Birthday Party @ School

As you were not well yesterday, we had the party today. We went downtown to Maxim's to collect your cake. It was the last cake to be collected in the shop that night.

Ah Ma and I dropped you off at school with a promise to be back later on with the cake. At 10am sharp daddy and I were at school. Principal Lilly was there to greet us and brought us to your class. When Teacher Sharmine announced that it was time to celebrate your birthday, everyone in class got all excited and crowded around me to tell me about birthday cakes and someones birthday celebration. Before the celebration began, everyone had to go to the bathroom to wash hands. Then everyone got back and crowded around the cake to take a look.

When your teacher got back, she got everyone to take a seat and brought the cake from table to table to show them the cake.

You got to sit in front with the cake. And when everyone had seen the cake, Principal Lilly got them to stand around the cake and you and started to sing the birthday song in English, Malay and Mandarin.

As you could not blow our 4 candles at once, everyone helped you to blow it out then they all went back to sit at their own places.

Teacher Sharmine cut the cake while you and I helped to distribute the cake to your friends. She asked if daddy and I wanted to have some cake. We said "no". Later on daddy said he's not dare to eat any as everyone had "helped" to blow out the candle, there was bound to be "extra ingredients" on the cake!

Teacher Sharmine had not cut very big slices for all of your classmates. But when I'd asked why not, she said not to worry as your friends will know to ask for more cake if they wanted any more. Which they did. I'm glad they enjoyed the cake. I know you did. You had 3 slices. After all you picked the design of the cake and also ensured that there was "colourful hundreds and thousands" on the sides of the cake.

Before we left, you distributed the party packs to your classmates. The boys got the party pack with a green ribbon (with Transformers stickers) while the girls had the party pack with pink ribbon (with princess or My Friends Tigger & Pooh stickers). I had checked with your teacher on the number of boys and girls and never thought of packing any extra (Note to self: next time pack extras). Thank goodness although there were new students, there was also absent students, so in the end my 17 packets were just enough. You had to give up yours and I had to promise you a party pack at home so you seemed happy with that arrangement.

You were so happy throughout the celebration, being the center of attention for that 30 minutes or so. You kept hugging and kissing us, showing your happiness.

We went home and had lunch then picked you up from school after that.

What's in the Loot Bag?

We woke up early on Sunday morning despite having a late night. Of course, I'd have continued to sleep if not for this little worm sleeping next to me. Sheesh.. it was only 8.15 am!

Well we went downstairs, had breakfast and started to open the presents. So many presents. You are one lucky little boy!!! Here you are opening all the presents. Too many for you to play with or read all at once, but you've been reading or playing or learning with the new items.

A big THANK YOU to everyone for their thoughtful presents and wishes for our little boy.

Happy 4th Birthday

What a way to start your birthday. Sigh. Today is your birthday and you woke up at 6am.. with a fever. I put the thermometer on and I could see the temperature rising and not stopping before the temperature was confirmed, I was already downstairs bringing up the Paracetamol.

The moment you saw the bottle, you insisted that you did not want that. After a promise to give you strawberry yogurt drink, you drank and promptly asked for your strawberry yogurt. You even allowed me to put the fever patch on your forehead. We gave you a wipe and all fell back to sleep.

When I woke up, you also woke up and after much persuasion and many promises, you agreed not to go to school today.

So we will be celebrating your birthday tomorrow in school. After that we will be having your favourite fish and chips for dinner.

I hope you get better, sweetheart.

A Mouseriffic Party

Yup, the party theme is "Mickey Mouse". In advance, we'd gotten the bunting printed out and cut. On Friday night, I got it fixed to the string and with your help, daddy and I put it up near the kitchen.

On Saturday, we left you at home with strict instructions to nap by 3pm (Especially since you woke up a 7.30am to go to the market). Of course, you should still remember the "threat" so even before 3pm you were already asleep in your room. When we wanted to go out to pick up the cake and balloons, you had insisted that you wanted to go along. But after telling you that you had to take a nap and mummy and daddy had to go out to make sure your party was fun, you agreed to stay at home with Ah Ma.

