January Birthday no.4 - mine!

After planning 3 birthday celebrations this month, I get to enjoy mine - today! I had an early celebration at Cell last Friday night when we hosted the CG at our new home for the first time. They very kindly surprised me with a blueberry cake - thanks to Facebook for keeping everybody informed.

This morning, my fellow coordinators surprised me with a cake at Little Lamb.

We had lunch together with my dad, brother and sister-in-law. Then I had a blissful 2-hour nap in the afternoon on my comfy new bed in my lovely new home.

In the evening, we dropped Joe and Joy off at my brother's house for them to practice their parenting skills while we went off to claim my free meal at Shogun.

Round 1 - most things salmon...

Round 2 - more sushi, lobster salad and oysters...

Round 3 - sashimi and soft shell crab...

Round 4 - taking a sweet break...

Round 5 - more salmon and oyster...

Round 6 - fruity dessert and I couldn't eat anymore...

We walked around for 2 hours checking out treadmills and then went to JuiceWorks to claim my free smoothie (member benefit). Of course I had a cookies and cream smoothie!

It's been a very sweet and blessed birthday! Thank you Lord!

January Birthday no.3 - Ah Chor is 86

This is way belated because I've been so busy. Last last Friday i.e. 21 Jan, my grandmother turned 86. We were supposed to go out for dinner but because she had a very bad pain in her good left leg, we had to come up with Plan B.

So we bought her favourite foods and her favourite cheese cake and brought it to her home for a very simple celebration.
Every birthday is precious and should be celebrated no matter how simple. It means we have had another year to live!

A Castle in the Promised Land

There is a slide in my house that is older than I am. My parents had it made for my older sister. But since she now lives on the other side of the planet and my brother does not yet have kids who can play with it, I am priviledged to possess it. So I made plans to incorporate it into a 'castle'. It's probably the closest to my childhood dream of a treehouse.

After lots of online research, I had some idea about what I wanted - a loft that is accessed by a rock-climbing wall, a 'kitchen' underneath and the slide by the side.

At the same time, a friend asked if I wanted to buy her used Ikea loft bed. And so that's how this blueprint came about...

I 'drew' this blueprint and gave it to my contractor. He gave me a funny look. Like I was mad.

Nevertheless, the castle arrived today!

The kids are so happy. But of course.

I bought the handholds from Corezone. Cost about RM35 each if I remember correctly. Joseph has no problems climbing up by himself. But Joy needs help and that's how I want it because I don't want her going up all by herself.

Joy-Anne's kitchen is underneath the loft, with a small cafe window. I plan to put up a sign over the window that says "J and J cafe".

And she's gonna cook lots of yummy food for me!

Moving into the Promised Land

Joy-Anne turned 3 years old on 18 January 2011. On her birthday, I plopped her on the weighing scale and the reading totally shocked me! I had thought that with Nana gone, she would be less nourished and well, not gain so much weight.

So that's extra weight to lug into the Promised Land...

Some time back, I wrote about why we call it OUR Promised Land. We finally marched into our promised land yesterday - 11 days short of one year to the day we first viewed it.

We had planned to move in before Christmas. But God had other plans.

While I had previously mentioned to Daaling that we are 'enlarging our tents' after 7 years - just like DUMC, he now mentioned to me that we are moving right after a stretch of 14 days-5.30am fast and prayer - just like DUMC did before the church moved into the current premises. (The church had a 21-day fast and prayer before moving.)

And this is only possible because of the delay in renovation works.

The main delay was in the woodwork - the blade at the factory broke and a suitable replacement could not be found. So the contractor outsourced it but the results were not acceptable to him. He rejected everything and started again from scratch. I had initially forgotten to tell him that I wanted the kitchen cabinets to have hidden 'handles'. By the time I told him, he had already outsourced it and manufacturing was in progress. As a result of the redo, I got what I wanted.

This new home is a testament of God's providence and faithfulness. He has led and provided every step of the way. What a faith-building exercise it has been!

It is certainly our hope and desire that this home will be a blessing to many other people.

p/s : Guests are welcome. Advanced notice appreciated.

Joy is 3...almost!

We had an early birthday celebration for my princess... Though it wasn't a real big birthday bash, it was enough to make her very happy.

Ah Kong, Ah Mah, Ah Ku & Kim Kim and the 2 great-grandmothers were Joy's birthday guests.

Unable to decide where to eat, we finally decided to eat at home.

A few days ago, while at Jaya Grocer, Joy pointed to the boxes of Ferrero Rocher on display and said, "Mama, can you please buy this for me?" I asked her if she knew what that was and to my surprise (and horror!!!) she said, "chocolate!" So Ah Ku bought some for her and fed it to her....

...without my permission!!!

As promised... the princess got her PINK princess Dora cake.

Kinda out of proportion because Dora is a lot shorter than Barbie but Joy didn't seem to notice nor care.

Last week, she told me, "You must shake my hand and wish me happy birthday. You must!!!"

And she added, "Everybody must wear pink party hat...if not.... no cake!!!"

So everybody wore pink party hats that mama made.

A year ago, she used to get upset when I told that she didn't look nor sound like a 2-year old. Now, she happily says she is three years old.

She can proudly proclaim she is a big girl one minute and the next minute, she tells me "Your baby cry". And when I ask her, "Who is my baby?" she says, "me la!"

Yes, almost three years old...in 2 days time.

Three years seem to have flown by.

I think time goes by faster with every kid you have.

Joy happily fed herself the cake...

But she didn't eat a lot and guess who had to finish it up...

Very nice (in my opinion) mango cake covered with PINK fresh cream from Raspberry Cake House (Sunway Metro).

And since Dora is not made of fondant, she gets to keep Dora.

Happy Birthday my darling princess...

May the Lord grant us wisdom and patience to teach you His ways, and may you walk faithfully with Jesus all the days of your life!

Joy's Hip hop dance

Doing the Hip Hop thanks to Angelina Ballerina...

First day of Joe's last kindy year

Joseph finally went back to kindy to start a new academic year. His kindy has a practice where returning students start a week later. Joseph sure wasn't complaining about the extra holidays and neither was I.

In fact, I think he was a little apprehensive to start school again. He's just by nature very cautious and rather timid about new surroundings. Kinda like his father.

So we really had to give him encouraging words and pray for him before we left him in his new class with his new teacher.

Back home, Joy wanted to wear her uniform as well.

She has been saying she wants to go to school but makes no whining about it. I'm not sure she's serious about it.

At the moment, she's just happy wearing the uniform which is a hand-me-down from a friend who's daughter graduated from the same kindy last year.

She wore the uniform when we went to pick Joe up and lucky for her, the teachers didn't think she was a runaway student.
When we got home, Joseph was back to his usual cheery self and seemed quite happy with his new class and new teacher.
I sure am not looking forward to when he starts primary school next year. I just know it's gonna be pretty traumatic for him and there's going to be lots of crying.