Monkeying Around

.. while doing your homework.. Nothing new when it comes to you doing your homework.

Monster face:I was trying to get a picture of you busy writing.. but..... nope no such chance...
..why is the pencil tucked behind your ear??!!
.. hey, why aren't you writing?? ..told me to take a picture of your homework:

Ah.. at last.. a picture of you writing your homework....

..which you wrote for a few seconds before asking to take a look at my pictures.

Coloring Contest

The night before you had to sleep early (like a school night as today was a big day for you. Weeks ago, when I got back from work, you told me "Mummy, there is a coloring contest. I wanna join". And when I checked your homework pouch, there was a form. During dinner I asked you to tell daddy what you wanted to do. This is what you told daddy "Daddy, I want to join the coloring contest. You know there will be food for parents on the second floor." You even watched as I filled up the form, and even inspected the form when I had filled it up!

So this morning you woke up the moment I told you to wake up, all excited to go for the coloring contest. The theme for the contest was "Merdeka". Jing Ee's mummy had told me that she had told her you will be coloring the "Jalur Gemilang' which was the same thing you told me. We were rather early but there were already quite a few contestants all waiting for the contest to start.

Here you were sitting on the newspaper, waiting for everyone to come before we started:

Are we starting yet??
At about 9am, the organizers started the program. Before the children got to the important task of coloring, first there was a briefing, followed by "warm up" exercises:

Can you guess what was going on with all the children opening their mouths? Nope.. not exercising their mouths, but singing the national song Negaraku:

Parents were not allowed to hang around while the children were coloring. So some of them left while the rest of us went to the second floor for some light refreshments. Daddy and I also went off to wait for you to finish and for the prize giving ceremony. Before we went off, we did manage to get pictures of some veteran contestants:

They came all prepared with a table and chair/stool to ensure maximum comfort while coloring.

When I went down to have a check on you, I found that you were no longer in the car park where the contest was held. One of the volunteers told me that you should be on the first floor playing the games while waiting for the prize giving ceremony. You later told me that you play hopscotch, seven stones and Malaysian quiz.

At 11 the parents adjourned to the 3rd floor where the children were already gathered. Songs were sung before prizes were given away. Then we all adjourned.

Nope.. no prize for you today, but you were happy nonetheless as you got some small prizes while playing the games (except for seven stones) and they even gave all contestants a small souvenir before they went home.

Should We Get a Bigger Tub?

Took these pictures of you one of those days when you decied to squeeze into that tiny bathtub which was used when you were a baby. Yup, we still keep the tub. It's in quite good condition still:

Bath time is never fun without your rubber ducky and the rubber tortoise..

P/S: Didn't get very good pictures as I was too lazy to put on the flash :(

A Scary Twenty Minutes.. Or So...

We went out for our usual Saturday night dinner when on the way back, we noticed a funny sound. So daddy had no choice but to stop on a road (with very heavy traffic) to check. He could not even get out of the car so Ah Kong had to go down to check. Oh no.. it was a flat tire!

So we all got out of the car and had to stand by the roadside while daddy and Ah Kong searched the car boot for things which they needed to change to the spare tire. You were very sacred, trembling as we stood in the dark. It was especially scary for you when the traffic light up behind turned green and all the motorcycles and cars drove by.

We stood there under an umbrella as daddy changes the tire while Ah Kong stood by the roadside waving his reflector, keeping the vehicles away from daddy.

At last, the spare tire was changed, and we drove the short distance home. Yay! Our hero for tonight, daddy!!

Mr Vain?

As Saturday is Ah Ma's "day off" we got showered and dressed to go out for dinner as usual last Saturday. I picked a t-shirt which had the printing of a necktie. As I was getting you dressed, you told me "Mummy, I want a real tie." Aiyo.. where do I find a tie short enough for you???

So I said "OK, I'll go look for one to buy for you..". Then you said that you wanted a belt to wear with your pants. You went to your cupboard and came back with a belt AND a cap. Wah.. someone is very vain today.

