Busy busy year end

I realised I've not been updating my blog. Here's a quick update on what we've been up to:

1. Managing renovations at 2 houses
Finally managed to nail down the contractors for the renovation of our 2 new houses - one for own stay and one for renting out. After weeks of going around hunting for supplies (tiles, paint, light fittings, etc.) we've finally settled everything (or at least I hope we have). Contractors have finally also started work this week, so fingers crossed, we'll be able to get our houses ready by mid-December.

2. Getting organised for our move
Still lots of packing to do. We're doing bit by bit every weekend. Last weekend I cleared up and given away all of L's old baby clothes so the doctor better be right that we're having a baby boy else we'll end up having to go shopping for new baby gal clothes!

Also realised that there may be a rat lurking around my packed boxes in the porch... yikes!!! We found rat droppings in the porch in the last 2 days, and scratch marks on the boxes. How to get rid of the darn rat the natural way? I mean I don't want to kill it, I just want it to leave. I read peppermint is a natural rat repellent but have yet to try it out. So now all new packed boxes are kept in the house, no more putting them outside.   

3. Keeping the kids busy
Feeling extremely guilty for not spending more time with the kids during the school hols. H is going camping with his grandparents and cousin this weekend. He's extremely excited. L wants to go too but I told her she can't since she's actually afraid of getting dirty. She wouldn't step on grass or mud, so how to go camping?!!! When I told her that while taking her for a walk by the poolside, she immediately walked on the grass and said "See, I'm stepping on the grass. Now can I go camping?". "No, you have to walk on the grass barefooted!". I think she's given up hope. Now she's excited that we're taking them to Legoland. She's been talking about it everyday since we told her we'll be going next weekend. So Hubs better make it happen otherwise she will be extremely disappointed!

They've also gone for a couple of field trips with my sis' school which I missed. I will also be missing the Jim West puppet show next week but at least the kids will have fun. The good news is I just got a call from Dumex to inform me that I won 2 tickets to the Hi-5 concert in December. Yippeee... I've never won any contest before so my luck must have changed. L will be thrilled since she loves Hi-5. And since she doesn't get to go camping, I'll be taking her to the concert :-)

Best Legoland family deal

The school holidays are approaching and I'm so tempted to take the kids to Legoland in Johor. Not sure about Hubs, but I should be able to take some time off next week. Hopefully he can too so we don't have to go on weekends (read CROWD!). I miss my little girl so much, have not seen her in 3 days due to my busy work schedule. By the time I got home these past 3 days, she was already in bed. Couldn't catch her in the mornings too since I left home before she was up. Anyway, I'm digressing.

Back to Legoland. Tickets bought online (7 days in advance) will cost us RM312 (after 20% discount) for 2 adults and 1 child. L enters free since she's under 3 years old. Yippee!

But... with some clever manipulation of the ongoing promotions out there, the best deal for a family of 2 adults and 2 kids like ours is only RM231. A savings of RM81. Double YIPPEE!

This is how.

1. Buy a box of Kelloggs cereal - the voucher allows you to get a free child ticket with the purchase of an adult ticket at full price (RM140). So RM140 will take care of the tickets for Daddy and H.
2. Buy a pack of Mamee Monster - the voucher gives you 35% off a normal priced adult / child / senior citizen ticket. So RM91will get momster me an adult ticket.
3. L enters for free anyway, so total moolah to fork out = RM231

Time to go grab those Coco Pops and Mamee!

Hello Kitty Town & Little Big Club @ Puteri Harbour

While we were in JB for Chinese New Year, we took the kids to the Puteri Harbour Family Theme Park. I must say it was a great day out for the kids. We went to the Hello Kitty Town and the Little Big Club. Admission is RM50 for one park and RM85 for both (same price for both adults and kids, but kids under 3 enters for free). I think RM85 is pretty expensive since the parks aren't at all big but Hubs was happy and felt it was worth every single penny since his kids had so much fun. His comments: It's much cheaper than lugging the whole family abroad, and less stressful too! I guess he has a point.

