Water play at Pirate Ship

As promised, I finally brought the trio to Pirate Ship at Palawan Beach to play water last Sunday

The weather was nice, it's not hot and cloudy. They played for about 45 minutes and the best part it's FREE entry to Sentosa and they had fun.

After the session finished, they already asked me when we play the water there again.

Two Favourite Saints

Last Friday during CEP programme, the kids were watching Saint Francis of Asisi and Richie was very inspired with his life story.
And luckily, I just finished reading his story too few days ago so my memory was still strong and I re-told him again the whole story.

In the end, he asked me what is your favourite saint ? I told him, Saint Therese of Avilla and Lisieux and he told me that his favourite saints are Saint Ignatius of Loyola and St Francis of Asisi.

Praise God, mama and papa hope these saints will inspire your life and your heart so that you grow with the heart of mercy and obedience to God

September School Holiday Activity - Sandsational Sentosa

Last Sunday was the last school holiday and since this week, the weather has been crazy, I couldn't promise and stick to outdoor activity with the kids so I told Richie and the brothers, if the weather was nice, we will go to sentosa to see Marvel Sandsational but if it's raining we will abort the plan and go indoor.

Thanks God, eventhough in the first half day, the weather was not friendly, it turned out cooling and cloudy in the afternoon so after the kids woke up from their afternoon nap, I brought them to Sentosa.
The good news was it's FREE ENTRY, the bad news was because it's free entry, everyone also going there and the carpark at beach station was full.

So I tried my luck to go to Imbiah carpark and hoping there's available slot. And tada... I found few slots and we parked there. I was happy at first without knowing that the location of the sandsational event was near at Shangrilla Rasa Sentosa.

I walked with the three minions from imbiah to the other end of Sentosa. Luckily there were many things to see so they were not complain except Ted who asked me to carry him after we almost reaching the location.

We went in there, it's not so crowded, we took some pictures with our favourite marvel character and I knew the kids will complain if we headed straight back to carpark after walking almost 30 minutes and spending only 15 minutes there, so I prepared the armour, buying them a bag of popcorn and one cold drink shared among three, it's damn expensive, they were jacking up the price like there's no tomorrow.

After fully recharge, we walked back another 30 minutes to carpark.

Then, we went to Vivocity to have dinner and see tsum tsum lantern.
After dinner at kolomee, we went up to skypark and it's a lot of people. They were queueing for the tunnels and photo points.
Luckily, our kids are all boys, they were not so excited about tsum tsum so we just walked around and went back home after the trio complaint very tired especially the legs haha...

A Story of Pet Fishes

Almost 3 weeks ago, Tromson and Ted had field trip to fish farms, both went to different fish farm and end of the field trip, each of them carried a fish tank with full of small fishes. They were excited but not for me. I was reluctant to bring those fishes home because they surely die by the next few days since I was not a pet nanny type.

But seeing how excited and happy they were without knowing that the fishes may die the next day, I brought two fish tanks full of fishes home. Total was 18 small fishes.

I didn't have a heart to see the fish die or flush them into toilet bowl, so I played along buying the cheapest fish food in the pet shops to make the kids happy.
In my mind, I told myself, I already done my best to take care the fishes with a little knowledge that I had, at least if they die, they will die naturally, peacefully and with dignity and I didn't feel guilty.

As expected, the next days, the fish died one after another and fortunately the kids were not too emotional when they saw the dead fishes. Every day I was like having another "baby", feeding and cleaning the tanks and the sh*t.

Until 10 days later, Richie exclaimed mama, I saw baby fishes in one of fish tank, I was like, are you sure ? may be it's poop. For me, it's like a miracle if the fish can breed new life in those condition. But he said, yes it's baby fishes and when I went to have a look, it's really baby fishes and they were a lot. But most or all of them were like dying baby fishes, so I cleaned up the fish tanks and thrown away all dead fishes.

And as days went by, one by one died and left with three survivors who survived until yesterday.
Tromson came to me and told me that one fish has died, ok so I told myself, one tank gone,I only need to take care one fish tank but he continued, but I saw baby fishes. I was like WHATTT ?? AGAIN ??

Quickly I came to have a look and yes, one adult fish died and many baby fishes were surround it, it's like dying so I told them I will clean up the tank and left with two fishes in other tank, then Richie told me, mama you need to save the baby fishes who were still alive, I didn't notice at first but when Richie asked me to wait patiently that few of them were moving, they really was.

I had a hard time to separate the survivor babies and the dead one because they were so tiny, anyway I managed to save 4 baby fishes. So one adult died, 4 new life emerged.

I was like, God, You must be joking with me, within 3 weeks, I saw fishes breed new life not once but twice.

September school holiday activity - bowling

Another activity that we decided to take was bowling.
And surprisingly, they have the coach that gave a quick basic lesson how to hold the ball, the posture and how to roll the ball.

He had some fun too and we re-attend again for another free session and mommy will join too.