As we were going out, daddy asked "Where are you going all dressed up?" and then followed with "We're going to a place with no air-cond." Evil daddy!

That was not the end of it. You made me rush upstairs as everyone else was going out the door to get you a pair of socks. You insisted on wearing shoes instead of sandals out for dinner. Now, tell me again were we going out for dinner together of were you going on a hot date??

P/S: And the story of the tie does not end. You've been reminding me about buying a tie for you still. Do you have anywhere in particular which you plan to wear the neck tie to??

A Present From Afar

A package came from afar for you recently. Aunty Pam who visited us in May got a friend who was going to Singapore to mail out (from Singapore) a present for you. It was a Lightning McQueen t-shirt along with a Lego catalogue. Wow! After having the shirt washed, you requested to wear it to school.
So when you wore this t-shirt I got you to pose for me so that I could send a picture of you wearing the shirt to Aunty Pam.
Your mouth is all funny because I got you to pose while you were eating breakfast *grin*

Hurt Himself

When I saw my phone rang with the school number, my heart sank. I was wondering if you were ok. Mr Tan called to tell mummy that you'd fallen during physical, but you just had some scratches on your face and knee. They had already put some cream on your knees and you were ok. As Ah Kong was going to pick you up today, daddy decided to tell Ah Kong that you'd fallen down before he picked you up with scratches all over.

I called you when you reached home to check on you and you told me that it did not hurt anymore. When we got home, you were your cheerful self and then we saw it clearly:

Quite a bit of scratches on your right cheek and also on your knee:

I guess it didn't hurt though, as you did not complain about it being painful when daddy gave you a shower. Ok then, looks like Humpty Dumpty had a bad fall, but Mr Tan managed to fix him all ok. Phew...

An Important Question..

We went back to BM yesterday to celebrate Nanna and Grampy's 42nd anniversary yesterday. On the way back, you suddenly asked me "Mummy who am I going to marry?". Yikes.. that got me stumped for a while. I'm not too sure if daddy heard your question or he suddenly had selective hearing, leaving me to answer your question...

So I said "When you find a girl you love then you can marry her (when you're older!!)". But noOOooo.. .that wasn't a good enough answer, I obviously did not answer your question. You asked me again "But who will it be??". Gosh... "Um.. whoever you meet when you are older and love". You did not seem satisfied but thank goodness we reached home just on time. You got distracted and forgot all about it. *phew* Please don't ask me such difficult questions next time. Keep them for daddy, ok??

Homework Time

I left you in your room to do your homework with strict instructions to finish and not leave your room while I took a shower. Before I even started on my shower.. I heard the room door open and you were standing in front of me, saying "Mummy the song Morning has broken sound like this...". After your little performance you were sent back. And less than 10 minutes later my room door was opened with you telling me something else.

After I was ready, I went to check on you and nothing much of your homework is completed!! Aiksss... When asked what you were doing instead of your homework, you said "Nothing.. maybe dream a little". Ok, one point for honestly *grin*

And as I am typing this post, I can see you from the corner of my eye, dreaming, looking left and right, counting the columns you have written (for Chinese homework) and sharpening you pencil. Even walking over to give me kisses. Any excuse to delay doing your homework.

Of course there is one more thing you have not done yet: Ask me "Mummy, why do I have to do homework?"...

Free Samples

.. from Jusco, Tesco and especially Cold Storage since we go there with you very often. Yup, that's your favourite and on "good days" you get a sample for pasta, ice-cream and milk. Certainly makes your day. Some days if our timing is off (too early or too late) then you'll get no sample and keep asking my why there's no "stall" which gives our free sample.

I especially have to remind you when we go to the supermarkets on weekdays. I guess sometimes you forget that it's a weekend, so no sample. Just a little sample and it makes your day!

