Princesses for a day

The "Frozen" craze is still not over in our house. Disney actually released the movie for Christmas last year, and it's still going strong one year later. And to further fuel the craze, my cousins from New Zealand who have not been back in Penang for the last 5 years and have not ever met the girls, gave them Queen Elsa and Princess Anna costumes as Christmas gifts! As expected, Hannah and Heidi were beyond thrilled :)

Here are my cousins Jessica and Rhema with the 3 girls. My aunty and uncle gave them presents too (on their heads and in their hands) :)

And here is my attempt at a selfie with my girls:

No prizes for guessing what I want for Christmas - that my girls grow up happy and healthy and always loving towards each other!

The one-handed manoeuvre

Baby Helene is exactly 8 months old today. She sticks like a little koala to me, so much so that one morning when I woke up extra early (Hubby was still asleep with the other two), I literally had to do everything with one hand. Brush my teeth, wear my contacts, pack my bag etc. I used one hand while the other hand carried her on my hip. Let's hope she learns to entertain herself soon enough, like her Heidi Jie Jie because the bigger she gets, the harder it will be to pull off the one hand manoeuvre.

She can now sit up steadily, roll over both sides and has an immensely healthy appetite lol. Her nanny says she has porridge twice a day (sometimes substituted with organic baby oats), and even after porridge, she must have milk or else she won't be satisfied. She can eat 2 bananas a day, sometimes mixed in her oats. Her porridge has carrots, pumpkin and other mushy vegetables which are easy to digest. Now that she's 8 months, we also give her little bites of bread, biscuits and the other day, she had a teeny weensy taste of vanilla ice cream, which she loved and kept licking her lips haha.

Here are some pictures of the little cutie pie with her dimply smiles:

She is also starting to have teeth, and two little ones are growing at the bottom, but they are not visible yet. It makes her drool a lot though, I posted this photo on The Breastfeeding Advocates Network with the caption "Mummy's milk is so yummy it makes me drool!" Lol

Top from Nanna and Gong Gong:

New outfit which her nanny bought for her: 

 We took her to Youth Park the other day and she was so excited to see all the other children running around, especially Hannah and Heidi. Not long now before you can join them, Helene!

O Christmas Tree

I've seen some pretty nice Christmas trees this year in the local malls and other places.

So just to share, this is one I saw at Sime Darby Convention Centre in KL when I was there for training a couple of weeks ago.

And this is the one inside Gurney Paragon Mall. If you look closely, there are little SpongeBobs hanging on it.

In my opinion, this tree is one of the nicest in Penang, at 1st Avenue Mall. It's really tall too.

Since it's pretty big, you can actually go inside the tree and there are chairs to sit down. Inside the tree there are also fairy lights hanging from the top.

Another 6 days to Christmas!

Spongebob @ Gurney Paragon Mall

Gurney Paragon Mall's theme for Christmas this year is SpongeBob SquarePants and like many other kids, my elder two are big fans (Heidi probably influenced by Hannah!). When we told them about the big SpongeBob inflatable playground at Gurney Paragon Mall and the meet and greet sessions with SpongeBob and Patrick, they couldn't wait to go.

So we went there for the meet and greet session, and got in line to queue up for a picture with SpongeBob and Patrick. Heidi has this thing against people in costumes (she's even terrified of Santas in suits) so I asked her several times if she really wanted to take a picture and she insisted that she did. But when it got to our turn, she suddenly panicked and wanted out, but it was too late, so she clung so tightly to my neck I thought I would sprain it lol.

Here's our picture with SpongeBob and Patrick with a very panicky little girl.

While waiting in line, the girls took a picture with the inflatable playground at the back, We did not go in as we had to spend RM200 in a single receipt at the mall to get two tickets, or otherwise pay RM50 to buy a mini figurine which would entitle us to get one ticket.

