Final Legoland trip?

Our annual passes expire in December/January. Next year is Kai's PSLE year, so we thought we would go for a nice trip at the end of the year instead of heading to Legoland every term break. It's not just the kids who 舍不得 but I guess we should go for new experiences?

Day 1, 22 November, Wednesday

Departing for Legoland from Holland again, just like our first trip back in 2017! Traffic was smooth so we got there just after the opening show.

Finally a nice family shot! Ex but I think worth it

It was pleasantly not crowded at all! We took our time to put our suitcase in the locker and went to the toilet before going for the rides. No need to queue most of the time. Kai and Yang took the VR ride some six or seven times in a row! Even Burger Junction had plenty of seats. Just post a few photos this time.

I need to find earlier shots of this boy with the ninjas!

Watching a new 4D show, Dreamzz

Finally just Sito and me on Ninjago! Yu is big enough to be with his brothers, no adults!

And Yu takes four out of five!!

Before this, he was first with Sito in second place, Then he went on to beat Papa again and again until some guy beat him. He got high scores consistently. Sito said his arms were at the right height for the sensor :p

Back to Mindstorms - think we went only once before in a previous trip

They joined in before/after VR

We left Legoland later than usual. Bought water and buns at the supermarket and unpacked our stuff a bit to get things ready for bedtime before grabbing a ride to Aeon.

Dinner must be at Vivo Pizza coz of their Vivo Day every Wednesday! We kept eating the same stuff from their menu but those were really good!

Somehow, this one must also nua on Papa here, this time reading the bill

Massage followed :) The kids got to play phone games while we refreshed our poor legs, nice :) Then we had dessert at Blackball before going back to the apartment.

Three monkeys slept together - so cute!

Day 2, 23 November, Thursday

So happy that it was sunny! Time for water park!

We went round the lazy river maybe six times?!

Yang and Yu were happily building rafts and floated or swam with them instead of using the big floats. I had to keep up sometimes and wait sometimes... 

Also queued for the family raft, and spent some time in the wave pool and joker slides. But only Yu was game enough to go for the mat racer this time, while his brothers played in the wave pool. The guard encouraged me to go but no way!

So brave, my boy!

Then I chased after him to help him carry the mat up the stairs. I did that twice, and I think that was the cause for my super painful calves the next day! Weak :p

Lunch was at Tian Lai again but another branch between Legoland and Aeon. Same price, same good food, less (not no) flies despite the aircon.

Next was Paradigm Mall. Bought clothes and underwear for the kids. Kai did rock climbing while his brothers went to the arcade. All had fun!

So high up!

Dinner was Sushi King. Sito and I were not hungry at all but the kids were ready to eat. And as it turned out, the youngest ate the most! I had one plate and Sito had two, with Yang taking half of one of his two!

Happy!

At first, they were not so happy coz there was no tamago and no kappa maki. But when the mini bowls of curry rice and gyudon and udon arrived, all were happy :)

Later, Sito and I packed some noodles and Guilinggao to eat back at the apartment. Super satisfied :)

Day 3, 24 November, Friday

It was a busier day, queues almost everywhere. So we didn't do much, just ran about and did whatever was easy. 

Despite the crowds, the cafe at the supermarket was not as crowded as the last trip. Kai had steak, his brothers spaghetti bolognese, Sito schnitzel and I schnitzel wrap. Yu had to poop in the apartment after finishing his lunch, so I sent him back. Spent some time in the aquarium after that before returning to Legoland.

Sweet smile on this boy :)

Monkey smiles on these two

Parents vs. kids as firemen!

Lost but still happy to compete with us!

Yang enjoyed the robotics at Mindstorms :)

Actually the photo was a re-enactment as Sito didn't take photos during the session *.* We signed Kai up as well but he gave up shortly coz he found it difficult *.*

Must pose with Einstein like I used to pose with Confucious

Familiar shot? We did one pre-COVID!

Now, Miniland is all sheltered. My tripod came in useful too! Totally worth lugging it all over the place!

Since it was crowded, we left early. Sito brought water and buns back to the apartment while we waited at Medini Mall for him. Else the kids would be stuck playing games and we had to nag them to move again...

Dinner was Korean BBQ!

