Weekend at Majestic Melaka

I had to attend an event in Muar and Melaka last Friday and Saturday respectively, and since I was booked to stay at this classic hotel I persuaded hubby to come along with the girls.

Photo from here.

We reached Melaka at about 3pm on Friday, and I left immediately for Muar with my colleagues, leaving hubby to handle the girls alone. They took a walk around the hotel in the evening before going for dinner. When they got back to the hotel, hubby filled the bath tub and the girls had their personal private pool. By the time I got back to Melaka, both had already knocked off.

I had almost the whole day free on Saturday as my event was only at night but the weather was not kind to us – it started raining when we were having our breakfast, just like the last Melaka trip. We went to one of the malls to grab something, tapau lunch for the girls and went back to the hotel as it continued raining the whole day with only intermittent stops. We spent the whole afternoon in the hotel and since we couldn’t hit the pool, the girls got their time in the bath tub yet again.

After breakfast on Sunday, we took some photos in the hotel before making an early departure as hubby had a lunch function back in KL.

BUT why is this post devoid of photos??!! Boohoohoo…when I wanted to choose the photos for posting, I realized THE.FOLDER.WAS.MISSING. I’ve searched high and low in all my drives and Recycle Bin but there was no sign of it. The only possible explanation is that I accidentally deleted the folder permanently when I was done editing them on Sunday night :-( BUMMER!

Second year in kindy - the finale

A day before her kindy party, Yiu Yiu came back with this:

I was quite surprised as I don’t think her handwriting is all that nice. On a good day,when she’s is a good mood and not tired out, these are the results…


But on a bad day, her handwriting can be truly hideous. Mind you, she’s even capable of falling asleep while doing her homework…haha.


I later found out that she was given the award based on the writing assessment during the exam, and after seeing the paper during the Parent-Teachers Day, in my biased opinion, I think she deserved the award :-)


Anyway, the first thing that her class teacher, Teacher Kathleen, told me at the Parent-Teachers Day was that she’s a sensitive and emotive child. Apparently one of the days during the last week of kindy, the children prayed for two of their classmates whom will be leaving the kindy. Yiu Yiu started crying coz she was sad that she would not be seeing Teacher Kathleen anymore next year (as 5yo and 6yo classes are held in different blocks). That made Teacher Kathleen teary as well. Drama leh? Haha...

Development wise, we were told that Yiu Yiu improved in all aspects compared to the beginning of the year, and she was rated “Excellent” in almost all aspects of evaluations – be it motor skills, work habits, social emotional skills, academic as well as arts.

She sure is growing up fast, and next year will be her final year in kindy. Read about how she did during her first year in kindy here.

Kindy’s year end party

The notice for the kindy year end party came way too late – just a day before the party last Friday! The children were required to wear their concert costume so it wasn’t a problem, costume wise. But as customary, each child was asked to bring a snack to share, and by the time I got home from work and saw the message book, it was already 8pm. I rummaged through the fridge for my stash of frozen bento food and managed to dig out some homemade wantan. Phew!

As I had a meeting at 9am on Friday morning, hubby sent Yiu Yiu to kindy, and stayed back to capture some photos, so I’ll just let the photos do the talking.

Random shots with her friends

With Teacher Esther (her 4yo class teacher) and Teacher Kathleen (her 5yo class teacher)

Makan time

Yan Yan – 15th & 16th month update

At 16 months now, Yan Yan can verbalise few words clearly – papa, mummy, che che, kor kor, yeh yeh, poh poh, and her all time favourite, yao (要). It’s her all time favourite because that’s her usual response when asked, “Do you want mum mum” or “Do you want nen nen” or “Do you want kai kai” :-) At 12th month, she would shake her head instead of nodding even though she actually meant yes, but she now knows to nod her head for yes, and shake for no.

