Together, not together, semi together

There have been many changes this year.

Starting from term 2, we let Kai go to school on his own without having to wait for his brothers who were way slower. Only condition was that he must bid bye bye to me at the door. I only sent him to the bus stop a couple of times when it rained heavily.

In early April, we dismantled the bunk bed as I was always worried about Kai jumping off the ladder and landing too hard on his upper bunk. And Yang's bed board broke, possibly from the kids jumping off the bunk bed onto his bed! So we shifted Yang's bed to Kai's room which became very cramped with two beds. The upper bunk was brought down to become Yang's bed. And Kai started sleeping on the same mattress but on the floor in between his brothers' beds.

All cosy

A couple of weeks on, changed again. I kept bumping into Yang's new bed coz the foot of the bed was high instead of mattress height. And Kai was disturbing his brothers too much. This time, we dismantled Yu's lower bunk totally as it had two poles sticking out. Then Yang's bed was moved inside to become Yu's bed. And we shifted his original bed back. Also replaced the broken bed board. There was a bulk disposal truck downstairs so Sito threw the lower bunk bed away. So Kai slept in his own room on a proper bed on school nights but slept with his brothers otherwise.

With this move, Kai and his brothers woke at different times on school days. 6.00 am for Kai and 10 min later for them. Kai would be out even before his brothers woke!

Along the way, I gave away the floor mattress via Carousell so Kai slept on the mattress topping instead. Still thick enough to sleep on.

Then we had to make space for boxes. Sito dismantled Kai's bed totally. So Kai moved back to sleep with his brothers. This means he has to wake at 6.10 am now. He isn't pleased but really, there is no need to reach school before 6.45 am! So he chose his preferred alarm ringtone, which his brothers don't like... 

Last week, I had enough of Yang and Yu bickering over seats so I had them sit with each other instead of taking turns to sit with me. No need to bicker. This week, we started wearing cloth mask as I'm running low on disposal masks and the usual store has no stock for the white ones.

The Ys sitting together

More changes are coming. Yesterday, I moved clothes from Kai's wardrobe to Yang's wardrobe as his room was starting to smell like the cardboard boxes. Next week, we will start packing so eventually the room will become inaccessible. We're moving soon!

Kai turns 11?!

Where did all the time go??

Kai is around 40kg now and some 152cm tall. We can wear the same shoes and his wrist is the size of mine. His hand is almost as big as mine too. So big now :)

We split up his birthday celebration as he had CCA on his birthday. On Tuesday, we sang a birthday song over a stack of doughnuts. He looked so happy and blew out the candle before making a wish. But I forgot to start the video, argh!

On Wednesday, we headed to Swensen (yes, again!) for dinner right after he and Yang returned home. So much ice cream again :) 

Bought his present last Saturday and all were happy!

Yay to doughnuts!

Firehouse for the birthday boy!

All of us!

I love his smile! He can smile widely like a hyena (I have a deep impression of hyenas in Lion King, nvm whether they indeed laugh in the cartoon...), just like his mama, haha! And when he just smiles quietly, he looks so much like his papa. 

Agree?

The monkey of a younger brother behind Papa looks like Papa with round face. The other brother akan datang...

I love this shot - he realised he once again blew out the candle before making a wish!

Off to fight Pokemon after dinner

Last night, my ulcer was hurting me a lot after fish and chips, oops... So I didn't lie down with them or chat even chat much, and so missed the last time lying down with Kai in his bed in his room in this house, coz Sito dismantled his bed frame this morning! Boxes are coming and we need a place to store packed boxes...

But last night after Yang got up with a tummy ache (but didn't manage to poop), I went to Kai and gave him a little hug. Hope he has had a good day :)

Yang turns nine!

Can't believe precious precious Yang is nine! He's still such a baby! And he still lets me kiss him :) So unlike Kai who refused to let me kiss him since he was nine (though he's less resistant now :p)

Yang found it sad that the holidays were just over when it was his birthday. But we still managed a celebration.

I found it sad he didn't want a cake this time. Papa brought him to choose doughnuts on their way home from school on his birthday. I prepared a candle to stick on the resulting cake stack.

Happy birthday, my Yang Yang!

It being the first week of the term and Yang's birthday week, we didn't do work in the afternoons. Just let them play. Payback will come, haha!

