Our long overdue update….

It had been a long time Mummy did not share about the kids. Work and home, both had been busy. The kids had been great and active, keeping both PaPa and Mummy busy all the time. A short update on the kids…

JL
He had been active boy who needed activities to keep him occupied. When we went for any dinner like wedding and birthday dinner, we would make sure JL packed some coloring books and toys to keep him occupy.

He had been picking up some Mandarin and was talking Mandarin to his great grandmother (PohPoh’s Mummy) who was indeed so happy having her great grandchild speaking Mandarin to her.

His would usually be an angel to us by taking care of AL whom he adored a lot (geram…). He would also help up with grocery shopping by helping to tick the shopping list, keeping AL occupied in the trolley and also helped to manage the shopping bags. Yes, we tried as much as we could to use shopping bag as playing our part on recycling. We were trying as much as we could to be environmental friendly. Mummy needed to take some time to read up Green Study written by others and learnt from other people’s sharing.

At time when he acted up opposite especially when he tired or sleepy, he could create disaster to us with all his whining and shouting. Besides that, when he had nothing to do, he would also create trouble but doing all his stunts etc. AL would be fascinated and tried to join along...LOL…
AL
AL’s solid had improved as compared to last time but not as good as his big brother. On Saturdays, Mummy would usually cook multi grains with legumes, lentils and vegetables using the small thermal pot which we got from credit card redemption cash voucher. JL loved it too that he requested me to cook more so that he could eat with AL too.

She had been busy walking and refused the stroller unless napping time.

Being a girl, didn’t mean she is gentle, for example, she would pushed a small chair to climb up to the adult dining chair, then she would continued to climb up to the dining table once she cleared off the dining table (pushed everything down to the floor).

AL still on 100% breast milk because Mummy needed to clear stock in the freezer which had balance about 200 oz. Mummy currently only pumped once a day which would be evening after coming back from work. So, now Mummy was able to wear dresses to office now since no pumping session in office.

AL loved JL a lot and she loved to imitate JL from food to stunts etc. almost everything…

Her favorite toys would be the cooking set. She loved playing with the kitchen set which JL got during his last birthday.

Her favorite words were PaPa (which really melted her PaPa’s heart and she was indeed PaPa’s daughter) and TaTa (which meant KorKor and JL loved it a lot). ‘Mummy’ would be the only word she had yet to pick up. So sad….
Summary
Taking care both of them could be stressful and tiring especially when Mummy was alone but it was a rewarding experience…PaPa would help up when he was around at home like bathing the kids etc. However, we enjoyed bringing the kids for outing and spending time at home...just four of us…

Recovery - W.I.P

After the disaster, Mummy took some time to try to recover as much as Mummy could by picking up bits and pieces. A lot of things were missing which was hard to recall. Mummy tried to set-up the Sept and Oct Expenses first in order to continue update our family expenses. As for the history, Mummy would need a lot of time to see how much Mummy could recover.

Thanks for all the comforting words from all of you. It did make Mummy felt better over the weekend.

This was a very extremely hard lesson learnt. Mummy needed to be discipline to back-up into the external HDD. Mummy was also considering to also back-up via online and what do you think? Can someone suggest any reliable free online storage which Mummy could use?

The simple Excel Expenses record was set-up to record our major expenses and commitment. Mummy did not record all the fine detail expenses because it was time consuming.

Why Mummy needed to record?

This was to ensure that:

• All the main and important commitments were paid
• We settled the debts example credit cards and apartment loans (especially to avoid the unnecessary late charges and finance charges).
• All cheques issued would not be bounced (to avoid being blacklisted by Bank Negara).
• We monitored our interest free installments payment and to avoid over committed on too many interest free installment at one time.
• We had enough cash to pay our family and friends on any debt (as required)
  

We had no choice but to try our best to monitor our cash flow as much as we could to avoid going into high debts. After Mummy made this expense record, then Mummy could understand more about our family expenditure and this was able to assist both PaPa and Mummy to plan what we could and could not afford.

We just learnt to be contented with what we had now without thinking of buying a landed property for current moment knowing we could not afford. Well, maybe in future we might be able to get one? Maybe….

Delivery of purchase and gifts..

For the past few months, we had been getting a few deliveries which some for Mummy, JL and AL. Some was delivered via registered envelope and some via shipping box.

Mummy had no time to update but in short, the orders were Mama Pads for Mummy, wool pants plus knitted cap for AL and Lego gift for JL. Mummy would update the detail once Mummy could find some time.

There were so many things to share and update but Mummy wished Mummy had more time…

Food food food

This weekend would be a long weekend for all of us. Our timetable would be quite full meeting up and catching up with friends. As we know, when we meet up with friends, it would usually be an eating session where more food and more food.