She can also identify all family members by pointing to the right person when asked – papa, mummy, che che, yeh yeh, mah mah, poh poh, yi yi, kor kor. And she’ll point to herself when we ask, “Who’s Yan Yan/Yan Xin/mei-mei”.

The other week, we were at the paediatrician clinic as she was having fever plus cough and cold, and while waiting, I showed her banana, flower and ball on a wall chart, and she could point them out later when asked. She weighs 9.1kg, by the way. No idea about her height and head circumference as these were not measured at that visit.

She insists on self-feeding these days, though she’s still not too good at it, so will usually make a mess. The trick to get her to eat is to have a small portion of food for her to practice self-feeding, while I feed her from a different bowl. She generally likes noodles, pasta and rice and have no problem finishing the portion we give her, but will shut her mouth tight upon seeing porridge, so that makes one less thing that I can cook for her :-(

She’s started to enjoy rolling the ball back and forth, and loves to climb onto furniture (and giving me heart attacks in the process). She loves to scribble and always rummages through her che-che’s bag to look for pencils and papers/books to scribble on.

She understands simple instructions like “Put your clothes in the laundry basket” and will bring my handphone to me when she hears it ringing. She cooperates well when putting on/taking off clothes by manourvering her arms around the garments.

This little missy may look like a little angel, but she has a fiery temper. Many a times, when she doesn’t get her way, she’d throw herself on the floor. But she’s also smart enough to do it ever so lightly so as not to hurt herself…haha…and after a few moments, will steal glances at us to see if we’d give in. Sneaky eh?

Impromptu Sekinchan trip

Mum has talked about wanting to visit the rice field and fishing village of Sekinchan, so during Hari Raya Haji, we made an impromptu trip there. As it wasn’t planned and everyone was running their own errands earlier in the day, we only started our journey at about 4pm, reaching Sekinchan after a 90-minute drive. Our first stop was the rice fields – loved how we could practically drive into the fields and stop by the side for photos.






We then went on the other side of the main road to the fishing village of Bagan. As it was already late in the evening, the jetty was practically deserted. We spotted few villagers mending their fishing nets, while many fishermen were winding down their day resting on the boats/jetty.





Two of the restaurants in Bagan most frequently visited by bloggers, Jiann Chyi Seafood Restaurant and Guan Hwat Seafood Restaurant are not open at night so we simply picked a restaurant, which had a decent crowd, for dinner. We ordered steamed fish, deep fried stingray, deep fried squid, sweet and sour crab, kam heong lala, salt baked mantis prawn and stir fried potato leaves.


Food was pretty decent - with the crab and mantis prawn rated highly by everyone, but the stingray and lala were forgettable, and service was rather slow. Best thing about the meal? The bill came up to less than RM150 for 6 adults and 3 children.

Of being a busy body and speaking in Chinese

Yiu Yiu's primary language is English, and though hubby and my mum speak to her in Mandarin and Cantonese, her grasp of Mandarin and Cantonese is not so strong. Many a times, her conversation in Mandarin and Cantonese is a direct translation from English, e.g:
我要玩今天（wo yao wan jin tian – I want to play today）instead of 我要今天玩。

One day while in the car, I was talking to my mum in Cantonese and Yiu Yiu couldn't quite follow our conversations, and kept asking me, "Mummy, what did 婆婆 say?" or "Mummy, what did you say to 婆婆?" After some time, she got a bit frustrated that I wasn't translating everything to her so she commanded，
Yiu Yiu: Mummy, I told you already - whatever you say to 婆婆 or whatever 婆婆say(s) to you, you must tell me in English, OK.
Mummy: Why do you want to know? Why are you so busybody?
Yiu Yiu (smiling cheekily): Yes ah, I (am) very busybody one mah. You don't know meh?

