En's 5th Birthday, Part 2 : Aug-12

 

Part 2 of En's birthday took place at home, our typical birthday celebration with a simple cake and song.

If you find this cake somehow doesn't look like the usual cake we get, that's only because we did not get it ourselves; this is a cake from En's part 1 celebration @Shinanomachi.. this cake is from Aunty Bee See.

On En's actual birthday morning, we need to leave the house latest by early afternoon.  So this was done around noon time..

En'en with Yeye and Ah Mah ..

Our typical family picture with every birthday celebration .. (",)

dunno why is En frowning, but did Qi stole a bite or juz biting her finger ??

the moment before birthday wish & blowin candles -- En's moment

Yaayy!! After the candles are blown, En is officially a year older!! 5 years old.

Cutting the cake amidst the jungle of fruits is not an easy task ..

Another favourite simple treat during birthdays -- boiled red eggs !!

En's 5th Birthday, Part 1 : Aug-12

En'en with her birthday presents of that day--balloon flower & mcdonald meal

En is really a fortunate girl.. her birthday celebration began even before the actual day!

Part 1 took place on Friday, the day before birthday.  That morning as I was waiting for En to be dismissed from school, I received a call from Aunty Nancy.  She wanted me to wait for her before I leave SK.  I wondered why..

En'en enjoyin her mcdonald's meal treat from Aunty Bee See !!

When Nancy emerged from the carpark staircase, she was holding a beautiful balloon flower!!  Aunty Nancy then said, "Happy Birthday, En'en!!"

Prior to that, Aunty Bee See had actually called me for a lunch date that afternoon.. of course, with En'en..  As we reached HQ, En'en was quickly ushered to Shinanomachi where a mcdonald's spread was waiting for her!!

Poon Tai & En's birthday celebration!!

As we were at Shinanomachi, we realized the kaikan staff were also celebrating someone's birthday -- Poon Tai's!!  Mr Yap, Philip Poh and the rest actually bought Poon Tai a lovely cake to celebrate her birthday, also on July 7th, what a coincidence!!  En'en was invited to join in the celebration, cutting cake and blowing candles with Poon Tai!

Lovely!! *\(^_^)/*

Even though En's Ah Jia is not around to celebrate with her, there are others who love her Ah Jia around to celebrate giant baby Enen's birthday.. extremely lucky girl indeed!

YWD Formation Day : Jul-12

In preparation for the YWD Formation in July, our YWD leaders, Kia and Wee Fang, arranged a home visit to my princesses in June.  Even En was involved, and naturally, she was excited!

Think Kia and Wee Fang told the girls all about the event and each was given a card.. something like the footsteps to the YWD Formation Day.

Hence on the actual day of event -- 15 July, I brought all three girls to the YWD Formation Day @HQ.  It was also my first time there after being a WD for soooo many years!  Hence it was somewhat refreshing.

En thoroughly enjoyed herself with the ballon sculptures and those makeover from the costumes and accessories provided..

The elder girls were running around the various booths offering tatoos and manicure art.. 

Hehee.. met Jiun and Keng there too!
Jiun asked, "Why are you here?" 
Hahaa.. "Bringing my YWDs there of course!!"

It's just a great pity that I think many YWDs out there missed this event as I saw mainly very young girls there brought by their parents, and the FD/SD girls.. Where are our young ladies, those working girls, I wonder ..

Holidays in Penang : Jun-12

This was the first time En'en joined the family to a holiday by plane. The last trip we went was Bangkok in end 2006, but then, En'en was still inside Shin Yang's tummy. So it was almost 5 years since the family took a plane together.

We chose a short trip to Penang in this June holiday, together with Papa and Mama. It was sunny throughout our 4 days' stay in Penang We stayed in G-Hotel, which was very conveniently near to the famous Gurney Hawker place as well as the big shopping mall, Gurney Plaza. The hotel staff also helped us to arrange transportation to tour around Penang at a reasonable price.

Short and Sweet holiday... Penang, definitely a great place for food and relaxation.

Lego Craze Xuan : Jul-12

Xuan has always been crazy over Lego.  Given bits and pieces of the Lego, she can built toilet bowl, houses, furniture and anything things she imagines.

This year, the Straits Times in celebrating National Day, holds an event together with Lego to raise funds for "The School Pocket Money Fund".  They build a huge model, mimicking the floating platform where the National Day will be held.  If anyone will like to donate a minimum of five dollars, they will be given a figuring to decorate and place it on the platform.

After knowing this event is held nearby at compass point, Xuan 'barks' us to bring her to place as soon as possible.  She even donates her own pocket money of $10 in order to get 2 figures to decorate.  I guess when one is crazy or determined over something, nothing really can be a roadblock, isn't it?

First Cruise Holiday : Jul-12

This year GSK Singapore celebrates its 30th/40th Anniversary for both Jurong and Quality.  As part of this celebration, the family day event was a cruise to no-where on the huge Super Virgo.  We had never been to a cruise before, so rightfully this should be an easy decision to make to go for the holiday.  However, the event fell on the day when our little En'en was born and she had been requesting for a birthday party to invite her friends including Zhen-Jie.  We decided to let En'en made the decision for us instead.  I tried my best to explain to her what a cruise holiday would be, and eventually, after a few flicking of decisions, she said she would like to have her birthday on the big ship.  So, there we were, on our first cruise holiday actually on En'en birthday.

