A Gossipy Moment

To celebrate Sarah's birthday, let me share one of her more gossipy moments.

Here's what she had to say to her best friend Piglet over the phone.
"Tell you ah, this hotel that I'm at very nice, you know. They even have a special bed for me with bars all around to keep my kor kor out and give me peace, haha. Some more hor, I have Mummy all to myself, cos Kor Kor always go disturb Grandpa and Grandma, and Daddy always meet with all the granduncles and grandaunties, so Mummy is mine, ALL mine! Kee Kee!"

One Liner Joke from Caleb

The previous night, Caleb was preparing to go to bed and out of the blue he just asked me in a very innocent and earnest voice," Mummy, is Mickey Mouse a monkey?"

I couldn't help but burst out laughing. I thought about it and I have to agree, to a certain extent Mickey with his two big ears sticking out and his life size, does somewhat resemble the cartoon drawings of the monkeys that Caleb has seen.

Well, but I still had to correct my son so I asked him,"Caleb, what do you call Mickey? Mickey...?"

That's when he smiled and said," Mickey... Mouse!" Oh, he's a mouse!"

And we all had a good laugh.

KL Trip

Here's the highlights of our KL trip. We drove up to KL the weekend before Hari Raya Haji and the jam was MAD. Typically it takes us 4-5hrs to drive to KL. For this trip, we took almost 11hrs, and only reached the hotel at 11.30pm. Thankfully the kids were good, especially Caleb. He just patiently sat in the car throughout the journey, listening to songs and talking to us and sleeping. I was surprised that he could last so long without any complaints and I didn't need to take out my portable DVD to entertain him at all.

We stopped over at Malacca for dinner and to wait for Chek Chek, Grandma and Grandpa to catch up with us. The shopping mall that we stopped at had those electronic kiddy rides where you can ride around freely. Caleb was obviously attracted to them and he knew who to work on to get his rides. So, his chosen"victim" was Grandpa and he got himself not one but two rides that night.

Here he comes, the young, handsome and suave driver...


Watch out girls!


Wait! Look who's here... Looks like one who's not to be trifled with...


Keep your hands off my bro!


See the look on my face?! DO I look like I'm joking?!!?


See Kor Kor, I've scared off the unimportant girls for you...


Anyway, that was that in Malacca. When we finally reached KL, it was close to midnight and after dropping our bags in our room, we were immediately initiated into the start of our nightly "illegal" meetings. At any one time, I think there's at least 20 of us in the hotel room, consisting of 4 generations. Indeed, this trip to KL was a meetup with relatives from Sabah, Australia, KL and S'pore. And since it was rare that Grandpa's siblings see each other, every night, after we come back from dinner, everybody would gather in Caleb's great grandma and great grandaunt's room to chat. Ya, everybody has got so much to say that the average time that they leave to go back to their room is 1.30am. The night before we were due to come back to Spore, which was also the same night that we attended the wedding dinner, the meeting dispersed at 3am! Hee, I was "excused" from the late night meetings coz I had to put the children to sleep but still, everynight, the kids slept close to midnight coz of all the activities going on, so you can imagine how tired we all were from our holiday.

Meeting in progress... This was taken at midnight, when we first arrived.
Can you see how awake everybody looks... This is the scene EVERY night...



According to Daddy, at any one time, there's at least 3 different conversations going on at the same time at three different volumes... loud, louder and loudest! If your intended target can't hear you, just talk louder! Amazingly, the only compliant that we got from the hotel staff was to close our doors when we were not in the rooms (cos everyone is just next to one another, it's like staying at the hostel, why close the doors? :)). Looks like the staff were more concerned about security than about guest peace :)

Well, other than the nightly meetings, we did the typical Singaporean (and very Sabahan) thing...

Eating...


Shopping...


and looking at Christmas lights...




Oh and not to forget, the main reason why we went to KL... to attend Monica's wedding...
See familee with the beautiful bride (who looks incredibly like one of the Hong Kong actress)...


And when there's a wedding, of course we'll take lots of family photos!
Here's the two grand dames of our family.
Chek Chek with Caleb's Great Grandma


Sarah with Great Grandaunt


Sarah with Grand Uncle Simon. This is the first time that Sarah's meeting up with the extended Lee family and when they saw her, they all said that she looked very much like Uncle Simon's daughter, Ruth and they all gave her the nickname xiao lu lu. Apparently Sarah's hair and tiny pouty mouth looked very much like Ruth's as a baby.


Here's Caleb with his cousin Issac. Finally a male cousin who's able to play together with him.


Daddy with Sarah


Here's photos of Chek Chek with his princess.
These are what I call photos for Chek Chek to con girls with...



And lastly, our family photo!


What an eventful trip!

SickLee Christmas

What a sicklee christmas week it has been. Here's a quick run down of what happened.

