A Juggling Mom

2016 June School Holidays in Melbourne – Day 1

June 21, 2016 Comments: 27

For the first half of 2016, we’ve kept our travel plans close to home and went across the causeway to Johor Bahru and Malacca. But unlike previous years where we’ll drive up in our car, we hired a driver and took a coach which not only relieved us of the driving but also freed our minds from car safety worries.

So when it came to the June school holidays, I wanted to scoot off a little further. Well you probably know the story by now that we returned to Melbourne, the city where we honeymooned 10 years ago for our 10th wedding anniversary. Plus, we really wanted to get away from sunny Singapore and spending winter in Australia sounds a brilliant plan.

Flight to Melbourne
We booked our flight with Scoot in early May and snagged a good deal of S$1,100 for 2 Adults and 1 Child. I only wished that the timing could have been better as it can sometimes be a hit or miss for red eye flights.

True enough, we had a crying toddler seated right behind us and I barely got any sleep. Lucky for my travel companions, Alexis and Sophie slept through the bawling with occasional stirring.

Good for me, I only need coffee and lots of it to get me going and Melbourne is the perfect city for it #alwayslookonthebrightside

June Holidays in Melbourne – Day One

Getting to our apartment was just a bus ride away on the Sky Express and we arranged for hotel transfer that took us to the door step of Citadines at Bourke Street. This was recommended by Mummy Ed and the location was very convenient too with the tram station right at our door step.

Queen Victoria Market

We wasted no time after checking in and headed to the Queen Victoria Market via the tram from our apartment. I was in two minds about visiting QVM market many people have said that it’s lost its charm and became very touristy and tacky.

And I hate to admit it but boy are they right. What I remembered to be a bustling market resembled a dead town on a Friday afternoon especially at the retail section where there was hardly any people and the stalls were pretty boring with some even starting to wrap up for the day at 4pm (they are usually open till 5pm on Fridays).

The fresh produce section was more lively and even though I didn’t buy any food to cook back at the apartment, we bought strawberries and cherry tomatoes for just $2 each!

We didn’t managed to hunt down the oysters but we did find the famous doughnut van and caved in to our sweet tooth desires with these piping hot doughnuts with jam filings and sugar coating! Super comforting to sink our teeth into them on a cold winter day!

I stumbled upon Market Lane Coffee and boy do they have great coffee!

We also spotted a van selling mussels and ordered the grilled mussels with garlic, parsley and breadcrumbs. Sophie was quite game when I asked if she’ll like to try it. How did she enjoy it? She gave it the thumbs up for her first taste of crustacean goodness.

Heh notice the “wings” on top of the van?

I wonder where she learnt that from

By 4.30pm, the stores started to pack up and we called it a day at the market too before heading for our lovely dinner at the Rare Steakhouse to celebrate our anniversary!

Wedding Anniversary Dinner at Rare Steakhouse Uptown

For the special occasion, we chose to dine at Rare Steakhouse Uptown after reading glowing reviews about them online and they certainly didn’t disappoint. We don’t usually order wine but hey why hold back when we’ve made it to such a milestone 🙂

I ordered a Angus Beef Porterhouse and Alexis had the Eye Fillet and they were cooked to perfection, still tender and juicy. The starters were pretty good and mash potato that accompanied our steak was so so good ! But most of all the service was fantastic where the waitress patiently explained the menu and was all smiles each time she came around to check if we needed anything.

Although we don’t notice any kids around, they were accommodating to have a young kid around 🙂

Cheers to making it to our 10th year!

Alexis is usually not a steak guy at all, so I do feel special when he takes me to a place where he thinks I’ll like. And I’ll like to think that I open up possibilities for him by getting him to step out of his comfort zone. Guess that’s how we complement each other over these years.

Rare Steakhouse Uptown
Address: 6/61 Little Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia

We spent a total of 9 days in Melbourne where we did a free and easy trip and I’ll be sharing more about the places we visited soon 🙂

Hit the links below for the rest of our Melbourne trip

Day 2- On board the Puffing Billy steam train

Day 3- Melbourne Street Art and Laneways

Enjoyed reading this post? Do like my Facebook page to get travelling updates and family friendly itineraries. You can also follow me on Twitter (@Susankoh) or Instagram (@ajugglingmom) for more travel adventures and parenting posts.

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Melbourne again after 10 years

June 15, 2016 Comments: 10

2016 marks our tenth wedding anniversary.

That sounds like a milestone to celebrate but between Alexis and I, we’ve grown to be a very practical couple where gifts and presents don’t matter all that much (though my disclaimer is it never hurts to be surprised).

