Cheryl will be turning 4 in a week and we decided to have her a party earlier.

This time round, we had a lot of little friends who attended and C had a whale of a time with her friends. She was all smiles and played with all of them.

The weather wasn't that fine as it poured heavily around 3 pm and we were kind of worried that our guests would not turn but thankfully, the rained stopped. Our activities were momentarily halted but the kids still had some fun.

It was madness!

The food arrived shortly. Many of the guests loved the mee siam. I must say, it was a good change from the usual and the food had a good mix to suit both adults and children.

C with her some of her friends. I am sorry I wasn't able to capture all of you on camera.

The Racing Team! *That's us right at the back!*

C being the great host by distributing the party bags.

When the cake was delivered, it had to be brought in via the bigger entrance. I thought Daddy Daddy was pulling my leg but he threw me this look of disbelief and said it had to be wheeled in on a trolley.

So there:

C's 4th birthday cake!

We were in there somewhere... hahaha!

C wanted to open her presents immediately after she got back so we allowed her to indulge. :)

Aunt Angie and Uncle Junming got C her first bicycle!

C's loot! She is still receiving presents so more pictures will come! :) And of course, Cheryl wants to thank all the aunties and uncles for taking time off to attend her party. She really appreciates the many gifts she received.

This concludes Part I of her birthday celebrations. She will be having another in school with her teachers and classmates. :)

Happy Birthday, Victoria! :)

Our Little Precious enjoying her cake.

We had a little birthday celebration for Aunt Sandy!

It wasn't a race like usual but Precious plucked up enough courage to ride on the bike. :)

I have a thing for this and if C's pencil or any kind of stationery goes missing because she has misplaced them after using them, I get very crossed with her.

I believe that it is good discipline to be prepared in class: to have proper stationery ready and to have them at hand whenever and wherever she needs them. C does a lot of craft at home hence the scissors and glue stick, she also uses her pencils for writing and colour pencils for drawing. So, she is expected to have all these in her pencil case.

It's not easy because she does take them out during the day and forget to put them back and in the evening, when I am doing work with her and I can't find her pencil or glue stick, I will be really peeved! And then I will send her out to hunt for that missing glue stick till it's found. If she had to miss the activities planned for that evening, so be it. That glue stick must be found! Okay, I am that anal and I have a good reason to be.

A lot of my pupils come to school without a pencil case. Some don't even have a pen and I wonder how is that even possible. When I need them to do work, I see them walking around the class, begging... no, not even that. They just take whoever's pens. They don't even bother to ask. They don't have writing paper to do their work on and some teachers have got around that problem by taking writing papers to class to distribute.

Is this the right thing to do?

Isn't it the duty of these pupils to be prepared for class? To at least come to school with writing paper, pencil, pens, and other stationery? Do I also have to go to class with a box of pens to distribute to these kids? It's amazing how we have to spoon feed them these days. I think, in time to come, teachers might as well sit for their exams, right?

If I am the parent of that child whose pens are always stolen or whose writing papers always finish so quickly, I will be pretty upset too. Yes, I have had parents who complained.

So how?

Be prepared and risked having your items abused?

I think I will insist on C being prepared for class. It's part of good discipline.

Some weeks ago, Daddy brought C down to the Camp I was at with my pupils. C wasn't there long: actually she was there only for the Camp Fire and although it was for a short duration, she picked up this song from the pupils.

It was cute when she said it initially but to have her chanting it endlessly, did drive me up the wall. Hahaha!

So here she is :

We were invited to Gerald's 4th and Glynnis' 1st birthday celebrations. :)

Time really flies... . We want to thank Angelynne for inviting us. :)

We support Billy Graham and his Prayer for Our Nation.

"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.

We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline our children and called it
building self esteem.
We have abused power and called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.
We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and Set us free. Amen!"

How true!

What does this sign mean?

You can't imagine my delight when I saw it!

I guess nowadays as Daddies become more involved in parenting, a toilet like this is definitely a big welcome. A toilet that has a potty for the little one as well as for the adult. Daddies also do have to take their daughters to the loo at times and C's Daddy is always telling me that the Gents are always filthy and not quite a place to bring their little girls or boys in so this toilet here is prefect.

And this is what I like! A place to sit the little one as the Daddies or Mummies answer their call for nature. In the past, I used to take C out on my own often and I never drank water because I never knew how to go to the toilet. When I saw this, I thought the person who came up with this idea must have gone through the same predicament I did.

Well, parents now... Lucky you! :)

Daddy gave me a belated birthday celebration and brought us all to Ashtons at the newly opened Sembawang Shopping Centre. :)

C was very happy and she was delighted at the beauttiful sunset behind us.