Went to a shop to buy party favours, picked up your cake and headed to the balloon shop. We had ordered over 30 helium filled balloons in Mickey colours: black, read, gold and white. When the balloons were filled up, the lady helped us fit all the balloons into the back seat area of daddy's car and we headed home, driving carefully as daddy could not use the car's rear view mirror while driving.

The balloons all bunched up. And below is the balloons all arranged in the living room.

Got home to rest a little, put the finishing touches to the party favours for our guests and decorations. Soon it was time to get ready. You'd woken up all refreshed and rested. Had some tea-time snacks and soon it was time to get ready for the party. For once, we were all ready before our guests arrived. Daddy was already busy at the barbecue, starting to cook the food for everyone.

Daddy's and his assistant, Minnie Mouse and Uncle Peter

Yvonne Kor-kor & Uncle Peter

Soon our guests arrived and you had fun, keeping everyone entertained. Then when Kelvin arrived, you played with him. Managed to take a few pictures of our guests as daddy was too busy at the BBQ grill. Including one of you with your presents.

Mosts of our guests came in Mickey attire. Of course that included you in the yellow Mickey T-shirt which you had picked yourself for this special occassion. We also had a special guest that night. This is the first time you got to meet Mei Lee Ee-Poh. She was back from Australia for a few weeks. So she dropped by with Nanna to the party.

By the time we cut the cake and sang the birthday song, it was past 10pm. Everyone had a leisurely dinner and even daddy got to relax a bit after his "BBQ duty" was finally over. Here's the cake:

When everyone sang the birthday song, you also joined in and sang the song for yourself. The party continued with cakes, ice-cream potong and coconut jelly. By the time everyone left, it was close to 12 midnight. We did not open the presents that night except for one. I let you pick a present to open and you picked the present which was given by Ah Ma and Ah Kong.

After your shower and a book, you KOed almost immediately.

Countdown: 1 day to your birthday.

Yucky Mouth

Every time we pass that doughnut shop in Gurney Plaza's basement, you'd insist that you wanted a doughnut. And when showed the big variety which they have, you'd get all confused and cannot decide on which one you'd like to have. And as most of the doughnuts have coffee in one way or another, you'd only actually have a few choices which you can pick from.

Here you are enjoying the doughnut which you picked:

As you can tell from the picture, it was full of chocolate.

Countdown: 1 day to your party, 3 days to your birthday

Mr Grump

What happens when a little boy misses his afternoon nap? He gets super grumpy. And that's what happened to you on Tuesday. I had already noticed that you were super grumpy and weepy at dinner.

We had to go out to Tesco for a while to buy some things which we need for the party on Saturday. When we got back, you got all angry over something and started wailing at the top of your voice. I was also tired and it was close to 9p.m. What to do? Threaten you lo... I was going nuts too... "Stop crying now or I will throw out your train set and I will cancel your party this Saturday!!!!"

Almost instantly there was no more sound from you. Took you up, gave you a shower, read a book (finished reading in record time) and in less than 5 minutes you were fast asleep. The next morning, I asked if you'd be taking your afternoon nap. Of course, the answer was "Yes". And when asked if you did not sleep? You could answer me with what I'd threatened to do the night before (not that I'd really do that!!) Hehe...

So did you have a nap on Wednesday? Of course...

Countdown: 2 days to your party, 4 days to your birthday

Off to the Playground

It's been a while since we've been to the playground. And since we were off yesterday, we decided to head to the Bukit Dumbar Reservoir. After all, it was nearer to where we are not than the Youth Park... although to get there also took us quite a while, since it was a Friday and there were loads of people on their way back home.

One thing about this is there are fewer things to play on as compared to the Youth Park, but most of the kids are well behaved (do not jump queue when going up or down). And as you've been told that you cannot climb up the slides, you got really angry when you tried to go down the "tunnel" slide and a little girl tried to climb up the slide!

Here are a few pictures of you playing..

Wow! So many things..

Ah Ma and Ah Kong left the house at 6.30am this morning to go to Ipoh for Cheng Beng. As daddy had some work to do, we took leave and stayed at home with you. Daddy logged in for a while in the morning and also a while later when we came back from going everywhere.

