Lovely ladies

This afternoon I had lunch with some old secondary schoolmates. It was great catching up and gossiping with the ladies! It's refreshing just to have a conversation with peers, as opposed to whining kids 10 yrs and below!! :)

Since the children are now older, I have more time and energy to socialize. It used to be that I was so tired from work and kids, that I couldn't be bothered to make all that effort to go out and make small talk!! Sleep was a far more precious commodity!! So for years, I barely kept in touch with old schoolmates.

Anyway, thanks to Facebook, I have been able to keep track of friends and at least know what is going on, like who is where, who got married and who got pregnant... etc. A lot of people are against Facebook, they think it is an invasion of privacy. I, on the other hand think it is such an amazing tool which keeps us in touch with friends and family. It all just depends on how you use it. There are many privacy settings which you can change to make it more private and whether you post anything or not is entirely up to you. I think that the benefits definitely outweigh the cons.

It was through Facebook that I organized this lunch and got to see friends whom we rarely see now in our hectic lives and some who have come back from afar for Chinese New Year. At least with Facebook, I feel more socially connected and less like I'm walled up in my own little claustrophobic world (invaded with the same whiny kids 10yrs and below)!! :)

So three cheers to Mark Zuckerberg, I say!

Auto Correct

I discovered an extremely amusing website today. If you need a quick pick-me-up on a bad day, you must go to: www.damnyouautocorrect.com.

Those of you who have hand phones which have the spell check which auto corrects the words you type will know how irritating it is sometimes when you type too fast and do not check what came out. Only after pressing 'send' do you realize that the auto correct function has totally screwed up what you intended to say!

Here's an example:

Taken from http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/

Be warned though, a lot of the content in unintentionally 18SX! :)

Stressed...

Yay! Hubby's coming back tomorrow....
It's been a rough and busy week.
Life is always sweeter when your partner is near. They don't even have to do anything, just being around makes a difference.

Well, at least it's a FRIDAY!! But actually that doesn't make much of a difference to me, weekends are packed with ballet, Taekwondo and piano classes, and the shop is still open.

But we are closed on Sundays! Yes, we can always count on the 'day of rest', the 'Sabbath day'! A day when we can just chill, at the end of a hectic week, and gather back our bits of straying sanity...

I appreciate my mum even more right now! How did she ever manage 6 kids!! All the time management and co-ordination and driving up and down to school and activities, buying groceries to feed an army, and working on top of it all!! I only have 4 kids and a very flexible job and already I'm complaining...

Well, actually the real reason I'm so stressed is I did a really, really stupid thing today. I was rushing about as usual but today there was an added stress factor. I had to pick up Kung Kung from the airport at 5pm, and anyone who knows Kung Kung knows he has a way of making you stressed out without saying a word! :)

So at 3:40pm I picked up Annie from school and brought her and Claire for Kumon class... then I rushed out to buy a present for Annie's BFF, Samantha who was having a dinner party that night. So at 4:45pm I asked that Annie be excused early from class cause I had to go to the airport. (it didn't help that traffic was horrendous today, rush hour plus CNY last minute rush?)

Then I had to get Annie back to school to meet up with Sis no.2 (who was there watching Amanda's sports practice) so she could follow them home and freshen up, then go to the party together with Cousin Amanda.

When we got to school, I was planning to turn in and drop Annie off, but it was already 5pm and moreover the cars were not moving and we were stuck right in front of the exit gate of the school. So this was where I experienced a sudden lapse of better judgement and told Annie she could get down from where we were.

So Annie opened the door without looking first, and "BAM!!" a motorcycle rammed into the open car door! Thank God Annie was still in the car! Geez... It was all my fault, the poor guy on the motorcycle also almost 'peng' (fell)!

*sigh* I'm just so happy Annie was okay and then I went down to see if the motorcyclist was alright. He said he hit his leg and there were just scratches on his bike. He asked for RM50 and of course I paid him, the poor guy!

I feel like such an awful mum... awful, and awfully stupid...

So the car door doesn't close very well now and the ever-efficient Kung Kung has already taken it off my hands and given me his car to drive.

(Girl, the cover story for the benefit of the older generation is that a motorcycle hit me coming out from the school okay?! I'm sooo not in the mood to listen to nagging right now!! Thank you for not reporting!! :))


*sigh*

So the moral of the story is, relax and do things slow and steadily, even if you are late. Rushing about like a headless chicken will only attract negative energy... I. will. try. to remember that...

