教师节 快乐 !!

This is Anthea and Anders 1st Teachers Day with this new childcare. As a token of appreciation towards the teachers for their hard work, I am baking muffins for the teachers and the aunties.

For the form teachers and assistant teachers, I was thinking of getting them some gifts. I felt that the teachers here really deserve something as they give their 100% care and love towards the children. I can feel the differences as compared to the previous childcare.

There are many good gift ideas – bookmarks, fridge magnets, photo frames etcs. I happened to see this website – Good Bargain and they have this item – 80G Mini Honey in an Organza pouch.

I thought this will be a good gift for the Teachers. Honey is good for their throats; especially they are always talking during lessons. The pouch is also useful for them to carry small items. Practical gift, so with these in mind, I bought 6 of the gifts. Hopefully the teachers will like them and also not too many parents bought the same items…hee : P

Teaching is not an easy career and I have a few cousin and friends who are teachers. Hearing about their job scopes, I must really salute them.

Happy Teachers Day!!

亲爱的老师们，


在人生旅途上，您们为孩子们点燃了希望之光，

您们所做的一切润泽了孩子们的心灵，开阔了他们的视野。

今天我们向您致以崇高的敬意。

向您们表达我们最衷心的感谢

教师节 快乐 ！！！

Child TALK....

On Monday morning, Anthea requested that I helped to tie her hair for school. So I obliged to her request. I am quite hopeless when coming to doing hair, so ended up with a simple ponytail with 4 pins over her hair. When we were done, she asked Anders:

“Anders, nice or not? “

Anders replied her:

“Wow, so beautiful, like Princess.”

Anthea was all smiled and happy when she heard Anders replied.

I was smiling in my heart when I heard Ander’s reply. All these while, I observed that Anders is very “generous” in giving compliments and sharing toys with his elder sister. Usually it is Anthea who need persuasion in sharing her “properties” with her younger brother.

I believe as she grows older, she will learn to be more generous, like her brother.

In the evening, when I went to fetch them, Mrs. Deva, the K2 English teacher commented to me “Anthea is getting more talkative now.”

I was happy to hear her feedback. I also noticed that at home when Adrian is disciplining her, she will answer back when he questioned her, instead of keeping quiet, as previously.

I believe her interactive skills is getting better and also her peers in this childcare are more outspoken compared to the previous childcare, so this may be another reason that encouraged her to speak out more. When I mentioned to Adrian on Mrs. Deva’s comment, he was glad too and take it as a positive feedback. I told Anthea, it’s perfectly ok to speak out when it is time to do so. However, when teachers are teaching during lessons, she must listen. She said “yes mommy, I only put my hands up when teacher asked questions. “

I am really glad to hear this and feel she is doing progressively well at this stage of learning.

Last evening, I had my hands on baking muffins, using a different recipe from the website. Getting good tips on measurement translation from my SIL, Eve, I managed to bake the Chocolate Chip Muffins.

These batches of muffins turned out better than the one I did on Sunday. So likely I will use this recipe for Teacher’s Day.

I noticed that this childcare centre did not ask for parent’s food/drink contributions for Teachers Day. So out of curiosity, I asked Anthea’s Chinese Teacher: “does the childcare celebrates Teacher’s Day?” She said: “they don’t practice celebration of teacher’s day.”

I was a bit shocked because the previous childcare that Anthea attended celebrated this special day with so much food & drinks.

Anyway, I will still bake some muffins for the teachers, in appreciation of their tender care and passion towards the children.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the muffins will turn out to be presentable and delicious… : P

Self Indulgence

This weekend has been a fulfilling one for me. Since our domestic helper left us in April, all my weekends are “burnt” up by house chores and taking care of Anders as Adrian was involved in the NDP 2007.

On Saturday, Adrian helped me in cleaning the house (ps: must thanks my guarding angels for answering my prayers....hee : ) so I was left with more time for other stuff. I managed to clear some of the filing things and paid off bills via online.

Late afternoon, I even managed to give our car a long deserving car washed. Dinner was at Waraku Japanese restaurant at east coast with the extended families. Don’t really like this place, find it to be too noisy with all the waiters/waitress shouting all over the place. Nowadays prefer to dine in quiet places, thinks age is really catching up…hehe..