Ah Ma came back with many goodies. There were presents from Jack Chek Chek, Jackie Ah Chim, Kor Poh and also Natalie Kor-kor.

You are a lucky little boy..

Is it a surprise?

Not really... We all went together to buy your birthday present. Something which you already knew about. No surprise there. The box was too big and heavy we had to get someone from the shop to put it on a hand truck to bring it to the car.

We were driving Ah Kong's car that day and it could not fit into the boot! Imagine that. Daddy and I were wondering before that if the box could fit in the car while we were in the shop, and we thought that it could seeing that it was around the same length as a golf bag. Looks like we misjudged the size.

In the end, the box sat in front at the passenger seat and even got to "wear" the seat belt... much to your amusement. Here's a sneak peak of what we'd bought:

Countdown: 8 days to party, 10 days to your birthday

Last Minute...

... well almost anyway. Ah Ma called me at work on Tuesday to tell me that Cheng Beng was to be on Friday instead of the originally planned 28th. So what does that mean? We would be better off postponing the birthday party...

So it became this:

School Holidays

Yesterday was the second day of the school holidays and I think you're already very bored. Following your insistence on going to school when I'd let you sleep in, I had to prep you many times over the weekend that there would be no school for a whole week. And you kept asking me if I'd be on holiday too. The next question was "How come you don't have work holiday?".

And yet, yesterday you told me (several times) that you wanted to go to school the next day. In the end, I had to tell you that yesterday was Day2. On "Day8" you'd get to go to school again. So for now you seem contented.

Maybe with the "special thing" at home you'd be more contented to miss school this week now. We'll be going to school on Saturday to meet with your teacher for "Parents-Teacher Day".

Missing...

Ah Ma brought you and Ah Pek for breakfast in a coffee shop on Monday and she forgot to bring your water bottle with her when you all left the coffee shop.

When they went back to look for the bottle, it was not there anymore. The shop people also denied seeing the bottle. Sigh.. So now you don't have your favourite Thomas water bottle anymore. But lucky you are ok with the other older bottles which you have and didn't make too big a fuss over the missing bottle.. I've spotted one Thomas bottle in a shop in Gurney but we've not decided if we want to get you that because that bottle design is not easy enough for you to drink from yourself. You'd need someone to help you with it.

How come there are such people who want to take a child's bottle?

Car-azy

One of the first words that you could say was "car" and till now, you still go crazy over cars... and lorries.. and buses.. and taxis. Now you are able to identify some car brands: Audi, BMW and even Honda.

So which car gets you all excited when you see it on the road?

Source

It's funny that you get all excited when you see all those Myvi on the road. But when we went to Nanna's house you somehow never noticed her Myvi parked there in the house!

Then there was one day when we were talking about the Porsche and you decided that this was a Porsche.

Source

And when we corrected you, you still insisted that it was a Porsche. Sigh.. but this weekend you finally decided that it was a "Proton".

And you also decided that little yellow cars are classified as "toy cars". All because Uncle Dennis and Ashley Kor-kor told you that this is a toy car (it's parked in their condo car park)

Source

When Ah Pek asked you which was your favourite car? It turned out not to be Myvi, but Audi. I wonder why...

The Last Day of CNY

Nope no more BBQ to last us for.. um.. a month.. *grin*. This round, we headed to Uncle Sin Jeow's house for "pun choi" (盘菜). Aunty Ean Na slaved the whole day and when we arrived, she was putting the finishing touches to the dish: arranging the food nicely..

On top of the pun choi, Bo-bo Poh also cooked some lam mee which is especially for the children (in case you guys could not take th food in the pun choi). Of course in actual fact, all of us ate the noodles on top of the pun choi. We all ate at a slow pace, enjoying the food and the good company and eventually most of the food in the cooker was gone.

Ian and your two Tou-tou

It was Sunday again, but we left earlier that day so that you could sleep early and wake up for school the next day. I didn't want to have to receive a phone call from you crying and insisting on going to school at 10am.

