Jill's dropped her 1st tooth! - 28 Oct 2013

It was an exciting morning for Jill! She woke up & as usual played with her loose bottom tooth. The next thing she knew it was hanging at the tip!

DW was not at home & I definitely didn't dare to yank it out. But poor girl, she was probably excited, anxious and scared all at the same time. Highly confused. I brushed her teeth as per our usual morning routine, just alot gentler and told her to be extra careful before I left for work.

On the way to work, she called me, happily annoucing that our helper had helped her yank her tooth off and it didn't hurt at all and that she would keep her tooth nicely wrapped up & place it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

At night, once she fell asleep, DW swopped her tooth with a $2 note. It never fails to make me smile at innocent children believing in the existence of fairies, it just makes the world a much better place to live in.

This morning, she woke up and the 1st thing she told me was "the tooth fairy took my tooth away!! and she gave me $2!"... it was just a super "awwww I love you so much my (toothless) princess" moment and I just hugged her so tight for a full minute.

A Sunday with Julia

By DW

We usually spend our Sunday afternoons lazing at home or sometimes window shopping with the kids. This weekend was slightly different as we spent the afternoon at Julia Gabriel (Forum) with none other than Julia Gabriel herself. The topic was “Empowering Your Child with Speech and Language”, a topic that was of interest as we have 2 little ones.

Not knowing what to expect for activities for the kids, except that there was going to be story telling, we brought Jill and left Jen at home. Little did we know, that they had toys and art & craft activities (& not forgetting FOOD!!) all laid out for the young ones, poor didi got left out of the fun again. But Jill sure had a fun time. Thanks to Fiona & her team of enthusiastic teachers!

Ms Fiona Walker, Principal Director at Julia Gabriel Centre for Learning, working with Jill on her story of how the caterpillar grows into a butterfly.

Making her caterpillar, based on Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar

all time kids' favourite - story telling session!

 After settling all the kids down, the session started. A lot of the information was shared but a main point which we learnt was that it was imperative for us to create that environment for our children as they learn best if we immerse them in it. English wise, I don’t think it will be too much of an issue; Mandarin on the other hand is something that I am a little more concerned as Mandarin is not exactly my strong point.

We were also told that associations worked well too, an eg would be to have a situation where one parent speaks to the child in English and one parent in Mandarin or perhaps have designated "Mandarin speaking days". We did consider that but knowing that our Mandarin is what would be deemed as "pasar Mandarin", we have decided that it was best we outsourced this. However, we do have DVDs with Mandarin Songs which we play. Music never fails to ignite the life in children and it's one of the best ways to let them enjoy the language. Nevertheless Jill is starting to love Mandarin and if at any point she does initiate a conversation with us in Mandarin, we always very gladly reply to her in Mandarin as well.

A way to encourage our children to use it more, is to use cards that are labelled appropriately in Mandarin for Television, Bed, Cupboard, Refrigerator etc and use these cards to play games with them by labelling the item with the correct card, we can take it even further by doing it in both languages. Julia has very kindly offered to help us to get the right terminology in Mandarin for each object.

Us with Julia (right) & Fiona!

We would definitely need to make a greater effort to start learning with our children, also a suggestion that was made during the session. By doing that, I myself can refresh what I have learnt previously and at the same time encourage the kids to learn as well. Who knows that they may even start teaching us or better yet, we can even get Jill to teach Jen!

The group of parents (& kids) who participated in this session. Thanks to all for sharing your tips & ideas!

happening w my colleagues

am flying off to taipei for my company's D&D tomorrow morning! it's the 1st time i'm travelling with my colleagues as i had skipped the one in shanghai previously.. am so looking forward to the feasting, shopping & clubbing sessions with them! & i will be back in time for didi's birthday!

am soooo looking forward to the next few days of fun &... yes, no pv either! YESH!

note: dw, don't forget to cover my duty on monday morning, will be thinking of you & missing you loads!

Happy birthday kiddos!

Girl turned 5 & boy will be 2 in a couple of weeks. We had a small joint party for both of them at home, with the minions as party's theme. Both totally dig the bi do bi do creatures! 

Jill has been an extremely caring girl, always concerned for mommy, daddy & grandparents & not forgetting her baby brother. She's always looking out  for Jen, wanting to hold his hand when walking & showering him with hugs & kisses. She is a conscientious child in school who enjoys reading & watching movies. She tells me she wants to be a doctor so she can cure sick people. She tells me she wants to buy a long car so she can ferry her patients. Sometimes she tells me she wants to be a vet, so she can take care of sick animals. Every night, we will have pretend play with her doctor set and we will end the night with story telling sessions.

