Happiness is... enjoying a jam-packed holiday

We always look forward to the long year end school holidays because of all the exciting activities we can do as a family.

It's the time when I can turn off the numerous alarms I have on my phone, when we can sleep beyond sunrise and not have to rush in the mornings, when we can sleep late at night and not have to keep chasing everyone to go to bed, when we can be spontaneous and go anywhere we want to, when the kids and I spend so much quality time together on our mum-and-kids outings that I wish it would never end.

Of course, having all the kids at home also means less peace, more bickers and non-stop nagging. Some days are really tough and take away every bit of sanity and patience I thought I had. Yet, given a choice, I'd still much prefer the holidays to school days and wish the duration of both could be swapped. How about you?

In this post of "Happiness is...", I share about what we did in November last year and that was within less than a fortnight of school holidays, woohoo. Let's go!

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We love camping overnight in the airport and this is the second time we joined the "A Night at The Airport" and got to stay over in Changi Experience Studio. Every stayover feels like a vacation to the kids and though we slept on inflatable mattresses placed inside tents, they were very thrilled with the idea and I was just glad that unlike me, they could sleep well through the night. Our tents were right facing the Rain Vortex, how majestic and cool is that, right?

Since it was nearing Christmas, we also did a craft workshop and built a DIY christmas tree out of cardboard rolls, pom poms, decorative tape, pipe cleaners, cotton wool, sequins and more. It was really a fun and creative way to bond with the older kids and we enjoyed that afternoon very much.

The kids love playing and learning in Changi Experience Studio so even though we've been here over half a dozen times already, they still enjoy our time here. Some of their favourite activities including The Amazing Runway where they get to pedal and race and the Smile Challenge where we would flash our pearlies and hope to get a high score.

The Underground Carnival in Terminal 3 was one of our highlights for this month and we visited not once but twice because the kids had so much fun! We loved most of the games across the three worlds - Great World, Modern World and Future World - and our favourites were the viking, choo choo train, darts, fishing, shooting and bumper cars. Carnival games are always so much fun and we are so thankful we got to play so much of them this year - our Halloween party had a carnival theme too, remember?

We love hanging out at Jewel and it's a place we frequent. There are so many eateries, sightseeing spots as well as kid-friendly activities here. I truly enjoy our mum-and-kids outings and seeing how fast the kids are growing up, I know this won't last forever and while they are still young, I'd better cherish my time with them and make use of every day we spend together.

Knowing how they love animals, especially dogs, I surprised them by bringing them to visit a dog cafe called Chow Cute Cafe. While the food wasn't worth the hefty price tag, we enjoyed the patting session with the dogs and spent a good time with them and some other animals like chinchillas and parrots too. Our favourite is Barkley, the gorgeous, fluffy and absolutely friendly Samoyed and I think we were very lucky to be able to meet him.

Playground visits are always enjoyable for the kids so I made sure we visited some neighbourhood playgrounds during the holidays. It's nice to explore new playgrounds too so I'm always trying to think of where to bring them next. How blessed are we to have some so many fun and free playgrounds in our heartlands, right? 

The only annual pass we own now is the Friends of Wildlife membership and that is because the kids really like visiting the Zoo, Bird Park, River Wonders and Night Safari. We checked out the Festive Wild-erland celebration in the Zoo and the kids made some cute aquariums and learnt a fact or two about monochromatic animals. With a stroke of luck, we came up close with many ring-tailed lemurs that day too and that was pretty awesome!

Movie outings continue to be a part of our life and my family generally enjoys watching movies and appreciate every chance we get to go to the cinema. We had a mum-and-kids outing to Orchard to catch Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile and that was one of the best shows we watched in 2022. The cute choreography, the catchy songs, the inspirational story all combined to make this show a fond one for us and the kids loved it a lot.

We were lucky to be able to bring home a couple of inflatable crocodiles too and guess what, even though it was late at night already, the kids and I still went for supper at McDonalds before we headed home on the public transport with our crocs. The funny thing was it started to pour heavily and we had to walk in the rain on our way home. So the crocs came into good use because we used them to shelter our heads, haha. That was a fun memory that I hope the kids would remember when they grow up.

I like to bring the kids for new experiences and it's hard to say no to a chance to know more about the Jurassic era and learn more about extinct creatures like dinosaurs. This wasn't a sponsored trip but I thought it was be worthwhile to pay and bring the kids, so we did on a weekday afternoon, just the five of us.