Another BBQ Party

Before the 15th day of CNY, it was time for another round of BBQ. This time it's with daddy's friends. Simpler food was on the menu as compared to the one we had the week before. Here's some of the food which we had.
There was only 1 other little kid for you to play with. But Chloe is younger than you and you weren't too keen to play with her. It was worst when she took your carrot drink and drank it. You cried and cried and since there was no more carrot juice left, someone passed me a box (I'm not too sure who it belonged to.. or was it yours?) and you finally stopped crying. But since she was given her daddy's phone to play with, you willingly sat next to her and watched her play with her games. After that, you took my phone and started to play with the games too.

When you got bored you'd walk over to the dinner table and go "bang bang" with the che-che's.

"Bang Bang"

Chloe

Everyone chatting

What did we do with the leftover food? There wasn't too much left. Cynthia Che-che had to leave early, so she was given the honours to bring back some garlic bread. And how about the chicken and sweet potatoes? Hehe.. they played "Indian Poker" and finished off most of the food!

CNY Dinner with the Phuahs

The dinner for this CNY was something different. Ah Ma wanted to have an "opening ceremony" for the new BBQ. So the occasion selected was our CNY reunion dinner with the Phuahs. Before 7pm, daddy was already outside with the grill. Uncle Sin Chuan was the first to arrive and soon became his assistant.

Chefs Daddy & Uncle Sin Chuan

Chef Uncle Sin Tien and his assistant, Aunty Ean Na

We brought down your table so the 3 kids would have a place to sit at. Of course, there was a fight over who gets the red chair between the 2 girls, while you just happily plonked yourself on your blue chair. Everyone else had dinner at the dinner table.

Tou-tou barely ate that day. He wasn't feeling well.

After the 3 of you had finished eating the BBQ chicken, you all headed to your room to ransack the whole place. By the time everyone left, the whole room was a big mess!

The kids even played a bit of firecrackers. Annabelle was going to join you but she squeezed her fingers on the french doors and so there was a big commotion inside with her crying about how painful her fingers was while the 2 of you; unaware of what was happening inside, were happily playing with the firecrackers with Ah Kong and Uncle Sin Chuan.

By the time everyone left, it was already past midnight. So the next day everyone did not go to school. Only problem was when you woke up at 10am, you cried and made a big fuss about wanting to go to school! Hhmm.. is that a good sign that you really like going to school??

Something's Missing This Chinese New Year..

.. who didn't feel it? When Ah Tai left us, a big chunk went missing. This Chinese New Year was just a quiet gathering of family members back in Ipoh. Tradition decrees that we are not to celebrate this first year following Ah Tai's passing.

While Alan Ku-ku thought you'd be that "shrewd businessman exchanging greeting for ang pows" (in his own words) the truth is to date, you've only collected a grand total of 5 ang pows. But you did learn to sing a Chinese New Year song in school... although you only managed to learn the chorus of the song. Nevermind, maybe next year you'd get bigger ang pows and have learnt the whole song...

We headed to Ipoh on the afternoon of the eve, later than we'd usually leave as the gardeners were putting in the finishing touches to the garden: planting the last few patches of grass. The house looks more cozy now. Will talk about that later.

Since it was your nap time you missed the tunnel and the moment you woke up as we arrived you asked where the tunnel was. Yikes. I had to tell you that you'd see the tunnel when we go back to Penang. You were probably too groggy but didn't put up much fuss to that.

Those who planned on celebrating CNY in Ipoh were already home by the time we arrived. So after putting the food for offering for our ancestors, we had dinner early at around 6pm. This year as there were so few of us, we had dinner in the main living room.. with air-cond... AAAaaaaahhhhHHHhhh... for the first time, everyone took a leisurely dinner, not rushing to finish the meal, chatting and eating all the delicious food served.

After that, some of us went out to enjoy the cool air outside while feeding the mosquitoes (hehe..). Daddy brought out his camera and took a few shots

But you were too engrossed with the mini Cornetto that Sue Kor-kor had bought you

Before we headed back for a shower, you helped Sue Kor-kor to wash her car and also Chek Kong's car. After our shower, the usual CNY drink of lychee, longan, 7Up, orange & lemon juice was already prepared by Sue Kor-kor. Yummy..

