The week before Chinese New Year we went on a family holiday to Kuching with CY’s family.

I wasn’t expecting much from Kuching, but the Cat really surprised me. We all had a great time there!

We saw wild orang utans at the Semenggoh Nature Reserve, we had a real cultural experience at the Sarawak Cultural Village, we had lots of yummy seafood and the kids had loads of fun together, swimming in the hotel pool, playing in the rooms, and just entertaining each other all day.

So, photos coming up:

Our first full day there, we went to see the Orang Utans. I have a soft spot for Orang Utans because of my favourite author - Terry Pratchett - who features an Orang Utan as one of the major characters in his books. All Terry Pratchett fans think that these apes are something special. So I was very thrilled to see  them for real.

And this big fella literally brings that storybook character to life. He is 150 kilograms HUGE. And it is really easy to imagine him swinging one mighty arm to knock down five men flat, with ease.

Keira stuck to Liem at every opportunity. She loved his company, and now that  they have gone back to Oz again, she says she misses him. Even with the age differences, the cousins managed to play very well together.

The next day, we went to the Sarawak cultural village, which was a real educational experience. They had re-created all the traditional long houses of the Sarawak natives and  inside each one, representatives in traditional costumes would show us how they live, with blowpipe demonstrations, weaving, food and music.

The Kuching waterfront area was pretty cool too. It is always invigorating to walk next to a flowing expanse of water I feel. Something to do with the positive chi maybe.

We also went to the various musuems in the city. The Natural, Cat, History and Chinese Museums. We thought the Chinese musuem, altho small was very representative, and it definitely struck a chord with me.

Ate alot of fish, prawns and Sarawak Laksa. Had Sarawak Kolo Mee once. It was delicious!

So, it was an excellent trip all round. No one got sick, the kids behaved fairly well and everything went smoothly. It was well planned and well organised. And we have already started thinking where we should go for the next family holiday

ps. More photos here on flickr.

Keira has finally started full time kindy this year. In a way, I’m glad that I procrastinated waited until now to send her, as there hasn’t been a single drop of tear from her, and she’s actually enjoying her kindergarten!

I’m so happy that she’s not being clingy and scared anymore. So the strategy of waiting until she’s ready worked. All of last year, I only sent her to a few art and craft sessions and a few hours of chinese class a week.

The chinese class was the one that really helped her grow confident I think. She still cried, but it had a small group of students and very supportive teachers.

Eventually, Keira learnt that when I drop her off, I would always come and pick her up later. Also she learnt that playing with other children is fun! So thank you Brain Bees!

So with Kindy, she was looking forward to meeting new friends. And now after one week, she already has one “good” friend who always wants to hold her hands

Here she is wearing her school uniform and sports uniform. She looks like such a smart little trooper in her collared shirt and shorts. And like she is a real school going kid…which she is isn’t she? My brain can’t process that fact yet.

I feel so proud watching her participating in the classroom and I feel happy and sad when she waves at me thru the window cheerfully and then turns back to play with her friends, while I quietly leave.

Sigh. Well now it gives me four hours free everyday with just onechild to entertain instead of two!

Here’s another pic of Keira in another variation of her uniform (with skirt) holding hands with Sean, who is giving a really sweet smile

In sewing news, I have completed two dresses for Keira. It is really satisfying to see the finished product, but damn, it is alot of work!

This is the first dress I made in sewing classes with the teacher’s help.

I used a dress pattern and it took three classes to complete.

After that, I went home and made another dress on my own.

This one was made with the same pattern, but no sleeves and I widened the neckline. I also made the little bag, which is supposed to match the first dress.

Now I’m trying to make a dress for myself! Hope it turns out wearable… Then I need to learn how to make boys clothes for Sean, then I want to make matching dresses for me and Keira, and then I need to learn alot more. But I’ll just try to do these first.

It takes quite awhile to get one done, as I can only squeeze in a short time each day to draw, cut, pin, iron, sew and unpick mistakes over and over again! But I am enjoying it. Hopefully this will continue!

My parents have gone home, and Keira says she misses them. And Sean was calling for them tonight before he slept. They really had a good time with gong gong and po po.

But I cheered Keira up by telling her that we will be going to Kuching with Ah Gong, Ah Ma and cousin Liem this weekend. She loves holidays, so she’s looking forward to that. Me too!

Then it will be Chinese New Year! And we will have more family to celebrate with this year, since CY’s sis and family are back. Yay!

So, I’ll sign off now. Happy Year of the Dragon everyone!

ps. all pics were taken on my new iphone 4s:)

December is my favourite month of the year. It is the holiday month, it’s my birthday month, it’s our anniversary month (12 years by the way), it’s the month when we get to meet up with lots of long distance family and friends, and of course christmas jingles and deco make everything sparkly and happy… it’s just great!

