A Memorable Weekend

Last weekend, my parents came over to stay with us. Both the kids were very excited, of course! Even SJ sat quietly in the car seat while I drove them to fetch my parents at the bus station (hubby was having a teambuilding event that time). You see, SJ could struggle out of the car seat by herself, unlike her Jie Jie who had never done such thing before. So, it was rather dangerous for me to take them both out alone, because SJ could never sit still.

Nevertheless, things sailed smoothly, and she only struggled out when we're waiting for them at the bus station. By then, my parents had arrived so it's still manageable. Come to think of that, it's been a long time since I had ever enjoyed any weekend as much, and suddenly I just felt as if all the burdens have been lifted off my shoulder. There's nothing like having someone to rely on, to relieve you when you need them most, and to offer advice as well as support when you felt like the whole world is falling onto you. Well, that's exactly how I felt. I'm so glad I have such great and loving parents, and I wish I could be the same for my kids too.

So many things had happened that weekend. For one, SJ could play on her own at the playground. For the first time, I felt that she's ready to explore things on her own. And I let her wander on her own... see how much she enjoyed herself!

SJ discovered a world of her own!

That Friday night, guess where we took them to?

Yes, the recently opened Hark Rock Hotel in Penang. It was our 2nd time there, and we didn't took any pictures the first time we're there. But this time, we're fully equipped (ah yes, we've finally got a new camera!). Initially we've thought of having a hotel stay there since SY's birthday fell on a weekend, and she loved hotel stay soooo much. However, it was fully booked (yes, we're very bad planners, everything waited until the last minute), so our pockets were saved :P


The kids were having a blast of their time, especially SY. See how she danced around to the music. They also loved to laze around on the sofa, enjoying the band's performance. It was such a carefree and easy night - just the right mood to relax and rock away.

While the kids are enjoying themselves, hubby was busy with his new toy.

There's an LCD screen at the lounge area

A Collection of Statues

This is actually a pillar! The make-you-look-slim pillar

At the poolside

Nice beach by the poolside

The rocking statues on the hotel rooftop

Where do you want to go?

Enjoying the night breeze at the beach

Our camera man

Finally the camera man got to be in the picture too!

The hotel night scene

Our rocking princess

She just loved to make funny poses!

Overall, we had an enjoyable night. The kids were tired and slept right away on the journey home. Can't blame them though, they had been rocking away whole night :P

The next day, we went to another beach at the other side of the island.

Nice beach at Balik Pulau

Despite of the hot weather and also inappropriately dressed, the kids had a fun time playing with their new beach toys.
We toured the island, but unfortunately we couldn't find any good durians along the way. Still the nice scenery and fresh air made the trip worthwhile. By the time we reached home, everyone was so tired that we slept thru the evening. Even by night time, we're too lazy to go out for dinner so we ordered Domino Pizzas.

As bedtime was approaching, I changed them into their new pajamas. And to my dismay, they suddenly became super active again. Do you know why the sudden change of mood? Doh! They were excited to be dressed in the same pajamas! Wrong move!

Mei Mei giving Jie Jie a birthday hug on the eve of Jie Jie's birthday

Luckily my parents were around to entertain them, so it's not that tiring for us.

Playing toot toot train with Poh Poh

Ah, nothing lasts forever, yeah. One moment they were playing together, the next they were angry with each other!

Angry!

Luckily, they made peace with each other finally. How nice if we adults can forget and forgive as easily...

Jie Jie putting Mei Mei to sleep

Sze Yi's Birthday Party at School

Last Friday, we had a birthday party for our girl at school. We asked her to choose one, as we're just planning to have 1 for her, either at home or at school. She chose to have at school, and she requested for a princess birthday cake. Besides the cake, we also prepared little party packs for the kids. Since Christmas is just round the corner, hubby suggested this...

Little christmas socks with some goodies inside

(marshmallows, haw flakes, raisins, gummies)

And since we're in Christmas mood, we prepared for all the kids in the school too. Furthermore, I was concerned of the kids' feelings if some didn't get it, as I thought all the kids would be involved during a birthday celebration.

