This Christmas

My boys are fortunate to earn themselves a bags of new toys this Christmas again. Caden has been counting down to this day since beginning of Dec and kept asking, "Mummy, how many more days to Christmas?" I will help him by telling him that, "oh, it's another 22 days.." and the countdown began. He got more excited as each day closed and as the number of days to Christmas becomes shorter. On the eve of Christmas, before we both left for work, Caden suddenly woke up and asked, "Mummy is today the Christmas eve?" Caden and Ethan both knew that they are getting a Metal Fight beyblade from Samuel and will get to battle together with that metal spin top.

They both earn themselves transformers toy from Uncle Alan, Ben 10 stuff from Uncle Brian and Auntie Winnie and best of all the metal fight beyblades from Ah Gu. These adds to their load of boxes of toys at home. We have been conscious about the amount of toys given to the boys and not be overly pampered. This year, I have bought them on the basis that they use their reward stars to claim and only 1 present that did not require any deduction of their stars was their birthday presents.

I was just telling my ah lou that I still have memories when I was five. He was amazed because he cannot even recall how he was like when he was five years old. I told him that at Caden's age, I have already lost my father from cancer. It was quite horrid to think that at Caden's age, either one of us were not to be around. And obviously I didn't have the luxury of having many toys to accompany me during my childhood. I only had a barbie doll and a bicycle plus some paper cut-out dolls to keep me occupied.

Today's children are really well-pampered. And certainly, Christmas is the time of the year that they will look forward to every year.

Mummy's last day of block leave

Today is my last day of block leave. PaPa has already returned to work and my mil had to attend to some praying matters during the day so the house is left with only the boys plus me. I got the boys to eat their breakfast as usual and watch a fair bit of TV programmes. At 10am, I started them with their homework and told them that they can play their computer online games as soon as they finished what I have assigned.

The boys are looking serious with their assignments





Ethan's homework is just to trace the dotted lines to improve his writing skills


The boys did quite well and complete the sections quickly knowing that they will gain more time by doing so. I gave them about an hour to play on the laptop and thereafter we break for lunch at 12pm.

Ethan was tired halfway through his lunch and ask to take his afternoon nap (his usual excuses again). I brought Caden to the supermarket at Punggol plaza after his lunch for some groceries top-up. It was nearly 3pm by the time we reached home and lil Ethan was just awake.

I got Caden to practise his piano while Ethan continues with his homework as his brother plays the instrument. The boys then got themselves some chips after their assignments are completed and play with their toys. As one of the finale reward, I allowed them to play on the laptop once again for abt an hour before we break away for their shower and dinner.

It was quite a fulfilling day as I managed to get the boys do some work without much resistance. And I even got some time for myself to watch amazing race on AXN and 2 episodes of my fav Sat Korean shows (just didn't get enough!).

Tom onwards, I will be spending long hours again in office.. adieu to my homemaker life (minus housework ;))

Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon

I signed the 2 boys up for kids dash this year. It's Caden's 2nd attempt at the kids dash while it's Ethan's maiden marathon event.

As the roads in town were majorly closed for this year's marathon, we decided to park near my office and take the circle line down to esplanade station to reach the starting point (we were fairly late this morning so did not have the time to visit the games booth as planned. Ethan rarely takes the public transport and was finding it fun to ride the train.



the race was scheduled to start at 1045am and 11am for both Caden and Ethan respectively (they belong to different age groups with different start times). We decided to defer Caden's run to start with Ethan so that both brothers can do the run together at the same time and motivate each other. The sun was scorching hot during that time and Ethan started to show signs of tiredness after waiting for 15minutes (he even had to sit on my legs when we pose for pictures!).





Lagi sian waiting for his turn


Finally the race started and PaPa managed to get Ethan start running with the rest of the kids - btw, throughout the 750m distance, this is the only stretch he ran (the rest of the journey was carried by PaPa)


Caden has been conditioned by Mummy prior to her ankle injury and had managed to cover almost 70% of the distance via running - I am so proud of his determination although I need to admit it's not easy given the humidity at that time (11plus am) and his pace is comparable to my injured ankle pace.

