Merry Christmas & blessed new year!!!

In this Christmas & new year, may the LOVE of God fills your heart, may you experience His PEACE in many ways, may you find JOY in many way and discover that (or remember) Jesus is our own HOPE!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

XOXO

 

1 Month Already!!!

Couldn't believe Anndelle is already 1 month old!! It feels like she was born just few days ago!!

Baby Anndelle has grown quite a lot within this 1 month. She had a growth spurt as well. She has put on 1.1kg within 1 month, and grow 3cm taller!!

Same like what we did for the 2 elder sisters, we had a small family celebration with a cake on Friday evening which was her actual fullmoon date.

Big sis wana have a photo with fullmoon girl while 2nd jie jie not into taking photo. Jie Jie Esrene had Christmas party at her childcare on that day, thus the face painting (which she said is lovely) and the white string is the balloon tied to her hand.

 

                            

Cutting cake with Po Po

                                           The girls power!!!

thank you Yea Yea, Ma Ma, Po Po, Yee Po (s), Yee Yee and aunties uncles for the angpow blessing

Since PoPo is here we took the opportunity to ask her to make some fullmoon delicacy for us to distribute to the close friends like what we did for the 2 girls before. PoPo was busy for 2 full days making kueh, nasi kunyit and chicken curry to get ready for our friends to pick up on Saturday afternoon. Thanks mother!! You are the best!

 

Since this will be our last baby, I decided to make a nicer packaging to put all these delicacy. I was looking around for the brown paper bag that I wanted but most of the sellers are selling in 100s! After discussed with mother, I decided to make my own paper bag to suit the size of the containers as well.

Even though it was quite time consuming making these by myself but I felt the sense of satisfaction looking at the end result, or rather my de-stress therapy

We had a busy yet wonderful weekend for us catching up with our close friends. We wana thank all of them for sparing their time to visit us and also their generous gift blessing for Anndelle!

Happy fullmoon our little precious Anndelle!! May you grow stronger each day!

SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!

Hello world, it’s me Anndelle!!

A lot of daddy mummy’s friends were very surprise with my arrival and wonder why daddy mummy kept it so secretive when mummy was pregnant with me. Well, when mummy thought she was already very overwhelm with 2 kids and happy with just 2, God decided to bless them with the 3rd one…me!! So it was a big surprise to them to expect me as well, so they decided to keep it as a surprise to the friends around too

 

My first name Anndelle is from the combination of two names – Annis and Fredelle, which means gentle and holy. My middle name is Ern-lin 恩琳. When daddy was praying for my name, John 1:16 keep popping out of his head -  “Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given”. With the help of lovely auntie Bee they decided to name me Ern-lin means abundant grace.

Both my “jie jie” were overdue babies. Finally I am on time or rather few days earlier and born on 7 November 30 min before midnight!!! Daddy wonder whether I can have free slurpee from SEVEN ELEVEN for my whole life since I was born on 7 11 

mummy kneeling on the bedside coping with contraction pain (still coping alright with the MVUs 100 contraction). 3rd time around she decided it felt way better to be in other position than lay down on the bed during contraction.

Mummy too exhausted (no pain relief this time round…too tough) after delivered me, taking a nap while waiting to be transferred to the ward.

I get to meet my 2 “jie jie” the next morning.

Jie jie Esrene was so excited to meet me! She couldn’t  stop holding me, giving me kisses and cuddles. She said “Esrene loves baby!!!”.

Rennice jie jie was a bit unsure what is going on and who am I besides calling me “baby”. She just followed what Esrene Jie Jie did.

Daddy had heart to heart talk with me

As you see, I am so loved by my family!!!

I am a very alert baby. I feed very well and grow very well everyday. I put on 40-50g per day. Thus, I also poo very frequently and wasting a lot of nappies everyday!

Daddy mummy pray that I will grow healthily each day and thank God for my life in the family!

 

Discovering the fun of parenting

Parenting can be very challenging. Sometimes I think it is much easy if I can just baby sit my kids instead of parenting them. Watching over them to make sure they are safe, well feed and grow is easy but for us parents it’s more than that God entrusts us to do for our children.

Esrene is into her tantrum throwing stage now – the miserable 3! She wants her way, wants her say. A “no” from us most of the time will make her have her melt down moment. It’s quite challenging and tiring for us to deal with her.

