KeNN

I move yet again

2011-02-20T07:59:00.001-08:00

Sorry folks! I have to change my blog address. Haiz.

Here it is: http://keisbay.blogspot.com/

The Hengs

2011-02-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

We have a big family at the maternal side. My mum has 4 brothers and 5 sisters. Every lunar new year, most of the uncles/aunties will take turns to host gatherings at their places.

We don't attend all the gatherings, especially now that we have kids. The simple reason being that our bodies cannot take it! Haha. And we have no means of private transport. Waiting for a cab during this period can be quite frustrating.

After the waterfront outing, the whole family had a good rest, except me of course. I find it hard to nap long in the day. I'll think of all the stuff I have to do and jump out of bed, no matter how tired. :p

At least, the adults got to gamble a bit (and won) that night, and the kids had a blast playing with Felicia and Ivan who made them makeshift 'houses' out of mattresses. :)

My nephews and nieces are all quite camera shy. Hehe.

And we won our taxi fare home.

While the kids cooked and ate in their new found home.

Once, Barry ran out, holding a plate of poker cards and told me that was his dinner. Haha.

The next day, we went to Mrs Lee's place, which will be in another post. Sunday was my mum's turn to host lunch. By then, we were all half dead. Haha. Bo stamina.

We left the kids to my cousins while we ate and gambled. They had their naps 2hours late!

That's Barry's signature scowl this new year. Like his sister, he isn't the sociable type and will freeze up and frown whenever someone other than The Closest 5 (I'm going to use this term for the people my kids are comfortable with, ie jiejie/didi, papa, mama and the 2 grandmas. ha) comes near.

Warmed up after my mum played with them. After that, they were ok without any of The Closest 5 around.

They even had a makeover by Ivan. Pirates!

The kids had so much fun they looked a bit sad when my cousins had to leave. Now, they're saying they want to go my xiao gu's house to build houses again. And they finally know Felicia's and Ivan's names! :)

大年初二 at the waterfront

2011-02-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

First day of the CNY, my mum was grumbling about not having any activities the next day. Since we were also free, I suggested we go out for some fun, away from crowds and noise, to breathe some fresh air!

Ever since we've brought my mum to the Woodlands waterfront, she's been exploring the place. She's very excited about finding a route from her place (at Marsiling) to the waterfront. It would take an adult 30 minutes of walking, one way. She was also very excited about crabs! She said she always see people having good crab catches there and suggested we buy nets and go try catch ourselves some crabs one day. Love the idea!

Hubby and I love a scenic walk! And we really needed to burn off some fats from all the binging. So we were very enthusiastic about walking there, each pushing a stroller with one kid. Of course we weren't going to make the kids walk! Will never reach there!

True enough, the walk was fabulous! Maybe it's because it's CNY, it's so quiet. Being very close to our neighboring country (right next to the causeway) also gave the whole place a rustic 'backyard' feel. We walked past the old deserted checkpoint. Gosh, it looked like the perfect setting for a horror flick. Think 28 Days Later or the latest drama series The Walking Dead. By the way, I love such horror flicks. Ha.

I kept imagining zombies coming out from the empty and eerily quiet corners of the building, with that signature stagger. Should have taken a picture.

We reached the place at 10am. And woah, we saw a lot of crabs!

This is just part of their catch. Further down, one family was having a mini bbq (just a wire rack over some fire) with sausages, balls and the big bucket of crabs they caught. *salivates*

It was super windy. Good for us but the wind made the already sneezy Mandy start to have a runny nose. Uh oh.

The kids complained of hunger they sat on a bench and ate their favorite inari sushi that I made the morning. You know, I'm very proud of this although it didn't take that much effort. Inari is one of their favorite food. And I know going out as a family and eating their favorite food out of their very own lunchboxes, is something like a dream come true for Mandy. She often talked about this 'dream' of hers. I'm glad it's finally being fulfilled.

Yes, kids have simple dreams. It just take a little effort and time for us to make them happy. They actually don't need big and expensive presents. At least that's how I feel. :)

Would you look at Barry's greedy face?

The boy gulped down 4 inari sushis in record timing. Hah.

We continued our walk along this part of the waterfront which we've never been. It's right next to the causeway. Previously, we've only been to where the Skywald is.

Eventually, we settled in a pavilion. Grandma and the kids played a game of football.

Then it's lunchtime! My mum prepared kong bak bao (our de rigueur picnic dish) and fried rice! Yummy! The seabreeze and fresh forest air made our lunch all the more enjoyable!

We would have stayed longer if not for the phone call from xiao gu. They're hosting that night! Whoopee. Time to go home, recharge and cheong arrrrrrrrr!

Till the next post!

And we welcome the rabbit

2011-02-09T18:40:00.000-08:00

As with previous years, we ate a light breakfast before heading to my mum in law's place. For she always prepare yummy fried nian gao with sweet potato and yam and 糖水 for breakfast. But unlike previous years, she didn't make the pancake that hubby and I so love. Still, she made up for it by preparing EXTRA nian gao! So we could bring home a whole big box of nian gao for breakfast the next day. Shiok!

We reached her place at 10am. After enjoying the yummy food, the kids did their favorite activity. CLIMBING! They love to take the cushions off the sofa and turn it into a climbing frame. Ha.

Lunch was delicious as usual. I ate so much that I joked that I should take off my belt and change my dress to a maternity one. :p

Then, we went to my mum's, mainly to let the kids nap. After that, it was off to my 2nd uncle's place, just a 10 minutes walk away.

We didn't stay for very long before adjourning back to my mum's for dinner. On the way, the kids had some fun!

They love their rabbit milk candy.

My mum and hubby piggy-backed the kids back. Boy, I was glad to be the bag lady, although unglam.

Since the camera was out, we took the opportunity to click click click away.

My mum made some wonderful accessories and I want to show you all!

A rose bracelet. Meant for adults but Mandy likes it.

Rose brooches.

And here is a sucky model with a really nice flower necklace.

We were supposed to iron it first. Oops.

It comes in blue too. Will try to model it in a white dress. But minus the face lah. I can't smile into the camera.

My mum has already sold 2 of the flower necklaces! Yay!

Eve of CNY

2011-02-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

After their little lion dance costume craft, the kids got very interested in lion dance, especially since I showed them a few Youtube videos of it. So when hubby told me there would be a lion dance performance as part of the CNY celebration at his school, I immediately said the 3 of us would tag along!

Thing is, we all had to wake at 5.30am to make it for the performance at 7+am! Gosh. We did it. But pity the kids. They were soooo tired.

As usual, the kids didn't take well to the uncles, aunties. gor gors and jie jies who gushed over how cute they were, who talked to them and tried to take pictures of them. Barry even wore a scowl whenever anybody went near him. Mandy was better, she just kept still and kept quiet. Previously, she would have cried. Ha. That's my kids. If they are comfortable with you, they can be the craziest bunch with non-stop laughing and funny actions and games. BUT, they are only comfortable with their papa, mama, mama (mil) and popo. Yap, still only the 4 of us. Ha. Nobody, except the 4 of us, has seen how they really play.

My mum is quite exasperated that they freeze in front of others because she wants others to see how fun the kids can be. They are really fun to be with. Especially the boy. He has so many tricks up his sleeves. Hubby and I have long gotten used to others thinking that our kids (and us, who are very much like them) are the most boring people in the world. Ha.

Brought them up to the stage to see the lion heads. They were very happy.

They waited for a really long time for the show to start. Until Mandy was so tired she nearly fell asleep. She said she waited for so long but the dance was so short! :p

Then, we went to the school garden, away from the crowd and noise. I know that's what my girl needed because she was looking all moody and tired. She's kind of like me. :)

After that, we went for lao yu sheng for the staff. Then, since it was early, we trooped off to my mum's.

Over there, we chilled and had lunch before heading home to nap.

Master shifu watches the TV, balloon in hand.

In the evening, we had 盆菜 from Tunglok and other yummy dishes for reunion dinner. The 盆菜 (a treat from Jennifer. Thank you!) was delicious!

Aiyah, shouldn't blog about food so late at night. I'm getting hungry. *grumbles*

交通工具 - 船

2011-01-27T05:56:00.000-08:00

This is the final part of our CL homelearning on transportation. Previously, we had done this and this.