Here's the birthday girl on that day...

Birthday girl with Mei Mei and the Princess Cake (Sze Juin can wear her Jie Jie's uniform already!)

Family photo session (Yes, both her maternal & paternal grandparents were there too! Including her darling Chik Chik)

Photo session with her classmates and teachers

During the birthday song singing (they actually sang in English, Mandarin and Malay!)

Everyone was enjoying the cake

After the cake was cut by her teacher, Sze Yi was asked to present the birthday cake to Mommy and Daddy herself. This was to teach the child a sense of respect and gratitude to the parents. I was quite touched of this gesture, honestly. While everyone was busy with their cake, this little toddler was enjoying herself too!

See what she was up to... she even tried to make friends with one of the kids there! Ah, and Jie Jie was being manja with her Chik Chik.

Finally, it's the party pack distribution time...

Little Santarina at work

Sze Yi only distributed the goodies to her classmates. The rest would be distributed by her teachers later. It happened that there were some guest downstairs at that time, so the birthday celebration was done upstairs in her classroom. I was a little surprised that the other kids were not invited (unlike previous celebrations). Maybe the classroom was too small to fit in all. However, I informed the teachers that we prepared enough for the whole school, and they assured us that they will distribute to the rest of the kids later.

We also learnt that Sze Yi's best friend has the same birth date as her, and I was thinking what a co-incidence. Maybe that's why they clicked so well in school. And it also happened that we parents chose different days to celebrate for them, or else there would be 2 birthday cakes that day.

We left later, leaving the birthday girl behind. She told us that she didn't want to stay for full day that day, and since it's her birthday (not the real day, though), we relented. We promised her that we'll pick her up after lunch. However, when she was saying bye bye to her Chik Chik, she became all teary and told us that she wanted to go back with Chik Chik and Amah. Daddy became soft-hearted, so he said OK. In the end, our girl was just in school for the birthday celebration that day :) She went in late that day somemore, at the same time as us. We're not so strict with her since it's school holiday and they just play at school anyway. However, I'm worried we've spoilt her. Even her grandparents came all the way to celebrate with her in school, all per her request! Not to mention her Chik Chik, which is her favourite uncle (and she called him her darling) also took leave that day.

p/s: A note from Mommy......

We hope you're happy with the celebration, Sze Yi dear. It was all planned out rather last minute, since Daddy nearly cancelled everything when you misbehaved the week before. It's Mommy who talked to Daddy into keeping his promise, haha :) So pls make sure you won't disappoint us, be a good girl, ok? You're a big girl now, and Mommy and Daddy will always love you no matter what. But please, never use this excuse to be naughty, ok?

My very Firsts...

I had my first lollipop when I was ~18 months. That was right after my MMR vaccination on 22 Nov. Jie Jie was given one by our PD, and so was I. Mommy couldn't stop Daddy in time, so that's how I got to eat my first lollipop :) And would you believe it - my tongue was all greenish when I nearly finished the whole lollipop by myself! Only left a tiny piece before Daddy asked Mommy to throw it away.

If Jie Jie's first sentence is Wo Ai Mama at ~17 months, mine is Papa bu chai jia at ~18 months. Mommy caught me saying this particular phrase, which is part of a Mandarin song (Ke Ren Lai).

I was considered potty trained at ~18 months. I can now tell when I want to wee wee or poo poo. In fact I don't need to use diapers during day time but I still need it at night. Still... we've been out quite frequent for the past few weekends, and since it's more convenient to use a diaper, so now I'm back to using diapers. But when I wee wee or poo poo, I'll inform Mommy. Mommy will say, we're not back yet, go ahead and I'll change you later. Yeah, lazy Mommy. So now, at times I don't even tell her. I guess Mommy's learnt her lesson, now she'll have to be more disciplined if she really wants me to graduate from diapers soon. I guess I'm more ready than Mommy, don't you think so?


Daddy gave me a hair cut for the first time sometime last month! He cut my back, and mommy trimmed my front. Am I considered lucky coz they had never cut Jie Jie's hair, since Amah took care of that all the time. But for me, it was just my 2nd hair cut after the full moon shave, thanks to my hairless state.

