Posts Tagged ‘Kids’

I’m Planning ANOTHER Party…

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Update: Here’s how it all went down. ;-)

Middle Sis is turning 7 soon and she requested some hangout time with friends for her birthday this year. Now that I’m a little bit more ‘experienced’ it was easy to come up with a theme she would like.

Naturally, it would be Artsy in nature. Lots of colours and artsy things to do.

For her cake, she requested it butterfly-shaped.

Oooh…

I took the bull by the horn and said Okay!

So, I had before me the choice of buying a butterfly-shaped cake tin or cut a butterfly shape out of the round or square cakes I could make. I really didn’t want to buy a butterfly cake tin for now, but I need to have a picture in my mind to shape the butterfly out of the cake pans I do have.

Enter a butterfly cake template I found off the Internet! Kids these days are so blessed – information is but a finger tip away…

It looks pretty simple. Let’s see how we go.

Now, back to my Checklist.

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And Then What?

Monday, May 25th, 2009

One more week of school, then it’s the school holidays. Woohoo!

No waking up at the crack of dawn to get to school by 7am. No long queues to pick the Kids up after school. And no pack-for-school routine in the evenings.

For TWO weeks!

Woohoo!

But wait.

Then it means the Kids will be home the whole day.

Which means there will be backyard science experiments pile up, strewn toys to pick up and bickering between Sisters that we womenfolk do so well to referee.

For TWO weeks!

What shall we do?

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Among Other Things…

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

No, I hadn’t abandoned this blog. And I know that is subject to all sorts of debate among bloggers and non-bloggers alike, but no, I hadn’t abandoned this blog.

I had meant to post about a weekend of sinful indulgence on Monday but in the  process of updating my plugins, I bonkered this site. And because I was in the midst of baking a cake, some cupcakes AND revising with the Kids, it was only late afternoon that I was able to rectify the situation. By nightfall, I hadn’t the physical nor mental energy to blog!

And then there was more revision with the Kids, the Church’s Easter event and the potential of having the Bff move to my neighbourhood. That last one being a highlight. Woot!

But I’m baacck.

Revision is over and tomorrow is the Good Friday public holiday. Yay! I’ve let all hair loose for the Kids this whole afternoon, on the condition that they LET ME BET BACK TO MY BLOG.

So here I am, Kids creating havoc around the house (I’m kidding!) while I happily tinker away at my computer.

So what’s in it for all of you with all of this you say?

Well, I’ve signed up for the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog challenge. You know, to learn how to make your visits here worthwhile.

The first task was a good one. We were challenged to write an Elevator Pitch for our blogs. I had to sweat my brain trying to think of my Elevator Pitch. I wish I could tell you that I came up with a fantastic one. Alas, (thanks to my indiscipline and inefficiency at managing my time!) I have yet to come up with something better than “A Woman’s Weekly is one Mom’s attempt at juggling three kids, her blog and the laundry.”

Can you tell I have a loonnng way to go?

Nonetheless, as with all learning, expect to see some gradual Changes to my blog, one of which will likely be a change to this blog’s template. I had one person tell me recently that my blog had “lots of things going on over there, it’s hard to focus on your post!” Ouch. Ok. Comment heard, hence the motivation to make this place a pleasant, friendly and inviting place to visit.

Wish me luck!

Actually, I also wanted to show you the sinful indulgence that I had made that I was talking about earlier. But somehow it wouldn’t upload to my post. Anybody knows what an HTTP error is?! I’ve given up trying. So maybe next time.

And as for American Idol, aww mann…! I’m gonna miss Scott. :cry:

Y’all have a good week ahead, what’s left of it.

And Have a blessed Easter Celebration Friends. He is risen!

;-)

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So We Had A Rockin’ Good Time

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

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

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.

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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! pretty huh?

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!

a Smiley button for everyone!

body jewes for the Girls. cool ya?

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!

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Tale of Two Babes

Monday, March 30th, 2009

p10204921Let me tell you about these two Babes.

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!

