A princess birthday party.

Just recently, after their final school exams ended right after, meimei went to a birthday party of a little girl who went to the same school. Asked how they met, she said they just know each other, not by the same class or activities in school. I was rather surprised that she could be so sociable! Then again, I also heard this birthday girl just give out invitation cards at her own whim and fancy!

Meimei was pretty excited, and kept pestering me to let her attend. Being the good mom I always am *ahem*, how could I have the heart to reject her. So on that Sunday afternoon, I drove her over to the address given on the card and saw this...

WOW! I was wide-eyed! Such extravaganza for an 8yo birthday girl! Fortunately, I have already set precedence this year no big affairs or parties for the boys, just the family going for a dinner the birthday boy is allowed to choose and a cake (of my choice!). Not even birthday pressie! So mean, huh?

So, meimei was there to admire and be envious of all these big celebration themes!

 It's a princessy theme and there was a make up/tattoo artist for the little ones too.

 A galore of sweet treats with chocolate fondue. I can't wait to eat those strawberries in hot chocolate! *slurp*

 And a whole array of food for the guests. I just had to take picture and whatapps my hubs as they were left at home starving!

 The food was so-so to my liking, but no complaints. I was, after all, not an invited guest. :P

 Meimei hadn't asked for permission to get her face made up, I was so proud of her but she did ask if she could have a tattoo. I gave her my nod of permission and here she was, showing me the little flower tattoo on her arm. Some went for really loud and bright pictures but I liked the simple and subtle pattern meimei chose.

 There was also a fresh popcorn stall right in the living room and the smell of it permeates the whole room that we adults can't fend it off as well. It was just soo yummy!

The children ate, ran amok around the whole house and played some 2 simple games of musical chair and passing the balloon whilst the adults chatted and lingered around. Lucky for me, there was another mom whose kid was in the same gymrama as meimei and she made a rather nice companion for me throughout. I was actually enjoying my time there too!

But both of us agreed that the hired party planners weren't doing a perfect job for the fees they charged (the hostess told us how much it was) as they were there setting the place up very late. In fact, the welcome arch was only seen at the doorway right almost when the party was near the ending time! Not to mention the different banners and posters around the whole living room. Anyways...

Look at the cake above! It looked sooo pretty, how could we have the heart to break that apart?? But we did!!!

Ahh.. meimei's birthday coming soon, and what shall I do? She's so eager and looking forward to it, and sometimes I feel it's so mean of me to deny her of a birthday celebration with friends and lots of presents! How? *tap fingers*

Weekend at Genting.

It's the preview of the school holidays. A little getaway break up in GH to break the routine and reward the kids for a hardworking year. 

This year, hubs finally succumbed to buying an annual pass for the whole family as everytime he bought the day's ticket for the indoor and outdoor parks, he would grumbled and ranted endlessly. With the price we paid, I foresee we would be going uphill more often than not to maximise the hefty fee he paid. Oh well, at least I don't need to pester him to just get us the entrance bands anymore every time we go up.

But on that night, we hardly played anything at all, for the queues to every ride were just damn long. Waiting like more than half an hour for a 5 mins play just took the whole pleasure and fun of it away. It really seemed worthless on that very first night! Even the bowling alleys were all full and we had to be in the waiting list! I told him we ought to just go back up to the room and go to sleep. I felt very tired that night somehow and just switched off even before any of them did.

The next day, we rose early and had a KFC breakfast which hubs quoted the "cheapest breakfast in GH". Then we headed straight to the bumper car and it was awesome! No queues, compared to the night before! So we went to rounds, 5 of us in individual cars and had a wonderful time playing with the kids. Then

they went on an indoor roller coaster (read: minor challenging) on their own. 

We went to the outdoor right after that and whilst we hoped to go for the boats, we were disappointed they were closed for service temporarily. The hubs wanted to go go-karting, so I took the younger two to the spinner and they went on and on and on... for 7 times, meimei counted.

 They were so happy! And so was I. I would have gone up together with them if I had not have to jaga barang. Life's a mom like that, huh? Always missing out on all the fun stuffs. However, I was happy enough seeing them enjoying themselves so much and being able to snap their happy faces on the camera.

This trip saw us stepping into SnowWorld. I wonder what went on in hubs' mind. He usually wouldn't want to pay for all these entrance fees and we didn't ask for this either. He must have felt bad for not taking us to a winter holiday till now. Or maybe for a longer time to come. So, I guess I have to be satisfied with just this. :(

The temperature inside SnowWorld is -7'C and didi said it's a giant fridge! I told him it's a giant freezer alright. It was so cold it was frigging painful to be inside! Not very enjoyable, I would say. How are we going to survive a real winter holiday?? So, die die also must tell hubs we had no problem with it. By half an hour, I felt my eyes were like on fire, and really, it was rather torturing. The kids also couldn't bear much with it, though they really wanted to spend more time in there. Poor things, I really do not know if they had loved it or tortured by it. I think they couldn't decide themselves too.

And so, that was pretty much what we did over the latest fiasco at GH. Well, with the annual pass, we shall come see you soon!

Counting my blessings

The other day, I was browsing the internet for information on a cult society. A gym friend told me her sister in law is a cult member and told me horror stories of their activities *shivers*

And hence, I came across a blog post about someone's experience from this cult's recruitment. Apparently, these kind of movements usually zero in on people who are helpless, depressed, or demotivated in life. The person was saying how at that point in life how miserable and meaningless life is when she was almost drawn to that cult society. But fortunately, something snapped and she felt it wasn't for her.

