The BFF's Birthday

Hubs and I find it so cute that ever since Bubs started kindergarten, he has a girlfriend. They play together and she looks out for him when older kids pick on him. He talks about S non stop and once, our conversation went something like this:

Me: Who is prettier, Mummy or S?
Bubs: S
Me: Why???
Bubs: Because I love S

So he was more than thrilled to be invited for her birthday party at the Parkroyal pool side. All of the kids quickly changed into their bathers before plunging in, splashing at each other, using water guns. I'd never seen Bubs so look animated and happy to be hanging out with his pals before!

 

Yes, this was me - the only mum that kept her head above the water, only because I was wearing contact lenses and didn't want to risk losing them.

The pinata was a great hit (pun intended) with all the kids and yes, Frozen is very much in trend this season. This pinata was especially tough to break open.The birthday girl tried it initially with a blindfold, then yanked it off and continued whacking at it. Bubs, being the eager beaver he was, tried to help but unfortunately stood just rightttttttt behind the stick and ... you could imagine what happened next. I brought the poor, wailing mite off to a corner to console him and Hubs said S's dad took over the whacking of the pinata and even then, it took him quite an effort to break it!

Look at how beautiful the Frozen birthday cake was - the birthday girl was absolutely fascinated with it. All of the kids were crowding around the cake and singing Let it Go at the top of their voices. Bubs went a lil nuts at this point, he wailed because S got all the presents and he even ripped the wrapping off one *face palm moment* I'm starting to realise that kindergarten teachers are very underpaid ...

Selamat Hari Raya 2014

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Hari Raya! Have fun with your loved ones this festive season :D

The Lil Ipoh Getaway

When the going gets tough ... we pack our things up and head on another Ipoh getaway. Good food, affordable accommodation and little to no traffic jams - can you believe there are traffic police directing traffic outside schools after classes?  We were impressed at how organised it was.

The Ibis hotel was our home for 24 hours and it reminded me of Ikea in a way: cheap, chic and cheerful. I loved the room we got this time, it had tall floor to ceiling windows in both the bedroom and bathroom that lets in beautiful sunshine; the most comfy bed that felt like we were sleeping on soft and puffy clouds.

We peeked out of the windows and saw this charming courtyard that had a doggy in it.

After Bubs was completely worn out with the Nickelodeon channel (countless episodes of Sponge Bob!), he passed out. Hubs and I then savoured the whole packet of Adriano Zumbo salted caramel Tim Tams between ourselves while I caught up on a Maeve Binchy book, courtesy of Fairy Godma.

At night, we headed to the rooftop bar and were struck by how magical it was. The floors looked like they had tiny stars embedded within the wooden planks and we had a nice view of the city lights twinkling in the darkness.

We've been meaning to try the food at Purple Cane tea house for a while so we were happy that we finally located the building this time around. For visitors to Ipoh, take note of the night market just outside so you might need to park your car a few streets away.

 

Most of the items on the menu are tea infused, including the soups and desserts. I think we went a little overboard during ordering ... bak kut teh chicken noodles, black tea chicken noodles, tea smoked duck complete with thin slivers of pancakes, cucumbers and spring onions, fried sweet potato balls and lychee tea infused soya bean milk with glutinous rice balls.

The tea based soups were pleasant on the palate but Hubs and I felt that a stronger herbal taste would better complement them. The tea smoked duck was a tad on the dry side though. We absolutely loved the fried sweet potato balls - these have to be the best I'd ever had! It was served with green tea infused mayonnaise which Hubs kept calling wasabi mayo. The highlight of the night was definitely the dessert: fat, chewy glutinous rice balls stuffed generously with sweet, sticky black sesame paste and in a bowl of hot soya milk that had hints of lychee and rose ... we were all fighting each other for these!

 

No trip to Ipoh is complete without a dessert pit stop at Burps & Giggles, Buku 555 or Missing Marbles.

People, let me introduce you to the best thing this year: a brioche stuffed with chocolate orgasm (their name, not mine!) ice cream. Remember back when your mum would take a slice of Gardenia bread and put some ice cream in? Buku 555's version is like that, but up a few notches with its heavenly sweet brioche and the decadent ice cream.

