Mid-Autumn Festival 2009

Mid-Autumn Festival is often called Lantern festival or the Mooncake festival.
That's because, oh, so obvious, that this is the time we light up lanterns and give mooncakes to each other (normally among family members and close friends).

The last few years we have been celebrating Lantern/Mooncake festival at Ah Ma's house. So the usual, we light up paper lanterns and hand them on a plant by the garden.

Grandma and the three boys standing in front of paper lanterns hung on a tree.
Micah and Max are holding the lanterns, shape of the lotus flower, they made in school.

We also light candles on the wall that's between her and her neighbour.

Micah and Max lighting candles.
Supervised by Ee-ee.

And here's a shot of some of the traditional Lantern/Mooncake Festival treats.

Clockwise: Chinese tea, red eggs, baby yams, brown sugar (to dip the yams in), mooncake,
and "ngau-kok" (meaning bull's horns in Cantonese.
It's actually a root, but you eat it like a nut,
boiled, and then crack the shell to get to the white center).

It's Myron's first Lantern festival and it sure was fascinating for him to see all the lights.

Myron and grandma, holding a fish lantern.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone.

p/s- We are still eating the mooncakes my mother gave.

Myron's Biscotti Bash

Myron is four months old!!


Well, tomorrow, actually, but we did a special four month old celebration for him.

There's this thing the Chinese do that is suppose to stop the babies from drooling (not like I actually believe in it, but this was more for the fun of it) which I had written before regarding Chinese Droology here.

Myron, Mommy has been singing this to you because you have been drooling a lot lately:

"Super drooly,
Darling baby,
Big, big eyes.

Super drooly,
Darling baby,
Cutie pie.

Super baby,
Darling drooly,
...Oh, I'm confused."


Anyway, here are some of the shots for the No-More-Drool celebration.
(and let's see if you'll actually droll less after this, though I seriously doubt it, as it did not work for Max either. Haha.)

It was the stringing of the biscuits,


Followered by the mouth-wiping ceremony,

(The ceremony was started by the two grandmas,
followed by Ee-ee, Ah Ku, Mom and Dad, and the the two older boys.)

and then dinner after that.

Myron with Mah-mah at the restaurant.

Happy four Months old, Beautiful Boy!!

Father's Day

We had two celebrations for Father's Day this year.

My sister and her family were in town until Saturday, so she planned a surprise Father's Day celebration for her husband and mine.

We had dinner and care at Tony Romas.



While waiting for the food to arrive, the kids had some fun with the doodle-sheet.


Earlier, the boys had brought back their craft for Father's Day from school. It actually comes with a picture stand. Gadget-daddy was impressed with their drawings.

Portrait of "My Dad and I" from Micah and Max.

On Sunday night, we went out for dinner again. This time it was a dinner with Grandpa, Grandma and suk-suk (Uncle on the father's side, the father's younger brother/ cousin brother).

The main dish(es) were 2 types of crabs. We also had ribs marinated and stir-fried in stout, a steam fish and toufu.

And it seems to be more and more a practice that Mommy's too busy with the boys, feeding them, when the food arrives that no photos of the delicious dinner as proof. But we all had a good time, and for Mommy, the most important part was that the boys ate well too.

Whatever the celebration maybe, when you have young kids, they tend to be in the limelight.
:)

Micah's Party At School

Well, thank you all for your well wishes. The party was better than I expected.

After the last post, I actually remembered where I had kept the stack of photos, so we did the "Sun-walk" in a chaotically organised way. Me looking like I have it all planned, but nervous like up on a tight-rope walking for the first time.

Items and photos used for the "Sun-walk".

Grandma and Myron were witnesses to the walk and the whole event too.

Grandma holding Myron.

There was too much food, because we had specially ordered pizza for a friend dropping in for the party (not a school friend, but one of Micah's favourites and long time friend), but they could not make it last minute.

Micah blowing out the candles on his cake,

with the help of Max.

