Short trip to Genting

School holidays are still on, still time to fit in some activities!  So last weekend it was off to Genting. We used to go VERY often when hubby was a super-valued customer.  He resumed work after a couple of years off and since then hasn't had time to haunt the casino as much.... which is a good thing, really.  Downside is we don't get free rooms, free vouchers and such already.

Oh well, he does have enough points left for a few more free trips.  So what to do there with the theme park closed?

Eat junk food in bed while watching cartoons

Spend lots of time in the bath tub and shower

Munch on pizza

As usual, the kids loved going to the arcade and punching buttons. And nope, I still don't spend actual money on the machines!  Wonder how long before I do though... my hubby commented that these kids were so pitiful hacking away at the non-responsive machines!

For now, happy kids. The weather was cold which was nice.

Happy!

No-good eater

JE has never been easy to feed.  She doesn't like many categories of food, won't eat all that much of of food that she DOES like and what's more, will take a long time to eat it.

She's usually the last one left at the table at meal-times.  She was doing this so I grabbed my camera....

Lalalala

What, mummy? I'm eating my lunch

WHAT? I'm still eating!

She doesn't like bread, pastries, cake... oh wait it'd be easier to list the food she DOES like. There are basically just two - 1) crunchy food and 2) salty food.  Better still if the two are combined, e.g. Japanese rice crackers.

Sigh.

Busy

I have been busy clearing my annual leave for the year.  The good thing is, I only have to work 2 or 3 days a week since November.  The bad is, I have to squeeze 5 days of work into those days! Unfortunately my workload is high at the moment so I sometimes end up having to work on the days when I'm on leave.

I also have an additional small problem... with people who come along and just plonk themselves onto my lap.

I am helping Mummy work

Me: Mummy has to work. You sit there and don't disturb ok?
SE:  OK

See? Ih ticky ticky.

Within a minute...

SE:  Mummy, say hello to Pai-der man.
Me:  ......
SE:  Mummy! Say hello!
Me: Hello, Spiderman.
SE: (Pointing to the hands) Thih ih hih hand.  (Pointing to the feet) Thih ih hih feet.  (Pointing to the waist) And thih ih hih panty.
Me: Panty? Hahah.  OK ok mummy has to work, you play by yourself.

SE:  Pai-der man ih ticky ticky.  See?  Ticky ticky.
Me:  *Gave up trying to work in order to attend to SE and her sticky-sticky spiderman.

To the zoo!

The weather was good last Sunday, so decided it was a good day for the zoo.  It's still the long year-end school holidays and I aim to put in a few more activities with the kids.  Our last visit to the zoo was ooh, 3 years ago already.

This isn't a petting zoo but JE found a friendly pony.

Pet pet pet

After a while, SE noticed she didn't have the wristband that everyone else had. Kicked up a fuss so we fashioned one for her out of a spare leaflet. (Admission tickets are needed for kids above 3, but she's just over 3 so... sneak her in without ticket hehe)

Now I have thih also. Nek (next) time don't forget one for me

So we saw various animals. :)

Giraffe!

Elephant!

Hippo!

It rained before we were done, so had to wait it out. Hubby said there was fried rice etc on sale, but I only saw snacks at the two kiosks I checked. Oh well, what the girls wanted were snacks.

SE: Popcorn!

JE: I want it, I want to hold it

JE: Popcorn!

(Love her thrilled expression, luckily managed to snap)

We were pretty tired after!  All that walking.  Next time I must bring more food.  We only had lunch around 4.30pm after leaving.

Greetings from the zoo!

The kids enjoyed themselves. Till the next visit (maybe in another 2-3 years...)

Stressed meal-times

When will these kiddos behave like normal people I wonder?  :)  Went for sushi last weekend...

Upon sitting down, had to restrain SE from ordering unwanted items via the online menu. She has done that before when nobody was looking at her for a few minutes - we managed to cancel one item and ate the other one.  Funny how someone who doesn't read yet is able order food...

I want to press buttons on the iPad! I want!

Then JE and SE fought over 'helping' hubby prepare his wasabi...  SE had to retire from the fight after our maid pulled her away.

Stir stir stir stir.... STIR STIR STIR 

Then JE and SE fought over the printed menu.  JE got it and SE wasn't happy...

HMMMFFFFF! Jo-jo NAUGHTY!!

Also had to restrain them from going wild with the chopsticks, the sauce plates, the soy sauce, the pickled ginger, picking unwanted items off the conveyer belt.  Stress to the max!

Luckily they settled down once food started arriving.

Mummy's lunch is so cute!

When these two monkeys are all grown up, I might miss the time when I had my hands so full with them.  :)

Want poke Jo-jo's tongue... heheheee

Ipoh Trip 2015 - Days 2 and 3

Started day 2 with breakfast at Kong Heng and then a visit to Seenivasagam park. :)  Nothing particularly special about this park, just that it used to be our frequent haunt when me and my siblings were living in Ipoh.  As usual, maintenance isn't great.  The kids enjoyed the play equipment.

Who's next to climb up the ladder?

Some complained about the heat (city people, sigh) so next we just went to Ipoh Parade. Lunch at Yum Yum (food is all right, but I'm sure there are better places).  Then back for an afternoon nap. There are restrictions when travelling with a big group comprising small kids, so we just took it easy. And ate a lot.  Dinner we went to Gluttons Square hawker centre - I enjoyed most of the food we ordered! My kids, who aren't all that interested in food, weren't too happy.

