Emily is getting to a stage of being super manja. She demands what she wants else she will cry aloud. Usually I just let her unless it is in a public area or late at night. She threw one at me yesterday night and got some serious caning from dad. I really hope she improved.

Once she wants me to carry her downstairs. Here is how the conversation goes:

Emily: Please carry me downstairs.
Mummy: *try not to pamper her* Mummy cannot carry you, leg pain.
Emily: Carry me la, I want to fly like Peter Pan.
Mummy: Mummy no energy, see. *giving the lethargic look*
Emily: Wait. *pretend to go to my back* Dit Dit Dit Dit *pretend to open a invisible door at the back of me, take something and put it in and close back the invisible door*
Emily: Mummy, I change your battery already. Now you can carry me.
Mummy: Sigh.

She makes me laugh but I just hope she will overcome her demanding character.

Before I was married, my hubby and I love to go visit any show house or apartment. I love to look at their decorations and the way they renovate the place. Penang property is expensive and the space is not very big either. Many interior designers here will make the tiny area looks spacious and presentable. We go there to leverage their ideas.

Today we didn’t have any plans for the weekend and we went to look at a show unit near Queensbay mall. The place was decorated very nicely. I like one of the children room, it has pinky wallpaper, pinky carpet, pinky chair and a little pinky seating area. It was lovely and Emily keep saying, “Come come to my room”. It gives me some idea how to decorate my children’s room. However I will not put wallpaper because hard to maintain and install.

By the way, the show unit was only 2388 square feet and you have a guess at what it is priced at? It is greater than 0.7 a million and it is only an apartment. The only plus point is it has a seaview.

Emily has grown so much and she has learned lots of words. I cannot remember when she started speaking in sentences. Now she can hardly keep quiet. She will go bla bla bla bla bla non stop. Worst, Tim and her go bla bla bla, trying to out beat one another with louder voice. I am seeing a lot of competition between the both of them.

Sometimes it gives me a headache. On top of that, they want me to participate in their conversation, asking me this and that. It is hard to get peace and quiet. I think I can achieve that when all of them are asleep. This is why I love the night time because it is so peaceful.

Emily can sing very well too, here are some video that I promised a long time ago. She was in a good mood today and sang all 3 songs for me to record.

Durian is in season and my hubby bought a few back. Tim loves durian and he can wallops a lot. Emily, it depends on her mood. If she likes it, she will take 1 biji. To sums it all up, all of us have the durian gens.

When I was young, I try to avoid taking because I couldn’t stand the smell of my hands after eating. However I love eating it especially when it is from the fridge. There was a point in time when I use plastic gloves to eat. My parents are a great fan of durian and they are sure to get a bunch when it is in season. We will have a durian party. My hubby side his mom and brother dislike durian.

As you know Penang is a place to get good durians and even expensive ones too. Imagine now durian have different grade and types. I prefer the sweet ones than the bitter ones. There are a couple of places here where they have “eat all you can durian buffet”. I am serious. It cost between $15-$20 per person. When my children grow up, we will sure go for the durian buffet. Yum Yum…

Finally my hubby and I have moved our children to their own room. It is 80% successful and going to 100% soon. Moving them to another room is not tough at this age. Most often, during bedtime, they can sleep on their own after I tugged them in.

What did we do? We told them that they are old enough to sleep in their own room. Secondly, we placed some toy box with toys in that room. Third, we went to the Disney Shop to get their cartoon characters bed sheets. There weren’t many to choose from. Emily wanted Mermaid but got Tweety Bird. Timothy wanted Ultraman but got Batman. Mummy and Daddy wanted our own private room back. :giggles:

First few nights, I was sleeping with both of them in their new room. Emily was pretty excited as she calls her room, “Special room”. Tim was a little afraid because previously we put some “glow in the dark” stars on the wall. He didn’t like it. We took it down and replace with a Ultraman poster.

Now they can sleep on their own in their own room. I am just a little worried for Emily. Occasionally but rare, she will wake me up to go to the bathroom. Keeping my finger’s cross. I still want to put a book shelf and a little aquarium in their room.

Recently I put up a post on Bon Odori Festival Fireworks and someone asked me how to take fireworks shot. It was taken by my hubby as photography is his side passion. My hubby left a detailed comment in the post and I thought I will create it as a post to share information. For those photography “kaki”, here is some information on taking fireworks shot, complimentary from my beloved hubby.

Photography is all about painting with light. For shooting fireworks, the surrounding area is usually very dark and the fireworks can be too bright if you stand too close. So, find a place where you can frame a picture not only the fireworks but objects surrounding it(ie. buildings, people, cars…etc..) to show how big the firework is.

To shoot the fireworks, I used Manual mode, switch the shutter speed to BULB and aperture to f11. Actually there is no exact formula for this setup. Most of the time just trial-and-error only. I setup my camera on a sturdy tripod and control the shutter release with a remote wire release. The idea is to avoid camera shake as much as I can. Imagine you are painting on a canvas, and you try to draw a straight line on the canvas. If there is an earthquake and the canvas start shaking and vibrating, you will never able to draw a straight line. Therefore, the camera(the canvas) must be as stable as possible to allow light “painting” on the camera sensor. So, hand holding the camera while shooting fireworks is definitely a no-no. You will get a blur picture because of long exposure.