To get them interested, we started off with some fun that I knew they love. We had avocado milkshake for snack that day. As I was washing dishes, I saw the avocado skin and an idea struck me! We could use them as boats! Haha.

They were so thrilled! Mandy was beaming with joy and Barry was trying his best to sink the Lego boy, wreck his boat and make the water as dirty as possible. As usual. At least this time, he didn't pour water all over himself and the floor.

We did a collage craft.

Mandy was having a flu when she did this. She couldn't manage to finish the collage for the sea. No wonder too because she was taking such pains to find the perfect blue piece to fit in perfectly. She didn't want to see any white gaps and tried her best not to let the papers overlap. She was particular even about the shade of blue. I know because she was mumbling while sticking "Ok, there's dark blue here already. Here? Have. Stick here then."

OMG, looking at her do a collage can make me want to tear out my hair. But yet, I'm very proud of her. Such patience. A pity she couldn't finish it. I was on the verge of asking her to 'anyhow stick' so that she could finish it. But that would be wrong right?

She did the sea on the left side of the boat. As you can see from the right, I'm not as patient as her.

Barry? He did everything (with lots of help) BUT the sea. You would have notice that the sea collage is the bulk of the project. Hah.

They also did this:

Both coloured. On hindsight, marker pens are such a mistake! Should have stuck to colour pencils.

By sticking time, Barry had lost interest. Mandy said the name of each vehicle in chinese before sticking them in the right bubble. She insisted there was no place for the train because trains don't go on roads. So I drew tracks for her.

I also let them stick stickers of vehicles in their sticker books, but only after saying the name of it in chinese correctly. The boy gave up afte a couple of stickers. The girl, after many repetitions, now know the names of the vehicles pretty well! YAY!

She also learnt to recognise a few more chinese words: 车, 飞, 机, 船

My aim was for her to learn more words but I was pretty slack. Oops.

East coast with mum

2011-01-24T19:17:00.000-08:00

This time, we brought along our new Ezy Roller and my mum! Hehe. Mandy wanted to show her how she cycles.

The weather was not as fantastic as our previous outing in December. It's starting to get hot! But thanks to the trees, we had shade most of the time.

Started off with cycling for the kids. Barry insisted on trying. He could 'cycle' by himself for a while. But his feet only moved back and forth, and not one full round. We tried to teach him the right way and he got confused and gave up. Hehe.

He went on the Ezy roller instead.

They took turns. Here's how the roller works:

Barry's legs are nearly too short. He can manage it but not fast. They like the roller very much and we like that it's fuss free for us, except the bringing out part since we don't drive. We found out 3Wheels rents out Ezy Rollers at East Coast! So we don't have to bring it there next time. The kids love to roller around our estate though. :)

After that, we went for hotcakes while waiting for our turn to rent the big carriage!

It was worth the 1+hour's wait and the $40 rental. Hubby and I got to cycle! He super gian cycling. Haha. My mum got to sweat it out a bit too and she liked that. The kids loved the wind and were giggling throughout, until it got hot. Haha.

Then we had a feast at TungLok seafood restaurant again. They ran out of Peking Duck so we ordered the chilli crab yet again. This time, the crab was delicious! Sweet and succulent. Even my mum ate quite a bit. As usual, the girl feasted on chee cheong fun and they boy ate a bit of everything, except the crab of course.

After lunch, both kids fell asleep almost instantly on the taxi, and continued their nap till 4+ in the evening.

Though my mum was still troubled and exhausted, she chatted animatedly with us, played wildly with the kids and laughed out loud at some instances. I'm glad. :)

Cute little lions ushering in the new year!

2011-01-22T07:40:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Crazymommy, I did lion dance costumes with the kids on friday. In fact, she has so many good CNY craft ideas I want to do much more with the goods. Alas, I'm way behind schedule in spring cleaning. Haha. I think I should target ONE room instead of the whole place. I've lived here for...7 years? Or more? I don't think we've ever managed to get our place spring-cleaned in time. Oops.

Plus, I haven't bought any new clothes for the kids. Not a single piece. Going to survive on Xmas presents. Ha. And they might wear clothes they wore last year. Oh, not Barry. Don't think he can still fit into them. :p

By the way, Crazymommy is a sahm with 2 kids (with no help) and she's very talented in crafts and super good at multitasking. I learnt a lot from her. :) So if you need craft ideas, go visit her site. She gives lots of links too.

Here's our version of the costume:

We spent more than an hour on these! It was fun but I didn't realise how exhausted I was. OMG, there was so much to do! Crazymommy, how did you do it?

I wanted to let the kids do as much as they could. So I left the choosing of colours, drawing, cutting, sticking to them. Mandy was competent enough to do all that. Barry was not. I knew he wanted to try so I let him. In the end, he made a huge mess, leaving many tiny pieces of paper all over the floor. Glue on the floor, sticky tape on the floor, shreds of crepe paper....cotton wool... I guess that contributed to my day long headache. (Serious, I had a headache after that that lasted till this morning. Ha)

Mandy did everything herself, except for the sticking of eyes and 'tail'. I'm very proud of her. She was actually tired from her slight cold but she said she liked making the costume so she would continue to do it even though she was tired.She toiled over it for over an hour.

Barry was distracted on the way but managed to be involved more than I expected him to be.

Oh, Mandy decorated her lion's tail. She said it's a tree. "These are the leaves falling down. A lot a lot of leaves. It's winter." She also scoffed at my idea of sticking the lion's mane. "NO. Lion's mane not like that what! They fall down at the sides one what!" before she plucked out the crepe paper I stuck on for demonstration and re-stick it her own way. The result is quite funny, looking like 2 ponytails at the side. But well, it's her masterpiece and she's really pleased with it. That's enough. :)

See them dance! Mandy delegated me to the drums. Hehe.

You can see the very unglam me for a brief moment in the video, juggling the drum and bells. Ha. Tempo a bit out at some points. That's because I was distracted ok. My rhythm sense and tempo is my strong point in music hor. :p

Hope we'll find time to do more CNY crafts. :)

Thou shalt not waste

2011-01-15T22:15:00.000-08:00

As the kids grow bigger, they begin to imitate the adults more. Mandy, of course, has started 'lecturing' everybody around her for quite some time. She also says things like "See mama! I can colour so well, next time I teach you ok?" She teach me? *rolls eyes*

Now, even Barry says things like that. Once, he said he will teach Mandy how to draw. It made her quite mad. Haha.

The other day, when hubby refused to let them watch a Youtube video on the computer, Mandy said "Only one what papa! C'mon!!". C'mon little girl, do we really talk like that? Yet another time, she exclaimed "Wow! That's cool man!" when she saw something that I've made. Haha.

Recently, she's been preaching about minimising wastage. It started one day when she saw me washing dishes.

Mandy: Mama, what are you doing?

Me: Washing dishes.

Mandy: Why must you use so much water?

Me: Er. Because there's soap. I have to use more water to wash the soap away.

Mandy: But still cannot use so much water you know? Like that is wasting. Next time, we don't have enough water to drink, to bathe, to wash hands... HOW?

Since then, she's been preaching to me and Barry almost everyday. Even Barry is telling me not to waste water. "Don't turn on so big mama! Cannot! Cannot waste water!" he insisted. Then, it'll take forever for him to rinse off the soap on his hands.

But actually, I'm thankful for their reminders. I do use too much water sometimes. Guilty. Hehe.

Yesterday, the girl lashed out at the boy when he took an extra piece of tissue for his perspiration. "BARRY! Cannot take so many tissue! DON'T. WASTE. TISSUE!"

She continued with her tirade and said "You waste then we must cut down so many trees you know? Cut and cut. Next time, the squirrels... and the... birds... cannot go and make their homes on the trees already. HOW?"

Wow, not bad little girl. You can link loss of natural habitats to human wastage. Ha.

So take it from a 4 year old everyone. Thou shalt not waste!

What we did last december

2011-01-14T22:48:00.000-08:00

An evening at Esplanade

Hubby and I are music lovers. We're particularly found of live performances. We used to go Crazy Elephant at Clarke Quay for their blues rock music. We also went Wala wala and Balaclava a few times. Of course, being 民歌餐厅 performers ourselves, we patronised 木船 (when it was still in Chinatown) many times. Well, we used to perform there too. And before 一炮儿红 closed shop, I visited the place quite a few times. We 客串 a few times too.