Also, my kids will never ever be allowed on a motorcycle! Motorcycles seem to have this knack of appearing out of thin air, especially in front of you at roundabouts!!


Also.. will someone please invent a rubber car??

Alaena is 6

We celebrated cousin Alaena's 6th birthday on Sunday. The kids had a swim at Sarawak Club followed by an early dinner and of course... cake.

 Happy Birthday dear! :)

(Solomon was sick with fever, hence the pyjamas!)

The Original Supermum (This is a re-post from 27/4/2009)

Today was mum's birthday, so in memory of her I wanted to re-post this (originally posted on 27/4/09):

The Original Supermum would definitely be my own mummy. Mum died of breast cancer two years ago, on 27th March, 2007. She and dad raised all 6 of us and education was always a top priority, at all costs. Only 2 years ago did Dad finish paying the bank loans and overdrafts which he took out for our overseas education! He already had 11 grandchildren by then!

There was a time when mum was working full-time as a government staff nurse, weekends at a private clinic, nights taking care of a bed-ridden patient and even sold insurance and MLM products on the side! Being a mum myself now, I realise and can fully appreciate the enormomity of her selflessness. I never heard her complaining about work or having to send us to school and piano classes.. etc.. Only now that I have to do it myself, do I know that it's no fun! :)


Anyway, mum was born to a rather privileged childhood, compared to most other children of their time. Grandad ran a restaurant in town and she was the third daughter born to his second wife. His first wife had passed away and later on our Grandma was shipped directly from China! Much later on, dad who came from a more rural area, rented a room for a while, at the space above the restaurant. This must be how they met for the first time.

Mum was a tough cookie, to say the least, she always had a rebellious streak in her. I remember she told us of the times when she used to ride her bicycle to school with her siblings. When her bicycle chain came off, she would throw a tantrum and dump the whole bike into the drain! Grandad's workers would have to come fish the bike out afterwards.

Those days, children of different ages could be placed in the same class, depending on their academic abilities. There was one particular boy in her class who was quite big and mum would tease him and call him names! He would then chase her around the yard but she, being petite, could outrun him easily. And guess what? She ended up marrying his brother! (yup, that boy was my uncle)


Even when she was in nursing college, mum could be found in the drain catching guppies! She was quite the tom-boy, albeit a beautiful one. She also had a very high pain threshold. I remember once, she accidentally kicked the side of the bed. After about a week, she was wondering why it still hurt. So she had an x-ray done and found out that she actually broke a toe!

Mum, with her wealth of experience being a nurse, was the one we always turned to for medical advice, especially concerning babies and children. She spent many, many years at government maternity and child health clinics. She knew most of the small villages in the rural areas and could speak many chinese/malay/iban dialects as well. She even once delivered a baby on a village jetty! The baby was already on its way out, so it was an emergency. Some of the villagers have a long way to travel before reaching medical help. Doctors were also not always available in those rural areas.

Many times, her vast experience proved more valuable than a doctor's expensive training. There was one time, she had a bad, piercing pain in her abdomen and went to see the doctor. Either one or two doctors (I can't remember) turned her away, saying it was nothing serious. She knew something was wrong and in the end insisted on being admitted. After further investigation, it proved to be appendicitis, and an emergency operation was done. Mum said any more delay would have caused the appendix to rupture!


Even in the case of her breast cancer. Mum has a history of lumps in the breast, so she had yearly mammograms done at the general hospital. The doctors there gave her the all-clear. It was only after she discovered a lump through self-examination, did they discover the tumour. Mum was a fighter, she went through operations and also the dreaded chemotherapy. I believe she played down the pain and misery she was going through for our sakes.

I remember during the last couple of days, when mum was drifting in and out of consciousness, she asked for a piece of wood because there were a lot of 'bad people' around. Religious aunty says the devil comes to fight for your soul at the hour of death. Doctor sister says morphine makes one hallucinate. Original Supermum says, "I'll clobber their heads with my stick!"

Well, anyway, a few nights ago, little brother had a dream of her. He can't remember much, but what he remembers is this. Mum said she was doing okay. She hadn't met God yet. She said she was in a dark place, a city with no lights. Something about that is where we prove ourselves. She said that we must really do more good and not be so calculative.