As it was raining, after dinner, we headed home. We were in time for EPL match between Liverpool & Sunderland. It was a good match and Liverpool won by 2 – 0.
A sweet dessert for us.

Sunday morning, I went to NTUC Extra and bought some ingredients for my trial baking of Muffin Cakes for the upcoming Teacher’s Day. It was quite a success but taste wise, still not satisfying as I find it to be a bit on the drier side. I was thrilled by the chance to be able to BAKE again…so the rest is really – practice will perfect it.

When I finished baking, I went to my hair salon for a treatment. Dinner was at my In-laws house with combination of home cooked food and tze char takeaways.

For the longest time, I have not indulge in such luxuries and having my own time to do my own things. I feel so ME again.

Lego Toys Sales
On Friday, Lego had a sales at Safra Toa Payoh organized by Toy R Us, so at lunch time, a few of my colleagues and myself dropped by to take a look. I have never buy any Lego toys for Anthea and Anders before, so since we were there, I pick up 2 items, one for each. The sale was not that fantastic and the stocks were really limited. They don’t have the blocks stuff which children can use their imagination to build up different things. Anyway, will watch out for their next sales.

My Happy Moments..

This week time passes so fast…must be the after holiday mood still lingering around.

The children are back to their normal routines and for me; I am still enjoying a bit of leftovers from last week. Adrian is clearing his leaves for 2 weeks, so this week he is at home, doing his studies for his upcoming aviation examination in September.

The reason for me say that I am still benefiting from his leaves is – He is helping me with some of the household chores. Like I say before, any help for me, I welcome with open arms and closed my 2 eyes on the finished products….ha-ha : )

On Tuesday, he volunteered to help me sweep and mop the house but since I wanted to resume my routine, so I did it on my own on that day. This morning, I left him with the chores. Last night, he helped me with hanging up the laundry with his 2 assistances…ha-ha : )

It was fun to see father, daughter and son, doing house chores together. After that, Adrian told me: “wow…hanging clothes is so easy when you have someone to hand you the pegs. “

After our 4 days vacation to Malaysia last week, I realized that both Anthea and Anders are now more aware of happenings around them, maybe I have been treating them like small kids so certain time, their reactions to things happening can catch us by surprises. But luckily all the surprises are good one.

Example:
1. Anders wanted to buy a Dinosaur when we were at Petrosains but it was quite costly, so we tried to persuade him to change to other things, we chosen a pack of small dinosaurs for him, ½ the price. He accepted it and told me: “mommy, next time when I grow Big, then I buy BIG Dinosaur, ok? “

Me: “yes, next time when you are bigger, we will buy a bigger Dino for you.”

(I believe by normal standard, he would have insisted on getting THAT Dinosaur)

2. Anthea and Anders were discussing between themselves of who is getting the window seat for our return flights from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore.

Anthea: Anders, later you let me sit window, ok?

Anders: Ok, I let you sit window, tomorrow you let me sit window, ok?

Anthea: OK.

(Ps: no idea why they agree that we are taking aero plane tomorrow…hee : P )

Both reached an agreement without parents’ interference. For our outbound flights SIN – KUL, we made an agreement all together when I did an internet check in.

By these 2 simple life examples, I can feel my 2 little ones are growing and are better at negotiating for themselves. I am happy and filled with joy.

Teachers Day Gift

Teachers day is just next week and since it is the 1st time that Anthea and Anders are celebrating this occasion in the new childcare, I thought we should present somethings for their class teachers.

Anthea has 2 teachers and Anders has 3, which means if I were to buy some small gifts, I would need to buy 5 of them. A BIG Headache for me!!

Seeing so many mommies baking cake/bread/cupcakes etcs, I am also “itching’ to do my baking again…hee : )

Should I or should I not…this is a tough one….sigh!!!

Our Family Vacation - 4D3N KL/Sunway Lagoon

We are backed from our short 4 Days 3 nights Kuala Lumpur & Sunway vacation.

As the Malaysia Mega Sale carnival 2007 is happening during these times, I find this trip is much enjoyable than our last trip in September 2006. Also it is the Arabic holiday seasons, so we get to meet many Arabic tourists and it is really quite an eye-opener for me.

