Outing for Three: Dinner

Remember the mountain of pics and update I mentioned before? This is one of them, from sometime December last year, right before our holiday trip.

After all the mangrove tripping and horsing around with 'additional offspring', you'd think we laid the 'additional offspring' at rest.
On the contrary, this Mama & Daddy (and Kecil, of course, usually the instigator, what with all the announcing of our plans to the whole world....) seems to develop a taste for it.
So, we took the three girls out again for dinner by the bay. (The top picture was the scenery we enjoyed from our seats. So cool, right?)

Here's the three of them chatting while enjoying their appetiser.

The best part? When we asked the girls what it was that they were eating, the piped in: "Chicken!"

Ahem.... ow well.. I guess calamari caaaan taste a bit like chicken, despite the giveaway shape. Huh.

As for the rest of the food, let's just say by the time they arrived, the camera was already packed away in preparation for the rush for food. We did find out through the dinner about each girl's degree of selectiveness for food. Haha... am happy to report that Kecil was quite... 'normal', being neither the easiest nor the hardest to feed. The rest? Let's just keep that a state secret. Ha!

Once done with dinner, we made another stop, this time by the lagoon for some drinks. Nothing alcoholic, mind you, but definitely sugary enough to keep the kids pretty hyper.

It was a cute, enjoyable outing with three lovely little girls. This Mama is just wondering if they would be amiable to such outings when they are a bit bigger. Haha....
It remains to be seen if we were to do this kind of thing again in the future. I suppose I'll keep you posted for any other outings. Cheers!

Chinese New year 2014...

... was over loooong time ago, I know. But I suspect you also know that #latepost is the modus operandi around here, so.... rather than wasting all these golden documentary.... better late than never.

This year's Chinese New Year found us at the same spot as last year, doing the exact same thing: waiting for the Lion and the Dragon.

And just like the previous year, the troupe was late, again. So, I guess if you want, you can also blame all these dragon and lions for setting such bad precedent.

Still, some good thing did come from all the wait, because we were joined by Kecil's friend, Mary from the neighbourhood.

So, together they watched the antics of the dragon and the lions.

With a friend in tow, Kecil became more daring this year. She actually went closer to the 'animals' to touch them. Also when there were goodies thrown around by the lions:

Braving the crowds, Kecil & Mari managed to get quite a loot of mints and coins. Haha... Then we went to get some ice cream:

And you think that that would be the end of it, right? Not quite. We went to the next mall, where another lion dance was scheduled.

It was not our first choice because, although the troupe there appeared pretty much on time, this mall was smaller, and MIGHTY crowded!

Still, the close quarters mean we got to have a VERY close look of the Lion, from a prime vantage point too:

... on Mama's & Daddy's shoulder, indeed. Haha...

For obvious reasons, we did not stay too long there. Man, they might be skinny, but at 5 and 6 years old, these kids still packed some weight!

Well, even with all the late 'modus operandi', late dragon/lion appearance, we did get to see our Lion dance to mark the Lunar New year. Let's say we are ready to ROAR this year, yes?
I think that's what Kecil was trying to say, anyway.

Cheers, and wishing you a good year of the Horse so far!

Sick

2 weeks back, after a pretty busy week of school and activities, this Little One got sick.
A stomach flu bug, food poisoning, we were never certain what, but it knocked her feet off, sending her to plenty of sleeps during the two, three days that she was 'out'.

It's been a while since she last used this spot for her nap. This Mama did not think she would see this sight again, until Kecil got sick.
And so... for that week, this Mama just spent whole afternoons by her side, getting her to drink and eat what little she can...

... until she finally woke up and declared herself 'healthy'. Ha!

Joking. She got better slowly, sometime during the weekend. Some of her appetite returned, and she finally got back enough energy to start playing again. Why, she even started to 'demand' for her favourite food:

Kecil had since returned back to school, in full health, of course, and her Mama & Daddy breathed a collective relieved sigh, glad to have back our healthy, noisy, active (if just a tad naughty) little Girl.
We are definitely grateful that she gets well so quickly. Here's hoping that there are no more such episodes in the near future.

Skating

Some people are surprised by the success of the movie 'Frozen'. As someone who watched the movie on big screen (with the kids, no less), this Mama is not one of them. With beautiful graphics, catchy tunes, funny characters and, of course, no less than two princesses, the movie easily steals some prime real estate in many little girls' heart. Including this one, who readily declared 'winter' as her favourite season despite never (ever) experienced it first hand before.
I am happy to report that she was not the only one, though. Interestingly enough, some of her friends who might have experienced 'real winter' seemed to choose seasons other than winter as their favourite. Ha!

Anyway, moral of the story was, given her current fascination with all things winter, our plan for the other weekend was already set once we found out about the new skating facility at the next city.

We were going skating!

It was not long after we came back from our Holiday trip 2013, and so, fully expecting the rink to be quite cold, Kecil was decked out in all her warm stuff from the Holiday.

She loves those ear muffs. Who knew you can get such a selection of cute pink ear muffs in Indonesia, of all places?

Please forgive the quality of the pics. There were some restriction about bags and such, so most of the pics were taken using camera phone.

The price of admission included rental shoes and 45 mins in the rink, plus usage of any available 'skating helper' on the rink. Now we've never used these 'helpers' before, but we could see that it would be very much useful.
Well, 'we' as in Mama & Daddy, that is. Kecil was telling us very confidently that skating was easy.

We did not want to burst her bubble, so we simply warned her that the ice will be slippery.

I wish I can tell you miraculous stories of how Kecil managed to get her bearing quickly on ice. Right. Did not happen. She was totally taken a back by the slippery ice and could hardly stand. Mama, who has very little experience on ice, was not much better, haha.... Still, we got along, eventually.

