Bonding Time

Yu En's Birthday

the vips...



singing the birthday song

cheez...

totally engrossed...

the lovely lamp

it's en's actual birthday today. we had a mini family celebration at the disney themed restaurant, 'disney naturally' at anchorpoint. this restaurant is really a place for the kids, colorful deco, big screen for screening cartoons, computer for playing online games (but very pathetic only 2) and not forgetting the disney merchandise. the food is so-so as it's catered for kids, blend and healthy, mainly pasta and pizza. the pizzas come in the shape of mickey's head, so cute that u can't bear to bite into it. the kids' eyes were glued to the big screen when eating their food. the staff were friendly, the whole crew even sang the birthday song with us for en en. the kids loved the place but i can't say much for the adults...

Yu En's Birthday Celebration at School

it's yu en's birthday tomorrow so i planned a mini celebration for her in her school today. i bought a 2.5kg cake to cater for all the kids. the kids were very excited to see the cake and all of them crowded up around the table, i was so afraid someone would accidentally 'damage' the cake. when singing the birthday song, all of them sang at their loudest and it was the loudest birthday song i had ever heard. can tell that yu en enjoyed the celebration.

Yu En's Mini Concert

today is yu en's yamaha mini concert. each student had to play 2 solo pieces, sing 1 solo song and a group song. i specially brought yu chen to support his sister. this time quite a few family members of the other students turned up.

at the beginning of the concert, the music teacher, miss lee asked the students to volunteer to start the ball rolling. nobody raised their hand. miss lee had to ask the students one by one. all of them rejected except yu en. she simply nodded her head and headed for the piano (she was one of the two students who chose to play the piano instead of the electone). she played and sang her solo pieces very well except for a slight hiccup. she even did a unique bow when she finished her performance. I am really proud of her.

Genting

the day to genting is finally here. we were going to take a morning coach and all of us had to assemble at 6.30am on sat morning at the golden mile bus terminal.

on the day itself, the kids were awake at 5.45am and we rushed our way through. but we were still the latest, so pai seh, our whole family clan waiting for us. the coach was a double deck one with a lounge at the lower deck. It was very comfortable with personal entertainment system, ample space and the 'shook shook' massage chair. the kids were enjoying themselves even on the coach itself. francine and yu chen were running up and down the stairs, climbing on and off the chairs, and along the passage way, we had a hard time looking after them even within such a limited space. yu en was emersing herself in the cartoons and nintendo games.

when we reached genting, we quickly checked in genting hotel and we were satisfied with the rooms cos they were clean and spacious. the weather up there was wet and foggy and cold. It was also very crowded due to the holiday season. just imagine, we queued about an hour plus for the monorail ride. one of the days we even booked transportation to go shopping at KL. The weather was so hot at KL and the malls were packed with people. the kids had such great fun for the 4 days there as we took them for rides everyday. as for the adults, it was a different story. firstly, i lost my wallet. fortunately i did not bring my ic so i only lost 2 credit cards and cash, abt S$150. i even kenah flu and fever from the 3rd day onwards as i couldn't tahan the coldness at night. next, cousin huan had a serious backache from the 2nd day onwards. we could see that she was trying her best to walk so as not to dampen our holiday spirits and worse, her hubby had gastric pain on the 2nd night and had to stay in bed. we accompanied him by watching a horror movie (30 days of night) in their room. lastly, my sis, leng was nearly robbed. it was dramatic and we realised that malaysia is really not a safe place, even genting. we were having our dinner at one of the food market in first world plaza and leng placed her longchamp bag on the floor next to her. i wanted to cut the meat for yu chen to eat so i borrowed the scissors from her. when she was about to get it from her bag, she actually saw a malay guy bending down besides her and taking off with her bag. she had a big shock and started chasing and shouting at the guy and then her hubby also gave chase. i think that robber was also shocked to be discovered and dropped her bag after a short distance. luckliy she managed to recover it. i even asked yp to go and help in chasing the robber. later, we found out that the robber's accomplice also stole a handbag from another table. but the bag owner was not as lucky, the robber fleed with the bag. a police report was made and we created quite a commotion in the eatery. my hands were shaking even after the whole ordeal.

overall, we enjoyed ourselves as we had good company and it was really rare for all of us to get together for this trip. will try to plan another trip next year at one of the beach resort.

Application of Yu Chen's Passport

another 3 weeks and off we go to genting. we are going in a big gang approximately 20 of us - my whole immediate family, auntie, 2 cousins and family. the no of people is just enough to 'bao' a whole luxury coach from 5stars. this time no more 'first world hotel' which really sucks, small and smelly. we'll be staying in genting hotel. i think the kids are going to have super duper fun time there. right now, gotta do the most important thing of all, else my family can forget about going for the trip - applying passport for yu chen!
really a difficult task to capture a good passport picture. i remember we had a hard time when doing the same thing for yu en. finally a 'can do' shot after 6 or 7 trials. hopefully ica won't reject the photo. guess what we use as the backdrop? hee hee my fridge.