That story brought me back to reflect on my own life. I remember I did feel something like that once a long time ago, on how just meaningless and pointless life was, even though I was already in a relationship who's now my husband. I knew something was missing in life, I wanted to have a family to feel complete and meaningful. I wanted to stop working to care for them and bring them up. 

And yes indeed, I am now living the life I wanted and dreamed of. I always believe, this is the high point of my life, being happy, contented, living the life I wanted. I don't know what the future holds for me when I am old and frail, but at least, I am feeling so so so blessed in life right now. I don't need to go travel the world and see God's creation, I am already living with it. The 3 monkeys I am blessed with are truly God's beautiful creations who makes me jump yet makes me smile all the time. 

For this, I also can't thank my hubs enough for supporting me to live my dream, to take care these three little monkeys myself. Thank you Lord, and thank you, my dear darling hubby (who also makes me jump most of the time too.)

Korkor going to secondary

I always feel it's just crazy why parents these days need to plan and work out where the kids going to study for their secondary years. Didn't we last time just used to move from one section of the school to another and it was, like, no worries for our parents that time? How come things are so different this age?

Well, perhaps that's also the difference between Ipoh and KL, and 80s and current times. Education becomes so competitive that top or controlled schools only accepted straight As students from Upsr and the rest have to scramble around to look for private, international or private independent chinese high school. Then, if all else fails, there's still the national government schools to fall back on. But these days, parents aren't so confident in those school like those days anymore. Or is it just the few of us?

When korkor started schooling, some people had already asked me the weird question as to where I want him to put him to when he reaches secondary. I didn't think of that a big deal, until the time was really here. Damn! Their primary school just reaches pri 6 and after that, we had to decide where he goes to next. Only in this last few weeks, we finally figured out how the school system works!

OK, so being in a WP school, we couldn't apply him to any other schools apart from this state. And then, there's the controlled schools, namely all top schools, only accepting straight As students, or the least, 6As and 1B. Bugger!

Private and international schools are definitely out of reach for we surely can't afford to send all 3 of them to one, and we couldn't be so unfair to send one and not the other.

That pretty much left us with either private chinese independent high school or the national schools.

The top 4 chinese high school accepts students with average marks of 80 and above in their schools' mid term exam. damn! joe mm kong! nah.. don't say I didn't tell you. I regretted not to push him to study harder during the first half of the year, thinking that the UPSR is all that matters. His average was only 78, just a mere 2 marks less. *thump fist*

Well, fret no further, he can still apply for a placement but needs to sit for entrance exams. You say stressful not? UPSR also not that stressful, man!

It was wonderful news when he learnt that he was accepted today! Hurray! I can't describe how proud, relieved, joyful I felt for him.Although I also have doubts about our plans for him, but I think being in a top reputable school with good extra co-curricular activities, he's going to have some good and fun schooling years in front of him. Lots of people say it's gonna be stressful studying, but I believe, stress sometimes do come from parents themselves. And it's how they manage stress. And also, it's good to give them some level of stress as well.

So, oh well, it's just the beginning. He's gonna sit for another entrance exam anyway and we are also going to try and apply him to a controlled school which accepts students from "niche area". Whatever it's gonna be, I'm so relieved now that I know the worst thing that would happen to him is him studying Remove class for 1 damn whole year in a sekolah kebangsaan, won't be happening.

It's a good enough reason to celebrate, don't you reckon?

An authentic chinese food in PJ area

On Mid Autumn festival afternoon, we took the kids to play badminton in a community hall at a condo where one of hubs' work associates stays in.

Can you tell I was feeling very bored and yawning away while they were playing there?

I would have skipped going but since the plan was to have dinner right after the game, I had to follow suit.

Badminton is a game where most Malaysians love, I believe. We used to play lots of badminton games when we were younger too. I enjoyed playing it myself, but nowadays, I can't run as my knees hurt like crazy so it isn't fun for me anymore.

Last time, when both hubs and I were still dating in Penang, every Wednesday evenings, we would be off for a 2 hours' badminton game with a few other friends of his in Batu Maung. It would then be followed by dinner ending a very fulfilling time dating just like that. I suppose hubs really cherished those times a lot and wanted to relinquish this feeling, as he always keep asking me to play with him. But dang, helloh? can't run la.. knees pain pain!

Didi really lovessss badminton so much, he didn't stop for the whole hour and wanted to continue on had not the next person who booked the court show up.

It was about 6pm then, and we asked the work associate to go have dinner with us.

Since it's his territory, he happily looking forward to show us to somewhere special for a dinner that day.

It was at a house like that in the above picture.

And what did we eat?

These dishes are actually originally from a part of China. The friend who brought us there is from China and he was introduced to this place from his counterparts as well. 

We felt like we were transported back to China for awhile, as the people who cooked and served us speak in their slang and everything else in there seemed so "chinese". There were only about 5 tables and as it was a small corner house, the patrons were all seated very close and I didn't dare to take any pictures inside.

Basically, inside is just the basic necessities of tables and chairs, not anything fancy, in fact, it was a rather rundown place with a fan working. If we weren't all sweaty already from our badminton game, I think I would feel very uncomfortable eating in there.

And meimei said, this place is called a housetaurant. The food was really special and VERY YUMMY though!!!