Friday, March 20, 2015

Display of Lights at the Kek Loh Si Temple

Penang's iconic temple, Kek Lok Si or the Temple of Supreme Bliss, features a special lighting display each year during Chinese New Year.  This year the Display of Lights were lighted up from February 14 to March 18, 2015.  The 124-year-old temple lighting symbolizes peace, luck and prosperity.  

We were able to catch it three nights before it was over.  Going at the tailend of the Display of Lights schedule meant much lesser crowd.  It was a wonderful and enchanting night.

Forgive the image quality, pictures were only taken from a hand phone.  Sarah was sleeping on my shoulder as I snap away pictures that night.













Thursday, March 19, 2015

Sarah, 4 years update

My sweet baby is now a little lady!

School. Sarah started Creche (Nursery) at Fairview International School right after her 4th birthday.  Her school is right in front of our apartment, very convenient!  With her singing and dancing skills, she has been chosen thrice to perform for the school celebrations of Chinese New Year, Sports Day and Learning Program.  Stage mother me is always there to record her school performances :)

Favorite toys/shows. My Little Pony, Paw Patrol and Sofia the First. Still into the Frozen fever.  Recent addition is Cinderella!  Still enjoys wooden blocks, clay, building blocks, scooter.

OCD streak.  Sarah has shown tendencies to have OCD.  She dislikes spills on her shirt, on the floor or on the table.  She would quickly clean it up otherwise the cranky monster will come out.  

She possesses a happy disposition.

Milk and food.  Milk consumption has gone down to 2 cups a day, still on Pediasure Complete.  Favorite foods include wan tan mee, mac and cheese, fried rice, chicken noodles, red/white sauce pasta, pizza, chicken burger. Fave fruits include blueberries, strawberries, mangoes, apple, and watermelon.  She likes fruit smoothies as well.  Enjoys baking cupcakes.

Reader.  Sarah's not reading quite yet. Ravi and I don't want to rush her although she can already read a few words.  She has a deep love of books and loves being read to.  She's currently enjoying a map of the world sticker book.  When it's not reading night, she loves watching 'learning videos' as she calls it.  She would ask how teeth grows and we would watch videos on it.  Other topics she had asked to do the learning videos are on planets and the solar system, dinosaur stuff, how blood flows into the body, how rainbows come about, etc. 

Entertains herself with drawing and coloring.
Arts.  My collection of her drawing is steadily growing. Give her color pencils and paper and she'll whip you up with drawings and matching dedication "For mama.  Love Sarah."  Every time we're out (and when Reena's around), we bring along art supplies to while away the time.  This is especially handy when restaurants don't have kiddie stuff for kids. Recent favorites are sparkly gel pens!  Sarah's art also makes their way into our apartment walls and on body parts as tattoos!  It's all good as she learns to express herself through art.

Cranky mode.  She eventually comes around when she's ready.
Emotions.  She's a bundle of emotions especially when she's cranky.  There have been misplaced frustrations with huffing, puffing, stomping, and major cries! Sarah will break away into a corner, arms crossed and bawl away. I let her be though, telling her to come to me when she's ready.  Sure enough, she'll come running and says she's ready.  That's the time we talk about what happened.  A tickle, cuddle and a kiss and everything's sunshiny once again.  Sarah's generally a happy person, singing her thoughts out loud, dancing in and out of the house.  Ravi says she has the happy genes of the Filipinos :)

Mature.  She prefers to talk to grown ups instead of kids her age. I've seen so many times how she chats up older kids and adults instead of playing and talking with kids her age.  When asked, most of the time she'll say the boy/girl is too shy and does not talk so she talks to the bigger kids.

She's my favorite girl in the world! :)

Friday, March 13, 2015

Awesome time at Sta. Elena Fun Farm

I've been reading nothing but good raves about this farm so I made sure my family and I try it out last home visit.

Visits are on a four-hour block; we got the 11am-3pm slot on January 4th, a Sunday.  We brought along packed lunch and drinks.  There's no restaurants on the farm itself so it's best to bring food. Actually you can order from the country club restaurant but the rates are pretty high and delivery takes quite a long time, as we've seen from a couple of families who ordered.

Farm animals we encountered include rabbits, guinea pigs, chicken, ducks, horses, carabaos, goats and wild boars.  Visitors can do rabbit & guinea pig feeding, fishing, boating, horse back riding, carabao cart riding, zip lining and more!  The place is truly meant for families to be hands on with animals and experience nature related activities.  It was definitely a fun day at the farm!

For more details, you may contact them at Balik Bukid or at their FB page here.

These two were rushing to get in!
Swings and free range chickens greeted the little girls.
Cute rabbits
Guinea pigs in the next cage area.
Wooden teepee in a field.
Tire and rope courses aplenty
Kids and kids at heart enjoyed climbing this rope course.
Carabao cart ride around the farm
Horse back riding for everyone.
Kids busy catching fish.
Grown ups side of the fishing area :)
Sarah caught 2 fish on her first fishing expedition!  My sister, Abet, finally caught one before we left.
Piggy back rides for the tired girls; sweet moment between Sofi and Sarah.
Swings made of recycled tires.
Same pose :)
Little ponys!  
Balancing at a different rope course.
Boating time.
Rap didn't like the hot weather, he stayed indoors most of the time with his ipad.  We persuaded him to climb up the zipline area and he did.  Rap suffers from acrophobia or fear of heights so it was a big deal for us that he was able to cross the zipline teepee on his own :)
The girls did the zipline! Sarah was a little scared, Sofi was much braver!
The mommies did it too! 



The Big Bad Wolf is in Penang once again!


They're back!  I've hoarded a year's supply of story books for Sarah the previous year and we had a great rotation of reading stash.  Good luck to my wallet this weekend haha

Check out their webpage, Big Bad Wolf 2015, for more details.


Wednesday, March 04, 2015

Ginger tea

​At the onset of sore throat and/or colds, ginger tea is my go-to home remedy.

It's highly effective in relieving sore throat after taking only two cups, at least in my experience.  I drink ginger tea for a whole day and usually the sore throat and/or colds disappears.  The best thing about it is ginger is all natural and always available at home.

To prepare, use 3-5 knobs of peeled ginger.  I give them a good whack
 to release the 
aroma and flavor 
before putting it in a pan. Boil 
the ginger with 2
​-3
 cups of water.
​ Cool down a bit before drinking.  

Adding honey or lemon slices are optional.​
I take my ginger tea as is.