31 December 2014

Sleepyheads

And the kids headed to the zoo! With our uncles and cousins.

While the husband and I had the luxury of time to ourselves. This is us post-gym. Bliss.

We managed to run some errands and snuck in an ice-cream treat too. 

Finished off with a simple dinner with family.

Couldn't have asked for a better day - where we are together, yet not, doing things together, yet not. It's all so simple but precious because we are safe, healthy and able beings. 

Over lunch, the husband and I had some light and serious conversation about the year, and 2015. Here are my thoughts:

• Keep it simple. There's a real tendency in our lives today to be in-the-know. Social media? Always on it. Work emails? Checking in way too much. Kids' classes? Thinking of signing up for more. Sales? Wanting to buy more. It doesn't have to always be gogogo; it's not necessary because we truly already have more than we need. So let's keep it simple. Slow down.
• Love more. My parents, my children, my MIL, my siblings, my husband. There cannot be too much love in this world and that's one thing that we definitely need more of. Especially to those who mean the most to us. 
• Be in the present. To not be distracted, to listen more, to do more, to enjoy more. 
• Keep moving. By that, I refer to exercise. I said I'd pick up rollerblading because my daughter did, but I didn't. (Something to take up next year?) But I did have another good year where exercise is concerned and I clocked a good time in my half-marathon and continued running through the year. I also picked up yoga and I hope to continue this active lifestyle for my own good. I'm happy to have kept introducing this active lifestyle to my children. 
• Give more. I just signed up to sponsor a child, and I introduced the kids to giving programmes. I hope to keep giving, to be less selfish. This should be more in line with being more content and thanksgiving. 
• Laugh more.

2014 - 68 runs, 481.6km.

On this note, I hope you enjoyed your year and have a great one ahead. I'm going to savour the rest of my quiet evening at home. 

Goodbye busy 2014. Hello, 2015.

Boxing Day Fun in Malaysia

Boxing day: pre-0700 hours

The girls are obviously more morning people

Slight drizzle, some traffic leading to the causeway

By the time we reached our destination, it was lunch. Everyone was slightly cranky, slightly tired, slightly excited, slightly hungry. I remember feeling a lot grimy and slightly disorientated.

The husband must be feeling a lot disorientated because he did something that even he cannot believe he did. #notIsayonehedid

We checked in to our 'home' for the night and it was pretty much relaxation time. Some of us (me!) signed up for a massage. I spent 2 hours in true bliss. By the time I emerged from knead heaven, the kids had already made themselves comfortable in the home.

One, two, three....there were 9 kids in all (not everyone is pictured)

Three dragon boys

Nothing like steamboat to warm the cockles of our heart & tummies

Post-dinner, we headed back and there was a surprise activity organised. 

Firecrackers fun!

Then we headed back to do some gift exchange - the highlight of the children's night!

8 pictured. Still missing one big boy.

Happy Christmas!

Here's all of us.

The adults spent the night (post-putting-kids-to-sleep) doing our gift exchange. It was pretty fun, and surprisingly, for the first time ever, I stayed up to chat and went to bed the same time as my husband, the regular last-man-standing.

The next morning...

Breakfast of champions: eggs, caffeine, and otah-bread (it was so yums!)

Look at this boy go!

He has mild allergy to half-boiled eggs so we stopped him from eating it this way. It's always usually fully cooked. But because we couldn't prepare the eggs, we allowed him to eat them and he was in feeling egg-tastic.

Eggophoria

Kampong kias

We spent the next few hours running errands. Supermarket run for the Mommies and children, car-wash for the Daddies. Then while the rest of the other families headed off for a late lunch, our family started our drive back to Singapore.

Putting Papa's Christmas gift to good use.

The trip was short, but pretty fine I say.

It's a feat to have everyone leave Singapore together, so I say CHEERS to us all! One baby did not come along, and one set of Mommy-and-daughter are not pictured. But it's still a fun time and I think we can definitely try to do this again. 

One Christmas worthy to remember, one where we drove across to Malaysia altogether.

Christmas Day 2014

After sleeping in until 11am, I rolled out of bed to have lunch with the family.  As a side activity, they found mini balloons and played with them. Aahh, simple pleasures.

They also ran around (half naked for him).

We dropped the boy off to nap, and brought the girl out to do a grocery run.

And bumped into some strange mascots. K still wanted to take a pic with them.

And... ice-cream! Everyone loves ice-cream!

We then headed home and prepared for our annual family Christmas dinner.

Happy family

Presents!

Loving his blue shoes

Just 'cos this is so cute!

FAMILY

So... we'd have thought this was the end of it. But not really. K was playing with some ribbons, and she wanted to play three-legged race. Then I - on a whim - suggested a race between 3 couples.

That's us, the first-runner up!

And that's the losing team. HAHA.

No pics of the winning team, but to mention, my brother & the gf won it.

It's still within 12 days of Christmas, so.... hope you had a fun-loving Christmas and still making merry!

Green fingers

Not mine, but the husband's. It's nice to see his TLC coming to fruition. Our very own home-grown vegetables! Just a bit, but still very rewarding nonetheless.

Green, leafy veggies

Aren't they a pretty sight?

Playing house

Pink mattress on the left is K's "house". 

White mattress on top-left is J's house. 

Everything else in between is the swimming pool. See where the slide is? That's the baby pool cos the kids need / want to slide. 

Haha! Love this.

Sunday Funday

It's been more than 5 years, and I still enjoy watching you sleep, my princess

And my big, little boy

Lunch with friends

All the girls in our little group - who are all going to be SCGS kimgeks in time to come

Play

Princesses and a prince

And here's the original us.

Festive Saturday

Started the day really well with a workout. Awesome!

Followed by an afternoon of fun with the sister.

And Jake goes towards the purple cottage...

While my daughter turns out to be a K-pop trainee

Face-painting (free) fun!

My beautiful butterfly

The making of a Lion cub

A sleepy lion cub

One that needed milk and a nap

An evening date with more little friends

And big friends

That ended our day just as awesome-ly as it started