Over the years we’ve been together, and that’s 15 years, including the years of courtship, I’ve come to realise that gifts are not Alexis’s love language and it’s a painful affair for him to wreak his brains on finding the perfect gift. Now, I’ll like to think I’m very easy to please but I’m sure he has his side of story to tell.

And because I’m hardly the competitive sort, I have to admit that he’s sprung a few surprises on me over the years and they are some of my best memories to date. One of which was when he filled my entire room with helium balloons and made me find my present.

This was way back in 2003! The balloon filled my whole room suprise

It’s very out of character for Alexis to make a big fuss out of birthdays and anniversaries so when he does, he always outdo himself each and every time, which makes it hard for me to beat. Not that I mind losing, seriously.

Back to Melbourne after 10 years

Anyway for our tenth wedding anniversary, I had this grand plan of revisiting Melbourne, the place where we went on our honeymoon as a newly wedded couple all bubbling with love and excitement of building our future together. Besides going away on holidays is a much better way to build memories than just stuffs don’t you agree?

The plan almost didn’t materialise as the mister was away climbing the Great Wall of China and he wasn’t keen to travel so soon after his trip. But after some convincing, he got sold and so we booked our tickets!

We were even secretly plotting not to take Sophie along on this trip until she pulled the emotional blackmail card and gave us the, “But don’t you love me mummy! Why don’t you take me along.”

Needless to say she had Daddy changing his mind about making this our long awaited couple only vacation and its back to making it a free and easy family friendly vacation for our family of 3, where I had to incorporate places like Puffing Billy, the zoo and museum into our 9 days free and easy itinerary. Not that I really mind because she completes our family and it’s always fun doing new things as a family.

Back at the Great Ocean Road!

Drama before the flight

But just before we flew, I had a panic attack when I realised I left my camera at home!

It’s every blogger’s nightmare and I even thought Alexis was joking when he said he didn’t pack it along when he packed in all the batteries and cable. It was a case of everyone assuming someone will bring it and I was really mad at him and myself especially since my mobile phone is from the stone age with problems syncing to iCloud ever so often.

it took me a whole 5 minutes to calm down, collect my thoughts and decide that I will not let this ruin the start of our trip and apologised for my overreaction. So I’m not going to have spectacular photos from this trip but I can live with that because I know that we are going to have great memories on the trip.

And we certainly did.

Luna Park!

Among us, we all have our different highlights of the trip.

For Sophie, it’s the thrilling tube slide at Enchanted Adventure Garden. For Alexis, it’s helping Sophie conqueror her fears on the tree surfing course which we had to cut short because of the rain. And for me, the view of the Great Ocean Road beats everything hands down as the most memorable part of the trip for me.

Actually, I have to correct myself For Sophie, the highlight of the trip was spending 9 full days and night with mummy and daddy and she gave us a big big hug after that. How precious that our undivided attention made all the difference to Sophie and to hear that our and presence was the highlight of this whole trip for her is just so heartwarming.

On board the Puffing Billy

There is no lousy coffee in Melbourne

We had so many good memories on this trip and I want to record down the places we visited and things we did on the blog before I forget.

We spent a total of 9 days in Melbourne where we did a free and easy trip and I’ll be sharing more about the places we visited soon 🙂

Hit the links below for the rest of our Melbourne trip

Day 1- Queen Victoria Market and Anniversary Dinner at Rare Steakhouse Uptown

Day 2- On board the Puffing Billy steam train

Day 3- Melbourne Street Art and Laneways

Day 4- Weekend at St Kilda and Luna Park

I’ll be sharing more about the rest of our free and easy itinerary on the blog soon.

Don’t miss our Gold Coast adventures in Australia too. You can read more about where we went here.

Enjoyed reading this Post? Do like my Facebook page to get travelling updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@Susankoh) or Instagram (@ajugglingmom) for more travel and parenting posts.

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Switching Gears to be a Why Not Mum

June 2, 2016 Comments: 6

Why must I go to sleep when I’m not tired mummy?
Why must I greet people I don’t know when you tell me not to talk to strangers?
Why can’t I marry Daddy when I love him as much as you?’

As a mum, I don’t know how many “whys” you get asked in a day but I’ve lost count of them myself ever since Sophie started to speak at 3 years old. And at 4 years old, that’s when I got bombarded left, right and centre by all the why this, why that.

There are days when I get innocent questions that makes me chuckle and all fuzzy and warm inside, like why can’t I marry you or Daddy when I love both of you so much?