It was a fun and memorable experience and they enjoyed most of the activities, including having to cross a river, dig for fossils and sit in a minecart. A hilarious incident was that we had a play date with our friend prior to this outing and she told me that I somehow had a big hole in my pants, right at the butt area. It probably ripped when I was bending over and I guess that is the problem of wearing a pair of pant - what's more, a maternity one - for too many years. We laughed our heads off and I borrowed a shawl to tie around my waist so as to cover it up. 

We went on with the rest of our day as usual, including travelling to Yishun SAFRA for our Dinoland adventure. We even explored further after that by finding our way in the rain to a bus stop, taking the bus to Northpoint, having Pastamania for dinner followed by playing in the arcade for a couple more hours. Yup, it was a fun-filled day from morning to night and I finally said byebye to my pants at the end of it.

On the last day of school, it was dress up day for Ariel and Asher and they had to be characters from one of the storybooks. So off Ariel went in a simple DIY ladybird getup - we pasted black dots on a red shirt and cape and made her feelers out of pipe cleaners and milk carton caps - while Asher was my Prince Charming in the gold crown had a personalised cape.

Navy Family Day is always an event we look forward to because it presents a rare chance for the kids to experience and understand more about Papa's work. They don't see him around that much and this is a time when they can bond with him and find out what keeps him busy as he does his part to protect our seas. Kudos to the event organisers for doing this year after year, we truly appreciated how we got to on board the ships, take part in family-friendly carnival games and visit the newly revamped Navy Museum this year.

To the hubby, thank you for working so hard to support our family and for keeping our country safe. You are the reason why I can continue this dream of being a stay-at-home mum and be there with our kids as they grow up each day. We appreciate you more than we say it out loud and I hope you know that deep down. 

Of course, we also had a fabulous 3D2N stay in D'Resort to celebrate Angel's 13th birthday and I've dedicated a separate post on that, you can read about it here. The year end is always a busy period for me because three of my babies' birthdays fall during Nov and December. I shall share more about the rest of our celebrations soon, yeah?

We also went to the arcade and every time I do so, I remind the kids that it's a blessing that they get to play such games which are not cheap in my view. I always look for good deals before I top up our cards and it must be at least a $1 for $2 credit bundle deal before I am wiling to do so. We had saved up our tickets from our previous visits so this time round, we finally used them to exchange for some games and toys since it was the start of the school holidays after all. Woohoo!

Congratulations to Ariel for achieving the Gold Award in swimming! This girl is a fish in the water and she amazes me by how fast and comfortable she is when it comes to swimming. She got her Silver Award not long ago only so it was a surprise when her coach told me she could go for Gold and she even outswam the other boys who took the test with her. So well done to you, Ariel, please know that you are an exceptional girl and I am very proud of you in all you do!

To celebrate her passing her test, I took the kids for supper after that. Yeap, we took the MRT to explore the surroundings and found ourselves in a McDonalds' outlet in Khatib. We had a nice meal, went to a pasar malam for a walk after that before taking a long bus ride home. These are the kind of days I treasure with the kids and the reason why I love holidays too - it gives us the chance to bond, explore, have fun, sleep late and just be spontaneous.

For those of you who love reading Ansel's updates, well, he had his first taste of 小笼包 and surprisingly, he loved it and asked for mouth after mouth! Haha. 识货哦. It's so expensive to dine in Ding Tai Fung these days because 一笼小笼包 is not enough for us and we have to end up ordering two, which makes the bill a hefty sum. So we only visit Ding Tai Fung once every 2 to 3 months and it's a treat that we savour and treasure every time we go.

To celebrate the start of the holidays, I also organised a play date for the girls and invited their besties over. It was nice to get to know them better and also let them know our family better too. We played games, swam, ate and chatted. I surprised them by telling them to head to the pool first while I inflated this ginormous, super huge flamingo so that they could all ride together. They were so shocked when they saw it, haha. I also bought two slices of cake so that we could celebrate the girls' birthdays in advance because I thought it would be awesome if they got to do a cake cutting ceremony with their best friends. So glad all of you had fun, my dears!

Last but not least, we also had several family gatherings because that's what the year end is all about, right? We gathered to celebrate my mum's birthday, Angel's birthday, Christmas and more and it's always nice to see our parents bonding over beer and good food as they catch up with each other's lives.

Yup, if that sounds like jam-packed and fun-filled month of November, just wait till you hear all about our December happenings! That's gonna take a while for me to compile and write but trust that I will slowly but surely get there. I still have so many videos that I wanna make for the kids because they are all precious memories to last for a lifetime. 

Till the next update, everybody, and thanks for always sharing and reading about our highlights!