After we took our picture however, a nice lady handed us two tickets which she didn't want anymore, so the girls excitedly thought they could go in to play. But when we wanted to go in, the crew told us that since they are under 7 years old, an adult needed to accompany them, and even the adult needed a ticket! I wasn't prepared to pay RM50 for a ticket, so they could only go and watch a half hour movie at the mini theatre which didn't need any adult to accompany. I just waited for them outside.

These were the tickets:

The girls were a bit disappointed that they couldn't go and play inside the playground, but as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait! :) A few days later, Hubby needed to buy something for his cousin from Samsung which cost RM299. So we decided to get it from the Samsung store at Gurney Paragon, which would entitle us to get two tickets. So in total we had 4 tickets. When we told the girls we now had enough tickets to go in to the playground, they were super excited and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

The SpongeBob inflatable playground and mini theatre will be at Gurney Paragon Mall until 4 January 2015, so if your kids are big SpongeBob fans, it's worth checking out :)

A trip to Taiping Zoo

The last time that we were at Taiping Zoo was in August last year and Heidi was only 1 year and 4 months then. She did not remember much of it, so now that she's bigger and able to appreciate this kind of thing better, we decided to take them again since it's the school holidays. I took 2 days off work last week and we went on a Monday to avoid the weekend crowds. Helene stayed with her nanny as we didn't want to bring her in case it got too hot.

This was Hannah's 5th time at Taiping Zoo and Heidi's 2nd time. Much of the zoo was the same as before. The orang utan was still at the same place, as with most of the other animals.

Heidi's getting to be very chatty and cheeky nowadays. I asked her to smile for the camera and this is what I got:

Nicer smile here while having a snack:

There was quite a lot of renovation going on. One new thing we noticed was that the elephants had been relocated and they had a nice new home at the zoo, complete with a mini waterfall. Such a cool treat on hot days.

Of course we took many selfies and wefies lol :)

Here's one of all of us, missing Helene. But we will definitely bring her here once she's bigger!

Our little champion

Hannah attended her first Mega Sports Camp this year organised by Penang Christian Centre. It's an annual event for children aged 4 to 12 years old held during the school holidays. She had actually signed up for it last year, but couldn't go as she was sick during the camp. So this year, she was really excited to attend.

It was four days of fun games, Bible stories and songs, and Hannah really enjoyed herself. On the last day, they had prize-giving and when we went to pick her up, she proudly showed us her trophy for Outstanding Participant and Champion medal.

Some people commented why she wasn't smiling in the picture. Truth is, she was feeling unwell and the very next day, she fell sick. But at least, she got to fully participate during the 4 days. We asked her if she wanted to go again next year and she said yes. Well done, our little champion! Mummy and Daddy are very proud of you :)

A "ball-istic" Christmas!

Hubby had an idea this year to do something different with our Christmas tree since usually we just hang up the same ornaments year after year. I posted this picture on Instagram with the caption "A sneak peak of our Christmas tree this year". So what did we use?

Yup, balls! Lots and lots of balls :) We had plenty which we bought for Hannah to play with years ago, so Hubby decided to put them to good use. Here he is using full concentration to painstakingly stick on the balls one by one.

All the balls finally on the tree:

Added the lights:

And lastly, Hannah's job was to place the star on top with Daddy's help.

Tada! All done with the balls, lights, star on top and some presents which we have already received.

We did put on one ornament though. This was a gift from my mother to Heidi from 2 Christmases ago the year when she was born. We thought it was a nice touch to the tree since it is going to be Helene's first Christmas this year.

Now, for more presents to accumulate under the tree. Hannah and Heidi are already impatient to open their presents, let's hope their willpower can last 3 more weeks to Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's the day after Thanksgiving, but technically it still is Thanksgiving in the US :) And since we don't celebrate it here anyway, we can follow US time :)

Everyday should be Thanksgiving, as we always have plenty to be thankful for, a nice home, good health, family, food to eat, clothes to wear etc.

As for us, in addition to all of the above, we have these 3 little faces to be thankful for:

For each new morning with its light, 

For rest and shelter of the night, 

For health and food, 

For love and friends, 

For everything Thy goodness sends. 

