A slightly different Legoland trip

We only meant for one variation this time but as it turned out, the weather had more plans for us!

Day 1 - Wednesday 31 May

We figured arriving on Wednesday is great for many reasons. And this Wednesday, we had smooth traffic all the way - left earlier just past 8.30 am and arrived at Medini Mall by 9.40 am, via Woodlands. Legoland wasn't even opened yet!

Mandatory shot :)

Dropped off our luggage at the lockers and went off to play! There were significantly fewer people - we were very happy! No need to queue much for anything. 

The VR ride was not opened yet as usual so Sito and Kai went for the big dragon while Yang went for the small dragon. Or, as Yu calls them - daddy dragon and baby dragon :)

Kai and Yang decided to take the volcano ride finally! Kai took it with Sito before COVID but Yang had never tried. Yu is old enough for that but he declined like he did all the roller coaster rides... Yang said the ride cooled him down. Yes, it was very very hot! 

It's been a long time since they took this mini train!

All geared up for the volcano ride!

Last two times, Sito order three regular meals and a kiddy meal at lunch for five of us. This time, Sito felt hungry so he ordered four regular meals instead. We convinced Kai to get a burger instead of hotdog bun coz he didn't want all the stuff on the hotdog anyway. 

Lucky for us all coz we ordered the wrong hotdog bun - this version was spicy! But Yang rejected it due to the floss on top; we only knew it was spicy when we ate it. So Sito gave him his burger. But it was too big. So we gave him fried chicken from Yu's meal - Yu cannot finish three big pieces. But that was spicy for him - actually just peppery... So Sito pulled out some chicken from his burger for Yang!!!

Anyway, I had most of the hotdog bun and the portobello mushroom in Sito's burger. He had some of huis burger and Yu's chicken. Kai had his own burger. Yang ate a mix of stuff. Yu had his drumstick and "a quarter" of another part. Plenty of fried remained. And they had ice cream. Messy lunch!

Sad face upon being served the big burger :(

After lunch, we went to Ninjago, Pharaoh's revenge playground, fire truck and even watched a show! Very happy to find minimal queues for the boating school and driving schools too :)

Enlarged this to make Sito's score more visible - this is called 望尘莫及 haha!

Two of us and we were the first of four cars - the rest must be quite bad haha!

Me and my number 1 team, yeah!

Watching Realm of Shadows

Some five years ago, we also watched Realm of Shadows. But Yu wanted out the moment things went dark, which was maybe two minutes into the 30-min show *.* This time, he was the one who suggested watching the show. And all three sat still throughout! Think all the Ninjago shows on Netflix help? :p They were also telling us who the characters were.

Dinner was of course at Vivo Pizza coz of their Wednesday discounts! The kids ate the same thing as last time - two pepperoni pizzas for Kai, one for Yang and meatball spaghetti for Yu. Sito's baked fish spaghetti looked smaller than Yu's! I had a veggie pizza. Dessert was chocolate lava cake - we all loved it except for Kai who doesn't like cakes.

The face is smaller than the food :p

Baby was nua-ing on Papa :))

We headed for a massage after dinner and packed dessert from Blackball. It was quite an early night for us. My nose wasn't very good so I slept early. Didn't sleep too well coz Yu kept moving! And he got up a couple of times to open the door - he said he wanted to see if his brothers were awake. We chased him to their bed from Day 2 :p

Day 2 - Thursday, 1 June

Woke to rain :( We tried waiting and I dozed off, haha! Morning nap woohoo! Ended up just staying in to play games in the morning. Left in time for lunch at Tian Lai - we were the first at noon! We moderated our order this time and finished everything comfortably - two noodle dishes for all, one meat for the kids, one yam ring to try and a big crab!

So happy playing games!

Random shot - reliving 习字 nightmare!

Since we had time, we decided to go to Paradigm instead of Aeon. Watched a movie - Spider-Man - AND had popcorn for S$40! Then we bought underwear for the kids and a new schoolbag for Kai - he wore out his new schoolbag after four months *.*

Happy with snacks but wondering when the movie would start...

This one started asking when the movie would end after some time!

