Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Stand together

Sometimes they're good, sometimes they fight.

JE: You ah, very naughty one!

And SE would complain:

SE: Jo Ern is such a naughty girl already!

Go away! You go away!

Pbbttthhhh


Then the mum starts yelling to stand nicely together in front of her beautifully-blooming plant so that she can take just ONE photo.

Cheese...

OK lah, that will do.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Picnic in the park

Went to the TTDI park recently.  It's a fun place, and it's free!

Armed with containers, fishing nets, flour/coffee sieves from the kitchen (courtesy of my mum) and whatnot, we first looked for little fishes and prawns to catch...

Look very carefully...

Did anyone catch anything?

Look, there's a frog! (SE's frog pose haha)


The children's playground is pretty big. 

Up the mountain I climb!

And down we slide !


It was a last minute thing so didn't have much suitable food for picnic.  Fried rice (put this in the thermal pot and am so happy that it stayed warm/hot!), fish cake, drinks and some munchies from CNY.

Eat some lunch


When we were almost done (JE and SE are very slow eaters) this big male monkey came over.  It looked around, then grabbed a container of CNY cookies and went up the bamboo.  It tried to bite the container open, but halfway the container dropped.  The monkey then found an open pack of biscuits and ate those.  This was a scary experience - this monkey was aggressive and already scarred from fights.  Luckily it went away after that.

Monkey and CNY cookies

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Gymrama

I confess to being a completely lazy mom.  I only sent JE to kindergarten, and that only for 2 years and not 3 as the norm these days.  No ballet/art/yamaha etc lessons, no enrichment classes, nothing. Now she has just started Primary 1.  And finally something else as well... gymrama (rhythmic gymnastics).

JE is naturally quite flexible, which helps.  Then after 3 lessons, I noticed there were some younger girls around.  So I decided to bring SE too.  Fetching one girl to gymrama is the same as fetching two.  And this also means I don't have to sit through two sessions of gymrama in future, as in an advanced class for JE and a junior one for SE.  Lazy mom to the core!  Heh heh.

I didn't take pictures for the first 3 classes as I didn't want JE to start feeling self-conscious.  These pictures are from the first class with SE.  SE wasn't happy about joining, but luckily she did try to follow instructions as best as she could.

Trying on shoes for size


Running round the area for warm-up
(Look at short and chubby SE hehe)


The teachers are slightly fierce and there's some shouting going on.  Guess they do have to maintain discipline.  I'm glad the 'Little Gymnasts' class is conducted in English though, unlike the more advanced classes.

Slightly fierce teachers

Exercises
(The more advanced class behind are doing harder ones) 


Hopefully the girls stick with it.  If they can cope, this will train them in discipline, flexibility, strength, confidence and all the good stuff.

At the end of that first class, there were sweets for girls who'd won some competition.  SE apparently expected one.  And was totally disappointed that she didn't get any.  JE had to carry her back to me looking like this.  Poor kiddo haha.

No sweet for me... why like this :(


Friday, February 17, 2017

Kitten story

OK must continue the kitten story.  There were 5 kittens with us at one time.  They were cute, but it was a nuisance having 5 furry creatures underfoot all the time.  Our neighbour (owner of at least one of the cat parents) suggested we could drop them off at the nearby market.  So we were trying to decide which one(s) to keep.

The kittens lived around the porch, but seemed to know how to avoid the cars and we stopped worrying about driving over them after a month.  Around Xmas however, I drove in and later noticed there was one under my car tyre.

SE kept saying "Mummy made the kitten die, mummy made the kitten die".  Until later that night... when she came upstairs and said "Mummy KILLED the kitten!"  Gahh.  Hubby continued with it the next day. Hmpppfff.  Like I WANTED to kill a cute furry creature??

After that we got our maid to shoo the kittens away when we needed to drive out.  Around New Year's day however, one kitten walked back under the car after being shoo-ed away... and hubby reversed over it.  Arggh another one bites the dust.  And this time, I had to give him back what he was calling me earlier... hahaha.  He was traumatised at causing its death too.

So it was 3 kittens left.

Recently, our neighbours' 8yo daughter 'gave' 2 of the kittens to her friend nearby.