 

 

Hello Kitty Town

What's there to play? There isn't much in the Hello Kitty Town to be honest, and it's really more for girls but I guess kids that age don't really think that way. Hello Kitty Town is more activity based. You're given an activity card whereby you need to get it stamped before the start of each activity. That means you can only do each activity once. There are 6 activity stations:-

• Cookie decorating. You are given a Hello Kitty cookie to paint with chocolate or strawberry jam. The kids only wanted to decorate but didn't want to eat so daddy had to gobble up both cookies
• Jewellery making. Here you're given a necklace and all you do is choose a charm and chain it to the necklace. The quality of the necklace and charm is pretty good I must say. L's been wearing hers ever since :-)
• Nail salon. Both kids didn't want to have their nails painted so H painted mine and L just ran around. I had to bear with uglily painted nails until I got back to KL (sigh ugly nails for CNY)
• Hello Kitty's house. This is not really an activity but more for photo taking. You get to walk through Hello Kitty's living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, walk-in wadrobe, etc.
• Black wonder. For me this is the most interesting activity, but H was shivering with fear (I kid you not he was really shivering and crying, and insisted to be carried). L was cool though. Well the place is quite dark, it's supposed to be scary. You walk through a maze, then you come to a hall with multiple rooms (spookily set up), in which you have to find clues to solve the puzzle.
• Dressup. We didn't do this but I think it's just dressing up for photo taking

Apart from the activity stations above which requires stamping, there is also the spinning tea cup ride and a jungle gym type area with air guns, balls, etc. Oh, there's also dance performances on stage.

 

That wraps up the Hello Kitty Town. Time for lunch before we head up to the Little Big Club. The problem with Puteri Harbour is that it's still quite dead so there's really no place to eat apart from one restaurant at the harbour front. We were told the Lat restaurant is quite good but they weren't open for lunch that day.

 

Little Big Club

If you were to pay for only one park, I would suggest you go for the Little Big Club. It's spread over 2 floors (did I mention the parks are indoor, so you're not affected by rain or shine), and also divided into areas according to the cartoons/characters.

• Barney's Yard and Playhouse. This is just a simple play area for the kids to run around. Nothing much. Kids can also watch Barney video in the playhouse
• Pingu's Igloo. You get games machines in this room much like an arcade but on a much smaller scale (H's favourite). We almost gave this place a miss cos we thought you have to insert coins to play but later found out the games are all FOC. There's an air hockey table, 2 basketball shooting machines and 3 hit the bobbing penguins (?) machines.
• Bob the Builder. This is again similar to the jungle gym type set up where you have playstructures to climb, slides, etc. But what is different here is that there's a section in which you can build a wall using big puzzle pieces (imagine tetris if you remember the game). The kids loved this. They'd build the wall as high as they could, then run through it to crash it down.
• Angelina's dance studio. Only L went into this cos she wanted to see the mouse and she has a thing for ballet. The room's set up like a stage with Angelina on the stage to take pictures with the guests. Kids and adults can also play dress up
• Thomas and Friends. A whole floor is dedicated to Thomas and Friends. This is where you get rides (finally). There are 6 rides altogether - they're all pretty mild (well I guess they're designed for young kids). H is normally quite timid but when it comes to rides, he's just fearless. L on the other hand would only sit on my lap. There's also a huge playstucture here. The slides are quite scary I must say, and going after the kids can be a real nightmare as you have to be quite small and flexible to go around the structure. 

Overall it was a great day out. Thanks Yi-Yi for inviting us along. I think having their cousins with them added to the fun. We must check out Legoland next...

melbourne getaway & home

It was a nice short getaway, managed to meet up with friends and family. Most importantly though, we achieved what we set out to do. It's amazing how a short weekend trip like this can be so productive - although we only spent 3 full days in Melbourne, I must say it felt longer than that.

Food was so good in Melbourne. Weather was not too bad - except that you'd think it'd be warmer since it's summer but we still needed our jackets. Flight was bad though, the seats on Air Asia X sucked real bad! I remembered it to be ok but this time round, it was just extremely uncomfortable! And we couldn't really sleep on the plane. On the way there, we were seated in front of a group of Cambodians who couldn't stopped yakking on the top of their voices despite it being a late night flight. On the way back, we were seated behind a couple of Australian teenage backpackers who couldn't stop talking and laughing non-stop despite it being an early morning (i.e. 1 am) flight. Hubs was really irritated. Now I can understand how others feel when our kids were on the plane cos they must be just as noisy.

Missed the kids so much. When we got back, L was clingier than ever. She wouldn't let me out of her sight. As soon as I stepped away, within split seconds, she'll be crying "mommy mommy where are you? I want mommy...". And she wouldn't nap for fear that we'd go out and leave her at home. Her brother on the other hand was perfectly fine. I guess he's old enough to understand that mommy and daddy will always come home to them, and probably also used to us going away without taking them along. Are we such bad parents? We know of many parents, in fact most of our friends with family, they would and have never left their kids behind - everywhere they go, they'd lug their kids along. We always get 2 very distinct of responses whenever we tell our friends that we went on holiday without the kids - one is of disbelief and disapproval (how can you do that?!!), one is of envy (how we wish we can do that too!).

