30 Jan 2012 - Jerlene got a new school bag

As Javier is going to school in 2 days time, we decided to let Javier take over Jerlene's current trolley bag and we bought a new backpack for Jerlene. She's so excited that she will be carrying her new backpack to school today.

And yes, it's Jerlene's favourite Strawberry Shortcake backpack. We bought it at Toys-R-Us.

29 Jan 2012 - Have fun with bubbles

After the lion dance performance, Jerlene, Javier and their two cousins were having fun playing with bubbles along the corridor. Jerlene enjoyed blowing out bubbles while Javier were busy catching them. It's great to see the kids having fun!

It makes me feel sad for some school kids when I heard that there are schools which gave their students lots of homework during this Lunar New Year holidays. What is this? Can't they just give the kids a break? Must they really be so competitive? What's wrong with our educational system? Sigh...........

29 Jan 2012 - Lion Dance on 人日

Today is the 7th day of Lunar New Year, which in Chinese culture, the birthday of all mankind. Javier would like to say 恭喜恭喜 to all!

We planned to go to my sister's place as there will be lion dance in the evening. Before the lion dance troupe arrived, my brother-in-law and his brother has created a dragon using fruits, vegetables and mineral water cups. It's very innovative.

Take a closer look at the below picture. The dragon head is mainly made up of pineapples, with antler made up of carrots, eyes made up of tomatoes, claws made up of chilli pepper and body made up of mineral water cup. The reason for using mineral water as the body is because this year is the Year of the Water Dragon!

At around 5pm, the lion dance troupe arrived. The kids were not afraid of the lion. Neither were they affected by the loud sound from the traditional Chinese drums and cymbals.

At the end of the performance, four numbers appeared on the floor. Different people may read the numbers differently. Based on what our heart and mind told us, we went to buy 4D at the nearby Singapore Pools outlet. Huat ah!

29 Jan 2012 - Happycall pot

Recently there is a cooking pot called Happycall double pan (see below pic) which became quite popular, at least among my colleagues. At least 4-5 of my colleagues started buying it one after another. It was advertised on TV and so far all the reviews seem to be very good. In fact, Tracy had just made an online purchase few days back.

As of today, the pot has not been delivered to us yet but Jerlene showed us something that surprised us. We were preparing to go to my sis place and suddenly, she came into our room and showed us her cooking pot. Notice the pot (made up of two flat pan) that she held in her hand below? Doesn't it look exactly like the Happycall pot? I am quite sure she had not seen the commercial ad on TV, or seen the pot anywhere else. She really took us by surprise with her innovation. :-)

25 Jan 2012 - Happy Birthday, Jerlene!

Jerlene is 5 years old today! As most of the bakeries were still close on this 3rd day of CNY, I had already prepared Jerlene that she will not be having birthday cake in school. However, she brought some goodies bags to school to give out to her classmates. These goodies bags were all filled and packed by Jerlene herself. All we did is to buy her the bags and goodies. She's very systematic. She organized the bags into two groups, one for the boys and one for the girls. Then the content in the bags were filled up accordingly. And she did it so fast.......makes me think that she had this all planned out for quite sometime.

I knocked off from work slightly earlier today to fetch her from school. We then went to Nex to wait for Tracy before giving Jerlene an ice cream treat. Great to see her enjoyed it so much.

Before we left the place, we decided to give a last try to look for a cake for Jerlene. We managed to buy a small Angry Bird cake for her at Polar Express. We sang birthday song for her at home before Jerlene cut the cake by herself.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JERLENE!

24 Jan 2012 - CNY Day 2

On day two of CNY, while the kids were still sleeping, Tracy and me went to look for a place to have our breakfast. Near our place, there is a small retail building called The Greenwich Village, which is newly opened. We decided to go there to try our luck and surprisingly, Toastbox was opened. We had Mee Rebus and Peanut Toast for our breakfast.

Let's hope luck is on us in this year of dragon as we were seated on Table 8 and our breakfast cost us exactly $8.80. Huat ah!!!!!!

