Christmas Eve Dinner

This year, we had extra guests for our Christmas Eve dinner. Chek Kong, Chim Poh and Kor Poh joined us. We finally decided to go with barbecue as this would ensure that the menu would be suitable to our guests' food preferences.

We planned the timing to cook and roast the food, but sometimes, things do not go as planned. The chicken took longer than anticipated (not hot enough). Daddy got a little stressed out. Look at his 3 supervisors:

Of course, I needed to take a picture of "the best present" we had under/near the tree. Can you guess which it is?

Finally the chicken, prawns and steaks were done and the salmon were slowly cooking in the grill. Daddy went up for a quick shower while the steaks rested and we prepared the dining table:

Our dinner spread

A family photo before dinner was served

We were all rather hungry by then. So everyone started tucking in the food. Soon, it was time for the salmon to be served. 

Salmon on cedar wood planks.. heavenly

After dinner, the two of you went out to roast some marshmallows. Ko-ko tried to get the fire hotter:

It was finally time to open presents. By then, Ah Ma said that she had a tummy ache and had gone up to her bedroom. Mei-mei failed to get her to come down again and join us. We had to send up two elves to get her to join us. She finally came down. 

No points for guessing who was the busy elf tasked (or volunteered) to distribute out the gifts:

This was made by Mei-mei for Kor Poh

I always love these quiet dinners at home with close family.

We managed to stay up till past 12 midnight to welcome Christmas. 

Cousins visting

This weekend, we had visitors. Ariesse, Vianna, Ah Pek, Ah Mm, Pek Kong and Mm Poh stayed over on their way back to KL from a holiday in Hadyai. 

Mei-mei was very happy to have 2 girls to play with. Too bad it was a short stay and we could not arrange for some stuff for you all to do outside of the house. Mei-mei could not miss another ballet lesson since she had already missed 2 and this Saturday, Miss Foo needed to assess if she could take the upcoming Grade 3 exams or not. 

So right after ballet, the 3 of you set work to paint the ornaments we picked up from Ikea. 

3 busy bees, painting

Ornaments you all painted: Tree (collaboration between the 3 of you), Vianna's round bauble, Ariesse's Santa Bauble and Evelyn's tree bauble

You all painted very beautifully and now we have 4 customised ornaments are on our tree.

Date with my darlings

 

I had several days of carried forward leave to clear. So I took today off and planned to bring the two of you to Project Rock, since Ko-ko has gone several times with his friends, while Mei-mei never had the opportunity to do so. 

Then, Ko-ko had afternoon plans with his friends at Jeanni's house. And so when Audrey wanted to come over in the afternoon for a play date, I agreed to that plan too. So we had an earlier start to the day. We planned to arrive at 10am, which is when Project Rock opens, unfortunately we were a little late to arrive as there was traffic jam on the way to Gurney Plaza.

Anyhow, just as we arrived, someone from Citibank called and I was on the phone, so Ko-ko did the registration for Mei-mei and I just needed to wave my card for payment.

As this was Mei-mei's first time, she needed to have a briefing before being allowed to climb:

Ko-ko just started climbing:

This was where you got stuck.. not sure of how to go up or down and Ko-ko insisted that you figured it out yourself. You dared not let go and jump off the wall:

Monkey Ban:

Two monkeys:

Mei-mei took this photo of her painful hands to show daddy:

Taking wefies while waiting for Ko-ko:

Ko-ko said we'll leave at 12.30pm, but in the end we left shortly after 12 as you both had painful hands and were quite tired too.

Went to quickly look at champagne flutes in Parkson before heading to Nando's for lunch. You were both so hungry, I had to order the free flow froyo so that you could eat that while waiting for the chicken.

Hungry Mei-mei

Grumpy Ko-ko

Showed daddy the photos above and he commented that Ko-ko never smiles. So we had to re-take another photo:

The chicken we ordered was half and half. Ko-ko kept teasing Evelyn that she was "Not so brave". After some thought she replied "Yes, Not so brave.. but VERY brave" 

It was a nice outing with the kids. After you both continued with your own activities, I went off with daddy to do some shopping on our own.

Santa's Elf at Work

This week seems to be a week of Christmas celebration.

On Tuesday, you had a round of celebration during Chapel. We have submitted the gift and you got the present (gift was from a child in the primary school, based on the lucky number you picked). You weren't too happy with the gift which was a box of pencils... but oh well it is a useful present.

All dressed up in "Mrs Claus" colours

On Thursday, you were assistant team leader for Girl's Brigade and you and Summer decided that you'd bring party packs. So here you are on Saturday packing the gifts before running off and asking me to stick on the stickers you had designed for the party pack. 

As for Ko-ko, you woke up this morning as I walked into your room. Gave me a shock thinking that you weren't feeling well. Turns out you just wanted to inform me that you woke up at 2am and realised you didn't wrap your gift for today's gift exchange!

