Countdown to Joash's 6th Birthday

Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Countdown to Jayna's 5th Birthday

Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Countdown to Jaide's Birthday

Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Countdown to Joram's Birthday

Lilypie - Personal pictureLilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

My Final Post



As my youngest child, Joram, graduates from my blog and enters primary one, I am now penning my last blog post. Over the past 12 years, I have actually written ONE THOUSAND posts regarding my homemaking journey. As I look back, I can clearly see the guiding hand of God through it all. 

I have chronicled more than 120 outings with my children, most of which I handled everything all by myself with God as my only help. This number does not even include my daily grocery trips, errand runs and places we've gone to beyond the first/first few times. I can safely say that I have tried my best to provide my children with a happy childhood. 

My heart is bursting with joy as I watch my little ones grow up. Joram has always been slow in reaching his milestones but once he masters a life skill, he becomes really faithful in following through. I pray that he will always keep the good habits that he has learnt and steer clear of bad behaviour. Since he was the one who received the Mr Appreciative award in kindergarten, I sure hope that he will be the one who can clinch the EMPATHY pin in primary school which has so far eluded my older children. *wink* May he thoroughly enjoy his elementary school experience!

As for myself, I am eager to go back to the workforce. Praise God for resolving my health issues this year so that I do not have to worry about enduring pain while working for an employer. I'm embracing my post-menopausal body and looking forward to the next phase of my life. Even though the kids' teenage years may bring new challenges, I can only trust that the foundation that has been laid in the early part of their lives will be their anchor and God will be there for them even if I no longer can. 

Here are the last posts regarding the older children: JAIDEJAYNA & JOASH

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Christmas @ Jewel Changi Airport


We visited the new Jewel Changi Airport a few months ago after our church's anniversary celebration. Back then, we managed to only enter the Mirror Maze and explore the Canopy Park. The children were very disappointed that we did not have the time and money to go for the Sky Nets (Bouncing) and the Changi Experience Studio. So I promised them that we would go back on Christmas Day.

CANOPY PARK
@Discovery Slides

@Foggy Bowls

@ Topiary Walk

MIRROR MAZE


Eventually, the day arrived for us to revisit the place. This time round, my mum-in-law joined us. We all woke up bright and early to take a 7-seater cab down to Jewel and had a lovely breakfast at Toastbox. Then, we went for a nice stroll at the HSBC Rain Vortex. We actually spotted a beautiful rainbow!


Since the Sky Nets (Bouncing) tickets include admission to the Canopy Park too, we went back there again. I was particularly intrigued to see something new: the snow walk. Sadly, the queue was terribly long so I stood in line while the kids ran off elsewhere to play. They managed to join me in the nick of time to enter the short strip of artificial snow. It was a quite a novel experience for the young ones.  



Getting the kids to leave for food was like pulling teeth. We ended up taking a really long time before we could get our seats at Putien with their Michelin-approved menu. I was absolutely famished by then because I have not had the habit of eating breakfast ever since I became a mother and lunch was so delayed. However, the wait was definitely worth it! The dishes were truly mouth-watering, especially the crispy oysters. Yumz! A pity we had to wolf down the meal in order to make it to our booked time-slot for the Changi Experience Studio. 

We had amazing fun in this virtual reality world. The children once again didn't want to leave so I had to go downstairs by myself to buy their favourite Boost Juice tea break. Might as well. Despite the enormous size of the building, it was swarmed with people. Due to the immense crowd, we were late for the allocated Sky Nets (Bouncing) hour. 



We won against the other team. Woohoo!


It was so tough for me to enter the place with the kids as the accompanying adult. With my hot flashes being triggered almost constantly, I was sweating like a pig. Handling Joram was a total nightmare. He was terrified when others bounced near him and cried several times. I had to comfort him and literally do a lot of hand-holding for him. Yet, he was so eager to play with his siblings so I took on the role of refereeing for safety as well. The kids also wanted me to take pictures and videos of them. What a tall order for me to do so in such a violently unstable environment! Sigh... That 45 min was pure torture for me. I'm just glad that they enjoyed themselves.


Joram going down the slide...

We exited the compound to eat some simple snacks as our dinner. Soon after, we entered the Shiseido Forest Valley to catch the Christmas light and sound show. Joshua actually lost our most expensive receipt which was supposed to be used to redeem admission tickets. It was through the kindness of strangers and the grace of God which led to all 7 of us being able to go inside in the end. 


My eldest was so good at a game in the Changi Experience Studio that he won a 15% gift shop voucher. So as not to waste it, my mum-in-law used it to buy a tiny vial of the specially-designed Changi Scent as a souvenir. Attaboy!


My children simply could not resist shopping at the Pokemon Center. You can easily tell their age groups by the presents they chose. The older two got themselves books while the younger two decided on purchasing the unique pokeballs. Due to that, we had enough receipts for the younger three to participate in the Enchanted Forest quest at Frozen Wonderland. Thankfully, my eldest had outgrown such things or we would be hard-pressed to find a way to get one more ticket for him. Thus, we made our way to Terminal 3 via the Skytrain, something which Joram had been bugging me to do ALL DAY. *shakes head*


Their prizes at the end of the quest

The difficulty level of organizing this trip to Jewel Airport was way off the charts. It was incredibly challenging for me to cater to both the senior and the juniors. Making our way anywhere through the throngs of people was madness and took forever, especially between levels, with my mum-in-law on a wheelchair. I can only thank God for sustaining me while I pulled off the mission impossible! I sure hope that my family appreciates the herculean effort it took for me to plan a pleasant outing for them. *sweat*


As with the previous Christmases, our family found a way to give back to the community. In the year 2013, our CG organised an evangelistic Christmas party for our non-believing friends and family. Back then, all the children participated in putting up a skit telling of the true Christmas story of the birth of our Lord Jesus. This year, once again, we were involved in a smaller-scale outreach effort in church by conducting ice-breaker games, performing the very same skit (bilingual this time round) and leading Christmas carols. Our children did very well considering that they only had one rehearsal before the actual day. We pray that God will use our "five loaves and two fishes" to bless the hearts of those who came. 