We really miss those days where we could watch performances late into the night, then go for supper afterwards. We miss that kind of magic in the air which only live music can bring. Alas, young kids in the family certainly doesn't support this lifestyle.

On that particular evening however, we got back a little bit of that magic. We were lucky the band playing that day was pretty good! Of course the kids weren't interested but we had them laughing and squealing by placing them on our laps and dancing with them to the music. Hey, music should be enjoyed thus! They were enthusiastically clapping to more than 3 songs!

But first, dinner and a walk by the riverside.

Very unsightly white balls.

Don't worry, I read that all these plastic balls were recycled after the New Year celebration.

We decided to stay out a bit later that night. During holidays, we are willing to push back their bedtime to 9.30pm. School nights are strictly 8.30pm. That night, they slept at 10+pm I think.

The keyboardist was awesome.

Drummer was awesome too.

The bassist was quite good but the lead guitarist was bleah.

The band is called Laksa something. With the exception of the lead guitarist, they were all very groovy and tight. Pretty impressive! We performed such free performances at the Esplanade before and so I was surprised this free performance was of such fine quality. (Ya lah, we weren't exactly that good. Hehe)

Hannah's 4th birthday party

Do I really still need to write captions for birthday parties?

Meetup with SNGS friends

Made a new friend that day too. :)

We had lunch at Marche. That was a good choice because the kids had such a great time at the Marche playhouse that we could chat from 11+am to almost 4pm. At 2+pm, they napped for a while, Mandy in the stroller and Barry on the bench with cushion.

Even hubby enjoyed chatting with us girls. Ha.

We should do this more often. :)

Woodlands waterfront

It was my mum's first time there. There was a huge group of people. They all look like Myanmar (I've checked! This is the correct name for people of Myanmar) or people from that region. It looks like their family day or something.

Later, we saw them leave in the busloads! It was the 18th, anyone know if it's any day of significance for them?

The skywald was swarmed with kids, some of them very big. So after playing at the playground, we took a walk at the jetty first. My mum, as usual, was a great entertainer. She fed them pears and jested around with them.

This Mandy, so corny.

Finally got to climb. We started a huge traffic jam behind us. Oops.

Or course, we had many other outings last holidays which I've already blogged about. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the whole month together as a family.

Aren't holidays great?

Our neighborhood beach

2011-01-13T17:28:00.000-08:00

These are really backdated pictures. But I want to put them up because I was the photographer. Ha. Most of the time hubby takes the pictures, so when I saw this batch of photos, I felt they were quite refreshing. We have such distinctly different styles!

Took them with the small point and shoot camera, but the colours turned out ok! :)

My mum was staying with us at that time. It was a cool weekend morning and we decided to chill at Sembawang park. After playground time, we settled ourselves into a pavilion. My mum listened to music and read her scores. The kids ate snacks and ran up and down the slopes, their favorite! Hubby and I read papers.

After that, we brought the kids to the jetty. My mum stayed in the pavilion, I'm not sure if she fell asleep. It was so windy. It was a very good and relaxing morning.

The kids love to see people catch fishes and crabs. One day, we're going to bring them on a real fishing trip, as in using rods and big nets for the crabs. My mum is already planning. Hehe.

After that, we had a good lunch at the only eatery in the park.

I love spending family time like this, close to nature, without the hustle bustle of the city. Somehow, away from the noise and crowd, time seems so ample. No rush, no stress. Nice.

天上飞的交通工具

2011-01-11T03:34:00.000-08:00

I've finally completed the 2nd part of our chinese homelearning theme on 交通工具. See here for the first part.

Previously, we did an aeroplane craft. I showed the kids youtube videos on aeroplane and helicopters' lift-offs.We noted the difference. Aeroplanes have to go faster and faster on the runway (跑道) before they can take flight. Helicopters, on the other hand, will have to let its rotor blades spin faster and faster before it can lift off directly from the ground!

So, I asked the kids, does a helicopter need wheels like the aeroplane?

Drew these on the board and let them hold the aeroplane/helicopter following the arrows.

Then, with some instructions, Mandy drew a helicopter.

Stuck on straws to place emphasis on the rotor blades (螺旋翼和尾翼).

I also jumbled up jigsaw pieces of an aeroplane and a helicopter. They pieced the 2 pictures and stuck them on a piece of paper. Mandy did the helicopter, Barry did the aeroplane.

Still on the topic of flying, I made them 'spinning helicopters'. See the video to find out what they are.

Can you see the paper spinning?

I quote from the science craft book: " The helicopter falls to the ground because of gravity. Instead of dropping straight down like most things do, it spins gently to the ground. As the helicopter falls, each blade hits the air, forcing the air out to one side. This makes the helicopter soin and slows down its fall."

The kids were so thrilled to see them spin. I explained gravity (this part is in english, I don't think they would be even interested in listening to me if I start spouting things like 地心吸引力. Ha.) by telling them I was going to jumo, touch the light and not come down to the floor. They grinned and asked me to give it a try.

After a few failed attempts, they tried too. All of us inevitably came back down. I told them it was gravity at work. Whatever we throw, they will fall to the ground too.

Then I quoted the book and they kind of switched off. Ha.

If you're interested, here's the instructions for Spinning Helicopter.

Have fun!

The organic experience

2011-01-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

Received our first batch of organic vegetables bought online last thursday.

We were quite ecstatic to see such luscious green and plump vegetables, many with roots still attached and with purplish tinge on them. The bananas look ordinary but tasted great.

We are organic converts.

First of all, why the switch? I tell people it's more a push than pull factor that drew us to organic produce (and whatever we can afford). Because reading about the toxins that go into our food these days scared the shit out of me and hubby. What those toxins can do to us, subtly everyday and in the long term, is stuff of nightmares. And learning about the politics of the food industry (and most every industries), we know that it is up to us consumers to make the informed choice for our own health. Regulations are simple insufficient and not always dependable.

But there are pull factors too. What about the superior nutrients and flavour of organic produce? So far, we have been very pleased with how the organic vegetables and fruits taste. Simply yummy. Although they're more expensive, at least it's worth the money and we're not paying for stuff harmful to us.

Let me quote from The Good Body Guide.

"A plant cannot make minerals. For a mineral to be in the food chain, it has to have been in the soil in the first place.... Slowly, we are beginning to realise that current farming practises give rise to acid soils, salination and ultimately, dessertification."

"... but there are other problems with synthetic fertilisers. Recurrent applictions tend to increase the acidity of the soil, reducing its fertility. This problem is widespread throughout the modern agricultural world. Many minerals.... can only be taken up by a plant when the soil is neutral - neither alkaline nor acidic. Even when soil analysis reveals adequate minerals, they may as well not be there if the soil is so acid that they're not available to plants."

"In a 2000 British study, David Thomas scanned past editions of the respected authority The Composition of Foods, by McCance and Widdowson, and found some alarming trends. The overall decline of calcium in all food and vegetables was 46 percent, of copper 75 percent. Carrots had lost 75 percent of their magnesium, broccoli 75 percent of its calcium. An Australian study conducted by the Organic Retailers and Growers Association of Australia was also compelling. It examined beans, tomatoes, capsicums and silver beet for levels of calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium, iron and zinc. Nutrient ranges in the organic products were commonly ten or more times higher than in commercial specimens."

"There is no reason to believe that there is any 'safe level' of substances such as lead, mercury or dioxin. Yet as they permeate the environment and the food chain, we have invented 'allowed limits', a neat way of side stepping the issue. The allowed limit implicitly admits that the substance can cause harm, but it also implies that at this level, it is unlikely to do so.... On the face of it, these criteria seem comprehensive. However they fall short by a long way of ensuring safety."

"The PCB or pesticide molecules pose danger because they are:
- toxic in their own right to nerves, the brain and other organs
- toxic to genetic material, and therefore potentially cause cancer and genetic mutation
- toxic to enzyme systems either through direct damage or overload
- gender-benders which can result in both malignancy and infertility"

I also want to caution about the use of preservatives. You know they're bad but here's more details.

