September & October happenings

This blog hasn't been updated in almost 2 months! September and October have flown by and today is the first day of the last 2 months of 2018.

So what have we been up to these past 2 months?

In mid September, we said goodbye to my in-law's eldest grandchild Cass who left to further her studies in the UK. She is the first one to leave the nest so we had a small surprise party for her before she left (and also to celebrate her early birthday).

And then at the end of September, Heidi graduated from kindergarten and it was also Heidi and Helene's concert day. I must say it went pretty well, without any fuss or unnecessary drama. As always, the 4 year old presentations are what I would call a "beautiful mess" lol. 

Here are some photos of our 3H together. It's not easy getting photos of all 3 of them nowadays, as Hannah is growing up and not very fond of me taking her picture! I guess I have to respect her privacy now but at least she did let me take these :)

In mid October, I met up with one of my oldest friends, Selena and her boyfriend Max who were in Penang for a holiday. We had dinner at Aunty Gaik Lean's and I brought Helene along. It took some time for her to warm up to them, but at the end of the dinner they were acting like BFFs haha. Check out the tongues :p

And also check out Helene's outfit which she wore to dinner - she refused to take those glasses off until much later!

Then a couple of weeks after that, we celebrated my mother in law's 68th birthday. This is her with her cake and 9 out of her 11 grandchildren.

Some happy Helene snaps with her new tiara hairband - the best RM2 I have spent this week, thanks to Mr DIY :)

Hubby's 41st

Okay, so I know I was supposed to continue with our Johor trip posts, but since today is Hubby's 41st birthday, this post is dedicated to him!

His celebrations started off with a special coconut cake bought for him by his niece Cass. She brought it over to our place to cut with all the kids.

Kiss for Daddy:

He also got a card and red packet from my parents before they left for Australia, so that was an early birthday gift for him.

We also had dinner at Kebaya Dining Room last Sunday evening. We were there 3 years ago to celebrate my birthday and he really enjoyed the food so we decided to go back with our friends again.

The food was good, but somehow it wasn't as good as the first time we had it. The price has not increased - RM128 nett per person per set. We had 8 people so you can imagine the spread! Even though we felt the food was not as good, business was really good that night as the restaurant was full house.

Last night, in anticipation of more cakes, I didn't buy a whole cake, but I stuck a candle on a little cupcake and we had another round of singing and blowing the candle as many times as Helene liked :)

Today, on his real birthday, we had lunch at Kirishima Japanese restaurant at Cititel hotel Penang. The food here is good and we always enjoy it. As usual, we only remembered to take the first few dishes, and forgot about the rest!

The cake was really yummy too!

Happy birthday boy!

May happenings

It has been quite an eventful month of May, ever since I got back from Seoul, so here are some highlights.

We had the historic 14th General Election, and I am very glad that my children and I have lived in this era! I went early to vote just after the polling centre opened, and there was already quite a long line. Hubby dropped me and went to his polling station to vote. I waited for about 45 minutes before it was my turn.

Actually, the lines were not so long in the afternoon, but I had no choice, because the same evening it was time for Bruno Mars! When the election date was first announced, we were thinking that we would not be able to make it for the concert (and it was soooo difficult to get the tickets when it opened for booking!) but then Air Asia came up with reasonable affordable return tickets to KL, so off we went!

Incidentally this was my first ever concert, and I have never seen so many people in my life! Apparently 12,000 tickets were sold!

Obviously we bought the cheapest tickets (which were still RM398!) so we didn't have that fantastic a view, but it was still not too bad, and Bruno put on a great show.

I guess this was the 24K magic part :)

The concert ended quite early, around 10.15 pm after an hour and a half of solid performance. We couldn't really sleep that night, as we were following the agonisingly slow counting process and around 2 am, we all fell asleep, until one of my friends triumphantly announced at 7 am that Pakatan had won! This was the first time in Malaysian history that the ruling party since our independence has been overturned. So obviously nobody could sleep after that.

The next day, we tried the famous Village Park nasi lemak while checking our phone every few minutes for election updates. It was amazing how crowded the place was. When the food arrived, I understood why :)

After that we did some shopping at Sunway Pyramid before heading home. We took the later flight because it was cheaper lol.

About 10 days later, my sister was back, so after celebrating Mother's Day, we did a two-day trip to KL again for eating and shopping :) This time the Air Asia ticket was really cheap, only around RM97 return per person.

We stayed at a relatively new hotel, Hotel Stripes Kuala Lumpur, which is a YTL luxury hotel and also an Autograph Collection hotel. It cost RM310 a night, after taxes which is not too bad for a 5 star hotel in the city centre. 

There was this little container of old school sweets in the room which were complimentary, as were the drinks in the mini bar.

The hotel had a rooftop pool, which provided an unobstructed view of KL Tower.

We did some shopping and eating, and we tried this place called Mr Chew's Chino Latino Bar in Bukit Bintang. The food there was really good and I will blog about that separately. 

We were back in time to celebrate my dad's 65th birthday, and we had a nice dinner at Lunarich restaurant.

We took the small cake home to cut, and Helene wanted to decorate it with her candies which I bought her from KL. It was not a bad idea, as it was just a plain butter cake :)

The next day, we celebrated Hannah's 9th birthday too, as my sister was leaving to go back to Australia the following day. 

So it has been a busy month, but it was a fun type of busy haha. Happy birthday to our eldest baby Hannah tomorrow - we all love you very much!

Peppa's biggest fan is 4!

Nobody loves birthdays more than Helene or at least nobody shows that she loves birthdays more than Helene :) So nobody was more excited than Helene to find out that her birthday was coming up!

Since she is a huge fan of Peppa Pig, we had sort of a Peppa-themed birthday for her. My mum bought a banner, balloons and figurines from Australia to give her all things Peppa! Her birthday fell on a Monday, so on Sunday night we had a small party for her at home.

We put up the Peppa banner and balloons:

My mum cooked everybody's favourite food :)

And Aunty who looks after Helene baked these very special buns for her, and delivered it to our house:

Obligatory family pictures:

We just had a simple rainbow cake (the girls' favourite) as her "main" cake would be for school the next day.

She loves to blow the candles:

And she got a card and ang pow from Kung Kung and Nanna:

The next day she wore a pretty new dress from Ted Baker which Uncle Alex bought for her all the way from the UK. She wears designer clothes and I don't haha.

And there's the Peppa cake! We gave the figurines to Jenni and they figured out the rest :)

She was definitely thrilled to see it, as were all her friends haha :)

 As it was her birthday, she got a special hat and tag to wear.

Daddy had to attend court that morning, so Mummy, Nanna and Kung Kung celebrated with her in school.

And then after school, it was off to lunch at McDonald's (where else!)

I had promised Heidi a trip to Amanville at Gurney Plaza, so I thought what would be a better time that to take all of them on Helene's birthday. As it was a Monday afternoon, they had the entire place to themselves!

They definitely had a ball (no pun intended!) Haha :)

Happy birthday our cheeky Helene! We love you lots!