We took Bubs for an old fashioned Indian barber hair cut at the New Star salon located just behind Burps & Giggles. Interestingly enough, the barber who's in his 70s, has been cutting hair for over 50 years and the old salon was at the Buku 555 cafe. It brought back lots of happy memories for Hubs who went to Indian barbers for haircuts as a kid. I was so fascinated with the old fashioned chair and if you are wondering how Bubs suddenly became so tall, the barber brought out a booster plank to place across the chair, talk about ingenious :)

Bub's Works of Art

I've been trying to do book themed activities with Bubs. For a quick bedtime story/quick activity, I read out Harold and the Purple Crayon, which was one of our favourite books, while I provided him with a sheet of blank paper and a purple crayon. I read out the story slowly while encouraging him to sketch along as well. He was so excited about drawing out his favourite scenes: this one is of the dragon guarding the apple tree and Harold's sailboat.

On days where Bubs doesn't attend kindy, I pack a mini activity kit for him to bring over to his Por Por's  (grandmother) and when he comes home, he proudly shows me what he has done. The way he completed this maze made my jaw drop. I was debating with Hubs that Bubs should have drawn the line inside the maze while Hubs pointed out (I hate it when he's right) that the instructions did not specifically mention that you couldn't go out of the maze. It comes to a point where I've to finally admit - my kid is a lot smarter than me, LOL.

Weekend Snaps

A peek into what we were up to during the weekend :)

 

We went to a pre school's open day and were blown away by the sumptuous learning materials - it was the first time I ever saw a light table being used in a Penang kindergarten. I was in love with the books they had, the wooden building blocks and their methods. The teachers were very warm and invited Bubs to have a go at the outdoor art centre. He put on a smock and went straight to business. This is his painting (on canvas, no less!) of the ocean, a whale, a helicopter and the sun shinning :)

Met up with Glam Girl at Brown Pocket where we caught up on a girly chat over yummy waffles and pancakes. Her pink dress was so cute and summery that a little toddler girl couldn't help but smile at Glam Girl :D

 

 

We popped by Bon Odori at the Esplanade for a while and regretted that we didn't join the rest of the crowds in bringing a picnic mat and snacks. There were Japanese dancers and drum performances on the stage, stalls filled with heaps of people. Look at the ginormous balloons that they had!

 

It's been a while since we headed to Occupy Beach Street. This time around, there were less events but the number of cyclists and rollerskaters were still plentiful. We found a stall making dragon beard candy and couldn't resist standing there to watch the skillful guy in action.

Back when Bubs was a baby, one of his favourite things to do was to slam pots and pans together into what he thought was a symphony. This uncle took it to a whole new level by constructing a drum kit from old tins in aid of charity.

MH17

Image credit: Source unknown, from Facebook

The sky is deep, the sky is dark, 

The light of stars is so damn stark. 

When I look up, I fill with fear. 

If all we have is what lies here, 

this lonely world, this troubled place, 

then cold dead stars and empty space . . . 

Well, I see no reason to persevere, 

no reason to laugh or shed a tear, 

no reason to sleep or ever to wake, 

no promises to keep, and none to make. 

And so at night I still raise my eyes to study the clear but mysterious skies -- 

that arch above us, as cold as stone. 

Are you there, God? Are we alone?

The Book of Counted Sorrows

Family Day

Bub's kindy had a family day at the Adventure Zone and it was our first time there. It's in between Rasa Sayang and Golden Sands hotels and in a building of its own outside. The hotel staff were so friendly, it was pouring cats and dogs and a very nice guy carried an umbrella to escort Bubs and me over.

Ok, I totally freaked out when I saw how massive it was inside and the scale of the slides inside. I learned 2 things today: kids are naturally fearless and my love for Bubs has no bounds - the kid just raced around and being paranoid me, envisioning broken limbs - I zipped behind him shrieking "waiiiiit for meeeee!" even though I was petrified and breathless.



I kid you not - look at how steep this slope was. Bubs agilely climbed down  in a whiz while when I fell down on my butt. The cheeky monkey waved bye to me before clambering up the other side, leaving me to scurry around for a handhold to climb up!





Bubs is so much more of a daredevil than me. He eagerly tugged Hubs, who was more game than me, to accompany him on the giant slides. There are attendants at the top to keep an eye on the people whooshing down and when I saw Bubs enjoying himself, I pestered him to join me for a ride down. Hubs laughed at the contrast on our faces - Bub's face was filled with exhilaration while I had an eeek look plastered on mine the whole time I was in there.



There is a smaller and "tamer" area for toddlers with baby slides, smaller enclosed spaces and the cutest ball pit that had jets of air for the balls to float on. At the side of the area is a play kitchen complete with plastic food.

