'Family' Photo during CNY 2016

Here is one of the few occasions where we get together and snap some family photos. 

The Left Behinds

As age catches up, our brains become less efficient thus, more forgetful. My case is worsened with high dosage of caffeine (talking about blaming :p ). FYI, I take between 2 and 3 cups daily so, it's understandable why I blame my carelessness on caffeine. :p

There are uncountable incidents when I forget one thing or another. However, there is one which I will never forget. Every time when I fetch the girls from school, I would be the one who put their heavy bags in the boot while they get into the bag in school. As the bags were trolley bags, they usually dragged the bags themselves. I just had to carry them up and chucked them in the boot.

One fine day, as usual, we walked to our car and I signalled the girls to get in while I walked round the car and got into the driver's seat. We went home, had our lunch and got ready for shower when I remembered that their bags were still in the car. I went out only to find that there was one bag in the car. Jesslyn's bag wasn't there. I hurriedly interrogated Jesslyn. She told me that she dragged the bag to the car and left it on the road. She claimed that I should put it into the boot. Ops!!! My fault?!

Wasting no time, I sped off to school on my own to get the bag. Two things were running in my mind.
1. I prayed that the bag was still  in one piece on the road, waiting for me to collect.
2. I prayed that there was no one around to see me picking up a school bag from the road. How embarassing!

I was there... there was no bag. Oh No! I parked my car. My guess was someone had picked the bag and placed it at the Lost & Found corner. I went to that corner but No. The bag was not there either. I was unsure if I should go to the staff room to enquire as I only wearing shorts and slippers. I couldn't be going home to change. Well, I won't take such troubles. So, I made up my mind. I ran up. The vice principal was there entertaining a parent. She looked at me, not looking very pleased. I ignored her and headed to the staffroom. I asked the first teacher I saw. She wasn't very helpful and gave me directions in Mandarin, which I tried hard to comprehend. Anyway, I walked to another office but no one was there so I had to go back to the staff room. This time, I was lucky. I spotted Jesslyn's English teacher, my saviour!

She helped me to look for the bag. We went back to the car park, the security's house, the main hall and finally back to the staff room. It had never occurred to us that the person who found the bag would put the bag at the desk of Jesslyn's class teacher. I was so relieved. I thanked her numerous times before I left. Phew! 

Stone Painting

Are you surprised to read the title? What? Stone painting? Jo-ann and the kids did stone painting? Well, if you aren't, I was. I mean... you don't often hear me talking about doing handicraft, cooking, baking and that sort, do you?

Here I am, wanting to share with you two of our proud creations. The first was painted by Jerilyn while the second was by Jesslyn.

I must thank my colleague for introducing this wonderful and fun activity to my kids. I am not very artistic so it would never occur to me to do stone painting. My colleague had not only taught me what to use but also provided the stones. She taught me to use poster colours and varnish for best results. 

Well, that's the the positive side of it. Unfortunately, something disastrous happened. The stones were flown away while I was driving my car out! I left these stones on my car for drying after applying some varnish. I had particularly reminded myself to collect them before I drove out. As you could have guessed, the more you tried to remember, the more you will forget and forgot I did. 

We went back the same route in search of these stones. We spotted only 1 but it was ruined. I gave up repainting it cuz this wasn't the first disaster. Before this, the stones were ruined too cuz I had forgotten to collect them during a rainstorm. Another time was because one of us accidentally smeared the paint and as a result, the stone was ruined. 

The dull looking birdy stone is not lying on the coffee table waiting for us to revive its beauty. 

I felt embarrassed and fortunate at the same time when the flying away happened. Embarrassed because it happened when I was on my way to school when many cars were following behind me. Imagine how silly we (my car & I) looked with 2 coloured stones wobbling at the top of my car. On the other hand, I was fortunate none of the stones smashed any windscreen or caused a dent on another car. I would have to pay a high price of being known as The Dangerous Mother. I hope those who saw the stones flying would forget me and my car. 

* Talking about The Dangerous Mother or The ... Mother reminds me of many other silly incidents which I will update in the next blog. 

Sudoku

This is another topic that I thought I should note down. I have first exposed the girls to Sudoku when they were between 6 and 7 years old. They had played a few really easy ones (4x4) when younger. Those 4x4 came with pictures or alphabets. After that, I didn't really introduce them to Sudoku til the age stated above.

So, here is a picture of Jesslyn putting on her thinking cap solving a 9x9 puzzle. Just like my blogging, they either do a sudoku marathon (which is euqals to 3 puzzles at most) or they don't touch a puzzle for months in between.

I took this picture not because she was doing Sudoku. It was because of her serious look that caught my attention. It touches me every time I see her serious at work. So, you can imagine how often is that! 

Blog Marathon

I don't have any particular topic in mind. All of a sudden, I just feel that I need to keep this blog active and hopefully I can 'backdate' some of my updates. My blogs seem seasonal ie. going MIA for months followed by blogging marathon.

Hmm...I don't know where to start. Therefore, I thought that My Dropbox may be able to help me. I found some memorable photos of the girls at an indoor playground, which I wish to share here.

This playgym is located at the mall very near my house. My initial plan was to have lunch with my dad but we ended up here as well after having our meal at Secret Recipe. My dad sat outside the gym, reading the newspapers while waiting for us. The entrance fee was RM10/kid for unlimited play time. As we were not prepared, we were urged to buy socks from them as the rule states that One must play with socks on. It cost around RM5 each pair.

So, we went in after doing all the necessary. FYI, it was the first time I allowed the girls to play in an indoor playground for hygiene purposes. I doubt that management would do a thorough job in maintaining the cleanliness of these sort of playgrounds. Anyway, since the girls had been begging for quite a number of times, I gave in this time.

The first game they played was the huge tyre below. They were laughing their heads off the moment they rolled around. I felt that the RM10 was worth it already. Next they climbed on the huge slide. Actually, at first, Jesslyn was reluctant to climb on the slide. Jerilyn played by herself. After some coaxing and with Jerilyn's guidance, Jesslyn took the big step to climb those steps. Once she came down, there was no stopping her. Both of them went for many rounds. Oh, you might have observed that the girls were not appropriately dressed for this activity.

The activity on the left looked easy but was actually the toughest challenge for (surprisingly) Jerilyn. I have a video of it. Wait til I upload it. It was one of her funniest actions or inaction.