[Hello 2011- the next 10 yrs]

Time really flew by these December holidays! From playdates to moviedates to just hanging out at home, the girls had lots of fun these quick quick weeks in December.
Here are some pics of the highlights:
We had a lazy morning out at the Playhouse at Rochester... very good and clean and A/C! playareas for both the older kids and the younger ones. Best of all, it was empty the 2 hours we were there!
The play equipment were a little bit juvenile for the older kids, but they still had quite a lot of fun improvising with them :)
Dinners were spent sometimes at Aston's, the coffeeshop grille house near our house. The girls LOVED the food there, finishing up their plates clean everytime we have dinner there!
Celebrating C's 3 yr old birthday party
The long awaited Xmas tree (which we decorated with rocking horses with pink and purple ribbons)
A few afternoons spent at West coast park, where this little one got all icky about the sandAnd this little one LOVED jumping and running about..
Borrowed lots of books from the library to try out different sorts of breads :)
My parents brought them to Jacob Ballas, a perennial favorite
More birthday parties! This is the girls first Macdonald's bday party. They loved almost everything, but of course were a teeny bit too competitive during game time!
Xmas eve at new house and the madness of giving pressies to 4 little ones!
Enjoying their Xmas pressies... this is on Xmas day itself :)
Waking up very early in the morning, these are the 2 presents we bought them - the rest have already been opened!

Playdates again, this time at S's place, with yummy lunch and lots of running around at the playground downstairs.We had 7 kids amongst the 3 of us!
Evenings were mostly spent playing board games, G and K received a wonderful pressie of Junior Pictionary from Auntie S, they had lots of fun making little sketches (well, G did, K kinda tried but we had to be given lots of hints... lol) Above is a sample sketch, the one on the right is "something you find in the kitchen" and the one on the left is "something to read". Can you guess? R: Blender; L: a page.. It was really fun playing with her and I was really impressed by some of the things that she has sketched out!

So, with that, we end 2010!!! The past few weeks of December have been a good mix of family and work time, we had quite a lot of days with the girls and it is indeed really heartwarming to spend so much time with them. They really are growing up so quickly!! In the year ahead, I really hope that we have the luxury and the commitment to spend time with them as much as we can.
Here's to everybody that we know and who reads this blog : HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! :)

[Ipoh+Cameron Trip Day 02 + 03]

We continued our journey up into the highlands today.... There was a lot of this:
The great thing abt the 20-seater bus was that all seats recline fully, so K was super comfy taking her long morning and afternoon naps!
We visited some temples before heading up to the mountains, this one had fabled creatures curiously truncated at the legs as part of it's courtyard decorations. G of course had to start climbing ALL of them!
G's favorite uncle (he's 4 yrs older but a generation older) who had to very patiently demonstrate how to blow the perfect bubblegum bubble to her.
Us in the tortoise clearing. According to the guide and V's aunt who's from Ipoh, this clearing in the caves have been here for ages and the turtles are probably decades old! It is quite an amazing space, one had to literally walk through the limestone caves, through half a mountain, before arriving here! And there was a temple built in it!! I wonder how the architects and contractors devised a way to construct it..
V took this shot of me and K, i love that it had that fleeting sense of a paparazi shot.Next stop was halfway up the highlands, at the cactus farm. It was really fun! And the weather at this altitude was a cool 20degrees, a good 10 degrees cooler than the lowlands....
Prickly balls of cactiiThese 2 had sooo much fun playing and joking the whole trip! Not a single quarrel!!
K and my dad, posing in front of the tea plantation. It was a pity we couldn't walk into the plantation as it was slippery and wet due to the recent showers. On the flip side, the rain made everything look so intense and green!
Family shot :)
Look at the rolling hills.... so nice!
Our little cluster of bungalows at the hotel. G loves posing. Actually it is quite scary that I used to be exactly like her at her age!! I have to scan and document, even our poses are the same!!

Would love to have stayed on longer, but it was back home after a scant afternoon in the highlands.. :( boohoo.... all that travelling!
The view from our hotel room.
The girls drawing and coloring the minute they step into the room.
Another shot of G by V
Blowing forget me nots
V and his girls, i love how close they are to him, how it is always possible to see one or 2 pairs of little hand hugging on to him.
Finally, a shot of the 2 littlest members of our family, K showing V her latest toy, a spongebob play blackberry no less!

[Ipoh+Cameron Trip Day 01]

It was a whirlwind 3 days 2 nights trip with the family, organised by my eldest aunt, in a bid to have all her brothers and sisters, together with their respective families, to spend time together! This matriachal mission was indeed a success and the best thing about the trip has to be the time spent with various family, whom otherwise we meet only on occassions like birthdays and housewarmings. The best thing about it all had to also be the close bond that G and her cousin E shared throughout the trip, it was heartwarming especially to me, as me and my cousin (E's mum) grew up in each others pockets, meeting every single day at our grandma's when we were growing up, and subsequently every other weekend at our weekly grandma visits. Temperament wise, the 2 girls were really similar too to me and my cousin, to anyone looking at them, they might very well be us 30 years ago!
We chartered a 20-seater bus for the journey, which is great on legroom and comfort, but for my post-pregnancy bladder, was really not the most comfortable journey up north.
K fresh and bright after napping in the bus while we cross the border after we met at 630am!
V and G
Little V, same age as K, these 2 didn't really hit it off as closely as the older 2, but it was fun to watch them together.
Bagging seats together
Luckily E brought card games, and V contributed some too after stocking up at the pitstop.
The itinery for the day was a stopover at Ipoh, where we will be visiting some caves and the local hotspring, after which will be a night at the hotel.
G and K at the hotsprings.
Monkey faces
Finally, a nice-ish picture of the both of them
The waters at some parts of the hotsprings were hot enough to cook eggs!!! K posing on the line on the floor
Dipping our feet into the 'not so hot' water. Somehow, in temperatures of 30+ degrees, a hotspring just seems WRONG...
G didn't mind the bizarreness of soaking in hot water though, she would strip off to nothing and swim in it if allowed!!
My uncle showing the cooked egg....
It was cooked to perfection, creamy yolks with just set egg whites. K and everybody else, LOVED it!!

So after this afternoon snack, we were herded off again for dinner, at a restaurant (to the relief of E, who was greatly afraid of encountering all the pesky flies that swarmed most coffeeshops in Malaysia)....

It was quite a fun experience, and being the nearest hotspring venue, it seems quite a nice short trip with the girls to plan for in future. However, we will probably book into this one - HERE... :)