Gurney Plaza's CNY Decoration

We decided to take a drive to Gurney Plaza in search for some new clothes (to no avail). Also took this opportunity to take pictures with the beautiful decorations there:

Lucky Day

After dropping Ko-ko at tuition on Friday evening, we decided head over to Mercato in Island Plaza in hopes of finding more ciabatta for our sandwich day on Saturday. When we were done shopping, you decided that you needed to pee. On our way to the toilets, you reminisced about the time daddy won you toys from the "claw machine".

On our way back, daddy decided to give it a try. We put in RM6 for 3 tries but daddy failed to get the pink unicorn. He said that he was down to the last RM2 and this would be the last try.. and luck was with you (or him)... The unicorn tipped into the chute and you were rewarded:

Picture with your latest toy

Introducing "Sparkles"... I think you have renamed her "Precious Sparkles"

Having chee cheong fun for lunch

She follows you up and down and you have declared her to be your "travel bolster" which you would be bringing to Ipoh (and wherever we travel to). 

Eating Out

Ah Ma said that she wanted to treat us to lunch at Din Tai Fung. And as it was a replacement public holiday, Gurney Plaza was quite full. By the time we reached the restaurant, there was a queue outside. As usual, the inside was not full, but there was still a queue. Nevertheless, the waitress was polite, inquiring on how many people were dining, and even gave us the menu and order form up front so that we could decide on what we wanted while waiting to be seated. She had also explained that they were short of staff, hence they could not seat us.

We gave her our order form and were finally seated. Our food arrived shortly and it was nice. We had to add another portion of noodles as they were rather small. The waiter told me it would be a 15 minute wait, but in the end, I think we got our noodles in less than 10 minutes. 

Xiao Long Pau

Photo for daddy, who didn't join us today

Happy New Year 2023

It seems like the celebrations are still on-going. Today is another delicious meal cooked by daddy and Ah Ma. We had a simple Japanese meal at home. There was steak, prawns, vegetables, garlic and a little piece of salmon.  

Dinner

Mine with Japanese soju

Our family picture around the table before dinner

New Year's Eve

We spent the day taking down the Christmas tree. Mei-mei helped me remove the ornaments while Ko-ko and daddy went for a haircut. Then when the boys came back, we put away the branches and tree. Daddy was in a CNY mood.. so he very efficiently put up the lights. lanterns and "ang chai" at our front door. Mei-mei was tasked to put up the 2 rabbits we bought as well as hang more decorations on the cherry blossom tree (beginning to feel like our Christmas tree!!)

For dinner, we managed to get the beef bacon, so Spaghetti Carbonara it is for dinner.. Yummy. Mei-mei was the garlic bread maker.. 

Our dinner

We planned to have a cheese + sausage platter to usher in the new year. While waiting for midnight, we watched a movie and at 11pm, Ko-ko started to prepare the cheese and helped me fry the sausages. While the plan was to start at 12, we started savouring the platter once it was ready... around 11.20 pm! My oh my, you sharks.. just inhaled the food.. and us the Prosecco *grin*

Well, I guess it does count as a "New Year Platter" since we only finally cleared the board totally after 12am... 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023!!

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!)