Jen is everybody's darling at home. Whilst we constantly "scold" him for his mischievous ways, deep inside, we love him very much & never fail to be amused by his antics. He's so cheeky and seems to always have some tricks up his sleeves. Being the 2nd child, he has grown to be independent, finding ways to entertain himself, such as running round his pirate toy ship for 5 mins continuously and trying to cycle backwards. He is talking quite abit now and we are starting to have conversations with him since he is generally able to communicate his needs & wants.

 Happy birthday my lovelies! Both of you are as different as chalk & cheese and it's precisely because of this that makes both of you so special & so dear in our hearts. You both are growing well and I pray that both of you will continue to progress as loving siblings, with God's guidance & love.

Family of 5?

This is how it will look like if we have an addition to our family...

I just love the smell of newborns when I carry them & gush over how cute they are, how innocent they are when they stare at you with their eyes or how peaceful they are when they are sleeping. But as tempting as it may be, I'm pretty much contented with where I am today. Jill was a blessing, Jenson was a bonus. Anything more, I'm not sure how to handle.

Aside from that, let's welcome Mo's newborn son! We're really excited he has arrived safely and Jill now has a god-brother!

My Superhero!

It was MY superhero's birthday and he truly deserves a superhero cake for being the super husband and the super dad!

Thanks for being SUPER in all that you have done and will continue doing for the kids and me!

Day 5 - Tropical Fruit Farm, Harbour Town factory outlet & of course YATALA pies!

Our last day saw us making full use of it. We picked up our rental car and headed up to New South Wales to the Tropical Fruit Farm.

This place was huge and we had a tour of the fruit farm which mainly had avocados and macadamia. It was fun & educational, a tractor brought us round, we cracked macadamia shells & at fresh macadamia nuts and tasted an array of fruits. For the kids they had kiddy stuff like feeding the cows, sheep, kangaroo, a cruise down a river, feeding the ducks and even a mini train ride!

 

 

DW cracking the macadamia

We headed to Harbour town factory outlet and obviously we were too busy shopping to take any photos... and before heading to the airport, we JUST HAD to stop by Yatala for the pies! The place hasn't changed since my last visit here a decade ago and the pies are still just as lovely. Huge chunks of meat and savoury. Given the thumbs up by Dw and Jill!

Day 4 - Gold Coast - Aqua duck

Ok, this day was a total bummed out day. We woke at 3.30am to get ready for our pickup at 4.30am for our Hot air balloon. It was totally unfortunate that the weather was too foggy for our balloon to set sail and so, our highlight of this trip was a no go. Jill was pretty much disappointed as I had promised to fulfil 2 of her wishes for this trip - feed wild dolphins & hot air balloon.

And so, we did something pretty lame and went on the Aqua duck tour! Nevetheless Jill enjoyed herself, having had the chance to steer the ducky boat in the water.

Day 3 Gold Coast - Dreamworld

I decided to head to Dreamworld this morning. Clear, blue skies & beautiful weather! Great for a day out to a theme park.

Wish I could wake up to this every morning!

The bus stop was just right in front of our apartment, so it didn't make much sense to cab or take a tourist shuttle to Dreamworld. We took the public bus, very clean, very punctual (Yeah, I surfed for the timetable before starting off, else I suppose the wait is going to be very long) and alot of cheaper. The kids were free and for the 4 adults, it was about $50 both ways. Alot more affordable!

 

This was Didi's 1st time at a theme park and a reason why I had chose Dreamworld was because it had an all in 1 thingy - Wiggles World, Madgacascar, Sheep Shearing, free roaming Kangaroos & Koalas. 

Day 2: Gold Coast & Glowworm Night Tour

We left Tangalooma early the next morning. It was a wise choice for that day as it was rainy and we probably wouldn't be able to much if we had stayed any longer. Otherwise, I would think if the weather was good, I would have wanted to stay longer to do parasailing, quad biking, sand tobogganing and even feed the pelicans!

              Simple breakfast with bread, butter, cheese & fresh milk from the supermarket on the resort.