Would you do that, i.e. leave your kids at home while you go out or go holidaying? We used to sneak out without informing the kids, but as soon as they realise you're gone, they would start screaming and yelling. I guess it also builds 'distrust'. These days we find it better to just tell them that we'll be going out. Prep them beforehand. Tell them exactly where you'll be going and what you'll be doing (i.e. something boring that only adults would want to do and that they're better off staying at home) and bribe them (i.e. tell mommy what you want mommy will get it for you). It's easy to bribe kids this age, or at least mine aren't that demanding. It's usually the food they are crazy over at that point in time. E.g. when we went to London last year, H asked for donuts. This time round, L asked for yoghurt :-)

home sweet home

Just got back from our family holiday in Perth. It is our first holiday abroad with both kids and hubs vowed not to take them anywhere until they are much older. I guess hubs idea of a good holiday is a relaxing one where you just sit back and do nothing. But with kids, you end up being more tired than ever... hahaha.

But it was a good trip nonetheless. At least for the kids (I hope). As soon as H hit home, he went on his days as usual without a single mention of the trip. I guess he's one of those who lives in the moment and does not care much about the past. Unlike L, she has vivid memory of the trip (for now at least). Every single waking moment she would ask to look at the videos or photos taken of the trip. She would also randomly talk about the things she saw or did at the farm or at the zoo.

Lessons learnt? Don't try to be too ambitious when going on hols with young kids. They're just happy spending time with family doing simple things like playing in the park, going to the pool, etc. For our next family holiday, we should just check into a beach resort :-)

Little Terror on Board

Just go back from Langkawi yesterday, it was a lovely short holiday. On the flight back however, L started acting out. I swear the whole plane could hear her. She got woken up from her sleep when daddy tried to ‘adjust’ her head and her tantrum started. There was no way to placate her.

“I want a pillow” and when I got her a pillow she hit the pillow “I don’t want the pillow like that”

“I don’t want daddy. Daddy go home” and when I carried her she struggled “I don’t want mommy. I want Daddy”

 “I want milk” and when I took down her bag to make her milk she cried “I want daddy to make it”

“I want to buckle myself” and when I gave her the seat belt she threw it away “I don’t want the seat belt”

“I don’t want you to carry me. Put me down!” and when I put her down she kicked and screamed “I don’t want to sit down”

… and on and on and on she went…

You can imagine all the struggling, yelling and screaming while I tried to keep my cool. She then sat on the floor and started bouncing up and down. When I told her she’ll hurt herself that way, she said “I want to hurt myself”. There is just no way to win her over. So although the seat belt sign was on (there was a slight turbulence), I had no choice but to just let her be. One thing I learnt about dealing with strong headed kids like L, there really is no point in trying to talk sense into them while they’re in their tantrumy mode cos they’ll just rebut everything you say.  The best solution is to simply ignore them and let them be until they calm down. So finally I told L calmly, OK you do what you want. She climbed onto the seat, lied down on the pillow and drank her milk. That was all and she was back in her cheery mood after her bottle of milk. So what was that big fuss all about? I still wonder…

Gosh I sure hope this bad behaviour doesn't repeat itself on our flight to Perth this month end!

Kids and hotels

My company will be having our annual away day to Langkawi in November. I asked H if he wanted to go. His first response was are we staying in a hotel?

For kids, holiday = hotel or rather hotel = holiday. No point spending big bucks planning grand holidays for toddlers / preschoolers. So long as they're away from home and there's a pool, they're having a holiday. What's the fascination with hotels anyway? We still haven't figured out... perhaps it's the king size bed they get to jump up & down on without mommy and daddy yelling at them, or the many switches they can play with like turning on and off the lights, the long bath they get to bathe in with loads and loads of bubbles... what?

Amazing thing about H is that he has an amazing memory - not about the holiday destination (I don't think he cares much about where he went as I mentioned above), but he remembers every detail of the hotels we stayed in, including the room numbers. He just loves staying in hotels.

So back to the Langkawi trip. I told H he has to be friendly and talk to mommy's friends cos we're going with mommy's friends from work. He said he doesn't want to. Then I told him if he doesn't want to then he doesn't have to go. So he said ok he will. So we shall see...(yah i know I've resorted to using threat, I must remind myself not to do so the next time)