Hannah is 7!

We have a lot of birthday celebrations in April and May for our family. Hannah, our eldest was born on 26 May 2009 which means that she is 7 this year!

Her birthday this year was a series of mini celebrations, the first being a small surprise for her at home when she got home on the day before her birthday. We turned off all the lights and we shouted "surprise" when she walked in the door, so she was really surprised! Haha. My mum made some cupcakes and her sisters helped her to blow out the candles.

She also got her first card and gift from Nanna and Kung Kung.

Daddy got one too as an early birthday gift since his birthday is in early June :)

On the next day, which was her actual birthday, it was her school sports day. For their relay games, her team won 1st prize and she got a shiny gold medal. That was definitely one of her best birthday presents :)

In the evening, we took her to eat her favourite Blue Reef fish and chips. We wanted to buy Uncle Tetsu's cheesecake to cut at home, but they did not have the usual cheesecake. So instead we got this type of cheesecake, also from Uncle Tetsu. The taste is similar, but the texture is slightly softer. It was just a very plain cake, so Hubby "decorated" it a little :)

 Nobody is more excited than Helene when it comes to birthdays haha.

So after Hannah blew her candles, we lit them up again for these two:

The obligatory family photo :)

Birthday girl enjoying her cheesecake:)

And the culmination of her birthday celebration was a two day one night stat at Shangri-La's Golden Sands Resort at Batu Ferringhi, another gift from Nanna and Kung Kung.

The first agenda was to hop in the pool! No pool pictures since we were all in the pool, but here's a look at what it looks like.

The resort also had these oversized jenga blocks and chess pieces on the lawn so the kids had fun with those too.

And the next morning, it was time for Adventure Zone! We actually took Hannah here for the first time on her 3rd birthday, and she has been a couple of times since then for friends' birthdays. That didn't make it any less fun though!

And then they played ball with Daddy outside in the field. Love the background of these pictures - blue skies and coconut palms!

All too soon, it was time to leave but it was truly an enjoyable weekend.

Happy birthday Hannah! All of us love you lots!

Our little graduate

Where did 3 whole years of kindergarten go to? It seemed like just yesterday that we were attending her annual concert when she was 4 years old and this year, she is already graduating from kindy.

I took this picture a few weeks back when she was wearing her graduation robe for photo day. I didn't have any with her wearing her graduation robe on the actual day, as we were good parents and obeyed rules not to take pictures in the hall haha.  As there were professional photographers there, we will just have to wait for the official photos. I did however try to take some from where I was sitting but since they didn't turn out too nicely, I won't share them here lol.

We got Hannah dressed in the morning; her daddy did her hair and I did her makeup. Helene must be wondering why her jie-jie looks different from usual! Haha. We didn't bring Helene since aunty kindly agreed to look after her and we thought that she might be bored during the ceremony. Even Heidi couldn't really sit still.

As expected, Heidi was not in a good mood so her face in all the photos came out grumpy.

But we got some nice smiles from our little graduate here! She was wearing her dance costume as besides the graduation ceremony, the graduates performed a special song, a dance and they were also part of the school choir.

Hannah was tasked to lead the graduation march and she carried in the school flag in front of all her friends and placed it on the stage. As expected, we were immensely proud of her :)

It's a bit bittersweet that we won't get to see Hannah perform in kindly anymore, but we can look forward to a whole new cycle when Heidi starts kindy next year!

And the biggest poser is...

Hands down, it's this one! She insisted that her Daddy buy her this jewellery set and paraded around the house with it.

It also works when there's food :)

Hannah, generally, needs the help of some props:

We were at the opening of EcoWorld's "Under the Windmills" event at Simpang Ampat.

As for this little one, why need to pose when she has her signature grin? We can never get enough of it :)

But when all's said and done, selfies with Mummy are always the best!

Kidland Penang

It's the 2nd week of the school holidays, and since my parents are around, they are spending some time with the girls during the school break.

Kidland has been around in Penang for some time but we have never been there. There was a day last week where Heidi was at my MIL's place so my parents decided to take Hannah there since Heidi may be still too young to participate in most of the activities.

First stop - Masterchef!

The outfits which they had to wear were pretty cute!

The recipe of the day was chocolate chip cookies and here is my little masterchef hard at work.

All done and waiting to be baked! She brought some of the cookies home for us to taste, and they were quite yummy :)

Next stop - science lab.

I wonder what she was looking at through the microscope.

The scientist and the dentist :)

Then it was time for lunch at Sushi King!

After lunch, Hannah did one of her favourite activities, art and craft. 

She had a lot of fun, and I can forsee that she will be asking us to take her there again :)

For more information on Kidland, you can visit their website or Facebook page.

Impromptu birthday party at KFC

A few days before her birthday, we had asked Hannah where she wanted to go for her birthday dinner and she chose KFC! So we decided to go to the KFC at Greenlane. Since it was a weekday and exam week, we just told our family and friends that we would be going there for dinner and whoever was free could come and join us.

We were given the entire room reserved for birthday parties even though we didn't have any prior booking since there wasn't any birthday that night. The night before, I helped Hannah to bake some cupcakes which she decorated with Daddy's help.

Birthday girl with her cupcakes. This was the same dress she wore for her 5th birthday last year. She has lost a little bit of weight so the dress could still fit! :)

Heidi followed my MIL to the party so she was not in this family picture.

Hannah with my parents.

They had this cute cardboard cut-out which we could use to take funny photos. The kids and even the adults had some fun with it haha.

We didn't expect that a lot of people could make it, but most of them came, even her cousins and aunt all the way from the mainland.

And here we have a family picture with all 5 of us.

And the rest:

Both sides grandaparents:

The kids had fun at the playground:

  

Even little Helene!

Hannah had a fun 6th birthday. Thank you to all our family, friends and colleagues for her presents - all her favourite toys!