Now, I doubt little brother has read books on theology, spirituality, the after-life, and such. Moreover, the descriptions are eerily vivid. 'City without lights' is particularly disturbing for me. As far as I'm concerned, this is pretty genuine. If anyone can break the laws of time and space and who knows what else, through sheer willpower, to reach us, it would be none other than The Original Supermum! :)

Many people will interpret this in many different ways; purgatory, different levels of heaven, an alternate universe, reincarnation...? What ever the truth is, I believe our mere mortal brain will not be able to grasp its concept. It'll make e=mc2 seem like 1+1=2. So I believe this is where faith comes in. Just believe and know there is a God and leave the rest to Him.

So, just in case there's WiFi in heaven; Mum, we get you loud and clear! We love you and we miss you!

Tiger Mother

So have any of you read the Wall Street Journal article about the upcoming book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother"?

Well, this article took the most controversial bits of Amy Chua's book and added a title which was sure to reel the fish in: "Why Chinese Mothers are Superior"! Amy Chua's PR people did their job well, as the article caused havoc throughout the world!

Any parent or anyone who plans to be a parent must read this article here. After which, you should read this one from Time which takes a neutral stand and looks at the pros and cons of both methods of parenting. It is all very eye-opening indeed!

So what are we talking about? Basically, Amy Chua has exposed the strict Chinese method of parenting which some might call impressive, as it produces high achievers, while others declare it bordering on child abuse and claim it produces children with low self-esteem.

The relaxed western style of parenting however seems to produce creative individuals, yet there is too much mollycoddling that children become very emotionally fragile and also do not realize their full potential.

So which parent are you? The 'Chinese' one or the 'western'? I think Hubby and I like a balance between the two. We did not want our children to go to Chinese syllabus schools because their methods are too rigid and there is no room for creativity. It would have been great if they could be bilingual, but we didn't think it would be worth sacrificing their creative spark.

Here is an example from Sis no.2 whose eldest daughter went to Chung Hua No.1: there was a question on her test paper and the answer was "forest". So when she wrote "jungle" it was marked wrong. It didn't matter that they both meant the same thing! It was just not what the teacher wanted.

This reminds me of when we took 'Pendidikan Moral' back in secondary school. Questions about morality are so subjective and there are so many right answers, not just one. But we had to try and read the minds of the examiners to guess which one they actually wanted from us. It was a seriously ridiculous subject!

However, I still do believe that children need to be pushed otherwise they will never be all that they can be. We only have one life to live, and we should of course put our best into everything we do. Children however, do not look so far ahead. All they can think of is their next candy bar. We as their parents have the responsibility of bringing them to greater heights. And if this means 'forcing' something on them, then so be it.

Every parent knows the all-too-familiar scenario of a child begging for piano lessons one week, only to end up crying the next because she does not like them anymore! If it were up to the kids, they would never see anything through.

Like Amy Chua says, they will only enjoy something when they are good at it. So it's up to us to push them through to that stage, but always of course with methods within reason.

I found this to be very true when Annie first started going for Kumon maths classes. The Kumon method is all about practice, practice and more practice. Kumon students have to do repetitive maths exercises everyday, even if they are sick or on holiday! Initially, Annie enjoyed the work. Then, when it got harder, she would cry and ask to quit, and then get angry with me for forcing her to continue. This happened many times.

Well, she is now doing algebra, although she is only 9 and she loves all the praise she gets from her teachers and family when they see how fast she solves maths problems. Now that she is experiencing some difficulty with her algebra and I am not very satisfied with the lack of guidance from the teachers, I suggested that she had done enough and it was time to quit. However, she has informed me that she does not want to quit, as she wants to continue being better than all her classmates when it comes to maths and is targeting the Kumon gold medal, which will mean she is three years ahead in her work! (I will give her another month at Kumon, if there is not much progress, I think the time would be better spent on something else)

So anyway, reading about how 'evil' Amy Chua was as a mother makes me feel much, much better, as I'm a pussycat mum compared to her! I also thought my own mum was strict... but no, nowhere near... Sometimes when we discipline our kids and force them to do things they do not like, we do feel guilty and wonder if we are doing the right thing. I suppose there is no real right or wrong, just as long as we do not physically or emotionally/ psychologically abuse our kids, I guess. Again, what is defined as abuse is also very subjective. I, for one, am guilty for the occasional ear-pulling and butt-smacking... I think in some countries they would be appalled!! I find that amusing (that they would be appalled, not the ear-pulling and butt-smacking)!! Hahaha....