+ Nitrites: The main usage is in cured meats for protection against the deadly organism Clostridium butolinum. They've been strongly linked to childhood cancer. (read the labels. Ham, sausages etc all contain high levels of nitrites)
+ Sulphites: These are usually present as sulphur dioxide. The ability to handle them depends on genetic factors. Their presence is associated with asthma, irritable bowel and migraine. (I always see sulphite in dried fruits. It helps preserve the fruits' bright colours. Luckily, I always go for the ugly ones without sulphites)
+ Benzoates: These are used to control the growth of yeasts and moulds. They are linked to behavioural disturbances and to the same illnesses caused by the sulphites.

I hope I don't sound preachy and longwinded. I just, you know, want to share what I think is really important. Maybe some of you already know all these. But I'm sure there are those who still don't. I mean, I wish someone would tell me all these stuff sooner so I could have lived a healthier life. That's why I share.

Anyway, here are the drool-worthy pictures of the organic vegetables from Green Circle.

My mum came for a visit the next day and I showed her the vegetables and fruits. We had ordered $41 worth of vegetables and our fridge's vegetable compartment was filled to the brim. I wanted to give my mum some.

She wooh-ed and ahhh-ed at all of them and gave a lot of comments. The captions are my mum's comments.

Sweet potato leaves $2

"哇! 这个番薯叶很美哦!" She was a bit sad that I only have one bunch and she couldn't take some home. She told me to let her know when I'm ordering again because she would like to order some too! :)

Pandan leaves $2

$2 for such a big bunch! Not expensive at all. I used some of it to cook sweet potato soup today. I couldn't believe my nose when I placed only 2 leaves in the bubbling hot water. There was an almost immediate whiff of fragrance! Very very fragrant. Hubby and I were still bemoaning that pandan leave these days have lost their flavour. Now we know where to get good ones!

By the way, the soup was delicious with the sweet potatoes, also organic of course. :)

Sweet corn $5.60

The website says these grown on their farm, are so good and fresh they can be eaten raw. My mum taught me to preserve the leaves to wrap rice and meat and steam! What a good idea! Oh, do you know the corn silk is very nutritious and when cooked in soup, the soup will be very sweet. You can also add hot water to the silk to make corn silk tea. Wow.

Sio bai cai $2.50

These shrunk so much after cooking! I must buy 2 packets the next time. They taste sweeter and crunchier then the commercial ones. But slightly more bitter too, though in a vege way, if you know what I mean. Hubby loves them!

Broccoli $15 per kg

Look at that purple tinge on the stem. Beautiful ain't it? And there's still so many leaves attached to it. Broccoli leaves, being the most nutritious part of the plant, can hardly be found on the commercial ones.

You'll never find such fresh organic broccoli at supermarkets, I think. And at Cold Storage, organic broccoli is $20 per kg.

This one tasted much crunchier then commercial ones, be it from Chine for Australia. It doesn't soften as quickly when cooked and retained a very pretty green colour. It was also yummier.

Lettuce $6.60

Considering how expensive commercial salad lettuce are, these are very cheap! And very safe to consume raw. Best of all, they're very YUMMY! My kids were practically fighting for them during snack that afternoon.

Mandy was going "Mmmmm. Very nice!" all the way chomping down on the raw lettuce. Such scenes make me very happy. :)

Oh and the purplish lettuce don't taste bitter at all, unlike the commercial ones which both kids shunned. This one, they liked. They finished a big plate of lettuce in minutes.

Brinjal $2.80

"They say, this kind of brinjals taste the best! Small with ugly skin, but very delicious!"

I'm cooking these soon. They're one of Mandy's favorite vegetable. So we shall see if my mum was right.

Ladies fingers $2.80

My kids adore ladies fingers. My mum said I will finally know how yummy ladies fingers can be after I tasted these. Ha. Looking forward to it.

Wild bayam (large) $2.50

I believe they're also called round spinach. Sharp spinach is phuay leng or 波菜. Correct me if I am wrong. They are all super nutritious.

"Wah. Very nice. See the purple tinge on the roots? These must be very nutritious." My mum thinks purplish roots = superior in nutrition.

She was so impressed she took back 2 of the roots (with leaves and stem still attached) and said she will try to grow them at home. In a POT! Ha. Good luck mum! She looked around and saw that I have another packet of spinach, so took one whole packet home. She also took some lettuce. I think she wanted to take more. Haha.

We also ordered 1kg of bananas which cost $4.

Aiyooooooooooo. I've never liked the small variety but this one..... *slurps* DELICIOUS!

I urged my mum to try one and she was like WOW! Nice! We agreed that these bananas have no siap siap taste. Not 涩, and so doesn't leave a dry aftertaste in the mouth like the commercial ones do. And these are very very very sweet. We're going to finish off the last few tomorrow. *sob*

Ok. So I've updated my online shopping experience for the few of you who are interested. If you have more lobang buying organic anything, please let me know too ok? Thanks!

By the way, the vegetables were mostly wrapped in papers/newspapers and loosely packed into a big crate when they came. :)

Hope you find all these information useful!

This new year

2011-01-03T22:56:00.000-08:00

I had a great start to this year. It started with a short jog. It didn't matter that I only managed less than 3km (what with the grogginess and empty stomach and hubby's nagging to not overtire my body), what mattered was I managed to climb out of bed to do it! I'm hoping I'll keep up with it and stick to my resolution to exercise more this year!

Barry started his playgroup today and he did very well. Although, my presence and the teachers' choice of toys for the day (huge set of food toys!) helped a lot! Hehe. When it was time to keep toys, most of the children froze, but Barry, being well 'trained' at home to keep his own toys, set to work immediately. He knew exactly what to do. He even helped stack the baskets and placed the whole stack back into the shelf. He also listened to the teachers quietly, did what he was told, and generally not create any nuisance.

After class, he was a different boy from the weepy "I don't wanna go school!" one. He said he wanted to go to that school again. Of course little boy, you'll be going there for a long.. long... time. Hiak hiak.

Another resolution of mine is to eat, feed and cook more wisely. It's actually an ongoing task. As a person, and especially as a parent, it is in my opinion, of utmost importance that we provide good nutrition to ourselves and our family. I read in a book which said that as the kids grow up, there'll be less and less things that parents have control over, so we should really take note of what they eat, as much as we can. They do still spend a considerable amount of time having meals/snacks with us.

Their tummies are smaller, so whatever small amount of toxic, chemicals or substance harmful to our bodies will create a considerable bigger harm to theirs! Plus, because their tummies are so small, they get full easily. Adults can, say, eat half a packet of chips and still consume one bowl of rice and with vegetables, meat etc for dinner an hour later. Kids might not be able to do so.

Anyway, hubby and I had a wake up call about food after reading this book. Go read it. It should jolt you up and make you rethink what you eat. I'm sure you'll never see food the same way after you read the book.

I'm also reading a whole food encyclopedia. It's really fascinating! For example, do you know that brocolli contains twice the Vit. C than an orange and almost as much calcium as whole milk? Its calcium is also better absorbed than that of the milk. Wait, do not rush out to buy broccoli! Because if you read The Good Body Guide, you will also know that if the broccoli is not organic, it probably is grown on soil leeched of nutrients, sprayed with pesticides and therefore, the vegetable might not even give us much nutrients at all!

It's like you know fish is great but you pan/deep fry it and unknowingly destroyed what's so great about the fish in the first place. Frankly, as I read more about food, I feel a bit cheated. Like tuna. It's a good brain food but did you know eating canned tuna doesn't give those purported benefits? You will have to eat it fresh. So, if you don't have these kind of knowledge, you end up wasting a lot of money, thinking you're filling yours and your family's tummies with good stuff.

Oh, since I'm on that. These are the fruits that have the highest level of pesticides residues: strawberry, apple, pear, raspberry, cherry, nectarine, peach. The vegetables that have the highest level of pesticides residues: sweet pepper, spinach, potato. celery.

Nonorganice fruits and vegetables that are essentially free of pesticides are: avocado, banana, onion, brocolli, blueberry and cabbage.

I've tried cooking some organic vegetables and I got to tell you I'm totally sold! Their flavour is far superior than the commercial ones. Try the,m! Cook lightly though, so you can taste the subtle flavours. They're much crunchier too!

