navy and probably like US$5 each. Yup, I realised I had them when I opened the drawer and thus solved all my CNY new clothes worry. :P

Can you hold my b...er!

Kiefer (in his car seat): Mummy, can you hold my booger?
Me: No
Kiefer: it's a small booger
Me: No, I still do not want it.
:P

Mr Skeleton boy!

That's my Mr Skeleton boy and his morning explosion hair!! :p






- Posted from my iPhone

Baa Baa Black Sheep - Kiefer's Version

I can't remember if I've blogged this before. But since I am laughing about it now, I am going to put it down so that I'll remember it for years to come.

Here's Kiefer's version of Baa Baa Black Sheep:

Baa Baa Black Sheep any anywhere!

Yes sir, yes sir, big bad wolf!

Yes, he gets confused by the words and thus he just fits them with whatever familiar words he knows. And in this case, he puts the 3 little pig story into his song!! :P

Moved. Into. Own. Room

We've finally moved the boys into their own room. We cleared up the boys' room and moved them in just before Christmas. The first night was pretty easy because Kiefer thought that we were just having some fun. Come second night, he got wiser and started crying when bedtime drew near. We actually had to lock our room door and heartlessly leave him crying outside our door for quite awhile. Kieran fell asleep after a while and at about 11pm, we came out of our room to see the small fry (poor thing) playing in the dark in the room.

The next couple of nights were bad. He would start crying and refuse to take a bath and change into his pjs. We realised that we had to sit with him till he falls asleep. Thank goodness he is a fast sleeper. It usually only takes him about 15mins to fall asleep.

As for Kieran, he was really good in this whole moving into their own room business. He tried to be funny by bringing Kiefer along when he kept running out of the room pretending to be afraid. However, he has been sleeping through in the bed room and not running to our room at all! :D He even asks to nap there in the afternoons. We don't even need to sit with him for him to fall asleep. Usually he will still be awake after Kiefer falls asleep and he is perfectly fine with us leaving the room while he falls asleep by himself. He really surprised us as we expected him to be the difficult one because he is usually a very routine person, doing the same things in the same places and similar times.

It's been about 3 weeks already and things are looking good. Looking forward to Kiefer falling all asleep by himself so that we don't have to spend time sitting there in the dark with him.

Our baby is in preschool!

Sounds cliche, but time really zooms by just like that. Our little Kiefer has started Nursery 1 at Trinity Methodist Church Kindergarten since Wednesday (5 Jan 2011). Just like that, he is making a transition from a play-all-day childhood to one that involves "studying"!!

Kieran started the school year 1 day earlier than Kiefer. And on Kieran's first day of school, Kiefer insisted on wearing his uniform and following gege to school as well. So I allowed him to do so and he was so happy to be carrying his backpack and water bottle and "attending" school. He had a great time in the 1/2 hour we spent at the kindy.

Followed Kieran to school. "Unofficial" first day in school!

He had fun playing with the train set there, and he didn't wonder why there was nobody in the class!!

His real first day of school went pretty well as well. He was happy to be wearing his school tshirt and go to school. He was one of the few in his class who did not give any trouble (i.e. not crying and yelling) and was very independent in playing and eating his snacks. :) He was also very participative, always sitting right in front of the teacher when they are asked to gather for activities. However, I also did observe that he is always trying to grab things (i.e. puppets) out of the teacher's hands all the time and always trying to fiddle with the CD player!! :P

Singing songs and playing with friends.

First to be seated when asked to gather.

 
Day 3 and 4 wasn't as smooth-sailing. Though he is always happy the moment he reaches school, it was difficult getting him into his uniform in the mornings! On Day 3, he was in such a bad mood that he was crying and refusing to put on his blue uniform! After much struggling, bribing and scolding, we managed to get his uniform on!! And then he refused to put on his shoes to leave the house. Finally, after telling him that I was going to leave him at home and send Kieran to school, he then put on his socks and shoes!! And yet, he was happy once he was at school. He even dismissed me by saying "Bye, Mummy!" when I went into his classroom asking if he was enjoying himself!!

Got up on the wrong side of the bed on Day 3!!!

So darn unhappy about having to wear his uniform. He was just saying "NO!" to everything!

I left the sending the boys to their Gong Gong on Friday as I have to be back at school for a meeting. I received a message at 8am saying that Kiefer refused to wear his white polo tshirt (they have a schedule for the 2 sets of uniforms in the week) and was wearing his blue one to school! This little fella is simply in such an oppositional behavioural stage!!! The school teachers were already "complaining" that he refused to sit down when told to do so and kept wandering all over!! *shakes head* Even Ah Ma complained about him being totally uncooperative when told to go bathe!

