Cuti-cuti Sekolah

When the year-end school holidays came round, I cracked my head for activities to keep Nat occupied and am pleased to say I fared quite well.

On the penultimate day of school, we let her celebrate her birthday with her classmates as she was going to a new school in 2011. Nothing big - just brought some cupcakes and light snacks. Her teachers organised some musical games and allowed us to show the kids a photo slideshow I had prepared on the Smartboard. Finally, Nat happily gave out the party packs that she had helped to pack and label to her friends.

Watching the slideshow

She enjoyed the party immensely as these were the kids she interacted with on a daily basis. We could see she was very comfortable with them indeed. It saddened me a little to think that she would have to start making friends all over again soon. Moreover, Hubby and I had some concerns about removing her from an environment where she was doing so well (I’m proud to say she was the top achiever amongst her peers) but we also had some reservations about continuing to send her to the current school.

That weekend, we had the full moon party of our new nephew, Ivan Toh Tik Quan, and also the party of Christabelle, one of Nat's schoolmates held at Flykidz Gym.

The new addition to the Toh clan

Kiddos

Gym bootcamp

The following week, she went for two days of trial classes at her new kindy, took an overnight trip to Ipoh to visit Kong Kong who just had an operation and attended Brandon's birthday party at Kidz Sports.

Happy Birthday Brandon

After that, she had 2 days of Christmas craft classes at Caterpillar after which she would hang out at my office the rest of the day; got scared at the cinema watching Mother Gothel in Rapunzel - A Tangled Tale; and had a full dress rehearsal followed by school concert.

The third week, we brought the kids to Aquaria KLCC as Tuesday was a public holiday. Bad timing, though. There were just too many people and it was so warm inside. On Wednesday, we went to Sunway Lagoon to watch Peter Pan The Musical (and got thoroughly wet getting to the amphitheatre as it was raining heavily). She also attended another Caterpillar Christmas craft class and also a Little Cooks cooking class at Dish Deli where she learnt to make scones, mini pizza, chocolate cookies and crackle cakes. The results were quite yummy too!

With the cast of Peter Pan. Can you spot her?

My Little Cook

Crackle cakes, mini pizza and scones

The weekend saw us take a trip up North to Ipoh for a night and then to Pangkor on Sunday. I had been debating whether or not to bring Adam. As much as I enjoyed having him with us, I also knew it would not be much of a relaxing holiday for me. So as a compromise, we booked 2 x 3D/2N packages at Pangkor Island Beach Resort.

For the first 2 nights, we brought both kids then headed back to Ipoh on the 3^rd day to leave them with the grandparents while Hubby and I returned to Pangkor for another 2 nights of bliss! Of course Hubby complained about the irrationality of travelling back and forth (it was a good 6 hours by the time we got back to the resort) but for me, it was worth it!

It was actually our first family holiday since Adam came along, not counting the trips to Penang for Bu Keat’s and Val’s weddings. The weather at Pangkor was perfect. Not too hot, loads of cool breeze and waves were as high as 3 feet at times. Hubby enjoyed jumping the waves while I was content just lying on a deckchair being lulled by the seabreeze.

After being at the resort for 5 days, I was quite happy to leave and our timing couldn’t have been better. It started pouring heavily the moment we checked out and rained the rest of the journey back to Ipoh and subsequently, KL. Nat stayed behind in Ipoh with the grandparents continuing her fun holiday at the same time, giving me some respite before the start of a new hectic year.

On Christmas week, Nat returned to KL on her maiden trip on the train with her grandparents. Celebrated Christmas Eve at Val's house and opened presents even before midnight as we were all exhausted and had to head back to bed. Christmas morning saw us celebrating mass together and after lunch, we left for Genting to watch Arrival, an Abba tribute band. We all enjoyed that but I swear never to go to Genting during school holidays ever again! It took us 1.5 hours to go on 3 indoor rides!

The last item on her busy agenda was the NY's eve party at her Mak & Ng Kong's house. Again, she was too pooped to see it through to midnight and missed out on the dazzling fireworks. And with that, ended another express year in our lives. Sigh….

Nat is 4 and Adam is 1!

Dear friends & family,

You're invited to a lunch to celebrate Adam's 1st birthday & Tik Chu's 4th
birthday.
Time : 12 noon
Date : Sat 6^th Nov 2010

Venue : Trinity Children Centre

Birthday gifts are optional. Your presence is present enough (hmm.... sounds
corny!). However, we would love handwritten cards as keepsakes.
Alternatively, you may make a small love offering to the Home.

Kindly RSVP by this Friday 29th Oct to facilitate the necessary
arrangements. Thank you.

And so went the invite for the first-ever party we threw for the birthday of our kids (yes, we had to make it a joint one as I just didn’t have the energy to plan 2 in the same month).

I had been meaning to celebrate Nat’s birthday at an orphanage for some time but it didn’t seem opportune till this year. While we have friends that celebrate their children’s birthdays every year, we thought we’d wait till she finally asked to have a party.

In the end, she didn’t (bless her!) but since her brother was turning one this year, I thought, why not? On hindsight, Nat probably wouldn’t have been able to comprehend the idea of sharing and giving when she was younger.

I did some research on the many children’s homes, mainly in PJ as I wanted it to be easily accessible to our friends, to find the more deserving and less high-profile ones. I came to know about the Trinity Children’s Centre through Poesy Liang, the founder of an organisation called Helping Angels, that amongst other projects, gives free tutoring to the children here on Thursdays. There are 20 children (maximum capacity) here with ages ranging from 6 to 16. Most of them are not exactly orphans but were abandoned or come from abusive or broken families.

We intended to keep the guest list to a minimum since there would be 20 children from the orphanage but things took a turn and we were extremely blessed to have more than 100 guests including kids. Okay, I admit I couldn’t resist making it a merry occasion and so extended the invite to quite a few friends but mostly, only those with kids around Nat’s age.

All along, I had thought that the home was housed in 2 adjoining single-storey semi-dees, and so, that everyone could rough it out inside. After all, charity was the focus here, not comfort. Two days before the party, however, I found out one of the houses had been sold earlier and all the kids were now squeezed into one. Add to that my extensive guest list and I was scrambling to find canopy, chairs and tables on a busy Deepavali weekend.

Thank God everything fell in place and we had wonderful weather to boot. The chocolate fountain (which I forgot to photograph) was a hit with the orphans. Even Wendy, the home administrator was amazed at how many people we could accommodate.

Our guests were understanding of the space and parking limitation and quite a few contributed to the home as well (Thanks, you guys!). Many couldn’t stay for the games though as some kids needed their afternoon naps but we had a swell time with the lovely kids of the orphanage. They were sweet, helpful and really deserving.

Did Nat & Adam enjoy it? Well, Adam doesn't know better. Being a kid, Nat would doubtless have preferred a party at an indoor playground. The thought of the kids not having a proper family managed to tug at her heartstrings a little as she said to me one night "So poor thing hoh, the kids, Mama? ...No Mama and Papa. I love them...".

Exhausting as it was, I would have done it all again in a heartbeat! Thanks also goes out to my little elves, Val, Julian & Carol and Tracia.