Recently, the NTUC near my place is selling organic apples at $4+ for a big bag. What a steal. I bought a bag. The kids tried the apple first. After the first bite, they were oohing and aahing about how delicious the apple was! They are already fruit lovers so the apple must be great! We couldn't resist and had a taste too. You know what? Hubby quickly bought another bag the next day. Now, all the kids want to eat after their meals, is apples, apples, apples. :p

Oh, commercial apples are all artificially waxed. You know that. But do you know the wax contains crushed insects? Urgh.

Really. Go read The Good Body Guide. Please.

OMG. I can really go on and on about food. So back to this year. I've been on a row, cooking. Almost daily. They all tasted and looked good. *ahem* And I am happy in the knowledge that so far, my family HAS been filling their tummies with good stuff.

This is what I cooked for them a few days back:

Stir fried asparagus with abalone mushroom (I've since learnt that blanching asparagus is preferred)

Stir fried nai bai with carrots

Baked teriyaki chicken with ginger and abalone mushroom

Sweet and sour prawn

Actually I'm guilty. I love stir fries but they're not the healthiest. I haven't perfected the steam fry method. I'm always too lazy to reach for the wok cover. Hehe. And I should really steam and bake more lah.

We're looking to order organic vegetables online. Will let you all know how it goes. Very excited.

In short, people, eat well. The consequences of not doing so are far reaching. It can affect you 10 years later, it can affect you subtly without you knowing.I can go on about how some food choices have had unbelievable effects on us but you really don't want me to go on. Haha.

I am no health freak and I don't cringe when my kids eat a bit of junk now and then (I do too!). But toxic, that should be frowned upon. Toxic, my friend. So choose wisely.

Oh, I recommend this website: http://www.cornucopia.org/ There's an article on DHA and ARA found in milk formula. And others on hexane, eggs etc. Very informative.

Read. Eat. Exercise. Rest. And enjoy life!

The year 2010 (part 2)

2011-01-01T23:54:00.000-08:00

May:

1. Mandy had a nightmare last night. Amidst the wailing and flailing, she screamed, with her eyes still closed: "THIS DIDI AH! SO NAUGHTY!!!"

2. Mandy looked at Barry rather enviously and said: "How come didi can do so many funny things....". Sometimes, I really feel for her.

3. The 2 kiddos' eyes are glued onto the TV now, watching Stevie Ray live in concert. I still do not understand why they love him.

April:

1. I was looking really unglam jogging with Barry in the stroller at the park.. when I passed by a HUGE group of SMOKING HOT bare bodied army guys. Still, it's kinda cool. :)

2. At the buffet, I asked the auntie if I need to pay for my kids since they're both under 3yo (ahem). One look at Mandy and she immediately said "Ah, she don't need." Then, she peered very long at Barry.....

3. At a public toilet, Barry put his finger into the urinal to 'dig dig', then proceeded to put the same finger into his mouth. Luckily hubby stopped him in time. Ewwwwwww.

4. Everybody! I'm gonna get myself strong and fit! And you're NOT stopping me!!!!!

5. My Furla bag is here! Lovessssssss....

6. Hubby got me a bag from Reebonz. I asked him how he knew about it, he said he saw it on Karen Cheng's blog. Thank you Karen Cheng! Haha.

7. Got chased out of the room by my kids. They wanted to play by themselves. For once, I don't need to feel guilty surfing the net while they're awake.

March:

1. After only 2 days of holidays spent at home, hubby declared that we should have been DINKs. "Ah, you don't complain!" I said. "I'm a DKNI."

2. Mandy scratched Barry's face and Barry bit Mandy. Seriously kids!

3. Wanted to jog in the park but it started raining. So I jogged up and down 36 storeys of steps. My legs....

February:

1. I was nagging at Mandy to finish up her brinjal because "Vegetables are good for you. You have to eat vegetables for lunch and dinner!" when I looked down on my plate of very black char kway teow... uh oh...

January:

1. 超级无敌爱卢广仲!

2. Caught 20 fishes at Bottletree Park today. Barry toppled over and drank some of the water though. Eeeeks!

3. Mandy has discovered this wonderful thing called 'friendship'. :)

4. Mandy: Mama, why is the turtle so slow? Is the battery weak already?

5. (Kei) misses playing percussion in RubberBand

And there you are folks! It's been a great journey!

The year 2010

2011-01-01T05:42:00.000-08:00

I have a lot more updates about my life, the kids etc on Facebook than here. More entries but not in details. So I thought a recap of my FB updates in the going-to-be-past year will be a great trip down memory lane.

Just a few of my favorites! :)

December:

1.No big feast today, just a simple homecooked meal enjoyed by the whole family. :)

(Braised taukwa with dried shrimp. prawns and spring onion; Stirfried beansprouts with capsicum and ginger shreds; Stir fired chicken with abalone mushroom, red onion and ginger)

2. It's still Christmas, isn't it? And oh, my kids are at the 'gotta wear identical clothings' phase.

3. OMG! Hubby walked in to find Mandy lying on top of Barry. She said they were making babies. The result of watching too much animal documentaries. Yes, ONLY documentaries. Must I start sex education, NOW?

4. Barry said he wanted to watch Cars. Then he said he wanted to watch Finding Nemo. I asked him to decide. He thought for a while and said "Um... Finding Cars."

November:

1. Barry took the toy hotdog bun, pressed it into my forehead a few times, grinned and said "Didi use hotdog bun kill mama!". Death by hotdog bun.

2. The two kids have finally realised there is power in numbers. At ages 4 and 2, they have started ganging up against me. Retribution, anyone

3. What the kids busied themselves with for 20 minutes

Skyride. The pillow was the bar

Then it's Luge time. They made up the whole thing themselves and went on the rides again and again. Somebody's missing Sentosa!

October:

1. Barry boy might be too big for his highchair. Halfway through gobbling down his lunch just now, he frowned and said "Didi's poor tummy stuck already!" Really cracked me up.

September:

1. When the kids demand so much from you that you can hardly breathe, take a deep breathe, let go of every other thing, then, give them all of you. They will feel the love. They will feel secure. Then, they will loosen their clutches. I am still learning.

2. My mum is quite impressed with what I dish out for lunch and dinner (almost) everyday. That makes me really happy. She is my cooking mentor after all!

3. (Kei) is glad to have fostered stronger friendships with the mummies and built new ones with the daddies! To more staycations/trips in the future!

4. Have been cooking for my mum since she moved in. I'm really enjoying this role reversal.

5. Mum moved in. And brought her Sudoku craze with her. Even Mandy is doing... the very very very simple ones.

August:

1. The kids are so wonderful these days that I'm actually glad they're missing school, so I can have their company the whole day. Such joy.

July:

1. 刚刚在电台听到 "路边摊", 想起了 '最熟悉的' 老地方. 好想念那段时光啊!

2. Nothing like Crowd Lu for some positivity in the morning!

3. Braising meat, eggs and mushrooms for a kong bak bao picnic at the beach tomorrow. Hope weather will be good!

June:

1. My naughty, clingy, pui pui little angel.

2. From Sembawang to Lower Seletar reservoir to Sembawang shopping centre, then back home again. Hubby estimated we cycled about 20km just now. My bones!

Alritey. That's half of 2010 for you! Shall continue another day! :)

Non-ginger bread man and cookies

2010-12-30T23:09:00.000-08:00

Christmas, I woke up thinking, "How boring to eat bread and jam again for breakfast. It's Christmas, let's have a change!" But since it's already 8am and the kids (who woke long before me) were near to starving, I had to make do with something simpler.

This:

It's a gingerbread man without the ginger. (They tried the real thing and didn't like the taste of it) It's actually very lame. It's just bread and peanut butter, decorated with dried cranberries, rice crispy, cheerios and froot loops.

They had a bit of fun, nevertheless.

Yesterday, we made Apricot shortbread cookies.

The result wasn't very tasty. The kids still ate but the girl shunned it after a few pieces. Hey, she shuns most of the commercial cookies/biscuits too ok?

I'm a novice at baking so I cannot tell if the recipe is bad or if it's just me. Anyhow, I won't post the recipe here lah. :p

Gosh, I have so much to blog about before the year ends. Not going to make it in time. Still, Happy 2011 everyone! I had a most wonderful 2010! Hope you did too! :)

2 beaches in 3 days

2010-12-29T08:14:00.000-08:00

On monday, we went Sentosa with Audrey and Jaime's family.

