Ahhh ... Bliss

No vomit during the night AND I didn't have any little poppets climbing into my bed during the night! :-) Extra bonus!
.
Just hoping now that Maddison doesn't get this bug. Wait and see I suppose.
.
Have a few things to do today, but not going to stress if I don't get them all done! Nearly completed a little project for me ... altered a box to store my cottons in. Will post some pics when it's finished, maybe today, maybe not!
.
Talked to Lyndon last night ... he's freezing! it was -10deg in Helsinki and he was trying to buy a hat. At 7.30am this morning it was 25deg here :-) heheee He'll be coming back to thaw out I think. Thought he arrived back tomorrow afternoon, but it's tomorrow night :-( So that was a bit disappointing - means the kids won't see him till Monday. Anyway he has Monday off so we are looking forward to that. Aaron has the day off school too.
.
Okay, better go put another load of washing on - before I do here's a couple more sneaks from Scrap-n-Crop's February kit - 'It's a Gal' that I've done. Kit goes on sale tomorrow and you can check the gallery for all the things Sharmaine & I have done.
.
1st is a peek an an OTP (off the page) project I did and 2nd is a peek at a card.

More Sneak Peeks

3 more sneaks from another LO I did for Scrap-n-Crop's Feb kit "It's a Gal". This LO is completely from the kit except for ink around the edges of some of the embellishments and adhesive (oh and the photo!) :-)

Yeah we're still here!

This last week has gone flying past! I didn't mean to leave it this long to update my blog ... ahh well, I've just been busy enough.
.
Where to start ... Last Saturday Lyndon flew to Finland (gets back next Sunday) and of course Aaron's on school holidays all this week! :-} (Yeah I think I am still reasonably sane heheee)
.
Monday and Tuesday were public holidays (Chinese New Year) and Irene and Rachel came for the day. We went to some friends for lunch and had a delicious steamboat meal (this link gives you an idea of what it's about). They were very kind and had also cooked sausages and mashed potatoes for the kids.
.
And of course oranges and mandarins ... Maddison was doing a taste test of the skin of hers!

Tuesday and Wednesday were just days at home, playing with trains, reading books, riding bikes and throwing balls in the playground, and a bit of scrapping for me :-)
.
Last night was a short one for me and Aaron, he came into my bed before midnight and was very unsettled, but did manage to go off to sleep eventually. Woke up about 3.30am screaming and sobbing and after a bit of questioning and not getting any answers I asked him if he wanted to be sick! YES, so I made a mad dash with him to the bathroom and just made it ... opened the door and he let go! Sigh ... nice NOT. Anyway I think I must be growing up a little, because I only gagged once while cleaning it up ... that's a big improvement for me! :-} So every half hour after that for about 3 hours he visited his "ice cream" container. Drunk lots of water at breakfast then did a projectile vomit, thankfully I had left my seat to go to the kitchen otherwise I would have worn the lot of it! He spent the morning lying on his bed, reading books and moping! Had a big sleep this afternoon though ... woke him up after 3 hours because I wanted him to go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. So must have been a 12 hour bug. Fingers crossed little miss doesn't get it. He was funny at breakfast though (well it was funny to me), he didn't want to eat his toast and didn't want to do anything much at all except grizzle, so I asked him if he wanted to be sick again (this was before the big launch!) and he says ever so politely "No thank you Mummy". :-)
.
Maddison's vocab is growing on a daily basis. She's learning a new word everyday just about! Sometimes more. She's copying so much of what Aaron does it's frightening! Today the cleaner was here and Maddison was quite the bossy britches to her telling her that the little brush and shovel was "MINE"! Actually her two favourite words are NO and MINE ... both said in a loud voice! I am trying to teach her yes, but it's hard when I find myself telling her no a lot of the day! Especially when she's getting into things she shouldn't be. (It's a real pest because she can now open the fridge by herself and spends a lot of the day trying to get herself in there and when the beeper goes to say the door has been left open she dashes off giggling!) Little monkey. She's discovered where I keep the chocolate in the fridge too which is a bit of a worry!
.
So that's us. Just the usual with a bit of drama thrown in the midst of it all.
.
Happy Chinese New Year to you all!

Sneak Peeks

February's not far away and I've finally completed my projects for Scrap-n-Crop's February kit. Had some fun with this one :-) I'll share more of the next couple of days, but for now here's some sneaks at 2 LO's I've done.
.
This blue LO I actually got my sewing machine out of it's box! I know, shock horror. I think the machine and I have come to a tentative understanding! But let me just say it's a jolly good job that sewing isn't my day job! lol

This kit has lots in it (as usual) :-) I managed 3 LO's, 6 cards and an off the page project. You can see some sneaks that Sharmaine has done here (you just have to scroll down a bit).