 I've to say - the place is very cleverly designed and despite my fears, every single inch of the surface is padded to break any falls. There were rope walks, crawling through tight spaces, slides of all kinds of heights. After what seemed to me to be a long while, I eventually loosened up and - dare I even say this - had fun myself? ;) Definitely more satisfying than a gym workout and my creaky old body ached the next day!

My Weird Lil Bubs

I'm starting to truly realise how weird Bubs can be when it comes to Lego, or is that his creativity unleashed?

"Mummy, look at my Lego house!" Bubs exclaimed in excitement as he ran towards me carrying one of his creations.

I admired it from all angles, poked a few bricks and felt very smug. My baby built his own Lego house, he's bound to an architectural genius. He's bound to get an Aga Khan award for architecture someday.

"Bubs, what are these?"

"Oh, their heads." He shrugged nonchalantly. 

"Whaaaa?!"

"And see, Mummy, this man has 4 arms!"

Okay, that is one very weird kid ;)

Nathan's Birthday Party

It was Nathan's birthday party and Bubs was thrilled to be invited. Food, fun, an awesome cake ... the stuff that lil kids' dreams are made of ;) The moment we stepped into the garden, my jaw dropped - a bouncy castle plus a fun sand art corner? The stuff my dreams are made of! Kelly pointed out a blog reader to me but I was frozen with shyness and didn't go over to say hi :( In case you're reading this - I'm sorry and thank you so much for reading the blog!

Bubs started out at the sand art stand. He chose a picture of a tank *rolls eyes* (how very Bubs) and I helped him peel off the stickers. I asked him what colours he wanted each panel to be and we walked around the stands to pick the colours.

He really enjoyed deliberating over the choices of colours, sprinkling them onto the picture and then carefully shaking the excess sand off.



Ta-daa!


After he saw more children having fun on the bouncy castle, he plucked up his courage to join them. He ran, he screamed, he bounced up and down the slide.



Looks like an innocent, inflatable arch, no? Until some kid walks past it, then all of them would gang up together to jump onto the arch to squash the poor, unsuspecting victim, LOL. 



They were all enthralled with Nathan's very colourful cake and so excited, they sang Happy Birthday in 3 different languages, definitely a talented bunch :D After all the food and exercise he got that evening, Bubs fell asleep right on the dot at bedtime. Win-win for all!

Caught Red Handed

I've been reallllllly S L O W with posts because I'm taking a short business course and the assignments, geez, it's been a long time since I've last used Microsoft Word. The last time I typed out a 2,500 word essay was ...

• Facebook wasn't even invented yet - I feel ancient admitting this
• No Youtube - there weren't even built in webcams on laptops
• There were far too few fashion/lifestyle blogs - less reason to procrastinate
• I could burn the midnight oil, sleep through morning and then groggily wake up, turn on extra loud music before working on assignments again - these days, I've Bubs jumping on the bed "Wake up Sleepyhead Mummy! Rise and shine!"
• Housework was only done when we ran out of cutlery and clean plates - probably the only unchanged thing here ;) 

Hubs took pity on me and offered to keep Bubs occupied for a couple of hours so I could focus on the assignment. After a few minutes, Hubs sneakily poked his head around the door, glanced at my screen and shouted "Heyyy, you're not working, you're on Facebook again!"

Opppps :)

Mixed Medium

We have a bunch of stubby lil crayons that were getting too short for Bubs to use comfortably so I was very inspired with this post to make full use of them.

You'll need:
Cereal box
Aluminum foil
Paints
Crayon stubs
Grater
Oven - a toaster oven would work fine too if your canvas is trimmed smaller to fit in

Cut out one panel of the cereal box and wrap it with foil. Bubs started painting on the shiny surface and was enthralled with it as it was so different from plain ol' white paper.

My little artist hard at work :) I bought a pot of white paint so he found out that mixing white into colours makes them lighter, so we ended up with pastel colours on his foil canvas.

Ready to start grating them crayons!

Hubs refused to let me use the cheese grater for fear I'd end up poisoning the whole household ;) So I used Bub's play dough plastic palette knife to painstakingly chop them up into tiny chunks.

Bubs then sprinkled them all over his work of art, taking care not to get them too close to the sides.

Bubs surveying the finished results with satisfaction before I pop it into the oven. I turned the oven on the lowest temperature setting and set it for about 5 mins.

Ta - daaa :)