23 Jan 2012 - Happy Lunar New Year to ALL!

恭喜发财！

The year of dragon has arrived and hope that there will be peace everywhere. Take a look at the first sun rise in the dragon year, which seems peaceful.

Jerlene woke up quite early today and got herself ready for the New Year. First thing she requested was to tie up her hair. Pretty girl!

We only went to 拜年 in the evening. And below are my little princess and prince with their CNY clothes. Lovely and sweet.

20 Jan 2012 - CNY celebration in Childcare

There was a Chinese New Year celebration at Jerlene's childcare and every kids went with their party clothes. Jerlene woke up early today and got herself ready for the celebration. She chose her own clothes and reminded us to give her two mandarin oranges so that she can exchange them with her classmate during the celebration. 3 more days to CNY.........

15 Jan 2012 - Early Reunion Dinner

We had an early reunion dinner today as my parents will not be around on Chinese New Year eve. As usual, we had our 捞鱼生 session to begin with. The kids joined in and Jerlene loves the crispy cookie, which we call 片地黄金. This year, CNY is so early and to many people, it seems to be very rush. It's going to be a short one too as I am going to start work on the 3rd day of Dragon Year.

12 Jan 2012 - Back to SG

My course ended today and it's so good to be at home with my family. Jerlene and Javier were very excited when they saw me. They kept hugging me and it felt GREAT! Sweet....... :-) This post is short but it means A LOT......at least to me.......

10 Jan 2012 - Away for 3 days

Starting from today, I am sent for a 3 days course in Johor Bahru. I'll be staying in Mutiara Hotel where the course was being held. We reached the hotel at about 10:30am and went straight to the conference room for our course. In the evening after the course, I went to a nearby KSL City shopping mall to buy some Chinese New Year goodies. When I went back to my hotel room, I was surprised to see that I was able to get connected to a Singtel network. As such, I called back home and had a long chat with Tracy and Jerlene. This will be the longest stretch where I was away from Jerlene......

Below are the views from the hotel.

4 Jan 2012 - Pneumococcal Vaccination for Javier

Javier had already taken all the compulsory vaccination and a few optional ones quite sometimes ago. As Javier is going to childcare next month, I decided to let Javier have the last jab, pneumococcal vaccination. For this jab, Javier only require one dosage as he's above 2 years old. For kids below 2 years old, he will have to take 2 dosages.

I was very worried that Javier will scream and shout because he has always been very afraid of visiting a clinic. Today he seems a bit calm and we had sweets and toys to distract him. Surprisingly when the doctor asked him to lie down on the bed, he obediently did so. The moment the needle poked into his thigh, he immediately frowned and started crying. Two seconds later and it's done. I quickly carried and consoled him with his favourite sweets. In less than a minute, he stopped crying and this was much easier than I thought.

Great job, Javier, You are a big boy now! :-)

2 Jan 2012 - Row row row your boat......

It's public holiday today and we went down for our first swim of the year. We bought Jerlene a new swimsuit and she's so eager to try it out. Once in the pool, both Jerlene and Javier started singing "Row Row Row Your Boat". Javier was so funny as he sang faster and faster till no one could understand what he's singing.......and the ending note is a super high pitch scream! :-)

1 Jan 2012 - HAPPY 2012!

Another year has passed and this will be my 5th year blogging. I really cannot imagine how I can have such discipline to keep on doing this. Over the years, there were times when I seriously considering giving up as this really took quite a bit of my time. However, whenever I am with my little angels, I just cannot stop capturing those memorable moments. That gave me the energy to continue and it always make me smile when I look back at those postings few years back.

Anyway, for my first posting in 2012, I will present to you a video of Jerlene's year end concert. The previous video that I've posted sometimes back was taken by me using my "lousy" iPhone. The video below was taken by the professional videographer on the day of concert. I have edited and filtered only those moments where Jerlene was involved. So enjoy........and Happy New Year to ALL!