Happy New Year 2016: Fire Monkey.

We wish everyone a very happy Lunar New Year in this Fire Monkey year!

No matter if 2015 Rooster year was great or unkind to you, may you 2016 be more fabulous!

笑口常开 - Laugh and be happy often

大 吉 大 利 - Good luck and smooth sailing

HUAT ah!

年年有余 - May every year end with ample surplus

Lou Hei - 捞个风升水起, bringing you business prosperity!

Monkey business for Chinese New Year 2016.

For the past couple of years, I have made it a point to wear my traditional ethnic clothes for Chinese New Year because I wish my kids will follow in my footsteps and learn more about their own culture.

This year, I managed to buy mandarin-collared shirts for Adam and Ashton as you would know, ethnic clothes and costumes for boys are like finding for a needle in a haystack.

Happened that we came across this boutique in B2 Changi Airport Terminal 3 in front of Sing Kids which was selling children's Mandarin-collared shirts and some very pretty cheongsams for little girls.

Do take note that the mandarin shirts in this particular colour did not come with the Chinese knot buttons, hence I had to go on a hunt with Hubby at Chinatown to search for those buttons to DIY my own.

After Mama's done with her sewing, off we go to the Chinese Garden at Lakeside for our CNY 2016 photoshoot!

Tips for taking photos of kids:

- Ensure they have enough rest and nap time before the photoshoot

- If they are old enough to understand, I usually prep talk them by telling them where we will be going later for the photoshoot and how I expect them to behave.

- Choose to go on weekdays or off-peak season (non-school holidays, not too near the CNY period) to avoid crowds and photobombers.

- Try to stick to a theme and also to centre your photos around the signature features of the place.

Eg. Twin pagodas at Chinese Garden/ fire crackers, poppies and peonies deco, CNY snack sales if you are at Chinatown/ a plain background with a nice vase of pussy willows & peonies if in your own home.

- Set aside about an hour max for the photoshoot if outdoors, and 30 min if indoors due to short attention span of children.

- Allow your kids to play and monkey around to let them "warm up".

I find that I end up liking more of the spontaneous happy-grin types of photos better than the posey-posey ones.

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Where to buy CNY clothes for your kids (boys and girls included):

Baby Pixie Online Singapore: Mandarin-collared shirts, pants, cheongsams from $25 onwards.

Mother-daughter matching sets available.

Elly Loves: Baby CNY rompers, shirts, pants, cheongsams and even shoes. They are having a sale now. Prices from $27 onwards for selected designs, otherwise priced at $45 onwards for shirts and $39 for shoes.

Uptown Kidz or Little Qipao: Cheongsams, boys mandarin-collared shirts, and adult cheongsams from $59.90 for boys' shirts and $139 for adult cheongsams.

**Also available at Takashimaya Level 4 Children's Department from 4 Jan 2016 - 7 Feb 2016.

Brick & motar stores: Boutique opposite SingKids at Changi Airport Terminal 3 B2; Chinatown People's Park.

This was us in 2014 Horse Year including me wearing my cheongsams for Day 1 and Day 2 =)

Did not do any photoshoot in 2015 (Goat) as I was lazy  busy and the photos are all on my Facebook :P

Click on this image linky below for other CNY-related blog posts on Mumzilla.

If you would like to link up, do let me know your blog post address and I will add on to this post!

[Travel Tuesday] Clubmed Phuket December 2015: Day 3

I We survived the first day of school on Monday, it was a first of many things for us.

New school, new environment, new learning journey, and first time Adam will be away from home for the whole day.

We enrolled him into a Student care, as I seriously doubt my helper will be able to cope with her chores plus supervise Adam in his school work.

She's a domestic worker, not a teacher, so I shouldn't even be thinking of this as an option too.

With Adam in Student Care, it will also mean no more couple dates out after work for us, we have to cheong back to the East to fetch the kids! (Not looking forward to that.)

Anyway, it is off to school Day 2 and parents are not allowed to hover around from Day 2 onwards so here is my last instalment of our December Phuket trip.

Arranged a dinner date with my cousins and uncle on one of the nights while we were all still in Phuket.

It's a small world after all :P

Horror faces on my boys #whytheysolikethat

My Ashton doesn't like water but every time go pool also must full body kit including goggles. As if his head ever goes under water LOL.

We didn't stay in Clubmed on the last day.

We checked out and booked a day tour around the area, which includes Go-Karting.

We took the double-seaters so the kids could play too.

We also went to the Tiger Zoo.

It was expensive, and not really worth it if you ask me.

The tigers were all kept in enclosures alike cages, unlike the Tiger Temple ones, and we had to queue very long just to go into the enclosure for a mere 10 minutes.

The tigers did nothing but lounge around looking pretty.

And soon the little ones got bored, including the furry one as you can see below:

A sleepyhead who was oblivious to everything going on. It just slept and slept!

We even suspected it was sedated on purpose! though the zoo claimed otherwise. Hmmmmm,

It was a teeny tiny zoo, with only a handful of tigers which visitors can take photos with.

But still, there were other cages with "off limits" tigers like the Siberian tigers.

I kinda felt duped because I had expected a free-range safari-like experience akin to the famous Tiger Temple.

Anyway, I think it is better to take your tourism dollar elsewhere.

We then went to take the buggy rides from the foot of a hill all the way up to the Big Buddha temple.

My virgin experience operating this machine and it was fun!

Andy took Adam while I took Ashton.

When we finally rode back down, the kids wanted to buy a basket of bananas to feed this young elephant.

The elephant roped the Birthday Boy in for a kiss!

Happy Birthday Hon!

Thank you for always being there for the boys and me.

We have been through so many years of ups and downs, challenges and celebrations, failures and victories, and I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you.

We make a great team if I may say so myself :)

Merry Christmas from the Tan-meisters!

Bye bye Clubmed and Phuket! The kids enjoyed their vacation :)

Phuket trip Day 1 and Day 2 are also up :)