Kecil didn't get a helper at first, because everybody else was rushing for them. So she simply held the fence around the rink, or Mama or Daddy's hand. When finally she got a turn with the helper, she was hanging on the penguin for dear life, my little thing.
Still, we were very proud that she would not give up, at all. The only indication we got that she was tired was when she asked how much longer we had.

It was a fun outing, even if a bit expensive considering the 1-hour trip to the rink, the admission, meals etc. Still, we might do it again, perhaps in a different rink with better rate. We'll see.

We are happy to be able to expose Kecil to all these 'wintery' stuff. We do hope she'll base her 'favouritism' on experience rather than things she saw in movies. Haha....

Cheers!

Kecil's new 'Pet'

I think Mama mentioned before that Kecil might need a new bag soon. Not quite a surprise, considering how small Kecil was when she got THAT bag.

Ha... still sporting the usual drool-drenched outfit... That bag had been around for a while, indeed.

So it was really time for a new one, and this Mama had been looking around. Instead of the usual iconic kids bags, we went for this beauty of a bag/luggage for kids from Samsonite. Ain't it cool?

We love the fact that it was soo full of character (Why, Daddy went as far as declaring that had Kecil been his classmate when he was her age, he would be soooo envious of her bag!)
We love that it was not PINK
We love that it is a Samsonite, which for us usually mean good quality (Indeed, the bag came with a two-year warranty)
And the best part, we love that it cost us as much as any other iconic (although unbranded) trolley bag with similar volume. Seriously.

For an added 'cute factor' Mama even put the turtle-shaped hand sanitiser on the bag. Hihihi...

We do hope that this bag will last for a while. Being a proper 'cabin bag' (albeit for kids), Kecil can also bring the bag for her trips. This Mama is quite excited about that.

Elsa, the crocodile (yes, the bag even got a name already!) was not Kecil's first Sammies. She got another set of Sammies when she was still a wee toddler from her Tante, in the shape of a lady bug. It was cute, but we never did quite find a practical purpose for them. Rest assured that we try to make good use of Elsa.

And it was time for school.....

It's really kind of cool to see Elsa lined up with the rest of the bags. Kekekekeke.... Daddy said Elsa could have easily eaten any of the rest. I'd say.

Well... another day, another bag. Here's to Kecil and Elsa. May you both have many adventures together and loads of fun along the way. Cheers!

Weekend Cycling

Now that Kecil can hold up her own on a bike (quite) close to the size of her parents bikes, on a rare weekend when we all managed to wake up early, we decided to cycle together. Given the mode of transport (bike, instead of walking), Daddy was optimistic enough to set the horse stables as our goal.
Mama was just happy to tag along and take pictures.

We took a water break at the next housing complex where Mama checked out the pool at the background. See the rows of plastic boats at the top right corner? Looks interesting, no?

Soon after the housing complex, the road became steeper. It was going down, but both sides of the road also went down steeply. It was a pretty cool view, but definitely not for the faint-hearted.
Not to mention the fact that there was no longer any sidewalk along the road.

For safety reason, Daddy recommended going on the grass rather than on the road itself. This was because the cars seemed to drive pretty fast there. But going on the grass proved to be too much for Kecil. Her little hands soon got tired from handling all the bumps and the brakes.

So.... we did not quite get to the stables. We were pretty close, but I think Kecil's knowledge of the terrain proved to be her undoing. She knew we would still have to handle a bit of a stretch of rough roads, so she gave up early. So we turned back, and Kecil, with her tired little hands, chose to 'rest' on Daddy's bike while Mama pushed her bike and Mama's.
 (Yeah, I know. I am awesome, am I not? Kekekeke.... It was not THAT easy, but it was doable, and anyway, it was not that far from the housing complex where there were again sidewalks)

Thus ended the story of our weekend cycling. Actually, once back on familiar ground (sidewalk & safe, flat roads), Kecil was back to her usual sporty self. I guess we have to go slowly if we were to transition to off-road biking.

Still... we have hopes for next time. Now it's just to figure out another weekend when we all wake up early enough to cycle. Ha! I shall leave you with the speculation of the black sheep who tend to wake up late during weekends. Cheers!

The next adventure

You might be wondering what happened to Kecil's ballet lessons, especially after we went lengths to get her a proper costume (and tutu, ha!!). Well.... unfortunately, for some personal reasons, the ballet teacher had to go back to her home country after the summer holidays last year. It was also unfortunate that we did not manage to find another so far. In any case, Kecil's days had been busy since. Still, with the new year beginning, we thought it was time for the next adventure.

Any guess?

This time round, the adventure took her to an indoor court, where.... Kecil is learning to play tennis!

The story was that a long long time ago, Kecil's Daddy took tennis lessons, and now he was determined to inflict the same to his offspring. Ha! I'm half-joking.
Another part of the story was also that Mama found out that Ami had been taking solo tennis lessons, and could definitely benefit from having a partner.
So... since taking up sport is definitely something GOOD, why not? And so we started from the beginning of the year, once school started.

In the course of 4 or 5 lessons, we've managed to attract the neighbourhood kids, who took turn to appear at lesson time. Haha! A few pictures up was actually our biggest headcount, with 4 girls in last week. Not sure about the permanence of the group, but I think Kecil & Ami is going to stay on for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, they do have fun in a group.

Taking a much needed break.

Yesterday's lesson was canceled due to coach not feeling well, but we do look forward to the rest of the lessons coming up after that. I know there are scant few pictures so far, I guess that means that Mama just have to bring the BIG camera more often, and employ her lazy legs to get better angles of the kids next time. Ha!

Until then, cheers to the sporty Little One!