I could now play by myself at the playground. I could went up the steps and slide down by myself without Mommy holding me. Yay, I'm a big girl now.

I could also eat on my own now. In fact, I didn't want Mommy to feed me. I insisted to hold the spoon on my own, and feed myself. And I could do it quite neat too. Poh Poh was very impressed, coz I hardly made much mess compared to Jie Jie last time.

Walking Down Memory Lane

It's been awhile since I posted my last post. Also, after Mei Mei's birth, we've all been busy so not much updates then. Mommy found some old photos of us, so I thought it would be nice to compile them all together to make a little summary of what we've been up to together since Mei Mei's born.

Enjoy....!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

My New Baby

Yes, we've got a new addition to the family :) And, it's a baby girl! I got her from Toyland (as Jie Jie called it), and I hand-picked her myself.

Unlike Jie Jie who's not attracted to dolls, I was immediately drawn to the dolls on display. Mommy noticed the similarity to the dolls that I liked - hairless like me! I kept pointing to them and said, Baby.

In the end, Mommy let me chose what I wanted and here's what I got. Initially, she tried to choose others which she thought was nicer, meaning with more hair. But I pushed them all away, and I insisted that I wanted this (grinned!).

But, you know what? Actually my baby had a bonnet too, but I didn't want to let her put it on.

I liked to pull the bonnet away so that I can see the hairless state :) Even Jie Jie laughed at me, she tried to convince me to choose another doll with bonnet, smaller ones, and pulled off the bonnet for me to see, while saying, "You see, this one also no hair one". But I didn't want that, I insisted on this one. Finally Daddy got it for me, I wouldn't even want to let the cashier scanned it so she had to pulled off the tag to scan, while my baby was secured in my hands.

So this week, I took my baby over to the babysitter's place too. And the babysitter told Mommy that I couldn't sleep without the baby, because there was once Mommy forgot to let me take her there. Funny, I was not that attached to it when at home, maybe I have Mommy with me.

This photo was taken this morning, while I was preparing to go to the babysitter's place.

The Little Destroyer

Little Sze Juin had destroyed or messed around just too many things recently. First, she played our laptop keyboard until the letters on the keyboard came out! I had never in my life needed to deal with this before, so I took some time to figure out how to put them back. That was when she’s about 9 months old. Then recently, she flipped my monitor display – instead of the horizontal view, the screen had become vertical instead! It took awhile for us to flip it back. And a few days ago, my hard disk gave me the blue screen of death. It couldn’t startup at all, and I’m still figuring ways to backup my data in there.. sigh!

Ok, that was the laptop. See what she did to her Jie Jie’s handiwork?

Before that, when it's still good...

Well, her recent victims were our precious fridge magnets that we bought when we traveled around - she had broken a few too. There went the one from Jurong Bird Park, Singapore, and also the one that our friend gave us from Korea. And just the other night, she broke 2 that we got from Hawaii! I was opening the fridge door while carrying her, and her hands were too fast! The magnets fell onto the floor and broke, sob sob…

When will she stop destroying things? Uh, I don’t have this problem with Sze Yi last time…

A Night of Discoveries

Yeah, and it's mostly related to SJ too. It happened that I was home alone with SJ last night, for a few hours. Well, I was taken aback by the things she said and did, all out of the blue and the least within my expectation.

1. She called me Irene!

2. She pronounced her name correctly, Juin Juin! That was the first time I heard her saying her name, and it came out very clearly too. Unlike when her Jie Jie pronounced it, Jun Jun, or Ji Jin :)

3. I was searching for her nappy cloth that I brought back from the babysitter's place, and I asked myself aloud, "Where did Mommy put that cloth?" And I heard her answered me, "I don't know".

4. Her electronic toolbench toy was out of order, no more battery. So I told her to give me some time to put the batteries in. However, this little girl went to take another battery-operated mini piano, took out the battery from there and passed me that!