Then there are some days when her questions fumble me especially when it comes to the unjustice and pain that she sees in the world on the news like why must people die and leave this earth or why are some babies born to be blind?

As a parent, I’ve thrown all sorts of responses at her questions. From the right answers to the wrong answers and sometimes even absurd responses while I can still get away with them when she’s naive and innocent at 6 years.

While some of her questions call for a logical and scientific reply on how things in this world work, I’ve slowly come to recognise that there are why questions that calls for a heart response.

Why can’t I sleep with you in your room anymore?
Why do I get to spend so little time with you in a day?
Why can’t I stay up late to chit chat with you a little more mummy?

While the natural responses is to give answers like

“Because you’re a big girl now”
“Mummy, got to work just like Sophie got to study”
“You’ll get tired if you don’t sleep now”

they don’t quite address what her heart is longing for, which is

Attention. Affection. Love.

And how can I fault her for feeling that way. After all if I were to put myself in her shoes, I’ll feel disappointed to only see mummy for a few hours before bedtime. And I know I can be the worst person to be around if I’m feeling tired after work and will shoot replies like, later, give me 10 minutes when all I want to do is have dinner, shower and sleep instead of being a dutiful mother to revise her homework or catch up on her day.

But each time I turn down her invitation to play, to hear about her day at school or to see a drawing that she did, I’m sending her message that she doesn’t matter.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about revolving our lives solely around their little one’s lives to the point that they feel entitled and spoilt. But rather it’s being conscious that our responses frames their identity of who they are when we neglect their little hearts.

Being a Why Not Mum

So these days, I’m learning to tune into my daughter’s feelings and be a more spontaneous mum by responding

why not, when she asks me to take her to the playground after work

why not, when she requests to take her out during the school holidays

why not, when she asks to stay up for 5 minutes more just to hear about her day

why not, when she asks for movie night where we’ll curl up in front of the TV with chips and popcorn

why not, when she wants to tag along for my girl trip with my colleagues to Malacca last weekend

why not, when she wants to tag along my anniversary trip to Melbourne with hubby

Taking her to the Art Science Museum Imaginarium

Hunting down wall murals at Waterloo Street

Little Miss Sunshine along with my colleagues on our Malacca trip

And before you think well let’s throw schedule and routines out of the window and just give in to our kids in that case, I’d say halt. Schedules and routines are important to keep a child regulated so they know what’s expected of them.

Instead when we surprise our kids when we say why not when they don’t expect it, it makes it even more special and memorable. And that’s how I intend to keep building Sophie’s memory bank, with lots of spontaneous, crazy fun moments.

And for me, the greatest affirmation that I’m on the right track was when I received a hand scribbled love letter from Sophie on the last night on our girl trip to Malacca. I promised that I will not reveal the contents of her note to me, but it was filled with thankfulness for all the things we did together.

I was all teary after that and wrote her a note in return too. And she even made me wrote down about her note to me in my diary and remember that day as our very own special day between us…

So mums, for all the whys that our kids throw at us, why not turn the tables and be a why not mum to them 🙂

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IKEA FADO Lamp Hack for Children’s Room

May 27, 2016 Comments: 21

You may have noticed that I’ve been blogging lesser this year and the main reason is because I’ve neglected my health and subjected it to a lot lesser rest that it needed and deserved last year. And my friends, I just want to say that we should never take our health for granted, so please take care of yourself and get sufficient rest, exercise and eat well.

So while I’ve turned down numerous opportunities for collaborations, I jumped at the chance when I was approached by IKEA for their blogger engagement as this is a brand that I truly am a fan of. So over the next 4 months, I’ll be sharing with you some of the projects I’ll be doing with IKEA and I hope they give you fresh inspirations 🙂

For my first project, I want to share about how I did a super cute IKEA FADO Lamp Hack for Sophie’s room.

Here’s what you need:

FADO table lamp
Sharpie markers (I used black and yellow)
Ink stamp in pink
small piece of sponge

Here’s the BEFORE look at the table lamp on Sophie’s side table. While it’s functional, I just wished it was more welcoming especially before she goes to sleep at night.

Before I jumped into drawing freehand on the lamp directly, I thought of a few ideas. Since one of her favourite animal is the bunny from her favorite story book, Guess How Much I Love You, I decided to go on Pinterest to get some inspirations of illustrated rabbits.

Once I chose my design, I printed the picture on my colour printer at about 3/4 of an A4. You’ll want to use Sharpie markers for this project, which can be easily purchased from bookshops like Popular, Art Friend or the local craft stores.