The angel telling Mary that she would give birth to God's Son

Friday, December 20, 2019

Cable Car Ride


The only time we took the cable car to Sentosa as a family was for my eldest's birthday celebration. Back then, Joram was not even born yet and his older sisters were too young to remember much of it. Also, the last time we went to a beach was 4 years ago! It was indeed high time for us to go for some sand play at Palawan beach, crossing the little strip of water via a mode of transport with a scenic view. 


We took the chance to visit the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia. Joram was a little hesitant using the shaky bridge though. Still, he pressed on and overcame his initial fear. After that, it was beach fun under the blazing morning/noon sun! It would have been far more pleasant to enjoy sandcastle-building and wave-splashing in the late afternoon/evening instead, but the weather forecast predicted 100% chance of thunderstorm during that period. True enough, we barely escaped the first drizzle of rain as we left on board the cable car. Hearing the thunder rumbling in the distance while we were high up in the air was pretty exhilarating! 






We could see the approaching
rainclouds on the way back

Joram's face lit up the moment he laid his eyes upon a model of the Sentosa Express train. I decided to purchase it for him as a souvenir to remember the trip by. 



Saturday, December 14, 2019

Bouncy Paradise


This is our family's last holiday with a preschooler since Joram will be entering primary school next month. As always, we have outings galore: baking class, bowling, laser quest, admiralty park and the free bicentennial experience. In the next two weeks, I'll be bringing them for ice-skating and a cable-car ride to Sentosa for some beach time. One outing worth mentioning in greater detail would be the trip down to the new and improved Bouncy Paradise. I even took the trouble to get Joshua to take leave so that he could join us amidst his busy work schedule.

The children had so much fun that it was difficult to get them to leave even after spending an entire day there! I was very grateful to have my husband to accompany me while we spent most of the time lounging at the eating area. We're getting too old to keep up with the kids' energy levels! LOL The promotional price of $12 per person is really affordable and our "energiser bunnies" truly made it so that we got our money's worth. 

All aboard the unicorn float

Flamingo float. Yay!

Wall climbing

Obstacle course

Jump in slow-motion

Accidental slam-dunk!!!

A million times down the giant slides...

The wipeout eliminator

Bouncy Basketball

"Drive your kid up the wall! ROFL

I was hard at "work" as usual... hahaha

Saturday, November 2, 2019

Joram's Graduation Concert


My youngest child has graduated from preschool! *applause* 

It has been a turbulent time the week leading up to the day of Joram's performance. He fell off his bike coming down a slope on Monday and split open his chin, with multiple road rashes all over his body. I had to bring him to the hospital to stitch up the gaping wound. Due to that, he was not well enough to attend the full-day rehearsal the very next day. I, then, specially looked for brown plasters (less obvious than the typical white ones) to protect his healing cut and it also took me really long to use make-up to cover up the abrasion scars on his face for the full-dress rehearsal two days later and for the actual thing this morning. 

Thank God that he only started having an allergic reaction to the plaster after the concert. Phew! I was expecting that to happen because of his history of eczema and had prayed that it wouldn't flare up before he had to go up on stage. It would have been very risky to expose the wound during the show with all the dancing if his skin could not tolerate the plasters any earlier than it had. 

Here's a clip of him receiving his 
certificate in his graduation gown.

Another sad part was that the teachers placed him all the way at the back during his segment and he was mostly blocked by the bigger-sized girls in his class. The only time when he was shifted to the front, they had him situated at the other end of the stage, furthest away from where we were seated. Thus, the video I took of him performing was not very clear. Well, I tried my best. 


I am simply grateful that he managed to attend his own graduation ceremony despite the awful accident. May the Lord grant him a full recovery soon!


Saturday, October 5, 2019

Children's Day @ Esplanade


Due to the haze, I have been home-bound for the past few weeks due to respiratory problems. I couldn't even take my eldest out to celebrate when he finished his PSLE. *shake head* Thankfully, the recent bouts of rain cleared the air and I finally felt well enough to bring the kids out for Children's Day. Today was the first time in a while since I saw blue skies when I looked up. With the company of a dear CG sister and her kids, we visited the Esplanade Library for a session of Chinese cross-talk. It was good exposure for the younger ones but the older boys were far more interested in playing a game of chess with each other! ROFL 


Next up, we sat through a performance of Malay music Dendang Anak. Once again, the boys were mostly engrossed in buddy-fighting each other and the girls listened to the songs while fiddling with the notebook they got from one of the booths. Looks like us two adults could appreciate the musical arts far better than the children. *face palm*



There was some PVC pipes available for the kids to build structures. However, it only occupied them for a short time before they went chasing after bubbles blown by two of the nearby toddlers. *faintz* 


I had already bought them their Children's Day gift (RISK board game) in advance during the June holidays. Still, I couldn't resist getting them these cute cartoon macarons to enjoy.