Photo a week :: May 13 to 19

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G drove 2 hours down from her neck of the woods for a visit and I was so touched. We had a nice leisurely lunch together and she followed me on my school pick up run. Together with the Nats, I brought her on a mini sightsee tour of my ‘hood and showed her my favouritest coast line drive and we saw some pup seals which are oh-so-cute! It was a great time spent with a colleague-turned-friend and it was indeed amazing how we are here in the same Bay area at the same time!

Nat eats lunch in school where it’s a standard menu for everyone (different food for each day and we parents get the menu a month ahead). I let him eat whatever is on the menu as I know this gets him to eat things out of his comfort zone, like enchiladas, tacos etc. I need pack Min’s lunch as her pre-school does not provide food (too much allergy issues to cater to,I guess). Usually, I pack a sandwich (cheese or kaya bread), fruits and a snack for her. And she usually comes home with the bread partially eaten. I figured she’s Asian-at-heart and needs some carbs so I decided to make fried rice for her.

The result? Her lunchbox came back empty. I had to asked if she polished them off or threw them away. Hah. Guess that makes the extra cooking after dinner the night before worth the while. So, Nat gets packed lunch on certain days too.

We scooted off to Disneyland on Friday after school and it’s surprising(or not) how the promise of Disneyland gets both Nats to be in such a cooperative mode in the morning. And both woke early on Saturday, bright & cheery ready for Disneyland, instead of the usual whiney-Im-still-tired-mode, even though we all had a late night due to the 6 hrs drive.

The long, seemingly never ending, road & beautiful clouds, on our 6-hr drive

We went with 2 other families and the 6 children had alot of fun, taking the rides together. As usual, it’s a full-day affair for us, from the time the park opens till the fireworks at night. The best part of being with a part of 12 is that the long Qs don’t seem that long after all, as the children’s antics kept us occupied or entertained.

Nth time to Disney, first time with Chip N Dale

Astro Orbiter, just the 3 of them

The next day, it was time for the long drive home. Somehow, the journey back always seems longer. We made a pit stop at Camarillo outlet and I managed to snag 2 pairs of TB wedges and that’s all the shopping for me that day. We also made another pit stop at Lake Cachuma and I thought it was a lovely quiet recreation area with a great view of the lake.

Picnic with a view

Onto photos of the week!

May 13 – Sunrise/Sunset :: Taken at 824pm. When I rise at 630am, the sky is already bright. Long Spring days…

Still better than short days when it gets dark by 6pm! Just that it gets a bit dis-orientating when it’s bedtime and it’s still bright out.

May 14 – Need :: Been eyeing this for awhile & it’s at 50% at the outlet today!

Usually the outlet carries limited range of retail products. Yes, outlets have a separate different range from normal retail boutiques, thus explains the price difference. Outlets nowadays no long carry “off-season” items, but have a separate line produced for sale. Happened to walk into the outlet near home after lunch with G.

May 15 – 7 o’clock :: Some reading after dinner. Very rare, as they usually prefer play over books anytime.

But I am thankful, they like to thumb through books and Min has started an interest in wanting to know to read, asking me – “what’s this word?” She’s far from being able to read and identify words of course but I am sure this is fuelled by Nat’s ability to read and her wanting to be like gor-gor.

May 16 – Mailbox :: I get mostly junk mail, coupons through this. And bill and magazines…

May 17 – Season :: where the vineyards are green.

May 18 – Want :: Don’t you just want to?

Will miss being able to drive 6 hrs to get to the “happiest on earth” over the weekend. One can never get tired of Disneyland, right?

May 19 – Favourite view :: Pitstop at Lake Cachuma, for the Nats to run off some cooped-too-long-in-car energy.

It was a lovely huge recreational ground where one can picnic, boat in the lake, BBQ or even camp - tent-style or RV-style. Both Nats had some good fun, getting down on their knees (remind me NEVER EVER buy white pants for children. What was I thinking!?), picking up sticks and digging.