I had to rush through the school breakfast and lunch packing as well as my own breakfast to go upstairs to wrap up your gift!

Hey.. while I'm typing this, it looks like I am the elf, not either of you!!

Christmas Gift Bag

We planned to get Yuen Ting a "slime starter bag" as a Christmas gift. Since the activator I ordered online arrived yesterday, you could give it to her in school before the break starts.

As I did not have a nice bag, I passed you this plain white bag (very useful) to decorate. As you wrote "Merry", I told you to be careful on the spacing of the words. And this is what I saw happened to the "Christmas":

There is the tiniest "a", but I don't see the "s", which you insisted is there

And then Ko-ko also pointed out that you missed out on the "T" too! Ahaha... 

Anyhow, I hope Ting Ting enjoys her present. 

Swimming Progress

Your swimming lessons are never consistent. Something or other usually occurs and you'd need to miss a week here and there. 

Well from being afraid to go underwater, you have overcome that fear. Now Uncle Adrian is teaching you freestyle but you seem to be afraid and stop everytime he lets go and tells you to swim on your own. Today's lesson was peppered with threats of bringing you to the deeper end where you wouldn't be able to stop and step on the floor of the pool *laugh*.

And halfway from my book, I looked up to find you all the way to the deepest end of the pool!!

Happy Birthday Daddy

We had an earlier celebration in Tong Hoi on Saturday. Ashley Ko-kor had secretly bought the cake all the way from KL. As for the 2 kiddies, Yvonne Kor-kor bought non-boozy cake from STG for Mei-mei and Martin. Ko-ko as usual, did not want any cakes. 

Love this photo taken of our family:

Happy Birthday to the greatest daddy and hubby anyone could ask for. 

We love you loads.

Celebrating 50 Years

Well, the main reason we headed back to Ipoh this weekend was to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Chim Poh and Chek Kong. 

So here we are in Tong Hoi having a feast. The photos were taken by Mei-mei:

Chek Kong stole the drumstick before Mei-mei could take a picture of the dish, so she needed to add another picture of the drumstick!

By the time the last 3 dishes arrived, we were all bursting at the seams! But we still had to have the cake and birthday song for daddy.. (nope we could not take a bite out of the cake!)

Quick Bake (and Regretting it!!)

When daddy and I were in Village Grocer a while back, I saw a box of cupcake pre-mix marked down. So I grabbed it thinking we could have a quick baking session together. 

Today, daddy while still in quarantine encouraged me to bake with you. So I went down and we very quickly whipped up the few ingredients together (even adding extra choc chips) to the batter.

Here's my assistant doing her (messy job):

As you were making and mixing, you even asked me "why so lazy to use pre-mix?"

And you were right.. wrong decision to take a short cut. It wasn't anywhere as good as the ones we make from scratch. 

Ok, ok. Lesson learnt. Next time we make chocolate cupcake, we will make it from scratch. 

Daddy later asked why he didn't get one.. I told him it was yucky! Ahhaha.. not worth putting into his tummy!!

2022/23 Sports Day

After the virtual sports day, you all managed to have an actual one this year. It was held in USM's Stadium. The location is so near, but it sure was jam when we tried to enter the grounds. Finally got into "Padang Kawat" which was the carpark and drop-off point. Then I headed home. It was heavy traffic just for me to get out of the carpark too. 

Unfortunately, daddy could not drop you or else he'd know his way around the university and would be able to get out from the Minden entrance. So I followed the queue and went back home.

I ate my breakfast as daddy had not yet woken up. Just has he messaged me to ask for his breakfast, Ko-ko called me. You asked me to send over your running/spike shoes. The boy who was supposed to run had injured himself and so you were the last minute recruit to run as third runner in the 4x100m relay. So again, I had to hop into the car and rush over to the stadium. Luckily the entrance into the road in front of the stadium was open, so I drove in and parked along the road and went in to pass you your shoes.

And to my surprise.. your team came in second. Wow! Maybe if you had trained, your team may have even won gold (so greedy *grin*).

As for Mei-mei, the results of the shot put was not announced on the day. But you did have fun with the events (some parents joined in the fun and shared photos and videos of the sports day and we spotted you)

Dancing happily during the warm-up session

Cheering on your friends in Pykett team

The plan was for you both to come back with Jeanni, the event overrun (by over 2 hours) and Ko-ko called to say that you both didn't want to wait for Jeanni who had to hang around to collect her medals. So Ah Kong and I rushed over to pick up two very exhausted and hungry children.

So happy with your green face paint

Hungry girl eating her CKT (finished the whole packet!!)

Mei-mei was proud to tell me that Fairfield was the winner for this year's Sports Day. 

Cleared??

 .. not yet apparently.

