Mid-Autumn Festival

Its Mid-Autumn Festival again, The last time I mentioned this was because we went to the Chinese Garden to look at the lanterns display.

First, the children got their lanterns at my parent's place on Sunday. The wonderful grandparents bought them a lantern each.




















For Ally, its a Disco music lantern with a little fan inside that blows up the Styrofoam beads and goes round and round, at the same time, the fan is also a fancy light display that changes patterns with the techno music.





















Isabel gets a real bubble churning lantern with disco music too. Soap water is poured into the lantern, and a little motor will keeps blowing bubbles out of the fish's mouth.

Stylo siah...




















In my office, we had moon cakes for lunch, and we played Chinese idiom games.





















Back in home again, as today is the actual day, there seems to be an unspoken tradition for my few immediate neighbors to bring their children to the small garden at ground floor to carry lanterns.













Ally wondering why I used Tea-candle rather then the regular birthday candles like other kids.
For one, it lasts longer.
















I brought the kids to walk around the block but...


























But they end up abandoning the lantern for the playground.

Day in Day out

This blog is for my lovely wife who is in New Zealand. I'm sure she wants to see more of what her 3 precious (including me) are up to everyday.




















Isabel giving Ally a pretend hair cut. Isabel has lots of experience with it at Kimage.




















Isabel and Ally following and helping me with grocery shopping.





















Alright... this is very interesting. For the first time for living in the neighborhood for 7 years, I see 3 families of my immediate neighbors coming together at the playground at the same time. I couldn't take the rest of the children together as they seems to have taken too much sugar that morning.





















FINALLY... After years of waiting, IKEA finally sold me the hydrolic arms at $3 ea. I bought 2, one for each side, had them fixed up, working great.





















Isabel and Ally at IKEA... One of their favorite place to be. Next to that, is Courts. Their next preferred place.



























And this is me... with my Tony Leung impersonation...
OK OK... I shaved already.

Trading Cards

Although nowadays Isabel and Ally are generally better behaving during dinner time... But sometimes there are exceptional.

That's when a little "encouragement" will have to be used.

No... not canning or punishing, rather a little more creativity from the parents

















Just so happen that tonight was such a night, and just so happen that I happened to have a leaflet of Macdonald coupons.

I tore the coupons out and set them in sight. They got curious...

















I gave some to Isabel and some to Ally, for each coupon received they have to eat one spoon full of rice.

Then I started trading coupons with them... A Big Mac Meal for a Nugget Meal...
An ice-cream for Mcspicy meal... As they trade, they continued to eat their dinner.
















At the same time, I get them to note the value of each coupon, but to them the most valuable is the Ice-Cream and Sundaes, which one of that can trade for a $15 family meal...

Lantern / Mooncake festival

Last Saturday, brought the kids to the Chinese Garden where annually, they have lantern festival to celebrate the Mooncake Festival.

All the following photos are taken using my trusty hand phone: Sony Ericsson K810i with 3.2 M pixel Cybershot.





















Very little traditional looking lantern there.
































This year's theme is those sea creatures of Chinese fairytale.



































































Trying to get the kids organized for a photo shoot.

"Ok... everybody sit down"

"NO I WANT STAND UP"

















"Ok... Everybody stand up"

"I want squat down"
















"Let's Pose"
















Free Lantern were given away for every ticket holder. The tiny candle they provided couldn't last 10 minutes. After that, the kids were holding a blacked-out lantern for the rest of the way.

















Little Ally staring at the lights, I wonder if she's thinking of Mommy, like me.

Ally saying hello to mommy who is now in New Zealand.

Visitation

As my wife is in NZ, and the kids miss her dearly, a good friend of hers, who is also Isabel's god-mother, came and visited them last night.

Bringing her daughter, they played with them as her husband and I sat aside and talked.
















The kids shared their toys and enjoyed the company.



































They played Tea-Party...












When its time to go home, they went around, hugged everyone and said bye-bye.

We planned to bring the kids to visit Chinese Garden this Saturday for the Lantern Festival. I heard there's going to be fire works.

I very much appreciate the effort that Isabel's god-mother is doing, keeping the kids company, and planning for outing with them. I'm sure the kids will love it to.

Car Wash Babes

As my brother-in-law left to work oversea, he entrusted us with his car for the next 2 years.

And since we're using it, we'll have to clean it. So one fine Saturday, the kids excitedly followed me to the car and drove it to the washing bay.
















There was a queue but it was a short wait, very soon it was our turn to use.

I got the kids to start with the inside as I worked on the outside, I know they won't be much help, and I also know I'll have to do the inside all over again. But it was still fun watching them seriously wiping and sweeping.

















Isabel, as usual, the excitement worn off faster than Ally, while Ally still enthusiastically cleaning the dashboard, Isabel is already thinking of the nearby playground.
















And true enough, Isabel soon ran off to the playground, leaving Ally to continue with the task.
I asked Ally to join her big sister in the playground but she refused saying: "No, I want to wash car!"

But when I saw her rinsing the cloth with the water on the ground, I had to insist that she go join her sister while I called my maid to come fetch them back.

I spent another hour to clean the whole car all over again.

As I was there, I made some new car washing buddies, we talked about cars, politics, food, while each of us got wet and dirty with the car. Its quite "Manly" I guess...

But the satisfaction come when I drove the car back, the smell of a washed car is truly rewarding.

Going to New Zealand

Hi... I'm Baaaaack!!!

Where have I been? I've devoted all my available spare time to KNIT.

Why? Well, my lovely wife is going to New Zealand for 2 months for training. I heard the temperature there is now only a few degree Celsius. So I decided to stop whatever I'm doing in my spare time and concentrate on knitting a scarf for her to keep her warm. Its also my wedding anniversary gift to her.

This 2.1m long scarf took me few weeks, every night after the kids are settled in, I hid in the study room from 11pm to 2am, knitting knitting knitting...

Until one night, she barged into the room to find out why I've been hiding in there so often. From then on, I openly knitted it until its done.





















My wife very much appreciated my effort.






















The kids knows their mommy is going away for a period of time. In order to let them have an idea when is mommy coming home, so that they won't keep asking me. I drew this calender for them. Writing the departure date and arrival date on it. I let them strike out one square after each day, so by one look they'll know how long more they have to wait.
















Throughout the day, as my wife was doing her final check of her luggage and documents, the kids walked around the house moody. Ally took nap but woke up crying:"Mommy don't go, mommy don't go."
















Isabel has been moody for a few days, but she understands what mommy is doing, and willing to give full support to her.

Don't worry about anything here, everything will be just fine.

Akan Datang

Watch out for this space!!!

More Updates coming soon!!!