First post-Covid movie

Took the kids to watch "Minions-The Rise of Gru".  It's our first movie since Covid so it must have been quite a few years!  Hubby didn't want to sit a long time in the cinema so... save money hehe.  Took the chance to go to Dreamz Bakery in Kota Dsara. 

Our drinks

The place is famous for cake but the food was pretty decent.  

Eat fries from Mummy's burger

The cake.... guess must select correctly.  No complaints for the Matcha Choco checkerboard (nothing that special though), enjoyed the Dark Choco one.   

And now the first cake

There were people waiting outside when we left.  I'm already planning a repeat visit. :)

 

After that we went for the movie where I completely forgot about taking photos.  TGV at The Strand is nice and quiet, tickets also cheaper than say at 1 Utama.

We got a popcorn/coke combo and SE ended up with a full bladder from the coke.  Luckily she managed to 'tahan' until the end of the movie.  Note to self:  Next time just get popcorn.

Ah Kong’s 80th birthday 2022

Ah Kong is 80!

Happy birthday to me

We gathered all the usual suspects, and since it's a special year, we went for a special birthday lunch.

All of us

Indo-Chinese buffet at Tamarind Springs - the lighting was a bit dim so I pretty much gave up on taking good photos with my phone.  

Our long table

We ordered many dishes. Need to make the most out of the 100++/pax (half price for kids) price tag hehe.  Many dishes or the accompanying dips were slightly sour (though not as sour as Thai food) and topped with fried onions, which suits me perfectly!  My favs for the day were the Laotian BBQ beef, Vietnamese prawns in garlic sauce and watermelon salad with chicken/prawn bits in sourish dressing. This was my first buffet in years and I decided to forget my diet for the day. 

The oh-so-tender Laotian beef topped with fried onion. And squid rings with dip

  SE was impressed by the toilet...

Wow nice toilet!

Overall we enjoyed ourselves.  Happy birthday to my dear father!

Ah Kong and Ah Mah with all 7 grandkids

Eczema

We thought it was ringworm at first.  But after finishing the fungal cream I bought from the pharmacy, visiting a GP (general practitioner) and almost-finishing the fungal cream/steroid cream/oral meds given by the GP clinic, SE still had spots all over. The spots were itchy raised bumps so they troubled her a lot.  Luckily they weren't red so she still looked normal.  Only when you touched her could you feel literally hundreds of raised bumps. After spots started appearing on her face, no choice, had to seek a specialist already.

The dermatologist said it was eczema.  It must have been coincidence that the earliest spots were in a ring as the later ones weren't in any specific pattern.  But oh dear... SE had never showed signs of eczema before and now she was having these ALL over her body.  We took home a steroid cream to be used only for itchy areas, a soap-less soap and moisturiser to prevent the skin from getting dry and itchy.

Go away spots

 

It has taken some time but her skin is much better now.  Her torso is already clear and now only a few areas are left.  Will see how it goes after this.  While ideally the situation can go back to normal and she can use normal soap, soap-less cleansers aren't difficult to find. 

Ice creams

JE is rather attracted to get ice cream cones.  When I buy tub ice creams, sometimes together with a pack of cones, she has no interest at all.  No chance to be a thrifty mummy *roll eyes.

FamilyMart ones are good....

 

Green tea flavour!

We stopped by a shop on the way home.  She spotted ice cream on sale and asked for another.  What, 2 in a day??  Oh well. 

Chocolate. And strawberry. In kittycat cone sleeves

We have a CU mart below our apartment (I'd have preferred a FamilyMart) so some nights we walk down.

Mango flavour

Ice cream is as big as Piglet

And this photo must have been from another day judging by the different clothes.  SE is holding a dark choc ice cream in a black cone - looks cool but messy on the mouth.  She didn't like this flavour so I ate most of it.

Dark chocolate. And green tea

It's currently sea salt again at FM, which the kids don't like.  So we are waiting for the next flavour.

Couch potato

The girls will be in this position on weekends when left undisturbed....

Watch TV eat lollipop. And check phone

Watch TV eat lollipop

That's why I still send them for art class even though they complain it's not enjoyable and they're not learning anything.  At least they do something other than being couch potatoes!  We would also go out for lunch, sometimes a short trip to a small mall, swimming if the weather permits. 

Weekend schedule - TV allowed after lunch, iPads evenings onwards

Sat morning: Art class

Rest of Sat: Mostly couch potato-ing

Sun: Mostly couch potato-ing

18%

This.... is the pose of shame. Hmppfff.  She got 18 marks (over 100) in her BM paper so made her hold it up.  This is her very first exam.  She didn't have those in Standard 1 and classes were online the next 2 years, obviously without exams.

Failed this one

At the back of the paper you can see how she filled up some of her exam time.

Drew eggdogs

Close-up of the "eggdogs", apparently some creature she saw while surfing the internet.

Eggdog and Tall Eggdog

Studying from home hasn't been good.  Without the pressure of exams and having to do homework, the kids could get by without understanding much.  JE also failed 4 papers - she wasn't a top student before but she'd at least been in the top third.

Sigh.  Hoping they will be able to catch up.  SE didn't do too badly on her other papers.

For now, "eggdog admits defeat" - yep this one also drawn on the paper during the exam.

"Eggdog admits defeat"

 

Staying put

Since we couldn't go to my parents' place, we stayed put in the apartment.  The kids missed school the next 2 days.  If I thought my maid Jane could help take care of things.... she wasn't even leaving her room haha.  I was tending to the sick kids and the sick myself.  But can't complain also, she did come out to cook meals.

It was actually rather relaxing not to leave the apartment at all.

All of us got better and on Thursday the kids resumed school, albeit still with sore throats.  I resumed working from home.  So peace in the morning (Jane happily staying in her room), Jane cooking around noon, JE coming back for lunch then SE around 3pm.  SE had to be watched like a hawk for homework:

Kakak making sure homework getting done

And sometimes I would return from a toilet break to this:

 

Now how shall we reply this email

My car would end up in the workshop 2 weeks.  I kidnapped my parents' car since they were obviously not needing it.  Good timing also that everything happened at the same time!