Lately we were introduced by a close friend to the parenting video and book by Danny Silk called “Loving your kids on purpose”. It is a totally different approach from what we always hear, know or learn all these while. It is rather an interesting concept based on the relationship with the kids and the free choice rather than controlling. So we thought it’s not bad to try on the approach.

One day while Esrene was playing with our friend’s daughter in our house and having cheese as snack, she had her melt down moment again just because she accidently tear off the piece of cheese she was about to eat. She said it is torn, refused to eat that and want a new one! We told her it is ok to eat the torn cheese and it will still taste as yummy as the complete piece but no she started to throw her tantrum, crying and screaming her head off. After a few attempts to talk to her, daddy was frustrated and brought her into her room for time out. Yet she didn’t give up, screamed and cried in her room. So I decided to try on Danny Silk’s approach. I walked into her room, trying to remain calm and put up a smile at the same time. Then I squad down and told her “Hey darling, crying and whining is no fun at all. Everyone is having fun outside. When you think you are fun enough to play outside, you can come out and join us. If not it is ok for Esrene to stay in the room”. After I gave her a pet at her head, I walked out. Less than 1 minute, she stopped all her crying and whining, walked out getting ready to play again. I reminded me “Hey Esrene, remember, be fun ok?”. She nodded. Phew!! What a relieve!!! Finally I manage to make my melt down girl to stop her tantrum throwing without much effort and anger involved! But I thought I could have tried the approached when she started to fuss about her cheese…anyway it’s a good start.

 

My 2nd attempt on the approach:

One night, Esrene was playing up refused to brush her teeth before going to bed. I approached her with the smile and ask her calmly “Esrene, do you know what will happen if we do not brush our teeth?”. She looked at me with a puzzled look. I continued “Without brushing, our teeth will drop off one by one, and at the end we have no more teeth to eat anything. We can’t eat lollies, can’t eat chippy, can’t eat cakes, nothing we can eat except drinking milk like a baby!”. Then I walked off to do my thing.

After 5-10min, I walked back to Esrene and asked calmly “So Esrene, have you decide whether you want your teeth or no teeth?”.

She shouted “I want my teeth!!!”.

Then I asked “What do you think you should do if you want to keep your teeth?”.

This time she said excitedly “Esrene wana go brush teeth now mummy!!” and off to the bathroom she went to get the toothbrush for me to help her brushing her teeth.

I have to admit, that’s the most joyful moment in my whole parenting all these while!!!! I managed to not only guide my tantrum throwing daughter to make a correct choice herself happily without having to raise my voice, cause any crying or tears from her side, but I also manage to teach her a short lesson of the reason we want to brush teeth It’s a sense of victory to me! Suddenly I see the fun of parenting!!!! I am glad I am able to start applying what I’ve learned and praying that God will give me more creative ideas to parenting my child in a peaceful way without having to lose my temper and raise my voice.

XO,

Mummy Siu

The growing girls

Hi everyone, we have been keeping mummy really busy that there’s not much time leave for her to update the blog. It has been a while since you see our update!!

I am Rennice, I am 17 months now. Daddy mummy say I am a cheerful, adorable but ever cheeky girl as well!

I always put up a joyful, cheeky smiley face whenever I go that capture everyone’s heart. This is how I get attention from others!!

I love music, whenever I hear any music playing I will start dancing. I also love to do what “jie jie” (big sister) does, imitate her as well as want to play the same toys she is playing, that irritates her a lot.

Daddy mummy say I am a clown in our family because I love to do funny face and funny action to make them laugh, then I will laugh together with them. Jie Jie always say “mei mei is a funny gal!!”.

Even though I am still very young, I already know how to ask mummy to “hair hair” (tie hair) for me and dress me up with princess tutu just like jie jie. After I am being dress up I will show off to jie jie and start shaking my body and do my dance.

I like to be a little helper as well. Every morning I will put back my own sleeping bag back to my cot. When I am back from “walkies” or car ride, I will take off my shoes, open the shoes rack and trying to put back my shoes and even “jie jie”s shoes back into the rack. Most of the time I need help from mummy or daddy as I barely can reach the shoes rack.

However, if daddy mummy scolded me I will cry so badly as if I am being badly punished and I will refuse to look at them but cry for a long time with big tears rolling down my cheek!!

Even though I am still small, I already know how to throw tantrum!! I will swing my hands hard, frown and show my angry face! Daddy said I look cute at times when I did that.