Finally settle on this...

the most lucky thing is his rashes are gone...

Rashes

sigh, yu chen has rashes on his face and neck. the red spots look extra obvious as he is quite fair. the lucky thing is he has no fever and his apetite is not affected. i brought him to a GP on friday and he said that yu chen is having allergy. but i never introduce any new food to him these few days leh. could it be the cough mixture that KKH prescribed last week? the gp prescribed some cream for him to appy. i had appiled it on the affected areas religiously for the past 2 days but the rashes did not seem to improve. haiz, feel very heartache. when will the rashes go away? if the rashes does not subside by wednesday, going to bring him to see dr ong eng keow, the pd i trust most.

A Trip to the Zoo

daddy managed to get the corporate passes and so off we go to the zoo today. the weather was cool and nice. it's yu chen 1st visit and yu en's nth visit to the zoo. yu chen was very excited when he saw the animals especially the hippo, monkies and kangeroos. it was pretty obvious that the elephants are not his favourite animals as he couldn't pay attention to the elephant show. he really wanted to play at the children's playground but we only let him play on the swing as we were afraid he would frighten all the kids with his rashes. everyone was tired out at the end of the day.

Future CEO?

yu chen: dream on, mummy...

An Afternoon at Sentosa

ah yi and yi zhang rented a room at rasa sentosa and so we made a trip down to make use of the pool and also the beach. the hotel room had a great view and the kids were very excited by it as they can see the sea and ships. initially we had no intention of swimming at the hotel pool, just going to let the kids play sand at the beach, whch is why we did not bring the kids' swimming costume. in order not let francine feel lonely at the pool, we decided to buy a swimming costume for en en at the hotel shop and yu chen can simply swim in his shorts. i had to trouble leng leng ah yi to take care of yu chen since i also did not bring my swimming costume. the kids had a super duper great time at the pool.

after the swim, we proceeded to the beach, situated next to the pool. since this is yu chen's 1st encounter with sand, i think he was not used to it. worse thing was he used his sandy hands to rub his eyes and caused him discomfort and irritation. guess he did not like the sand very much.

finally we called it a day and went back to the hotel to wash up. followed by dinner at the hotel cafe, silvershell cafe. ah ma asked me to let en en to stay over at the hotel with her. not wanting to disappoint en en, we agreed even though she is supposed to learn her spelling tomorrow morning. by the time we reached home, yu chen was sound asleep. hope he has a good night sleep as he only had a 20minutes nap in the afternoon and he woke up at 8o'clock this morning!

Time to Say GoodBye

sorry darlings, mummy borrow your blog for a while to bid farewell...

this coming friday will be my last day at nss as i will be returning to HQ. time really flies, i've been here for about 3 years plus. throughout this period i had made many good colleagues cum good friends here. this place has given me wonderful and unforgettable memories. especially this year when my project team slogged through few months of hard work, spending more than 12 hours everyday in office. not fogetting the late dinner and supper causing all of us to put on weight. the spirit and closeness we managed to establish during this period of time was tremendous. i would to take this chance to thank everyone in nss for your guidance, help, friendship...for everything.

supper kaki, don't forget our date at the last thur of every month! finally, thanks for the farewell dinner and let's keep in contact through food and msn :P

Lantern Festival

today is latern festival. my family decided to hold a dinner gathering by my house swimming poolside to 'shang yue'. initally, we thought of a barbecue dinner but last minute decided to go for pot luck since it's a weekday and everyone is in a lazy mode. i bought golden pillow chicken & mutton curry, bee hoon and drinks. leng bought sushi & sashimi. mum bought fried chicken, fruits and mooncakes. the kids enjoyed themselves by parading around with their lanterns. it really feels relaxing and good to be able to enjoy the food and also most importantly the company of your loved ones.

Loving Siblings

sometimes i feel really lucky to have this pair of loving siblings as my darlings. they had never fought before and are always huggng and kissing each other. i ever heard from my aunt that my cousin's children are always fighting and even biting each other, scary. en en likes playing with her brother, like blocks, hide and seek...entertaining him. as a result i can catch a breath and relax for a while.

New Camera and Printer

been a long time since i last blogged, main reason being my digital camera went into 'rip' mode since i like photos to go with my blog. it's abt time, it has been wif us for 6yrs. so today we made a trip down to suntec harvey norman to source for a new one. wah, this trip was an expensive one, spent abt 600 bucks. told yp not to get an expensive model this time, a basic one will do. in the end, we bought 'fujifilm finepix z5' which cost us $399. it has the latest face detection feature and is abt 6.3 megapixel. on top of this, we also bought a digital photo printer at $199, Sony DPP-FP60 , as it's cheaper to print our own photos, with the convenience of printing them anytime and at home. we can even customise a calendar with our own photos using this printer. saw a big hole in our pockets...

Not very accurate leh...

Penguin Head

dun you think i look like the penguin on my t-shirt...