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Hannah’s school’s Family Fun Day is an annual affair celebrating Mother’s, Father’s and Teacher’s Day, and this year was no different. So last Sunday we got up bright and early and made our way to Occupy at Beach Street, an area which is cordoned off from motor vehicles every Sunday morning as part of Penang’s Smoke-free campaign. Believe it or not, it was our first time there, and it was also the venue for the Family Fun Day.
We all had on identical t-shirts, with the exception of Emma of course. We parked a little ways off the site of the event, so we had to walk together with a bicycle and a scooter too…not to mention a baby in a stroller! We then quickly registered, grabbed our Subway breakfasts, and dove right into the hustle and bustle of all the activities.
We did trishaw rides…
We had fun on bicycles built for two:
While Ethan’s legs were long enough to pedal on the bikes, Hannah had to leave her legs up, and let Daddy do the pedalling:
There were traditional games, like this one..I think it’s called Flying Feather…
… and vainpot activities like Face Painting:
Fun with sidewalk chalk! This was the boys’ creative contribution:
…and this was the selfie we took for Ethan and Hannah as part of the task list for the Treasure Hunt competition:
Coincidentally we won a prize for that competition! 🙂
It was a fun-filled day, albeit a scorchingly hot one, but definitely a great day to spend Sunday morning! 🙂
Name: Ethan
Age: 8
Wakes up at…
7:30a.m. on weekdays and approximately 8:00a.m. on weekends.
Showers
Twice a day; once in the morning upon waking and once at night before winding down. Can shower independently now. Only once a day during weekends.
Favorite Food
- Chicken rice
- Chicken sandwich with fresh lettuce, cucumber slices and mayo
- Wan ton mee
- Beehoon soup with chicken slices and lettuce
- Grilled salmon with rice and sliced fruit or fresh greens
- Spaghetti marinara.
(A far cry from what he used to eat years ago :))
Favorite Sport
Soccer
Favorite Soccer Team in BPL
Manchester City
Favorite Man City player
Álvaro Negredo
Musical Instrument
Ukulele. Practising Amazing Grace currently. Might move on to guitar later if still keen. 😛
Favorite TV show
Amazing Race, American Ninja Warrior, The Voice, Slugterra
Favorite Books
Geronimo Stilton and Magic Tree House series
Favorite Songs
- Happy (Pharell Williams)
- Radioactive (Imagine Dragons)
- Demons (Imagine Dragons)
- Counting Stars (One Republic)
- Empire (Shakira)
- All Of Me (John Legend)
Ambition
Professional soccer/football player
If you want to know anything else about him, let me know and I’ll pass the question on… 🙂
About a month ago, Ethan had asked if he could invite some friends over for his birthday party. We were hesitant, but since he rarely asks for anything, we obliged. Well, Pete was a little concerned about pulling off the party and all so soon after we had moved, but I decided to go ahead with it because Ethan was really looking forward to it. So last Saturday, we had a small do for Ethan with a few of his friends. We decided to have it about a week earlier than his actual birthdate because the actual birthday falls on the 1st day of Chinese New Year this year.
In deciding a theme for his party and after taking like 5 minutes to decide between a Diary of a Wimpy Kid party or a Lego party, Ethan decided on the latter. He left most of the party planning to me, but he was very specific about the cake.
He asked for a cake shaped like a Lego 4×2 brick, where he could put a candle in each of the studs,given that it is his 8th birthday and all. When asked for the color of the cake, he wanted red.
It was a good thing baby Emma decided to nap a couple of hours the day before the party, allowing me some time to bake and decorate the cake.
I prepared birthday invites in a Lego theme and tried to make everything as Lego-like as possible. If I could, I would have created a Lego minifigure costume for Ethan..haha.
On the day of the party, Daddy hung up the birthday banner I made. Had to tweak the Lego font a little but it was well worth it. Printed out the letters on white paper, cut them out carefully and glued them onto red colored paper, which was glued onto black paper to achieve the black-outlined effect.
When the guests arrived, they were treated to some Lego Star Wars movies on the telly. This was Ethan’s idea. Took me a while to get the little guests away from the TV and to start on the games.
Oh, and we also asked the guests to participate in the “Guess the Number of Lego Bricks” game. Some adults wanted to participate in this one too.
We had some “Lego” food, made with love of course, such as Lego sandwiches, Lego pizza and errr…fruits cut up to spell the word Lego 🙂 (Sorry, I had no idea how to shape fruits like Lego without making a mess of them all!)
I also made Lego chocolates and Lego ice cubes with a Lego mould I borrowed from a dear friend.
Recently the kids expressed a genuine interest in trying their hand at bowling. They had “practised” bowling in the iPad and also in the arcades, but never the real deal.
So yesterday, I organized a small kids’ bowling session with friends. Someone recommended the Premium Lanes bowling center at Sunshine Square, as it was rather new, non-smoky and had suitable balls and shoes for kids. Ethan and Hannah were literally counting the hours till we left the house, and yes…it was my first time bringing all three kids out on my own. (Well, now that we have two cars, it’s easier for me to bring the kids out)
We chose the morning session because the rates were considerably cheaper (RM3.50 per person per game), and I had called earlier to arrange for the retractable rails to be set up for our bowling lanes too. Retractable rails are the latest in bumper bowling, which is so cool if kids are bowling. It ensures the bowling balls don’t roll down the gutter!
This bowling center had shoes to fit the kids too, even Hannah! Rental of bowling shoes was RM2.00 per pair. We paid for one game each first to see if the kids would like it, but at the end of the two hours plus, the kids went through 3 games!