I do of course, again, feel guilty after smacking the kids, but sometimes tough love is the only thing that works and it's for their own good! For example last night, I was assembling the house PC and the just-repaired CPU simply died out on me after all my hard work of finding the right cables and fixing the old mouse. (Electronic gadgets and I have no affinity) So I was in a worked-up mood when I went to the kitchen to find that Sidekick had mixed a dose of Solomon's antibiotics together with his dose of cough medicine before feeding it to him.

Now the story is like this, Solomon hates taking medicine, and mixing his meds only doubles the bulk, hence increasing the probability of him spitting it out! I would have given him the antibiotics first and if he didn't want the cough med, that would be okay, cause the antibiotics were more important.

So, I tried telling him nicely to take his meds, you know the usual, "Solomon good boy!, Solomon so clever!" etc...

Then we moved on to bribes... out came the lollipop and chocolates...

When that didn't work, I threatened to tell Daddy Solomon was a naughty boy...

Then I just gave up and held him down while we forced the medicine into his mouth!

Of course, he thrashed around, screaming and crying and spat everything out and that was when I blew a fuse! I shouted that he cannot spit out his medicine like that and he must still take his medicine, no matter how many times he spat it out! Then I threw the syringe into the sink. I immediately knew that I shouldn't have shown my temper like that. But do you know what? When I gave Solomon his antibiotics again, right after, he swallowed it down quietly. There was not a peep or a tear! Even this morning, he took it without fuss!

I think we have just been spoiling them. Being a pharmacist, I have heard of so many customers complaining that  their child cannot take medication orally, no matter what they tried! They were at their wit's end. I think we just have to be a bit tougher with them that's all. Sidekick says when they were kids in Indonesia, their mum would make them drink papaya leaf juice!! That, I have heard is seriously super bitter! She says they take it to prevent getting sick after playing in the rain or getting sick from mosquito bites. And guess what, now there are claims that papaya enzymes are potent stuff and can cure dengue fever and maybe even help in cancer treatment! Interesting huh?

Anyway, back to parenting; so I hope I can find the right balance between 'Chinese' and 'western' parenting. I guess everyone has their own ideals. And believe you me, the ideals that we have before having kids will definitely change when we really have kids, and the more kids you have, the more they will change!! When you have 8 kids pulling at your dress and whining, let's see if you can still be the ideal 'western' mother!! 
hyuk hyuk...

So... what mother are you??

CNY food again...

Yes, food... again...

I'm planning on what to contribute to the "Sa Chap Meh" (Chinese New Year's Eve) celebration.

It is a tradition that families reunite on Chinese New Year's Eve to celebrate and usher in the new lunar year. So every year we have lunch at my dad's house, followed by dinner at Hubby's parent's home. On Christmas Eve, it's the other way round, we have lunch at Hubby's parent's home and then dinner at my dad's. (It used to be cause we would celebrate Mum and Dad's anniversary. They  got married on Christmas Eve.) Anyway, that's a fair and square arrangement I'd say... :)

So far I'm thinking (subject to change) of these dishes:

Ngoh hiang: five-spiced pork roll

Dongpo Rou: sinful braised pork belly (found the recipe and seems to be quite simple...)

Tea smoked duck... this one I'll just order from the restaurant...

So now I'll have to do some recipe research and make a shopping list. Then it's 'off to market' tomorrow...

Chinese New Year goodies!!

I seem to be thinking about Chinese New Year food today... Chinese New Year is only 2 weeks away, so I'm making a mental list of the things I still need to get in terms of food, food and more food!!

Even though we will not be having guests over this year, I still have to stock up the house with junk food and soft drinks! Otherwise it's not Chinese New Year! One simply must eat until they feel like throwing up and drink until they have Coke coming out of their noses!! It's a requirement!! It's tradition!! :)

So anyway, so far I have:

• pistachio nuts (correction, had... Hubby finished them already... okay, maybe I helped a little...)
• cashew nuts
• cuttlefish
• sugee cookies
• kuih momo
• cornflake cookies
• cashew nut cookies
• egg rolls
• root beer

I'm sure there's some more stuff I've been squirreling away which I can't remember right now...

Anyway, I've also ordered yummy pineapple jam tarts from the Aunty next door to my shop (like two weeks ago!!)!

Well, since we are talking about Chinese New Year food, I'll tell you the food/drinks that instantly take me back to Chinese New Years of my childhood; ...keropok with acar, and Shandy!! :)
*happiness*

What are yours???

