Family Day Pictures out!

CT managed to bring back his company's Family Day pictures from his colleagues. We had a really great time building the sandcastles at East Coast Park during the event. Check out the sandcastle we built!




Learnt a lot from making sandcastles...its a lot about life and how we should always strive for perfection. If it crumbles, its ok. We just need to clear the sand and redo again. There is really no shortcut to success.

The kids had a great time there.

I have to say, it was all well worth the effort of waking up at 6 plus am to go to the beach with 2 young kids and braving the drizzle and strong winds.





Our reward was to see how amazing our sandcastle could end up looking. Simply unimaginable.



Another group also did an amazing job! Never knew we could do so much with sand!



Besides a tiring, but fulfilling time building the sandcastle, we had lunch at a bistro nearby. We had a private place all by ourselves and the best thing was that we could order anything from the ala-carte menu..FOR FREE! Thanks to CT's company who footed the bill. So we had fried chicken wings, calamari, cheese fries, fruit juices, mocktails, sirloin steak, BBQ ribs, grilled fish, pizza as well as chocolate brownies for dessert with ice cream! Not only did we have free lunch, there were also presents for all of us-angry bird keychain collection as well as pails and rubber ball for the kids.

We really had a blast!

Fun starts at home

Who says kids only have fun when you bring them out?

As for my 2 kids, Caleb and Danielle, they seemed happy at home as well as they are now of age to play together. For starters, they love jumping and playing on my bed.

If I have time, I would also do craft work with them. Here's both of them playing with play dough- something which I seldom play with as its messy to clean up after that. But then again, it can be really fun. So what the heck!



The kids had also inherited my skate scooter which I used to have when I was schooling. And they have been playing with it everyday. Now, Caleb is an expert on it!



As for Danielle, she is still trying. I am sure one day she would be whizzing past me with that!


Another activity I played with the kids at home was a DIY version of Angry Birds. We got the various Angry Bird keychain from CT's Company who gave out to us as we attended the Family Day in East Coast Park, building sandcastles. However, the photos were all in my hp which I trade in recently. So, I lost all of the pretty photos I took of that day when we built amazing sandcastles with the children and CT's colleagues.

Anyway,because of all those Angry Bird keychains that I've got from the event, I had to make use of that to do something fun with my children. So here's Caleb having fun at home!



So the whole idea is to build his own structure with Lego and place the pig on it, Then he would take the angry birds to throw and aim at the pig.



The structures gets more and more complicated as he 'levels up'...and the thing is he constructs them himself. I just guide him and suggest to him to make it more complicated.

Here's some of his structures built by him.







As for myself, I looked at my angry bird in my ipad and tried to build a replica.




Caleb really had a great time!

Cooking during the holidays

I do miss cooking during normal work days as my helper would cook instead since I come home late almost everyday or I would be too tired to. So I would usually either cook weekends (which has been more rare now) or during school holidays.

Here's what I made..

Pork short ribs stew with pumpkin, onions, carrots, tomatoes. My first time cooking this and it was purely my own recipe and concoction. Very nice! Would def cook this easy one pot meal again!


Linguine with lemon, garlic thyme mushrooms (all thanks to Nigella Lawson's cookbook given to me by my students.



And Country Beef stew (using beef shin)


Cooked these on separate occasions. After each cooking, I always have this sense of satisfaction from watching my hubby and children dig into it and finish it all up. My cooking also helps break the monotony of my helper's cooking as she keeps cooking the same old stuff. After a while, I purposely arrange to eat out.

But nevertheless, I do wish for myself to put in more effort in preparing meals for the family so that eventually, my kids could join me in cooking together! That's really my dream.

Peekaboo

Whatever time I have during the June Holidays, I will try to spend it with my family and today,making use of the car at home, I decided to bring them to Peekaboo, Kallang Leisure Park to play. Decided to go there as I have the 1-for-1 Jumbo card promotion.

So for both of my children, I only paid $14! Worth it!

