Visit to the Yishun Park for some childhood game... marbles

My dear hubby is always full of ideas for the kids and this makes me headache!!! And recently he bought a pack of marbles, saying want to teach Adwin how to play his childhood game of shoot marbles! So here we are, shooting marbles at the park opposite our marketplace! And I must say, my Adwin is good!! And this was never my childhood game! So my first time playing with my boy!!

A blur selfie of us with my new S5, one would like how well I know to use my S5!!! LOL...

The series of photos shown here proofs how naughty and cheeky my Alvan is!! He had purposely looked elsewhere knowing mummy was taking photos of him!!!

See my super expressive boy!  And how surprised was the daddy... LOL...

My other 2 super expressive kids again... And see how much they love sand!!  And a super ungirly Ashley!! Really dunno how to teach my girl to be graceful and girl like!!! Sigh...

And really lucky to be able to see the play and capturing all the cute expressions on them!! Like what many mummies would say, children only had the 'oh so cute' phase once!! So am shoring whenever and wherever am with them and documenting them down so they can slowly read and enjoy the pictures when they grow up and not going thru books of Albums wondering how old were they and where did they go?? 

My recent bake...

I had been baking quite a bit recently... as I saw some simple cake recipes online and had also joined a group on Facebook named Singapore home cook food,  and many ladies and some men had took really good shots of their food which somehow entice me to try out the recipes!!

First time me baking pandan cake from scratch!  The last round I had tried using premix and it was a flop!  But somehow after baking the Japanese cheesecake twice, I had mastered the egg white beating into top peak form and with that, my pandan cupcake was really soft and yummy!!

Here's the recipe I used: http://kitchentigress.blogspot.sg/2013/08/pandan-chiffon-cupcakes-video-recipe.html?m=1

Give it a try if you have the time and enjoy baking!! It's worth the effort especially when the one eating says nice! :)

The other bake I had wanted to try on was the Magic Custard cake, but guess I failed in it... as my cake did not give me the 3 layers but 2, lucky it was still very tasty! :p I guess it failed due to my leaking pan! After pouring the mix into my pan, it leaked!! So, the mix was somehow messy... I shall find a time to try this again as my Ashley had been supportive to be eating it and tell me it's yummy! 

And here's the link to the recipe: http://bakingtaitai.blogspot.sg/2014/05/magic-custard-cake.html?m=1#more

My Mother's Day 2014

I always find a year passes really quickly. It's Mother's Day again and this is my 9th Mother's Day celebration, meaning my girl is turning 9th this year... Really fast, very quickly I'll be dealing with her teenage years and problems... 

Somehow, only after becoming a mother myself, do I learn to appreciate what my mother had done for me and also understood why she had done things in a certain manner. I somehow find that she had given me much trusts during my childhood and teenage years. I remembered going to school on my own starting from Primary years, taking school bus on my own, be in the primary school on first day on my own, doing homework and revision on my own. My parents never asked if there's homework for the day, they never asked when were my exams. They never knew what streaming was all about and never asked what I had for recess nor would they mind how many marks I got for my exams! All assessment books were sourced for and bought by my own! Those were the times and I would also had to worry about my younger sister and youngest brother's studies. Telling my brother what to expect if they didn't fare well for the exams, which school were better for them, etc... Unlike what my children were going through now, seems like me and WL were the ones going to school and not them!! We would worry for their coming exams, whether they had done their homework for the day! And we also need to attend workshops organized by the school and fixed an appointment with their teachers for a Parent-teacher meeting!!  My children never seem to worry about exams, spellings or assignments!! Why?? Is it due to us being over protective towards them or us having gone through the tough way hope that they can graduating primary school easily? 