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Because I Have An Exciting Weekend Planned

Friday, March 27th, 2009

I’ll be ‘away’ this weekend.

That is, away from this blog. We’re spending the weekend at my Mom’s house. Big Sis and her best friends will be having a rockin’ Hannah Montana birthday party over there. We live too far away from all her close friends, hence we decided to host it at their Nana’s. I’ve been baking furiously since morning, tweaking and improvising as I realised midway through my baking extravaganza, I was short on essential supplies! It’s just one of those things yaknow…

I might blog about the cake I’ve baked for Big Sis. Depends on how good it finally looks  and how tasty people find it. Stay tuned if you care to. ;-)

And then there’s that widely talked about Earth Hour happening at 8:30pm tomorrow night. Yes, it is my Mom’s place that we’ll be switching off the lights at. Hehe…

There is no internet connection at the Kids’ Nana’s. So, I will ’see’ all of you again when I get back from there.

By the way, heard from the grapevine, Michael goes home tonight.

Have a good weekend everyone!

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What I Learned This Week

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Break it down!

– is what I learned this week.

If you remember, earlier this week I desperately looked to coffee to get me off my sorry butt and get going with the 1001 things I had to do – two Kids’ birthdays and a church event, back to back. And then some.

I felt pressure on my shoulders the way I usually do when I’m stressed.  Just categorizing my schedule to urgent, important and important but not urgent caused my face to break out. I was mentally and physically fatigued from all the thinking, planning and driving running around.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m that stressed, sometimes I destress by sleeping. And that was what I meant to do, but my mind kept telling me I can’t do too much of that either because of what’s ahead.

And then I remembered that I chose the song ‘Still’ for last Sunday’s Worship Service. I found myself telling me, you know Didi, the Lord already knew you’d be in this position. Time to take the words of that song to heart again.

Thank God for that revelation!

Because when I hummed the song as I went about my activities, Break it down! just dropped into my head. We hear about how in order not to feel overwhelmed by the task at hand, we should break the task down to smaller, more manageable tasks and tackle those one at a time.

And that is what I have done. I broke it all down. I gave myself an achievable goal in terms of how much time I’d need to complete each task. When the given time is up, I stop and move on to the next thing. (The BFF calls it The Race Against Time!) I’ve even managed to break it down to spending as little as possible on putting together my Daughter’s birthday.

Interestingly, I’ve now achieved more than I thought I would. The mind clears up and suprisingly, things fall into place nicely without me having to worry about them. The Kids’ school tests are next on my list and I find myself happily crossing out items in the run up to that week and even looking forward to the time of revision together with them.

Break it down Babes. It’s the way to go!

Check out Musings for more stories on what others have learned as well.

And check this space again later today for American Idol recap. Hehe..

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Earth Hour

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

EH_A2_Template_FINAL.inddI used to just throw away newspapers, milk and juice cartons and aluminum tin cans because I felt that as a Family, we were poor at recycling. All the recyclable items we put aside just border on accumulating junk! My Mom, on the other hand, has reminded me repeatedly to save the aluminum tin cans that we every so often acquire in our Breakfast & Dessert Fridge, and give them to her. So she can recycle them and turn them to money. (Of late, she has been harping on us to make a compost pile. There’s no money involved I guess, but um, ok.)

For about a year or so now, I’ve been more conscious about living my life on this planet of ours responsibly. Back when I first heard it, Michael Jasckson’s  ‘Earth Song’ was more of a hit song that everyone knew about than a foresight of what could become of the land we’ll leave behind for our Kids and their Kids’ Kids. And then I felt convicted about preserving our environment for future generations that the images from that music video suddenly became a chilling reminder.

Recently, my Husband came on board my sentiments after a Bible Study discussion on the reasons for the longevity of those Biblical heroes who lived to be hundreds of years old. We concluded it was because, among all things divine, everything back then was pure and organic, something our Kids’ Kids’ Kids will no longer have at the rate human beings go on irresponsibly living on this planet.