Singapore

Quick update ... not so many photos this time :-)
.
Saturday morning at 8am we caught a bus to Singapore, we just walked down the road a bit to the bus, so that was relativity easy! The bus was pretty full and the kids were okay! Maddison spent much of her time doing this ... making eyes and Grandma & Grandad :-)

And Aaron spent the entire 5 hours watching movies and playing with the playstation! He didn't want to get off the bus and complained very LOUDLY at the stops!

The first stop had a playground, so we spent some time there after visiting the loos. Let the kids run off some excess energy ;-)

I'd recommend the bus, particularly if you were travelling on your own or with older kids :-) heheee 5 hours on a bus with two rowdy little rascals like ours was a bit of a challenge, but they did really well considering. (The trip back on Tuesday was better as there was only 5-6 other passengers so the kids got out of their seats and explored the back of the bus a little bit and didn't get in anyones way which was good!).

.

On Sunday Aunty Irene's sister met us and took us to this nice restaurant for lunch. We sat outside and could see the sea and the hundreds of boats waiting to go into the port and we were close to the airport and the flightpath for the landing planes was right over head. Kept Aaron

occupied watching them.

I've made these pics small sorry, but you can just make out of the boats in the distance here.

Aaron watching the plane

Maddison enjoyed feeding herself rice!

Aaron had his eye on the playground the entire meal time. Not sure exactly how much lunch he had, but he was very keen to go down the slide!

This was Monday morning ;-) Two little darlings in our bed! (Wish they were like this more!!!)

Lyndon came back one day with this bag for me :-) heheee Chocs were delicious too!

On Monday Lyndon, Aaron and Mum & Dad went exploring on the train. They did quite a bit of sightseeing all around. Had a great time and had one very tired little boy at the end of the day :-) I stayed back with Maddison as I wanted to go back to a scrapbook shop (as you do!!) and she really needed a sleep.

Here's some pictures Aaron took on their train journey! ("I'll just photo this building Daddy")

"And these diggers"

" And these cranes"

So that's us! We left Singapore by bus again at 2pm on Tuesday and Mum and Dad got a taxi to the airport and they flew out later that night. They are back home now and Aaron spent quite a bit of yesterday asking me "Where's Grandma? Where's Grandad? Why didn't they come on bus?" Then a bit later when he was looking at the world map he'd say "Oh here they are!!" (while pointing at the picture of the penguins at the bottom of the South Island heheheee).

.

Yesterday morning Aaron threw up his breakfast, went back to bed and slept for 2 hours. At lunch he told me he didn't want to go to school he wanted to go to bed, so that's what happened. Maddison went to bed and I put Aaron in our bed and lay with him for about 40 minutes, he was real quiet then after 40 minutes he rolled over real close and said "Aaron waken up Mummy"!! Huh!

.

This morning he woke at 9am ... after 13 1/2 hours sleep! Think he's just got a bit overtired as he's a box of birds and hasn't had a temp or anything. So roll on this afternoon so he can go to school!

.

Okay, off to tidy up the bench and tackle the ironing pile :-{

Photo Overload #2 ...

I really need to blog more regularly don't I ... otherwise there's a total photo overload, especially since we've been doing some tiki touring this week!!
.
Lots to share since I last posted. (Can't believe that I haven't blogged since last Friday!) So here goes ...
.
Friday night Lyndon got back from Singapore and Mum got a BIG surprise because he had Dad in tow :-) heheheee (boys that was a hard secret to keep!). He flew direct to KL from Auckland and Lyndon arranged that his flight from Singapore would arrive before Dad did so he'd be waiting for him. Was neat to see the kids faces on Saturday morning too when they saw Grandad was here :-)
.
I had arranged for a quiz night and a potluck tea at our place on Sat afternoon ... our guests didn't know Dad had arrived either! We had a great evening .... here's the typical pic of our front door with everyones shoes :-)


And Maddison sitting on the couch having a drink while listening to the laughter all round with the teams trying to guess what the answers were to the quiz questions.

Sunday ... our usual day and Irene took us out for tea to a Chinese restaurant. Had to show this pic of the fish. It looks so disgusting, nearly makes me ill looking at it, but I am getting real good at looking and not "seeing" now! It tasted delicious ... mind you I didn't eat anything near the head! Ugggh I can't stand seeing those eyes rolled back!

There were a couple of crab dishes and here's a plate of the remains ... we all really enjoyed them :-)

Dessert ... yumm

Monday ... came and went! Can't recall all what we did and I didn't actually take any photos that day. We had Ian come and stay Monday night though which was great.

.

Tuesday Lyndon had the day off, so we decided to go to Batu Caves. Ian stayed home and had some quiet time without our kids (lol). We had an interesting time ... there's 272 steps up to the top ... then there's steps down into the main cave and then steps up to another part. I didn't count all those, but our calf muscles were feeling it later I tell you!