I’m the big sister Esrene. I’m a 3 years old big girl now. I’m very talkative at home now but when I am in the public or at the childcare I refused to talk at all. I told mummy I’m “shy”. I’m into my “difficult stage” – the tantrum throwing stage as daddy mummy said. I want my way, from choosing clothes, way to do thing to food I want to eat. If I can’t get what I want I will throw tantrum and have my melt down moment. So a lot of time I will be sent by daddy/mummy to the time out corner.

Apart from that, I am very talkative now. I can non stop talking at home and instructed “mei mei” to do things.

Like most of the 3-4 years old girls, I am obsessive with princesses. I love to dress like princesses that’s why I am spoilt by mummy with some princesses dress, tutu, hair accessories etc. However, I do not take care of my stuffs and like to tear or spoilt them so a lot of time I didn’t get to wear all these pretty things.

 

I still love puzzle and already easily conquered up to 70 pieces of puzzle. Mummy said she might want to try me on 100 pieces puzzle soon.

 

I am very particular with certain things now.

I need to make sure my blanket is properly laid on my bed and tuck nicely when I am sleeping. I will wake up crying if I realise my blanket is messy!

I don’t like to walk on the grass bare foot as well. I will complaint and curl up my toes trying to walk on the grass.

My utensils need to be in the same colour – same colour of bowl, plate, fork and spoon.

I know how to help mummy hung up clothes for drying and help her to take the clothes down from the dying rack but it all depends on my mood. I will only help her when I am in my mood of helping.

 

We are each other’s best playmate for now. Most of the time we will play quite rough until one of us get hurts and start crying. There’s good time and bad time for us. We can be very loving for one minute playing happily with each other but the next minute we will fight for toys and start crying and screaming.

 

Mummy said this is called love hate relationship.

Mummy daddy hope that we will grow up to be each other’s best friend.

I'm cute and I know it!!!

Self admiring with mummy's iphone camera.

Our record breaking trip (part 2)

Back in LA resting for 2 days, we started our 2 weeks car journey along California up to San Francisco.

Our 1st stop – Santa Barbara. This is the shortest journey among all as the rest of our journey are at least 4 hours drive. Although this was just a 2 hours journey, it took us close to 7 hours to arrive the destination, as we discovered a premium outlet on the way and spent most of our day there!

The little shopper posing at the Premium outlet

We arrived late at Santa Barbara just in time for late dinner. The next morning the kids woke up pretty early, so we took this opportunity to walk around the beautiful bay and they even have a chance to have a nice morning dip in the pool.

at Santa Barbara – MIssion Santa. Esrene saw the big cross, said “Jesus helps me!!”. She associated the cross with the craft lesson she learned from Sunday School.

2nd stop – Monterey Bay

Beautiful blue turquoise bay, the highlight its Aquarium – lots to see, lots to do there, including activities for kids as small as Rennice! and lots of free tasting food too! This is the best aquarium we have been so far.

 

3rd stop – Yosemite Park

Beautiful serenity national park. This is the 2nd visit for Ida.  We made a very last minute decision to stop there before our next trip so that we can break down the long travelling. The consequences is we have to a dear price for the only available hotel – Wahalla Heritage Hotel. The most expensive hotel room we ever stayed and the most unimpressive one. However, we enjoyed our time at this beautiful park.

4th stop – Lake Tahoe

Beautiful saltwater lake which is one of the famous ski resort. It was the end of Spring when we were there, but it’s still pretty cold and the snows at the top of the mountains were still not fully melted. Thus we have the beautiful scenery surrounded the lake. We had picnic at the lake for the first day. 

Esrene was very disappointed that she was not able to take the cable car as it is only operate during summer. We were 2 weeks too early there.

5th stop – San Francisco

This is our last destination for the holiday. We spent a week in this neighbourhood like city. Our hotel was situated at the top of the hill at Pacific Height with a very nice scenery and beautiful neighbourhood.

our daily exercise walking up and down the slope from the hotel to the bus station nearby. However, we get to see the beautiful neighbourhood when walking around.

To encourage Esrene to walk the slope by herself instead of asking to “bao bao” (carry) mummy had to make the walk interesting by reading the street number of each house with her.

We enjoyed great food, nice scenery. good shopping and great family time together. Daddy is in love with In-N-Out burger after being introduced by mummy.

Flying back to Melbourne, we were very blessed to have some empty seats around. Thus, Selwyn & Rennice had 2 seats by themselves (but of course daddy become the best mattress for Rennice), while Ida & Esrene enjoyed our original 3 seats. They slept through the journey from LA to Auckland.

