All over again...

It's 2011, and school officially started yesterday. So it's back to the daily grind! We're doing it all over again...

My school bus driver job has resumed and I'm back to ferrying the kids to and fro from school and extra curricular activities. *sigh* I miss sleeping in! During the holidays, I didn't hear the scary sound of my phone's alarm for more than a month!! What bliss!

Hahaha.. we're only two days in and I'm complaining. Actually I don't really mind, I'm just complaining for the fun of it! (dramatization ma... otherwise so boring) In reality, I'm so used to the daily frenetic routine that when I find myself with free time and all the things on my to-do list crossed out, I get restless!! (anxiety disorder you think?)

So anyway, I've been so busy with Christmas and New year and getting the kids school-ready, I haven't blogged about all the fun times we had with the cousins who came back from Singapore and Miri.

FYI, Hubby and I ushered in the new year sleeping in bed! :) Actually we were half asleep, and the fireworks woke us up so we went to have a peep from our 11th floor window (Chinese New Year fireworks from up there is the best!!). We're definitely getting old... We had a chance to go out when the kids all fell asleep after coming back from dinner at Taiku's house, but chose to stay at home instead!

Okay, so Christmas and New Year's Eve was basically filled with feasting, feasting and more feasting!! The schedule went like this:

• Christmas Eve dinner at Kung Kung Titus'

• Christmas Day lunch at Kung Kung Paul's

• Christmas Day dinner at Lok Thian restaurant (My mum's cousin's birthday and wedding anniversary. The kids slept over at Kung Kung Paul's)

• Hubby and I left early to get to a friend's barbecue!
  

•  Boxing Day dinner was a BBQ at our condo to celebrate ours and Sis no.4's 10th wedding anniversary!! How time flies!!

•  Day after that, Uncle Polycarp treated us to a wonderful buffet lunch at Pullman (the newest hotel here), because he won the lottery in Singapore!! (in Singapore dollars some more... aboden...) 

• The final feast was on New Year's Eve at Taiku's house.

In between all the gorging feasting, we also managed to squeeze in quite a few Sarawak Laksa breakfasts!

The conclusion of course is that; I have, through no fault of my own (I blame the holidays!) gained weight!!!! :)

Well, my battle against weight gain is a whole other looong story, so here are the photos instead...

Christmas Eve at Kung Kung Titus' house.

 All the grandkids were in attendance. All 15 of them... with 2 more in the oven!

Mmmmm.....

 Presents galore.. and even ang pows from Kung Kung! :)

When we got home that night (Christmas eve) there were more presents to open... from mummy and daddy. Solomon was too tired and 'KO'ed with his new water gun by his side!

Managed to do a bit of karaoke before Christmas morning mass at Carmelite!

 After mass was lunch at Kung Kung Paul's house.

 Hughie loves demolishing gingerbread houses...

 More pressies!!!

The daddies and uncles ended up playing with assembling the toys...

On Boxing Day, everyone came over for a swim. This is adorable cousin Ben Ten from Singapore who's the youngest cousin, for the moment...

 We had a barbecue that night, to celebrate ours and Sis no.4 & Richard's 10th anniversary! (just another excuse to EAT... again!)

I think the kids must've gained weight over the holidays too! :)

Having fun with sparklers 'imported' from Singapore...

 Our lovely guests...

 Demolishing yet another gingerbread house...

 The 5 sisters.. brother (no.6) still asleep?!

Here we are at Puzzle, the cafe at the new'ish' Pullman Hotel... The kids thoroughly enjoyed the ice-cream bar with it's plethora of diabetes-inducing toppings and sauces!

 Pleasant place with good food...

... especially the desserts! I finally got to try 'real' macarons, not the fake, hard, sugary concoctions! Yummy, yummy... The yellow one is peanut butter, which I do not really care for, the orange one is orange obviously, with a heavenly orange-scented buttercream. The brown is chocolate with a decadent chocolate ganache filling. *sigh* I have to make these someday...

I had called ahead to make the reservation on behalf of Polycarp, the lucky lottery winner. I told them to put the booking under his name (which is not a very common name) and this is what we saw when we got there! :)

The last dinner of the year was at Taiku's house.

So that was it! Christmas and New Year's Eve gone in a flash! Have a great year ahead everyone! Now we have Chinese New Year to look forward to! Less than a month away!