Free ice cream but only the parents had them

Kids had Baskin Robbins ice cream - so did Papa!

Plus a bandung drink!

Then we had another massage :) It was raining a bit so it was quite nice to huddle up and enjoy a massage to the sound of the rain... Just nice used up our credits since we don't know when we would return...

Day 4, 25 November, Saturday

Nothing much - just bought some candy at the supermarket as usual before going into Legoland. Didn't have much time but Yang managed to convince Yu to take the Lost Kingdom Adventure ride!

And he liked it!

Didn't even need me to sit with him after the first round *.* But none of us did very well with the shooting haha!

We said bye bye to Legoland just before exiting. Will we be back??

Another thing we miss, or the parents would, was the bakery at the supermarket. Bought RM75 worth of buns and cake before leaving - their bakes were so nice! We had them for our breakfast and tea these few days. Now we only have a pound cake left, sighs...

I showed Yang and Yu my post for the last trip this morning before asking them to write their own journal. Super cute. Now I know what Kai and Yang were doing on the VR ride on Wednesday - trying it opening and closing their eyes! Yu seemed to enjoy the BBQ more than Yang. As it was busy this morning with the aircon installer checking a leak in Kai's room which turned out to be from our room, I'll read their journal again with them tomorrow :)

Celebrating 43 with 43 gyozas and more

Yup, we indeed had 43 gyozas!

Sito with the first 15

That was at BariUma yesterday. They have a promotion where you get as many gyozas as your birthday in birthday month! Sito made the reservation a couple of weeks ago. We ordered ramen for all five of us - two regulars and three kiddy size. But Kai had almost all of my noodles after finishing his *.*

43 gyozas marked the last of his birthday celebration. We started on his birthday which was two Saturdays ago, with a lovely mango cake from the bakery at the train station and dinner at Swensen's. It was also the official first day of the school holidays, yeah!

Surrounding the birthday boy

Yang gave Papa a birthday card back in October - he couldn't wait!

Firehouse for the birthday boy while the kids had their usual sundae

The Swensen's membership has very good birthday deals and treat kids very well. There are two birthday treats - firehouse on the actual day and a regular sundae in the month. The kids get a kiddy sundae every month so we have been going to Swensen's almost every month since June! Helps that food is good. We like the nasi lemak but it's not available in our fave Junction 8...

Sunday celebration

Kai decided to help cut the cake even though he doesn't eat cake :)

We headed out to Famous Treasure for dinner. Very yummy food. Very full... But Yang left the restaurant with a red and swollen left eye. He said his eye area was itchy but his eyeball was fine. Couldn't be food allergy if it was just one eye. He and Yu shared a scarf provided by the restaurant as it was cold so he might have rubbed his eye on it! We got him some eyedrops and after some antihistamine back home, he woke up all fine.

On the bus home - all the kids were busy with the grands' phones *.*

Sito celebrated his 43rd year by becoming fitter, healthier and slimmer. He's now around 70kg! All the running also made him quite tan. He's never been this tan! Really my tall, dark and handsome now, haha!

Happy birthday, my dear! :)

Memories of AMK

There was no school two Fridays ago due to P1 orientation etc in school. Generally, I don't cook on weekdays when there's no school except during holidays when we can get sick packing all the time.. 

Anyway, we decided to be slack parents and gave them a late breakfast at the hawker centre followed by a late and light lunch at A&W before dinner at WaiPo's.

Happy with fried chicken!

We also shared two waffles - one with chocolate sauce and one with strawberry. It was still way too early to go find WaiPo so we decided to walk around AMK town. 

We walked out the mall into the HDB shops, and walked one whole round from Macs to Avenue 8 and back to the mall again, walking past just about all the HDB shops. 

It was a pleasant surprise to see the knitting shop at one corner - I had totally forgot about it but CY and I used to go in quite a bit! For what, I had no idea / couldn't remember coz while we did dabble in some knitting, it was a short spell!

I was telling Sito that there used to be a stall selling CDs outside the knitting shop and I bought many CDs there. Then guess what, the shop had moved further down outside another shop! And the uncle still looked the same after 20 years!!!

Then we passed by a block where I think there used to be a photocopy shop? Can't be sure if it was there or another block near Kel...