It's not easy being parents nowadays, I find especially being a working mother! As mentioned in one of my post, I was really lucky to be able to work with my fathers company which allows me to work half day everyday, unlimited leaves and MCs, work from home when necessary and taking a full time working salary!! I had to ferry the kids to and fro school, settle their lunch and making sure they do their homework in the afternoon. Running to the market at least twice a week so we had a table full of dishes during dinner. Yes, I may not be the one cooking but supervising my helper to cook is not a simple task too!!  Many would think that having a helper at home, makes me a mummy shaking leg at home!!  Well, sometimes I wished I had 24 hours a day plus another 10 hours to sleep!!  With my active toddler now, I hardly had time for my own time and any ME time, except rushing to the market alone or doing grocery shopping before I pick my children up from school and of course, the time I took for shower!!

Being a super busy mum, I must say I enjoyed being a mother of 3, having 2 sons who stick to me like super glue!! And a daughter who's always challenging me, though she can be sweet at times! It's really tough but seeing them grow and learning many new things with them is certainly a joy! I never knew I am capable of doing soo many things till being a mother myself! 

Not forgetting the support I get from my hubby, he's being supportive in everything I do!  Hahaha... So that makes his job easy as am the one doing it!!  I must thank him for celebrating Mother's Day for me for the children and a lovely present for me this year, my S5!!! Loving it and him lots!!! Hahahaha.... :D

A lighted up rose from my lovely son who bought it from school on a Monday when they had a charity fair in the school canteen! My Adwin happily told me how special was the rose when I fetched him from school that afternoon. 

My Ashley was so angry she didn't get a chance to buy me a special rose that the next day she went and got a few handicraft flowers for me!

I should feel contented that my kids and my he always had me in their heart, buying me things they feel I like... haha... does it implies otherwise? Anyway, as always said, it's the thoughts that counts,  so accept everything and say thank you! ;)

And my hubby made me a 3D card this year! Very nice and unique dragon!!! :) I always enjoyed reading the message written on it!

And my 2 kids wrote me super sweet mesages too! Even helped Alvan  with a message since they know he has yet to know how to write and draw!

WL ordered a Kyoho grape cake from Pine garden as it's one of their Mother's day special cake. And it was rather disappointing, the cream was more than  the sponge cake and it was a small one with a high price! But the design was nice though...

These were my actual Mother's day dinner!! The kids were super happy to be eating roti prata for dinner! But the best was mee goreng, which was also the cheapest compared to has briyani and even the mutton murtubak! My Alvan was happily eating the murtubak and his first try on the milk prata, he thought it was sweet! Lol...

After dinner, WL brought us all for a walk at the waterfront park! First time for us to go there for a walk at night! And here, father and son looking at stars!  Lol...

My 2 super mischievous children!

Along the way, we saw a really big dog which looks like a lion! Haha.. and my Alvan really called it Lion!

A family potrait on my Mother's day,  not a nice one as 2 children had gone mad!!! Sigh...

Pre Mother's Day outing

Sharks... I had actually written this post with my new Samsung S5 but somehow the post was not able to be published and somehow hang itself on the posting page.... So here I'm with my iPad and iPhone updating my posts!!

My dear hb decided to bring us to the popular and famous dim sum outlet at Toa Payoh on a Friday afternoon for tea, hoping to skip the long queue during lunch and dinner! But the task was to bring all my 3 kids along but making sure they were not fed too much during lunch so that they can also enjoy the dim sum at about 3pm!!  So, I thought getting them Mac meals was a good idea... And see all 3 soooo happy enjoying their Mac!! Hardly see them eating so happily with home cook food!! :(

Me and kids leaving house to meet daddy after their lunch and shower...

My kids actually enjoyed taking public transport but as am without helper, so a cab was a better option! And decided to take some selfies with my kids on the cab!! See my super expressive kids...

As the cab we took was a really old one, and my Adwin saw the window winder and asked me what was that!? I had a good laugh and realized he was exposed to many automated things from young, so the manual window winder was really something cute and interesting to him! After my explanation to him, he commented oh.. Sounds so interesting!! Lol... Too bad I can't allow him to try winding the window down... Lol...

And here's my dear hubby who's also on his way to meet us!

