Is it Christmas time?

The moment month of December comes, we can instantly feel Christmassy! The lights have been up already along Ikea/Curve (now only Nov wor ...) when we visited last week. Its a nice feeling towards the year-end .. especially bonus time ... hehehe.

I have all along been planning for a tree for our new home. I intend to purchase a tree and light it up in the month of December. And its for Bryan's sake. He loves it when we visit shopping malls (the past 2 yrs) checking out all the extensive decorations while we mall-hop!

So this year, we will have one in our home sweet home. Complete with a Christmas dinner (fingers crossed!). And visits from my long-time buddies from Penang & Singapore would make it so fun! Miss them so much. Been ages since we sat down to chat. So looking forward for Christmas this year.

So Petaling Street will be my next destination - once I settle in this Nov. Heard you can find some good & very reasonably priced trees there. But tipu one lah, not the "real" tree. Here I come!

All in a days work

Last Friday and Saturday was such a busy day. The renovation contractors were working at our place in full force. They had to get it ready that weekend as we will be moving in this week.

There was such a huge buzz around the house. Just a word of thanks for all their hard work, just to ensure we, clients, have a comfy home as per our requirements.

Some social life

Hardly had it since Bryan came along. I cant put into words how active and curious he is at ALL things. Like I have said before, even walking is not in his dictionary. Only jumping or requesting to be carried around like a royal highness!

At home, the things that he does or does not do, makes me so tired. I really dont know how to describe his terrible-2 stage. Terrfying-3 stage is beginning. I mean, since he was born, he wakes up twice a night for milk, another one or two sessions of nyek nyek nyek and its time for me to get up for work. So I look very much like an Ah Soh now, after 2.5 years.

Nevertheless, one evening Mom decided not to cook since Sis wont be back for dinner. And she being alone, does not make sense to cook. So decided to take her out for a meal at a nearby newly opened western food restaurant. Bryan enjoyed his time running around every where. If you dont stop him, he will already be in the kitchen just 2 mins after we enter the restaurant.




Anyway, just some blaberring from me in this post. Feel tired even by just thinking about him. Hahahaha.

Perfect gift and right on time!

I'm so delighted! Its a small thing but means a lot! I was so pleasantly surprised this morning when I logged on to my Hotmail account and saw an email that had the word "Congratulations" in the header! Now, I was very careful to ensure it was not a spam or junk mail .. and I checked on the sender and ..... yeaaah! It was Sue Sue!

Sue Sue hosted a pasta pot giveaway and I decided to participate with the intention of learning. I dont know and never cooked pasta before and her post had lots of contributors with great pasta recipes for kids .. which is great for me cos Im moving to my new house next week and will have to start cooking on weekends .. and pasta is indeed a wholesome meal and totally easy to prepare. Perfect right?

Thanks dear for the perfect new gift for my new kitchen :-)

Note: Photo taken from Sue Sue's blog.

Own land on Moon!

I really dont know what else these people are going to come up with next! Read today in The Star online that there is this lady - a dumb, crazy, siow-char-bor lady that actually buys a piece of land each year on Shah Rukh Khan's birthday as a gift to him!

It sure does sound acceptionally unique! And yeah, it caught my attention and probably a million others, and yeah, a good marketing/pr effort indeed.

But land on moon? I dont know lah.

Really cool contemporary lights

If you do have a contemporary look for your home and are looking out for some really cool looking lightings, you should visit Tsen Gallery @ Kota Damansara. I got to know about them by chance.

After visiting Homedec after Homedec, I just didnt see anything that I liked at regular exhibitors like Alfo & GDO. Or they were a bit over my budget. And since it was best we have all the lightings in place while the electrical contractors were still working on our new home, I decided to give one more try to look for another lighting shop. Googled and ended up with Tsen.

I choose a round chandelier light for our living room. It was affordable but of course, they were made from China crystals lah. But I must say, quality and design wise, China is coming with a bang! For a moment, I thought they were from Egypt or even Europe! Im sorry I dont have a good pics of it cos I dont own a DSLR mah ... see.

Glad to have made a purchase. One down and a few other stuff more to buy and that's it.

Taking it a notch higher!

The past weekend was the worst! I feel really exhausted having to keep up with my terrible-two! He ah .... aiyoh, I dont know how to describe. Dont understand where they get all their energy from. And not only the energy I am amazed at - its their creativity too! Climb here and there, take this and that, run up & down, sleep on the grounds of the car porch, every single thing on the desk - once in his hand, sure will be broken in the next 5 seconds, makan also jumping around like a monkey, mandi time wanna sleep on the bathroom floor - only then can let me scrub him!

Mom said to be patient and maybe about 3 or 4 yrs old, he will be all well & good. Oh mom! I know you are right but its just too much now. Too tiring.

Fungates - the right choice?

Last Saturday, 2 Fungates operators hosted "Open Day" at their centre. We took Bryan there for a visit and to see if he liked the environment there.

When we first arrived at Centre A, he saw quite a few people and immediately turned to me and asked me to carry him. But the moment I told and showed him the room which was filled with lots and lots of colorful books, arts & crafts, learning apparatus, etc, he forgot about us. He was in his own world. Running up and down the entire class, fascinated by so many things that he gets to touch and mess up! He kinda got excited that even the washing area was so low (child's height) that he could easily turn the tap on & off as he pleased! *pengsan*.

Hubby checked on the rates and other information while I monitored my dear boy. I cannot leave him out of our sight cos the whole centre would have *terbalik* if I turn my back for 5 seconds!

