Holiday season

Every mother is painfully aware that children are now on their way too long school holiday. Initially, the novelty of not having to wake up at 6:30 am to clothe and feed cranky kids who resent you for disrupting their sleep, was so very much welcome. No more waking up early. No more thinking of what to make for breakfast. No more getting evil stares from kids who just want to sleep some more!

However, after this novelty has worn off, you realize that you have traded a mere hour or two of extra sleep for those precious 4-5 hours of peace and tranquility you had in the mornings. That was the blissful period of time when you could drive around and get your errands done while listening to music other than "The Wheels of the Bus"! Sometimes you could even fit in a hair wash!

A week into the holidays, and the kids have burrowed right down to your scalp after being in your hair 24/7! Not an hour goes by without hearing these favourite chants:
"Mummy, I'm bored!"
"Mummy, I have nothing to do!"
"Mummy, what do I do now?"


So, to prevent kids from going nuts, and Mummy getting depressed, we have to come up with lots of activities for kids to keep them occupied over the holidays.

These are some of the activities we have done post Genting Highlands trip:

• go to the park to play on the swings
• go to the shopping mall to do sand art (again)
• make gingerbread men cookies
• put up the Christmas tree
  
• pack 550 presents for the upcoming Christmas party for children from rural villages
• start intensive private swimming lessons
• start private art classes

Since there are so many cousins, we could organize private art classes at Grandpa's home on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. May 'The Force' be with the poor art teacher who has to teach all 9 of them!


I have also arranged private swimming lessons at our condo for the 3 girls on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. They really enjoyed their first lesson, because the coach is really good with children and makes their lessons fun! This is a humongous improvement from our condo's resident coach who once scolded Annie, "Can you understand English?!"

The nerve of him! He is the one who can't understand English, because he kept asking Annie to stroke with her right arm and Annie kept doing it and he kept yelling, "Right arm! Right arm!" It was the right arm already for goodness sakes!

So anyway, we still have plenty of time before school starts. Tomorrow, they will attend a Christmas religious camp in the afternoons for 4 days. This was organized by Grandma and includes hearing impaired children. Grandma teaches sign language and speech and has worked with the hearing impaired for many years.

Well, that will keep them busy for another week. For next week, we'll see what we can rustle up and I'll report it soon.

Baby shopping

I love getting sneak peaks into kids' minds and discovering their sometimes hilarious understanding of things.


The other day, Claire asked Big Aunt, "Why don't you have a baby?"

Big Aunt replied that they hadn't gotten one yet.

So, Claire suggested, "Just go to the hospital and buy one la..."

*Sigh* If only it were that easy!



With this scenario in mind, the next one makes more sense:

This was a few weeks later. Solomon was going about doing his thing as usual, being cute. Claire was watching him.

Then she asked me, "We choose one this baby cute ho?"

Well, I guess mum is good at choosing the cute ones at the 'hospital shop'! :)

New Moon is rising

On Saturday, I went to watch a movie all by myself! This is the first time I've done this. I used to think it would be pretty sad to go watch a movie alone, but it was great! You can really immerse yourself into the movie as if without a care in the world! (Especially without the non-stop babbling little ones! This wasn't a kid movie anyway.)

Hubby has done this a few times and said it was actually quite cool! He encouraged me to go when I mentioned that I wanted to watch 'New Moon' on the big screen. (Hubby's away and men will most likely detest this movie anyway; no kung-fu and more sexy men than sexy women!)

I didn't watch 'Twilight' at the cinema, and I found the movie rather crappy. So, I thought, maybe if I saw 'New Moon' on the big screen, it might add to the enjoyment of the movie. Moreover, since there are more special effects in this sequel, what with the hunky werewolves and all, I thought it would be much better savoured on the big screen.


So anyway, I really enjoyed the movie, only because I have read the whole 'Twilight'' series. Therefore, I am well versed on the backstory of all the characters and I know all the little details which you cannot portray in the film. Without all this, and especially without the understanding of the intensity of Bella and Edward's love, the movie would just seem downright corny!

Honestly, it was just a so-so movie with not-so-great acting, but, and this is a big but, it's 'Twilight' okay? Nothing any cranky old movie critic can say to condemn this movie will deter the millions of 'Twi-hards' from paying good money to watch it! AND... another two reasons this movie has broken all box office records is of course... Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner (or rather, Taylor Lautner's body).

Okay, this is a classic case of "a picture is worth a thousand words", so here:



FYI, I am Team Edward! :)

Well, whatever the case, I had a great time watching this movie. For two marvelous hours, I lost myself in the rainy town of Forks, Washington.

Wanted!

Wanted

The Serial Scribbler!

This Serial Scribbler is at large and is wanted by the Domestic Law Enforcement Authority for multiple repeat offenses.

We would like to warn the public not to be fooled by her cute appearance! Beware! She is dangerous when armed with a pen, and is even worse with a marker!

After many reprimands, she is still unrepentant and continues to unleash her 'artistic talents' on innocent pieces of furniture and most any writable surface.

Her many offenses include scribbling on walls, floors, refrigerators, bedding and little brother, to name a few. She is also infamous for drawing on her own limbs!