September school holiday activity - Nerf Gun Combat

Mommy was scratching head to find the useful and free activity for Richie and the brothers because papa was away for business trip and I remembered about HPB events family active, so mommy googled and found that they have lots of activities during September school holiday.

So we decided to try something new which is nerf gun combat and bowling.

Nerf gun combat was fun, at first they practiced shot the objects after that they have the games using nerf gun.

September School Holiday Activity - Peranakan museum

Sunday, 2 September started September school holiday and we have quality time as family and spent it with friends too.

After morning mass at St Ignatius Church, we had lunch together with Uncle Ivan's family at Pondok Jawa Timur, after that we met Uncle Yasin's family at Peranakan Museum and explored about the history of peranakan in Singapore.

He made some art and craft while we were there.

After that we watched movie, Titans Go with uncle Yasin's family and had dinner at Kopitiam.

It was a fruitful day to start school holiday

Debater Session - Speech Academy

On August, he learnt how to do debate speech and he was chosen to be an emcee for the day of showcasing.
Papa was there to watch Richie's end of the month speech while mama accompanied Tromson swimming.
Well done Richie !

Pre-teen syndrome no, 1 - self control

He's going to be 9 years old this year and somehow he wants to have some control over his life and out of the blue, he asked us if he could go back by himself from the school.

I have trained him before just in case either I or papa are not available to send or pick him up to and from school.

So when he wanted to go back by himself, we cannot say no and we gave him old mobile phone for him just in case he got lost or needed some helps.

What surprised us is he will call me before he's going back home so I can predict his time arrival.
So far he's been doing it well for almost a week.

I can't believe that he's growing so fast, becomes more mature and responsible.

Well done Richie !

Happy Teacher's Day 2018

On Thursday, Richie will celebrate Teacher's Day, and as I thought that I will prepare the gift the day before, he told me that tomorrow will be the day to give some gifts for teacher if we want to.
So last minute preparation, I came up with something edible instead of just bought from the stores and rushed out to supermarket, buying variety of teas, plastic packagings and diy mini cards.

Most ladies are usually fond of the tea, so that's my inspiration.
Hopefully his teachers love it.

Happy Teacher's Day !
Thank you for teaching and nurturing Richie in his primary 3 journey.

Family Praise and Worship and Rosary Prayer

We had this family praise and worship every day where papa will lead the PW with one or two songs and we will sing together. Then papa will read two bible readings, one is from old testament and the other one is from gospel reading.
After that, papa will explain shortly about the reading.

Followed with prayers which starting with papa pray for each of us, then Richie and brothers also pray for papa and mama and mama will pray for papa too.

Recently, Richie has a heart - desire to pray for Rosary and because of time constraint, we usually doesn't have time for rosary but yesterday we make commitment to pray rosary as family.

Hopefully, this will be the legacy to Richie and his descendants to keep family prayer as a powerful weapon in family.

First Holy Communion (5 Aug 2018)

Today marks another milestone for Richie, he's now able to receive holy communion, the sacred host.
Hopefully he will love God more and serve Him whole heartedly and may God bless him in every path he takes.

Congratulations Richie !

Short Getaway - Malacca trip

Last week, grandparents were in town for iik intan's graduation and they spent a week accompanying us while papa was away for business trip.
After papa came back to Singapore on Friday,  we had a short getaway to Malacca the next day. Papa drove there and it took around 3.5 hours including the immigration clearance.

We arrived there around 2 pm and had late lunch at Mega Mall Malacca.

Then we explored the Malacca heritage centre which including their famous landmarks, St Paul's ruins, Christ church and red bricks buildings.

St paul ruins

Christ Church Area

tricycle to explore the city centre

St Francis Xavier Church

It was hot sunny day so the kids were a bit cranky and tired so we didn't explore much and went back to hotel for rest and shower.

In the evening we had dinner at Cottage Spices Nyonya restaurant which  6 minutes walk from our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Equatorial. Eventhough it's quite old, the location was good. It's 10 minutes walk to city center.

We ordered few peranakan dishes and they were so good. Our tummy was fully satisfied.
When we were on the way back to hotel, we passed by fruits stall and decided to have durian feast.
It was so cheap and the owner was very kind, he kept giving us free durian as their stall was closing soon.

We're heading back to hotel with bloated tummy full of durian hahaha....
In the end, we had good night sleep at the hotel.

The next day was a rainy and cloudy day, it's quite opposite from the day before.
After breakfast and checking out, we went to Baba Nyonya Heritage Museum and passed by Jonker Street. We visited the museum and it reminded me to my grandaunt's house in Semarang.

Then we stopped by to Baba Charlie Cake to buy some peranakan delicacy. It's freshly made and the queue was long.
We took away the kueh for our food stock during our journey back to Singapore.

We left Malacca around 1pm and it took around 3.5 hours and reached Singapore around 4pm.

It was a short, sweet and nice escape to neighbouring country.

Something we learnt from this trip, Malacca was a peranakan county. The livehood there was pretty relax. Most of food stalls only open half day either morning until afternoon or evening until late.
The people were nice and friendly.