I was surprised with the varieties if dim sum on their menu!! I guess they were really trying to master their few specialities dim sum.... Was it good? Yes they were really good but I won't queue for an hour or 2 just to eat them! Lol... But their braised chicken feet with abalone sauce was really good, as it was not fried before braising them, so it was really tasty. I had failed on my task to under feed my kids, they just refused to eat and my Alvan was sound asleep, so me and hubby had to finish everything on the table!! :)

Candid shots of daddy and kids

Haha.. I really do not know when they took my iPhone and started snapping away till I saw all these photos!!! And wondering who was the photographer... As in which kid took it!! Hahaha...

Am wondering if this was taken by Alvan???

This gotta be taken by my Adwin... Not me!!! :p

This taken by Ashley!??

 

This definitely taken by Ashley!!!

All were sooo well taken!! And I really love the functions of the smartphone being a camera!!! Everything taken down instantly and all these photos really served me well as memories and witness how my kids grow up sooo quickly...

Gardens by the bay - tulipmania 2014

We finally had a chance to go for the Tuliamania this year, I had seen this exhibit last year but no chance to go for it!! And this year, I had arranged for us to go with my family, especially when my mum loves tulips!! And it so happened to be ending a week before Mother's Day, so I planned as a Mother's Day outing for my mum!! :)

We were pretty late when we reached the gardens, was around 4pm!! Well, I had intended to go early but my Ashley had too much homework to be completed before we can leave the house and as it was a public holiday, ie May Day (labour day, 1st May), the queue for the tickets were super long but lucky it was moving pretty fast!!

We had been to this flower dome about a year ago, so the photos showed here were only for the tulips!! Hahaha... Anyway, from what I recalled, the primary plant exhibits did not defer from what I had seen a year ago... So.. No special photos were taken!! Lol...

Here we were, a super crowded tulipmania, my Alvan was napping so only the 4 of us!! And this photo was taken by my mum, credit to her as she had never helped to take photo except being in the photo herself! Lol...

My awoken baby with tulips at the back... As it was the last week of this tulipmania exhibit, most of the tulips had bloomed totally, so it was not as beautiful as it were when it just bloomed...

The flowers at the back were not tulips, I can't recalled its name, but it sure smelled good when we were sooo near them!!!

My whole family outing!! We, or rather it's my family, who rarely take photo as a whole, mostly my parents would take photos with their grand kids! Lol... *the fully covered pram contained my Alvan!!* lol...

The 3 super naughty kids... Lol...

The other place I had in mind for organizing this outing was the playground at the gardens, that's opened just before the lunar new year this year! And lucky I had brought extra set of clothings for the kids, they were totally drenched!! But my Alvan refused to get wet!! Hahaha... These 3 had a super awesome time together!!!

This is a really big water play area, and the best thing is, it's free!! But the wash area is small and it's opened!! So not suitable for children especially girls to take a shower before leaving... So my kids only wiped and changed into the dry clothes...

Lots of parents standing at the side watching their kids get soaked!!! But I realized there's a lot of foreigners, Indians, whom I believed to be foreign workers here and I was quite disturbed that they would gathered together with their friends and started taking pictures of the kids here... But I had seen the staff from the gardens talking to them, not sure what message was conveyed but they would start moving away soon after... 

The other side of the wet playground was the dry one, more for toddlers and it's pretty small... But I guess enough for all kids to enjoy themselves here!! And a small eatery right between the dry and the wet playground!!!

It was a happy outing for all, especially when it seems like a long long time for me and my parents to be out for a long day... They were really looking forward to this since I had told them about it a week before...

I hope to be able to have more chances of gathering my kids with both extended families as I realized my kids would sometimes asked why are we going out with their grandparents when there's no special occasion. I need them to know that keeping their grandparents company is not something to be done only during special occasions or when they are free but done more often so they would do it when they have their families and not visit us only once a week routine... And especially when their grandparents are growing old each day as they grow up...