Nostalgic walk... But the kids ignored everything, and just walked and chatted and blocked people's way etc *.*

Went back to the mall to cool down. We walked the entire mall except the cinema level to avoid getting stuck at the arcade - kids just like to watch and touch etc. Eventually, the kids got so bored they started asking when we would get to WaiPo's place.

Found an MRT installation in the supermarket

There was plenty of construction around AMK. Think they're sprucing up the town centre. Just outside the MRT, think they're building the North South Corridor. The path towards the MRT track looked a bit different from the last time we were there, which was some time ago coz busy with our renovation and moving. But the MRT track path is still the same, that is, same as the last 10 years. Only the old fitness corner and running track are from my pre-marriage days.

We were still pretty early; WaiPo was still preparing food. The kids got their usual dose of Yakult, watched WaiPo prepare food a bit and went to watch Netflix.

Preparing for fried wonton

This one likes to nua on or near a parent

We found that Kai is now taller than WaiPo! 

PS: Does Yang have food in his mouth??

While the kids were watching TV, Mother brought out some stuff she got from DaYee - miniature teacup sets! DaYee kept them for years and finally decided to let go. Mother sells various stuff in the market sometimes - and got caught by taegoo before *.* But she still goes *.*

But yes, the teacup sets. They were tiny! And why were there so many?! I find them very cute but I'm not one for much decoration around the house or worse, kept in boxes. So please sell them - just don't get caught by taegoo!!

The kids played at the playground downstairs before we left. Small playground but quite fun. Don't know which iteration since the sand playground where I slid down a concrete slide and fell while playing merry-go-round. 

Passed by the coffeeshop downstairs on our way to the playground. It started doing well only in the past few years due to the mookata. It was so sad in the past! Sito and I said that we would try the mookata next time!

Old friends

Met some old friends in late September. The last time we met was over a year ago??

When we were younger, Kel, YX and I met frequently, even when we were in as many as five cities across three continents  - Oxford, Cambridge, Cornell and Stanford. We visited one another at different times and bunked in roughly with/without sleeping bags. Young backs fear no carpeted floors, haha! Wait, I probably always had my bed and took over theirs so it was not my back, oops :p

Now, we are separately busy with work and family, and meet-ups are way less frequent. So I looked forward to such gatherings very much. Was just saying the other day that I don't look forward to presents but to such experiences. After all, material stuff 生不带来，死不带去 

Staff at restaurant invited us to take photos with their props on our way out

So pretty, both me and my drink! :p

This was a pose, coz funny *.*

Also met Na in October but once again, we forgot to take photos! Come to think of it, I met CY back in July and while we took lots of photos of our kids, we did not take photos with each other! Photos are very important ok, coz memories in Google Photos will remind me when we last meet which is a great reminder to meet again!!

Celebrating efforts instead of results

Exams came and went. So glad we don't have to rush to do and mark papers after school anymore! But that doesn't mean all play and no work too.

The week after exams, they started getting their results back. Kai did quite well, with AL 11 for four subjects. He would tell everyone that he almost got AL 10 as he scored 159/200 for Chinese. Yang did not do as well, with AL 15. I think the school will probably still use bands for P3 but we decided to count AL early. 

So we continue to let them do practices to reinforce their learning. Definitely not as siong as the exam preparation work but better to regularise learning than to have to pick up after slacking off for two months!

But before that, we celebrated their efforts - and parents' too! - with a nice BBQ. At first we thought of going for our usual Korean BBQ + hotpot but the boys wanted this Japanese BBQ with soft serve. Sito and I were happy with their choice coz the meat there was better!

Happy with dessert!

Yu was less happy as he could not have soft serve - we said no ice cream if he did not drink soup at home, and he did not. But he had marshmallow and fruits in chocolate fondue!

Still happy to crowd around the soft serve machine

Went to NTUC to buy some stuff. Always happy to go to the big ones coz the ones near us are so small! And we ran out of our usual salami for pizza days - crisis! :p Also hit Donki for curry roux. We bought a lot as they were on sale and we finish a pack every month. Maybe I'll make more during the holidays since it's easy and I can hide a whole big head of broccoli inside!