Traveling with kids mean that we have to forgo a lot of things that we can do eg. watch Broadway show in NY, enjoy the night scene and city night life etc. However, we enjoyed our trip in a different way…the joy of togetherness in one family. There was frustration and tiredness but its all worthy to spend the lovely holiday with our lovely girls, create the wonderful memory together. After all we think, when they grow older, they might not even want to travel with the two old folks anymore  

Our record breaking trip (part 1)

In the month of May, we had our record breaking family holiday to US – the longest family holiday and the furthest so far. We have been flying approx. 11,000 miles on the plane and travelling 3,100 miles on the car!

 

So what makes us decided to fly so far for our family holiday? Firstly Ida’s US visa is about to expire in 1 year’s time, use it while we can. Secondly, AUD is stronger than USD now, so we are in the privilege to travel to US at this moment. Thirdly NewZealand air was having very good promotion on the flight to US early this year. The tickets for 4 of us to fly to US was even cheaper than to Msia.

It was a challenging and tiring trip travelling with 2 kids but we did had a great time together. Here’s our trip’s summary.

We took the 17 hours flight (excluding transit in NZ), flew from Melbourne to LA. Sharing 3 seats with 4 heads was quite challenging. At the end the kids conquered most of our seats when they sleep and left us with not much space to sit.

But the good thing is they were sleeping pretty well during the 13 hours flight. Arriving in LA, we were welcome by our auntie with simple yet delicious home cooking before we heading out for our 1st shopping

Good shopping, great bargain with further coupon discount.

The next day, we heading to Disneyland, to have some magical moments and to full fill our promise to Esrene to see her Minnie Mouse!

The room cards with our individual names    Complementary Mickey shape rice crackers

                                                    bedroom is the hotel suit we stayed

We had a free upgrade to family suite by the hotel which also give us the access to the club house lounge with free 24 hours refreshment, continental breakfast, family movie time etc. Our room was at the 2nd highest floor with the theme park view. So we can watch the “Water of colour” lagoon show and firework from our hotel room at night. This comes in handy when with 2 young ones around.It was not too convenience to drag them out at night to watch all these inside the park.  Praise God for the blessing!

The kids were having great time these 3 days in Disneyland, especially Esrene who gets to see her Minnie Mouse and the princesses and of course get to ride many times on the “horsey” (carousel).

 

Daddy even spoilt her with breakfast dining with the Characters!

The next day, we were off to the East Coast – Philadelphia and New York. Another 6 hours and another time adjustment – 3 hours further from LA. In fact Philadelphia is just our lay over city before heading to NYC as the flight ticket to Phil is much cheaper than NY. Thus, we didn’t get to see much of Phil. One night rest at Philadelphia, we then headed to NY with Amtrak – the fast speed train that only takes 45min to Penn Station, NY, equip with free wifi and spaces seat, BUT costly!!

We spent our next one week in this busy but unique city.

Affinia 50, the worse hotel room we ever stayed!!! All rooms with kitchens, but bad ventilation. We were welcome with strong curry smell after back from our dinner, and early in the morning!!! Move out straight the next day!

It was a last minute changes, so we didn’t have much choice for the available hotel. But we were blessed to get this hotel – DoubleTree Hilton All Suite Hotel for a reasonable price. It’s spacious with a living room equip with sofa bed & a cot for Esrene & Rennice. The best thing is it is in the heart of Time Square!! It is very convenience for us travelling around with the 2 kids. 

We visited the famous buildings and landmark in NYC, went for a picnic in Central Park, walk around Time Square, did some shopping and of course enjoying different type of food there. No we didn’t go to Nigeria Falls as it is 8 hours drive from NY else we have to take flight over there. 7 days is good and relaxing for us to travel around NYC itself in a slow pace and get to know more about the city.

Esrene enjoyed herself running around Centre Park

 

                           Rennice enjoyed the cruise

                  more good foods, window shopping

and Esrene found her “world” just few blocks from our hotel – DISNEY STORE

they got free Disney movies playing and free colouring for kids apart from all the Disney merchants

We enjoyed our one week in this wonderful big city before heading down to Philadelphia, this time we took the 2 hours bus instead to save cost but it was quite a comfortable bus and the 2 kids had good rest in the bus until we arrived.

We managed to enjoy sometimes walking around our hotel at Philadelphia, had nice good food as well before flying off to LA.

we miss this flatbread, tomato basil meal so so much!