P/S: I tried the new purple Shandy and it's not as good

SIL alerted me to a clearance sale they are having at Charles & Keith. 70% off yummy shoes and bags storewide!

So, my strategy was to go early this morning to Spring, the shopping mall that opens at 10am.

I got there at 10:30am and as I approached, I saw only empty shelves in the front! I thought I had missed the sale, as everything had already been 'sapu'ed! (swept off the shelves)

Then as I got nearer, I realized there were some shoes left at the back shelves, and ladies were swarming the counter!! There were only like, 30-40 shoes left on display and everyone was at the counter trying to get the other side of the shoe or to pay for their purchase!

70% off is a good deal, and it would have been nice to get a bag or shoes at a bargain, but alas, I'm not that determined! (also no bags left anyway!)

So, some other day lah...

P/S: See those guys loitering at the front of the store? They're cleverly staying far away from the battle zone, as their women fight on!! :)

Handy Manny

Here's Solomon 'fixing' his toy telephone (there's nothing wrong with it of course). He'll go to the drawer and get the screwdriver and batteries and fiddle with the back of battery-operated toys. He even asked me to cut a piece of brown sticky tape which he stuck on his toy. I think he get this from Mummy who fixes everything with sticky tape!! :)

Solomon loooves tools, rackets and balls of all sizes, anything with wheels and also guns (love of guns definitely from Daddy)! I wonder why this comes automatically with the Y chromosome? He grew up with more pink girlie toys in the house, considering he has 3 sisters, yet he obviously prefers "boys' toys". Interesting...

This is his toy tool box. He calls it his Handy Manny bag. Two nights ago, when we were at Kenyalang shoppping centre, he spied another set of toy tools hanging in a shop. He wanted it and started crying and screaming, sitting on the floor (luckily wasn't rolling on the floor... maybe cause there was not enough space in the cramped shop!!)! :)

I had been thinking of getting him more tools to add to his collection, but I did not want to reward his screaming, lest it become a habit and we can never go shopping again!! So I will get the toys some other day.

I think it is important that we do not give in to their tantrums. Solomon just turned 2 last year and is now showing all the signs and symptoms of the 'terrible twos'!!

Starting around two weeks ago, he would scream when he cried! Like really loud, until his voice gets hoarse! Eva just got out of this phase last year, when she turned four. Now it's Solomon's turn!! *sigh*

I remember when Annie was around this age, and I still sold ice-cream at my pharmacy shop. There was this one day that she wanted ice-cream and I did not allow her. She cried and screamed and rolled all over the floor for around half an hour! After that, she never demanded for ice-cream from my shop anymore. She realized it was futile. I still sell candy and chocolates at the shop but the kids know that it's not for them. If I do not train them like so, how would I ever be able to bring them to the shop everyday without going mad or having all their teeth fall out!! :)

Anyway, Solomon still screams when he cries nowadays, and I suppose this will go on for another year or two. But he is otherwise a good-natured little boy and is very brave when he goes to school in the mornings cause even though he's okay most mornings, at times I can see he is trying his best not to cry! :)

Questions

Claire comes up with the most interesting questions.

In the car just now, she asked me, "Can we drink our own tears?"
"You know, the water that comes out from our eyes?"
"If we collected them in a cup, can we drink it???!!"

I don't know where she gets these questions from...

...but she did mention something about Sponge Bob Squarepants!! :)

Boulevard

I'd heard about the playground at Boulevard, a shopping mall here, but never made the effort to check it out. This is cause I find the parking there atrocious, which is why I've only ever been to Boulevard maybe twice or thrice, since it opened. Apparently Annie also heard of this place from her friends and did ask more than once whether we could go.

So since Hubby was around, I decided it would be a good time to scout out the place, cause I could just relax in the car, while Hubby did the maneouvering around the lousily-planned car park. (FYI, he just parked on the yellow line on the main road in front of the mall instead!!) -_-

So anyway, after lunch at Kenny Rogers, we went searching for this wonderful playground/ kid's utopia, place. It took a while till we found our way to the top floor. It was a large caged up area with plenty of slides and such.

There was an entrance fee of RM1 per royal child and us adult slaves and ladies-in-waiting got in for free! They had massage chairs which we could use for RM2 per half hour. It's such a good idea, we can relax while keeping an eye on the mini monsters, but alas, they were all in use.

Wouldn't it be great if they had this at Spring (another bigger, better shopping mall)? Better still, take it to the next level and provide childcare! *sigh* That would be every parent's dream come true!