The movie was quite long and it was close to dinner time by the time we were done. To make it easier, we had Macs *.* But it was quite a wait to order and get the food. I was digging into my nasi lemak when Yu needed to poop *.* So I brought him to the handicapped toilet where there was a baby WC - he looked so cute there but the continuous pooping and farting for 10 min, nope, not cute!

Went shopping for kiddy underwear next. Could have got them in Singapore but no suitable ones near us and I didn't want to buy online coz I wanted to see the size. Ended up becoming member of the shop and got great discounts as part of their membership drive, yeah! 

Also got a backpack for Kai - he wore out his new one bought in December!! We think it's coz the bag swings crazily on him when he runs, which is all the time to and from school...?!

Then I gave him 10RM each to spend in the arcade. Each was left with one token at the end. Kai just gave his to Yang. Yang put both into a drum game but the machine didn't detect one and didn't refund either. Yu suggested (yes, he kept reminding me of this whenever I brought this up) using his last token on condition that Yang let him play too. So Yang did - there were two drumsticks (not this 🍗 !) and each got one. Kai was miffed that I commended them on this cooperation coz he gave a token but didn't get to play...

Legs just long enough to reach the pedal

Legs very long now - can sit back

Legs long enough too but what for when you can auto it? :p

Sito and I played as two girls gave us their last tokens

Very nice cooperation! :)

Day 3 - Friday, 2 June

Woke to a sunny morning! Finally can go to the water park!

We spent two hours there, one in the rafts and one in the joker slides. The kids didn't want to go to any of the rides :(

Scared and curious about the big tank toppling over

Shuttled them back to the apartment to shower so we could grab lunch and move on to the park. But it was very crowded! Sighs, I did not check for public holidays before booking the trip and realised only a few weeks back that it was Vesak Day on Friday. Heard of massive jams crossing over to JB. Later in the lift of our apartment, we saw that it was a Malaysian PH on the following Monday too, gosh! So we queued and waited a long time for lunch at the supermarket. The kids were so hungry :( 

With the theme park crowded, the VR queue was long but Yang wanted to use the headset - he was too young for it pre-COVID and the headset wasn't available in our recent trips. So Sito took Kai and Yang to the VR while Yu and I went to Ninjago. But the Ninjago queue was super long! Guess coz it was hot too... 

We ended up watching a 4D show. This time, Yu put on the glasses for a good part of the show, yeah! Yup, quite fun to watch hotdogs and bananas fly towards us haha!

Cool or not?

We met back at Ninjago and went to play with Lego instead. And then we headed off for dinner at Super Steamboat - yup, a new place for us!

My infinite roller coaster haha!

Playing with Papa's cannon on a temple?

Yang's hotdog and cupcake stand - love his smile!

We were one of the earliest at the dinner place. It was a BBQ and steamboat buffet with free flow drinks and ice cream! We didn't eat a lot of real food but the ice cream...

And he wasn't done for another couple more scoops!

Third and that wasn't the last too coz "I always have space for desserts"

Fifth! But he took a bite and puked everything out!

I just grabbed the nearest bowls while Sito grabbed a bag. So yup, we filled two bowls with vomit, oops! We left after that *.*

Sito had an ice cream waffle before two more scoops and a potong

A matcha bingsu and a corn potong was all I could stomach

Walked to Aeon and rested a bit before going for our massage. The Wednesday massage was very good so we booked the same two but my guy was on MC so I got another guy who wasn't as good, sighs...

The boys must be tired coz they just sat there watching this for a while

And we were behind them with a ncie backdrop :)

Yu tried to order liang cha at Hock Hua but there was no liang cha - all were liang cha! In the end, we chose water chestnut drink.

Yu sat with me on the big couch and I dozed off with him by my side

Watching TV while waiting for bubble tea at Blackball

Blackball in Singapore is quite ex now. There's one just downstairs but we have given up on it. Just buy whenever we go Legoland :p

Watching a street hawker while waiting for our ride

Day 4 - Saturday, 3 June

Breakfast was finally at BIG supermarket cafe! But gosh, the queue! By the time I got to the front of the queue, they had only one hotdog bun so Kai and Yu had to play scissors paper stone. Kai got it. Sito had to coax Yu to eat some of the double cheese bun. Yang had nicely chosen the cheese stick and enjoyed it :)

With only less than two hours to go, we decided to split up again. Yang and I went to Sea Life while the rest went to the theme park. 

