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Celebrations

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Batik Beach Family Day

May 8, 2012 in Celebrations, Entertainment, Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up, Hannah | 1 comment

Hannah woke up with a big smile, and with big brown eyes, she asked me, “Mommy, is today the day for our Family Day?”

I said yes, and she smiled even more. 🙂

This year, instead of the usual Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day celebration in school, we had a Family Day celebration in Golden Sands Hotel outdoors instead.  So 2 Sundays ago saw us all making a trip to Batu Feringghi.

The kids were, of course, excited about the whole thing, because part of the program was a play session in AdventureZone!

The event was themed Batik Beach Day, so I got them all to dress up in batik attire:

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Weather that day was slightly threatening, and we were treated to intermittent showers during the event.

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Nevertheless, we all had a lot of fun, as can be seen in the pictures I managed to capture below:

Getting ready for…

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Every Limbo boy and girl
All around the Limbo world
Gonna do the Limbo rock
All around the Limbo clock

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Jack be Limbo, Jack be quick
Jack go under Limbo stick
All around the Limbo clock
Hey, let’s do the Limbo rock!
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Initially, our little princess was feeling restless and rather sleepy…

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…but soon warmed up and participated in the fun activities (although some were quite haphazard LOL)…

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Daddy also participated in the tug-o-war on the beach…look at Daddy go! 😀

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The tug-o-war event was divided into 3 categories: Daddies, Mommies and kids… let me just say that it’s not very flattering to be pulling hard on a rope when you’re dressed in a sarong pareo.  Good thing Daddy forgot to use the zoom on my camera 😛

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We then adjourned to AdventureZone for a little while (no pictures, sorry!) and then moved on to another fun activity which we all enjoyed: The Sand Castle building competition.

It took some practice to get the ratio of sand to water right in order to erect structures on the beach.  The kids had a blast helping to collect water, pat the sand into buckets and then create our sandcastle.

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We had no plan in mind whatsoever what to build, but ended up creating a fish-shaped castle.  Can you see the fish? 😛

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It was a truly fun-filled Family Day and the kids especially had a whale of a time!  We were all exhausted but everyone enjoyed themselves 🙂

Yo Ho! Let’s Go!

May 3, 2012 in Celebrations, Christianity, Ethan, Hannah, Parenting | 1 comment

It was Hannah’s first time being personally invited to a birthday party and it was the birthday of her good pal in school, Max.  The party was aptly themed Jake and the Neverland Pirates.   Just look at how creative the invites were made…”message in a bottle” 🙂

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I got the kids involved by getting Ethan to write the birthday message on the presents.

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Pete was supposed to touch down in Penang that very day, so I single-handedly brought both Ethan and Hannah to the party.  They were absolutely excited and kept asking me when it would be time to change into the pirate “costumes”.  I even added a little shell necklace for Hannah (after I took the photo below) – she claims it contained pixie dust! 🙂 – You’ll catch glimpses of the pixie dust necklace in some of the photos below.

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All in all, the kids had a splendid time, as the pictures below prove.  I didn’t bring my camera along, so most of my own pictures were taken with my iPhone.  The others were *borrowed* from someone else… 🙂

One of Hannah’s favorite snacks of the day: sliced orange pirate ships on blue jelly water!

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Kids being briefed on their first game, by a very gracious party host, Tess, Max’s Mom.  Notice Hannah is multi-tasking by listening AND snacking on yummy popcorn too!

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Ethan trying his VERY best to burst the balloon, to get the promised “treasure” captured in the balloon.

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…and VICTORY, finally!!

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Hannah and Ethan taking their turns at “Pin the Sword on Jake” (a la “Pin the tail on the donkey”)!

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Walking the Plank… 🙂

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Getting ready for the next game: Passing the Parcel…incidentally, Ethan won this game and he was ever so proud of it 🙂

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Birthday cake time, and it’s a beautiful pirate ship with candle canons at the side.  Awesome!

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Can you tell she’s totally enjoying her cake? 🙂

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She finally got her turn on the swing!  Patience definitely pays 🙂

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Non-watermarked photos credited to Picsy Studio

A Dora Birthday Celebration in School!

March 2, 2012 in Celebrations, Hannah, Milestones | 4 comments

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Sweet lil’ Hannah turns THREE today, and she’s mighty excited about it 🙂

My little princess finally decided that she wanted a Dora birthday cake for her celebration in school, and since Daddy will not be around on her actual birthday date, we decided to have the school celebration a week earlier, i.e. last week.

“Mommy, I want ALL my friends to sing Happy Birthday to me,…then I will blow the candle!”

