We got these photos professionally done - that's how camera lazy we've been! My brother Alan also too some great shots, but am still waiting on those to arrive. Esp the great photos he took of Emma, our other other beautiful niece. He's one great photographer, with a cool camera to boot!

Having spent more time with my nieces and watching them, I realise that they seem very compliant and laid back, quite unlike my children. I considered Matthew to be compliant, but he wasn't as easy going as my nieces were, and as for Mia, well, she's adds all the spice in our family! Today she climbed out of her cot after her nap, something Matthew never attempted to do. Discliplining her is so much harder for me than it was for Matthew. But, she's so darn cute that I'm partly to blame as I haven't been consistent : )

We flew home at the end of Nov and went straight back to the routine or work, school,...etc which kept us busy til Christmas. We went to stay at Afamosa Resort Villa in Melacca, Malaysia with the Wilson family. The Wilsons have 3 boys ages 9,7,5 and a baby girl who is 1. So Matthew was mostly preoccupied with following whatever the older boys were doing and Mia to an extent, though being so young and possibly because she's a girl also, she did often hang out with the women more. We each had a separate 3 bedroom villa and each villa had a pool. The villas were not luxury villas, but they were adequate, though without any cooking facilities. I brought my rice cooker - a trick my mother taught me, so that came in handy at times. However, Mia was bitten by bed bugs every night, which made her very itchy, and Matthew's asthmatic symptoms got a little worse, so he was back up to the higher dose of antihistamines. The housekeeping was a joke at best. It was done by a young man (I have never in my life come across a male housekeeping staff) who might change our towels, who might remove our dirty towels but not replace them, who might or might not sweep the floors or empty the trash, who might not wash the dishes in the sink. What he consistently did was made the beds and hosed down the entire bathroom. The bathroom was dripping wet from ceiling to floor and he would leave it that way. It wasn't too much of a surprise when we saw a rat in the villa too.

But despite the lack of hygiene, it was fun to celebrate Christmas with the Wilsons. My kids loved the Wilson kids - Matthew loved the fact that they have Gameboys - he made me promise that I give him one when he becomes older. I said that I would do so when he turns 10.

I was blessed to spend more time with Wendy, she is such a joy to be around. It amazes me that women like her who are so busy with kids and food preparations, can put some mind space into decorating for Christmas while on holidays with minimal decorations!

Wei-Han and Steve got to play a couple of rounds of golf, which they enjoyed. We also got to check out the Animal World (think zoo), Cowboy Town (Wendy went on a reverse bungy!) and the boys and men all did the Water World (kinda like Wet & Wild). It was all fun. Unfortunately, we only have 1 photo as we didn't bring a camera.

I'm still pinching myself to see if it's really true - it's 2008, another year just flew by. Since our last blog, we have spent the month of November in Sydney, came back and celebrated Christmas in Melaka with our close friends, the Wilsons, and then, because we can't seem to get enough of our American friends, New Year with them - the Wilsons, Nashs, Hoffnagles, Peters, and Butz.

Going back to Sydney was so much more sane this time round since the kids were older and they learned to sleep together all through the night (well, save the first wk). The weather was frightfully cold for us, yes, we have gotten use to the heat and humidity here for the first couple of weeks. I bought some winter clothes for the kids and borrowed some from my sister in law, Michele.

We celebrated the kids' birthdays a number of times, Matthew once at school before leaving, one on the actual day, another at a gathering at my in laws, another big bash with everyone for the 2 of them, and a last for Mia on the actual date of her b'day. Crazy. Mostly, it was just a b'day cake and candle blowing event for them. They got showered with gifts for their birthdays and Christmas - I have never seen so many toys in my life.

We spent time with family and close friends which was great. We attended Raj and Sophie's wedding at Berry at a beautiful vineyard - a touching ceremony and spectacular lunch. We were very grateful that Wei-Han's parents came with us to mind our kids during the wedding - it made for a delightful day. Our family stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast with lovely views due to enormous number of windows (from floor to roof - no window coverings) which meant of course that we were mostly up by 5am. Not great for families with young uns. We then went to Magenta Shores with Wei-Han's parents and his brother Wei-Hoe, Chui Yan and our big eye niece, Chevonne. The men got some golf, mostly we just hung out together and caught up with each other.

We managed to catch up brieflywith a family whom we were close to while in Singapore, the Poll family at Terrigal which was so nice, but oh, so brief!

I found myself being very lazy with the camera towards the end of the year, so I took only a few photos, so not too many to put up on this blog.

Because Matthew and Mia were sleeping quite well, I felt like Wei-Han and I were able to enjoy our family, friends and the trip as a whole a lot more. The previous few trips that we made to Australia felt like a tiring blur to me, mostly because I was up many times each night nursing or comforting a baby. As much of a blessing my babies were to us, this relief was definitely a welcome blessing too!