First Blackberries.

Our first blackberries of the season are starting to ripen; our little man ate the first one and declared it sweet! These are Navaho Blackberries, a thornless variety, which makes it ideal for home gardens.

Lately, I've been itching to explore new recipes. After a trip to our local Spice Land, I cobbled together a chicken tikka masala and an aloo gobi for dinner. It feels great to be able to do that from scratch. Turns out the aloo gobi is easier to make than I previously thought.

The husband is making a fish pie for dinner tomorrow. Hopefully this spells the start of more exciting meals for dinner. With time and energy as main limiting factors, I stuck to pretty standard meals... No time like the present to shake that up! 

Merry CHRISTmas.

Christmas day has come and gone without much fanfare. We started our day with mass and came home to open our gifts.

We are incredibly grateful for grandparents and siblings who went the extra mile to send us gifts. The children absolutely loved the presents and spent HOURS playing, pretty much from 11.30am to 4pm, barely stopping for lunch. We got our littlest a sunhat and some snacks and she was happy as, sitting there munching yoghurt drops watching everyone else around her. 

These kept us cool in the sweltering heat. Our big girl wasn't too pleased. 

It has been a quiet Christmas with lots of togetherness. I missed the festive spirit and family gatherings in Singapore a little bit. At the same time, we have also been able to bring Christ back into CHRISTmas more fully this year. The daily Jesse Tree reflections during Advent traced a path through salvation history and led us to the manger, putting the Nativity scene into powerful context. As the world becomes more and more secular, it feels all the more important to bring Christmas back to what the season really is about. 

We had a birthday cake for baby Jesus and spent the evening playing "Poop Bingo" (thanks to Jon and family) and "Potion Explosion" (thanks to my brothers)

It seems an appropriate time to share a recent development in our front yard. This project has been a year in the making. From digging up the shrubs, levelling out the ground, planting grass...it has involved lots of waiting, waiting and waiting. Finally, though, this is here. The three older children each picked out an element they wanted on our set. 

Before:

After:

We have a strong neighbourhood community, so this a space that is open to our friends to come and play, too. We love it so far and it has been well-used over the past four days that we've had it. I can see our young ones playing on this for years and years to come. 

Christmas Eve.

"I can't believe it's Christmas Eve!" was our big girl's greeting to us this morning. The excitement was palpable. 

At the same time, there was still an element of waiting in the air as we await Christ's birth. 

The children just yesterday had gone door-to-door on our street to collect canned food for the needy, and we brought the donations in this morning. They collected 28 cans and a bagful of other goodies and these were gratefully received. 

In the afternoon, we watched The Star, an animated nativity movie made from the animals' perspective. The donkey, Bo, spent his life dreaming of carrying royalty on his back, only to find at the end of the movie that he had carried the King of Kings. 

As the final task of our Jesse Tree Advent preparations, the older children were given a puzzle to solve: the first letters of the "O Antiphons" in Latin, backwards, would give a secret message, also in Latin. Interestingly, each of the 7 Antiphons are reflected in each verse of the hymn "O Come, O Come, Emmanual" . 

"Ero Cras!" or, "Tomorrow I will be."

Our advent candles were lit for the last time this Advent, and the empty manger awaits baby Jesus. 

The children were overjoyed to open a few presents tonight, one of them being a magnetic tile marble run, a family gift from papa and I. We spent a good amount of time building and playing with this. 

The rest of the presents will come tomorrow after mass. Tomorrow we celebrate! 

O come, Divine Messiah!

Eat The House Down!

The gingerbread house was eaten today. I thought we'd need help eating it, but the children proved me wrong and smashed through it in a matter of minutes!

Talk about a sugar rush.... This was pretty delicious (to them) and lots of fun. Now to see if I'm crazy enough to actually bake this myself next year.... 

Our First Gingerbread House.

We made our first-ever gingerbread house today! We bought the kit and simply decorated and assembled it together.

For each of the lollies on the house, there were probably one or two more that were eaten during the process!

The husband and I assembled the parts after the royal icing dried. 

A house fit for Hansel and Gretal, methinks! 

Milking Coconuts.

We got given some mature coconuts and our neighbour was kind enough to teach us how to grate the flesh for coconut milk, Cook Island style. He told us that as a boy, the only way to get coconut milk was to DIY because canned ones were expensive. He would get together with a bunch of other boys to collect coconuts, grate then and squeeze the milk out. It was an interesting opportunity to share his culture and in turn, we shared a little about wet markets in Singapore and how hawkers would do that too, albeit in a more sophisticated way.

The grater. One would sit on the wooden bit, and use the sharp edges to shred the coconut flesh.

The children reaped the rewards of our work. They enjoyed some coconut water, and we made a dessert with canned fruit, ice cream and freshly-squeezed coconut milk. The milk tasted sweeter than the ones we get in cans! 

It's great to have learned something new today. 

Last Day of School!

The husband, the littlest ones and I went out for a bike ride whilst the older ones were at school. It's been forever since we'd gone for a ride so this was really nice.

We ended up at a playground not too far away and had a good time being outside. 

The summer holidays are here, and so is the end of a really strange school year. More than a quarter of the year was spent in lockdown, on distance learning. Our big girl goes to year 2, and our big boy, year 4 next year. 

