Chinese New Year

Preparation for Chinese New Year involves lots of planning and all these are done by Eve! So proud of her. From clothings to food to timing to hong baos. All these need to be carefully thought of so as to have a smooth execution of the places to go to.

Group picture of my relatives at my mum's side!

Clothings

We have three sets of Chinese New Year clothes for our children and also prepared the school bags for placing the red packets, so as not to get mixed up. Extra clothes were brought for emergency cases.

 

Kate in her Chinese New Year costume on her way to school before Chinese New Year

Timing

This is very important as it involves their meal times. A hungry child is an unhappy child. Hence we had our first planned visit to my parent's place at 12pm and the next one at 2pm. This is so as prevent late meals. Nap time was catered for in the planning, but it turned out to be later. However it was fine.

  

Gwen and I. Ain't she cute in her little Chinese New year costume?

Red packets

This allocation is really quite a cumbersome task as we have to prepare a list of who to give and the amount. This year, we have kept a written list so that we do not need to rewrite over and over again. And also, the writing on each red packet for the recipients are very important too. Hence we made an effort to write a suitable message for each recipient.

Also, the amount to be packed has to be planned a week or so. This is because there are usually long queues at the banks for new notes for the Chinese New Year. Hence, early packing is good so as to prevent yourself from the long queues.

My 3 children and I

Food

It's really important to set boundaries for your children because definitely there are temptations to munch on the festive goodies. And we told Josh and Kate that they have to ask us before taking the tidbits. I'm just so glad that they listened to us and we managed to minimize their amount of tidbits. And they took zero soft drinks! Partly attributed to us because we, adults didn't drink them too.

We brought blender too as Gwen needs to have some solids. Hence, we made use of the cooked broccoli in the steamboat and made it into a purée. She loved it so much!

We brought along some fruits so as to neutralize our stomachs after the Chinese New Year food.

Family Picture! 

Toys

This time, we brought toys like Lego to the grandmother's place so that all the children are able to entertain themselves too. Luckily Eve thought of this idea, otherwise we had nothing much to do for the children except going down to the neighborhood playground.

 

My beautiful wife, Eve! Chinese New Year is a time whereby people dress to their best!

IPhone / iPad

I'm so glad that both Josh and Kate didn't requested for usage of the gadgets at all during the gatherings. And these days, they seldom ask us about it too. Now in the house, we kept our phones in vibration mode and only check it in places they can't see us. So happy! Of course I used the iPad Mini to take pictures. They saw it and didn't know at all that my iPad Mini can be used to play games, as we conditioned them that it's used for my work only.

Happy Grandparents

Transport

We intended to take public transport. However looking at the amount of bags and stuff to bring, we took cab from our place to location 1 and location 2. Thank God we managed to on call the cab after our second try. It's really quite scarce to get cabs, especially during Chinese New Year.

Really so happy to see the cousins. And children can mingle too!

Help

Managing three children is certainly not a one man show. We needed our parents, aunties, uncles, fellow cousins to render their help at times. We may need help in bringing them to playground, playing the Lego, accompany them to eat, rest, go to the washroom etc. It's certainly wonderful when someone offered to carry Gwen when I'm eating. Really feel so happy and would like to give some 'mana' as in those in computer games, to level up those who helped us! So thankful for it.

Final picture before the day ends...

After a day's of preparation and execution, we are both tired. Really tired! Guess that it's all worth it to see the joy in relative's faces and our children too. Chinese New Year is a great event for all relatives to come and mingle together, to catch up too. 

Wish all of you in this Horse Year, 马上有钱！