Singapore on Our Own

On Monday we took things at our own pace. It was just the 3 of us. Ah Pek had to go to work while daddy and Ah Kong were going to Bintan Island for a round of golf with Uncle KK.

When we were all finally ready, we headed to the main guard house, asked for directions to go to the Choa Chu Kang MRT station and crossed the road to wait for a taxi. We were about to give up when at long last a taxi arrived. And the taxi ride to the MTR was the shortest ever. We bought tickets for the 3 of us (yes, you insisted that you wanted a ticket too) and went upstairs to wait for the MRT which arrived shortly. As it was packed and no one wanted to let you sit, we stood all the way to Orchard Road. When we finally arrived, Ah Ma wanted to ask if you wanted to ride the "train" back again, but I told her not to ask yet until we're sure that we are able to do so when the time comes to go home.

Walked around Takashimaya, had lunch, shopped a little more, had tea and before we knew it, it was close to 4p.m.. Time to go home and Ah Ma's legs were aching. So good thing she didn't offer to go back by train.. yet. So we made a quick dash into the grocery section to pick up that yummy apricot jam from Fauchon.

Before we left you wanted to have a look at the water fountain. Took this picture of you:

..naughty face.. Here's another that I took the day before with a silly face too:

We headed to the taxi stand and the queue was super long! Sigh.. waited a while and had hoped to get a yellow taxi (just like your "Little Yellow Taxi" book at home) but we ended up with a blue taxi. Oh well...

Went home to rest a while, got you to take a nap and before long, it was time to go out for dinner. We were going to this place called "Golden Spoon" in Tiong Bahru for dinner. Just as we were walking towards the guard house of the condo, there was a yellow taxi! Yay! So we headed to the restaurant in a yellow taxi.

Ah Pek had arrived a little earlier than us. Shortly after that, Aunty Ruth also arrived. While waiting for the gentlemen to come, we chatted and you played on Ah Pek's phone. At long last they arrived and dinner was served.

This restaurant serves amazing dishes. No pictures of the dishes.. too hungry to take them! Oh well.. maybe the next time we go to Singapore.. *hint*hint*

On Tuesday morning, we left the condo quite early for the airport. Still we didn't manage to squeeze in some time to take another ride on the train. Spent too much time buying something. But before we entered the departure hall, we managed to get another picture taken.

By the way, if you're wondering how come there's next to no pictures of daddy, it's because I have yet to master using his camera. Whatever few that I took of him turned out blurry. Ok, ok I will learn to use the camera before our next trip..

A Birthday Buffet

Through out the day daddy was testing with Ah Kong and Ah Ma as Aunty Ruth had decided on a location for us to go for dinner on Sunday. What we worried about the restaurant that she'd mentioned was that it didn't seem suitable as a birthday party location. Especially since it was to be Ah Ma's 60th birthday celebration.

At last, they came to a decision to have the dinner for Sunday at a Brazilian restaurant "Fiesta Brasilia". By the time we arrived at the United Square, Aunty Ruth, Uncle KK, Ah Kong and Ah Ma were already there. We arrived just on time. Shortly after we were seated, we got started with the buffet, tucking in the appetizers first. There was nothing much from the selection which was suitable for you. So we took a little and sat down. Then came the carveries. Yummy!!! The variety served was just amazing!

And you wanted to try out everything which was served. Included the spicy chicken wings! Luckily I took a bite and immediately removed the wings from your plate. Otherwise... Can you imagine how spicy it is that most of us ended up not being able to eat the chicken?

The waiters even served you, cutting smaller and more cooked portions of the meat.

After we could tuck in no more, it was time for the birthday cake. Aunty Ruth who knew the restaurant manager had a cake arranged to be served. And to our surprise almost all the staff brought out the cake and even sang the birthday song for Ah Ma in Portuguese (I think..), English and even in Mandarin (and mind you none of them are Chinese!). What a lovely birthday celebration. I'm sure everyone had a wonderful time.

Ah Ma full of concentration as she cuts the cake

And this is the rating you gave this restaurant:

Ten stacked fingers (Um.. I guess that's an even higher rating than 10 *grin*)