When told we were going out and it was for dinner:

JE: Mummy, I'm not hungryyyy
SE: Mummy, I'm fullll

Later that night, when I asked them what they wanted for breakfast, this is what I got:

SE:  I don't want to eat any more

Can't be arranging foodie trips with these two, sigh.

Next day, went to Sam Poh Tong.  This time, was determined to take a family photo!  Here:

Say cheese!

The kids had a blast feeding the animals.  For turtles, the traditional 'kangkong' (watercress?) and baby tomatoes were on sale.

Girls feeding turtles

Turtles prefer baby tomatoes to 'kangkong'

Then bought food for the next type of animal...

Fish!

This was a good place for the kids! We went to buy snacks after that and then lunch.  Lunch was disappointing though. We were aiming for Nam Heong, but it was packed.  We chose a random shop nearby and ended up with really lousy food. Uggh in Ipoh which is known for good food!  In hindsight we should just have driven off somewhere.  Oh well, next time.

I wanted to try the famous tau foo fah.  Hmm read from some blogs that a bowl costs 80sen... well our packed versions were RM2.50 each.  Which is a pretty steep inflation rate!  My kids refused more food.  Aiyoo.

Don't want food, please go away

OK, so when's our next family trip...  :)

Ipoh Trip 2015 - Day 1

Another family holiday. :)

SE insisted on bringing this big bag. Inside are essential stuff, i.e. toys.

Packed all my stuff

 First up was lunch at Tanjung Tualang. Take picture with the prawn tanks first...

Hmm can't see the prawns really

Some of the food! Ordered too much (as usual) and just when we thought we'd almost cleared up, a big dish of fried prawns came! Luckily it was good.

Steamed prawns, oyster omelette, fried prawns, sweet sour crab

Not in pic - Curry fish head, sweet sour pork, black fungus chicken, vegetable

Next stop, Kellie's Castle.  We didn't enter as admission charges were rather high and the kids won't be able to walk much anyway.  Good decision as it turned out, since the skies poured about 10mins after we left.

That's a castle behind us!

Checked into our homestay and got a nice room. :)

This is our room!

Dinner was Tauge Chicken and various yong tau foo.  I liked having to combine THREE tables to seat everyone!

Waiting for food

Do work

So what was SE doing while hubby was working out his detailed accounts?

Do do do

Do do do

In her own words...

Jeh now, I do work with Pap-pa.

Hehe.  Not easy to do work with only a stick of correction fluid and a stack of pink post-it notes.  Just don't ask what she accomplished.

Best friend?

Will you be my best friend?

Yes, I will, my darling baby sister

Best friends forever!

Haha I wish! What REALLY happens is...

Kakak: Su Ern, who is your best friend?

SE: Jo Jo!

Kakak: Jo Ern, who is your best friend?

JE: Jie-jie Elyssa (her older cousin)

SE: But, your behh friend ih appoh to be ME! (your best friend is supposed to be ME)

Poor little sis haha.

Whose new toy

Having kids means you have to be prepared to share. Like hubby bought this thing to roll on his shoulder last weekend...

Roll roll roll

Before very long...

Papa, I want

Roll on tummy... nice

I like this thing!

 Hubby had to pry it from her to continue rolling.  But before very long..

Papa! I want! Papa! 

After a few rounds, hubby gave up.  Toy has changed ownership. :)

Sit here with my new toy

Grown-up playthings

Following on my previous post. Those toys were what *I* selected and bought, what *I* thought would be good for them and with repeated playability value.  What do they *ask* for?  Led by JE with little copycat SE...

JE:  Next time, could you buy me lipstick?
SE:  Nek taime, could. you. buy me. lip-teek?
JE:  Could you buy me nail polish?
SE:  Could. you. buy me. nail po-leek?

JE:  Could you buy me toe polish? 
SE:  Could. you. buy me. toe po-leek?
JE:  Could you buy me eye polish?
SE:  Could. you. buy me. eye po-leek?
(Because it's 'nail polish', JE thinks you need 'toe polish' to paint toe-nails and 'eye polish' for your eyelids!)

My standard answer would be, only when you are twenty years old.  Hahaha. It's funny - I hardly apply make-up and even then it's only lipstick for work.  And yet these are dream items for my 5yo.


Kids messing around with display items, while waiting for hubby:

Put lipstick

Put eye-shadow

Another item JE frequently asks for...
JE:  Could you buy me high heels?

No no no haha...

Playthings

The kiddos don't read yet.  Also I want to limit their screen (iPad/TV) time.  They do role-play and chase each other around, but there is still a need to get them alternative things to DO.  Barbie dolls... JE doesn't bother with them and SE mostly just messes up their hair or loses their stuff.  :)  These are some more successful recent ones:

1. Chalkboard with magnetic board on the other side.  They play on this quite a bit.

Like my drawing?

2.  Kinetic sand!  Got the non-original type which is more flexible in term of quantity to buy.  The colours green and pink have now merged into some kind of brown, which is what I wanted in the first place anyway hehe.  Love this container as I can just close the lid and store as-is when they're done playing.

We're making lots of things!

3. Playdough.  My beef with these is, the colours of playdough merge together too quickly.  It's not much fun to play with only one colour at a time of course.  So we now own a LARGE blob of dark grey.  Plus a few unopened tubs of various colours.

I don't mix colours together. But Su Ern does

4. Lego. This is more for JE at the moment.  SE just grabs pieces and fixes them any old how. Then gets angry if you remove or reposition them.

What's the next step...

5. Tent. This one gets played with a lot. I do like this particular one as the sides are clear mesh so I can keep track of the little one playing inside.

And this is our pink rabbit tent

But the best one is actually not here hehe.  Don't have pictures of that yet.