The lightest bowling ball was the 6lb one, which Hannah used. Ethan used the 8lb ball, I think.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering how I managed with 3 kids, baby Emma did the wisest thing: she fell fast asleep right through the entire bowling session!!
The kids had fun bowling. Never mind that their technique was not correct. Never mind that the ball sometimes deflected against the railings to score a spare! It was certainly a great session, of plain fun and making friends…and guess what…the kids have requested to go yet again! 😀
Last weekend, we took the kids to Six Flags(again!). It was bittersweet because it was going to be our last visit there before we head for home in Malaysia next week. The weather that day was spectacular: sunny, warm with a light breeze. We didn’t forget our sunscreens! 😀
The kids enjoy all our visits to this theme park, although the crowds can sometimes be unbelievably HUGE. As we bid goodbye to Six Flags, here are some pictures we took during our several visits to the park (five or six in total, maybe?). Ethan and Hannah hopes to come back again when they are tall enough to ride on all the roller-coasters though. Only time will tell when. 🙂
Ethan’s school was transformed into a little art museum last Thursday night, when they had their annual celebration of arts called The Night of the Arts. Every child would have a piece of artwork displayed outside his/her classroom with his/her name on it. Ethan’s school places a lot of emphasis on cultivating the love of art in the students and that can be seen by the amazing murals on the walls of the school.
It was a fantastic way to instill the love of the arts in the children, as well as a perfect time for families to get together in the evening. Ethan proudly showed us his art piece and we also got to bring home his entire year’s “art portfolio”.
Well, we finally get to put the kids’ easel to good use! We’d shipped it over from Malaysia, but since it had been incredibly cold over the last few months, the easel has been kept in storage.
Spring is finally here and the days are getting longer, not to mention warmer. The afternoons and evenings now often see us having warm sunlight on our patio, so we took the easel out for the kids last week.
…and boy, were they delighted!
They even brought their chairs out, to make it more comfortable while painting!
They certainly had FUN! 🙂
We had planned on going to Six Flags New England after lunch, when the accident happened. And when we were done in Urgent Care, it was already about 4:00p.m. Pete and I were ready to go back home to rest, but then Ethan and Hannah asked, “Mommy, Daddy, are we going to see our surprise now?”
You see, we had told them both that we would be taking them for a surprise that day. They remembered.
So I checked with the nurse and doctor and Hannah got the go-ahead, with the caveat to avoid getting the wound wet. So we made the 1.5 hour drive to Agawam, MA for our first visit to Six Flags.
We had gotten season passes to the theme park, so we’ll definitely make a few more trips there before we leave for Malaysia. Hannah took a quick power nap on the way there, but was all excitement as we arrived. Unfortunately we had to queue up to change our printed season passes to photo-ID ones, and that took about 30 minutes or so, a LOOONG wait for people with kids, let me tell ya.
Here are some of our pictures. Because Ethan and Hannah wanted to go on ride after ride, Pete had to take them on those rides when I had to breastfeed Emma or change her and then I would meet them at a later time somewhere. On rides that the kids had to be accompanied by an adult, we had to make use of the parent swap, where either Pete or I would ride with one kid first and then subsequently, we can ride with the other kid without having to queue up again.
It was quite an experience being in a theme park with three kids now, especially also since Emma chose that period of time to poop a few times!
It got colder in the night, and I could not believe that we actually stayed up till park closure at 9:00p.m. Well, we will definitely be back! 😀
The kids are already requesting to go back the next day itself! LOL
Hope to get more pictures during our next visit!
Last week, we made a quick trip to New York and back. The primary reason for this trip was to get Emma’s birth registration and Malaysian passport done at the Consulate General of Malaysia. Previously for Hannah’s case when she was born in California, we did not need to make the trip to the Consulate General of Malaysia in LA, and we only needed to Fedex all the necessary documents.
However, now that Emma was born in the East Coast, the rules for birth registration at the Consulate General in New York were different. Not only did the Consulate General require the baby to be physically present at the point of birth registration, submission could only be done from 9:30a.m. – 12:00noon. Same-day collection would only be guaranteed if we submit the documentation at 9:30a.m. in the morning, so in order to comply with that and not have to wait to collect the stuff a day later, we decided to go to New York on Thursday, stay the night and then submit the registration early Friday morning.
We left a little later than planned on Thursday morning (what’s new?), and while Emma was wide awake when we drove off, she fell asleep a few minutes later.
Hannah and Ethan were as excited as ever about our trip. Here’s Hannah showing you how happy she is…You would know by now who’s the one who’s ever willing to pose for the camera and who’s just the opposite. 😛
Emma was dozing away beautifully and only woke up after we had our lunch; we stopped at Subway in Rocky Hill, Connecticut before heading on towards The Big Apple.
Traffic was unbelievably heavy on a week day, and even heavier when we arrived in NYC. We drove straight towards the Financial District and parked our car near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.
There wasn’t a long wait thankfully, and we boarded the ferry not long after. Emma was quite fidgety at that time, and we soon found out why: she pooped while we were on the ferry!
Pete managed to take the kids up to the deck to get a closer look at the Statue of Liberty though. It was rather cloudy that day but the kids just loved the ferry ride.
Upon arrival at Staten Island we took the next ferry back to Manhattan. On the return ferry, and after changing Emma, I put her in a baby sling, and took her up to the deck for about a minute or two. She was still really restless, even though I had fed her, and even when we put her in the stroller and pushed her out from the ferry. In fact, Emma only settled down and fell asleep in the car, as we made our way to our hotel.