A Celebration

We had wanted to go somewhere special to celebrate and of course to celebrate with you. So we tried this restaurant and was told that children were allowed in this restaurant. Yippee!! I was initially upset when I called one of the restaurants and was told that it was a fine dining restaurant and children were not allowed. Then I tried a few other fine dining restaurants and found out they'll allow children. So it was decided that we'd try out Feringghi Grill in Rasa Sayang Hotel on Saturday.

It was lovely. We got a nice seat with the view of the trees outside and you were delighted to see people para sailing until it got too dark. The nice waiter even brought you a cushion to sit on as you didn't want a high chair. We ordered food and were soon served the most sumptuous food that evening. Too bad I'd forgotten to suggest daddy bring his camera, so the pictures were taken with my crummy phone's camera.

We started off with out pre-dinner drinks. Then we were served nice fresh bread followed by their Amuse Bouche. Next came the appetisers. Here's daddy's appetiser:

Torched Tuna

You and I had soup for as our appetizer: tomato soup for you and Soup Trio for me. Before the main course, we were each served a sherbet. Then came the main course:

Macaroni & Cheese for you, what else

You proclaimed it to be 10 million, zillion fingers good.

Here's daddy's King's Cut Prime Rib

As for mummy's main course, I had beef tenderloin. As my camera refuses to allow me to take anything nice with it, I will not post a picture which will only be injustice to my delicious steak!! Of course, dinner was complemented with a bottle of wine:

After we were done with dinner, the waitress brought out a cake. Wowee.. chocolate cake. Daddy sang me a birthday song while you only whispered the words to the song. So shy..

The cake was heavenly. So rich and chocolaty. Then as a finale, the waiter brought out some chocolates which he promised he'd give you in the beginning of our meal if you finished all your dinner.

A truly wonderful celebration. Muakks to my 2 great guys!

P/S: I wonder when we get to go again.. *grin* Must make sure we're armed with the camera the next time.

Keeping Teddy Entertained

You woke up in a good mood this morning and rather early too. So we didn't need to rush to get ready and have breakfast. As we were getting ready to go down, you said that you wanted to bring Teddy down. So while I was getting your breakfast ready you said Teddy wanted to watch TV (wonder if it's YOU or Teddy who wants to watch TV). And after I got you to sit down and have breakfast I saw Teddy "watching TV" like this:
Yup, you stacked two pillows for him to sit on, making sure that he could see the TV clearly!! Could not resist taking a picture *grin*

And since we were quite early, you even got to watch TV with Teddy on the sofa until 8am. When it was time to leave you insisted to leave the TV on for Teddy as he still wanted to watch some cartoons.

Happy 60th Birthday Chek Kong

We took the afternoon half off on Friday while you skipped art class so that we could make a trip back to Ipoh. We were going to join in his 60th birthday celebration. After Uncle Dennis stopped by to help pick up some of the stuff we were going to bring back, we all bundled into the City and headed to Ipoh.

We arrived quite early so we had time to sit around and chat then it was time to get ready for the party. When everyone was ready, off we went to Tong Hoi Restaurant in Menglembu. There was 3 tables for friends and family celebrating Chek Kong's big 6-0.

Here are some of the pictures taken that evening:

Birthday boy and his bride

Evan and Chek Kong

Grumpy being forced to take a picture with his 2 Kor-kors

Blowing out the candles after the birthday song

A Family Picture..

If you're wondering how come we went back in the Honda City, it was because of our "special passenger". Can you guess who it was?

Ok, to be correct it should have been "what" instead of "who". I took a few pictures of everyone enjoying the durians the next day (no durians on the day of the birthday dinner as everyone had alcohol that night). But those pictures cannot be shared here..

So what were you doing when everyone sat in the kitchen devouring the durians?

What else? Your friend, the iPad visited from KL so you felt obligated to "spend" some time with it *grin*.

Hi, Eason

Here's your little cousin, the latest addition to the Ban clan: Eason Ban.
I'd taken this photo which his daddy had posted on Facebook. Isn't he a cutie? You'll get to see him in Oct/Nov when he visits from Australia.