Of course we did Luge and Skyride again. The kids just love that. This time, Audrey asked hubby to go first so he could take pictures of all of us. Because honestly, his pictures are way better than those taken by the automatic camera planted along the trail. So there, photos!

Hubby didn't see Jaime and Thaddeus in front of Rose and Talia though. I and Mandy came shortly after.

I tried the Dragon Trail with Mandy this time. The longer and steeper one with many more sharp turns. I won't say I was not nervous. My spatial awareness has always been poor and I'm a well-known klutz in my family. But Mandy loved it and wanted the 'long way' the 2nd time round. So she went with hubby instead.

Hubby said he was zooming down the trail at high speed. Daredevil he is. Halfway through, Mandy's helmet fell off. The Luge staff at one of the roadblock told him one boy just flew out because he went too fast and lost control, and asked that Mandy had her helmet back on.

I took the shorter, less adrenaline inducing Jungle Trail with the boy on our 2nd round. Saw Mandy standing at the side near the end, waving and saying hello to us. The boy waved back. Can you spot Mandy?

Then he spotted papa and waved to him too.

After lunch, we didn't want to follow the rest to Underwater World so we headed to the beach first. There was still some time before their nap, so hubby and the kids crossed the bridge to...

I knew the kids would love the bridge.

Their little expedition was cut short when I called hubby to tell him it's drizzling. False alarm. It stopped after a minute! Just a passing dark cloud. Too bad though, because hubby didn't manage to take many pictures of the magnificent view from the viewing tower.

Mandy ran back to me excitedly, telling me they saw a fish! Hubby said the kids climbed up 4 storeys of steps to reach the top level of the tower. The kids said they loved the place. Too bad I had to look after the barang and couldn't go with them.

We looked for a nice spot with trees close enough to tie our hammocks. The kids had requested to take their naps in them. Such a good idea! And it worked so wonderfully well. They slept for close to 2 hours! I tell you, I nearly fell asleep on the ground sheet too. Soooooo windy. But dark clouds loomed and we had to spring into action to shield them if it rained, which it did. They slept through that too. So shiok huh?

Then, they had a short sandplay before it started raining again.

We decided not to wait out the rain since it was already 4pm and the kids are hungry. The sky looked really dark too.

Had dinner at Harbourfront. The kids were still in high spirits after dinner. We shopped for a while and let them have a ride on the carousel before turning home.

A couple of months back, Barry started cycling on his trike on his own. I heard of how much Jac and his family enjoyed their cycling trip at East coast, and so planned for one ourselves. Finally materialised today! Whoopee!

Mandy's first time on a bicycle. She's probably one of the last among her same age peers to ride a bike because she's so small built. And gosh! Wasn't she proud? She was beaming all the way, and refused to stop cycling for a whole hour.

Barry, on the hand, couldn't manage to move his bike. He was frowning all the way and saying "I cannot!"and "I scared!". So we took turns to push him along, which scared him somewhat too. It was back-breaking for us!

We much preferred to walk beside the girl.

"Look ma, I cannot cycle, so I kick coconut."

Meanwhile, the girl was still having a blast.

Seeing the boy looking so doleful, we pushed him really fast around the courtyard. He liked that. And the 2 of them had fun ringing their bells at each other. :)

Then it was feast time! Hubby had $50 voucher for Tunglok restaurants so we really WHACKED at Tunglok seafood restaurant.

Finally ate chilli crabs with the kids. I mean, they didn't eat. We had never dared to eat this messy dish with them because they didn't used to be able to sit still for meals very well. But now, ah... mealtimes are such a breeze. (Especially when they like the food too!) We ate the crabs in peace.

Verdict: Red House's chilli crab wins.

We also had 12 buns or man tous to go with the crab, of which 8 were greedily devoured by hubby. The rest of the feast? 2 servings (ie 6) of char siew bao, 4 servings of cheong fun (Mandy's favorite!), 1 serving of fried carrot cake, 1 serving of siew mai, 1 serving of har gao, 1 bowl of fish congee and 1 soya beancurd with avocado cream for dessert.

It's A LOT of food. We might have overdone the whacking. *ahem* We ordered egg tarts too but tabao-ed it for snack.

Barry ate 3 char siew baos, quite a bit of cheong fun, 2 siew mais, some porridge, some carrot cake and some dessert. After all that food, he looked sick and said he was going to vomit. Just then, he saw someone eating roast duck and said he wanted some. I told him he ate way too much and he would really vomit if he ate some more. He actually grinned and chanted "Eat duck, eat duck, no vomit!" complete with hand actions.

Is it strange that I find his greediness somewhat endearing? Hehe.

After lunch, they cycled for a while more before we returned the bikes. Then, it was hammock time again!

It wasn't easy finding 2 trees close to each other on the coast, but we did. The tall coconut trees didn't provide much shade though. At some points, it was quite hot and we had to shield the sleeping kids from the sun, using umbrellas. Fortunately, most of the time during their 1.5hr nap, it was cloudy and very windy.

The kids were so thrilled to lie next to each other.

Hubby and I brought papers and books. We spent that 1+ hour in quietness, reading or lying on the sheet relaxing. Again, I didn't dare sleep in case I had to shelter them from the rain/sun. Still, I really enjoyed that 1.5hours of peace.

When I lied down, I saw this:

And for a while, I could imagine myself on a tropical island, far far away from here.

Dark clouds loomed over at hubby's side.

They woke up just in time, for the teens behind had started up their bbq and there were fumes everywhere. Also, the sky looked really dark. They had their snack in the pavillion.

Looking at this...

we decided to shelf our plans for another day. (Yes, we still wanted to play!) Instead, we went to Novena to buy sandals for hubby (who just realised his crocs have holes!) and myself.

Mandy kept pestering for us to bring the bicycle home. She enjoyed cycling so much that we decided to grant her wish and buy her a bike. That will happen tomorrow. She's very excited!

First ice-skating experience

2010-12-26T05:46:00.000-08:00

HOW LUCKY ARE KIDS TODAY???

Both hubby and I have never tried skating of any form, or seen/touched snow (real or fake) but now, malls offer passes for the kids to ice-skate for just $60 worth of receipts per kid. By the way, there is a slot for adults to skate too... but *ahem* I think we'll fare even worse than our kids. Cannot lao kui you know. Hehe.

Anyway, after chancing upon the skating show a few weeks back, we decided that it would be quite an experience for the kids to try skating, especially since Mandy has been asking to skate since she watched Belle in Beauty and the Beast skate in the show some time back.

Mandy has always been the very cautious sort and I was apprehensive about whether to let her have a go at it. But well, never try, never know. As for Barry, well, I didn't want to let him go but I knew he would provide much needed courage and company for the girl. I just hoped he wouldn't break a leg or something, knowing how clumsy he is. Haha.

After many postponements, they finally skated, or rather, tried skating. When I told Mandy we're going skating the next day, she looked at me, eyes all big in astonishment, and said "But we have to learn first right?" On the way, I could sense she was excited yet nervous. She asked me "When we go there, somebody will teach us right?" Cautious Mandy at work.

The boy got quite tensed gearing up. He muttered that he didn't want to skate already. Later, Mandy also wanted to back out. But only for that moment. They actually really wanted to skate. They were all smiles after that and Mandy kept saying Barry looked very cute. I say, both looked incredibly cute!

They tried out their skates and clowned around.

And then it was rink time! Before even stepping into the rink, Barry tripped on the steps. One of the in-charge was following him wherever he went. He told me the boy was very young and he'll see how he goes. I presumed he was worried that Barry might hurt himself.

He wanted to hold their hands but my kids flatly refused! He must have thought my kids were so weird. All the others were either skating (didn't look like it's their first time in the rink) or holding on to one of the adult helpers' hands. Only mine were walking like zombies of Night of the Walking Dead.

The in-charge was looking very worried. Hehe. The kids were really enjoying themselves though, especially Mandy.

They stayed close to each other, holding hands most of the time. Then, Mandy felt brave enough to venture far by herself. She walked away from Barry, all the while grinning.

Barry looked for her, panicked, slipped and fell. He cried and wanted out. Mandy just couldn't stay in the rink without her didi. So she came out too.

After much persuading, they went back in. But STILL too stubborn to hold the guy and the other gor gors and jie jies' hands. So many people offered help to them you know!