Next, I prefocus on a spot where I think is close to where the fireworks will be at. This will make sure that I have a properly focused firework. Also I set my Aperture to as small as possible, for this case f11. Smaller aperture produces longer DOF(Depth of Field). However, the drawback is that you will have less light(resulting in dark picture) getting into the sensor if you use smaller aperture.

Anyway, to cut the story short(I’m already cutting the story really really short here 😀 ). Place your camera on a tripod or somewhere that is stable(the back of your husband is not a stable platform, he is made of 70% liquid) and fire away. If you are using a dSLR camera, you have better control of the picture you want to produce by using Manual mode. If you are using a digicam, maybe you can just set to Shutter Priority(Tv) mode and set the shutter speed to 4 sec to 8 sec. Actually, it depends on how fast the fireworks explode(I believe windspeed has some effect on this too) and how long the trail of light you would like to produce. Like I’ve said, there is no one formula for this setup. You will need to experiment by judging how long you want to expose the camera sensor for a period of time(ie. 2 sec, 4 sec, 8 sec…..etc..)

Well, here is a SHORT answer to your question. Hope I managed to give you the answer you are looking for. 😆

1. Acting like cartoon characters, giving you cartoon expressions.
2. Talk like a cartoon character.
3. Start asking parents to get Barney, Ultraman and Disney toys, clothes and stationeries.
4. First thing when you meet them after work, they asked you to switch on their favorite cartoon show.
5. They want to sleep on their favorite cartoon bed or next to a cartoon bolster.
6. They can act out certain scenes of the cartoon movie.
7. They learn to spell all their favorite cartoon names better than one, two, three.
8. Dream and talk in their sleep on cartoon conversations.
9. When your cupboard is filled with VCDs and DVDs belonging to your children.
10. When they asked you to sing “I love you, you love me” before bedtime.

The above is written by me not that my children have any symptoms, maybe a few. Let’s see which are the ones you think my children have? Maybe share will me some that your child has.

I ran out of Emily’s milk. Usually I will stock up when there are promotions in the supermarket. Recently there are none. She is taking Isomil Plus and didn’t like any other. I tried once to change her milk and was not successful. She still likes her bear milk. I have some Pediasure samples and thought she will drink it.

Emily: This is not my milk. I want the bear milk.
Mummy: Bear milk finish, today you drink big girl’s milk.
Emily: I don’t like this milk.
Mummy: But bear milk finished, tomorrow mummy buy. You good gal, drink the big girl’s milk.
Emily: *shake head and give me the disgusting “yi yea” look*

Sigh, fortunately my babysitter is just next door to get the milk powder for her.

Guess what expired? I took out my driving license and saw it ended at Mar 2007. Now you know that I never take out my license for a long long time, like a few years. Anyway I told my hubby, I need to renew it on Monday. It was on Saturday I discovered. Guess what? He took out his, his one also expired May 2007. Now both of us need to renew ours. So who drives? :giggles:

Anyway, got my license renew today and pretty impressed, waited only 15 minutes. I didn’t know that now, 1 year cost RM30. I think the last time I renew was only RM20. Of coz we went to renew maximum 5 years, afraid another hike. We didn’t have enough cash. Hubby went out to withdraw from the ATM. The officer told us that if we renew road tax, can pay by credit card but not for renewing license. :wall:

Next I asked about my road tax claim as last year, government reduce the tax. She told me to go main land. I think the claim is about RM10 or less. I have to spend RM8 for bridge toll and someone petrol money to cross the bridge. Forget it.

The Bon Odori Fest was held last Sat at Esplanade Penang. In the fest, there will be a large group of Japanese performing traditional dance. Around the field there will be stores selling Japanese food and goods. It is a pretty interesting experience if you have not been to one before. However, it is only held in KL and Penang. I have blog about it a few years back and the link is here.

The Bon Odori Fest organizer said that the fireworks this year will be long and nicer. My children love to see the fireworks. I took the opportunity to take them to see. It is happening at the Esplanade Penang. It is going to be crowded and parking will be a problem. It is not wise to bring the children there because afraid of them getting lost.

The fireworks start at 9:30pm. We went down to town and 8pm and saw there was already bad traffic. Anyway we just want to see the fireworks, so we thought double park at a good spot and view it in the car. However we were there too early. We detour to a pet shop and let the children visit the pet shop, looking at dogs, birds, fish and some nice aquarium. Tim & Em asked me to buy one to put in their room.

Anyway, when it was 9:15pm, we drove to a good spot and park there. It was a great spot as the fireworks was just in front of us. The children enjoyed it. However the fireworks for this year were not very impressive and messy. It was only 10 minutes of fun and I wonder how much was spent.