For flowers that bloom about our feet;

For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;

For song of bird, for hum of bee;

For all things fair we hear or see;

Father in heaven, we thank Thee!

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;

    His love endures forever.

- 1 Chronicles 16:34 (NIV)

Million dollar smiles

Our little bundle of sunshine turned 7 months old on Sunday. Where has the time gone? We thought Heidi was a very smiley baby (she was and still is) but Helene by far is the most smiley of the three girls, not to mention that those two little dimples make her smiles really bright and sunshiney!

When words are not adequate to describe, a picture paints a thousand words! Here are some of her best photos, flashing that million dollar smile. I had so many to choose from (because ALL her photos come out nice) that I can't even decide which ones to post on Instagram or FB (so as not to flood my friends' timelines with Helene pictures), let alone here! And the best thing about Helene, is that she automatically goes on "smile mode" whenever she sees the camera or phone pointed at her! So no need any coaxing to get her to smile.

Baby Helene is still enjoying Mummy's milk, but she has also added porridge, pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, bananas and a few other fruits and veges to her diet. Mummy is finding her milk supply dwindling quite a lot, but I still try to pump regularly to keep up the supply, seeing how Helene is not quite yet ready to wean and she can become very loud and cranky when she wants "nen-nen"! So far it seems to be still enough for her without having to supplement with formula, since she's also taking solids twice a day. Coupled with the fact that I've lost about 14 kg since before delivery, maybe I can go on for a couple more months ;)

She can sit up by herself, but she's not very steady yet so she still needs a bit of support. She babytalks a lot too. We were at Baskin Robbins yesterday and she was having a "conversation" with the girls behind the counter. So much so that they were so amused and said "Wah, pandai sembang ya!" (Means "wow, she is a good talker!")

She can also sit up more or less in a baby chair, so this makes things much easier now when we eat out.

It's definitely a crazy house, with a pre-schooler, toddler and infant all at home at the same time. Sometimes I do feel a bit guilty in letting the TV be the babysitter while I do chores etc.

But that very quickly turned into this! I didn't have the heart to scold when I saw how much fun they were having. I suppose that's the fun of having siblings - there's always someone to get into mischief with! (They were dancing to "hi-5" by the way)

We took them to Ananda Bahwan for dinner the other day and my dad ordered a roti tisu, that tall coned-shaped Indian bread in the picture below. The little girls were quite amazed with it. Heidi also insisted on wearing her "pavada" there so the restaurant-goers and the people who worked there were quite amused at the little Chinese girl in her Indian dress.

Stay tuned for more updates!

A walk along Gurney Drive

Kids nowadays don't get much fresh air, so we decided to take the girls for a short walk along Gurney Drive after having brunch, as it was a nice, breezy day and not too hot.

My dad had actually took Helene here for a walk a few weeks ago, and she was sooo excited. Just look at both their happy faces :)

Here are some photos of the 5 of us at Gurney Drive:

We didn't have any plans after that, so we decided to take a drive and check out the new AEON Mall at Bukit Mertajam. It opened back in June, but we had not been there before. We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived to find out that it was clean and new. Best of all, they had these available on loan for 2 hours free.

Heidi loved the little train, but a word of caution, it's quite heavy to manoeuvre around, but the baby stroller was light and easy to handle. It must have been pretty comfortable too, if little Helene could fall soundly asleep in it.

Also, the baby room inside the AEON department store is one of the best I've seen thus far. It has 3 separate rooms right at the back for breastfeeding and big changing area outside, with even a ball pool to entertain your older kids, hot water dispenser and a weighing scale (though I can't imagine why that would be required lol). I didn't take any pictures, but it was definitely better than any of the baby rooms in other Penang malls.

And since this is quite a random post, here are my girls in Indian traditional costume "pavada", gifts from my cousin. Hannah had one too, but the top was a bit tight. We told her we would get her another top to match the skirt, since she could wear the skirt.