Halloween Leftover

Unbelievable as it is, this Mama actually forgot to include a pic of the LOOT in our Halloween post!
I mean, what's Halloween without the Loot, right?
Well, but as it turned out, this Mama still do have some leftover pics from Halloween....

Here was a visit to the housing office, where they put up some 'decoration' for Halloween, mainly consisting of some ghoul-y creatures. (Mama is not a big fan, can't you tell?) But apparently little boys are big fans.

Seriously, a big, big fan. And apparently we made enough ruckus to attract the attention of a kindly gentleman, who offered to take a picture of all of us. It took a little bit of persuading for the Little One (who, was also not a fan of all the witches and stuff), but we did get a picture.

Ha! You can actually see Kecil slightly squirming away from the witch!
Ah well... there ends our Halloween this year, I suppose. This Mama is always late with her updates, as usual. Even the housing office is already decked in Christmas decoration. (The ghouls were taken down the day after Halloween, ya. What do you expect?)
Am happy to report, however, that thanks to our trip, we only got 1 medium sized loot of candies this year, which is already fully consumed. Our Homecoming trip kind of help, since Kecil brought her loot along with her for all the plane trips. Haha...

So now that we're done with this one, we really should get started on Christmas. Falala lala....
Cheers!

The Fairy Dress

Since Halloween is over, you think the Fairy dress would be packed away? Why of course, not! As stated before, Mama's Halloween brief includes the provision that the dress be worn for more than just one occasion. So it did. Got worn more than once, that is.
In fact, right after the Skool's Halloween celebration, Kecil was not taking it off. And so she got to wear it the whole day, right till bedtime when she took a shower.
In the meantime, the dress got to stand the rigours of Kecil's normal day, which include:

Taking the Dog out for walkie ...

Cycling with the Dog...

Climbing at the playground ... 

Climbing the WALL at the playground .... ahem...

She even got her friends to climb along on the wall. That's my girl, the ring leader, all right.

Shovelling sand at the playground ...

Playing slides ....

Suffice to say, by the time she took shower, the dress was in dire need of a wash as well. But Kecil loves the dress. That's what matters to this Mama.  Here's looking forward to more uses for the Fairy Dress.

Happy Thanksgiving

Apart from being one of the tricks up in Mama's sleeve to get Kecil tired, our daily walks has always been a reminder to be grateful for oh so many things.
For the company, for the opportunities, for the ability to appreciate beauty around us, for friends, for many things.

We don't necessarily celebrate Thanksgiving in this neck of woods, but this Mama can certainly appreciate the spirit of the celebration.
So perhaps as this Mama mulls on the way to bring home the idea to the Little One, let this just be a small reminder for the things we all need to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Goggly-Eyed

As usual, coming back from our trip home, we were kind of 'loaded' with new stuff. Well... let's just say that we got back with full suitcases, shall we? And one of those things that filled up the suitcases include this pink pair of goggles for the Little One, picked up from a meandering trip around the children's store (A whole wall dedicated to kids goggles, how cool is that? We just had to pick up one!)

True, Kecil's been swimming with goggles before this, but she's already seen her Daddy and her friend swimming with them. A couple of times, she tried using Mama's goggles, but Mama's and Daddy's goggles are not pink, you see. Besides, the kiddie one came with a special quick fit contraption that made adjusting the bands easier.
Needless to say, Kecil is very happy. Especially since we can now do this:

Woohoo... take better underwater pictures! How cool is that?

Even cooler, now that Kecil 'can' swim (somewhat, proper swimming strokes not withstanding), she has a new goal with the goggles: dive to the bottom of the pool.

We are still working on that. But you should hear her complain nowadays about not being able to sink ("I keep floating, Mama!"). Ha! Quite a change from the usual fear of going 'blub blub', I'd say!

We'll, we managed to have fun and take more pics in between diving lessons:

More underwater photos:

Moral of the story? Do bring along your waterproof camera and goggles when you come visiting. Haha... Cheers!

Halloween 2012

After 4 years, it would seem that we tend to be out of town around Halloween time.
We stayed put in 2009 and 2011, but we did miss Halloween celebration in 2010, as well as this year.
And for both years, we missed it for the same reason: we went for holiday in Indonesia. Ha!

So be it.
Luckily, at least this year we were able to make it for the Skool Halloween celebration.
Have we ever said that we love the Skool? Oh yes, we do!