On a recent roadtrip, my Husband was quick to catch my hand as I was about to throw away a drink can while clearing out the car of the snacks we brought on the trip saying, “It’s aluminium.” Oooh, I like. *wink*

On Saturday, 28th March this year, Malaysia will join the rest of the world to switch off all the lights for one hour, in a cause to address global warming.

In Sabah, power outage is normal. It doesn’t cause any ruckus to business or household operations whatsoever. In fact, rather than wait for the relevant authorities to address the issue responsibly, businesses and households resort to added expenditure on Generator Sets for their offices and homes, just so everyone gets a sense of normalcy. All our complaining fall on deaf SESB ears.

I will switch off my lights for that hour. Or the SESB will. Whichever comes first.

How about you?

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Is it really necessary..?

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

Big Sis excitedly showed me a leaflet / registration form to sign up for some computer grade exam. (She likes all kinds of registrations that look like she’ll win something. Competitive much?) “All the Kids at school are doing it!” says She.

But don’t you already have Computer lessons as part of your curriculum? asks Me. I’m sure grade exams are part of the lessons, no? Then I remembered that during Parents Briefing at the beginning of the year, the Discipline Teacher bragged mentioned how this school has won top place nation-wide (or state-wide, I can’t remember) for three consecutive years.

So I googled. As most parents do these days, doncha’llknow. No? Ok.

So here’s this ‘wonderful opportunity to try’ as quoted from a paragraph in the registration form.

I don’t know.

It sounds like a lot of pressure for a soon-to-be 8 year old. School work alone is a lot to handle everyday. My Kids are not computer nor IT illiterate as the leaflet seemed to imply regarding the opportunities presented through this ‘grade exam’. The Older Two Girls do online Mandarin tutorial for goodness sake. And my 4 year old is already playing Playhouse Disney Channel computer games online. Big Sis even knows to IM Uncle Bob from overseas!

The Hubby would say, why not? The Child says, come on Mommy, everyone’s doing it! (For reasons other than learning new skills I believe.) And the School says, yay, another top prestigious title on the shelf.

I don’t know.

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What a Sunday!

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

“Jesus, you’re my superhero…”

“Better than Superman!”

That song is constantly playing in my head! The Kids have been singing it since rehearsal last Saturday. And they continued singing it throughout the evening, and once again during the actual performance at Church on Sunday, and thereafter!

Hehe… Middle Sis even sang it quietly in the car on our ride home from a whole day of activity which lulled my Youngest to heavenly dreamland.

It was a good Family Celebration that I helped coordinate with the Children Ministry of our Church.  We had wanted an atmosphere of what Sunday School was like for our Church and I think we were able to do that yesterday. With such a fun atmosphere of Sunday School, the new name that was launched at the Service would be etched in the memory of Children and Parents alike quite firmly.

On a personal note, my Youngest was the most adorable little octopus you ever saw! (Yes, I’m biased.) She had not cooperated during the second round of rehearsal the day before because it was her nap time and she made sure she knew everybody around her would know that. Come the actual show however, she was back with gusto! (That’s just like her this my little Sanguine…)

p1020480

I was momentarily distracted from my role as the Floor Manager, standing way away from the stage (but fronting it) to where our P.A system is located, and looked at her directly giving her the biggest smile I could give hoping she would see me. When she was done I clapped unabashedly. My team-mate on the floor with me rolled her eyes at this enthusiastic mommy jumping on the chair. (I’m small. I had to stand on a chair to get a good bird’s eye view of the happenings throughout the Church.)

Of course, Big Sis and Middle Sis had their spot in the spotlight too with their group’s performance. Mind you, they’re called the ‘SuperStars’!

Anyhoo. Back on the floor, I guess the ‘real’ work of our Sunday School under the new name begins henceforth. I have faith in them. I know my Kids are in good hands over there every Sunday.

And look, I found a picture of the Children on a (chinese) newspaper article covering the Christmas Community event last December, at the Bulletin Board at the back of the Church. Haha!

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Have a good week everyone!

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