I’m sorry.

You see, it’s Middle Sis’ birthday this weekend, so I’ll be away again. At my Mom’s house. For Middle Sis’ little BFF party. Where there’s no internet. Again.

I will leave you with a glimpse of what we found at the Park though.

Here.

Stay tuned!

At 21, she rode a scooter to work. To find women living in the city away from the village, and working, was already an uncommon sight – let alone a woman riding around town in a two wheeler.

But she was not the typical kampung girl.

No. She was the livewire of the family. Able to do as many things as the boys in her community were able to do. Fishing at the river? Sure thing. Herd the kampung buffaloes? No sweat. Heck. Give her a shotgun and she could down a gawir! (flying fox)

Even so, when my father passed away and left her with two young children, she was devastated. She and my father were as different as night and day. Complete opposites. Yet to move on with life without him was unbearable at best.

But she did move on. Picked herself up like she’s always been able to and raised us kids all on her own. A few short years later she found herself with another child to raise, again all on her own.

Not one to let adversity decide her future, she pressed on until she found a Strength that was to see her through many more years after. She accepted Jesus as her personal Lord and Saviour and since then, has seen many fruitful years in many areas of her life – parenting, coming to terms with who she was and knowing where she was headed after this life.

My Children would do well to learn from her.

It was this 60 years of perseverance, determination and love that we celebrated at dinner last night. Our prayers for her is for many more birthdays to come. The world could learn much from this courageous human being.

Happy Birthday Ma.

We love you.

UPDATE: “What?? All Words and No Pix??” Ok. Ok. Here are some.

Truth be told, this is the first time I’ve organised a birthday party for Children. In all my twelve years of working full time organising events for hundreds of adults, this project consisting of 12 Children has been the most daunting! Did y’all know that “2 hours is not enough time for a party Mommy!”??

Anyhoo. So Big Sis wanted a Hannah Montana themed birthday party this year, and with today’s economic climate, we (as in, ME..) decided we would organise it ourselves this time round. I had envisioned lots of Hannah Montana paraphernalia, colorful finger food and a good amount of singing to the tunes of this famous Disney personality.

not too bad huh? those are Ikea plasticware.

I found out however, that it was difficult to find affordable HM paraphernalia here in KK. There are loads of Disney Princess ones, and there are even stockpiles of the more recent hit with the kids – Ben 10. In the end, I’ve only managed four sheets of stickers and used them to stick to plastic crockery and other party-related items.

I bought a Hannah Montana magazine which had the bonus of a huge poster which I put up, and was able to glean ideas from it for party activities. On the day of the party, I took apart the magazine and pasted them on the walls of my Mom’s living room as part of the decorations. In hindsight, I could’ve gone to borrow some cardboard stars from someone and stuck them alongside the magazine pages to give the room a real star / celebrity / concert hall feel. Ah well.

The Children came and started off with bracelet making using beads that someone had given the Girls some time ago but was never put to use. I bought a few more and some strings and the Kids got to work. My strings were a little too fine. (See, I told you organising a Kids’ party is not a walk in the park!) Even so, most of them were able to make theirs and I got my Party Hostess to take individual pictures of them with their bracelets and with Big Sis. Sometime this week, I’ll process those photos and send them off to Big Sis’ guests as a Thank You token.

Oh. I must tell you how thankful I am for my Party Hostess, Jia Jun. The downside of doing things by yourself is being pulled on 15 different directions, and that’s just on the day itself! I was toggling back and forth from the Kitchen to the Living Room carrying out orders from my Mom (who helped with the cooking, bless her!) and organising the food table, all whilst chatting with parents.

So in the middle (literally, because they were in the living room and the food table was at the front porch) of my running around, my dear Party Hostess carried out games to keep the Children entertained. I could see that they enjoyed the last game of the day as it involved action movements to the tune of Best of Both Worlds on a piece of newspaper that they had to eventually fold into a tiny piece to dance on top of. So fun! Thank you Jun! Couldn’t have done the Games without you. *wink*

there they are. so pretty!

Menu was simple. Finger food all the way. Spaghetti in individual cups. And pink guava juice. I ‘contracted’ the Bff to do an array of cupcakes for me and those turned out cute! Everyone loved them! I’m so inspired by her cupcake stand that it’s now in my to-do list to get one for myself. The cake I baked was chocolate with cookies and cream buttercream filling and frosted with purple and pink fondant. Next time I do the cake again, I will make three layers instead of two, so folks can get more of the cookies and cream. I think I did pretty well with the filling cos I got good raves about it. The cake itself. Eh.