5. She requested for milk in the bottle, but after I made for her, she didn't want to drink it. Instead, she kept looking at the measurement scale and started counting, three, four, five! Haha, before that, she's been counting 1,2,3, and that night, she surprised me with 3,4,5 out of the blue :)

Story Time

Sze Yi had been requesting stories from us since she was small. Last time it used to be Cinderella, Ali Baba, etc… but now they were no longer constrained to fairytales. She would say, “I want the policeman story!”. Or Mommy’s stories, or Yi Yi’s stories, or the story of the lost buttons, or this curtain’s story, or the story about the Monster that went to school (RS), etc… Mostly, it’s on things around her, or whatever that came to her mind. She even requested me to tell her stories about my car’s wiper! She normally asked for stories when we’re in the car, or when she’s trying to sleep. Ah, boy was I glad that she's slowly getting over this habit now!

Sometimes she would request for stories that we’re all familiar with, for instance, Pinocchio, or the Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But mind you, the storyline would need to be modified. Either the main characters changed, or the storyline would be twisted here and there, and once she liked that, I’ll have to repeat again and again and again for several times before she finally let me go. So, it’s normally very exhausting and I dreaded it when she asked me for stories.

Then one day, I heard her telling one of the stories to her cousin Sarah. It was Mommy’s story, and she was telling her cousin how she was born. I couldn’t stop laughing when she said Mommy didn’t want her tummy to be cut, but Daddy told her that she had to, if not Sze Yi couldn’t come out! LOL! Hmm... maybe (and hopefully) she'll tell me stories next time instead of me telling her!

Little Things That Surprise Me

Scenario 1:

SJ saw her Jie Jie fell down, and I went to sayang her Jie Jie. Not long later, she imitated her Jie Jie's falling down action, and waited for me to sayang her! She actually repeated that several times just to get my attention that day.

Scenario 2:
SJ asked me to open the cupboard door, saying yiu yiu (oil). So I took out the oil. I was wondering what she's up to, when she pulled up her baby doll's shirt and ask me to apply the oil on her baby doll's tummy.

Scenario 3:

She got an electronic cow lantern from her Chim Po, where the cow can walk. I told her that it’s a niu niu (cow in Mandarin). Now when I got her other types of lantern, (bird and fish), she would still refer to that lanterns as niu niu. (LOL!)
Also, we once took the girls out for a walk with their lanterns at night. So after that incident, everytime she went out, she would want to bring the lantern along and said kai kai .

Scenario 4:

The two sisters were playing together and then suddenly the big one bully the small one. So we asked Jie Jie to say sorry to Mei Mei. After Jie Jie told her "Sorry!", Mei Mei said, "Gau" (clever in hokkien).

Can You Tell Who's Who?

Obviously, the less hairy one would be SJ :) My, she can wear the kimono that we bought for Sze Yi when SY's 18months plus already! (SJ's only 16 months plus now). Now, would you say that she hasn't been growing up?

The Laundry Keeper

I am now Mommy’s official helper when it comes to folding and keeping the clothes!

Well, I’ve finally mastered my folding skills, I could even fold the shirt like those sold in the supermarket, thanks to Daddy’s training. He taught me how to fold pants, towels, shirts, etc, and even how to turn those clothes back when they were in reverse order.

Once I was done with that, Mommy taught me how to segregate my clothes from Mei Mei’s and I could now put them all in the cupboard myself! Ah yes, all in correct order too – clothes, pants, towels, hanky all went into their appropriate compartments accordingly. I even know Mei Mei’s compartment too, which was placed in a different room because not enough space in my room :)

So now, one less work for Mommy, because she no longer needs to re-audit my work. But then again, it all still depends on my mood. Sometimes, I would prefer to play first, so if she couldn’t wait, then she would have to do it herself! Ah, and when I found out about it, I would get angry and insisted of doing everything again myself, so she had to let me start all over again…

Of Eating and Drinking

1. Sit down when eating
Whenever I see food, I’ll pulled Mommy along, saying “lai”
Then I led her to the small chair and said “sit down”
I climbed onto it, and sat on it, while Mommy fed me
And I would quietly sit there until I finished my food,
Or when I felt full and didn’t want anymore of that.


