Silver Bells...

... was playing on the radio today. We're already listening to Christmas songs on the radio and in shops and restaurants.

This is further up on the road that we live on. The colours of the trees are changing, and we pulled over to the side of the road after picking J up from school to take this picture.

We're defrosting a turkey now! In a bucket. Our church here is having a big thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, and we volunteered to contribute a turkey. Oh, we don't have to cook it, just contribute one!

E doing as Daddy does.
She clambered into her high-chair by herself, grabbed Kor-kor's computer and started typing away. She takes it really seriously: she'll get really upset if the computer doesn't turn on properly!

Just to be sure that she wasn't missing out on anything, E wanted to check out the newspapers as I was reading.

Mom Overture

I love this!

Happy birthday, Godma!

Our Day Out With Thomas

We went to the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris today, about a 45-minute drive away. This trip was long in the making; I had come across, some time ago, an event called Day Out with Thomas, where basically the Thomas the Tank Engine theme is brought to an existing train museum. The Orange Empire Railway Museum was the nearest one to us that had this event.

The kids got to sit in a train pulled by Thomas himself! But the highlight, for J at least, was the Imagination Station, where tables are laden with wooden train tracks and the floor is covered with plastic train tracks - just so you have a choice. How he has missed this.


Lest you think E was bored, you can see how busy she kept herself. The kids also got to check out model railways, clamber on vintage trains, and bounce in a bounce house.

A Box, A Fireplace and Satay

K's been pretty busy with mid-terms and papers so we've kept a low profile over the past couple of weeks. Still we have to entertain ourselves somehow.

So who needs a new toy when you have a box to play with? Not E.


It was either walking around with the box literally on top of her, or climbing in and out, and in and out again.

We had a warm day today, but it's been cold enough the past week for us to light a fire in our fireplace. We're enjoying the cooler weather, especially when it's also sunny out. But it's also a lot more work getting the kids ready to go out. Jackets or sweaters, socks and long pants are now de rigeur.


Satay for dinner last night! It tasted pretty good, even though the meat lacked the charred bits of properly grilled satay.

Here's J enjoying kway teow soup. He liked it so much he insisted I take a picture of him eating it.

Relax

E was making a fuss at lunch today because Daddy was feeding her instead of Mummy, who was busy in the kitchen. She fussed and cried, and dumped the food on her spoon on the table or the floor instead of putting it into her mouth. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common occurence at mealtimes nowadays, which makes for difficult scenes when we go out to eat.

But today, even J had had enough. In a moment that lightened our moods considerably, he said in a world-weary tone, "Re-lax, re-lax, re-lax, Mei-mei".

Then later on, when Daddy was sounding a bit stressed because E was messing up his school papers, J repeated, "Re-lax, Dad".

Busy Saturday

The kids got to go to a birthday party at a park in Rancho Cucamonga on Saturday. Cupcakes, playing in the sand, climbing on the playground structures, and general mad running around. Lots of fun for the kids.

Still Enamoured

Notwithstanding the distractions that cars, planes and monster trucks have provided, J is still enamoured with his first love!

A trip out to the Travel Town Museum today. J was suitably excited, and even remembered to bring along his toy trains so that he could use the train table laid out there.

Under Siege

Now that we are well and truly in November, it feels like all the stores are pulling out all the stops for Christmas. There are fierce advertisements on TV, catalogues that come in the mail, and mailers with discount coupons that come with the newspapers. A little bit scary.

It feels like the weather has finally cooled down too. Which is nice for now. I'm sure the novelty will be over by the time we get to January.

About Food. Again.

Never underestimate the lengths a Singaporean will go to to find good food. K had to contend with a screaming E this morning (while I spent the morning at school with J fulfilling my parent participation requirement) and yet he still managed to find Yazmin, a Malaysian restaurant, located in Alhambra, about 25 minutes away.

It was good! They didn't bother to dumb down the names of the dishes for the ang-mohs, so we saw sambal udang, nasi lemak and mee tai bak on the menu.

J was beside himself with the mee tai bak that we ordered. He pretty much finished ALL the mee tai bak in his bowl, and topped it off with all the fishballs that were in the bowl too. K had the mee goreng and I had nasi lemak. E approved of the mee goreng, which was probably the least authentic dish - not fried dry enough. Not that she cared. She was lapping it up. Literally.

Kang kong with Cuttlefish. Unfortunately the only thing I managed to catch on camera. Everything else was eaten up.

Oh, hilarious moment. While we were there, we heard the song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol...

K: Oh, that's by Snow Patrol, right?

J (in alarm): Mum?! No petrol??? The car have no petrol, Mum?

He is such a worrywart, my son.