Here are some pictorial evidences of her crimes:

EXHIBIT A: Wall



EXHIBIT B: Floor



EXHIBIT C: Table



EXHIBIT D: Refrigerator



EXHIBIT E: Daddy's favourite pillow



We would like to encourage the public to be on the look out for this Serial Scribbler. She has big, brown eyes, dark hair and loves to sing. The authorities have reason to believe that the mustache is fake.

Thank you for your co-operation.

"Working together to keep the home in one piece.
Domestic Law Enforcement Authority

Replay

Oops! I just found out the last Birthday Song recording for Daddy has no sound! So here's a replay:




Happy Birthday again Darling! :)

Happy holidays!

We're finally back from the Genting Highlands holiday. There were altogether 2 grandpas, 5 mums, 2 maids, 2 dads and a scary total of 13 kids!

It was great to catch up with the"'Singaporean" Sisters and their boys. Too bad "Singaporean" Brother and the other 3 dads couldn't make it though.

The children were so happy just to be altogether in a hotel! They thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the indoor and outdoor theme parks. But the place which gave them the most joy was the arcade!

There's something about seeing all those strings of tickets coming out of the gaming machines. It's addictive, like the satisfaction and high you get from seeing coins come out of a jackpot machine! The kids were intent on collecting as many tickets as possible, to exchange for cheap prizes like yo-yos and stationery. This must be the training ground for future gamblers! :)

Anyway, since it was a once-in-a-year holiday thing, we let them indulge in almost whatever they wanted, rides, games and even cotton candy!

The kids enjoyed playing with each other in the rooms. The mums kept creeping out to the room with the least children! However, it seems that these kids come equipped with mummy tracking sensors!




It was pretty tiring keeping an eye on three kids by myself. The resort was really crowded, with it being the school holidays and all. Luckily I had 2 grandpas to help and also 2 very, very useful child leash/harnesses. Lots of people stared when I dragged these two around (most of the time they were dragging me though)!


The big girls playing Snap.


The big boys playing Gameboys.


Little Baby Ben Ten playing mineral water bottle.


Small ones up to no good?


Everyone missed Solomon who stayed at home with Grandma and Sidekick.

Happy birthday Daddy!

(I just found out there's no sound in this recording! I made a new one here.)


Today is hubby's birthday and he's far, far away in Sea Cucumber Land @ Papua New Guinea...

This is for you Darling:





Happy Birthday from all of us! We love you!

Spelling bee

Claire is now at the stage where she can recognize letters individually, but has yet to master the art of putting them together to read a word. So now she has a habit of reading out the letters in words, and assuming that they say what she thinks they should say, like this:



The other day, we were in the car, at a red light, when a huge bus pulled up beside us.

Claire began to read the printing on the side of the bus, "B-A-S P-E-R-S-I-A-R-A-N."
"School Bus!" she announced.



Another time was when we had just landed at the KL airport, on our way to Genting Highlands Resort.

Claire looked out the window at a hangar and read, "M-A-S K-A-R-G-O."
"Genting Airport!"



Clever girl...

Jaw-ache

I have a jaw ache from eating the Lebkuchen (German Christmas cookies) I made last night. They turned out very pretty, yes, what with the ribbon and all... but they're seriously hard! The taste is great; a warm spicy fusion of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and allspice. Really Christmass-y... makes you want to break out all the old Christmas CDs and put up the Chrismas tree right away!

However, once you bite into one, it's like chewing old leather! I really do not know if its texture is supposed to be like this, because I have never been to Germany to eat Lebkuchen, or otherwise. I did read in one of the comments on the site where I found the recipe that hers always turns out real hard. So since mine is just hard, not real hard, I guess it's supposed to be like that? Hmm... Germans must have very strong teeth and jaw bones.

So the kids have rejected the Lebkuchen and now I have to make kid-friendly gingerbread men cookies for them. I'll be sure to use a sugar cookie or similar recipe so I don't end up stuck with a batch of uneaten rock-hard men... sorry, rock-hard gingerbread men ;)

Oh yes, notice my photography-with-camera-phone skills are improving! Hubby has absconded with the camera and will be going diving tomorrow with it. He managed to find a diving centre there at Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and is hoping to take some nice underwater macro pics. He has no idea what the terrain, visibility or reef life is like there. Let's hope it's beautiful, so PNG won't be such a painfully boring (did I mention dangerous as well?) place to him.

Okay, signing off here. Anyone want to try a Lebkuchen? I could post it to you where ever you are. It wouldn't even need a box or bubble wrap! Seriously...

Alien cakes

Yesterday I baked 2 chocolate cakes (= 4 layers) and 12 chocolate muffins for Claire and Annie's school year-end parties. Annie wanted to give a cake each to her class teacher and assistant teacher, so I gave her free reign in decorating them (the cakes, not the teachers) :)

Here are what she aptly calls her 'alien cakes'!




Claire's class party is tomorrow, so I'll let her decorate the muffins tonight and we'll see what she comes up with...


Here's the head pastry chef hard at work.


Meet the sous chef.


This is assistant no.2 whose job is to eat the floor clean!

Eva missed out on all the messy fun because she's down with the flu and fell asleep early last night.