 GSK was extremely generous when organizing this event.  We were given the best class balcony room.  On top of the entertainment available on the cruise, there was also a special GSK dinner event.  One of my colleague even gotten the cruise staff to sing a birthday song and presented her a cake and present during the dinner.  A pleasantly surprise for En'en and all of us.

 One personal thing i would also like to do is to capture some pictures of sunbreak while on the cruise.  Fortunately I did not miss out the moment... the pictures below look great, don't they?

En's New Build-A-Bear Bear : Jun-12

the bear ..

It was at the second prep session for our WDFD at member's home.  After the session ended, Angie asked me to pick up something from her car.  It came in a box in the shape of a house and I recognized it immediately!  It was not too long ago that Xuan and Qi were rather crazy over this and Mummy even indulged them in it by making them build a piggy to be given to their at-that-time yet-born baby sister.. (^_^)

Mummy is gone for two years and we have never built a toy for En.. But that day, Angie passed me a bear and said Georgia had built it for Enen.  That was really so sweet..  And En was really delighted at her unexpected new toy!

Below showed En saying Thank You to both Angie and Georgia..  Well, she was so soft at the very first vid that we simply had to do it again.  It is true that the first take is always the most natural one, hence even though it's hardly audible, it was a delight to watch.. (hehee.. that's but a mummy's point of view!)

Qiqi first rhythmic gym competition : Jun-12

After a few months of preparation, Qiqi finally went for her first experience in a gym competition.  The competition was held at Bishan sports hall, fully air-conditioned and well equipped with the gym facilities.  There were closed to 20 competitors under Qiqi's category, many whom seemed to have contested several times.  Qiqi appeared pretty nervous maybe because of the lack of continuous practice due to the Shanghai trip and the renovation closure of Bishan sports hall in May.  Nevertheless, the entire Koh and Oh family Clans were there to support her!  She performed three routines, beginning from string, ball and then ribbon.  Every family member cheered and encouraged her every moment they could find.

It was the experience which was valuable in this event, and more importantly we felt Qiqi had tried her best under the circumstances.  We will be looking forward to more from Qiqi in future, I am sure. :)

PD's Maritime Museum Excursion : Jun-12

see my car on the left? first time i get such a near lot!

 It has been many years since PD went out.  I still remember that time to the Mozart museum, we had lots of fun!  Think Xuan was only in P1 then.. That was four good years ago!!

a picture right after the entrance; before duty begins

 For this excursion, our own SAs act as our lion cubs' guides and I was one of them.  To familiarize ourselves with our role, PDC even had additional tickets for all guides to visit the museum to recce the exhibits and place first under the guidance of the museum guides!

This turned out to be a mega project as response from the cubs was overwhelming.  There were two sessions for cubs from different parts of Singapore.  The guides and other on-duty SAs were encouraged to take on both sessions as we were rather short-handed after many SAs were required to chaperon our lively cubs to and from and at the kaikans where all the cubs gathered.

my booth.. the second stop by the 19th century maritime route

the largest attraction at my booth.. vietnamese water puppets!

All of us were given scripts for our respective booths.  The museum were rather very conservative with the information they shared with us.. which was rather strange as we thought the role of museums was to educate the public, hence they should be more willing to share those information on their exhibits.  Well, we can work with and within constraints, no sweat!

a picture with a royal water puppet?

 Some of the SAs were so on-the-ball that they even memorized their scripts and did further research in a short span of a week so as to be competent guides for our cubs!  Admirable!!

one of the colorful water puppets on display

But boy!  It was a really exhausting task.. just one single session, there were like endless classes!  And there were two sessions!!  Well, exhausting but most rewarding. (^_^)

excited cubs all over my booth ..

cubs staring hard at the projection display showing water puppetry

my indonesian neighbor aunty Grace hard at work explainin ..

see aunty Grace's cue card in her hand?  these mannequins in Indonesian garb look so life-like!!

BFFs & Ging Gang's Afternoon Out : Jun-12

L-R: Audrey, En, Nicole, Xuan, Adel

BFFs: Huili, Kristie, Nancy, Sharon & I.
GingGang: all of our kiddos
Being in PD for so long have made us staunch buddies.  We share not only PD ideas and materials, but 4D ones too.  Our June hols start off with a big bang with a PD event -- excursion with our lion cubs to MEMA.  Of course, preparation for the event started much earlier.  Almost immediately after MEMA, and before we get too near to the date of our next big event in June, our WDFD, we planned an outing with our young ones! (^_^)

L-R: ben, linus, isaac

 Nancy discovered a healthy karaoke joint at Katong Shopping Centre where you can bring your own food and drinks and sing to your hearts' content for about two hours.

SAHM buddies Nancy, Sharon, Huili and I of course have no problem for an afternoon outing; juz sufficient prior planning, but buddy Kristie actually took leave off her work to join us!  Among the five of us, we have thirteen kids in all, and that makes it eighteen of us.  However, a few of our elder kiddos have to return to school and Colin is still at childcare, hence only nine of them made it.

Hahaa.. karaoke did not seem to be the children's cup of tea, and they took a very long time to warm up to the mics despite our attempts to choose their songs.  Although the auntys sing our oldies most of the time, our children finally took to the mics when it was almost time to go home.  (:  Well, we had a most enjoyable time singing and yakking, and the kids also have a pretty good time bonding and exploring the entire complex!! (-_^)