We all had a good time there as the food was great and more importantly, we had the company of our family.

C had "planned" a surprise for me and she was going on about how I would be very pleased when I see it.

Yeah, she brought the cake for me!

My colleagues had also earlier in the week treated me to lunch at Zam Zam Restaurant which serves the best murtabak in town.

I am definitely a happy woman! :)

Thank you Dear Hubby, my Precious, our lovely family and of course, my friends at work!

Daddy and I thought it would be a great idea to drive up North since it has been a while. And we didn't take very long to decide on where to go. We have been wanting to go to Bukit Tinggi for ages but somehow had never found the time to do so.

As it was the school holidays, we took the opportunity to give ourselves a little break. So after we picked up Grand Daddy and Mummy, we headed off.

It didn't take us very long to clear the customs and we were on our way... .

We stopped at Seremban for lunch. C wanted chicken rice and luck would have it that we found this food store which served some pretty neat chicken rice! The food was fantastic!

After lunch, we headed back onto the expressway.

We entered the state of Pahang.

We knew we were getting closer not because of the GPS *grin* but also because the roads also started to look very different. Daddy felt like he was a character in the movie Initial D where he had to drive up mountains.

There! Colmar Tropicale! Our lodging for the night! This is the French Village and it really made us feel like we have entered another country. Our rooms were simple yet adequately equipped. We took the 2-bedroom suite.

This is the view from our balcony.

The streets along the hotel and the view from the Watching Tower.

Us!

We went exploring the place a little and ended up in the Japanese Tea Garden.

We asked C if she wanted to try on the kimono and she very gamely obliged so ...

There, our Precious became a Japanese doll!

There were some visitors from Iran and they had their pictures taken with C as well. Then we headed outdoors for more pictures!

Our dinner at Le Orient, one of the many restaurants there. Grand Daddy wasn't into Indo China food and he didn't eat much, C however, almost finished the entire plate of fried rice.

We retired early as Daddy was tired from the driving.

Day 2: After a hearty breakfast, we headed off to visit the Rabbit Farm.

The thing I like about going for such road trips: Nature always never fails to give us some lessons. I showed C the leaves we use for wrapping her favourite bak chang.

The Rabbit Farm

C plucked up enough courage to stroke the rabbits there.

Next, we went to the Stable where...

... both Daddy and Cheryl rode on the horses. It was a dream come true for Daddy for he was always filled with envy when we took C horse riding in the past.

On our way out, we saw there there was a temple and drove there.

Grand Daddy and Mummy said their prayers.

C took these pictures of us!

Downhill and heading towards our next destination: Malacca.

We entered Kuala Lumpur and drove passed many sights. But we didn't like the jam we were caught in at all!

This was the hotel we stayed in.

The interior of Puri Hotel. Actually there are many hotels in Malacca that you can consider.

Then we went for lunch at Nancy's Kitchen. This is arguably the best peranakan restaurant in town. Even Grand Daddy who is a picky eater agreed that the food was great!

The ayam pedas was delicious!

Look at C enjoying her food!

After that, it was dessert time and where else would we go but this:

Heavenly! :)

Then as Daddy headed back to the hotel for his much deserved rest, the rest of us did a little walking around Jonker Street.

The famous Chicken Rice Balls! But ...

you should really try this. :)

Malacca has changed quite a bit over the years. The river which used to be so filty is cleaned up now and rides on the river are definitely more enjoyable. Puri Hotel is in Jonker Street itself so it made it very convenient for us to walk around and take pictures.

It was Grand Daddy who requested that we have dinner at Newton Food Centre so we did. He must have missed the food here. :)

The next morning, we visited the Cheng Ho Cultural Museum. This was a very fruitful trip as we had a guided tour and learned a great deal about Admiral Cheng Ho and his voyages. Of course, we also learned a lot about the history of Malacca.

C saw many of these wells and even fed fishes.

Some of the artifects we saw. This is a wedding sedan used in the olden days.

History came alive for Daddy! He tried to grind some beans.

We walked through this really narrow path to get to another part of the museum. The museum actually spans 8 shophouses and it is really huge. And honestly, I am not giving the place enough justice because the museum has a lot more to offer.

Part of the museum was made to resemble the inside of the ships that Cheng Ho was on. This is the sleeping quarters. And some ships house livestocks for food.

C sounding the drum. Admiral Cheng Ho would have most probably used the drum to let his fleet know which way to go too.

We also learned that you can tell how old these buildings are just by looking at the bricks. These are known as the Dutch bricks and they were used to build these shop houses way before the British came.

After our tour of the museum, we headed back to the hotel and then checked out shortly after to return to Singapore. Although a short trip, we learned so much! :)