Then, before Micah was allowed to open any of his presents, he had to hand out the goody-bags. We persuaded him to hang on a little longer to open it at home, as the teachers also wanted to head home and close the school.

10 things in the goody-bag.

In all our excitement, we actually forgot to bring home the boys' school bags and only discovered them "missing" this morning when we arrived at school (I usually leave their schoolbags in the car as they do not have homework. The only thing they carry in their bags are a change of clothes in case of any accidents, and for Micah, a set of toothbrush and toothpaste).

It was a good and busy day.

Thanks, everyone, for your lovely gifts.
:)

Mother's Day

A belated post:
Mother's Day was a week ago.

The boys brought this back for me from school as gifts for Mother's day.


They painted the pot themselves. The teachers supplied the plants.
I really love these pots.

Thank you, my darlings.


As for the family event:
We went our for dinner at Madam Kuan's in Midvalley.
The dinner honoured 3 moms:
myself, my mom and Mom-in-law.

Gadget-daddy made us all happy with delicious fish-head curry and so much food we had to pack some home. The fried chicken wings were mouth-watering too.
(Sorry, no photo to show as I was too buzy feeding my 2 older boys and scooping food for my mom and m-i-l who was carrying Myron in a sling.)

Hope all you mums had a good Mother's day.

Happy Birthday Xue Han!

This little boy turns two today.


He is Micah, Max and Myron's cousin brother who lives in Lion City (Singapore).


We love you, cutie.
We will be seeing you soon to celebrate your birthday with you.
Micah and Max can't wait to give you your presents and have you open them.
Myron will be making his first journey out of Malaysia. Oh, so exciting for the boys!!
So exciting for all of us.

Xue Han,
May you continue to grow in wellness and excellence.
May there be many milestone markers.
May you continue to bring joy to the people around you.
May there be many more to come.

God bless you and keep you.

Myron's Fullmoon

Myron is a month old.

"Woo-hoo! Look at my loot!"

Thank you, everyone for all the lovely gifts.
Not forgetting to mention all the well-wishes, and those who also gave gifts to the two older boys, for me and the generous "ang-pow" too.


Thank You.

We did a little dinner for the family.




We also gave out the usual package of red-eggs, ang-ku and steamed chicken to reciprocate those who gave gifts in this time.
(Sorry no pix here. MiL and I started the "production line" at 4am, and in between I had to attend to a crying baby and another crying boy.)

Found Them CNY Pix

Update:

I finally located the photos I had intended to put up in the last post, but was just too tired to think clearly where to look for them.

So here are the shots of:

Tea Ceremony at Ah MA's -




Lion dance in action -


Me and the two kids on my knees.




More happy shots of the kids -





My Boys:Their cousins:

Our Family Pix: CNY 2009

More Of Our CNY In Colours

Sorry this is so late, but looking up some photos, thought I'd put this up anyway.


The first day we went to Ah Ma's house and did the usual tea ceremony.

This is the time we usually get some shots of all the kids in their New Year clothes.
None in a traditional Chinese garb this year.



Then we visited a family friend who had the Lion dance at her house.
It was totally thrilling for the kids to see one so close this year.
The fire crackers were deafening.

(Sorry I did not manage to catch the Lions in action as I was holding Max and my niece close to me. I had one child on a knee each. They were thrilled and terrified at the same time.)


We managed to visit 2 other homes.

By the time we got back it was time to shower and change to get to Ah Ma's for a steamboat dinner, with Yee-sang again.



Then we did the cake and song thing for Gadget-daddy.
This time, we had 2 cakes... just for the kids to sing and blow the candles.
Does this mean he aged 2 years instead of one this time? ;)



And in the midst of all the food, fun and noise, Micah was fast asleep on a lazy chair. All because he was too in volved in all the earlier visitations he did not nap. Hence he missed the dinner (Max was sleeping in Gadget-daddy's arms while we were visiting the third house).