I learnt so much from Yang! He took photos of me touching a chocolate chip sea star and told me the size it could grow to. He also said the big spots on the small shark were not the eyes but to make predators think it was a bigger fish! I became the child :) 

My baby with a baby shark :)

With the crab he "brought to life"

My black pepper crab, heh!

Yang in some shipwreck

Playing some shark game

Two of us

Three of them

The three came to find us at the agreed time. Timing was really just right for us to finish everything! Before heading back for our suitcase, we grabbed some buns from the supermarket. We had them for breakfast for the next two days - the croissants were awesome!

Tired on the way home

We were very pleased with this trip. Now we're thinking of taking a bus into JB for a day trip just to watch movie and eat and shop one fine day. Just need to make sure no public holiday! :)

Bye bye to the last first milk tooth

We were at Captain Kim to celebrate end of conversational Malay classes on 23 May when Yu told us about a loose milk tooth. He was anxious about it coz he remembered Yang's loose teeth just a couple of months back - very shaky, couldn't bite, blood!

Then he felt its neighbour moving too! He was rather pleased about having two loose teeth at the same time :p

When we returned from Legoland, I have been asking him to let me pull the first loose tooth off, coz I saw that it was very loose and his new teeth were peeking out already. He also couldn't eat burgers etc properly. He refused. 

Finally, yesterday evening, it fell off! When he was pooping!!! 

He felt the very loose tooth lying sideways and tried to lift it with his tongue. Then he felt something loose in his mouth and spat it out. Tooth! There was some blood of course but very little. We were all very pleased!

Showing off his slight bo geh-ness

I almost forgot to give him his tooth to put under his pillow! He had previously said that I was the tooth fairy. I refused to admit of course. He found the dollar coin this morning so I woke to three of them counting their money *.*

Just now as we were leaving the playground, he said fairies weren't real, vampires weren't real, dragons weren't real, mermaids weren't real. "How can mermaids be real? It's a man and a fish combined. They cannot combine." So cute :)

Well, with the last first milk tooth gone, there goes the last baby too, isn't it? And he knows what's real and what's not too. Bye bye, babyhood! 😭

Nuts about nuts

As a kid, I loved chocolate. Later, I realised that nuts could be so much more yummier than chocolate!

Cashew nuts are my fave. When I started working, I bought baked cashew nuts to eat with yogurt at home as a meal replacement coz I was trying to lose weight after university. Later, when I was breastfeeding Kai, I always had a small Ikea box of baked cashew nuts close by so I could snack if I got hungry when I woke to nurse in the middle of the night. 

During the recent Ramadan, we found peanuts at a steal in the supermarket so we started snacking on nuts. Kai likes the salted peanuts. Sito and I eat that mostly, plus the cracker nuts and seaweed nuts. I'm satisfied enough with these to give up cashew nuts which are way more expensive :p

At the Qing Ming gathering, I realised that my siblings already had a lot of white hair. I have just a few strands which are visible only if I comb my hair a certain way. Kind of strange. Did some googling and found that nuts could have had an impact on greying hair!

JY added that I wasn't stressed. But I only stopped paid work last year, and there was much to stress about, what with the kids' studies (more on that next time...), cooking (what next for dinner?!), the whole HDB thingy (I didn't feel settled until sale was completed earlier this year), and since February, renovation.

Anyway, nuts are here to stay in this household :) Love snacking on nuts when watching drama at night!

A Mothers' Day full of surprises

Is it Mothers' Day or Mother's Day? Anyway...