As part of Halloween preparation, students are drafted to make the decorations for the Skool.
You see that ghost hanging up there? Kecil made that, a fact that she proudly shared with her Mama and Daddy.
For the celebration itself, which was basically just a trick-a-treating procession from one classroom to another, students are invited to come in their costumes, but they are not required to have one.

Now for Kecil... well... let's just say Mama felt a bit bad about last year's last minute off the rack costume (which, I have to add, Kecil did not quite wear, really!). So... when we were informed about the celebration by the Skool, we made our own preparation.

Kecil is really more into princesses at the moment. However, Mama's scouting trip to the market did not result in satisfactory finds that can be turned into 'proper' princess attire. Besides, this Mama thinks that a princess attire is unlikely to be worn outside special occasions such as Halloween. So... Mama and Kecil agreed on a fairy costume.
We were really going for TinkerBell, really, but you know Kecil prefers the color PINK, right? So Pink it was, complete with pink wings, wand and hair band.

Kecil seemed to like her dress, and it was really good as Kecil could still run, jump and play around just as she normally does. I'd say this Mama managed to fulfill the objective with the dress.

This Mama had to admit, that for a moment, while driving to Skool, I was not too sure about the Halloween thing after all. What if Kecil appeared overdressed or something? Such foolish thought, of course, for the kids did turn out in force, ready to have fun, costumes not withstanding. Just look at them:

Super heroes, Disney princesses, more fairies, even in uniform, I think they are just happy to have a special day in Skool.
Soon enough, the trick-a-treating started ...

And of course, all the photo-taking that accompanies any occasion that includes any degree of dressing up.

Once the candies were distributed, and each kids got their own sack/basket/handful of candies, it was time to sit down, enjoy the candies, even compare your loot with one another.

T'was a great, fun day in Skool, the last day of the term, last day in the old building (the Skool was moving to a new place!), and last day before the semester break. Couldn't get any better than that, I suppose. Thank you, Skool for organizing the whole thing!

And here's Kecil again in her lovely costume, just so you won't forget what she was dressed up as for this year's Halloween.

Cheers!

Epic Holidays: the Safari

So... in order to get up to date, what better post shall we put than the one from a year ago? As part of our Epic Holidays last year, Kecil, Mama, Daddy and the Eyangs actually visited a safari park.

The moment you entered the park, we were ushered to the Safari bus to go through the "safari" part of the park. You may also opt to use your own car, but since Eyang's car was a bit too low and crowded for all of us to enjoy the safari properly, we opted for the bus. The big windows and the higher elevation sure provided us with better view of the animals.

At the end of the safari (which include a lot, many animals, no fear. This Mama just can't quite get enough mojo to take pics of animals out of context), at the terminal where we got of the bus, yet another kind of 'ride' is waiting for us:

The pony....

And the Elephant!

Pretty cool, right? Kecil had always been interested with horses, but riding an elephant was definitely a first.

Then we moved on to the more conventional, amusement park kind of rides:

The rides which were only for kids, like the ones above and below:

One or two with Mama and Daddy:

And somehow, between one ride to another, Kecil managed to misplace ONE of her shoes.
Grrrrr.... Just like that. And Mama and Daddy had to take turn carrying her around until we got to one of the eateries. Luckily they do have a shop selling slippers and what not. So Kecil got a new pair of slippers to walk around with as we made our way to the zoo after lunch.

Notice Kecil's new rubber slippers? Ha!

Within the amusement park there are also a few enclosures for some animals, which include this brute of an orang utan:

And of course, there are spots to get your pics taken with some of the animals: Baby tigers, birds, even snakes! We took a pic (or two or more) with the tiger cub. Isn't she gorgeous?

But we passed the snakes, thank you very much. We did stop for the birds, though. And even Kecil got a bird on her shoulder:

Check out her face!

In any case, just around the corner from the birds, Kecil caught sight of the huge waterpark which was part of the Safari.

I kid you not, there's a waterpark within the safari, entrance to which was already included in the admission. And so that was where we spent the rest of the afternoon, basically splashing around, manning the water cannons, braving the water dump and the slides.

We only emerged sometime in the evening, when it was getting too cold to swim around. Anyway we were getting hungry, and it was time to go home.

All in all, it was a long, fun day at the safari. We concluded that the whole park can only be enjoyed fully if you start right at the opening time and stay around until closing time. I mean, the waterpark alone was worth hours of entertainment! But I guess that's lesson for next time. in the mean time, we look forward to our next adventure!