Not very impressed by the look, quality of the english spoken by the centre staff and the location of the centre (it was inside an intermediate shoplot with no playground or space to run about) - but 5 mins from our new home, we headed to Centre B.

Centre B was a total opposite. It was housed in a HUGE bungalow and had good English speaking staff and teachers. They also conversed in Mandarin but it will only be taught in Year 4. The only drawback for us is the distance from our new place.

Again, Bryan was all over the place. The teachers here knew better how to interact with the kids ( managed to get his attention on one particular activity which he followed accordingly but we could see clearly that he was the "tai kor" amongs the others *double pengsan* trying to dominate - almost snatch the apparatus from the teacher!)

Both the centres told us that they would start with teaching the kids basics (of course lar, what else right) like recognizing ABCs and 1-10 ... but Bryan already kn0ws all that. On good mood days, he can count till 30! Both in English & Mandarin!

He can spell all the words he sees on the billboards on our way home each night! He reads out all the alphabets he seens in the newspapers or those that are printed on my T-shirt! I am getting worried that he will be bored in a Year 3 class .. but we still will have to start him there.

I wish to check out Montessori next but there is none near my place. It has to be a bus journey of about 30 mins at least each way! So, what shall I do? Compromise on education system or compromise on this travel time? I think he is too young to travel so far everyday.

Safety Gate for Bryan

We hoped over to Babyland @ SS2 to check out some safety gates. Lindam's was going at RM50 off, so it only cost RM149.90 for a basic unit instead of the usual RM199.90. We had to add on an extension to make it up to 110cm in width cos my staircase is pretty wide.

If I really want to be extra safe, I need 4 sets of these cos I have stairs that are going both upstairs and downstairs.

We have also decided to add clear polycarbonate sheets to my staircase railings, so that my "hero" wont have any opportunity to put his foot on those railings and try to be super or spideyman!

He is in the "jumping" phase now. Jump from bed to the floor, jump from one chair to another, jump from first staircase to the next and all the way down to the last staircase. Jump even when walking. Meaning he does not walk step by step. He jumps step by step. *pening*

Electrical items making its way!

Woooo! My contractor has finally asked me to stand by all the electrical items for them to install. Meaning, things are finally rocking! So, with a happy heart, I shall call my favourite electrical outlet and inform my favourite salesman that he can start preparing my favourite items that I reserved many moons ago, and to arrange for immediate delivery :-

Gosh! Cant wait for the time to come where I can call my sofa supplier, my dining table supplier .. woooh! But this can only be done in another 3 weeks I guess.

We met till late last night, to discuss on final details of the carpentry, electrical, lighting and painting works. What I worry most is the color of my walls. I am not sure what to choose! The color selected looks great in the color chart but in actual, I am afraid it may differ. Differ up to what extend also hard to say :-(

Today I shall expect my rubble wall to be fully installed. We decided to cover up my open indoor courtyard with polycarbonate roofing, so sunlight can still come in and brighten our home but no rain ... yeah! Then we selected some natural stones to dress up the wall. We will add some spot lights on it. Hope it looks cool!

My Laundry Sink

Decided to get a laundry sink for my washing area. This will make life easier. Dont need to squat down and scrub my undies! And if needed, can just soak whatever that needs to be soaked in the basin area. At the bottom are cabinets to store my detergent, clorox, etc.

Cool eh.

Our current ritual

6.30am Wake up
7.00am Out of the house
7.45am Reach mom's place, drop off Bryan
8.00am Reach office, hubs drops me off
8.30am Hubs reaches office
6.30pm Hubs leaves office to pick me up
7.15pm On our way to mom's place
7.45pm Rest at mom's for an hour or so.
8.45pm Leave for new house
9.15pm See what the contractor has done for the day
10.00pm Head for home
10.30pm Shower and have light dinner while SIL entertains Bryan
11.30pm Prepare for bed - yes Bryan sleeps that late!
12.00pm Too tired - sometimes cant fall asleep straight away :-(
3.00am Bryan wakes up, pulls my hand, asks for milk
4.00am Nyek nyek nyek, dunno why
6.30am Read line one

The late beginning

It has been quite an eventful few weeks for me. I am practically brain-dead, not because of the renovations at home but its the path that I took in my professional life. No doubt, money is better but that spells higher stress as well. I had the confidence of handling it, just that it needs time for the dust to settle. Not that I regret, but I do hope its the initial phase of it and hopefully it will gradually get better over time.

I have totally lost focus on my home renovation. Well, yes I know whats still going on but I dont have the energy to "refine" my decisions. I do hope that they will look ok with some of the changes on color and design that we decided. Fingers crossed!

Dunno why Blogger is so slow today. Wanna upload some pics of the initial reno stages also takes ages. So I owe you guys first ya.

Aah .. did I tell you I bought those colorful wall decals for Bryan room? Thanks to Sasha, I got an online contact, and so happen, she stays in the neighbouring taman, so she kindly dropped it off at my home - save postages .. hehehe. Am planning to put them up next weekend cos Bryan's new room is now used as my temp storage space for my fans & lightings!

Any of you done these wall decals before? Any tips on application?

Did it really cross the road?

Our dear friend finding its way I guess :-)

Son's excitement = Daddie's worries

Son : Wah, so exciting this place! Got big big bizard ... so nice!

Dad : Aiyoh .. got big big lizard man here ... must hold this fella tight tight!