2. Self-feeding
I love to eat on my own now
I want to hold the spoon and feed myself
But I still couldn’t really scoop the food with the spoon yet,
Even though I could guide the spoon to my mouth and feed myself nicely!

If Mommy put some food into my mouth,
I would pull it out again to see what it is,
And then I would hold it with my fingers
And slowly munch on it.


3. Style of drinking water
When I want to drink water,
I would do a coughing sound,
So they will know that
I want water!

Another new trick I enjoyed,
Is to pour the water from my sippy cup
Into the cap and learn to drink from there
As if drinking from a cup!

Ah yes I also learnt how to yam-seng with my sippy cup!
From the recent wedding dinner that I attended :)
But after I raised my cup above my head, saying yam seng,
I would pour the water on my head!

When Mommy is angry...

Oops, I’ve made Mommy angry lotsa times,
but I know how to make her smile again.
Now, when I sense that Mommy’s angry,
I would tickle her so that she’ll laugh.
Or, after she scolded me for something naughty that I did,
I would insist that she put on a happy face.
“I want Mommy to be happy with me."
"I want Mommy to show me happy face now”.
"I don’t want Mommy to be angry with me”.

I said all this while sobbing, so it’s impossible for her not to comply!

Going to church with a little toddler

Yesterday was not like any other Sunday. And even though nothing went as plannned, it turned out great. Why? Because Sze Juin was behaving beyond my expectation when I took her to church with me yesterday. I was so proud of her, that I have to blog it here.

To begin with, my initial plan was to go to the 7am Mass because it's easier for me to sneak out when the kids were still in slumberland. But then since I was too tired, I changed my mind and decided to go to the 10am Mass instead. By then, both kids were fully awake. When Sze Yi heard that I would be going to church, she wanted to follow me. I told her ok, but she had to behave. So I changed her into a long sleeve blouse and long pants. As for Sze Juin, hubby decided to bring her to Amah's house, so I packed her porridge and dressed her in a short sleeve blouse with matching short pants.

Halfway on the way, Sze Yi changed her mind. She wanted to go to Amah's house instead. So I tried to place Sze Juin into the car seat (she came out just now because she wanted milk), but she didn't want to go back in. So in the end, I took her with me, despite her not dressed accordingly (as she's only in short pants).

When she reached the church, she was in awe of the atmosphere. That kept her occupied for quite awhile. She was still absorbing everything when they started the Liturgy of the Word. Would you believe me if I tell you that she was behaving so well that I got to concentrate and finished all the readings? Of course in the middle, she wanted to hold the liturgy book and flipped them at the same time, so I let her. But later, she allowed me to catch up with the readings again. Even during the homily, she was sitting quietly on my lap, and I didn't need to walk around at all throughout the whole Mass. At the beginning, she pointed to the door and wanted me to take her out, but I told her later. After that, she never bothered me again. Maybe luck was also at my side because we were sitted beside a nice lady with an 11-year old boy, so that kept her occupied too. When she got sleepy, she would rub her hands on my knuckles, but she never asked for milk. Maybe she knew that I couldn't breastfeed her there.

All these were very unlike the previous experience when I took her to church with me sometime back - just the two of us. She wanted to go out most of the time, if not walking around the place. When she asked me for milk, she would tug at my blouse and pulled it up. So I went out to breastfeed her (I managed to find a suitable place), but she didn't want to drink there! She wanted to drink in the church. Well, that past experience made me vowed that I wouldn't bring her to church with me again next time, but thank God it was so different this time.

Indeed, I had never once thought that it's possible to sit still in the church all the time when we brought a child with us. I've seen some couples with behaving children though, and I always marvelled at how they managed to train them. Not my Sze Yi though. So far, when I brought her along, I could never sit still all the time, she would have lots of excuse to go out, like wee wee, etc. If not going out, I wouldn't be able to focus too, since she had lots of questions to ask. I still remembered when she sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars so loudly when they were singing the hymns. I told her it's a different song, but she didn't want to quiet down because she didn't know how to sing that hymns :) Luckily with Sze Juin this time, I could concentrate throughout the whole Mass, without needing to walk around at all! Isn't that amazing? I even had time to finish reading the bulletins during the announcement session. Of couse, at times, she would insist to sit on the top of the pew in front of us, and didn't want me to hold her. I warned her that it's dangerous, she would fall down. And she willingly let me hold her. Wasn't she so understanding? She enjoyed sitting on the pew, swaying her body to the tempo of the hymns, as if enjoying the music. At times, she tried to touch the nice lady's hand beside me, but then she quickly pulled her hand away before the lady looked.

