Shy the copycat!!!!

Shy loves to follow Nay in all things.  She is like a parrot and/or shadow to Nay.  While Nay was practising his piano one day, I found Shy doing this….

Even when we wanna take pictures of them together, she will see what Nay is doing and then follow suit.

飞机棋

Hubby bought a box of 飞机棋 from the neighbourhood shop and started teaching Nay to play.  Nay got hooked and have been playing with daddy every day.  Hubby who is more fluent in mandarin, will use the language while playing with Nay.  And, a kid being a kid will always want to win.  So, we took the opportunity to teach sportsmanship.  We often tell our kids that the fun is in the game itself and the most important is that we enjoy it.  Winning is a bonus.  We dunno when they will understand this but we just try our best.

But I must say Nay is really good.  He doesn’t cheat or throw any tantrums whenever his daddy kicked him home (when they landed on the same place).  He took it very well and continues to enjoy the game.

Here’s picture of father and son bonding.

P/S: Berris gave all children a game similar to snakes and ladder.  Nay loves it and will alternate between the aeroplane game and that game.  He will say the numbers in mandarin when he moves.  I’m happy that he is gaining more interests in the language.

Nay’s lunches…

Here are some of the lunches that I prepared for the kids.  From now on, I will number them from #1; will not be backdating those posted earlier.

Lunch #1

 Beef rice, clear pork soup and Yakult

Lunch #2

 Bought some new puncher and decided to try them.  Just plain soft rice with cut nori and steam threadfin tail.

Lunch #3

 Fish shaped fishcake, mini square egg tofu, steam vegetables and apples.

Lunch #4 (Shy’s)

 Same as Nay but different arrangement.

Lunch #5

 Pooh shaped rice, fried tofu with meat, stir fry vegetables, sprinkled furi and Yakult.

Ahhhhh dioooiiiiiii…..I have not updated my blog for almost a month.  Surely there were many stuff to blog about, however, I have forgotten most of it.  The lastest happening has to be 没有Tri的日子。  Tri went back to Indo for home leave on 25 Sept.  Since then, we have been maidless. 

I was ambitious at first since I’m always handling the kids and their stuff.  I often felt that all I needed was an extra pair of hands since hubby is not so hands on with the kids.  With hubby’s minor op and most probably will be given one week MC (at least), he arranged for it to be done a few days before Tri left.  

We tried to do everything from cleaning to washing to cooking to scrubing on the first day that she left.  And I tell you, it was no joke.  So tiring.  The kids constant fighting when I was cooking and/or cleaning the kitchen got on my nerves.  Hubby was unable to do much strenous work due to the op and was having a hard time recovering with the kids’ wanting attention all the time.  In the end, we decided that mil will do dinners for us until Tri comes back.  In this way, I don’t have to wash the kitchen everyday.

With the cooking out, I do ironing and washing on a daily basis.  Then when hubby was better, he helped with mopping and packing the house when the kids sleep at nite.  Though without the maid, we are left with very little personal time.  However, we gained much more quality time with the children. 

As for the kids, they become alil more independent overnite.  Nay has learnt to pack up his toys after he finished playing and started wearing his own socks.  Shy, on the other hand, wants to do things on her own.  Maybe not so because of the maid, but rather she is at this age where she is exploring independence.   During this time, the kids also learnt to be more tolerant of each other.  They still fight, but it has lessen nowadays.  In fact, I can leave them alone in the living room without supervision and can still hear them playing amicably. 

Tri will be back on saturday evening, and we (whole family) are definitely looking forward to her home coming.

To the zoo…

On 3 Sept, we went to the zoo organised by R with a few other families.  Initially was hesitant because the weather had been bad since the start of the school holidays.  But we were blessed people.  The weather was so good, not too hot and not overcast.  We watched two shows – Rainforest and Splash something…..Then it was time at the children’s world.  Both the kids had fun at the water area.  Shy made a new fren who refused to let go of her hands, despite Tri asking him to.    Nay was enjoying taking photographs of anything that he could see.  I lost the cable for Nay’s camera, if not will post some of his works.

Soon, it was lunch time.  I packed simple lunches for the kids, knowing that they won’t eat much since they would be munching from the beginning.

Shy’s the pink box with meat and vegetable rice balls.  Nay had salmon flakes sushi and chicken nuggets.  They also had apples for dessert.

It was a fun day until it started pouring when we decided to call it a day.  How apt!!!!  Shy was so tired, she slept in the car while Nay stayed awake till we reached home.  Nay is definitely an energiser battery in disguise.

Look who is cuter??? The otters or Shy??  Hehehehe….;)

*Updates*

What were we busy with the past week?  It was the school holiday last week and we were kept busy with all the outings. 