Yes, she had been waiting for it for a long time. 🙂

Those of you who follow me on Facebook would have seen the initial sneak preview of the Dora figurine that was supposed to sit on top of the cake, but I’ll have to tell you that the finished product shown here was my second figurine…errr…for reasons which I will reveal at a later time.

But anyhow, here’s the cake…with Dora and Boots looking a little too chubby than they were originally meant to be (because of the fondant spreading out).  The cake itself is a moist chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting in between.  Heavenly yums.

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As long as the *customer* is happy, I am also happy 🙂

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In order to be fair, I also made personalized chewy sugar cookies for Hannah’s birthday celebration party packs.  In line with the Dora theme, I made the cookies in the shape of stars, and used colorful royal icing on top to make it bright and interesting.  Each star was then labelled with a child’s name 🙂

Those 2 on the small white plate were decorated by Ethan and Hannah…because I made extra.

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Almost done…

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…and packed into pretty party packs, helped by my 2 cute assistants…

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Pink baggies for the girls and blue ones for the boys…couldn’t get Diego jigsaw puzzles so everyone got a Dora one. LOL

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I had to make 2 trips carrying the party packs and my camera to the car first and then followed by the cake.

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My Little Boy Turns SIX!

February 22, 2012 in Celebrations, Ethan, Growing Up, Milestones | 2 comments

On the actual day Ethan turned 6 this year (January 31st), we planned a short celebration in school, as was usually the case.

Ethan had already requested for his specially-made birthday cake months in advance, and he had been very consistent about it; he’d wanted a Lightning McQueen birthday cake.  So, … no two ways about it…I presented him with the cake he wanted.  And he was ecstatic!

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It was a lengthy process making that cake, but well worth the effort…especially just seeing the joy on Ethan’s face…

However, having a cake for a birthday celebration in school wasn’t the only thing we needed to plan…

There were still the party packs to think of, and this year we wanted to give Ethan’s friends a memento from him, along with some goodies and useful items.

I made yummy sugar cookies, in the shape of cars… in line with the theme of the celebration…

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…decorated with royal icing in red and black…

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…and then, personalized with each child’s name, and individually wrapped 🙂

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…and then we got these neat little steel pencil holders shaped like tins and packed the sugar cookies, some oatmeal cookies and jelly, and a couple of pencils in them.

This was where my trusty assistant came in, and he worked like clockwork… 🙂

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Ethan’s Birthday Party at AdventureZone

February 17, 2012 in Celebrations, Entertainment, Ethan, Hannah | 2 comments

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This year, because it is Ethan’s last year in preschool, we decided to treat him to a special birthday party celebration with his friends at one of Ethan’s favorite places: AdventureZone in Golden Sands, Penang.

He was all excited in the days leading up to the birthday party, and kept asking me to show him the guest list of confirmed attendees.  On the day itself, he was bugging us to leave quickly so we won’t be late.  Such was the enthusiasm of our little Mr Bulat.

There were 2 birthday themed rooms to choose from: Pirate and Circus, and Ethan had chosen the Circus Theme.  However the organizers made a mistake and prepared the Pirate room for him instead.  Rather than have uncoordinated gift packs, Ethan was a good sport and agreed to go along with the Pirate theme.  Of course, the organizers were very apologetic and gave us some *special privileges* because of the mistake.

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Ethan’s friends started arriving quite punctually, and we also invited 2 of Hannah’s friends from school, just so she would not feel out of place.  All the kids (and adults) had a great time playing in the play area…well actually it was kinda difficult to get good shots of the kids because everything was moving so fast!

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After about an hour of play in the play area, the kids were gathered upstairs for the cake-cutting and their meal in the birthday room.

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Ushering in the Dragon Year in Pictures!

February 14, 2012 in Celebrations, Ethan, Hannah | No comments

The days seem to pass by so very fast these days…is it just me, or does everyone else feel the same?

Anyway, here are some precious shots from our Chinese New Year celebration recently (okay, not TOO recent, I know…. :P).  We spent the eve in Taiping and drove to Ipoh on the 1st day.  We were back in Penang on the 2nd day.  Thankfully, the highway was smooth-sailing all the way 🙂

Peekaboo!!

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Pauline Kor Kor got this mini lion head for the kids to play with, and as expected, it was an instant hit!

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Photo session with the little belle of the day…

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In Ipoh, the kids enjoyed their spaghetti dinner, lovingly cooked by Ipoh Ah Ma…

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And after dinner, we had a very simple, pre-birthday celebration for Ethan, with a delectable chocolate moist cake…

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However, it obviously had spent way too much time in the fridge, so I had to use a chopstick to make candle imprints for the candles to stand!