A few days ago, Yang asked me when Mothers' Day was. He said he wanted to get a present for me from the bookshop. My sons like to go to the school bookshop so he must have spotted flowers with greetings on them. He mentioned this in either P1 or P2 but no action, which was fine and rather cute :p

But this time, he came home on Friday and said he had something for me. He fished out a little card with a smile on his face. He said he wanted to get me a "proper" Mothers' Day present but the bookshop had run out of flowers. I assured him that any present during this time was a great Mothers' Day present :)

Later, he said the card cost $1, could he have the money? Wa liao, haha! Then he asked for more time with me at bedtime. Gladly, coz he's the sweetest at bedtime - when he's not distracted by Kai!

Then this morning, I was keeping clothes from the drying racks in the small room when Yu walked in with a stalk of flower and a smiley "Happy Mothers' Day!" I was so surprised! As I took the flower and walked out, Yang came to me with another stalk and said the same. I was near the fridge when Kai handed me a stalk with "For you!" My Sito was standing at the fridge with two stalks of flowers. I took them all :)

So yesterday, Sito bought the flowers when he went out to get liang cha. He left the flowers at the foyer and went out to collect only after showering. No wonder I heard the door open! He had this smile on his face when he saw me come out of the room while hiding the flowers in the fridge. Hmmm... But I didn't see anything even though I opened the fridge last night and this morning! 

So sweet :) Thank you, my hub and pups!

My presents are sitting pretty on the dining table, brightening up our home :)

Egg hunt - in Chinese!

This year, I decided to give riddles in Chinese! I added hanyu pinyin for the more difficult words, especially for Yang and Yu. 

Can you guess?

1. 如果有面包，可以把我放在上面慢慢烤，好好吃的！
2. 薯片在哪里？还有糖果呢？要看电影了！
3. 这里的知识满满的，让我一页一页翻…
4. 快点找到我！不然我会硬到咬不下去！
5. 我喜欢在这里陪爸爸工作…
6. 这里又大又黑。但是我不怕，因为有披萨的味道！
7. 我不需要加热，为什么把我放在这里呢？
8. 别理我，我太困了…
9. 我喜欢在这里陪妈妈打字看书…
10. 救命啊！好多夹子快把我夹死了！

Answers:

1. Toaster
2. TV cabinet
3. Bookshelf
4. Freezer
5. Papa's desk
6. Oven
7. Microwave
8. Bed
9. Mama's desk
10. box of cloth pegs - this was a bonus round, found by Papa in the end :p

These spots are no different from last year except that they had to read Chinese riddles :p We did the egg hunt yesterday as we would be out today at Mum's place. Maybe I should have done this at Mum's place - new spots to hide!

Yu found this not from the riddle as he spotted it earlier!

He was keeping his teddy bear under his blanket and saw an egg there but he kept real quiet. Too quiet. My suspicion increased when he asked whether there was any toy in the egg. Coz the eggs this time were Cadbury eggs wrapped in colourful foil, not Kinder Bueno which they are familiar with.

So when I gave him his first riddle, he went straight to his bed without reading it!! I had to make him read it later *.*

All found!

Of course there must be some drama. Last year, Kai was unhappy with the toys in his Kinder Bueno. This year, Kai thought his riddles were the most difficult and so the game was not fair. They were not the most difficult. In fact, I purposely gave him two super easy ones knowing he would complain! The easiest was for Yu definitely - more so I didn't have to write so much hanyu pinyin! 

Anyway, we almost took him out of the game after his first egg. Then he didn't look carefully for the remaining eggs and ended up crushing the bookshelf one coz he just anyhow flipped the books about *.* We have been having difficulties with Kai these days but more on that another day...

A floor bed again

We finally got rid of the bunk bed!

I felt very uncomfortable with it coz it felt creaky and would rock every time Kai climbed up! I was so paranoid about the top bunk crashing down with Yu below!!!

Kai used to sleep up there only on non-school days until year end holidays last year coz with Yu in primary school this year, all three slept in the same room. This meant that I couldn't lie down next to Kai anymore - don't dare to put my weight on the upper bunk!

Some more, he disturbed his brothers on their bed all the time and it was difficult to lie down peacefully with them. And when he dozed off first which was usually the case, the younger ones were often still awake and would disturb him!