There were monkeys EVERYWHERE! Mother monkeys with their babys clinging on tight ...

Stare you in the eye Daddy monkeys ...

Bambi eyed monkeys!

And they were so jolly cheeky ... had no qualms about coming right up to you and snatching whatever you had in your hand, especially if it was food or drink bottles!! Maddison was a bit afraid if they got to close, so she spent a lot of the time like this :-) Daddy's leg makes a good hiding place :-)

Shocking pic of me ... but it's about the only one as I had the camera most of the time once we got up the stairs! So this is to show that yes I did climb up there!!

Silhouette of the arch at the top of the steps.

View from the top of the stairs.

On our way home we drove past a motor bike shop ... not the run of the mill Malaysian motorbike shop though :-) So of course we had to stop and check it out. This is just a tiny selection of what was in the shop!

.

Not sure who has their eyes on one of these ... Dad or Lyndon ???!!! LOL

So that was Tuesday. Ian left later in the afternoon and we went out for tea and went to Chinatown!

.

Wednesday ... just another day :-) We were busy enough though. The kids had given Grandma a massage voucher for Christmas, so after Aaron went to school we dropped Mum off to enjoy that and Dad, Maddison and I just wandered around the mall. When Mum came out we slurped down a New Zealand Natural ice cream :-) and then headed home. I dropped them off and went out to get groceries. Had tea and Mum stayed home with the kids while Dad, Lyndon and I went to mtg.

.

Today ... Lyndon had the day off as well and we decided to go to Genting Highlands. Another interesting place. Unfortunately the top of the mountain was covered in cloud so the view was rubbish (well what view there was) and the cable car wasn't running. So that was a bit disappointing. Also we'd been told that it was a very cold place, so take a jacket. We just laughed actually and thought "yeah right"! But actually it was cold, at times we had goose bumps and were freezing! Crazy.
.
We took a couple of wrong turns on our way there (weren't following the gps quick enough) ... so ended doing a sight seeing tour of parts of KL we'd never been before!

.

Saw a bit of this ... And this ...

And motor bike mechanics at work! (this photo doesn't really show it, but the man with the black shirt on was actually sitting on the side of the road, not the footpath!).

Anyway, it was interesting to see how other people lived. Makes me very thankful about all sorts of things actually! We eventually found our way to Genting Highlands and we drove to the top of the mountain ... stopped on the way at the temple. Here's a bit of the view before the cloud came in.

This was part of the temple complex and a hall.

The marble carvings either side of the door were amazing. Such fine detail.

Mum and I climbed up 250 steps to see the rest of the temple complex. It was amazing and my photos don't really do it justice. There was just so much to see, and so much work had gone into it ... incredible.

Then we drove right to the top to the theme park bit. Had lunch and decided to do the indoor theme park, rather than the outdoor one, since we didn't have jackets and it really was cold!

.

So walked for what seemed like ages and even more steps! Aaron and Maddison make sure they were "big" enough for one of the rides.

They had a ride on this, Aaron chose the front vehicle which was a train (there were all sorts, fire engines, jeeps, cars etc.) ... This pic was just as it started ... think they got a bit of a shock it was finally moving lol.

But can you see the excitement?

it's a wonder this photo isn't blurry of them because they were both (especially Maddison) jumping up and down in their seats!

LOOK at me :-)

Honestly Maddison was just about beside herself with excitement ... her mouth was permanently open I think :-)

The ride went up a couple of levels around this "Eiffel tower".

Decided to go back to Chinatown again on the way back home ... so while Lyndon, Dad & Mum went off there the kids and I stayed in the car and they did a spot of reading ...

Aaron giving me very detailed instructions on how to get to the airport and Pangkor Island :-) (he loves "reading" map books!). "You follow this line here and then this one, go over here all the way to the airport, then get on a boat and go to the island" :-)

Lyndon's sharing his love of watches :-)

The kids even got one! Doubt Dora will last long on Maddison's wrist lol.

Aaron's really into Ben 10 at the moment!

Then we had tea at Secret Recipe and since we'd had such a day we quenched our thirst well and truly with this lot :-)

Tomorrow is a day at home for us. Lyndon is back at work and we've got visitors coming for tea, so looking forward to that.

.

Saturday we are catching a bus to Singapore and having a few days there before Mum and Dad fly home on Tuesday :-( and we catch the bus back home.

.

And I will be attempting to do some catching up with my December Daily Album, and my January daily of when Mum and Dad are here!!! Oh well ... not going to stress it ... as long as it's finished before Christmas 2009 hahahaaa.

.

So probably won't be back again to blog for another week! I'll try not to have so many photos next time! :-) (loving my new camera though!!) :-)