Chinese New Year Eve 2012

This year is definitely a fabulous year for all of us. Many families gathered at eldest sis-in-law's house for the fabulous reunion dinner. I counted the amount and if I'm not wrong, we had 42 people in the house! Fantastic!!! Love the feeling with adult chatting and laughing away while the children running around and playing around.

We had 10 main courses including the dessert that I personally prepared (luckily, they love it :P) and we had our "yu sheng" on that particular night too. For this reunion dinner, both my mother-in-law and eldest sister-in-law had started making preparation TWO to THREE WEEKS in advance!! I personally felt VERY THANKFUL for their effort and hardship. To me, reunion dinner means more than just reunion dinner, we should felt THANKFUL!

We had 2 plates of yu sheng that night.

This is the first tray of dessert, the longan jelly.

This is the second tray of dessert, with a little colouring added.

The third tray, a 3-D effect tray.

Some adults chatted away while some adults, together with the children played fireworks.

My very daring Li Ning joined in the fun too!

Coincidently, we had 2 birthday girls on that night. We had an ice-cream cake and a blackforest cake.

Taa-daa..the two birthday girls!

Waiting eagerly for the cake!

Enjoying the cake.

Ang pow time!! My two girls were the first lining up for the ang pow...hehehehe....Wishing everyone stay HEALTHY and HAPPY :)

Chinese New Year Preparation 2012

As we are still struggling with our work load even until a day before Chinese New Year Eve, this year we had a very abrupt and simple preparation. At first, I was thinking to bake 1 or 2 types of cookies (pineapple cookies and seaweed crackers) but I really couldn't afford the time. In addition, Li Syuen and Li Ning were taking turns of the fever, I'm totally worn out.

But, just to let them have fun in baking, I bought a box of ready-to-bake butter cookies, a pack of chocolate rice and a pack of chocolate chip. We had a very short and simple session of baking and of course, we had FUN! Hubby joined in the FUN too!

This is OUR cookies! Though we BURNED 2 trays out of 4 trays, we were satisfied with our homemade cookies. We are going to keep it to ourselves as it might taste awful for others..(laughing out loud)!!

Then, we had our Chinese New Year shopping at Jusco and Tesco. We managed to buy some drinks, some mandarin oranges, some cookies and a hamper for my girls' nanny. Letting Li Syuen to arrange the mandarin oranges.

This year we cut down on the lighting decoration. We hung a pair of BIG GOLDEN lantern only. The lanterns looked golden during the day and during the night, it shines like MILLIONS of STARS! We like the lanterns and enjoy admiring it :)

Though we had a very RUSHING preparation, we enjoy the moment doing all the stuff together; from spring cleaning to decorating our house, buying all the stuffs, giving away all the gifts etc.

Now, my next challenge is preparing DESSERT for our very BIG family on Chinese New Year Eve. It is gonna be around 17 adults and 10 children. Eewwww...hope that they will like the dessert that I planned to prepare :) Wish me all the best (laughing out loud again)!!

Chinese New Year Lighting

Kuala Kuang is a village with most of them are farmers. My hubby and I have been working in this area for almost 7 years! It is a small village yet there were lots of activity and events going on here. Simply amazed by the effort put on!

Every year during this time, my hubby will drive us around the village either by bike or by car; especially during night time. It is because most of the houses will be decorated with beautiful lightings. I managed to take a few snapshots of it despite of the rainy day these days.

Colourful lightings..

A moving heart-shaped on the window..creative!

Beautiful red lanterns with flowers and a pair of moving lanterns!

Hand-made big ribbons with some lightings.

Red and multi-colours lightings!

All RED lightings! Oopss...my hubby's third brother's house :)

Blue "rain drops" hanging on the main door.

Li Syuen said like stars in the sky..hehehehe...

Multi lantern decoration.

This is my favourite! It looks like meteor shower from the sky! Amazing!

A simple heart shape!

Can you imagine that most of the houses in Kuala Kuang are beautifully decorated with all the colourful lights? It is just another "Bintang Walk", I guess. :)

I still remember that last year my hubby and I hanging all the lights at our home. It is definitely NOT an easy job. We have to think of the design, the length, the colour, the amount etc. Other than that, the lighting could be kinda expensive too. The very basic lighting could cost from a few hundreds! Some residents didn't hang lights but they hung their HANDMADE ANGPOW LANTERN! There are all kinda pattern but too bad I didn't manage to take the snapshot, hopefully can get a few next year. Anyway, I just love the Chinese New Year air in Kuala Kuang.

Animal n' Dino Footprint

Straight to the activity. This is our material; poster colour (though it is not a very good choice), some animals and dinos. As you noticed here, I prepared some plates rather that colour platter. The plates are more spacious for the kids to dip the animals' and dinos' footprint.

In this activity, we used a very long piece of paper rather than a drawing board as I wanted the kids to print tracks rather than just footprints.

The kids are excited! Li Ning loves to print the baby animals.

Li Syuen loves the activity too!

Cleaning the feet!

Out of a sudden, Li Ning started to role-play! Mummy Dino carried Baby Dino.

Another Baby Dino climbed up Mummy Dino's back!

She loves role-play with the dinos!

Never thought that she did it! Li Ning can make the Mummy Dino to hold the Baby Dino STEADILY!

This is our very LONG TRACK ROAD!