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Birthday boy in a pensive, reflective mood…probably touched by the surprise gesture…

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See? I wasn’t kidding about the cake spending too much time in the fridge…

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…but you know what?  It was a very YUMMY-licious cake, that’s for sure!

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A Chinese New Year reunion for the cousins… 🙂

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For the 3rd Year Running

February 1, 2012 in Celebrations, Entertainment, Ethan | 2 comments

This year marks the 3rd consecutive year in a row that Ethan’s picture has been featured on the Birthday Book on Astro Channel 613, previously Playhouse Disney, but now known as Disney Junior.

However, he did not receive any letter or birthday stickers from Disney Junior informing him of the feature, like he did in previous years.  As such, we were not able to record the feature when it was shown on TV, as we did not know what time slots to wait for.  Instead I managed to record it off the computer, from the Disney Junior site.

The background *accompaniment* you hear is courtesy of Ethan and Hannah…and sorry for the streaming of the video, which was not very smooth.

All Dressed Up for Chinese New Year in School!

January 22, 2012 in Celebrations, Ethan, Hannah | 1 comment

Ethan and Hannah had a Chinese New Year school celebration last Friday, where the kids were requested to dress up in their traditional attire or something red.  Managed to snap this cute picture before we left for school.

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Adorable, ain’t it?

She specifically requested me to plait her hair that way for her. 🙂

No, I didn’t forget the Christmas 2011 post…

January 19, 2012 in Celebrations, Ethan, Hannah, Vacation | No comments

Before it goes way past Chinese New Year and I have another to-do post to publish, allow me to take you back to the not too distant past and share how we celebrated our Christmas last year.

Our Christmas Eve was spent in Taiping, and although most adults looked forward to the steamboat dinner, the kids’ highlight of the day would be the paddle pool session, courtesy of Ethan & Hannah’s Patrick Ah Chek.  It was an impromptu session, so I did not pack the kids’ swimsuits, but we made do with shorts and tank tops anyways.

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It was certainly a welcome activity in the hot scorching weather (if only the pool was bigger, I would have hopped in myself!).  The kids really enjoyed themselves, save for cousin Jonathan, who was taking his afternoon nap.

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Definitely a great prequel to the yummy steamboat dinner we had at home that night.  No fancy restaurant could beat a cozy gathering at home with family, and warm food for the tummy…

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…and that’s how it came to be…all the screaming and noise died down when the four cousins fell to the temptation of ice cream…

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All the bowls had equal amounts of ice cream, but Hannah, no surprise at all, finished her bowl first and asked for seconds…look at her eyeing Phoebe’s bowl…

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After-dinner activity for the kids: Uncle Tee Bin busy *hiding* candy canes on the Christmas tree, and then getting the kids to look for them.

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Next: gift time!  Because of logistic reasons and because “some people” were too eager to open their presents, we had a first round of gifts that Christmas eve.

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We went to church after that, and only came back home after midnight.  The kids were really tired and fell asleep soundly.

And so did I.

On Christmas Day we took a drive to Ipoh, and the kids were very excited to see Ah Ma and Ah Kong again.  It was very apparent that they’d missed my Dad because they kept sticking close to him, especially Hannah.

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We had a scrumptious dinner at a restaurant which frankly serves the best chicken chop ever 🙂

It was back home to Penang the next day where we had a few more presents to open.  Ethan had handpicked a present especially for Hannah, from himself:

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…and he was visibly touched when he found out that Hannah also had a gift for him.  He was eagerly looking forward to opening it.

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Children’s Christmas Party

December 21, 2011 in Celebrations, Ethan, Hannah | No comments

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Last Saturday morning, Hannah’s parent-toddler class was more or less “transformed” into a Children’s Christmas Party for all the kids and their siblings.  It was an annual affair for all the kids in the parent-toddler classes, and they had a garden party with Teddy Bear tents, splash pools, ball pits and also art and craft areas for the kids to explore.

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Both Ethan and Hannah had a fun time making a Christmas wreath with Daddy.  Check out the level of concentration on my little girl’s face… 🙂

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And of course, a Christmas Party is never complete without food!  Each family was asked to bring something to share with the rest and for a change from my usual cupcake fare, I decided to try my hand out at making Christmas sugar cookies in the shape of Christmas trees 🙂

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I’d forgotten that I did not have enough icing sugar for the frosting, and my last minute attempt to buy it from Tesco the night before the party failed because Tesco had run out of it too.  So I had to use whatever icing sugar I had left to make the royal icing and improvised.  Not bad for a first attempt, eh? 🙂

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The party ended with some songs and fun for the kids, and finally an appearance by “Santa Clause”, who gave away the presents to the kids as part of the gift exchange.

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It was a fun Saturday morning for all, and a great way to end the year… 🙂

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