Don't know why they were so captivated by baby toys in the supermarket!

Oh ya, Mama was lazy - let them drop bags and change shoes after school and left without changing out of their uniforms so there would be less laundry :p

There is no plan to celebrate their results. While we can make them put in efforts, they may not all get the desired results. Won't be fair or nice to celebrate results so we made an early decision to always celebrate efforts only. 

But as an encouragement, we told them that their phone privilege during the school holidays would depend on their results. So Kai will get 70min of play time while Yang will get 50min. Yu doesn't have exams so he's stuck with the lower of the two. 

Just one week left before school holidays, and it's a short week with Deepavali make-up and no school on Friday. It's also a gan cheong week as I must buy textbooks early so I can chope a good delivery date!

The brave one

Yang had a shaking tooth. He didn't want it to drop during school hours. So on Tuesday, just before bedtime, he decided he would pluck it out! And out it came!

So happy to have done it all by himself :)

To be honest, even though I had offered to pluck it out for him, I wasn't so sure if I would have the courage to do so... So kind of glad he didn't agree to me doing it for him?!

With some toothy experience under his belt, he could do this on his own. Wish I could say the same for his poo poo... Still not pooping frequently enough. But he managed a big poo the day before exams, which was great so he wouldn't be distracted by poop feeling *.* 

Anyway, later, I told him I dropped this same tooth in P3 as well. I remember very clearly as it happened when I was having curry rice, and I always wondered if the replacement adult tooth came out all yellow coz of the curry...!

Hopefully the end of our moving

In January, Kel commented that we seemed to be moving or looking forward to moving all the time - from Holland to BP and now to Holland again.

I found drafts of us wanting to move to BP and settling into BP dated July 2017 and May 2020. Sorted out the key points and added on...

So we bought the condo in March 2013. TOP happened only in 2H 2017. During the wait, we had two more kids and hired a helper. It was a long and difficult wait...

Don't get me wrong. We loved our little three-room flat in Holland back then, which, btw, was no longer ours - we transferred it to Mum and Dad on in November 2013 in order to claim back the additional buyer stamp duty. But this little place was really little.

• My biggest beef was about sharing the one and only toilet with our domestic helper. I really cannot stand sharing toilet with someone other than Sito. Even the kids now that I'm washing their toilets 🤮 Anyway, the toilet floor was always wet coz of handwashing even though I offered use of the washing machine. With so much splash, the toilet seat was always wet too, sighs. 
• Then Kai and Yang were also using the same toilet. It was bad enough having only one toilet to five users but if we didn't move soon, Yu would join the troop, making it one to six *.*
• We had our daily bags hanging off the shoe cabinet, and resting on the sofa arm rest and the TV bench. 
• The kids' ever-growing amount and size of clothes were all in our wardrobe originally meant for two persons.
• There was no proper study area with only one desk - thank goodness this was pre-COVID and the kids were still in preschool!

When we finally moved to BP in March 2018, the house often felt like it was falling apart.

• Electrical trip on our first day :(
• All our water issues from two weeks in all the way to April this year - Kai's room wall, Yang's windows and floor, kids' toilet door frames, rainwater splashing through the narrow balcony into bedrooms when we forgot to close the balcony doors
• A tile near the ceiling of our bathroom was a bit - how to describe? - not flushed with the adjacent tile on the tangential wall, as in there was a slight gap between the tiles. That was after only two years of stay; no such thing in our old flat. 
• Tile grouts were also coming off. I had to buy a tube of filler to fill in the grouts. 
• In the last two years, we also found cracks in two tiles. 
• Many walls have crack lines at the part where concrete and fake walls joined and this started within weeks of moving in. 

These were troublesome but could be resolved or ignored. What could not be resolved or ignored was the lack of space for kids to have their own desk in their room - necessary eventually - and the wind. I remember Sito went out of town shortly after we moved. It started howling one night. HOWLING leh. I closed the balcony doors but they continued to rattle madly! I was so scared! I think I went to sleep with the kids. 

We also found that if we sleep without aircon on windy - not howling type - nights, we would fall sick. We call it 毒风 haha! Actually, I fell sick a lot at BP. As early as January 2019, I got frequent colds and this persisted all the way. I had to take Berocca in the last few weeks to sustain myself through the move!