Meet Teddy

You've got loads of toys including stuffed toys which are sleeping on your bed while you sleep on a mattress in my room! Well recently you decided that you have a favourite toy:

When asked the name, you said "His name is Teddy". And when I said that that was the name of Mr. Bean's bear, you remembered and was happy about that. You never seemed to be attached to any toy in particular but Teddy (who became your favourite last week) got to go to KL with us and even slept in the bed with us. You even wanted to bring him to Ikea with us!!
Lucky teddy....

Green Fingers?

A friend of mine told me about showing our children how plants grow. Thinking it was a good idea I had planned to show you one of the simplest thing to grow... taugeh. Yup, growing bean sprouts from mung beans. First I had to get hold of some mung beans. Well it took me a while (few months to be exact.. ) before I finally got some beans for you. I had gone to a shop to buy some almond nibs and they had a sackful of mung beans. I asked for a few (took 4) but the lady was nice and gave me quite a bit.
We went home and I found a container (the cover of a jam bottle) and put cotton and a few seeds. Daddy said not to crowd the little container. Everyone has to remind you to water the beans everyday, also explaining that plants need fresh air, enough sunshine and water.

That was the same every night then a few days after we first planted the seed, I looked there were little roots growing out of the beans. Yay! Looks like I'm more excited than you.. wahaha...

P/S: By the time I got around to taking the pictures and publishing this post, the first batch of taugeh has already been replaced!!

In KL

Do you know that other than to visit Ashley Kor-kor's iPad I also got 2 things which i really really wanted from Kay-El? Well let me tell you all about the things from this Kay-El trip:
1. Play iPad: I played every waking hour I was at home. Sometimes Pepper also wanted to check out what I was playing. You see.. my daddy also has one, but Kor-kor's iPad has lots of cool games and she doesn't know how to play them. So don't you think it's a waste if I don't play with her iPad? I think her iPad misses me!
2. Go to Ikea: We had my favourite hot dog before heading in to look at the nice furniture. Mummy and I had a good time, deciding which things we liked. I wrote down what she wanted on my own shopping list too. The daddy and Ah Kong spent almost an hour looking for lights. Lucky mummy passed me the iPad as I was getting bored sitting in the trolley.
3. Buy my aeroplanes: The first thing we bought after having lunch on the first day was my aeroplanes. It's been so long since I painted aeroplanes. So mummy went in and bought me 2 boxes of foam planes and 1 pirate ship. Today mummy and I painted 1 plane each. What do you think of my paint job?

Somewhere To Go During The School Holidays

There was once when we were having dinner at home when you whispered to me "Mummy, we haven't been to Ikea for a long time". So during the long weekend (which was also the middle of your 2 week school holiday), we decided to visit Ashley Kor-kor's iPad.

So early on Saturday morning we woke up and were loaded into Ah Kong's car ready for the drive to KL by 9am! Surprise surprise... Traffic heading towards KL was heavier than usual, but not as bad as the traffic heading north! As Ah Kong was reading his Chinese papers, you also tried to read, pointing out words which you could recognise. After a while you started to get restless, asking if we were there yet. And we hadn't even passed Ipoh yet.

Soon, you were given something to keep you occupied and you were suddenly very quiet. At last we arrived in KL and the GPS brought us to Midvalley as we were meeting Ashley Kor-kor and Uncle Dennis in Crystal Jade in The Gardens for Dim Sum. Lunch was super yummy and you enjoyed it a lot. After lunch, Kor-kor and Uncle Dennis had to go off somewhere to a temple. We wandered around The Gardens for a few hours before deciding to head to Uncle Dennis' place.

Dinner was somewhere which daddy had wanted to go as he'd heard the steaks there were yummy. We headed to Jake's Charbroil Steaks for his steak fix. Everyone had yummy steak and you had yummy charbroiled fish.