Daddy tried to test on the 4th day (Tuesday) as he was feeling much, much better. Unfortunately, his results were two very clear lines indicating he is still positive.

He tried testing again yesterday. There was still a faint line. 

Today, he tried again.. hoping that since it was a faint line yesterday, it should be gone by now. Sadly, the faint line is still there... so.. he'll try again tonight. Hope it clears off soon.

He is complaining that he has yet to enjoy looking at the Christmas tree up close. 

Let's keep our fingers crossed for tonight. 

Daddy is back...

 .. but he caught the Covid bug! 

Luckily he decided to self-quarantine despite testing negative on Friday evening upon arrival. He continued to mask up when we needed to be in the same car (when we picked him, and to go to his and my voting center) on Saturday. He opted to have lunch in his room (luckily). While we were having lunch, he told me that it looks like he had struck the Covid lottery... sigh. So looks like it is a minimum of 7 days of quarantine. 

I had gone out to buy some medicine and other stuff  after dropping Mei-mei at ballet. Ah Ma then went to spend time with Tou-tou, but I called her and told her to come back. Daddy had retested with another kit and confirmed on it. 

I tested and there was a faint positive line. Immediately got Ko-ko, Ah Kong and Ah Ma to test. Then we went to pick up Mei-mei who also tested when we got home. I did another 2 tests and it came back negative. Now what? 

That night, we all quarantine in separate rooms. I took the room downstairs, since my results were 1 vs 2. Mei-mei and Ko-ko both kept to their room to be on the safe side too since we were all in the car with daddy. We had a family chat while we ate the Nando's which I had ordered (3 whole chicken for our family of 7!! That is a story for another day!). 

One complaint about my waiter: I asked for wing and got this!

My test results came out negative on Sunday again, so I prepared food for daddy, but I kept to the room just for another day. Ko-ko was a big help, in distributing our chicken orders, Sunday lunch and also making sure than Mei-mei went to bed when it was time on Saturday and Sunday. 

On Monday morning, I tested again and it was negative. So I was "released" from the self-quarantine. 

Daddy has been having fever with it getting very bad on Sunday evening up till Monday (nearly the whole day). He seemed better from yesterday evening, but he'd sometimes take longer to respond to my messages, which I assume he'd fallen asleep again. He complains of a body ache and today mentioned that his kidneys felt funny.. 

But his appetite is ok most days, except for Sunday. Sadly today his test still returned 2 VERY clear lines. So he'll need to hang in the room longer. 

Had to have a fever patch for his fever which wouldn't come down

I'm just glad that I am fine and able to take care of you kids as well as daddy's needs while he's quarantined. *touch wood*

Christmas Tree Part 3: All done!

Daddy came down after showering (masked up) to shift the tree, put on the angel and also adjust the wiring for the lights along with the skirting for the tree.

Et voila:

Christmas Tree Part 2: It is Up!!

Well after we set up the tree on Saturday, we planned to decorate the tree on Friday, since we all have it off. But tonight after dinner, Mei-mei was so gung ho to have the decorations all up. We agreed on red and gold this year. The two of you had loads of fun putting them up. 

As usual, Evelyn even turned on some Christmas music to get us in the mood:

My Hardworking elves

So this was the surprise we had for daddy when he comes back... for the tree to be all ready (sans the angel and to shift to the correct location).

While daddy is away

On Monday night, daddy was saying his goodbye to Mei-mei as he'd be leaving very early in the morning. Immediately you got ready to give daddy the guilt trip. 

I could see you making a sad face, turning your lips downwards and about to start on how much you'd miss him. Luckily (for daddy) you glanced my direction just before your started, and I gave you a warning look. Immediately you stopped and happily hugged daddy goodbye and goodnight before hopping into your bed to sleep.

Poor daddy. He works so hard and when he gets to go off on a holiday by himself, he carries guilt with him. Bad enough that he himself feels guilty, he doesn't need you making it harder for him!

As for the both of you, the morning preparation is not too bad. Mei-mei gets a 1 minute snooze. I'll wake you up and then set the timer for 1 minute (plus) and Ko-ko has been good to set his own alarm at 6am and to get up when it rings. 

The only time he didn't wake up was on Tuesday when I had set the timer, and someone hit the snooze button. I had to run up to check on my sleepy boy. I guess you were tired from accompanying me to the airport. When I went into the room and 5.50am, you told me "I didn't fall asleep yet". 

Obviously, he won't be coming back empty handed. Look out for it when he comes back tomorrow.

He will also be surprised when he comes back too. You have a surprise planned for him too. 

Funny Things I Find

I had emptied out your purse at the beginning of the week and today, I had some time to clear the little pieces of paper which were in your pocket and I discovered these cute little drawings:

Had to take a picture of all of them. I later found out from you that you and Yuen Ting drew them to play "Charades". Very creative. I love that you have a good time in school with your best friend/sticky glue.