Well, anyway, the kids had a blast! Annie was a very good jie jie and took care of everyone. Sidekick didn't follow and Hubby and I left them to fend for themselves. We just watched from the benches. There were a lot of kids running about, so I did half expect some collisions, but fortunately all went well.

It's a good place to let kids release their excessive energy, so I guess we'll be back again someday.

Wonder if I can bring my own masseuse...

Just wondering...

I was just wondering... why is it that the guy who sells bananas out of the back of his van, down the road from  my shop does not have to pay for parking?

He parks his van at a parking lot owned by the city council, and everyone has to pay for parking when we use one of these spots. I for one have to pay RM48 every month just to park my car outside my pharmacy.

So I'm thinking, in order to save RM48 a month, maybe I should just leave the boot of my Avanza open and hang a few bunches of bananas??!!! hahahaha...

Chiak pa bo su cho...

You recall the photo I put up in my previous post, of the Air Asia plane which skidded on the Kuching International Airport runway a couple of days ago? Well, I got that photo from Facebook.

I've since come to the conclusion that most FB users are seriously 'chiak pa bo su cho' (direct translation; after eat nothing to do)! This is because a day later, this photo emerged:

Then, later that night, it became this:

Hahahahaha!!!!

Ultraman sekali lagi telah menghapuskan raksasa makhluk asing!!!
Syabas!!!

First birthday of the year...

The first to celebrate his birthday every year is Marc. His birthday is on the 12th of January, so we celebrated it last Sunday at the condo.

Swimming...

yummy food...

and cake...

= PARTY!

Listen to the rythm of the falling rain...

Telling me just what a fool I've been... *ding dong.. ding dong...* (how else can you spell that sound... hmm??!!)

I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain.... and let me be alone again....

Well, it rained the whole night last night... and I mean by the buckets, not just drizzles...

So one of my staff called me this morning to tell me she's flooded in and can't get to work. It happens every year (she lives in Bau)! Come Chinese New Year, flash floods will be common occurrences. 

There was one year when Hubby had to wade through waist-high flood waters to reach his aunt's house to help them move their furniture to safer heights! That year, some houses had their whole ground floor submerged! Scary...

Hubby says, we're lucky we live on the 11th floor!!! Hahahaha...

As I'm typing away, it's still raining!! With no signs of it letting up! *sigh* Getting up for school wasn't easy this morning and everyone's in a lazy mood. Wouldn't it be nice to stay home and bake cookies or something? :)

The reality however, is filled with work, school, tuition and errands... so nope, no cookies...


Oh yes... FYI, an Air Asia plane skidded on the runway while landing, amidst heavy rain, at Kuching International Airport last night. It's wheels are stuck in the mud, so the plane is smack on the runway, preventing other planes from landing or taking off.

Luckily there were no casualties, but I think I'll stick to MAS whenever possible, thankyouverymuch...

Creaking bones

It's funny how we remember random, seemingly insignificant, little details of our childhood. One warm, fuzzy memory I have of being a kid, is hearing the occasional bones creaking/clicking noises which my mum made as she moved about the house. I guess it was comforting to know mum was nearby.

I was wondering if it was weird that I would remember something like that, until recently Annie asked me this,"Mum, why is it when you or Kakak move about your body makes noises?"

I told her, "I suppose we're getting old and our bones are starting to creak! "

And she replied simply, "I like it."

Guess I'm not the only weird one...  :)

Floating lantern

On Christmas eve, when we were at Kung Kung Titus' house, we 'launched' a floating/ flying lantern. The kids had been pestering Daddy to get them a floating lantern since they saw a photo in my phone of him playing one in Bintulu on Mooncake Festival night.

When we went to watch the animated film 'Rapunzel: A Tangled Tale", they became even more enamored with the lanterns and renewed their pestering. (Floating lanterns were a feature in that movie.)

Anyway, Hubby finally got them and even I was enchanted by a lantern that could fly. It was basically your own mini hot air balloon! We only played one, because images of lanterns crashing and houses on fire were going through my head!! :)

All the kids were excited and jumped up and down, shouting when the lantern took off gracefully into the night sky. The adults were rather excited too actually! :)

It was pretty awesome!

You should also see the instructions which come on the packaging of the lantern. It is made in China and the English translations are hilarious and make absolutely no sense!! Here's some of them:

And my favourite....

do not forget Wishing oh....

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!