All in all, I honestly think that this was another milestone worth recording. Praise the Lord!

9 little updates...

It has been a busy month for me so that explains the lack of posts this month. Hence, before the month ends, I am going to lump everything into just 1 post here. And, being the 9th month of the year, I happened to have 9 little updates here, most of which were things related to my girls' new milestones.

This month has seen...

1. Sze Yi singing Michael Jackson's song, Heal the World like a pro. Oh yeah, we've switched her to another music school last month, starting her on the Little Mozarts' program. Both the girls loved music so much that when they heard music, they'd start dancing or moving their bodies to the tune (I had to bring Sze Juin along too at times because there's no one to take care of her).

2. Sze Juin's growing vocabulary (no more, close, open, bird bird, sorry, thank you, please, buyau (don't want in Mandarin), mei you (don't have), hello, bye bye, Gong Gong, mei mei (pretty), wow wow (for dog), cat, throw, kakak, aunty, uncle, wee wee, ng ng, lai (come), sit down, apple, etc.) She seemed to be able to pick up words faster than Sze Yi at this age last time, and it's rather easy for her to repeat after us when we asked her to say a new word.

3. My 2 girls helping out with the laundry. Sze Yi could now hang the clothes out to dry, and also to collect them back after they're dry, while Sze Juin did most of the passing of clothes (dry and wet) over to me or her sister. Sze Yi could also fold all the clean clothes and put them back into the respective drawers correctly (meaning according to the owner, like hers, her sister, mine and daddy's). Well, if I can close 1 eye, of course it's considered job done! You see, she still couldn't fold them very neatly yet, and she would just pile all the folded clothes into the closet/drawer without segregating them (pants, blouses, towels, undies, etc.).

4. The girls went to the fun fair at least twice already (Sze Yi's more, of course). The first time, all of us ride together with them. However during the 2nd visit, Sze Yi insisted that she could ride on her own so we just stood outside and let her ride alone. When she waved to me as the train left us, with the proud look on her face, I couldn't help imagining that this would happen a few years down the road later, when she's leaving for further studies, and I knew deep down that I would cry then, the feeling of her leaving me was still unbearable although I knew that I couldn't avoid it.

5. Sze Juin can do somersault now! And she's also a quick imitater, she quietly observed what her Jie Jie was doing, and not long later, I'll noticed that she would try to imitate what she saw earlier! Another incident was that she actually caught a cockroach the other day - she's seen me catching cockroaches and then she told me "kat chat" (meaning cockroach in Cantonese). I looked at her hand and saw one there :)

6. Sze Juin's learning to pick up the shape sorter currently. She could put all the blocks into their respective place already, but at times she would need me to tell her where to place them. She could then nicely place them all into the hole on her own!

7. Sze Juin's learning to use the potty now. Sometimes there's output when she asked us to let her sit on the potty, but most of the times, she just wanted to play. At times, she would signal us that it's coming, but it's too late. She could now tell us that she's uncomfortable and wanted her diapers changed if she poo poo in it.

8. Sze Yi's getting easier to handle nowadays. She's more understanding and we could use reasoning with her. Not as naughty as she used to be. When she's naughty last time, she could easily drive hubby and I crazy. I learnt that it's really important to spend lots of personal time with our kids, instead of leaving them to the care of others. If we couldn't handle our kids, who else could? And despite my busy schedule, I decided to give more time and patience for my 2 girls even though I was really tired. The results were amazing, and I honestly think that her attitude has improved a lot! Just yesterday, she came back telling us that it's her teacher's birthday, so she got 2 chocolates - 1 for Mommy and 1 for Daddy. She didn't even take one herself! Also, now she hardly requests for never-ending stories when she wants to sleep, or when we're in the car (not as frequent as last time).