Yiu Yiu’s kindy concert

Yiu Yiu’s kindy organized their biennial Concert Day at the DUMC Auditorium last night. Biennial??? How come not annually, right? I had the same question too last year when no concert was forthcoming and soon found out that the kindy organized the school concert and school sports day alternately. Anyway, the theme for the concert was “Colours of Malaysia”, and the good thing is each child can have as many guests as possible, as long as the kindy was informed. So mum, sis, Yihao, Aunty Yoke Ling (the babysitter) and her sister came along.

We had to drop her to kindy by 5.45pm and as it was raining since early evening, so it was rather cumbersome trying to keep everyone dry amidst the chaos. Anyhow, after dropping her off at her class, we proceeded to a simple dinner prepared by the kindy before making our way to the Auditorium.

The night started promptly at 7pm with three graduating 6-year old students delivering a welcome speech in BM, English and Mandarin. I was quite impressed with the three – they manage to memorize what seemed to me to be a rather long speech. I bet their parents must have been really proud of them. This was followed by the customary speech by the principal and pastor, after which the graduating students made their way on stage class by class.

The performances promptly followed and the children deserved a pat on their back for putting up a really good show. There were various dances - joget, bhangra, Chinese, etc. The impressive stage and elaborate costumes no doubt upped the oomph factor. No photos to show though coz we were seated quite far behind and the lighting was dim so the photos turned out really crappy :-)

Yiu Yiu’s class performed last, and I thought it was a good finale with a group rendition of Teresa Teng’s famous 甜蜜蜜(tian mi mi) and the BM version of Dayung Sampan.

Can you spot Yiu Yiu in the photo?

The concert ended slightly after 9pm and as it was still raining, many parents were still hanging around so we managed to snap some photos of Yiu Yiu with her friends.

Yiu Yiu’s 5th birthday celebrations

Yiu Yiu turned five last Monday. This year, she’s a very happy little girl coz we had multiple celebrations for her :-) We started with dinner with my family and the babysitter the weekend prior to her birthday. Food was good, and the ambience was pretty nice. Most importantly, the birthday girl was thrilled with her first ever ice-cream cake.

We had wanted to have a celebration at her kindy on the actual day but since that was the first day of kindy exam, her teacher asked that we postponed it to Thursday, after the childen finished all their papers. So on Monday evening, I picked up a small cake on the way home from work, just so that she could blow the birthday candles :-)

On Thursday, hubby and I, together with Yan Yan, made our way to the kindy 30 minutes before her break time to set up the cupcakes and other finger foods. Her class was ushered into the pantry at break time to sing a birthday song for her, before we helped her class teacher to distribute the food to the children.

(L) Hello Kitty cupcakes for girls, and Ben-10 for boys; (TR) Goodies for party packs; (BR) Finger food and Milo

Watching intently as candles were lit

Newbie in the class?

We had a very happy girl that day, and she came home that evening saying, “Next year I want to celebrate my birthday in school again."

Bento #176 – #180

More recent bentos:

Pan fried chicken drumstick cut into small pieces, mini red bean pau and slice of pear.

Smiley meat floss bread balls with jackfruit.

Mini red bean pau, fish ball and cucumber skewer and cubes of pear.

Blanched noodles tossed in soya and oyster sauce, with french bean picket fences, cauliflower cloud and carrot flowers, with cubed pear.

Bear shape french toast, frenchs bean with bacon roll, and cubed pear.

Bento #169 – #175

I don’t pack a bento for Yiu Yiu religiously these days, and sometimes will just let her take a red bean pau from the neighbourhood coffee shop dim sum stall to kindy. Here are some of the recent ones:

Mini red bean pau with heart shape cocktail sausages and heart shape rose apple.


Lotus paste pau with fried wantan and heart shape rose apple.


Mini chocolate mantou, fish cake and cucumber, and tulip shape rose apple.


Bear shape french toast, cucumber with bacon roll, and heart shape rose apple.


Sausage and roti canai baked roll with checkered apple.


Chicken nugget with potato wedges and ketchup in the blue strawberry tub, with orange.


Mini red bean pau, kamaboko cucumber roll and grapes.