So this week, we took down the upper bunk, shifted the beds about a bit and moved Kai to sleep on his own in his own room. My ears suffered a lot of complaints *.* But I can finally lie down with Kai at bedtime :)

On Thursday, we moved the lighted mattress back on the floor so that Kai could sleep with his brothers on non-school days. But at bedtime, my ears suffered again - Kai let Yang but not Yu step on his mattress when getting on/off their bed. Had to bring in Sito to settle this coz Kai always doesn't think I'm fair to him.

It could have been so fun!

Anyway, next week when the bulk disposal truck come by, we will dismantle the bed that Yu is sleeping on and dump it. Then we can shift a bed back from Kai's room which is smaller and more cramped. We don't need four beds anyway and one bed has a broken board after incessant jumping *.*

清明节 Qing Ming 2023

It's the Qing Ming period again. We didn't have a gathering for some years due to COVID though I know some elders went together to pray. This year, it happened that Yan was back and staying with Ah Yee so the Qing Ming gathering was a good time for the family to reunite a bit.

Then we happened to go to our new place for measurements last Saturday. We had wanted to let the kids sit at the staircase to play Sito's phone while we were with the interior designer but Sito had a better idea - drop them off at Mum's place! Luckily she was free. And we found out that Mum and Dad were going to 光明山 that afternoon so we decided to let the kids tag along. Only Sito went with them as I had a church wedding to attend.

They went in AhYe's pickup from work. The kids seemed to have enjoyed the ride! I remember enjoying rides in pickups as a kid, heh! Not common these days... They ended up at Macs after that and took the train home. I was maybe two trains behind them all the way from Kovan!

AhYe teaching them about their ancestors

Hope they learnt something from the experience. It would be great for them to carry on the tradition...

Yesterday was Good Friday and also the Qing Ming gathering for my side of the family. It was a wonderful day for the kids. They got to meet their second cousins finally and played with them. When we last met A in person, she was a baby who was afraid to let me carry her, and now she's almost ten! Later she let me hug her - so nice! :)

We were saying it's sad that their second cousins of their age range were in different continents - two in UK and two in Canada. Two more second cousins in Singapore were older and girls so can't really click...

Playing Uno - Yang and Yu got distracted by TV and toys

This one got very comfortable with JiuJiu...

This year, we stayed in the house and did not go to 碧山亭 like before. We started a bit late as we ran out of incense sticks! But eventually, we got down to praying. And then it was a period of waiting and burning of incense paper. My kids saw the burning last Saturday so they continued with their TV... During the wait, we also took family photos - all of us and by generation. Ours was the largest group!

Starting now

All of us!

The three younger ones played with B's toys

Our ancestors must have known that the kids were waiting - Yu had gone to the table at least twice and once almost grabbed a snack box! - so we got "approval" to start eating at the very first try!

A spread of food including a cup of coffee for Grams :)

The kids' table

After lunch, Sito and S brought the five kids to the playground. The two men chatted at the playground while the wives chatted with the cousins at the dining table. When they came back, we were still chatting! So they went down again after a break in front of the TV. 

The remaining cousins enjoying durian puffs while chatting

Looked at old photos - so much memories!

This one asked for pandan cake

It happened that LY just renovated the shophouse second floor so we went over to have a look. The rest of us hadn't been there for some 30 years since the provision shop closed! So much memories...

Where a rattan chair used to be

At the balcony

Ah Yee and Mother in the kitchen

Behind the kitchen were the WC and bathroom. The WC used to be a squat pan and little me couldn't use one so I pooped on newspaper laid out on the floor outside the toilet!!!

Came out of the shophouse to find these five playing catching

So many of us, great for 老鹰抓小鸡！

They were all so cute!

Next was ice cream time at Macs!

Oh yes, the adults sat at another table to chat. The kids were chatting among themselves and quite happy. Then more wanted fries even though Yang and Yu couldn't finish their ice cream *.*

Yu was too engrossed with newfound love - BBQ sauce - and didn't turn for the photo

Oldest to youngest with the two monkeys holding hands - so sweet!

Yan and me - finally a photo together after we forgot when we met for lunch on Monday!

It was a great reunion + Qing Ming gathering. When shall we meet again??