Photo a day :: May 6 to 12

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It was Teachers Appreciation Week and after some thoughts, I wanted to give Nats’ teachers something “Uniquely Singapore”. So I ordered pandan chiffon cakes from our resident baker B and packaged them nicely and used the Singapore postcards (which I had requested Silver_crv to bring over) as Thank You cards. I also had a little explanation on what pandan cake is and its ingredients. The teachers commented that the cake was nice.

My hair is growing out and fringe is getting too heavy but I am dreading to get another haircut which I know will end up not being what I wanted. Ask anyone what they miss most when they are not back in SG, & it will be – their hairstylist (comes after family and food). So, it was my delight when a fellow Singaporean has a set of salon-grade professional scissors for layering of hair. And so, I gave it a go. I figured, it’s just my fringe and I can always clip it up anyway. I’m so glad I did it cos my fringe is now significantly lighter and layered. I had wanted to snip Nat’s hair too but tehpeng stopped me. Hah.

We didn’t plan anything for the weekend (what I mean is, roadtrips. Hah) and we did something we likely wouldn’t have done back in SG – we had our dinner picnic-style on Sat with 2 other families, at the park by the Coast. The children had fun running around and snacking (and not eating the proper food). There were birds and squirrels everywhere as our companions and one even ran off with a piece of cucumber!

As for something frivolous, I bought this pair of nude platform heels and liked that they added some inches to my height. I don’t usually wear heels this high and it has been a while, since I’ve mostly been in flats while here…so, it took some getting used to too, for me.

Onto photos of the week!

May 6 – Broken :: One down, 2 more to go before I call maintenance.

May 7 – Something beginning with F :: Farmers’ Market every Tues. More produce now which means it’s more crowded too!

Actually, we have a Farmers’ Market every day in a week, in different locations/cities near our area but somehow we’ve only visited the one in our downtown. Love seeing the produce though the foodcarts is nothing to shout about. Perhaps we should visit the other markets.

May 8 – Shape :: Handprints make a flower. My 1st Mother’s Day card from her. She gave it to me and proudly said “I made for you, mummy!”

She is a sweetheart. And a terror at the same time. Or when she’s not a sweetheart. Haha.

May 9 – Snack :: A simple easy breakfast of baked eggs with turkey ham, mushrooms and cheese. Eaten with toast bread.

This is like the Western version of soft boiled eggs. Haha.

May 10 – Star :: A playdate for the children to end the week. New friends for me.

I arranged a playdate with a US-Koream mum and her 2 children as they are going to be posted to SG soon and they want to find out more about SG-living. I had a good time exchanging views and talking about my homeland and inevitably, shopping is our main topic. And yes, the children do call her “umma”!

May 11 – Smile :: The weekend racer (in the right tee) & his cheerleader!

When these 2 are not fighting, they are best pals. This is sibling love. I hope they continue to look out for each other and seek advice or help from each other as they grow up. I know I have a shelf life as their “go-to person” so I hope they will be each other’s.

May 12 – Mother :: Me as mum of 2 and my mum (before babysis came into our lives). I never knew it was that tough to be a mum. My mum made it looks so easy. Thank you Lord for these 2 blessings and I pray everyday to be a better mum for them.

Of course, I miss my mum more this day. I ordered flowers for her and she had a surprise when it was delivered. She even asked the delivery guy – who sent her flowers! LOL.

Mother’s Day 2013

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It’s my 6th year of Mother’s Day. It might be cliche but I think I really felt it more this year, as I felt more “mumsy” than I’ve ever felt, being the West Life ah-sahm that I am now. You know, the naggy kind? Yeap, I’ve morphed into that kind of mum.

While every day is a routine (sort of), it brings along new surprises, new (or the same old) challenges, but always end with hugs and kisses from the Nats (and not to mention, interrupted sleep).There’s still so much learning on the job for this role as a mum. Every night I pray for them and for myself to be a better and more patient mum. I look at them and I wish they can understand how I feel, why I do what I did, why I nagged, why I insist on certain “rules”…which is something I only realised myself now – my mum’s intentions for us when I was growing up. Oh, this is life huh.

