We’ve been having some very strange weather last month which just couldn’t seem to make up it’s mind whether to jump into spring or hold back to winter. But towards the end of the month, I think winter is finally relenting and letting go of it’s chilly grip over us. Anyway here’s a roundup of some of the things we’ve been up to in September… Steamed Buns Our favourite cooking activity last month was making these soft, fluffy, white steamed buns with red bean filling. The homemade filling was from the adzuki beans I had used to make snowskin mooncakes earlier that month. We made the dough with pao flour (similar to cake flour) which was very soft and pliable and very nice to work with. The children said it felt just like playdough. **** Pattern and Counting Activity Trays Extending on some math and numeracy learning we’ve been focusing on recently, I downloaded and printed out a couple of pattern recognition and watermelon seed counting worksheets ( here and here ) for the childre...

After a final blast of wet weather last month, I think it’s quite safe to say that spring has finally sprung . We celebrated the new season the first weekend with a relaxed, chilled-out family BBQ at King’s Park. After we had our fill of sausages, we took a slow, leisurely stroll along the familiar stretch of the park looking down on the iconic view of Perth city. I think it was probably the first time we were looking down on that iconic view together as a family. We pointed out various landmarks and marveled over the beauty of our home city together. It felt really special sharing that moment as a family. I came across this quote which really sums up everything I felt so well about that moment… A mother discovers with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children; But because of the friendship formed while raising them.” — Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez . We recently finished reading both books in Enid Blyton’s ‘The Wishing Chair’ series....

We’ve been having lots of really wet days last month. Not your usual light drizzle. But full on stormy, pouring down with rain kind of weather. Too wet to play outside. Too stormy to go out anywhere. For a moment I wished I could wave a magic wand to make all the clouds disappear and bring out the sunshine and blue skies. Do you remember Mary Poppins? I absolutely loved watching that movie as a child (and still do). I remember one of my favourite scenes was when the children (and Bert) held hands with Mary Poppins and they magically jumped inside a picture and went off to have some funny little adventure there. How wonderful would it be if I could have some magical fairy godmother to whisk me away to some place else exotic and beautiful and WARM… perhaps to Bali or The Maldives. Summer in New York or Paris or London. Maybe Santorini or Nice. Even Singapore or my hometown KK… Anywhere but this miserable, cold, wet winter in Perth. I am just so DONE with winter here. Please be OV...

Over the July school holidays, my folks flew over from Malaysia to visit. It was just a relaxed, chilled out trip with no particular agenda planned. Just spending time together with us and their precious grandchildren. On one of the weekends, we went on a mini getaway down south (which in Perth-speak refers to the Margaret River region and located about two hours drive south of the Perth metro area). We usually stop by the usual suspects such as Busselton Jetty or the Margaret River Chocolate Factory. But there are definitely thousands of hidden gems tucked around every corner waiting to be discovered. I don’t think it’s possible for a single person to uncover them all. However I can do my little bit by sharing a couple of our own discoveries with you. I left most of the photography to my dad and his trusty Olympus DSLR. But I did manage to snap a few photos here and there to give you a little peephole glimpse of some of the places we visited during our trip. ~~~ Happs Wines I’m ...

My baby girl turned three last month. Three. THREE. It seems too big a number to assign to my little baby. Or maybe I’m just living in denial. Probably. Definitely. We should just stop right here. It’s a very good age to be anyway. Three is just perfect. We celebrated the occasion with a custom-mummy-made cake, specially requested by her highness. The theme was based on her current favourite animated film--‘Tinkerbell and The Legend of the Neverbeast’. (It should be noted that the mummy was pretty pleased with her own cleverness at putting together the various elements of the cake design all by herself). The grandparents indulged her with her very first fashion doll. They chose a Disney Rapunzel one because, in the words of her grandpa: “ I think she will find the hair is very nice to comb! ”. And as predicted, she has been combing Rapunzel’s hair very diligently almost every day until it’s all hopelessly frayed and tangled. And yet she zealously combs on. So what is ‘Three...

Phew!!! July has been an absolutely crazy busy month for us here. So, so, so much to update but so very little time. Anyway before we get too far into this next month of August, I shall give you all a good, solid photo dump just to show you some snippets of just a few things that have been keeping me busy this past month in the family day care department… ~ Scissor skills and cutting stations A number of my kiddos have been showing a lot of interest in practicing their scissor skills. A simple activity I sometimes do is to draw some lines along plain paper for them to cut along. I also set up a scissor/cutting activity station to make some paper-patty-pan flowers for added dimension to our scissor practice. ~ ‘PERFECT SQUARE’ A fun book to extend on scissors and cutting activities is ‘Perfect Square’ by Michael Hall. We followed through with our own ‘perfect square’ craft activity. Each child started with their own perfect square of coloured paper. They then had free reign to use a...

And in a blink of an eye, we’re halfway through the year already! Before the rest of the year slips through my fingers, I’d better get a move on some of the key things I wanted to get checked off my to-do list for 2016 . One of the ideas I wanted to try out in the bloggy space this year was to do a small series of feature posts on unusual hobbies or interests. It would be a very dull series if the series focused only on my own narrow range of projects. So I decided to turn to my cosy little network of friends to see some of the cool things they get up to in their spare time. So without further ado, here is the first post of this series which will feature: The Art of Making Your Own Kombucha. I first found out about kombucha from my friends Jon and Naryn when we went out to check out a raw food restaurant in Fremantle which apparently served up an amazing selection of their own housemade kombucha. I then found out that Jon had been keeping himself busy brewing up his own house bran...

I am a couple of days late with my usual monthly post of some of the things I’ve been up to over the past month with my family day care kiddos. But I definitely did not want to miss this one as it has been a very fun little series of activities. Our main focus over the past couple of weeks in June has been based around one of the children’s current favourite books ‘Little Green Peas’ by Keith Baker . Apparently there is a whole ‘peas series’ of these books featuring these adorable tiny little peas… on alphabets, numbers, months of the year. This particular one that I picked up at the library featured colours. My kids were just nuts over the myriads of irresistibly cute little green peas dotted all over each page. Interestingly, they were not drawn so much to the colour theme of the book (they all knew their colours down pat very well anyway). Instead they were more focused on pointing out the large letters and trying to count all the tiny little peas of each page. So to extend o...