And the strong winds tore two magnetic door stoppers early on. We had our door and the adjacent door slam a number of times. The door frames shook so bad that paint or plaster flaks came off the walls next to the door frames! Had to use those horseshoe child-safe thingies to supplement the door stoppers.

But I liked that house, our home. I liked the space it offered. I tried to keep things minimal so that the kids had enough running space. That turned out well in view of COVID! Even then, the boys could still somehow turn and knock themselves on some wall or edge or corner *.*

So it was early that we knew we had to move at some point.

Now, we get nice winds but nothing scary and no 毒风 so far. There are some issues with the renovations. Just had the painter come in to rectify waste pipe paint, for example. Have I mentioned the four lizards so far? :p But it's been a very nice two months in our new home. We know we are in our forever home now :)

Happy together

I really like to see my boys happy together. Found some shots recently that I really like :)

Let's grow strong together!

These days, they have been heading to the playground on their own, be it after breakfast outside or before dinner at home, since there's no road to cross. We just tell them to go and return together. And we don't give them their bottle so thirst will naturally limit their time, haha! But this means we have fewer playground shots these days. 

Playing together

That was two Saturdays ago when we went to Empress Place Market for breakfast. Went to the playground after makan. Yang and Yu had been harping about it for a while as we pass by on the bus every day. 

Cowding around Papa to watch him play games

These kids gravitate towards phones *.* As I type now, the three of them are making animations on their phones. Goodness, my first Flash animation was at age 20?! Maybe write about that next time...

Brotherly love!

Or so I thought. It turned out that Kai ordered Yang to close his eyes and let him guide him along!!! Poor Yang! But before knowing the truth, I was happy haha! I asked Yu what he thought they were doing. He said maybe they were married?! Haha!

This is brotherly love

Think Yang was telling us a story or a dream when Yu was wearing shoes. Yu was so taken that he stopped wearing shoes! I told Yang to step out and talk later coz his story was too interesting! When we all got out, Yang happily continued telling his story to a very willing audience :)

Happy Children's Day!

Happy Children's Day again!

The first was 1 Oct Sunday. Sito and I also had ice cream for the original Children's Day of our childhood :) The second was after their celebration in school on Thursday. They came home so happy with their haul! There was almost no space for their lunch on the dining table... Yang and Yu were still showering. I made their fave lunch that day too - prata with omelette and roast chicken inside.

Happy Kai

He was so happy coz he just had King of Fried Rice and was sipping a big cup of milo before his Chinese tuition. That day, I went to school to send him to tuition via a new route which gave him more time for a proper lunch. 

Digress a bit: The following week, he was way less happy... I decided to meet him there for lunch. But Sito forgot to bring his tuition bag so he had to carry his pencil case, water bottle and tuition file (brought to school to study for tingxie) by hand. So I thought I would meet him at the train station instead of the coffeeshop so that he could drop those things into the bag. I stood at the staircase which he must take. 

But somehow we missed each other - he probably ran by while I was looking at my phone :( I waited a long time and finally went to the coffeeshop where I found a very upset boy :( No time for KOFR so he said I must "cure his soul" next time with KOFR!! Well, next time will be tmr - no school due to PSLE marking so we will all have lunch at home, oops!

And finally, this makes my heart sing :)

Love such times with my boys!

Mid autumn festival

Ok, very late but this has always been one of my fave time of the year - what's not to like when you have yummy mooncakes and nice lanterns?

We signed up for a celebration event by the CC. At only $2 per person, it provided gift packs, snacks and games to keep everyone happy!

We arrived quite early and the snacks were not ready yet so we started with the games. Every game came with snacks which the kids were very happy with. We grabbed the gift packs soon after coz they came with a bag that could hold all the snacks!

Snakes and ladders

Hopscotch

Tic tac toe

We queued quite a bit for muah chee, cotton candy and ice cream. It was relatively easy to grab the hotdog buns and drinks. We went home with lots of yummy stuff! Obviously we didn't watch the shows or participate in the riddles coz we were busy queueing for snacks :p

Cute lanterns lighted our way home :)

This year, the actual day fell on a Friday. We left the kids to watch TV on their regular movie night and left for our date night with a little lantern lighting our way haha! Just nice coz the pathway to HV was changed in the day and we had to walk through a walled path which was kind of dark...