We would be having Mummy’s grandmother birthday dinner. Then we would be meeting up with church friends for evening tea (more food) and also maybe another meeting up with an old colleague pending for confirmation.

Mummy needed to find the best way to lose belly fat. Anyone could share your tips? Really admire those mummies with flat tummy.

Mummy is very very very sad…..over a corrupted Excel

Mummy had a simple excel to manage our family expense. Mummy had several worksheets by months. Besides that, there were some worksheets to record all the debts (Interest Free Installments).

All was saved in a small external HDD.

Guess what happen?

The whole excel got corrupted when Mummy tried to open this morning to update the expense. Mummy’s heart cried and it was very very sad.

Mummy tried to check on a big external HDD which Mummy used as back-up for the company documents (because Mummy’s company did not provide us any space to back-up our documents). The expense excel last updated was in May09 and now already Sept09. Besides that during such a short period, Mummy made a few changes on the Excel. Sob sob sob…..

Mummy was and still in the lost on how to restructure back all ….sooo sad…………..

090909 – 2am…Sleeepppy…

AL was full of energy. After fetching her back from KongKong and PohPoh’s apartment, she took a short nap and then she was wide awake till about 2am...Yes 2am.

She would walk around the whole apartment, climbed up the sofa, take the toys out from the container, open and close the cupboards, calling loudly in her baby talk etc...

Mummy tried all different ways but she would just scream and wiggle her way out from her bed. At the end, Mummy left her on the floor with cushions and toys while Mummy sat on the sofa.

JL and PaPa were already in the “lah lah” land and Mummy was yawning all the way…

Then she started to tire off slowly and roll on the floor (on cushions). Mummy took her to her bed and she was struggling a bit trying to keep herself awake even though she was extremely tired.

Mummy was extremely (very extremely) sleepy this morning. AL was totally sleepy that even though we moved her using the pram to go KongKong and PohPoh’s apartment, she was still sleeping soundly…

That was how AL and Mummy welcome 090909….

Cancun All Inclusive Adults Only

Maybe PaPa and Mummy needed a break just both of us....after all the stress we had been facing.

Imagine relaxing in such a beautiful beach, closing our eyes by hearing the waves beating the beach. On top of that, imagine having our tired bodies being pampered by great and relaxing spa. It was such a lovely dream to dream.

A holiday just for two of us having to do nothing and just lazing around spending time just the two of us…It has been a long overdue. Since we had our kids, we had never go anywhere without our kids.

Cancun All Inclusive Adults Only was such a tempting offer to us. However, we had different commitment to commit currently and hope our dream would come true, one day...one day…

Hardly online?

Some of you must be wondering why Mummy hardly online?

Well, it is because the office internet is soooo sooooo the very slow… anyway you all can still catch up with me on my email and hphone….

Mummy must have missed out a lot of updates from a lot of wonderful mummies out there….trying Mummy’s best to read all the blogs’ updates.

Mummy wants to take this opportunity to just let all of you know that you are all GREAT and WONDERFUL friends to Mummy. Some we have met and some we have chat and some we have sms via hphone…

All in all, you are precious to Mummy’s heart. Mummy hope we can keep in touch and be friends forever….

All of you...take care yar…..

Baby Cot is now empty…for almost 1 month…

Our room’s baby cot was empty for almost one month. We were planning to put AL to sleep with JL only when she would be 2 years old like JL.

However, AL seemed unable to sleep long in the baby cot. We tried letting her sleep in her adult single bed in JL’s room and she was able to sleep longer. We transferred the living room’s cushions and put on the floor between JL and AL’s beds. Next to AL, we put two adult pillows in one row.

What was the outcome?
She had been sleeping with JL every day and even at night since she was about 1 year old.

Breastfeeding?Initially Mummy was sleeping with AL on either the bed or the floor between the children’s bed. Then last few nights, Mummy slept in Mummy’s own room and Mummy being a light sleeper, so far able to hear AL crying for milk. So, Mummy would just walk over and feed her.

AL also had no problem coming down from the bed because we taught her to go down from the back first. She was also able to climb up and down the sofa.

Now, both JL and AL would sleep and nap in their own room.(History of the Kids' Room Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3)

For the past 1 month, we had been shopping for nice bed sheet for AL. To be fair, we wanted to get two nice sets for AL like how we got for JL. JL had two nice cartoon bed sheet sets plus some other plain color ones as spare which would be shared with AL. We took time to hunt and hunt in order to get a good bargain. We got her a nice Winnie the Pooh set with a big discount (more than 50%). The next set, we would love to get Princess AL set for her.

Mummy’s kids had grown up already…..quite sad also to see them growing fast…