Headed out to Swensen's for dinner. Each boy had a different bowl of ice cream - all free from the membership! They were all running on cold sugar, goodness...

Coz Kai didn't want to move over to our side

And a shot of birthday boy with Papa and Mama

It was Hari Raya Haji two days later so we met the grands for lunch at Star Vista to celebrate Yang's birthday. Char siew noodles for Yang, roast duck for Kai and roast pork for Yu - just nice! Then we went to Macs for an ice cream treat. Yes, ice cream again... We were too indulgent!

Yu nua-ing on AhYe at lunch

The boys took the grands' phones *.*

Yang will take his first exams next term. Big milestone. I'm scared coz he cannot spell or remember Chinese words like Kai or even Yu. But we will try and work hard together! 

Tiring but fun June holidays

Tiring for the parents, fun for the kids and sometimes parents :)

There was Legoland at the start, then bouncy castle, then science centre and cycling, followed by a day trip to JB! 

There was also Fathers' Day in the midst of the holidays. Yang invited a friend over that morning (shifted from Saturday afternoon) so we were so busy that I forgot it was Fathers' Day! Oops... Yang and Yu managed to present their gifts to Papa at the end of the day :)

We started and ended the holidays with a BBQ. Our own BBQs were kind of healthy compared to the many BBQs we had elsewhere :p

There was also the usual Saturday breakfast outside, and random happenings at home..

But it wasn't all play. Every weekday morning that we were home, the boys had to do work. One boy worked under my supervision while the other two worked on their own. Of course, it wasn't possible for the younger ones to work for long without supervision... But yes, we got some work in... Though this is at home and sitting down, it was the most tiring part of the day for me - not easy getting them to work!!

So end of summary. Start of our photos!

Sito's BBQ halibut was very yummy!

Yang must BBQ cooked satay

Sito got stuck among the balls at the bouncy castle!

The pup must hug the hub

Checked out the playground near the expressway finally. Bought a big cup of coconut juice at the pasar malam to bring along. Kai and Yang had it coz too thirsy but Yu refused stubbornly.

Learning about coconuts at the supermarket

Yang waiting for Yu to wake to play with him :)

It was fun!

Then he saw the the plate was pretty gross haha!

Kai spying on Yang....

Escape game! It was so fun!

The staff had to give us hint here :p

We didn't manage to get out within the 13 min but we were very close! The boys wanted to do this again but it was a crowded day so the staff told us nicely to come back another day.

My tiny Yang :)

Best BBQ ever! Free flow drinks and ice cream on top of meat and ramen!

Sito having ice cream float; Yang was very cold!

Very pleased with his ice cream

Yang had to write slowly and nicely for Papa

Yang was the only one who wanted to learn cycling but he gave up after 15 min

He almost got it though! I told Kai he must learn the next time coz he's outgrowing the bikes with learning wheels...!

Pondering over when he could finally cycle? :p

This trip, we saw a man flying a beautiful kite and baby otters! At first from afar, we thought they were squirrels. But they didn't flee when they spotted us. As we got real near, I recognised them as otters. So cute. But we left quickly after a short video in case the mother was around!

All very game and posed for me :)

Lunch was at Macs as usual. We packed cai fan for dinner and let the boys have their Friday movie while we went for a quick date night downstairs :)

Us with mango shaved ice

We also had an egg tart and a mini chicken pie before the dessert coz I smelled something really cheesy and nice... I terrorised the poor boy behind the counter...

mf: What's that marvellous smell I'm smelling?

Poor boy: What marvellous??

mf: What just came out of the oven?

Poor boy: Egg tarts

But it turned out that they were cheese tarts so I ordered wrongly *.* Sito got me the cheese tart the next day though :) Verdict: the smell was more powerful than the taste.

We also did a lot of renovation stuff these few weeks. Sito went a few times to await delivery and spoke with the carpenter, electrician, aircon guy, etc. We also went to get curtains at IMM after a few MIA from WhatsApp enquiries. We ended up getting blinds!

Went to two shops and both said that blinds are better than curtains for half height windows and windows that don't cover the whole wall. We opted for easy to clean blinds at the second shop which quoted a few hundred dollars cheaper. The boys had their fill of phone games *.*

No time for Daiso coz we wanted to catch happy hour at Paradise Dynasty! But the kids had too much candy at the curtain shop so didn't eat as much as they did the past few times.