On the second day, we could not sleep in as you had decided that being in KL means you'll need to spend more time with the iPad. We had another round of Dim Sum in Li Yen in Ritz-Carlton with Ariesse, Ah Pek, Ah Mm and Chek-chek. We walked around The Pavillion did a little shopping, stopped for a drink before our legs felt like they weren't ours anymore then we headed home to Pepper and the iPad. Yup, you refused to go swimming because you wanted to play on the iPad.

Yvonne Kor-kor and Uncle Peter joined us for dinner that evening. We had something different: Hakka food in Ying Ker Lou at The Curve. Ah Kong ordered the Poon Choy on top of some Hakka cuisine. It was yummy. We walked around after dinner for a while then called it a day.

On Monday, we said bye-bye to sick Kor-kor who still went to work despite having a cold. We "checked out of Hotel Kiara Designer Suites" and headed to our final destination (almost): Ikea. The main reason we're in KL. We grabbed a quick lunch and then headed in to look at furniture. I never knew furniture could be so interesting. We spent almost 4 hours there before loading the car to the brim and heading to the highway, back to Penang.... with 2 stops before that. 1. To Ipoh for Bak Zhang and 2. To BM to collect our "Sitiawan Gong Piah"

Phew.. that was the end of our short but fun (and food) filled holiday in KL.

To The Movies...

Saturday was the first day of your 2 week school holiday. Of course you knew that you were on holiday. You kept telling me "Mummy, I have no school for 14 days".

So on Monday, daddy checked his calendar and I checked the cinema for movie listing and found that there was ample seats for Kung Fu Panda 2. So I booked the 3 tickets and we took the afternoon half off to spend some time with you, especially since you seemed to be having separation anxiety (yup.. you cried when we left for work in the morning!)

You were grinning from ear to ear when we arrived home and after getting you dresses, we headed to Gurney Plaza. We had lunch in Chicago Rib House (it was a rather long wait, but good thing we had ample time before the movie started). Then we picked up the ticket and soon it was time to watch Kung Fu Panda 2.

Picture Source

You were quite well behaved throughout the movie, but as usual towards the end of the movie started to get fidgety and asked me what the time was and when the movie was going to end.

And the one part which you remember most from the movie this time was when Po caught the cannon and threw it back at Lord Shen's ship. Daddy even heard you going "Poom" when you knew the cannon was going to hit the ship. You even laughed gleefully when it really hit the ship!

We hoped that spending the day with you would make you not miss us so much when we went to work the next day. It didn't really work.. :( What next?

At The Car Wash

Daddys' little assistant on Sunday evening.. all sweaty after a bicycle ride followed by the car wash.

A Lovely Gift for Mummy

(This is a few weeks overdue.. *grin*)

Ah Ma had mentioned on Friday that Citibank was having a glass painting session for children. Daddy initially said we didn't want to send you there, but in the end we agreed and so on Saturday morning, Ah Ma went with us to this art gallery where the glass painting session was being held.

When we arrived, there was a few children who were already painting while their parents browsed around the gallery cum jewellery shop and have light snacks while chatting.

You got a seat and someone asked you to pick the picture which you would like to draw. You picked a fish pattern and then you took a marker to trace the picture onto the glass. Then you started to paint. When you were almost finished painting, they realised that they had let you paint on the wrong side of the glass. Oops.. so you were asked to trace another picture on another piece of glass, this time a pattern of 2 heart and the nice che-che who was helping you even helped to write some words on it.

At long last you were done, but as Ah Ma was not around as she had gone off to run a few errands. So we sat around, enjoyed some snacks and finally Ah Ma arrived. Before we left, mummy was given a present from the bank for Mother's Day. On top of that I was even given flowers. How lovely. This is what I got for Mother's Day (round 1, as we had round 2 which was buffet lunch on the next day): And of course, I got you to pose with your art work too:

Thanks sweetie for a lovely Mother's Day present *muakkss*