You can see that towards the end, it looked as if they were about to hold hands with the helpers, but that was actually the end of their skating experience for Barry started to cry when the gor gor held him.

For my kids, it's usually 'both or none'. Either they do it together, or they don't do it at all. They are very close which is wonderful. But it can be a bit frustrating sometimes. Hehe.

Anyway, because they insisted on holding each other, when Barry panicked and fell (because the gor gor came near), he pulled Mandy down too. She had a very big bump. At home, I saw a big bruise on her butt. So.... ya. that kind of ended the whole thing, after 15minutes.

The girl still wanted to skate but the boy was frantically tearing off his ankle/knee guards and helmet, and proclaiming "I DON'T WANT TO SKATE ALREADY!". We didn't want to push it. Anyway, like hubby said "We brought them here to have fun. What's the point of making them go again if they won't have fun?"

He was not the least perturbed and we went snacking and shopping instead. Woohoo!

Still, I'm proud of you kids! That was brave of you! :)

Now, we joked about bringing them to skate all the time. In fact, everyday, we asked them if they wanted to go skate later. Barry will grin and go NOOOOOO. Mandy will tell me that she wanted to, but not until she's much bigger. Then, she will be able to skate like the others. Ha.

Happy winter solstice festival!

2010-12-20T05:52:00.000-08:00

I hope I got that right.

It's 冬至 tomorrow (according to my mum)! I did a search on the net and found out it's called winter solstice festival in english. Hmmm. Isn't there a nicer name?

She came up with the idea of letting the kids have a go at making riceballs (汤圆). She brought the stuff to my place today and we introduced this fun activity to the 2 little ones.

It was not easy at first when the dough (which was prepared the night before. Mum said this step is essential!) was still quite moist. Barry couldn't roll them into balls, he made little snakes instead. Mandy got the hang of it after a while and was making perfectly round riceballs. She was so pleased.

The more colourful plate had balls made by my mum and Mandy. Mandy really was pretty good, you can see. You also can see Barry's little pink snakes, more like worms, on the other plate.

Yummy!!!

The adults indulged in some store bought riceballs with fillings too. Oh, the dual coloured riceballs were made by the very boliao me. Haha.

Hubby said the texture of the homemade ones was PERFECT! I absolutely agree. Better than the ones from the stalls. Soft but springy. SLURPS!

Mandy loved the making, Barry loved the tasting. Looks like this is going to be a family tradition. *grin*

Art and crafts

2010-12-18T22:51:00.000-08:00

Hubby complained, okay reminded me, that I haven't blogged for a while. :p

I'm quite tired of editing pictures of our outings. So I'll put up some pictures of the kids' artwork.

After a very long procrastination, I finally continued our CL homelearning lessons on transportation. (Linette, I'm still too lazy to type in chinese...Heh)

First, I showed them the word cards of 飞 and 机. Focusing on the word 飞, I asked them what flies. Mandy was able to say 鸟 and 飞机. She said helicopter too. I told her I can fly too. "Watch me!" I said while I jumped and flapped my arms. The kids laughed and tried to imitate my failed attempt at flying.

"咦, 我们不能飞啊! 为什么呢?" "啊! 这是手啊! 不是翅膀! 鸟有翅膀吗? 飞机呢? 直升机呢?" Mandy said helicopters' wings are the ones spinning on top. I told her those are rotor blades, 螺旋桨(finally found out what it's called!) They don't look like wings but they help the helicopter fly.

"鸟和飞机都有翅膀. 翅膀让它们飞! 你看! '飞' 字也有翅膀!"

I made detachable 'wings' to let the kids stick to complete the word. I pointed out that the 钩 looks like a tail.

Then we did a simple craft of assembling the body (机身), wings (机翼) and tail (机尾) of the aeroplane. They also drew suns, birds and sponged painted white clouds over the blue sky.

Mandy's:

She said the plane flew into the clouds.

Barry's:

That cheeky boy painted all over the words. Mandy wanted big clouds, Barry wanted small clouds. Both turned out very nice! :)

The girl drew a watermelon the other day.

I realised she wouldn't draw if I don't teach her. So I drew one watermelon and she followed step by step. She drew and coloured herself nevertheless. I guess I was too insistent on her coming out with drawings by herself and that stressed her greatly. Now she likes drawing more and because I'm there to guide her, she draws with more confidence and interest.

The zigzag lines were difficult. And it was a bit tricky getting her to alternate the dark and light green properly. But what do you know? Her watermelon turned out way nicer than mine! I love it!

Then, I spelt 'watermelon' for her to write. She was so proud of her work!

I think drawing fruits is a wonderful way to get her to learn patterning (lots of fruits have patterns!) and practise her lowercase writing! And it's easy to pique her interest since she loves fruits so much. It's also about the only thing that works with the boy when it comes to drawing. He refused to draw though, crying that he cannot colour properly and gave up. Haiz.

The girl also attended a 2 hour mixed media art class at the CC, with Philson and his cousin last week.

I was apprehensive because besides school, she's never attended anything by herself. I wanted to use this lesson as gauge to see if she was ok with attending outside classes herself and if she was interested.

She loved it!

The first thing she said out of the classroom was "Mama, I come to this school next time? Is this my school?" She said she liked the class and wanted to attend it again. Whoopee!

Here's what she did in class:

A lot of it was the teacher's work, I could tell. And especially since all 3 kids took out almost identical artworks. Ha! Nevertheless, it was still good exposure.

So now, I'm looking out for art classes for her. And swimming classes. And... I've already signed her up for music classes. Ha. Ya ya, I know. Slowly... I'm just saying...

Jacob Ballas, after so long

2010-12-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

I have rather fond memories of Jacob Ballas garden at the botanic gardens. When Mandy has just started to walk, a group of them (Philson, Talia and Nathan) had an outing at the garden and they had so much fun. Go see here, here and here.

The kids were so chubby, gosh! Now, they know one another's names and we're still going out together. At that time, Jaime and I were also pregnant with our boys. Time really flies.

We wanted to bring Barry to the garden since he's never been there. There was hardly anybody there on a wednesday morning at 9am.

The entrance was decorated prettily with colourful Xmas trees.

This one is made from recycled bottles and cans. Nice!

We saw lots of fruits trees bearing fruits.

Had a walk at the maze which made Barry pretty scared. After that, they cleared the dirt off their shoes.

My kids just don't smile normally, as somebody pointed out, like ME!

Barry immediately exclaimed that the shaky bridge looked like the one from Kungfu Panda. Mandy was quick to announce herself Tigress and Barry became the fearsome Tai Lung!

They were wary of the very loud waterfall. Holding hands gave them courage.

Their favorite part of the garden - the PLAYGROUND! The kids insisted on going up the harder way.

Crossing the stream... A bit worried for the clumsy boy.

The kids learnt some facts about water plants but were mostly excited to spot fishes.

We toured the place a while longer before a snack break for the kids. After that, it was 2 more stops before we headed for Square 2 for yummy Old Hongkong Kitchen dimsum.

Stuffing his mouth with cheerios

After lunch, we caught the ice skating show at Novena Square. We sat at level 2 where we could get a better view of the show.

The show features different young skaters everyday.

The pros from Australia.

The kids like the show very much. They prefer this to the Sesame Street show. Heh.

Spend $60 at the mall and one kid (below 1.4m) can go in the rink to skate for 30 minutes! I checked out the skating kids one day and the whole thing looked safe enough. So, we're bringing both our kids to skate at the mall next week! :)

交通工具 - 车

2010-12-06T07:49:00.000-08:00

I broke the teaching of transportation into 3 parts - 车, 机 and 船.

车 are the vehicles on land, 机 in the air and 船 on the sea.

Here's what we've done for the first part of the theme.

First, we read a chinese pictorial book on transportation. Told them the difference between 车, 机 and 船. I know not all vehicles on the ground has 车 in the name and not all 船 are on the sea. (飞船 ie airship goes in the air )But I'm hoping they will remember the names of the vehicles better this way.

The first vehicle I introduced to them was 火车.

We took 3 storage boxes with wheels and joined them up to form a train. I told them those are the carriages of the train, called 车箱 in mandarin. They have a Dora book with a nice picture of a train going up a mountain, with Dora, Boots and her teacher, each sitting in one carriage. Mandy was very pleased to do the same. They even had one extra carriage for their soft toys!

