Poor Victoria. She really wants to go swimming with her older sister, but because she’s still too young, she has to watch on the sidelines. Swim class is completely different from free play.  While Vanessa is now on her  3rd series of swimming classes that she’s doing at Stanford Swim School.  She’s much improved to the point where she can:

submerge for around 3+ seconds
dive to retrieve rings or toys on the pool bottom
swim forward with a flutter board and kick

It’s amazing how fast they learn and once they overcome the …

Thought I’d share some FABULOUS photos of “Chinese” Santa with a zillion kids. I love doing home parties because I am an organized control freak and thus I am able to control when, where and how! 2009’s Children’s Christmas party turned out to be pretty fun. We had about 13 kids with their respective parents and 1 very jolly Santa Claus.
My dad used to dress up as Santa Claus every year when we were children and what better role to take than be Santa for his grand kids? When Santa …

I talk about space savings tips in Hong Kong and I do mention the benefits (and cost) of going custom furniture and after many months of debate, I finally went out and bought a customized bunk bed to maximize the space and sleeping capacity.
I am sorry about the state of the bed - unkept and ruly looking, but I am not selling furniture, merely showing you the unit! Ha ha… Anyways, the unit is amazing, let me outline its features:

Stairs to the upper bunk instead of traditional rung ladder
Rounded edges everywhere for …

How appropriate given the recent weather conditions locally.  Yes, the last few nights and days found Hong Kong at around 9-10 degrees Celcius weather.  As a Canadian, I might argue that “BAH, 10 degrees? That’s NOTHING!”, but you’d be surprised at how cold it FEELS.  The things working against you:

I live by the sea - literally.  So my apartment is the first line of defense in cold winds.  Which means, I am eating the wind.
There is no central heating.  How I miss central heating.  You take it for granted in …

Vanessa’s Chinese is going to be far more superior to mine within 2 years.  Miraculously, she is able to read Chinese characters of numbers, small, big, person, fire, moon, day and other simple words.  She can sing songs in both Mandarin and Cantonese (although I don’t think she can distinguish which language she is using) and she can flip flop between English and Cantonese with amazing speed.  Yes, she probably speaks the hybrid Chinglish, but her Chinese spoken vocabulary is already far more superior than mine.  Tsk tsk on me.
My goal?  …

I know, another list of tips, but this one came to mind because my children do not only bathe at home (where I know it’s safe).  They bathe at the in-laws, at my parents’ house, at their cousins’ house, at the public pools and private clubhouses, so I was thinking this would be an awesome opportunity to talk about some of the tips and tricks I use to control my environment.  Like all good experiments, bathing children is in a controlled environment.  While outcomes and behaviours are unpredictable, the objective …

Yesterday in Hong Kong, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival Holiday.  Traditionally, people spend time with their families for lunch or dinner, eat mooncakes and celebrate the full moon with lanterns and candles.  It’s a nice holiday, but with it, comes public hazards.  It is now illegal to burn or melt wax/candles on government properties - this includes parks, leisure areas or sidewalks and such.  It is also prohibited to do that on some private properties - for obvious reasons.  Fire risks.  
This morning, my children and I ventured into the public …

My 3.5 year old daughter knows how to unlock my IPhone.  It’s not as easy as you think for a child.  This means she is able to drag a bar from left-to-right and then enter in a 4-PIN digit to unlock it.  She’s known how to do this for some time now and she knows how to launch a youTube application and find cartoons.  INCREDIBLE!
So, the obvious is unavoidable.  The usage of technology and handheld devices in and around the house.  I don’t bar my children from using technology, I …

I like to plan ahead and this means thinking about ordering Christmas cards.  I know, it’s not even October, but truth be told, by the time I plan, find the pictures I want (or don’t have), order and get them shipped, it can be well over a month.  Never mind, getting the cards filled and customized to my friends and family abroad and sending them off to make it there in time for Christmas.  Unlike last year, I sent them out way after New Year’s.
I found this really professional and …

My children aren’t big fan of pancakes - especially if you make them your standard pancake size (the size of an average plate).  I think it’s too starchy for them and it isn’t sweet enough.  I am not prone to drenching their pancakes in maple syrup though, so my challenge:
a.  How to use up the remainder of my pancake mix
b.  How to get my kids to enjoy pancakes more
c.  Put a variety of breakfast ideas on the table (rather than their staple oatmeal)
I decided to make bite-sized pancakes with a …