The indoor playground is quite small as compared to the ones I have been to- Polliwogs and GogoBambini. But it was definitely good enough to keep the children satisfied.





Caleb was taking good care of Danielle when she first tried out the obstacles by waiting for her and at times, holding her hand.



The children also ended up playing and talking to other kids. More sociable than us,parents..Something I can learn from my kids.

My Unforgettable Birthday Celebrations!!

This year has been an exceptional year for me. I feel that I have been so blessed. This year for my birthday, I had the most wonderful gifts that I could ever receive and birthday celebrations too!

I invited my parents and brothers' family over to my house for dinner as I feel what better place to celebrate than at the comfort of my own home. Also feel that birthday is not about me, but its about serving people and making others feel happy.

So prepared a scrumptious meal for my family. After dinner, we headed to the Punggol Promenade for a walk since my parents and brothers' family has not been there. The kids had lots of fun running around and playing.



Another celebration I had was with my colleagues. My colleague, Thoh "Papa" and good friend, Sarah went to the Japanese Restaurant at Changi Village Hotel for lunch. Great authentic Japanese food! I ordered all that I like as Thoh "Papa" treats me and Sarah as his own daughters..

Just looking at the pictures again, makes me salivate and crave to go back there again for the food!











Everything was good! Think it costs us $150 for the 3 of us!

Anyway, my next birthday celebration was with my Sec 4 Math students. I only started teaching them this year and I am amazed at how close I have bonded with this class.

On my birthday, they came with a cake filled with 31 candles that cannot be blown! It was those trick candles that will always have the fire.


The funny thing was that all of us freaked out as we thought we would be setting the whole class on fire since 31 candles cannot be blown out! We needed the fire extinguisher!

My students gave me a recipe book as well as a weekly planner to plan the meals I would cook. So sweet of them. They also made for me a huge birthday card with all their thoughts in it. I really appreciate it and was very touched.

Guys, if you are reading this..thanks so much for making this birthday such a special one!





Then for lunch on my birthday, I met up with my good friend, Marianne. She treated me to yong tau food at Siglap...one of my favourite place to eat Yong Tau foo! Met in Siglap as I have been putting up at my old house since my parents went for church camp to Malaysia. So wanted to do a staycation there and help them to look after their fishes and my lovely dog, Ashley!



Was looking forward to dinner with the family. Actually planned to eat at LemonGrass Thai Restaurant but CT last minute said he cant come back to join us for dinner..so I just walked out with the kids to have a meal at the food centre. Slightly disappointed to be honest but was still happy as at least, I still get to be with my children.


Life will always spring disappointments but I just choose to focus on the positives and move on!

After dinner, we took the longer route home as I wanted to buy some stuff to make me happy :) Went to Royals Cafe to buy food for tomorrow's breakfast and the kids ended up having fun there!



Also dropped by at Udders Ice Cream place to buy myself a treat!


Not only was it the unforgettable different birthday celebrations that I had with various people, but it was also the wonderful gifts I received.

Here's what I got..
1) Ipad 2 and Diesel watch(dearest hubby)

2) cluedo and life adventures card games (Bro and Pam)

3) Challenger Voucher (parents)
4) nice bag which I love (sis in law)
5) Hush Puppies polo tee (mum in law)
6) Boogle card Game and jelly beans (Sabrina, my colleague)
7) Gifts from taiwan (Sarah, my colleague)
8) stylus for my ipad (Serene, my colleague)


9) Fun gifts like USB port, US dollar toilet roll, cup cover (Shu Xian, my colleague)
10) Recipe book and meal planner (students)

Feel so loved..and blessed.

One of my students asked me a very valid question- what if no one celebrated my birthday. How would I feel? I did tell him honestly speaking, I would be sad but I would not blame them. Instead, I would reflect on myself and ask myself what's wrong with me? But then again, I must also remind myself that with or without celebrations or presents, I should still choose to be happy!