9. The girls enjoyed playing on their own and also with each other now. So I got to accomplish more of the housework while they were playing instead of having to wait until they slept. However, recently Sze Juin was rather clingy, I'm not sure why. Maybe she's just grown 3 teeths in a shot? She had 11 teeths now. Also Sze Juin didn't want to take milk from the bottle - whether EBM or formula. Ah yes, and that reminded me of her new antics - when she wanted to drink milk, she'd lie down on the bed or sofa, pulled up her blouse and said "nen nen", as if wanting to nurse me!

And They Live Happily Ever After...

Yes, I am going to blog about another wedding dinner that we've just attended at E&O Hotel. When I showed Sze Yi my friend's wedding album, she asked me if the bride has met her prince. I told her yes, and they live happily ever after.... :)

Our camera's LCD monitor was not functioning, so we hadn't been taking many photos lately. Here are a few precious photos that was taken with my father's camera when we went back to Ipoh during the Raya weekend, and being uploaded by my brother so I get to share them here.

Little Mozarts in the making?

My brother got these costumes from Hong Kong for them, which were just the right time because we would be attending a wedding dinner that week. Luckily my father took a photo of them in it, because I didn't get a chance to have Sze Juin's picture taken on that wedding dinner night.

Sze Yi with her cheeky pose

Sze Juin's still afraid of my parents... see the look on her face!

And here's the photo taken by my colleague's 40D - only had Sze Yi in it because Sze Juin was too afraid to join us.

Noticed the difference? Sze Yi was rather shy here compared to the earlier photos, right?

Well, luck was on my side because the 2 girls sit thru the whole dinner up to the 7th course! I was really proud of Sze Juin because at such age (16 months), this was really a great milestone. Last time when Sze Yi was around this age, hubby and I had to take turns going out with her every 2-3 courses or so, but this time, we got to enjoy our meals. Only during the 7th course, Sze Juin wanted to go join the kids at the stage dancing :). She kept pulling my hand to ask me dance with her. So, I took them out for a walk outside.

If you're wondering what kept her occupied throughout the dinner, it's nothing than the snacks that I'd prepared and also the music played by the band. I gave her cranberries and apricot in litle containers (I separate them into 2 different containers, and only gave her one by one, so that she'll be kept entertained all the time). She also played with the water tumble, pouring out the water onto her babychair and also her dress! Luckily when I stopped her, she only struggled for awhile before I managed to distract her with other things. Another good thing was that I noticed she was quite attracted to the songs played by the band. When they finished playing, she would sign with her hand, motioning 'no more' sign and said "Boh". Then when they started a new song, she would start to move her body, dancing along with the song. It's cute to watch her.

As for the big one, hubby was entertaining her and feeding her (but she ate very little that day, didn't want most of the food). At times, she got naughty and wanted her sister's snacks. She actually finished up one of the container's food, so I had to use my backup container instead. Luckily it could last till quite some time. And this girl chose to do her big business there (hotel environment?) of all the place and time! I've been asking her at home, but she kept saying no. Then in the hotel, she told me she wanted to go wee wee. I took her there twice, but on the 2nd time, she said she also wanted to poo poo and it just came out without much notice! But luckily she didn't create too much mess for me and it's towards the end of the dinner already.

All in all, I felt glad that I took them there and was really proud of them, even though they gave me so much headache in the beginning. We just came back from Ipoh that afternoon, and Sze Juin only had a 1-hour nap. She didn't want to sleep after that, and only started to get sleepy again when we're preparing to go to dinner, but still refused to sleep. And I had a hard time trying to get her to wear that costume, she kept crying and struggling. In the end, I just let her ran around naked, until we're about to leave the house. As for Sze Yi, she kept saying she wanted to tuck in her clothes (need to tuck in only will look nice, that's what my teachers said). So she wore a pants-like skirt and tucked the dress into it! I kept telling her how ugly she looked, but she refused to let me take that out. Luckily in the end, before we left the house, she agreed to take that out! My, looks like my little girls had a taste of their own :)