Times flies even when you're at home!

Life at home been rather busy with little Jared around. But I must say the bond that binds us together is beyond words can describe. Jared is now 10 wks old and weights around 6kg. He can now make vowel sounds like "a", "e", " o" ... etc
I just can't wait for the day when he can giggle out loud.

First Trophy

This little girl has just won her first trophy in her life...

She was in a "Sandwich Making Contest"in school, organized by Gardenia the bread maker.

Her team came in 3rd, they each got a trophy, a loaf of bread and a $10 voucher from Popular Book Store.

They made Ham and Cheese sandwich and decorated it with Orchid and some ingredients that she couldn't name it.

She's proud of her achievement... so am I.


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Ah Boy

"Haaa the short hair Joker (Daddy) is back..."

"Who?... Me?...
You talking to me?"

"Awww... man...
Its morning again?..."

Kiddy Weekend

The Weekend... 

Its been such a long while since I've brought the kids out for a swim.  Ever since the arrival of the little one, any extra time has been focused on him and sleep...

On the opportunity that we were invited to a birthday party in a Condo.  We also geared up for a dip in the pool.

The afternoon was not hot, water was just fine. 

I used my underwater camera to capture the bottom side of the water fountain.  The effect was quite good.

I am so proud of Isabel that she finally mastered the frog style kick.  She was able to stay afloat holding on to the board and kicking her way around the pool.  If she can progress, she'll have the confident to learn swimming from a proper coach.

The second part of the evening was the birthday party.  All the kids come together and played, parents catch-up on the latest.

The 4 year old birthday boy was very excited, and very fast too... knowing that other children were waiting to blow out his candles, he was much faster than them, the moment the song was done, "PUFF" out goes the flames.

The kids enjoyed an evening of toys, songs and laughter. 

Baby Jared was there to enjoy the evening too.  Being the latest baby, he is well received and loved by many aunties. 

Auntie Poh, soon to be mother of 3, love to carry him.

Sunday...

On Sunday evening, we were at a friend's place for a gathering.  Its the first time we were there, we were so amazed at the amount of toys he has for his son...

There's out door toys... A sand box, a trampoline, toy cars, water guns...

The kids had a competition of shooting out the candle using the water gun.

In door, there are sets of train tracks, racing car tracks... even the parents had so much fun playing it.  Its the only time that the parents played toys and were not embarrassed by it.

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Cloth Diaper part 1

It has been a while since I last blog.

The past  2 month has been rather occupied for me.

Friends around me often commented that the 4 month maternity leave will be so relaxing and "shiok". Now, I'm already in the middle of my maternity leave... Relaxing? Not at all, in fact I hardly have enough sleep!

Most of my times were revolved around the baby like feeding, expressing breast milk, carrying and pacifying him and of course CHANGING him.

As you know, newborn often poo and pee as many as 15 times a day in total. In order to save cost and avoid nappy rash, I have decided to try using cloth napkin in the day and disposable diaper in the night.

But never did i know that using cloth diaper can be so time consuming.... Little Jared can pee as many as 3 time in an hour. And we got to change him each time when he wet as he will be crying aloud. My poor maid is always busy washing and drying the napkins all day long.

All this last for the past 7 weeks until my cousin introduce me a new product:

Bumgenius. It is a cloth diaper that fits all baby from newborn till 35lbs (16kg).

After doing some reading on the product, i decided to give it a try. So I bought a total of 7pcs from the US.  Will write more on the review of Bumgenius after we try it out on Jared.

The thousand dollar guitar

As some may remember, I was recently learning to play the guitar.  I used a guitar given by a friend who has no use of it anymore. It didn't really sound fantastic, and its hard to tune, but still, I made the best use of it.  And I enjoy playing it while the 2 girls sing along.

Tuning it requires a tuner, which my 2 princesses happened to break a few weeks after I bought it.  They were using it to see if they can vocally produce the same chord as the guitar... somehow after dropping a few times, its a goner.

And so I was in a town and saw a guitar shop with rows of guitars on sale.

I walked in thinking of buying a new tuner, but the lady at the counter was too busy to entertain me, so I walked around the shop till I laid my eyes on the nice matt-finishing guitar.  I looked at the price tag and wondered if its in Rupiah... $1488.00

The shop didn't have a sign that say "No Touching", certainly also never say "No Trying".  So I picked up the thousand dollar guitar and started strumming it with my newly acquired skill.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as the sound from it made it to my ears...  This guitar can make an amateur sound like a pro...  it makes the one at home sound like a busted old toy guitar meant for kids.  I played on, forgetting what I came here for.

I told myself: "Put down the guitar and walk away..."

With much will power, I placed it back on the stand and walked away.  On the way out I thought of getting myself a nice Christmas present with a new guitar.  But definitely not this one,  maybe something one tenth of that price it should be good enough.

But who knows.

I walked into another shop, I overheard the conversation between a mother with the counter lady...  The mother was enquiring about the cost of guitar for her daughter to start learning.  To my surprise, she didn't reccommend the less then hundred type.  But showed her the near 2 hundred ones.

When the mother voiced the concern of the pricey guitar.  The sales girl turned to her male colleague: "How much did you spent on your guitar?" ... Reply was "$2,500.00"
Turning back to the mother, the sales girl said: "We have more expensive one, but we never display it."

It got me thinking of 2 things:
1. I wonder how a $2,500 guitar would sound like. 
2. I would never buy my guitar here.
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