Before you get started, it’s a good idea to just have a wipe down of the lamp and make sure that you work on dry surface.

While Sharpie markers are supposed to be permanent markers, you’ll be relived to know that they are surprisingly very forgiving on shaking hands and I managed to wipe off my mistakes effortlessly. But that also means you’ll have to be careful not to get the ink smudged.

At first, I was contemplating using acrylic paint for the rabbit’s ears and cheeks but since I couldn’t find any in my stash of art supply, I substituted it with my versa ink stamp and it was perfect! Plus the shade of pink was simply too adorable.

The ink stamping was so simple that even Sophie chipped in to lend a helping hand.

Here’s a tip: As you want to only ink a small surface area, do cut your sponge to a smaller size to avoid smudging and use gentle dabbing motions for a soft, gentle effect.

Since this was going to be Sophie’s night lamp, she suggested to add stars.

As a final finishing touch, I added the words, Good Night, honey bunny and her night lamp is complete.

Sophie was over the moon with the new look of her table lamp and I was secretly very satisfied with the end result myself! And if you’re thinking of giving it a go, rest assured that it takes no more than half an hour to complete and it could even be a cool June holiday bonding activity for you and your child.

Here are more inspirations from around the web.on how you can DIY the FADO table lamp.

Here’s a project I did last year on how you can transform a $1.50 wall clock to a princess clock. Read on here.

Did I spark a creative light bulb in you with this post? If so, head over to IKEA website and explore the many other wonderful things you can create with their products.

* This is a sponsored post written in collaboration with IKEA, however all ideas and opinions expressed here are my own.

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Splashing good time at Legoland Water Park, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

May 24, 2016 Comments: 15

For my birthday this year we headed up to JB and let me tell you, the one who was most excited was not me the birthday girl but rather little Sophie as she was looking forward to Legoland Water Park. Makes me wonder whose birthday we were really celebrating here. But hey, I’m up for anything fun as long as the family is happy 🙂

This was our second visit to Legoland Water Park and the first time we went was last year on our wedding anniversary. I’m seriously beginning to see a pattern here and it’s a sure sign that we’re 100% parents when kids rule your holiday plans.

It’s a good thing we held off going to Legoland when they first opened as we got to enjoy the park without the crazy crowds even though we were there over the long Labour Day weekend. But my friends were quick to point out that it’s because the school going kids were still busy studying for their mid-year exams, so lucky lucky us 🙂

Though there are many blogs out there that have done a review on Legoland Water Park, we’ve because such fans of the theme park that we felt it should be given more attention compared to it’s counterpart, the Legoland Resort. And yes these are non-sponsored visits, so I’m telling it as it is… which is what I always do anyway 🙂

Off to Legoland Water Park

Extended hours at the Legoland Water Park on Fridays and Saturdays!

What we liked about Legoland Water Park

Everything is Lego themed! As if I needed to tell you that.

But seriously, a water park is fun enough, but throw in Lego everywhere and you get one awesome water park that Sophie kept exclaiming, “This is my BEST DAY EVER!”

We like how suitable the water park is for water loving young kids like Sophie. We’ve been to Adventure Cove in Resorts World Sentosa and though Alexis and I had a very enjoyable time we felt it was more suited for older kids to get the best experience out of it since there was a height limit of 122 cm for the more thrilling rides.

On the other hand, Legoland Waterpark offers more child friendly rides since the height limit even for the most thrilling rides is at 107cm.

Upon arriving at the Water Park, you want to head to the locker area to store your belongings. As the sun can be very unforgiving, don’t forget to slather on sunblock and grab a bottle of water along with you as it can be rather inconvenient to return to the locker area. Plus don’t leave your slippers in the lockers as the ground can be scorching hot especially for the younger ones. We learnt it the painful way as you can literally fry an egg on the ground under the sweltering heat. So you’ve been warned!

Bird’s eyeview of Legoland Water Park

There are more than 20 slides in the water park and we made a beeline for Red Rush slide as it’s always one of the more popular family rides that can accommodate up to 6!

Oh yes have I mentioned that when you’re in Legoland Water Park, you can expect to get a good leg workout for your thighs, calves and glutes as you’ll be climbing up stairs after stairs to take the slides. Plus you’ll need to carry your own floats for some of the slides so your upper body wouldn’t get neglected too :

Don’t let the stairs deter you from a splashing good time

This time, Sophie got adventurous and was brave enough to go on the Slide Racer for the first time after I convinced her that it was just like how she always takes a nose dive at the slides in the playground. For this, you have to lay down on mat and slide face down from 3 storeys high!

