The Chronicles of the Tay Family: March 2021

It was already March. Around this time last year, Singapore went into the lockdown mode. Gosh, we had endured this pandemic for an entire year! We did not expect that it would persist for so long....SARS ended in a couple of months...all expectations were that COVID could possibly follow that trajectory...who would have thought...one year later, the entire world was still travailing in this pandemic...

Happier things. Jun won the best dressed award, so Mama decided to celebrate his achievement and let him choose a treat. Jie was flabbergasted. She asked in an incredulous tone, just exactly what did he do? Ha...I said...eh...being naturally handsome and cute?

His fellow best dresser. They wore matching red and gold prints and were so cute as a couple.

Ha, wearing the windbreaker that Eden gave him.

Ha, the cute Iron-Men.

Jun really adored his little sister. Jun had been practising kindness recently...like we went for the speech therapy session (aside: yes, Jun had improved tremendously. What a relief!) and did well so I said he could choose a treat to celebrate. He asked to wait for the older ones to come back so they could have a cup of slushy together.

Oh Tong when he was a tiny tot...that smile...tong no longer smiled when he took photos..eh...acting all cool eh?

Yay an ice cream treat..

He made a campfire!

We made pineapple tarts in the shape of cows for the Year of the Ox. Ha jie's year.

The little Ironman who thought she was Spiderman instead

I did not know why they loved to take my phone to take weird pictures..

Our little sweetheart wearing the tee "I love my Grandma"

She was really as cute as a button...though she was a complete wild card. That day, Xiaoyi walked us home as she wanted to treat the kids to ice cream as it was Mei's birthday and she wanted to run along the canal behind our house. She held on to Mei's hand and Mei kept tripping. We thought she was rather pitiful until we realised that she was falling deliberately so that she would not have to hold Xiaoyi's hand. Gosh...she was a sly imp.

Hydrodash! A day of fun in the sun

How nice it was to have cousins

Cousins forever!

Oh the chubby little one...she would eat a lot at times (like 3 bowls of wanton noodles that time aft fetching jie from tuition class) and very little at times (just one mouthful for dinner at Ah Ma's house). as she was stubborn and totally unyielding, we could not control her at all.

The usual scene at waipo's house.. it was always fun to be there...Wai po would let them watch tv and play games all day

Well, she was really asleep in this photo but there was once when she fooled us totally...hahha good actress.. told her to feed Da Biao Gu a biscuit (it had the sweet filling in between two layers of biscuits)...she refused to let go so da biao Gu took a bite and she happily sucked on the sweet layer...Ah...we realised that she held on because she wanted that to happen...gosh...how cunning could a 2-year-old get?

Jun and his store...he enjoyed displaying his lego creations there...it was his shop front

Ah... Xun vs Mei...peas in a pod?

Could not recall why we took a photo of this...

Jie's waterfall birthday cake.. let us just say that it looked way better than it tasted.

Happy Birthday, Jie!

The 4 rascals

She and her pu pu tu

And of course...she totally had papa around her little finger

Papa could not believe how big jie had grown..almost a teenager!

Up to no good as usual at bedtime

Mei and Wai Gong

Went to Xiao Biao Gu's house for dinner

Had fun at Sentosa

And fun at Snow City too...it was tooo tooo frosty for me..

Well the little ones went out earlier to have a snack while the older ones stayed with Aunt A and went to play on the bumper cars

There was a free merry-go-round that went on and on...that was quite entertaining

Could not feel our fingers... brrr brrr brrr

Heh, went to aunt A's house to play. Jun liked to play with Jesse.

Jun and his creation

Ah Hiking at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Phew, we reached the summit

Went down the wrong trail and ended up walking a really long distance..oh well...we learnt that sometimes we ended up traveling a longer route needlessly when we were rash and took an unknown route without first studying it...

But heh...it was a good family bonding activity

Oh Aunt Tin bought this dress for her. Aunt Tin also adored Mei Mei.

Matching cousin tees from Da Biao Gu

Ah...fun in the pool

they took care of Mei Mei and they had a splashing jolly time

Went to JJ's new house

Having a dip at JJ's pool

The water was terribly cold tho...gosh

Ah, Tong won a lucky prize. Unfortunately...it was past the deadline to collect the prize. Undeterred and an auntie at heart, Mama wrote to Toy R Us to ask if they would make an exception. ha no harm right?

And yes, they actually gave us the prize. WOOOOOO hooo. Hurray for auntie-ness

A very old photo...that kept haunting me and reminding me just how skinny and youthful I once was...

Went to Happy Castle at Takashimaya

I rather liked the ones at City Sq Mall and even the tiny one at Westgate. It was too big and crowded at this outlet.

Good morning, world!

Mei's birthday present from the triplets. ha a pet chick that peeped.

Pai pai at ah ma's house

Just playing at home

Would you believe it? I had actually finished writing Jun's story! In fact, I finished it in Feb. Sat the kids down to talk about what we should write for the first page and ended up writing it through the night till 4am. Well...i had not stayed up for so long in a long while...i took several days after that to recuperate from that long night.

Jie arranged the Yu Sheng for this CNY. Heh...she was stepping in xiao biao gu's shoes...ah...the Chinese proverbs of the later waves pushing and overtaking the earlier waves..and how the green was superior to the blue rang true...now...Xiao Biao Gu had a disciple to take over the arranging of Yu Sheng for CNYs

Mei wearing the Jap costume given by Er Yi

Popped over to Grand Uncle Brian's house since they could not come over to visit due to the cap on number of visitors

Ah...used Mei Tu Xiu Xiu...look at that wide grin on her cheeky face...we absolutely adored her..but she was really getting to be quite a handful...this evening, she tried to lick the lemongrass cleanser Gor used to clean the dining table...and she also tried to drink the water off the shower room floor while lying sprawled on the floor... gosh..she was truly one wild card

That day, Ah Ma told her to throw the empty Yakult bottle away, the very bottle she had just finished drinking, and she refused. Ah Ma insisted and she defiantly swept it away with her hand. Ah Ma had to threaten her with the switching off of the TV before she obliged. gosh...

Yu Sheng at our house with our siblings

Went to Botanic Gardens with Grand Uncle Brian and Bei Kor Por for mei's birthday. Caught a family of otters sunbathing in the warm sunshine.

Tong would have loved to be here.

Bei Kor said she owed it to Emmelyn to have a chance to explore Jacob Ballas Garden. One could only enter this garden if one had a child with him.

A hearty breakfast then fun in the garden

Did not take photos of her going down the really tall slide. She was one intrepid explorer.

We had a whale of a time!

Could not recall where we were going..prob to the arcade at Jurong East or Woodlands

Went for an art jamming session with Aunt A for her birthday celebration...Suffice to say that I had absolutely no artistic talents whatsoever

The cousins came over to play

Our cutie pie

Ah the baby triplets

Playing on the giant game mat gifted by Aunt Kathleen

Whose birthday was this? Hmmmm perhaps Mei Mei's

Chu San at JJ's house

Jun went to take a psychology test for adaptability at NUS. Seemed like he was really good at positive self-talk. When he was carrying out the tasks, he kept telling himself the next steps he was going to take and he encouraged himself that he had finished the first colour and he had two more to go...

Nice to go back to Mama's uni...ah memories