Merry Christmas!

Obviously belated post.  (Was feeling lazy).

We hit some malls to check out the Christmas deco.  First was IPC.

Nice!

Got sleigh

The bear theme at Curve of course can't go wrong.

A beary merry Xmas!

Check out this giant bear!

1u wasn't too bad but we were rushing for a movie.  Went over to only this smaller display area.

Tell me when picture has been taken

Not surprisingly, the best was at The Gardens.  They continued with their popular concept of creating settings for people to take photos.  

Try out this dreamy scene...

Like a carriage from fairyland!

Dreamy winter scene

One last one

Merry (belated) Christmas 2019!

Cut hair

Girls being girls, they always want their hair long. But their hair was getting too long and messy.  And SE developed a habit of putting hair in her mouth.  So it was snipping time.

We have a good place to cut hair near our house, but it's usually crowded and the people there always seem to work very slowly (to me that is, haha).   Another thing is we are mostly at our apartment.  So my maid organised this...

Don't cut too short ok!

My turn to cut Jojo's hair

All done!

Looks good to me! 

At lunch

Oh no she has found the hidden drawer where they keep the order chits and other supplies!

Oh what's inside?

This girl loves messing around with things and will NOT listen when told to stop. 

Wow so many things in here

I will just write on THIS paper. For now

Luckily food arrived shortly after and she could be persuaded to leave that drawer alone.  I get quite frazzled if our maid isn't there and I have to deal with my two kiddos.  (Hubby will usually be in his own world with his phone and thus pretty useless)

PD Windmill farm

A whole post dedicated to this one place!  It's relatively new and set up by the Farm in the City people.  There weren't many visitors at all the day we went - saw only two other parties.  So did we like it...

This is proof we were at PD Windmill Farm!

First up, guinea pigs!  Now this is my first time seeing these given prominence in a petting zoo.  Still, why not?  They were cute and fat.

Come little creatures, I feed you

The girls were squealing away initially, scared of these eager little animals.  Must be because they rarely get visitors bearing food.

Shoo, get away from me!

And this was another first... a CAT house!  Haha.  Again, why not.

Pet pet pet

Bunny rabbits we always like.

I call this one Fluffo

There were lots of props for taking photos.

Giant drink dispenser

Giant tissue box

Behind these was actually a haunted house.  It wasn't a good one by any measure, but we are VERY scaredy people and screamed through the whole thing.  Bet the guide never had a group who were so scared and stepped through that slowly!  Oh he was needed to go with us and press buttons to activate movement (it was that low-budget heh. Well not that scaredy-cat me knows how a good one functions)

Pumpkins! And a haunted house

I loved this playground.  There was a treehouse with slides and swings.  So well-designed.

Treehouse

Swings at Treehouse

After that took more photos around.

Blue for me, pink for you

Do you prefer a big bicycle?

Or a small car?

If we didn't have an eye on our checkout time, could easily have hung around longer.  As usual it helped that I always set low expectations, but we enjoyed this place!

Until the next time

Port Dickson trip - Activities

We stayed at Corus this time.  And spent loads of time at the beach!  There were two types downstairs - one side with limited sand but containing shells and stuff washed up, and the other side with lots of soft sand.

Playing with wet sand (with bunny Fluffy)

Looking for shells to pick

Playing with soft sand

Just... chilling

And more playing with soft sand

As if that wasn't enough beach, we also stopped at a nearby one.  Kiddos had fun cracking open these seed pods:

Crack them, crack them all

We also visited Pusat Ikan Hiasan.  Quite good and educational, especially since it was free.  Many varieties of fish, corals and aquatic life.

Fishies!

More fishes!

One more post to go.

Port Dickson trip 2019

We are just back from PD!  First trip of the year-end school holidays, heh.  I had planned for Ipoh but by the time my leave was approved, accommodation options were limited.  Never mind, PD first and Ipoh later.  And this post on food first, non-food in later post.

First dinner was at Soon Huat, which was beside a fishing village.  Walked over while waiting for food.

Fishing boats behind us

After that err no pictures of food.  As usual too busy attacking the dishes once they started arriving.  Had crabs, lala, squid.  I thought food was quite good.

Until we went to the next place for lunch on the next day, Lucky King bun.  Ordered the bun for the kids and this curry seafood pot for the adults.  Now this was really yum!  Much better than food the previous place.

I will NOT eat that spicy thing

But the bread is yummy! Ahmmmm

It got even better.  I'd say our best meal was at Hao Yue Shun.  Every dish we ordered was excellent. But see how much food we had (I don't dare weigh myself yet) for 3 adults, 2 kids who don't eat a lot.

Thumbs up!!

I kept planning to eat leftovers but we keep going out for more.  Quite enjoyed the cendol, coconut shake and snacks at PD Coconut Shake Power too.  Until we went back again next lunchtime.

We like the food here!

Totally over-ate. 

Musings of SE

Lately I have been stuck in traffic a lot, especially following Waze through housing areas trying to avoid jammed-up highways.  Then I get totally stuck at the small housing roads not meant for heavy traffic haha.  So I will idly look at the houses along the road and wonder about people's lives in them.  To my surprise, SE seems to have been thinking along the same lines.

SE:  I wonder what other people's lives are like. Where they live, what they do every day.
Me: Hmm ok
SE:  I also wonder about Jojo's life.
Me: Har? You live with Jojo and see her all the time what
SE:  Yes but I don't know how she feels, what she thinks.

My little thinker.

I wonder...

Another time...

SE: I want to be Jojo!
Me: Oh, why?
SE: Jojo is good, and she can finish her homework.

I have to tell her that she can also be good and finish her homework if she works at it! 

Gymrama grading

Time for the second and final gymrama grading/competition for this year.  Hmm this isn't a cheap affair... RM125 each for competition fees, costume rental about RM60 to RM120 depending on whether it's with sequins (cheaper) or diamonds, short (cheaper) or long sleeves, or any special embellishments.  About RM400 this round for my two girls.

Getting ready

Ta-dahh!

For all the preparation, the actual routines are less than 3 mins each.  JE had 2 routines as always.  No pictures since I was taking video instead.

All done!

SE's turn was after lunch.  My maid Jane is invaluable at these events - she does their hair and makeup as well as make lunch for me and herself (the girls have lunch provided).  Plus bring everything along.  All I have to do is to drive there. :) 

Getting ready

Ta-dah!

This round they had just gold/silver/bronze rankings instead of numerical ones.  Both didn't do that well.  JE got bronze for both routines and SE bronze for her single one.  It's rather disheartening - wonder if we should stop gymrama all together.  The girls don't like going for classes, they don't do well in competitions and this situation is unlikely to change.  Maybe it's better not to continue putting them through this?  Must consider that for next year.

Kindy concert outfits

The girls were fooling around in their old kindy concert outfits.  SE's was from a year ago.  JE's was from... THREE years ago!  And it still fits.  This one is a "skinny beanie" as she doesn't eat much.  "Skinny beanie" is what SE thought it was instead of "skinny minny", and now we just call JE the skinny beanie.  She isn't gaining much width so luckily she does gain in height.

(I wish her feet would stop growing though!  Her feet are catching up in size to mine already.)

With love

With much love

With love and rabbit ears