So... only ONE  kitten left!  We're ok to have the 2 kittens gone to a good home.  Err... but how come we're left with my least favourite one??  Hahaha.  JE called it 'Fiercey' as it kept hissing at people. She quite likes this one though.

A week or so later, the two kittens came back.  It was quite good to see them again actually!

So now it's back to 3.

This is Fiercey

This is Blackie

This is Black Patch (Patch for short)

Now it's back to the dilemma of which one(s) to keep!  Patch is the best-looking but isn't friendly. Blackie is the only male - friendly but likes to play rough.  Fiercey is actually quite sweet now that it has gotten over its initial fear of humans.

We only want to keep two at the max.  Right now three are wreaking havoc on my plants, leaving pee/poo smells and eating up lots of food.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Another seafood meal

Following on from our seafood lunch at Kai's Plato, decided to try another type of seafood meal. 'Shelled Out' is in the same neighbourhood....

Check out our bibs!


We took a set platter which meant everything is cooked in the same sauce.  Pity, I was planning to try out a few of the sauces available.  But the kids don't like seafood so we couldn't order a lot.  Got sweet potato fries (loved this!) and chicken wings (all right, nothing to shout about) as well.  Kiddy meals aren't available.

Munching on fries and wings... when pile of seafood arrived

Check out pile of seafood!

Problem was, I didn't really like the 'Shell Bang' sauce.  And since everything was cooked in it, including the sweetcorn and broccoli, that meant I didn't enjoy the food much.  The fun effect was there = having food poured out onto the table, eating with fingers, throwing the shells into the bucket provided.

Pens are provided to draw anywhere you want.  I didn't like the resultant graffiti-covered effect - makes the place look dirty and down-and-out.  The kids loved it and didn't want to leave


I drew all this!

I drew a princess, a flower, my name...


If I ever come again, I'd definitely choose different sauces.  For now.... been there, done that.

Friday, February 10, 2017

SE's drawing

SE drew a few turtles on a piece of paper.  They had the usual shell with heads, legs, tails.  Except for two which was only the shell without additional appendages.

SE: This turtle went inside the shell. See?  Coz it was scared and it went inside. Then you cannot see the head, no legs also.
ME:  Thaaat's why.
ME:  (pointing to the other only-the-shell on the paper)  I see this one is also inside the shell.  Is this turtle scared also?
SE:  Oh. That one is just a rock

Err ok... hahaha.

Don't sweat it, Mummy. It's just a ROCK!


Speaking of drawing, SE sometimes doesn't go for the usual things.  Back when the other girls were busy drawing rainbows and princesses, she drew two parallel curved lines on a paper and informed me that it's "a Giant Leg".  It did look like it, but I don't have a photo of it.  I do have a photo of this one from a year ago:

Look, Mummy

SE:  Thih ih an elephant crying.  (She couldn't pronounce 's' yet that time)

Actually the picture does bear some resemblance to a crying elephant!

Monday, February 6, 2017

SE and her 'eyeglasses'

'Eyeglasses' is what our maid calls SE's specs.

She has a love-hate relationship with her specs now.  She reaches out for her specs first thing upon waking up, so I guess she needs them to see properly.  But to take photo...

Waittt.... *whips off specs*

Smile! *happy*

I do think she looks cuter without her specs.  I've been careful though not to let that out.  But she obviously feels that she doesn't look good with specs.

SE:  Next time, I don't want to do concert
Me:  Oh why? You can dance so well
SE:  I don't want because I have spec

Poor girl.

Another time that she whipped off her specs the moment I took my camera out...

Without my specs!

I look nicer right?


Not that I mind having some 2-eyed photos of her, truth be told.

Thursday, February 2, 2017

More CNY pics

Another post to record what we did... as a safeguard against lapses in my memory.

CNY Day2:  Lunch at a restaurant with hubby's sister #1 and #3.



Day 3:  Finally, lunch with my side of the family!  We all brought food to share (except my sis who brought ice-cream that was only enough for the kids hmpfff)

Huat ah!

Selection of food

And we took a family photo this time:

GXFC from all of us!


Day 5:  Photo of all the girls wearing the dresses my mum made for them.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

We come in peace and we are friendly