Must sit like this

Yang can use chopsticks only when it comes to XLB :p

Ice kacang for dessert!

Notice something strange? In our childhood, Sito and I had ice kacang with creamy corn on top and less creamy red bean under the ice; this was totally opposite with creamy red bean on top and corn niblets underneath!

On the last Monday of the school holidays, Sito took a recce trip to JB using public transport. It was very smooth and he came home with a lot of yummy piah. So that Thursday, all of us hopped on bus 160 to JB!

There was a counter for families with children below 12 at the JB side. So we managed to skip the longer queues at the general counters.

Lunch was Ho Seng Kee - yummy wantan noodles! The kids were too busy watching Mr Bean on TV so we ate for a really long time... So no time to squeeze in a foot massage before movie.

Mixue ice cream is so creamy!

And Kai looked so happy with ice cream! Yang didn't like it though so the parents ate his :p Walked around the mall and bought a book from Popular - they have more Chinese books than in SG and we can use our Popular card here too!

Kai was so happy again with movie with popcorn and a drink!

Managed to give our feet some therapy after the movie. The boys got their phones as usual. All happy :)

There was a football fest at the atrium so we redeemed passes with our receipts. Couldn't let them play the real deal coz the kids inside all looked very good! I feared for my kids haha! So they played foosball. There were other games too but no time. I even made a dash for the bakery while they played!

Kai and Yang won! But it was a close match.

Dinner was at Meng Meng roasted duck coz (1) Japanese place claimed their staff were on a break at 530 pm and food could take 20-30 min to arrive; (2) Canton-I ran out of too many items; and (3) our receipts also gave us Meng Meng vouchers. And it was a good choice! The roast duck, char siew and roast pork combi worked great for the kids. In fact, we had to order more roast pork!

Next was arcade time. No time to go supermarket to get candy and Kai was very upset. But I had a tummy ache so arcade was great - I could go to the toilet! 

The thing about Malaysia is that they don't have toilet paper in the cubicles *.* Even the common roll was empty! I had one piece of tissue paper on me. Yes, very sad. Thankfully, it was enough.

But as we made our way to the checkpoint, I had to go again! I grabbed the big pack from the kiddy bag on Sito and made a dash for another toilet. Bad time to have diarrhoea *.*

Yang dozed off - but he claimed he was just pretending :p

It was a good 12 hours from beginning to end. Not too tiring. And we did so much despite three hours spent on travelling and immigration. Actually the actual travelling was short. If we had gone to Jewel, it would be three full hours of travelling!

And we did not spend much - it was the cost of two dinner in SG, but we had two good meals, watched a movie with snacks, had a foot massage and bought breakfast for the next two days. Oh, and we bought piah too - night time snack for us :p

On the last weekday of the school holidays, we packed the school bags and did some different work...

Time to rid the cabinets of beyblade marks!

Also write down the most enjoyable parts of the term break to read out at dinner time

Lunch was at Bangkit, after which they had a haircut, just in time for school reopening. It rained briefly while we were eating but things dried up after the haircut so we went to two playgrounds.

Then must buy them drinks coz I didn't buy for lunch; brought their bottles instead

The hair is so much neater comparing the above two photos of three heads! :p

Kai and Yang went home to poop while Yu helped with grocery shopping :)

Our regular BBQ chef, this time making soy sauce prawns

The prawns were a keeper! Really finger licking good! But smoke got in his eyes and I didn't wear glasses so didn't know the photo caught him blinking!! 

Love this series of photos showing them playing monkey with JiuJiu. Check out their expressions!

Yes it was raining intermittently but they had a lot of fun splashing about. Wet anyway :p Got them out when the rain got a bit heavier and they went home on their own to shower - the power of growing up!

And the rest just sat around to chat, eat and watch the kids

Invited Ah Yee as well. But didn't manage to chat much with her. Was thinking of throwing the kids' clothes in washer and returning to the BBQ but Mother said go home *.*

So we went home to find that Yang had pooped it all out! 10 days!! The poop stayed in the toilet overnight before it could be flushed away, yucks... Yu also had a lot of poop while at the pool - brought him to the toilet near the pool and stayed with him while he pooped or farted almost continuously for 10 min! Ok, better out than in... But can I be let off this kiddy poop business soon?!