Still. The children couldn’t keep themselves away from the food. They kept going back and forth picking up food as they went along the program for the day. I just felt so sorry for the Kids cos temperatures was humid that afternoon causing them to thirst badly. But then it rained heavily towards the evening which cooled the air a lot and was when the party ‘really’ started with the Kids watching the Best of Both Worlds Concert in the living room, in the dark! They wanted a movie theatre effect and was at one time complaining about the lights that was on at the outside (where the parents were chilling) cos it spoiled the effect a bit.

We served the food to the Kids at the Kids table where they had an individual set of placemats, plates, cutlery and cups each. We put the cupcakes right in the middle so they could all get a piece each and put the cake in front of Big Sis, to whom we sang the Happy Birthday song and then said a prayer to bless the food. And the Kids ate. I think, serving them at their own Kids size table with Kid size chairs and Kid size plates and utensils, they get to actually eat! So that’s good.

When the Kids have had their share, and sat down to watch their movie in their ‘movie theatre’, the parents finally sat down to bite-sized food, Monavie juice (which my Mom hussled around) and had our own jabs to the side from everything about Man-U’s err.. ‘declining’ streak, to the subject of orang gaji. (Paid Help). And everyone was being kind to me about my cake.

Albeit being a Kids party, it was a fun-filled afternoon for everyone with good enough food and certainly good company. Which has always been what’s important to my Hubby and I.

I think I’m getting the hang of the whole party for kids event planning thing. I should think about making a business out of it huh?

Not!

a Smiley button for everyone!

and body jewels for the Girls. cool?

Oh. I should mention. My Husband was in charge of the Music Station. U rock Darling!

Oh Oh. And we did do the Earth Hour thing, but didn’t take pictures. We were all exhausted by that time anyway, we just plain forgot as we sat in the darkness. Tsk!

The Babe on the right is the BFF. She’s the same age as me, went to the same school as me and grew up in Church together with me.

Then, we got married, the same year, and got pregnant with our first child, the same year. In fact, the estimated due date for our Babies was in the same week. No. None of this we planned together.

That brings us to Tiny Babe on the left. As it turned out, BFF Babe had her Baby five weeks early. Tiny Babe felt so comfortable inside Mommy’s belly, she came late. And it turns out, Tiny Babe came on BFF Babe’s birthday. String of special coincidences, no?

Happy Birthday Babes!

A Hannah Montana one for Big Sis and three of her bestfriends during the March mid semester break. She had initially wanted an Ariel themed birthday complete with the underwater world going on. *Note to Aunty Nonie: “Are you coming to my party in March?” asks Big Sis. Er, Mommy’s not sure about that Sweet.

Thanks to the wonders of Google I’ve found lots of ideas on putting such a party together. Now ALL I need to do is go round compiling stuff. Ahem. Of course, there’s still school rounds in the meantime, laundry loads in the meantime and that 1st March event at church in the meantime. All that jazz. Fun.

Anyhoo. Check out these cupcakes I found off the Internet.  How cute are they ha? Looks like lots of artificial colorings, but still…

I’ve emailed Deana of Deana Cakes fame to see if she can replicate these for Big Sis. We’ll see what she says.

Spunky is at that stage where she’s learning to communicate verbally. Most times we get what she tries to say, other times we don’t. She however often times tries really hard to understand what we try to say to her.

While on the computer this evening, she climbed up to me and said “I want lo..”

That would be the small sized Box Milo drink that we have at home for the occasional snack.

I looked her direct in the eye and announced to her that we had ran out of supply of that one.

To which she looked straight back at me and exclaimed, “Aww mann….”

)

Slowly but surely I saw that she was trying to roll from her back to her front. I whispered loudly to Cool Dad who was getting ready in the next room, to quickly come and behold the event unfolding before us. After 1, 2 and 3 pushes, she finally made it! And as if feeling proud of her accomplishment, she raised her head and looked towards our direction and smiled!

We cheered! The older girls came along and just coo-ed over her as they saw that she was now on her front and smiling away, albeit her head still flopping from side to side. ;-D

A little bit later we turned her back around as she could no longer hold her head, but what a memorable sight for the whole family!

And here’s the little champ!

woohoo!