Our Free & Easy itinerary:

Day 1 – Wednesday, 15 August

10 am – departs for Changi Airport for check in on our Flight SQ 103, as we were early, we had MacDonald breakfast.

10.40 am – Check in and walk around our famous Changi Airport. Found some leg massage machines and Anthea tried them and she found them to be very fun.

12.30 pm – Flight departs for Kuala Lumpur

1. 25 pm – Arrived KLIA – Meet & Greet by local Agent and fetched us to Berjaya Times Hotel

3.25 pm – check in hotel – we had a Superior Suite, so the room size was big. We had a King-sized Bed and Extra bed. It had a lounge area for watching TV and having meals. Also it had a small pantry for coffee & tea making.

Our room was on the 35th floor and it faced the swimming pool. When Anthea and Anders saw the pool, they kept asking to go to the swimming pool. So we went for a swim.

6.30 pm – Dinner at Berjaya Times Square – Explored Times Square. I was really amazed at the sized of the shopping complex and also the indoor Cosmo Theme Park. As we just had dinner, so we decided to do the Theme Park rides on the next day.

Shopped in Metrojaya and Anders managed to chose for himself an Ultra man. Returned to hotel room around 10 pm with supper from MacDonald (again) and the children were very happy and kept saying: “we enjoy life in hotel room.”


Day 2: Thursday, 16 August

9 am – woke up and went for Hotel buffet breakfast. The spread was good and I managed to try Roti Canai and I must said “it’s good…especially the CURRY.”

10.30 am – Took the KL Monorail system and changed to LRT to get to KLCC. A colleague of mine had recommended that I should go to the Science Centre and after doing some research, we found this place called Petrosains.

It had many interactive games and areas for the children. Both Anthea and Anders had Great Fun in the centre and we spent a good 2 ½ hours trying most of the stations and we watched a 3D show + a helicopter simulator ride. The admission fees for Petrosains are RM 12.00 for adult and Child is RM 4.00. As there was some 1st 50 FREE entry for children, so Anthea need not pay for her admission. Overall we paid RM 24.00 + RM 5.00 for the 3D show.

2 pm - We had lunch at Madam Kwan’s. Adrian tried the Nasi Bojari, Anthea had a Fish & chips and Anders had the Chicken mushroom with noodle. I took a bit of the above 3 and also we ordered a cendol. They served the gula separately.

After a good lunch, we walked around KLCC and I was really, really impressed by the levels of shops they had. Adrian went to Kinokuniya to browse his books and I brought the children to Isetan children section. Anthea chosed a Little Mermaid VCD for herself.

4 pm – We left KLCC and return to our hotel. We did not do the KLCC bridge walk as there were no more tickets for the day. We went for a swimming when we reached back to the hotel. Anthea and Anders simply enjoy playing by the pool.

6 pm – We had dinner at Time Square. After dinner, I brought the children to the Cosmo Theme park. Admission ticket for Adult is RM 30 and child is RM 20. As we had Singapore Airlines Boarding passes, we had some discounts. The theme park had many exciting rides for both adults & children. We only did the children rides and both of them had fun doing the different rides. We left the place near to closing times and both of them were so reluctant to go back.

Again to enjoy life in hotel, we bought back some breads and Mary brown takeaways.

Both of them slept almost near to midnight…. : P

Day 3: Friday, 17 August

9.30 am – woke up and went for hotel buffet breakfast

11 am – packed up and get ready for our pick-up transfer to Sunway Lagoon.

12 noon – check out and local agent picks us from hotel lobby.

12.30 pm – arrived at Sunway Pyramid Tower

1 pm – checked in hotel – room was on 10th floor and very good view as it faced the Sunway Theme Park. We changed and headed straight for the Theme Park. Admission to the Theme Park (Wet Park) is RM 50 for adult and RM 30 for child. For hotel guests, there are some discount vouchers.

We spent almost 3 hours in the park. The children enjoyed the wave pool and also they went round the pool in a rubber boat that Adrian rented. They had so much fun at the slide as well. Seeing them enjoying themselves so much make the trip priceless.