Mon 22/12 - Caleb's eyes swell, slight fever. Daddy has fever and body aches.
Tue 23/12 - Caleb and Daddy sees Doctor Kevin, Daddy's fever peaks at night.
Wed 24/12 - Mummy sees Doctor Kevin with stomachache, Daddy's fever drops, Sarah's fever starts.
Thu 25/12 - FamiLee celebrates the feverish festive Christmas with us all either starting fever (Mummy), having fever (Sarah), or just recovering from fever (Caleb, Daddy). Sarah's fever peaks at 40 deg, next 2 sleepless sponging nights for mummy and daddy. Merry Christmas!
Fri 26/12 - Caleb on the road to recovery, Daddy's fever drops (headache persists), Mummy's fever persists, Sarah's drops slightly with medication.
Sat 27/12 - Caleb almost there, Daddy almost there (headache persists), Mummy still with slight fever and headache, Sarah still with slight fever and headache.

It's been a trying time, thank God for pulling us through and the enforced rest (we probably needed it). It's good that the sickness started early enough, else if we had gone for all the parties, it could have been worse.

Merry Christmas everyone! May the love shown through the coming of Baby Jesus fill your hearts!

A teaser for things to come...

Silence from us?

So Dec is a crazy month for us coz we're usually packed up to our necks with activities and that explains the silence that you're getting. Well, to give a preview of how busy we've been, we've been to 3 weddings over a span of 10 days! And each wedding has got church wedding followed by wedding dinner. One of the weddings was held in KL so we were away for the first weekend. We've started going for Christmas parties. This coming week we've got 3 more parties lined up (consecutively) and I've got a 4th wedding to attend. On top of all these, we're going to celebrate Sarah's birthday... so we're really up to our necks with gatherings!
Don't get me wrong, I love Dec coz of all the parties and food and of coz catching up with friends and presents and most importantly, the reminder of God's love for us through the birth of Jesus Christ, but... yes, it can be physically tiring especially when the kids get tired out and cranky... so, pls bear with the slow moving posts. And as usual, I'm hoarding up tons of good stuff!

Childlike Faith

I learnt a lesson about childlike faith from Caleb yesterday. We've been having lots of activities this month and the children have been having naps disrupted and late nights. So yesterday, after being out for most part of the day and coming home at midnight from our CG party on Friday, Caleb woke up close to midnight with a high fever. He was quite cranky and I thought it's coz he's tired out but when I held him close, I realised that his body was very hot and upon taking his temperature, I got a shock to see that it was at 39.2C. Me and Daddy quickly sprang into action to give him some fever medicine and to get him to lie on his fever mat. And as we were going about getting Caleb medicine and water etc, Caleb said to the two of us,"Daddy, Mummy, you must pray for me. Pray that God will heal me of my fever." Ya, that's my son telling us that at midnight. So, we settled him down and we said a short prayer with him, asking God to grant him a speedy recovery and take away his fever.

Well, what do you know? The next morning when he woke up, the fever was totally gone. And the boy was as active as ever. Honestly, I was surprised. Ya, me and my little faith. From Caleb's track record, his fever usually takes 2-3 days to go away, especially when it's this high. It's never gone away within 1 night. I took his temperature throughout the day just to be sure and praise the Lord, it's really gone!

So while I was taking Caleb's temperature in the morning, I said,"wah Caleb, your fever's gone!" He grinned at me and said,"God healed me right? He took away my fever right?" He said it with such childlike faith and he looked truly delighted.

I was reminded that our God is the God of impossibles. He has the ability to do anything and that includes taking away Caleb's fever in just 1 night. I remember hearing a pastor speak about faith and he said that when you pray and ask God about something, after you finish praying, you should have an expectant heart and look out for God's response. What's the point of praying about something when you don't believe it in your heart that God has heard you and would respond in some way or other. Ya, so last night when I prayed for Caleb for a speedy recovery, I believed that God would heal him, but I didn't really expect Him to take away his fever the very next day. Thank God Caleb has got more faith than me!

So, my dear Caleb, even as Mummy appears to be bossing you around everyday and telling you what to do, I thank God for these invaluable lessons that you're teaching me as well.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."~Matthew 19:14~

Independence Day

Yup, the day my son has been waiting for... or rather pining for. Yup, believe it or not, he is already thinking of his Independence Day.

I was driving him home from school one day when he asked me...
Caleb : Daddy, how old must you be before you can go home on your own, even though you are small?
Daddy : Why? You want to go home on your own?
Caleb : Yes! I know how to go home on my own already.
Daddy : Oh, is that so?
Caleb : Yes, first I walk to the bus stop near my school. Then I take bus.
Daddy : You know where to get down?
Caleb : Yes, the bus uncle will tell me.
Daddy : Oh, better wait till you are older than we see how ok?

He must have thought since he didn't get a definite independence date from his dad, he should try it on his mum. So this conversation happened after he reached home.
Caleb: Mummy, next time I will take bus home from school on my own.
Mummy: Oh? You know how to take bus home by yourself?
Caleb: Yes, I know how to walk from my school to the bus stop.
Mummy: Oh and what are you going to do when you reach the bus stop?
Caleb: I get on the bus...
Mummy: And what are you going to do when you get on the bus?
Caleb: I ask the bus uncle whether he knows where Caleb's house is and he bring me home.

Yup, this is Caleb at 3 1/2 years old, planning for his own independence day. Wait till he finds out how many years there are between 3 and 21, haha.

My Fillial Boy

So my sis asked me to take a peep at her blog to read about my filial son and I was wondering what it was all about. Hee hee, indeed both Daddy and I were pleasantly surprised. Caleb can be such a sweet boy at times.

Read about their conversation here...