Fries, souffle and coffee at Hoshino

Went to check out the development of the new mall and found the big round moon!

Two days later, Yang suggested exploring the house with the lanterns :)

This year, we didn't eat much mooncakes. We went to the mooncake fair at Taka but bought only one round to snack - 吃爽的 :p - and a box for gifting. Let's stay slim and healthy ya? :p But I have been thinking of making mooncakes for some years (!) now. Maybe next year I should start thinking about this earlier and plan for it!

Yu turns seven!

The baby of the family has turned seven! Sometimes he looks like such a big boy; sometimes he's so baby-ish; and sometimes he just acts cute. 

Fat face look

No matter what, he is growing up so fast. I can't wait to see him grow more and more! But maybe coz he's the last baby, I feel kind of sad that he's growing up already, sighs...

We had a few celebrations for him, just like we did for his brothers. First was a joint celebration with WaiPo. We packed Thai food for lunch and just chatted here and there for a while before having the cake. The kids were very happy coz JiuJiu gave them Netflix and Disney+! 

For strange reasons, Mother and Ah Yee kept standing in the kitchen to chat. My kitchen very nice or my seats not comfortable? Haha!

His 7th and her 77th 

We got a Sara Lee pound cake - so nostalgic coz it used to be a treat in childhood! Um, it's still a treat now coz it's like $7?! I made the chocolate version for way less... To be honest, I have no idea if mine tastes like the real deal as I haven't had it for years! But it's very yummy... 

Sito wants me to make the vanilla version so I chose the plain one for Saturday to try the taste first. It wasn't as nice as I remember it to be - maybe I remember the feeling of a treat and the lovely expectation of cake while waiting for the frozen block to be soft enough to cut :)

Anyway, all except Kai had the cake. Yang had two or three small slices! I was very surprised.

And we missed out on a group shot coz I realised at the last minute that there was no space for my table tripod! I made a note to find a spot for the tripod. But the backdrop of doors and cabinet isn't as nice as our old bookshelf in the old house...

Library books were due so we went to Bishan. We're loving it more with every trip haha! The library is big but not as crazy as the Vivocity one. There's Swensen's for the kids' beloved ice cream. There are Pokemon machines. There's Popular for the kids' essentials and nightmares (assessment books haha!). There's Venus for my cheap toiletries. It's a Capitaland mall with points too! :p

So happy with his ice cream before he discovered there were nuts!

I ended up eating the nuts for him. He also spitted out quite a few before giving up altogether!

I was so trigger happy that I didn't notice his mouth was full of wafer!

Still super game and cute la, this one :) Let them play Pokemon for a while - standard birthday game treat. Then we did some shopping but not all - we gave the value shop outside the mall a miss as we were quite tired! It was almost 8 pm by the time we got home. But got lots of things done, yeah!

Celebrations continued the next day when we went to AhMa's place. No cake coz the kids don't really eat but there were presents! Dinner was Tokyo Shokudo at Vivocity. Didn't roam the mall much as we had to be home early - the kids must rest early as Kai and Yang had English Paper I on Monday!

YeePo's powerful camera took in the whole row

Yu's birthday fell on Monday. I went to Ion to buy their fave doughnuts to make a cake for Yu. I spent 30 min roaming Tangs but bought nothing, very sad. To make my trip more worthwhile, I decided on Tori Go for their lunch instead of getting OCK coz the former is not available near home. Gosh, miss our old mall right downstairs haha!

Happy birthday, Yu!

Yes, found a spot for the tripod! But don't know what weird poses Kai and Yu were making *.* Yang was the sweetest :) He even got a nice pencil for Yu from the school bookshop :)))

For his brothers, we went out for dinner even though their birthdays fell on weekdays. But for Yu, we decided to stay in so his brothers could rest well for Chinese Paper I the next day. The planned pizza dinner become a zi char dinner coz somehow the shop was closed... But ok, Yu had a second doughnut and some popcorn after dinner. 

Just like that, he's on to his eighth year of life. In a flash, he will go to P2! Gosh, slow down, baby!