4 pm – return to hotel room to rest. Children had their power nap.

6 pm – I went to buy takeaways from the eateries in Sunway Pyramid as the children was still sleeping

7 pm – had in-room dinner

8 pm – took a stroll around Pyramid shopping centre. They have more shops now and also a Parkson Grand. The children walked around and had fun seeing toys.

We ended up at Macdonald where the children played at their playground while Adrian had a Sundae.

10 pm – return to hotel room and enjoyed the takeaway Macdonald (Again!!) see like whole trip, we are eating MacDonald’s but Adrian wanted to eat the Quarter Pounder as he missed it very much, he said Singapore Mac has no more Quarter Pounder. Why is this so?

Sweet Dream!!

Day 4: Saturday, 18 August

9.30 am – hotel breakfast

10.30 am – walk around Pyramid shopping

12 noon – check out hotel and wait for airport pick up

While waiting we did some final shopping at Parkson Grand and I was happy that I managed to get myself an area swim suit. It was at 50% discount. Price that I paid was RM 74.90 and I bought a swimsuit for Anthea.

1.25 pm – local agent pick us from hotel and transfer to KLIA

5.10 pm – Departs Kuala Lumpur on SQ 113 (flight was delayed due to heavy traffic in Singapore airport)

6.30 pm – Home Sweet Home

The Aces Family had achieved another Milestone in our lifestyle. This is the very 1st time we traveled as a FAMILY without any helps from other family members. I must say “We DID it!!” and with so much fun.

With this trip experience added on, we will be able to do more next year in our next trip plan - Gold Coast, Australia.

We Are Packed...

This weekends are busied with family gatherings and packing for our upcoming trip to Kuala Lumpur & Sunway Lagoon.

Adrian finally can join the families for a Saturday Dinner and we were introduced by MIL to Eatzi at East Point Mall. The steak was juicy and done to the diner’s preference. As usual, we had a good meal and Adrian enjoyed the quality time with the families.

Sunday lunch was with my parents, we had dim sum at Fortune restaurant in Toa Payoh. I was so happy to see Dim Sum carts going around because it is hard to find them. The dim sum was nice and both Anthea and Anders had a good time catching up with Ah Gong & Ah Po.

We went Puggol Plaza for Zi Char dinner. I was telling Adrian that over the week, I was still on discussion with my SIL, Eve, mentioning that we seldom head Eastern part of Singapore for our meals. What an irony, for 2 days in a row, we ate in the Eastern part…hee : P

After dinner, we went home and I started packing the children stuff and mine into luggage bag. For 4 days 3 nights trip, packing is quite easy and also we are going Malaysia, so no need to pack any thick clothing. I am looking forward to the Mega sale in Malaysia and of course, must try the Roti Canai…..


My Little Helper

On Saturday, while I was mopping the floor, Anders volunteered to help me. So I let him try out and after that he was very happy and said: “thank you, mommy.” I said “thank you, Anders.”
I want to train my children to be able to handle house chores as I am not always around to pick after them. Also since I am ALL ALONE in taking care of the house & the children’s routines, I want them to learn to be INDEPENDENT soon.

Red & White Days

On Wednesday Anthea and Anders childcare celebrated National Day and children were advised to wear Traditional Costume in the morning and Red & white combination in the afternoon.

Both of them were very happy to be able to wear home clothing to school and also looking forward to the celebration in school.

For these few days, both of them have being singing the National Anthem at home & also reciting the pledge:

In English

We, the citizens of Singapore
pledge ourselves as one united people,
regardless of race, language or religion,
to build a democratic society,
based on justice and equality,
so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and
progress for our nation.

In Chinese:

我们是新加坡公民，
誓愿不分种族、言语、宗教，
团结一致，
建设公正平等
的民主社会，
并为实现国家之幸福、繁荣与进步，
共同努力。

So far they can recite the English version pretty smoothly and correctly but when it comes to the Chinese version, they mumbled over it. Shame to say, I don’t know the Chinese version so I can’t help them, now that I managed to goggle it, next time I will help them with it.

Today we celebrate Singapore 42nd Birthday. Since Adrian needs to work, so it was only the children and me. Well, in the morning, we stayed home because the sky was a bit threatening. After their afternoon nap, we went to the park and they had good fun playing with the sand at the playground.