Perhaps it’s also apt that I recently finished the book – Spark : A Mother’s Story of nurturing genius“. It’s a memoir of a mum raising a son (albeit a genius) with autism and how her strong love and determination and commitment have brought out the best in (and from) him. I read in awe of the mum, who never gave up and in addition to helping her own son adjust through homeschooling (and raising 2 other boys!) as well as running her own successful daycare, she found time (and love) to help other children with special needs too (by running free weekly sessions for them). If this is not love, I don’t know what is.

Mother’s love can do wonders, indeed.

And admittedly, no matter how fiercely I love my children, all I wanted for Mother’s Day was to ….not be a mum. Go ahead and laugh (or judge me!) but really, a break from being mum, from having to worry about the meals or the trouble they will get into.

My day was ordinary – I had breakfast made by Nat (a surprise!haha), a nice lunch after church with Jmummy & family and ended with a backyard BBQ with 2 other families. This is our only way to have the men “cook” for us (while we prep the ingredients. hah).

And yes, both children were rather good and tehpeng took on most of the parenting duties. And I even had a very luxurious 2-hour nap after church, before dinner. Shiok.

Sleepyhead having fun dunking the teabags.

Special breakfast with a message

As much as this day is a joyous celebration, it might not be so, for some. In church, we prayed for women who had lost their child, women who are trying for babies, children who lost their mothers and children who are awaiting parental love (adoption)…if you could say a prayer for them and remember them too?

Hope you had a glorious loving (Mother’s Day) weekend, spent just the way you wanted.

Photo a day :: Apr 29 to May 5

Photo a day :: Apr 22 to 28

Kopitiam!

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We had a pop up kopitiam over the weekend, manned by the SG community in the school. Tehpeng’s school held a fundraiser and community event where different countries had a booth to showcase their country. And what’s the best way to showcase SG? Food of course!

A few weeks earlier, the spouses brainstormed on what to prepare with the ingredients we can find here. In the end, we decided on an hourly special so as to showcase more food options. On the menu were chicken curry, beef rendang, red bean soup, kaya toast and kopi, chrysanthemum tea, pandan chiffon cakes and peanut cookies. Quite a feast isn’t it? And everything was sold out!

I volunteered to make the beef rendang as I had packets of the pre-mix. 10 packets of beef stew meat with 6 packs of pre-mix later… I have never cooked so much meat at a go in my life (and I had to use 2 x 5 qt Le Creuset pots!)

The chicken curry made by Jmummy was very yummy too.

It was my first experience service/selling food I’ve cooked and I was all prepared to have leftover beef rendang as dinner after the event. Tehpeng told me the night before, to not get “upset” if it was not popular, as spicy food might not be that palatable here. Well, everything was sold out and I *might* have been over-enthusiastic and dished out more than the original proportions for each bowl. I mean, the aim was to sell them all, yah?

Of course, the dress code is red and white!

I also had support from a few of tehpeng’s friends who came to the stall asking “Are you tehpeng’s wife? He told me to buy whatever you cooked!” Thanks, my ever supportive husband!

A customer was seen downing a whole bottle of water after a bite of the rendang and saying “it looked milder than it is” and left the rendang untouched after. Heh, perhaps the bins are full of discarded rendang!

The school also ran a loop of music from each country and played the songs over the PA system. The song we chose was “Home”. It might not be a song that is ethnically-representative (compared to if we had a medley of the usual Chinese + Malay + Tamil songs) but when the song was played, I think all of us “SG Kampong-ers” sang along. And wow, can I just say, dishing out our SG-food and hearing that song… really brought that 家的感觉(and tears) to us.

This is home truly, where I know I must be.

Where my dreams wait for me, where the river always flows.

This is home surely, as my senses tell me.

This is where I won’t be alone. For this is where I know it’s home.

Other than food, there were performances and bouncy castle and face-painting and roving magicians to entertain the children. The place had a fun-fair atmosphere and the children had fun running around the green field with friends. Min gamely went for face-painting and among all the designs available, she chose SHARK!

Somehow I didn’t really explore all the booths (which I regret) and only went straight for comfort food bibimbap and bulgogi from the Korean stall and Thai Ice tea.