Our pre-arranged transport pick up by Surfcity Transfers was already waiting to bring us into Gold Coast. I wanna take this opportunity to thank Karen as she must have been one of the most efficient Aussies I have ever dealt with! Emails to her were responded very quickly, I can safely say within the hour and confirmation was initiated a day or 2 prior to the pick up, which was definitely assuring. The VITO was new & clean and most importantly, her price was the lowest amongst the few that I had sourced. Very value for money indeed. 

Accomodation was a huge 2 bedroom ocean facing apartment at Mantra Circle on Cavill. Very convenient indeed with direct access to Wooly's! 

After spending the afternoon picking up our groceries for our next few days, we all had a good rest to prep ourselves for our night tour of the rainforest at Mt Tambourine with Southern Cross 4WD.

Stopping by a cafe at Mt Tambourine for yummy cakes, fresh cookies & hot  cocoa before starting our tour

 

Darren was great with our kids, he has 2 sons himself!

Given that it's a night tour & we don't own super cameras, we didn't take any much photos of our tour at the rainforest. But with the rain, it was an almost perfect night! The glowworms glowed so brightly and we had a good experience, feeling what exactly a rainforest was, very very cool whilst being sheltered from the rain by the umbrella of huge trees.

Thanks Darren for a great night out! You sure have a knack to spot the smallest nocturnal creatures ever!

Brisbane Day 1

After an overnight flight, we finally landed and were ferried to Holt Wharf to catch our launch to Tangalooma. Weather was drizzly, a little chilly and of course we were quite fatique and were looking forward just checking in, having a good rest & feeding the dolphins later at night!
                                                      

Tangalooma

Our 1st stop upon arriving in Brisbane was to head to Tangalooma. We had touched down at about 7am and hung around the airport till our transport came at 9am to send us to Holt Wharf to catch the launch to Moreton Island. On hindsight, I ought to have planned this stop at the end of our Brisbane holiday. A non stop 8 hour flight & another 3 hours till our launch departed at 10am proved too overwhelming for my little boy. He threw up all over me as our launch maneuvered along the choppy waters of Moreton Bay. Apparently another little kid 2 rows in front threw up as well. She was coincidentally on the same flight as us.

Just a night at Tangalooma set us back by almost $1K (2 bedroom apartment & launch transfers) but it was all worth it given that we all had our 1st ever chance to hand feed wild dolphins. Jill was by far the most excited as she loves dolphins very much. Spotting them swimming to shore was an unforgettable experience. 1st came one, followed by another and soon after, there were 7 of them swimming round & round in the shallow shore waters. It was dark, rainy & the water was cold but being right there in the thick of action made up for it all!

                                                           This is us, feeding Silhouette

It's time for a VaCaTiOn!

Looking forward to our ocean view apartment! Got this awesome pic off goldcoast.com

We're flying tomorrow night to Brisbane, spending a night at Tangalooma and then heading on to Surfer's Paradise!

I'm looking forward to this break after a very sleepless week. Dw was out-stationed the whole week in Germany and I was left looking after a sick & very cranky Jenson alone. He came down with high fever on Sunday night and a couple of days after, cough & runny nose followed. It's not easy to feed this guy his meds & it gets really bad when he needs to be roused from his sleep for the night dosage. He alternates between struggling, yelling & shutting his mouth and I'm alternating between clamping him down, trying to squirt some meds in when his mouth is open and squeezing in the syringe between his shut lips. It has been a battle every night and I'm zonked. The kids were sleeping in separate bedrooms so that the flu wouldn't be passed from brother to sister and yes, that meant I had to shuffle between 2 bedrooms every night. Each time a kid whined, I'm up & off to the other room. It's either mother's instinct or mothers just have very sharp ears to somehow catch even the softest whimp from the kids. (By that I mean most dads can always sleep through the night even when the kid is bawling.. WHY?!!?!!)

Long story cut short, I'm extremely sleep deprived. Dw's heading back this evening & I know he's going to be exhausted. This sweet fellow always tells me he can't sleep well on his business trips when I'm not by his side... awwwwwwww... dearest dw, that's really really sweet and can you up the sweetness a notch by sacrificing one more night of sleep and let me sleep through tonight whilst you take over the kids...

It's going to be a red eye flight tomorrow. Jill is usually an easy flyer and I've told her numerous times that she MUST sleep on this flight else when she reaches Oz, she won't be able to enjoy herself. As for Jenson, I can only hope he will sleep & not go wild exploring every inch of the plane like what he did on our recent Hanoi trip . In any case, if all fails, there's always sedilex... which by the way, IS legitimate as he coughs alot especially at night cos I'm not one of those moms who use drugs to knock kids out on flights.