This december we have been quite busy doing things. We visited all the shopping centers to check out the christmas decorations… our favourite is the one at Tropicana City Mall - Keira calls it Candyland! Check out the pics:

The kids went a little silly running from one sweet to the next. Sean of course tried to pull off all the “sprinkles”.

Yummm, a giant chocolate…

We also ate alot and cooked quite alot. I didn’t take many photos of the food tho, cos our trusty old Canon has finally died due to being dropped too many times by the kids. We didn’t get a new replacement as I’ve ordered an Iphone 4s, which is arriving any day now *!!!* and I’m hoping the camera there will be good enough. Can’t wait to play with it:)

I do have two pictures of food tho. Here’s a home cooked dinner we had one night with friends:

Sweet corn, roasted pumpkin and sweet potato, shepherd’s pie, roast chicken, portobello mushroom salad, satay and otak otak (the last two not home cooked). And here’s one of the dishes we had at Chynis, SS2 Mall on xmas eve/my birthday:

Prawn paste with prawn meat and almond flakes - is it a porcu-prawn? hehe. It was delicious tho.

Now, my parents are visiting for a few weeks. Keira is so happy, she has attached herself to my Mum and insists on spending every minute of the day with her. Sean enjoys the occasional grandparental attention but he’s going thru a “Mama” phase at the moment. Very sticky.

It’s lovely to have them around. And the fun continues in January, with more family catch ups and a family holiday to Kuching!

January also heralds a new beginning for Keira. She’s finally starting proper kindergarten. And I’ve registered her into a chinese kindergarten. I hope she’ll like it.

I’ve also finished my first sewing project, a dress for Keira, and am starting on another one - this one outside of the sewing class. will blog about this in another post. It is very rewarding to see a finished product, but unfortunately, it is alot of work!

So that’s December, and that’s 2011 almost done. This year sure is ending with a bang for me. Here’s to 2012, may it bring an even better year for all. Happy 2012 every one!

…and believed in astrology, I’d think that for the past one month, the stars have been aligning themselves specifically just to make my life exciting.

Seriously, ever since August, I had been living a monotonal existence - day in day out was just focused on kids, groceries, meals, kids… over and over again. I felt aimless and useless and stupid. What was worse was that I knew I was stuck in a rut, but I DIDN’T lift a pinky to do anything about it.

Then beginning mid-november, through no action on my part, things started happening.

A friend asked me to help her run a workshop for fresh graduates - on my own. I have never presented a workshop before, I don’t think I’ve even attended one! But the material was already prepared, and my friend said it was easy and all I had to do was to present it. So I did it!

It was a two day thing, and I missed the kids alot for those two days. when it was over, I was quite happy to go back to being the SAHM. Life went back to normal again.

Then, I got a sewing machine. I suppose the stars didn’t have anything to do with this as I have been wanting to learn to sew and make clothes for a long, long time. But maybe events have just made now the right time for me to start learning, since the kids are more independent and we can trust the maid to babysit more now after one year with us.

So I’m taking sewing classes and the first thing I’m learning is how to make a dress for Keira

Then, out of the blue, an ex-colleague called me up. She was out on her own and looking for someone to help her.

She asked me if I was interested to work for her, telling me I could work from home, in my own time, as she understood I had to take care of the kids. I said, “Hell, yes! I’m interested!” That’s exactly the kind of work I can do. In fact, it is the only arrangement that works for us.

Now, I’m a PTWFHM - part time work from home mum - hehe.

I’m really glad to do this now, as the timing is right, and just when i had been drowning in domestic lethargy. Life is more interesting when you have more things to do. And the extra pocket money won’t hurt either!

So that’s three exciting things to happen to me in the one month. Two days ago, a fourth major thing happened. It’s going to change the course of our lives again. (No, I’m not pregnant) But I’ll have to blog about that another time. For now, it won’t affect us in the short term…

As I said, I think the stars have really been directing their gravitational influences at me this month. All mostly for the good of course. I even won a rm30 Jusco voucher a few weeks ago..! Hmm, I should go buy a lottery ticket while the heavens are still watching shouldn’t I?

A friend gave me this recipe for making home made play clay/play dough. It is so fuss free, non-messy and fun to do, and of course the kids love to play with it.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1/2 cup corn flour

water

Instructions:

1) Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl

2) Gradually mix in water until the mixture forms a shape (I usually use around 1/2 cup of water)

3) Knead abit, and that’s it.

Here’s what it looks like when done:

The original recipe didn’t call for adding colour, but I added food colouring in myself, and the results were excellent! (Altho you get rainbow coloured hands if you use your hands to knead the colour in).

So this is what you get after adding a few drops of food colouring in:

And here’s what the kids do to it.

Keira says she was making a burger. LOL!

I can  store it in an airtight container for up to one to two weeks to be re-used again. But even if you throw an old batch away, you can easily whip up another fresh batch in 5 minutes.

It isn’t oily, it is really easy to clean off surfaces, and it is cheap compared to paying for store bought play dough:) I love it.