It's been mentally exhausting for the husband and I. But in this life, there are no real breaks. I admire the husband's ability to get up each day and show up, no matter how tired he's feeling. I tell him he makes life look easy. We have a good laugh about it and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

All our gifts for St Nicholas' Day have finally arrived and we'll be doing stockings tonight. It was nice to have the children eager to go to bed for once! 

Just Keep Swimming.

This evening, our little man turned to me and said, "Mum, maybe you can try telling us to go to sleep in a different way....like 'would you please go to sleep'?" The two youngest ones were mucking around before going to bed and I'd chided them with an exasperated "Sleep....Now." 

I had to chuckle. Most of the time I have no inkling if anything we're teaching them is internalised. This was a clear sign that at least one of them listens...sometimes! There is hope yet that they will learn what they need to!

The road is long and I feel jaded sometimes. On these days, it's hard to find hope and faith for the journey. The cross keeps me going, especially when I don't have a clue where all of this leads. I recall the image of Jesus asking his disciples to cast their nets out into deep water, to trust in Him and the unknown. Even on days when I just want to wallow, I know at the back of my mind that there always is reason to hope. 

We went to Gravity this afternoon, this time with our neighbours' children and our brood. One hour passed way too quickly but they had a great time. 

Last day of school tomorrow...I hope it will be a good end to a crazy school year. 

Smash Burgers

"Fancy burgers", or "smash burgers", as the husband probably prefers to call them, will feature at Christmas Dinner and today was a trial run. I tried out a new burger bun recipe which only takes 40 minutes from start to finish... Quite yummy but I think I'll cut down on the sugar next time.

We've pieced together a 3-course menu and chosen a few fancy ingredients for the burgers. But that's for Christmas. 

Today's burgers were YUM. The chef shaped the mince into balls (approx 100g each), popped them on the pan and flattened them with the base of a heavy saucepan. He seasoned them lightly while they were on the pan. The idea was to get the patty nice and flat, with crispy edges. Delicious. 

Museum.

Day at the museum. Museum only opened last Friday after being closed for months. It wasn't busy and the newly renovated areas were sleek and engaging for the children. 

Such a treat to get some money to spend at the gift shop. Thank you, Popo!

Bounce.

An hour at the trampoline park helps us forget we're living in the time of a pandemic.

Happy Saint Nicholas Day!

It's the Feast day of St Nicholas, patron saint of children, and inspiration for modern-day Santa Claus. It's our first time celebrating/observing the feast day, and in the spirit of celebrating his life, we'd planned to put a little something into stockings for our children: a gold coin, a candy cane and one thing each child needs.

As things would happen, though, half our gifts didn't arrive in time. Plans had to change. We decided to spend the day making Christmas stockings out of felt. We spent some time planning before going to Spotlight to gather the supplies we needed. As far as possible, we made use of materials we already had at home

Our big boy wanted a stocking that opened via a flap and had security features (ie. A padlock) to deter in-house theft. Our big girl wanted a stocking that resembled a santa hat. Our little man wanted a stocking with a Christmas tree and snowflakes. 

I taught the older children the blanket stitch and they were able to work quite independently in handstitching their stocking pieces together. 

We talked about and watched a show on the life of St Nicholas. They know the gifts coming from St Nicholas will be given by mum and dad, but we still evoke a little fantasy by talking about Saint Nicholas bringing them gifts. Sometimes they throw me a grin and say, "It's Mum-and-dad-St-Nicholas!"

We spent almost the entire day working on this project, one that they'll be able to keep for years to come. In an age where many things are mass produced and we have developed a taste for instant gratification, it is a thrilling change to practise a little rebellion and take the road less travelled. 

Traffic Light System Freedoms.

Loosened restrictions mean a few more precious freedoms.

We visited a friend and actually went into her home over the weekend.

Today, our big girl attended a birthday party that had been postponed three times due to lockdown. She got to ride a pony, twice! She was pleased as punch. 

It's been a full but fruitful weekend.

Oh dear, Mary & Joseph. 

Second Week of Advent.

Masses resumed this weekend and it was wonderful to be back. Don't get me wrong, the humidity, the stuffiness of being masked up, less-than-ideal hymn choices and having to multi-task with the children would not usually be my idea of a great time. Yet, the experience of being back in the sanctuary after months was, to my soul, a drink of water in the desert.

Wheee! Mary & Joseph are having fun with gravity. Not sure the donkey is in for a great landing though.

Christmas Market

This afternoon, we went back to kindy to show our support for their Christmas market. All our big girl and big boy's old teachers were there and it was really nice to catch up. 

We beat the heat by putting our littlest girl in a tub of water. We gave her an old toothbrush and some soap, and she had fun scrubbing feet...So much fun that her brother joined in! 

A Break.

Our neighbours took our two older children out for the afternoon to give me a bit of a break. They have four children, the youngest two of whom ours get along well with. The girls were there and four of them had a great time together. 

They fed them lunch, got gelato, and brought them to three playgrounds...and brought back doughnuts for us! I'm very touched. If they didn't know our big boy's superpower, they do now: Asking Questions. Our friend finally set a rule of "no questions". It granted him immunity at least.

We brought over a bit of dinner for them as they got home close to dinner time. Small gesture in return for all they've done for us today. 

Very thankful.