Still I'm glad that he always answers "School is fun, fun!" whenever I ask him about it. Just glad that both our boys enjoy school and I believe that is the most important factor in facilitating learning. This was also the first consideration we made when choosing the preschool for them. That they will have fun and thus learning would come naturally after. :D

Happy New Year! (This includes the christmas post)

It is 2011 already and I have yet to post about our Christmas! Gosh! How behind time am I and what a way to start the new year!! :P I guess I'll have to do a 2-in-1 post right here, right now.

Christmas:
We had a simple family gathering on Christmas Eve this year. We would always host the Christmas dinner in the years that we are not holidaying (read: almost every other year we are in the US). Christmas eve was a working day for most of our family (with the exception of the retirees and of cos the teachers! :P) I literally cooked up most of the food for the dinner that day. I was really surprised to find that I actually had a very relaxed time cooking this dinner. I kind of remember previous years where I'll get hot and sweaty by dinner that I can' eat anything anymore!

Anyway, this was the dinner menu that I prepared:

• Tossed pre-packed Garden Salad
• Roasted Turkey with Gravy
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Ikea's Swedish Meatballs with Lingonberry Jam and the meatball sauce
• Mac & Cheese
• Apple Pie

This is ALWAYS the staple at family dinners cos they "old folks" just can't do the "ang mo chiak" :P And this was prepared my MiL.

• Curry Chicken
• Fried Rice

Other stuff brought by people:

• Chng Tng by the Ah Kor
• Log cake and Mince Pies from Cedele by Big Sis

These are the only pictures I took of the food that night. Everyone started eating as we brought the food out and I didn't have the chance to snap pictures at all!!

The Roasted Turkey

The carved turkey

On Christmas morning, the kids had fun digging into their stockings to find little gifts in there, and of cos, open up their presents under the Christmas tree. They already knew about some of the toys that were wrapped up there and they were already asking to open them everyday for 2 weeks prior to Christmas!

Look at all the presents under the tree and they all belonged to the boys

!

Small Fry was so excited over the tube of jelly beans he got in his stocking.

See that blue tower on the table, that was the new airport set from Fastlane that the boys got for Christmas. And that was the one toy they really wanted to open for the entire 2 weeks. We bought it at Toys 'R' Us HK and lugged the huge box back to Singapore.

It's been a great Christmas this year, nice and relaxing. No rushing around. And even though I did last minute shopping for presents for the children, it wasn't too bad. All I did was to pop into the Popular Bookfest and grabbed bargain books for everyone. I think these are really thrifty and wonderful gifts for everyone!



New Year:

The kids eating Christmas candy for the New Year! :P Just a note, these jelly candy lollipops are really darn sweet. Both our boys didn't finish theirs. Both of them went through about half of it and threw it out. :D I took 1 bite of their leftovers and found out about the sweetness!! I'm glad that our 2 boys are not huge candy eaters!!

It was a quiet new year's eve for us. We went over to my Mum's for a steamboat dinner, the children had a fun time playing with each other and then we went home. Kiefer fell asleep before we heard people counting down to the new year and the fireworks going off. Kieran didn't really know what was happening and simply wondered what that loud sound was. I put the first load of laundry of the year into the dryer at 12.09am (yes, I checked the time :P) and then send Kieran back into his own room again (I need to post about this soon too! It's been more than week since the boys moved into their own room) to sleep while the 2 of us watched Little Fockers till 330am. So this was how we started 2011. :P

'tis the season of NOs!

#2 is at THE stage now. The stage where his answers to everything is a resounding "No!" :(
Although he loves to accompany gege to school in the mornings, he's been saying no to going school these few days. He will be starting Nursery 1 next Wednesday, I hope he starts on a good note, with no crying! *crossing my fingers!*

Hong Kong 2010

This year seemed to be a long year. We've worked really hard and we thought we'd deserve a good break. As we did not really make plans to go anywhere (tho' there were some talks of doing a road trip to Penange, which didn't materialise), hubby looked around for somewhere to go and chanced upon a great deal on Jetstar Asia. And thus, a late booking and off we went to Hong Kong!

The last time we went to Hong Kong was in 2008, and it was only a short 2 day transit on the way back to Singapore from Shanghai. On that trip, we didn't do much, except for some shopping and eating. 5 days (12-16 December) in Hong Kong this time around meant that we could do some sight-seeing.

We arrived in Hong Kong at about lunch time. After dropping the luggage off at the hotel, we set out to look for food. The first meal we ate had to be at Cafe de Coral. That's like Hubb's favourite place in HK. He simply loves the Pork Chop Baked Rice.