Dinner was at my in-laws house as we planned to watch the National Day Parade “Live” on TV.

Anders was all excited, as usual, when he saw the helicopters and aero plane flying. He kept telling me: “mommy, tomorrow we go and see national day parade, ok?”

Overall, the 2 ½ hours show was quite good but I think the 3D show would be seen better at the Bay itself as the commentary there are much better.
2007 National Day Parade has left a remarkable impression on Aces Family as we are partly involved due to Adrian. This I know I will remember for a long, long time.

FUN DAY @ ND Street Carnival

In celebration of the National Day, our constituency had a mini Street Carnival. Both Anthea & Anders also received games coupon via their childcare. Also for the residents, we are given a coupon as well, via the mailbox.

Needless to say, after Anthea’s swimming lesson, we went home and brought Anders along to the carnival. Both of them had a good time at the games stall. They tried “fishing” the fishes – this is a giveaway because it is a very easy game. They collected nice prizes from the games.

There were stalls selling toys and various items and the prices of these toys are very affordable. I believed the monies will go to the constituency fund. Anthea bought a Hello Kitty stamp and Anders chose for himself a toy truck.

After all the fun, we headed home for lunch. It was an unforgettable lunch – reason being Anthea was playing her elder sister role very well. She fed Anders his lunch and at the same time ate her own.

I was telling Adrian “wow. Today is our lucky day…must go buy lottery… hee : P “

When they were done with the lunches, Anthea brought in the 2 empty bowls and proudly announced “mommy, anders and I finished our lunches.” I said “thank you, jie jie. Mommy is very proud of you. “

Then they were off to play with their new toys. Guess what ….. Anders ended up with Hello Kitty stamps all over his hands and legs…ha-ha.

In the afternoon, 2 of them took their usual nap and woke up around 5pm. We went downstairs to see the Parade of colors; the street was closed for the parade. The Guest of Honor was PM Lee. The children had fun playing with their bubbles and we took 2 mini Singapore flags. At 6pm, we went home for a bath and changed of clothing before we met the families for dinner.

Our dinner was at Por Kee at Sam Poh lane (波記冷気海鮮酒楼). This is a family restaurant and the foods served were very nice. Adrian and I especially like their Champagne Pork Ribs – it was yummy.

On dinner table Father In-law reminded me that the TOTO BIG Draw had amounted to $6.8 million and told me to buy before 9 pm on Monday night.

We left the restaurant, feeling happy and energized once again. I saw the newly renovated Tiong Bahru Market – it is now a doubled storey building with a food centre and wet market. It seems better ventilated then the old one, next time must go and try all the famous food in this long historical market.

She has a Biometric Passport

Somewhere in June 2007, we received a notice from the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) informing us about cessation of Photo Update Service for Non-Biometric passports, this is in relation to Anthea's Passport.




We have been given the option to change her current passport to a new biometric passport. Considering that we will be travelling soon in August, we thought it was good to change Anthea's passport as the photo of her current passport was taken when she was about 2 years old. Also if we are travelling to Australia in 2008, it is better to change her passport as the Australian Immigration may be quite strict . With all these in mind, we submitted the new application in July 2007.

Yesterday, the notice of collection came via the mailbox. As Adrain is off today, so i took 1/2 day off and we brought Anthea to ICA to collect her new passsport. We reached ICA around 1pm and our Q number was 2736, there was about 91 people infront of us. We waited for about an hour and our Q number was called. We are lucky that we only need to wait an hour. Anthea was happy to see her new passport and we are now ready for our family vacations.

After collecting the passport, we went to Army Market aka Golden Mile Food Centre for lunch and also Adrain needed to buy some stuff.


Well, based on some good recommendation from Ieat.ishoot.ipost , we managed to try a few good dishes. Adrian ordered a plate of carbonara from Pasta Planet and i had the famous Prawn Noodle. We had the Sweet Stone Parad Ice Waffle with Belgian Chocolate and a single scoop of Ice cream. Anthea truely enjoyed this dessert.


