元宵

One of the nice sauce from Biao Gu Ma...

And tada.. the nice prawns with little effort!

Shark's fin.. again with little effort, thanls to the many ready pre mixed sauces these days... again this one was introduced by Biao Gu Ma...

Coca Cola chicken using happy call.
This time somehow not as nice as the previous time

Pig stomach soup, i forgot which is the packet which Biao Gu ma introduced, so used another one, which turned out to be not as spicy and i had to add a lot of white pepper

The complete meal.. the other dishes by my helper.
This is our 元宵meal with Yiyi and her family.
Nice and simple home cooked food.. and nice time spent with good company!
I think this is one of the best CNY spent.. from the first day to the last. We really enjoyed it esp the kids!

Brandon's latest work

I decided to write a row of letters and see how much he can do by himself, and i am surprised that he could write the 2nd row by himself with no one holding his hand. thanks to his school for i took no effort in doing this as we are really not those who focused on such academic things at such age.

HIs attempt to write his name with cancellations in between, again all my himself

Chinese writing from his school

Haha... i am amused

It is amazing as not only can he write, he can recognize a lot of Chinese words which surprised me. I realised he can read by himself words like 理发，厨师，商店 among words like 爸爸，妈妈，爷爷，头发etc etc.
I must say i have neglected chinese as a language, I can speak to him and he hears us chat in mandarin i guess that helps, but we really neglected the writing and recognizing chinese words..
Wow.. there seems to be many things to do... but i am glad the school did quite a lot, and the lazy mummy can laze a bit... and play more with them..

And again, something i did not notice.. his colouring has improved.
Wow.. i have failed to realise that my child is growing up and learning a lot!
I was drawing with them, and then Brandon told me.. i can draw pple u know,. and started drawing for me from the opposite side of the table a pic that faces me the correct way up..

Games and toys

Brandon's new game set
There are  3 dice to show and we have to compete to see how can spot the correct picture first
This is the first time is see brandon playing such games according to the rules and we had great fun!
When i wanted to buy this, i actually thought it would be wasted as he would not play accordingly and would just throw the cards around eventuall, but he proved me wrong!

Toys for brian. He had great fun playing with this at Leanne's house, and i had been contemplating getting one for him
And of cos he was very happy and took great care of it too!

Something they could play together!

CNY celebration at Sunday School

After singing and dancing, they had their first game of fishing

Brandon showing his catch!

Brian waiting for his turn

And finally caught a fish too!

The 2nd game of getting oranges and stacking them up
it was a complete chaos with pple messing up and pple trying to stack them up nicely to win the competition

The only group who managed to stack so well

They had a 3rd game of making lanterns before deciding on the final results
The kids got their prizes!!!

The 2 boys being very happy with their prizes!!!!
Brian cried as Brandon had a box of pocky while he did not as he belonged to different groups during the game. Hence, Brandon actually gave up his pocky to Brian!

CNY visit to Uncle Chin's house

Brian enjoying himself with his favourite fruits and fruit cards

Brandon amuses himself as he pretends to be a fireman/policeman going around to fight fire/catch bad pple

Finally Uncle Chin's 2 boys are awake, and they played quite well together!!!

The big boy

Uncle Chin's younger son

A farewell gift from Uncle Chin before we left

Enjoying and throwing with all his might!
Thanks to Uncle Chin, it was a great evening... the boys had lots of fun playing together, and it is also there that i realised Brandon could write a lot of letters by himself.  And Thanks to Uncle Chin and his family for the home cooked meal too!

人日

Calmex abalone which we got our friend to buy from Vietnam.
Very good at very affordable prices!!!

Big prawns

Some are left over as we stocked up extra for the steamboat previously

Nice :) comes ready packed

CP wanton

A very simple but warm and delicious lunch with the whole family to celebrate 人日
Happy Birthday to everyone!!!

Growing up

While at the toys department at Parkway, Brandon was seriously browsing at the tracks. Then he brought one to me and asked me in Chinese "Ke yi mai gei wo ma?' He asked me how much it cost and if it was expensive, then he told me his reasons for buying, and how he needed to connect the tracks so that they can change tracks and directions etc, and i could see him figuring it out in his mind how to connect. It was the first time he gave such serious thoughts about buying a toy, instead of just grabbing something and insisted on buying. He has really grown up, and of cos this time, it was hard for me to say no.

My Holiday..

As i am still on leave during this CNY week, i went to fetch the children back from school.
As i went quite early, Brandon was still playing at the school playground, and i only just realised that Lorna Whiston had their own playground!

My very first time fetching Brian back from school with Daddy, Gong Gong and Por Por before we went to Parkway for shoppping and Macdonald lunch.. What a simple and great afternoon...

Look at the happy children when they spotted their parents/grandparents!

2013 CNY Day 3

All ready for CNY visiting again in his traditional Chinese attire which we bought for his school CNY celebration

Being very proud of his attire..

Brian just would not cooperate to have a good pic taken!

First stop: Biao Gu Ma's house... look at the amount of food!
And it is not just food, it is super delicious food!

Brian happily playing with Leanne's ice cream toys

2nd stop: 3rd Gu Ma's new house!
Brian enjoying the dessert.
Good food and dessert and play.. wow.. what a good day for the kids!

Brandon busy taking photos with Leanne's Thomas camera while i was busy taking photos too!

Skype with Gu Ma!
Gong Xi Fa cai!

Then we rushed home to prepare for steamboat dinner with mummy's friends.
WE were really late, luckily Por Por helped me with the preparation!!!

Mummy's frens from sec school to JC to Uni.. to colleagues...

Brandon wishing everyone Happy New Year again!
And Brian is always more sociable when Brandon is around.. good influence for this aspect
Happy CNY for one and all!
That marks the end of the busy busy packed activities for the CNY!!!