I love holidays, I work darn hard for them and I'm going to enjoy myself to the max! Gold Coast, here we come!

Jenson @ 1 1/2 yrs

19 Months to be exact!

Time really flies so much faster when you have 2 kids... One moment no. 2 was just a newborn, being cradled & nursed in my arms and the next, he's such an agile toddler, wriggling from your arms as you try to cuddle & kiss him.

My little boy did not have a chance to attend classes like his older sister but yet, I do not seem to see him lagging behind in areas. In fact, I do think his motor skills are naturally way better than Jill's! (On hindsight, all those baby enrichment classes may all be nothing but fanfare afterall! - just my 2cents)

Last weekend, My GYM had an open house. And I thought it would be a great opportunity to bring Jenson there for an hour of free trial. True enough he had a whale of a time, running around the carpeted area, climbing up and down. He enjoyed music & movement circle time, clapping his hands to the music beats, he was intrigued by puppet story telling time and he loved the toys that were poured out onto the floor for him to explore.

Still deliberating if we should sign him for this.....

Long Easter Weekend

Dw got baptised over the weekend. It's been sometime since I felt so much emotions and this certainly was a very meaningful weekend for us as a family.

His baptism mass was a long one, it being held on Holy Saturday's Easter Vigil but Jill had a great experience with the church being in total darkness and having lighted candles around. It started at 8pm and with the fellowship and all, by the time we reached home it was close to midnight! Needless to say Jenson missed his usual bedtime of 9pm and was kinda grouchy. Yet overall I must say I'm pleased that he was still manageable and was totally cool being out so late.

neophyte Dw with his Godma!


It was a busy weekend, where we started off with Goldilocks play on Friday afternoon and we finished Sunday with a whole morning / afternoon playing at the airport. And of course we had lotsa fun in the pool too!

Didi enjoying his Mac's hashbrown


Jill - trying out ice skating for the 1st time - fail ! :( Nevertheless it was a good experience! :)


Finally, decorating an easter egg at I12...


I'm looking forward to the next weekend, it feels so good having my days packed to the brim with so many activities!

Baby Shrek

I love it when they are at this age cos I can TOTALLY do anything I want to them, even if its for just 3 minutes before they get irritated & yank it off. So there I have it, my ultra cute baby Shrek!

Not good

It has not been a good day. It has been a long time since I have felt this horrid.. I hate expectations & I hate the feeling of being taken for granted. At this point I wish I were a multi faceted bitch with tons & tons of money so I can just dismiss everything am, everything I'm doing, pack up with a fake forced smile and disappear for a month, maybe longer all by myself. I don't want to be with people, I don't want to talk to anyone. Emotions. I hate them. They are the cause of every damn downfall.

It's a shitty day.

Hà Nội

We survived the 1st trip we had ever taken on our own - just the 4 of us! It was strenuous & draining. Will we ever do it again? I say AYE!!! But I'm not sure if Dw will wanna do one so soon. He says wait till didi is older. Jill was generally ok as usual. But when put her & didi together, it's just double the dose of hell.

This boy cannot remain still, we can't even bribe him with money! Give him a dollar note to play with and he swanks it away. Food works for that split second, he chomps it and off he goes again. There's no stopping him. So yes, we ran round the plane, we ran round restaurants, we ran round hotels. He even went so far to try knocking on hotel doors. I caught him just as he made his 1st knock and I scrambled as far as I could. Sorry mate, yes that was my son :(

But as tiring as it was, I want to choose to see the positive side of things, now being the New Year and all. It was good fun bonding with the 2 of them, with no help from the maid nor grandparents. We did everything ourselves, clearing the poop, coping with the outbursts, feeding. It has been sometime since we were so hands on and it was fun for me cos dw & I did them together and I felt so proud of the man I married.

Around our hotel... (2nd photo was taken by Jill!)

The lovely Bach & Hoa from Hanoi Kids, who brought us round... & Hoa was just simply great with Jill! Thanks so much & we wish you both all the best in your studies & career!

The cheeky one who kept peeking out from the curtains on the plane

Egg coffee @ Giang Cafe, down a dingy alley which I would never have been able to find on my own, thnks Bach for a great coffee find!

Just so adorable!

He came back from cool Hanoi with super rosy cheeks, just can't stop gushing over his cuteness!!