Finally, we bought home some Muffins and cheese tarts from this shop SLII muffins. They looks very delicious and i tried the cheese tarts - I love it very much... : )

After a nice Makansutra, we headed home. AS we were leaving, Anthea said : "mummy, this is a nice place to eat, we must come again..ok ? " I was taken by surprised as she is quite a choosy person and usually she likes to eat at aircon places, so to comes out from her...it is quite an achievement and Yes, we will be back for more...hee : P

Team Building Event @ Sentosa

Last Friday, 27 July 2007, our department had our monthly team meeting in the office. Our GM shared with us the new Strategic Direction from our CEO.

Our meeting ended around 11.30 am and we proceeded to Sentosa for our Teambuilding event. It was a rainy day but we were all in high spirit.

Our 1st stop was lunch – we had a sumptuous lunch at Thanying restaurant. It served very good Thai Dishes. The setting of this outlet is more of fine dining and their service staff was truly excellent.

After a very spicy & fulfilling lunch, we headed for our next stop – the LUGE. Honestly, I have not been to Sentosa for a long, long time, so there are many things that are very new to me. We were a group of 6 adults – 5 Singaporean and 1 American.

Guess who is our Tour Guide…??? The AMERICAN….hahaha… : P

Our GM is a member of the Sentosa Islander and he has been to Sentosa quite a few times with his family.

We bought the Sentosa Luge and sky ride combo package, it was really a thrilling ride and we had a “speedy” time.

After the luge, we had ice-cream while waiting for the rain to stop before we proceeded to our next stop – Mini Golf.

However, when we reached the golf venue, the ground was too wet so we did not play the game.
As it was almost 4 plus, I decided to return to the mainland first as I need to fetch the children, while the rest of my colleagues went for the 4D Magix show.

When I reached home, I was so tired. It had been a fun event for us, even with only 6 people. I am really glad I had this chance to visit and explore Sentosa. I will definitely bring the children there again.

TAG : FOUR ...

I was tag by Idy of IT family on this tag.

Four jobs I have had in my life:

- Inbound Travel Executive ( Love this job as i get to know many local Chinese tour guides and they were really a very fun bunch.)

- Airline Reservation Sales Agent (1st time travelled to the USA)

- Vacation Consultant with a Timeshare exchange company (Get to know more about resorts exchange for timesharing and vacationing on such perks)

- Training Coordinator ( related to airline industry - 1st time traveled on Business Class to Switzerland for meeting)

Four places I have lived:

- Sembawang "Chong Pang" - Landed property "rental a unit for household of 6 people".

- Ang Mo Kio 3-room flat - Parents place

- Ang Mo Kio 5-room flat - My elder brother place, with my parents

- Ang Mo Kio 4-room flat - My own Home Sweet Home

(It says 4 places so not neccessary must be overseas...hee : )

Four Countries I have been to on vacation:

- USA ( LA, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Michigan - 1st time seeing the Niagara Falls)

- Europe ( London, Paris and Switzerland)

- Hong Kong

- Australia (Perth & Melbourne)

Four of my favorite foods:

- Dad's Hainanese Chicken rice

- Dad's home-made chicken pie

- Dad's home cooked oxtails stews

- Dad's roasted Beef

Four places I would rather be right now:

- Farm stay in Perth with the family and letting the children experience the magical of star watching at night and milking the cow or feeding the Kangaroos

- Shopping in Hong Kong, the last trip i went in March 2007 was catered specially for Anthea, so there was no shopping on my agenda...pity hor.

- Al-fresco dining along the Street of Paris. In Singapore, it's just impossible to dine outside as it is 90% Hot & Humid, so won't enjoy. We drank kopi while we were in Paris along the street, it was simply relaxing and enjoyable.

- Honestly, there is no other places that i will like to be in, other than the comfort of my own HOME Sweet Home...as what Kit Chan sang in the NDP theme song :

This is Home, truly
Where I know I must be
Where my dreams wait for me
Where that river always flows
This is home, surely
As my senses tell me
This is where I won't be alone
For this is where I know it's home

(so patriotics...haha...anyway, National Day is just round the corner, can't help it.)

Ps: Wishing all a Happy National Day.

Remember The Apache will Salute the Nation... : )