Going into the tunnel (隧道)

Did I say she's into posing now?

It was pretty tiring pulling them around in that 'train' and repeatedly singing '开火车'. It was my favourite childhood song but the kids don't like it.

They pretended to be passengers getting on and off the train, stopping at stations like the zoo, the beach, and the airport. They also took turns to be the driver (司机) steering the train using a round plate.

I explained why 火车 is named as such. Unlike subway trains (aka our MRT trains), 火车 runs on burning coal. The coal gets very hot and gives out smoke, much like fire burning. I hope my understanding is correct.

Then I told them 脚踏车 has its name because we use our legs (脚) to pedal (踏) in order for the bicycle to move. 汽车 runs on 汽油.

Next, we did bus. 巴士 when said very fast, sounds like bus!

We made buses out of tissue boxes and cardboard. Mandy cut out the cardboard wheels herself (not bad!). The kids stuck on the wheels. I suggested adding windows with pictures of passengers, gave them a stack of leftover coloured papers from previous projects, and encourage them to 'dress up' their bus! I did give a few suggestions though.

Here's what Mandy did, with no physical help from me at all.

Notice the bus doors and the driver? Oh, I wrote the chinese words for her to stick, of course. All her passengers look alike. I commented that some of them look like Bert from Sesame Street, because of their hair. Cute.

She told me she wanted to leave some windows blank because not all seats are filled, but went on to draw in all the windows anyway. She also told me, with a smile on her face, that the 2 friends are sitting together. (right red window)

Barry's bus is... destroyed. As usual. Haha. Managed to get one picture. He needed quite a bit of help.

I was so hoping he would draw a face again, like last time. But he's back to doodling. Ha.

Did a worksheet with the girl.

The bicycle and bus were colored by her.

I think this is a good worksheet. Buay paiseh, hehe. She learnt the names of the vehicles and how the words look like, how many wheels they have, chinese word recognition (the numbers) and practised writing the numbers.

We also played a game using these:

I ask questions like (in mandarin) "See who can find the bus first!" and "How many cars are there?". For the latter, she had to grab the correct word (that represents the number) before I do. I made it into a competition. She gets pretty competitive, so I've found out that's one of the ways she learns well. Barry, on the other hand, totally couldn't be bothered. All the while, he lied on the bed and stoned. Haha.

We learnt 3 songs.

It's totally not practical doing up elaborate song sheets on vanguard so I just do simple ones on A4. They're kept in a file and once in a while, I take it out to sing with the kids. They love 造飞机.

Did one fill-in-the-blanks with the girl.

She doesn't know all the words so I let her refer to the original lyrics for this. In this way, she learns.

Now, I'm racking my brains on how to teach aeroplane and helicopter.

By the way, now during storytime, Mandy tells me "妈妈, 我要读书." When we were reading one night, she pointed out that I had mistaken a child for the mother, "不是, 这个是孩子!". She's saying much more mandarin her vocabulary has improved a lot too!

Making progress. :)

Khatib over the weekend

2010-12-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

I categorise the areas in Singapore with MRT station names. Because I don't drive (neither does my hubby, or my mum or anybody else in the immediate family), when I ask people "Where's this place?", I'm really asking which MRT station is the place nearest too. Give me a road name and I'll probably draw a blank.

So I've established that Orchard is home to shopping malls, Novena is where I go for more expensive kiddy stuff, Pasir Ris is at the other end of Singapore and any place that's near Dhoby Ghaut, City Hall and Raffles Place are kind of within walking distance from all 3 stations.

Anyway, I've always thought of Khatib as a boring boring place. There isn't even a mall there. That changed when Bottletree park opened. We've been there many times and somehow it still draws us.

We went on friday again. There's much to see on the way there, from Khatib station.

We always enjoyed looking at the trees and the very many pigeons and flocks of other birds. I love that bare tree.

The park has changed. Gone is the small hut where the uncles killed and dried their fishes and sell some vegetables. The rustic small 'cafe' is gone too. In place is a stretch of, hmmm, how shall I describe it? Spaces. Spaces where a group of enthusiasts run workshops and hold exhibitions on sustainability. Over there, almost everything is done from scratch. The volunteers did up the plumbing, planted the vegetables and herbs/spices, built structures, wired up the place etc themselves. That day, a group of poly students were making mud bricks. From scratch!

Mud bricks in the making.

We also saw some means of transport from the olden days. I was glad to see the trishaw since Mandy has been asking to see one and we were also on the topic of transportation for our chinese homelearning.

I love Mandy's smile here. So sweet.

There was a small plant nursery beside.

After the tour, we had a rest.

We sat there swinging, under the shade of the trees, trying to identify the different fruit trees and enjoying the cool breeze. Totally chill.

Then, it was lunch at their in-house restaurant before we all headed home to sleep.

The next day, Jaime had jio-ed Dee and our family to a new waterplay area at Lower Seletar Reservoir. It's also walkable from Khatib station, but further than Bottletree.

We had cycled to the same reservoir before. It's quite crazy if you ask me, with the kids at the back that is. It's actually a nice cycling route but after toppling my bike twice, once resulting in Mandy hitting her head at the concrete pillar (thank goodness it wasn't a hard knock!), I absolutely don't dare to ferry the kids on the bicycle anymore. Hubby thought it's even crazier to walk from the station so we took a cab. Ha.

The waterplay is at a new jetty which we've been meaning to check out. Would have sooner if we knew there was a waterplay area! I fell in love with the place as soon as I set eyes on it. Both the jetty and the waterplay area are tastefully designed. Aesthetically pleasing, giving a sense of calm and peace, quite unlike most of the other waterplay areas I've seen, which use loud and jarring colours and designs.

One of the waterplay features:

Notice how they designed the railings of the jetty to resemble the stilts of the kelong? Love it.

Dark clouds were looming and it soon started to drizzle while we were having our tabao-ed dinner on the benches. Quickly, we moved to the sheltered jetty.

Despite the rain, and the fact that Jaime's family couldn't go and Dee's family was still lost somewhere on the roads, I was very very happy. Jetties are such wonderful places. Always windy. And looking at the large expanse of water always give me such serenity. Plus I got to sit on the floor. I'm a sit-on-the-floor kind of person. Whenever possible, I will choose floors over seats. Yes, I used to sit on the MRT floors. Ha.

The kids were in high spirits too. They clowned around while eating.

Barry hugged each pillar, looked up and said "Wooooooowwwwww."

Blanket of gloom still there. :( But no more rain :)

They are into swinging their arms while walking now.

And posing too!

OMG. My boy is so corny.

The dark clouds were moving away. It seemed like there wasn't going to be anymore rain, so we went ahead with the water play.

I love the following 3 pictures. Gloomy skies never looked so good.

It was not even 6pm. Good thing we arrived and ate early. We hate crowds and at that time, most people were having their dinners so there were only 3 groups of kids there. Lots of space to roam slowly and safely.

Mandy beckoning Barry to join her by offering a helping hand.

They are such good pals now. It's so heartwarming to see them playing so well together. All the time, they looked out for each other, talked and laughed like best buddies and one will not stray too far away from the other. Always together. 很可爱哦! :)

Some guy caught a huge fish!

He let it back into the water afterwards.

The kids had a blast. They were caught grinning from ear to ear so many times. They still don't like to go under strong or heavy jets of water though. So this waterplay area is perfect for them. Lots of places for gentle waterplay.

Running away from the showers!

I particularly like this following picture:

This one too!

Barry's offering hubby some leaf soup, if I'm not wrong. :p

They stood at the fountain a long time, not daring to venture inside. And that was not the day I got myself drenched just to prove a point... so they went back to sitting in the meandering stream and watching their scoops flow away.

They got dried and changed after an hour of play.

We watched the sunset as the kids sat on the bench, munching an apple.I relish that moment.

When it got dark, the whole place lit up beautifully. I love how the lights are installed on the vertical planks at the railings instead of being on intrusive metal posts. Must find out the architect of this place! Heh.

We bade goodbye to the wonderful place, but not before the kids told us umpteen times that they wanted to visit the place again. "Next time, with friends! And Barry too!" Mandy said. She had been asking the whole evening for her friends. Ha.

So, friends! When are we going huh?