Saturday, March 14, 2015

Kea Xplorer Insect workshop: Outdoor-bound fun for everyone.

As a kid, I grew up in Woodlands, and my parents' flat was just in front of the Woodlands Street 11 park. My brothers and I would spend our free time after school catching spiders and grasshoppers, and kept them in matchstick boxes.
Hands up if you remember this from the 80s!
 
Children of this era, however, spend too much time with gadgets!
Adam is an iPhone/ Playstation addict so when I saw fellow Mum-blogger ZhenZhu post about her experience with Kea Xplorer, I decided to sign both boys up for the insect specimen-making workshop.


First things first, everybody gather around for the briefing by Instructor Zhi Qiang.
Several kids are already swatting their nets around in anticipation.

Kea Xplorers setting off!

I caught our first butterfly! Zhi Qiang is helping me pinch the nerve of the butterfly.



 
I may be no insect expert, but I think you're holding the net the wrong way up, Ashton.
 
And another!
 


After a good 45 minutes in the field, we were all sticky and sweaty and gathered again for de-brief.

Back at Fern and Zhi Qiang's house: now we need to make the insects we caught into specimens!



 
 



Ta-dah!! We caught 5 grasshoppers and 2 butterflies.
The Rhinoceros beetle was bought from Zhi Qiang.
 
 
Thanks for the fun and enriching activity today, Fern and Zhi Qiang from Kea Xplorer!
We enjoyed ourselves very much, I think it brought out the kampong girl in me :P
The kids KO-ed right after we got home.
What a terrific way to kick-start the March holidays :)
 
Check out Kea Xplorer HERE for more workshops!

*Insect catching workshop (Pak 1) is $10/child.
Insect specimen making workshop (Pak 2) is $40/child which includes the display box and being taught how to pin the insects and preserving them in the box.
Another workshop available is Woodwork - if carving/ sawing/ creating things is your child's passion, then Woodwork is the workshop for him/her.

If you're interested in catching your own insects in future, the nets can be bought from Daiso at $2.
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*P.S. Had my braces fitted only yesterday and my mouth is in a lot of pain.
Talk, laugh, eat also cannot. Despite not having been punched in my face before, I feel exactly like I've been punched in my mouth approximately 15 times.


Saturday, February 28, 2015

My birthday: I'm 30-something this year :)

Thank you Precious friends & Beloved family for the well wishes on my Birthday - every single one of you who SMSed/ Whatsapped/ wrote on my Facebook wall/ wished me in person - you are important to me and don't ever think I do not appreciate your presence in my life!
All my friends, relatives, colleagues and family are like little pieces that make my life puzzle complete.

This year I spent my birthday at work, with my wonderful colleagues, people with whom I share a large part of my time with and confiding about my personal life to, and my clinic which I regard as my "home away from home" as the years go by.
Coincidentally I share the same birthday as my Tiger Mother mentor and birth-week as my partner-in-crime.
I'll leave you to guess who's who.

 
I then spent the evening celebrating over a sit-down Chinese dinner with lou hei (it's still Chinese New Year) with my girl friends, something mandatory we do every February and December.
Girls I've known for life. Cannot forget the crazy times we pontang school, went under the drain and trekked from old Woodlands central to Blk 300+ coffeeshop and emerged from the drain cover like Ninja Turtles, asked our parents to help us machine-sew Home Econs project, go Canto tea-dance and used fake IC until kena detained in their office, and etcetera OMG moments! :P

We are the February (Siew Wei and I) and March (Angeline) girls!
Coincidentally, our birthdays are in the same order as our positions in the photo from L to R: Siew Wei 23/02, me 27/02, Angeline 05/03.



 
And special thanks to my husband, he sent a surprise bouquet to my clinic this morning which totally caught me off guard as this is a first (I used to take leave on my Birthday but happens that this year Hubby is away at reservist and I have nowhere to go so I went to work).
I've never been one to fuss over flowers & soft toys but this year the bouquet came complete with a card that had a mushy (funny) poem.
I asked him where he got the poem from (note: not how he composed it) and he replied without missing a beat that it's from Shakespeare.