Running with his brother


On his own when DiDi cannot manage to keep up with the pace



Still hanging strong


Making his last dash to the finishing line



Sweet boy looking back and see how his DiDi is doing (or rather PaPa) before crossing the final line


the 2 boys got their rewards at the games booth after the run



We also had a Polaroid taken at the resorts world booth as a bonus

SCB Marathon Carbo lunch at Fullerton Hotel

On Saturday, Mummy has signed up for the annual carbo lunch organised by her bank held at Fullerton hotel. There were some kids activities included before the lunch treat so it enticed mummy to sign up both Caden and Ethan for the event.

Ethan and Caden gamely went to get some painting done at the face-painting booth, after Reuben took the lead to be the first to get his artwork done. Ethan chose a Batman logo while Caden picked his Transformer logo. Rachel was brave enough to pick a face mask which was done around her eyes.

The kids were seriously flipping through the samples while Caden had already had in mind what he wanted




Ethan went first with his artwork



Ethan showing off his new found powers


Caden with his Transformer energy


The 2 boys posing for the official cameraman while PaPa took a shot from behind


Rachel with her half-done face mask


After the so-so carbo lunch, we decided to let the boys queued up for their long awaited ballons and they were kept occupied with the gameboy gadget that the boy in front of them was playing

happy faces displayed after waiting for almost 20minutes

Wednesday - Ikea and Orchard night out

We planned a trip to Ikea tampines today as we needed to order the cooker hob to replace our existing one (all things in the house started to break down after 7 years, so far we had recently replaced washing machine, TV, laptop in the last 5 months). We brought Kimi along as she likes to tag along with us during this week when we are on leave.

We decided to let the kids play at the Ikea smallworld (some fun land where parents deposit their children while they do their shopping in peace). Since Ethan is still quite small and it's the first time that he's playing without any adult supervision by his side, PaPa glued his eyes on the younger one the moment he was admitted to the fun land (while Mummy goes shop around the store). The children had a great time playing in the place and were perspiring after abt 40mins when PaPa decided that time is up.

While waiting for their turn - it was quite a long wait considering it's a weekday - it's amazing how many parents are also on leave at the same time!






Ethan started to play iphone again as his comfort pastime-r


We went to orchard for a dinner and stroll after PaPa's dental appt at Paragon. This year's xmas theme is blue and the ambience's looks fairly romantic. But to be honest, after going through so many years on orchard xmas lighting, somehow, I don't see any spectacular displays on shopping malls for me to take a picture as memento.

Dinner at Din Tai Fung - Caden's fav place - he's always happy whenever we decided to eat our meals there



I never had a proper picture with Ethan, he's always cheeky with funny expressions whenever we posed for a pic

refusing to eat after half a bowl of rice, appetite's has been failing lately



We had hokkaido ice-cream at ngee ann city after our dinner. The texture is kinda of special - fairly soft and not too sweet (which makes this ice-cream feels very much less sinful!) but expensive! Worth the try though. Caden and Ethan were given the 2 spoons to take control and they are generous and thoughtful throughout the whole session to share the ice-cream with us (by feeding us with their spoons).





Caden was completely knocked out halfway through and PaPa had to carry him back from taka to wisma carpark - given his weight now, it has been a real challenge to complete this task for the night!

Monday - Trip to Sentosa!

It has been quite some time since we hit to the beach and on our first day of holidays, we went to sentosa for some sand building!





Ethan as usual, was so afraid of the water currents and wanted to stay far away from the coastline. Caden was more adventurous and asked his PaPa to bring him to get water and at the same time jumped around when the current comes close.

The weather turned out to be another disappointment when it started drizzling after we were out at the beach for an hour. We quickly head towards the shelter nearby and the boys started to play with the water spouts with other children who are seeking the shelter too.




As the rain got heavier, we decided to call it a day and get the boys changed. After their shower, the rain became heavier and we had to hide in the shelter just outside the toilet with some blangladesh workers. We waited for some time for the rain to be less heavy (but it was still fairly heavy) and braved through the storm to get to the carpark - we only had one small brolly and 2 raincoats for the boys (thankfully we packed in the raincoats seconds before we leave home).


We had lunch at Sentosa golf club and decided to take a stroll around resorts world area. I concluded that it was fairly populated with lots of tourists (mostly with the hidden agenda) now and I didn't like the mix of the crowd in that area. I won't be considering any nights stay at any of the resorts world hotel. Probably we will check out Rasa Sentosa once again when it reopens after the revamp.

It was quite a disappointing trip since we paid a lot to get into the island and also incur high charges for carpark fees. We didn't get a chance to ride the luge due to weather conditions and it will be a long time again the next time we check into Sentosa.