The boys had loads of fun taking the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour almost everyday. It was definitely a cheap and good fun. They enjoyed the breeze and looking at other ships out at sea.

This time around, we did some touristy stuff like going on the cable car ride at Ngong Ping 360 and also took The Peak Tram up to Victoria Peak.

On our cable car ride across to Lantau Island, we met with a fog and it was so misty and foggy that the cable had to stop moving for about 5 minutes! We were left dangling on the cable. It actually felt a little scary initially, but when we looked down, we realised that we were actually very near the ground as we were just above the slopes of the mountain! :P

Super misty halfway across to Lantau island

View from the cable car

The boys enjoying their cable car ride.

 And we definitely had to visit Disneyland Hong Kong this time around. In 2008, we brought the boys to the entrance, took some photos and we left! :P This time around, we spent a fantastic one day in the park. The park is rather small and most of their rides are really for small kiddos like them. It is suitable for the boys, for older children (like ourselves!!), there was really nothing much for us there.

Look! We've got Donald with us!!

The favourite Disney character for the day has to be Buzz Lightyear. They enjoyed Astroblasters immensely and went up on it umpteen times! They also took photos with Buzz whenever the opportunity arises.

Last but not least, some photos of the yummy food in HK:

Roast duck @ Fuk Yuen (Mongkok)

Tau Huay (竹筒豆花) in a barrel at the dimsum place near the hotel

Super yummy spring rolls at the same dim sum place

Did I mention we flew Jetstar? It seems that at the Hong Kong Airport, Jetstar does not have a walkway for passengers to embark and disembark. We arrived in Hong Kong and disembarked on the tarmac, we left Hong Kong the same way! However, the day we left, the temperature was a freezing 8 degrees celsius! The wind was blowing and it was really, really cold! It took some time for everyone to walk up the steps into the plane, so much so that Kieran actually had the chance to pop into the cockpit for a chat with the pilots! However, I must say that the service on Jetstar is really pretty good. Very friendly and helpful flight attendants. It's just that the plane itself is rather old and doesn't seem to be cleaned well (you see crumbs when you lift up the hand rests) and the toilet really smells. The seats were really quite cramp too. My knees almost touched the seats in front of me and I am not really very tall. Maybe it's just the planes for the Asia are smaller? We were not allowed to bring food up the plane, but they didn't really check as the boys brought 1 pack of cereal each in their backpacks. I think they are quite ok with children's snacks. Even then, the food on the plane is not too expensive either. I saw on the menu that a portion of chicken rice was about $8, although it is not standard-sized portion but it's pretty decent. I think it is fine to fly budget on a short 3-4 hour flight, but I really wonder how it will be on their new 11 hour flight to NZ??!!

Look at my crazy wind-blown hair!

As usual, our seasoned frequent flyers are just so comfortable in the plane! The small one knocked out and was asleep a little while after take-off! :D

Watching Jaws on the iPad

Munching on his snacks

It was almost 1am by the time we touched down at Changi Airport and collected our bags. The boys missed their toys so much that they immediately started playing with their toys when the got through the door! They were energised by the nap they took on the plane itself! It's the poor mum and dad that are darn tired! :P The next morning, we literally left the boys to their own devices while we slept in for another 2 hours or so!! :P Still, we look forward to our next trip out of Singapore!! :P

Merry Christmas!

Been busy and haven't been blogging at all. And here's a belated Merry Christmas to everyone! Will be back to blog about our Hong Kong trip and Christmas!!

Meeikito bite

Me: Fer, look at mummy's leg. What's that? (pointing to a red bump on my knee)
Kiefer: a meekito bite?

hehe..

Mum's 60th (59th) Birthday!

We just celebrated Mum's 60th birthday on Monday night at Yan Palace. Well, according to her year of birth, it is supposed to be her 59th, but according to some Chinese tradition, we had to celebrate her 60th a year earlier!!

Anyway, we all had a really fun time eating and singing. And I'm sure Mum was really happy that night too because she had some of her good friends celebrating with her. For many years, I've always missed her birthday because I will definitely be out of the country on my holidays. So this year, we made it a point to stay in Singapore for her birthday.

The cake was from Pine Garden. I thought to try a new flavour "Apple Martini" that they had. Well, the kids weren't crazy about it. However, I love the prettiness of the cake. :P 

Today is her birthday itself. Happy Birthday Mum! Hope you like the flowers. :)

Hippopotamus!

Haha.. Kiefer can say "HIPPOPOTAMUS"! I don't know when he started being able to do that, but it was rather cute when he said it this morning when we were reading a book on animals!

Just to record, yesterday, at the zoo, he saw a peahen and he said," Hello peahen, what you doing here? " in his little childish voice!! :)