Oh how do I begin with this man?
All I can say is, marriage is a funny union where we can talk about our children, life, dreams, and our poop 💩.
The kind of intimacy is almost bizarre.
 
As I get older, the things I wish for become more and more the things that cannot be bought with money. Like kinship and friendship.
With Andy, I found both.
He's the kind of guy you want to go traveling together with, buy a used car or house from, and start a family with. He's fabulous with micro finances, itineraries and stuff that require planning in orderly detail.
They say there's a lid to every pot. Andy is the lid for me.

And lastly, some tips about staying young always:
Source: Pinterest


 

Thursday, February 26, 2015

My home garden: grow your own food.


Well you all know how much I love organic and natural stuff. Hubby calls it my organic sh*t.
I'm taking my organic sh*t to another level by channelling my inner Jamie Oliver and growing my own food.

I started growing some vegetables from seeds in our home garden when I realised what a huge balcony we have with so much under-utilised space.
I started out with capsicum seeds and before I knew it, small flowers started blooming which subsequently blossomed into round, colourful bell-shaped peppers we call Capsicum.
 
 
First try at gardening in 2013:




 
 
These photos were taken sometime in 2013. Fast forward 2 years to 2015, I'm still growing my organic veggies :)
In fact, I recently noticed some eggplants blooming in our home garden.
Initially, the seedlings had aphid and mealy bugs infestation (white, fluffy pests that suck the sap of your plants until your entire crop dies).
I mixed my own concoction of natural pesticide using Young Living essential oils - Peppermint, Lemongrass, and Thieves in white oil (bought from nearby Nursery).
 
I sprayed on the plants and totally forgot about them until recently Hubby noticed little bulbs budding from their purple flowers.
My plants are healthy and thriving indeed.




Even the Capsicum are doing well.
 

Source: Pinterest
 
 
Home gardening is actually not as difficult as you think!
All you need are trench pots, good soil, and seeds!

My veggies are grown on organic soil and compost, and fertilised with organic earthworm castings, and Young Living essential oils to prevent pests.
No GMOs/ harmful pesticides and ambiguous substances.
I like to know what goes into my food because the same food go into my children's bodies :)
 What about you?
 
 
* I'm a Young Living distributor and my member ID is: 1841945.
 

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

A trip to Jurong Bird Park.

Once upon a time, Andy and I decided to bring the boys to Jurong Bird Park.
It's a first for Adam and Ashton, and I was really enthusiastic about exposing them to the aviary.
I even wore a nature themed outfit in blue and green with lots of colourful flowers (which you'll soon find out is the cause of my indignity).


We started off with lunch with the parrots, but halfway through eating, Adam was getting impatient that there weren't signs of any parrots. He started playing games on my phone. I pretended not to be dismayed by his lack of enthusiasm and finally, the emcee appeared and announced that the macaws and cockatoos were making their entrance!
We (I) were getting hyped up until the point the emcee asked me and the kids to go up on stage to volunteer for the performance.


Here I was wearing my jungle-themed top which was sleeveless and I was required to stretch out my arm ninety-degrees, exposing my armpit and granny-flap-arm to approximately 20 families, while waiting for said cockatoo to perch on my arm and husband snapping away on the camera.
It was a glorious moment. The expressions on my children's faces say it all.




 
After that, we adjourned to the rest of the Bird Park, and all the kids wanted was to hurry and make a beeline for Birds of Play, which seemed to be the highlight of the whole trip.

We had spent some good money on tickets to Jurong Bird Park and all the kids wanted was to play on slides with water which are free on the rooftops of many malls.




Ashton's diaper was so soaked that it dropped off and I had to let him change into his cotton shorts.







New thing I learned about my children today - they are not so into birds as I'd thought.

*Edited to add: When two weeks later, we received a notification of Adam's field trip, Andy and I looked at each other and laughed.


Life is uncanny like that!