Kiddo Pic Jan 2025

萱萱: mummy! Justin and Xy smells the same! I lost the smell already..

Meimei: why you just make mama shout then you listen?? At school you also like that??

阳阳: no

Meimei: why!??

阳阳: because you are more forgiving

Happy Chinese New Year 2025!

The best time is together time. Especially for meals when everyone sits around the table and enjoy good food and lots of drinks!

 

Happy Bday Meimei!

A picture paints a thousand words. Love and Bliss. Thank you as always!

 

Getting Ready For CNY

With the new kitchen and living area redone, Meimei was happily buying CNY decorations and goodies to display at home. I'm so glad we spent the money to do up the house again. It gave the whole place a breath of freshness and vitality that was probably dampened over the years with all our stuff just clouding the area. But no more, now its just open space at the entrance area. 

Elixir Haul #25

 

阳阳 First Day At YuNeng

阳阳's first day at school is like his first in childcare. A little worried but taking it like a champ. I was surprised to find out about how he deals with uncertainty. He clinched his fist and rubs them with his thumb. I don't think he actually knows he is doing it, just something instinctive.

Unlike when 萱萱 started primary school, they now allow both parents to attend their first day. I'm so glad we were there on his first day to give him that emotional support and cheer.

Time flies. It was just yesterday that our baby boy is in childcare. Now he has to wake up early with 萱萱 and off to school together. Let's hope he enjoys and makes friends in school. I think he is very concerned with making friends so hopefully he does. 加油阳阳!

Light Experiment

I'm guessing 阳阳 saw or read this somewhere. Out of the blue, he asked for a light to shine on his magnetic brick house. I indulged him in his play since it was very innovative of him to think of this way to split the light and throw up the display on the wall.

 

Kiddo Pic Dec 2024

阳阳: “You can read my mind! Because I know you cannot read my lips!” (to Meimei)

Christmas Gift From Kiddos

I received a gift from the kids this year! Happy with the gift but at the same time it kinda feels like a trap hahahahah. This "gift" essentially limits the number of times I can sleep with the kids!

Meimei is highly tickled by the "gift". What's more ... it's never really claimable because it starts at 32/12/2024! Marvellous! 

Dropping Tooth At The Same Time

LOL, they were both complaining about toothache when eating. We were planning to go see the dentist. But somehow Meimei magically helped them with their tooth and pulled them out. I'm useless when it comes to pulling teeth. I'll probably faint before I even get to touch them. Thankfully Meimei is brave at these and saved us a couple of hundreds for the dental appointment!

Slime Play @SLM it! Plaza Singapura

Meimei wanted to give the kids some fun in the afternoon after church. There was no Berries tuition this week so its the perfect chance for them try out Slime it! at Plaza Singapura. 萱萱 was all over it, going over and over the trinket shelf. 萱萱 loved the slimy gloo whereas 阳阳 was more apprehensive and cautious about the sticky lump. Both had lots of fun and were delighted that they could pack a tub of the gloo home. We gave them strict rules to only play on the dining table .... imagine the dye from the gloo sticking onto the marble floor! 

Lunch At TCC

I had exchanged $500 worth of vouchers for Isetan and we brought the kids to Isetan Scotts for Christmas shopping this morning. We gave each kid a $100 budget and let them run wild at the toy section. I was so busy keeping up with 阳阳 that I forgot to take pictures of the whole experience. Anyways after shopping we stopped by TCC for lunch. It's the first time the kids ate at this store. Meimei and I used to frequent TCC at Tampines and VivoCity. But I don't recall we ate at TCC since we had the 2 kiddos. Thankfully the food is still delicious! The kids enjoyed it very much and so did we. Definitely a place we want to return again for a meal.

Table Lamp Handicraft With 阳阳

阳阳 has been wanting to build the table lamp with me for some time now. Finally I was able to take some time out to play with him. And I'm glad I did. It's a great bonding time with him and I really like how he has always been interested in building stuff. I'm sure he'll be a good engineer when he grows up. For now it helps to keep his interest. And to that Meimei bought this wooden table lamp set from Taobao.

He was very happy that he put it together with little help from me. I was excited that I got to spend quality me time with him. A win-win activity.

 

King Arthur Legends Rise

I started a new gacha RPG called King Arthur Legends Rise. Been playing for a couple of days and having a blast. I like the story mode and how you have to navigate across the landscape to each objective. Although it's on auto-path it still helps to bring a sense of immersion to the game. Refreshing gameplay yet with a large dose of familiarity in the turn-based combat and character development.

Disintegrating OtterBox iPhone Charging Stands

We bought our first OtterBox iPhone charging stand about 9 months ago from the Apple Store Changi Jewel. It was an expensive buy but it look pretty slick and solid. It was a nice piece to sit on our study tables and with the angled MagSafe magnetic circle plate we could stuck our phone on and still read any messages on it. Overall it was a good design so was well worth the $200+ we pay for each.

However it was only a few months in that we found that pieces of plastic at the corner of the hinges beginning to disintegrate. Small pieces would fall off at a time and eventually it would expose the metal hinges. It wasn't just a rare occurrence on one of the stands. We had bought 3 of them and all had the exact same problems. And interestingly, Apple Store stopped carrying them too.

Meimei was very irritated that we blew our money on what we thought was a good equipment. So she wrote a feedback to OtterBox and showed them pictures of 3 of the stands. One of them doesn't show it but the plastic on the bottom part of the plastic on the right hinge is disintegrating too.

Somehow the complaint got through to the right people. Although they couldn't refund for the stands, they sent replacements for them. Doesn't really solve the issue as we fully expect the stands to crack again in a couple of months. But at least they tried to 'resolve' the case. I joked with Meimei that they could send these because they are a 'dead-on-arrival' product and could no longer be sold at the stores. They must have received many similar complaints that they are simply clearing out their inventory of this dud.

I believe this is a manufacturing flaw that they didn't know about till they put it on the market. If the stands were couple of dollars I doubt anyone would have bothered. But for this to be priced so expensive it gave customers a sense of expectation that they are made with good quality materials. Oh well, lesson learned I guess. We'll be careful in buying Otterbox products going forward.