Porky Valentines

We normally don't bother with Valentine's day.  We're both fussy about stuff, so the only way to ensure gifts would be appreciated would be to bring the beneficiary along.  Err after all that, might as well we buy our own stuff!  We like food but aren't keen on crowds.

The day after Valentine's this year, I just had to mention (maybe with a teensy accusatory tone) to hubby in the morning "Valentine's Day over already".  Despite being groggy from jusstt having woken up, hubby made a quick comeback, "We're eating out this weekend only right?".  Hehehe.

So that's how we ended up at Ticklish!  It's another place I've been wanting to check it out.

Happy Valentine's Day! Or whatever, really.

Food was all right.  The meat sauce on the pasta and sloppy joes were a tad too sweet.  The ribs were enjoyable but serving size was small.  The server said 6 ribs were more than enough for two... I could happily have eaten all 6 by myself!  While I wouldn't mind a repeat visit, I wouldn't bother to make a special trip to this place.

Pasta galore

The piggy-themed shop deco was fun to explore.  We obviously couldn't be disturbing other diners for closer looks or photos though.

Red Piggy!

More piggies

Piggies in a balloon! Oh, we also have balloons.

My birthday 2017

SE planned it all...  "For Mummy's birthday, I will wear my pony dress.  Then we will go to Ah Mah Ah Kong's house and I will take Mummy's birthday card.  Then we go to THE SHIP."

Haha I don't even get to choose the venue of my own birthday dinner!

Luckily her plans were laid out early... managed to convince her to bring home the birthday card (that she made) a day earlier.  Ah Mah Ah Kong's house is about 40mins away from ours!  And although I hadn't thought about it, I'd probably also have chosen to celebrate at The Ship.

Happy birthday to Mummy!

Ready to eat

I have corn. You want corn?

And my two girls with the birthday cards they made:

We made these for Mummy!

Aww.  :)

On a side note, I think SE's depiction of our whole family is a first.  I don't recall JE having drawn a 'family portrait' before.

No more crying

SE is fine at kindy already, phew.  Can officially close the rocky first chapter already.

No more of this sort of phrase...

SE:  When I close my eyes, the tears come out.

There were more but I cannot recall already.  These days I just drive up to the school and drop her off. No drama.

Happy!

JE seems fine too.  There's no heavy pressure or tons of homework for now.

Stand together

Sometimes they're good, sometimes they fight.

JE: You ah, very naughty one!

And SE would complain:

SE: Jo Ern is such a naughty girl already!

Go away! You go away!

Pbbttthhhh

Then the mum starts yelling to stand nicely together in front of her beautifully-blooming plant so that she can take just ONE photo.

Cheese...

OK lah, that will do.

Picnic in the park

Went to the TTDI park recently.  It's a fun place, and it's free!

Armed with containers, fishing nets, flour/coffee sieves from the kitchen (courtesy of my mum) and whatnot, we first looked for little fishes and prawns to catch...

Look very carefully...

Did anyone catch anything?

Look, there's a frog! (SE's frog pose haha)

The children's playground is pretty big. 

Up the mountain I climb!

And down we slide !

It was a last minute thing so didn't have much suitable food for picnic.  Fried rice (put this in the thermal pot and am so happy that it stayed warm/hot!), fish cake, drinks and some munchies from CNY.

Eat some lunch

When we were almost done (JE and SE are very slow eaters) this big male monkey came over.  It looked around, then grabbed a container of CNY cookies and went up the bamboo.  It tried to bite the container open, but halfway the container dropped.  The monkey then found an open pack of biscuits and ate those.  This was a scary experience - this monkey was aggressive and already scarred from fights.  Luckily it went away after that.

Monkey and CNY cookies

Gymrama

I confess to being a completely lazy mom.  I only sent JE to kindergarten, and that only for 2 years and not 3 as the norm these days.  No ballet/art/yamaha etc lessons, no enrichment classes, nothing. Now she has just started Primary 1.  And finally something else as well... gymrama (rhythmic gymnastics).

JE is naturally quite flexible, which helps.  Then after 3 lessons, I noticed there were some younger girls around.  So I decided to bring SE too.  Fetching one girl to gymrama is the same as fetching two.  And this also means I don't have to sit through two sessions of gymrama in future, as in an advanced class for JE and a junior one for SE.  Lazy mom to the core!  Heh heh.

I didn't take pictures for the first 3 classes as I didn't want JE to start feeling self-conscious.  These pictures are from the first class with SE.  SE wasn't happy about joining, but luckily she did try to follow instructions as best as she could.

Trying on shoes for size

Running round the area for warm-up

(Look at short and chubby SE hehe)

The teachers are slightly fierce and there's some shouting going on.  Guess they do have to maintain discipline.  I'm glad the 'Little Gymnasts' class is conducted in English though, unlike the more advanced classes.

Slightly fierce teachers

Exercises

(The more advanced class behind are doing harder ones) 

Hopefully the girls stick with it.  If they can cope, this will train them in discipline, flexibility, strength, confidence and all the good stuff.

At the end of that first class, there were sweets for girls who'd won some competition.  SE apparently expected one.  And was totally disappointed that she didn't get any.  JE had to carry her back to me looking like this.  Poor kiddo haha.

No sweet for me... why like this :(

Kitten story

OK must continue the kitten story.  There were 5 kittens with us at one time.  They were cute, but it was a nuisance having 5 furry creatures underfoot all the time.  Our neighbour (owner of at least one of the cat parents) suggested we could drop them off at the nearby market.  So we were trying to decide which one(s) to keep.

The kittens lived around the porch, but seemed to know how to avoid the cars and we stopped worrying about driving over them after a month.  Around Xmas however, I drove in and later noticed there was one under my car tyre.

SE kept saying "Mummy made the kitten die, mummy made the kitten die".  Until later that night... when she came upstairs and said "Mummy KILLED the kitten!"  Gahh.  Hubby continued with it the next day. Hmpppfff.  Like I WANTED to kill a cute furry creature??

After that we got our maid to shoo the kittens away when we needed to drive out.  Around New Year's day however, one kitten walked back under the car after being shoo-ed away... and hubby reversed over it.  Arggh another one bites the dust.  And this time, I had to give him back what he was calling me earlier... hahaha.  He was traumatised at causing its death too.

So it was 3 kittens left.

Recently, our neighbours' 8yo daughter 'gave' 2 of the kittens to her friend nearby.

So... only ONE  kitten left!  We're ok to have the 2 kittens gone to a good home.  Err... but how come we're left with my least favourite one??  Hahaha.  JE called it 'Fiercey' as it kept hissing at people. She quite likes this one though.

A week or so later, the two kittens came back.  It was quite good to see them again actually!

So now it's back to 3.

This is Fiercey

This is Blackie

This is Black Patch (Patch for short)

Now it's back to the dilemma of which one(s) to keep!  Patch is the best-looking but isn't friendly. Blackie is the only male - friendly but likes to play rough.  Fiercey is actually quite sweet now that it has gotten over its initial fear of humans.

We only want to keep two at the max.  Right now three are wreaking havoc on my plants, leaving pee/poo smells and eating up lots of food.