On Monday (1Sep), I brought Nay to Oh’s farm to get some caterpillars.  I saw D’s butterflies from her camera and was very interested to show the process of metamorphosis to Nay.  Knowing that it is difficult to gather enuff orders for free delivery, we decided to make the trip to the farm.  It was actually the Oh’s hydroponic farm.  When we were there, we also visited the butterfly garden.  It was interesting for us.

During this trip, I learnt abit more about butterfly though I did read up before I embarked on this science experiment.  I learnt that butterflies are not adaptable (in my own words).  They are high-classed and loyal.  Why do I say that?  According to the breeders, butterflies do not cross breed and will only lay eggs on their own host plant.  They do not eat other leaves other than where and what they grew on.  Their cousin – the moth, on the other hands, is low down and eats everything.  Sigh!!! 

So, from then, we have been keeping track of the caterpillars and waiting for them to metamorphor into butterflies.  We fed and fed them on the first day that we brought them home.  On the 2nd day, two of the lot (we bought 10) began to turn upside down, more like a bat.  Afterwhich, they seemed to be dried up.  At first, I thought to myself that they were dead.  Next thing we noticed, the head came off.  Aiyoo….Nay was so sad because we thought that it had died.  I almost wanted to throw it away when Tri stopped me.  Apparently, that was part of the process…..and then the process continued….

Fast forward to 12days later….most of our caterpillars have become butterflies and set free.  This morning, we managed to capture on video one of it coming out of the chrysalis.  Say what you like about me being sua ku….I’m a city gal from birth leh..:)  Before we set them free, Nay took pictures of them on his little pointer.  He likes it and I’m happy that he is not afraid and enjoys nature.

 

All the time, Shy only looked on.  She was scared. 

By the way, the breed of this butterfly is Leopard Lacewing and their host plant is Passiflora Foetida.  You can also go to www.butterflycircle.com to learn more about them.

Cheeze Chiffon Cake

I tried baking the cheeze chiffon cake this morning.  The recipe was easy to follow.  I started at 9am and completed the whole process in less than an hour.  The cake tasted nice.  Nay ate three slices at one go.  Shy only took half a slice.  I ate two slices.  Hubby only took a small bite.  Now, there is still a quarter left in the kitchen.  So, you tell me…..considered successful?

I didn’t take any picture of the end product because I feel that it was not very well done.  Somehow, the cheeze was not very well melted.  I could still see some of it.  The cake was not spongy enuff and it was very small.  Looked more like a giant donut.  It didn’t rise to my expectation.  I guess that could be due to the way I added the whites and mixture.  The batter was hard and stiff.  Thus making it very difficult to mix with the whites.  By the way, I didn’t use the original recipe.  I saw that T wrote alternatives at the side for the oil and cheeze.  I used her alternatives.  Hmm…Anyway, I will try again……..

Nay has always love to bake with me.  This time he helped to beat the whites.  The recipe calls for stiff peaks.  I remembered R said, as long as it doesn’t drop out when overturned, it is stiff.  So when it was done, I overturned the bowl over his head and asked him if it was stiff enuff.  You should see his expressions.  So cute.  Honestly, I enjoyed baking with him too.  He is always very supportive and encouraging.  He will say ‘if not nice nevermind mommy, we can do it again rite’…:)

Teachers’ Day Gifts

This year, Shy got to participate in preparing Teachers’ Day gift.  She coloured a flower for her teacher and I helped her complete the rest.  The end product was a flower with a stem made from two ice cream sticks, and leaves made from a gold ribbon.  Hard to visualise rite, but too bad, I didn’t take any pictures becos I forgot.

As for Nay, I made chocolate truffles and packed them into small containers.  Finished it with gold ribbons.  Nay did nothing this year as all were done by me.  In the past years, he helped to either colour or paste stickers.  I was just too busy with helper’s new passport renewal and also sending the car for servicing.  By the time I got home, it was too late to sit down with him to do anything.  So I just went ahead to prepare the truffles on my own.

These were for Nay’s teachers.

Bento Lunch

A simple bento lunch for Nay. 

Fried rice with beef slices and egg, chicken nuggets, shinkansen shaped seaweed, apple slices, yakult and water.

Fireworks Festival

Hubby had booked a room at The Fullerton for the whole family to view the fireworks by Korea during the fireworks festival.  I was skeptical at first because the hotel is not a high rise skyscrappers.  And I was not confident that we would get a good view of the fdisplay.  We had stayed at The Ritz and The Oriental before to view the fireworks, and hubby felt that we should try other hotels.

When we checked in, we were greeted with very good and professional service.  The room was alil small but it had the best view ever.  We were so closed to it.  And instead of watching behind glass windows, we stood at the balcony for the whole fireworks display.  It was very loud but the experience was so good.  Though the children covered their ears, they were not afraid.   Will give Fullerton a big thumbs UP.

This was a nice picture of the children after their nap in the room.

P/S: Tried to upload the display to YouTube but was unsuccessful.  So, no luck lor.  No fireworks display for you.