There were little gals dressed in the Korean Hanbok and it reminded me of the time when I was their age (many many many years ago) and my dad got me a hanbok and I wore it to a relative’s wedding…

The closest to something Korean…my name in Korean!

As much as it was a community event to showcase SG, I felt it was an afternoon for us SG kampung-ers to bond over our local delicacy (no no, we didn’t eat much from our stash, really!) and having that home-feeling, thousand miles away from our little red dot.

Photo a day :: Apr 15 to 21

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A bug descended upon the family and hit the littlest one of us. Towards the end of the week, almost everyone was down, except for me who was maybe functioning at a 70% level. It could be pollen-related and it also seems like a case of “heaty-ness”. I made soup, made chrystanthemum tea, stopped the oranges, piled on the apples…

Min was kept away from school for the week while Nat went to school as usual (since he was only hit on Friday evening). So it was pretty much a home-bound week for me. We even had to cancel our planned weekend roadtrip. I thank God we had the foresight to do so and also thank God that we managed to get our deposit from the accomm booking.

It was interesting as just the week before, I was thinking that I seemed to have a full-on-activities-kind-of-week where I was barely home before I had to head out for something else. Well, this week, I got what I wanted – I was literally home every single day. Be careful of your thoughts, I realised.

While we are stuck at home, I had to find (or conjur up) entertainment before we go stir-crazy from being cooped indoors. Min was more whiny than usual and I had to sit with her to read or play blocks.

We built a city!

I knew fresh air will do all of us good and the children played in the yard when the sun was up and the weather was warm enough to be out without the need to be bundled up.

I also experimented more in the kitchen, using happy call pan to make glutinous rice. I know, not exactly food recommended to intake when under-the-weather. Oops. But it was yumms.

It has been a rather intense (yet it’s also a do-nothing) week and when weekend rolled around, we took the opportunity to rest more. It has been a while since we didn’t drive out anywhere over the weekend. In between cooking, I squeezed out some time to bake a yuzu chiffon cake. It’s kinda flat as I used a shallow baking tin…and this was wiped out before dinner came around.

I was quite glad the buggy week ended actually, for it meant the bug will be gone soon…

Onto photos of the week.

Apr 15 – Alone :: Nat’s in school and Min is having some fun with paint.

Honestly, I never like paints cos I dread the mess and the clean-up. But when I saw these Melissa & Doug paint sheets where all you need is a brush with some water to paint, I thought it will make a fun paint (and relatively less messy!) activity to occupy Min. I bought a plastic table cloth from Dollar Tree as the ground sheet and viola, painting time! Even Nat likes this! Hah. I like that this activity is fuss-free and requires minimal set-up. I mean, to be honest, an activity for toddler will at most occupy them for…15 min?

Apr 16 – Fav colour :: This arrived today for Min. A size larger, in prep for our homecoming. Red could be my secret fav colour as I realise I tend to go towards this colour shades for clothes and accessories. Yes, I also bought this in my size.

Unfortunately, I think my feet doesnt look good in it…

Apr 17 – Busy :: The reading I’ve accumulated. I thought I would be able to read more, while here. The ladies were just commenting that while our days are far from being free of activities, we don’t complain about being “busy”. We also joked that we can leave home without our watches or mobile phones, but never without our credit card! Hah.

And it was true. We were all not wearing watches that day!

Apr 18 – Hello :: Hello blue sparkly flats!

Got these shoes, as replacement for the pair which has served me so well, and these were on clearance. Score!

Apr 19 – Button :: He gets some gaming time on weekends & he is getting quite good with them button controls.

Apr 20 – On my mind :: It’s a Sat and it’s sunny and I need to let the children out without having to run after them? Picnic snack and play time in the yard!

It’s great to have a yard and admittedly, we don’t utilise it as often as I wished we would. All cos the weather is cold and windy most of the time.

Apr 21 – Fire :: I recall the older gen saying it’s better to have a stove with 3 burners than 4 burners. Cos in canto, 四火 sounds negative. To me, having 3 burners is just practical cos after putting a wok, there’s only space for pots in the other 2 burners.

And the max I’ve ever utlised is 2 burners at any one time actually.