I know it is a bit early to put up a Chinese New Year banner. Christmas just over and since I was so vain to put up a x’mas banner for the site, now I have to change the banner again for Chinese New Year, for consistency. Actually also becos Daddy complaint about not including his pic in the xmas banner. It is really tough to find a decent family pic. Most of the time, the picture is either ME with Mal or Mal with Dad and out of the bunch of family pics that I have, I have to filter out those with 3 of us looking good and that usually left me with less than a handful.

Anyway, It is quite a lot of work to come up with a new banner since I am not a pro nor a very creative person, but I actually enjoy doing it, working my right brain a little. Because it is MY site, I can really do whatever I want
So I was working on it the whole evening and thanks to Photoshop, a truly amazing powerful tool. There are so many things to learn and explore and I wish I can learn every bit of it, without going through the step by step tutorial. But I guess there ain’t any short cuts. Anyway, here is a peek at my other baby.Now that I am done with the new look, I feel so happy, satisfied and contented! Going to have a blasting good time tomorrow, counting down to 2008!!! Hope you have fun too!

We had a simple dinner celebration at our place on christmas eve. Compared to the many parties and gatherings that we had, this was the most relaxed, least stressful. Maybe because there were 3 of us doing the cooking, me, daddy and ??, further more, the food wasn’t alot. I made chicken wings and cheesecake, Daddy made baked pork chop, salmon cheese spread on crackers and another blue cheese spread which was thrown away cos we simply couldn’t heck the pungent blue cheese smell! and we had salad, lots and lots of fruits for chocolate fondue by ??.

After dinner we gathered around the christmas trees and had loads of fun having each one guess the presents before opening them.

It was a simple, no fuss evening and we were happy to spend this holiday with people we love most.

Went to Botanic Garden the other day for lunch. While the big people sit and chat at the cafeteria, the kids have fun running around. We entrusted Mal with the camera and of course the kids love it. They took turns to help each other take pictures. We were glad that the camera was still working and intact after that.

my cousinsqing qing and min minand finally….

GOTCHA!!

This year’s christmas is a little bit special as for the first time, Mal

he had the most fun decorating the cards with stickers

2. write a christmas card for Santa
he actually wanted to tell Santa how much he enjoying watching his Rudolf Reindeer video but it was too ‘chim’ for him to write. We wrote a simple one instead.3. Makes our first christmas banner
This was made on christmas eve itself. He actually spelt out the word ‘christmas’ this time instead of using ‘x’mas’ and decorating the banner with glitter glue was alot of fun. Even for me. 4. sing a complete christmas song
Jingle Bell is one of them. He actually memorize the lyrics more than the tune. So for some part, he sounds more like reading a book than singing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwRoYMzlWPQ&rel=1]

P/s: By the way, the weird creature we saw was a Colugos or Flying Lemur. It was a male one thus the reddish colour. Thanks to the reply of Kwokwai from Wildlife Singapore

There is a new place to rough it out with your kids in Singapore. It’s the HSBC Treetop Walk @ MacRitchie Reservoir. This is a challenging one. The main highlight of the hike which is the tree top walk itself, a free-standing suspension bridge that connects the two highest points (Bukit Peirce and Bukit Kalang) in MacRitchie, and is only about 250m long, height from the forest floor varies with the highest point at 25m.

There are few routes to the treetop walk which is in the midst of the forest. We took the trail from Venus Drive and it took us 2 hours to hike to and fro. Not sure the exact distance we covered. The hike proved to be too challenging for Mal and for the 2 times we were there, Daddy had to piggy back him 1/2 way on our return route. We started off quite late on our 2nd visit but with the lush green forest and thick forest canopy, we almost couldn’t feel the scorching sun except for areas where we need to walk along the road. We could smell the greens, refreshing and a little bit musky even at mid day. I love the smell just like I love the morning smell.

The highlight for the hike was more than the tree top walk, it was the many plants, little streams, insects, bugs and even wild animals we saw along the way. For a while, it reminds me of our hike in Hawaii. The tropical rainforest almost felt the same.

Our best part of the hike was this …Daddy spotted this while we were on our way back after crossing the tree top walk.

We thought was a Flying Fox, but a search on the web shows that they don’t resemble what we saw. I was initially fearful to get close but later realised that it was too good an opportunity to miss taking a closer look at such an unusual ‘animal’ in the wild esp in Singapore. So I got as near as Daddy and Mal (Daddy was piggy backing Mal) and manage to take this close up shot of the unusual ‘animal’. I felt brave, a little improvement from the Black Bear incident in Yellowstone National Park
It looks like a huge lethargic squirrel which was not the least agile. We were so close to it and with all the rustling sound of the leaves we made, this ‘animal’ just stay stuck on the tree, shifting a little to move from one side of the trunk to the other. Till now we still have no clue what this weird animal was. Can Someone Tell Us What We Saw ???

Mal is a rockets and planes fanatic, a little more of the latter. Topics on airplanes and rockets never fail to interest him and he can ramble on and on. It is a natural ice breaker when he meets strangers. Some of his current favourite things are (related to planes and rockets)
1. the plane magazine section in Borders
2. any books on planes and rockets
3. Legos …as he can built planes and rockets again and again

4. these light weight wooden model airplanes

5. this particular volume of Tin Tin comic bookas it is about an adventure to the moon. It all started when Daddy borrowed a french version of this from the library, hoping to practise reading French. The book attracted Mal with its rockets, space and moon picture and he absolutely fell in love with it after watching the DVD. Now if you ask him, he will tell you Tin Tin is from France!

6. This video from YouTube which shows how the airbus was assembled in 7 minutes. His latest favourite plane is no longer the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet but the Airbus 380.

7. Changi beach …

as he gets to see planes flying right over him !

What is making Mal so sad again?

Last weekend at east coast, we rented a bike for Mal and he cycled close to 8 km which I think was a real feat for a 3 year old. At bedok jetty where we took a break, I accidentally toppled his water bottle and it rolled right off the jetty and into the water.

It was his one and only water bottle. The one with the Lightning McQeen picture. The one which we bought from Target. The one with memory from Phoenix.

Both Daddy and myself who were in our blades failed to save the water bottle in time. We contemplated for awhile whether to jump into the water to get the bottle but decided not to as though it was easy to reach the bottle, it would be a long swim back to the shore..

We sat and watched the bottle slowly drift out into the big big ocean. It’s like dying a slow death and it feels horrible to be so helpless. Mal must have felt much worse than us as he wailed and cried and clung on to Daddy for comfort.

That evening, we brought him a brand new water bottle, this time a Bob the Builder one with a strap for him to sling over his shoulder. It is a consolation to him for losing the old one.