It was such an exhilarating slide that she went on it thrice much to my surprise as I was worried she wouldn’t like it as the initial part of the slide is covered before the plunge down. I on the other hand contemplated going on it as my adrenaline went into overdrive mode after my first attempt!

The Splash and Swirl was another of our favourite as Sophie and I can go on a double float and I secretly thinks she gets a thrill out of hearing me scream as we plunge down the slide.

Tried the Slide Racer for the first time and she LOVED it!

New Build a Boat area

At the foot of the slide, there is a new sheltered area for Build a Boat where the kids can get busy building their boat with Lego bricks if they get tired of the slides. Here they can pit their Lego vessels against other kids as they send it off for a race to reach first place. This was such a hit with the kids and I hope they have more of such interactive Lego activities in future.

Lunch at Beach Grill

We settled our lunch at the Beach Grill and choose a table just next to the wave pool allowing us a view of the swimmer as we sought some respite from the blazing heat. We ordered burgers, fries and finger food like calamari and nuggets and I recalled they also have Nasi Lemak if my memory doesn’t fail me.

But my biggest grouse was how inefficient their queue system are or rather a lack of any system as you can only view the menu when you reach the counter which resulted in unnecessary long queues with lots of hangry people. Yes, you got that, hungry and angry people.

You might have thought this was something so fundamental and after operating for 2 or 3 years they would have gotten it right… But no, anyway end of rant, so yes, be prepared for long queues for your meals…

Moving along to happier thoughts…

Don’t forget to grab a life jacket for the wave pool

At the Imagination Station

Since Sophie has outgrown the Dulpo Splash Safari we skipped it this time and jumped right into the Build a Raft River!

We usually leave the Build a Raft River and the water playground, Joker Soaker to the 2nd half of the day as it’s always an uphill challenge to try to peel Sophie away from it once she makes her way in there.

Joker Soaker where your little kids will not want to leave

There are a couple of slides inside and really there’s no stopping adults from joining in the fun and it’s always a thrill to wait for the bucket of water to come splashing down. Marvelous way to cool off in the sweltering heat.

Build a Raft River

We didn’t get much success building a strong enough raft to hold Sophie up as she got bigger and heavier but check out what we built the first time we were there. We saw some pretty impressive rafts that resembled a throne! So go all out and grab as many bricks as you can to build your ultimate raft.

Toppling over her raft. Yikes!

Look, mummy I’m floating!

Much easier to keep Sophie afloat when she was lighter

The river has a very gentle current and the best way to enjoy it is to grab a large float for adults and imagine your overly enthusiastic kids are not with you as you float away without a care in the world. Look out for Lego figures along the way and avoid getting sprayed by jets of water.

We had such a good splashing time at Legoland Water Park despite getting darker by a shade or two and I’m pretty certain we’ll be back very soon again. But maybe this time for Sophie’s birthday instead of my birthday 😛 And the next time we come, we want to make sure we secure that Legoland hotel stay too!

Accommodation at Johor Bahru

We usually stay at Hotel Jen, Puteri Harbour whenever we head up to JB. But this time round, we stayed at the newly opened service apartment, Somerset Medini which was highly recommended by my friends and we enjoyed a very good value for our accommodation. Plus, it’s a mere 5 minutes walk to Legoland. Super convenient or what. You can read more about our stay here.

Another hotel that we usually put up at is Doubletree by Hilton. It’s a 4 four star hotel conveniently located just under 10 minutes away from malls like City Square and Komtar that are close to the immigration.

For a more comprehensive review of Legoland Water Park, do check out these blogs:

You can also read about our experience at Legoland Resort last Christmas where the theme park was dressed up for their Christmas Holiday Extravaganza.

Legoland Water Park
Legoland Malaysia Resort
No.7 Jalan Legoland
Bandar Medini Iskandar Malaysia
79250 Nusajaya Johor

If you’re heading to JB, don’t miss these posts where I share some of my shopping finds and places to go cafe hopping across the causeway as well.

Singapore to JB in 5 minutes by the KTM Shuttle – Our best kept secret!
Hop on the bus and beat the jam to JB – Getting to JB from Singapore by bus
Water park, Trampoline park, skating rink all under one roof – Austin Heights Water & Adventure Park
Cafe hopping in Johor Bahru

Enjoyed reading this post? Do like my Facebook page to get more family friendly travel updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@Susankoh) or Instagram (@ajugglingmom) for more travel and parenting posts

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