Mooncake game

Has anyone heard of this game before - Mooncake Game? I am not even sure what is the official name of the game in Chinese, there seems to be various versions on the Internet from "Bo Bing" to "Pua Tiong Chiu". Actually I have no idea what the two names mean, so for all I know it could mean the same. I will stick to calling it the Mooncake Game.

For the first time, we played this game with the family during the Mid Autumn Festival, thanks to 3-gor who had organized it. Curious, I did some research on the Internet about it (though I am not sure how reliable the information I got is). Actually, just like the name, I found various versions of the rules of the game. 

But in a nutshell, the game originated from Xiamen and was started by scholars craving success in imperial exams. The game requires six dice and a a china bowl. Throw the dice into the bowl and the different dice combinations stand for different ranks of awards  you will win (all named after imperial titles earned from the exam). This was where I found different versions on the Internet and I am sure it was also different from the rules which we followed while playing with the family, but to give you an idea, the below are the prizes and dice combinations which I got from this link. 

One prize for #1 Scholar (Zhuangyuan) The seven prize levels:

Highest 1. Zhuangyuan with Gold Flower

             2. Hongliubo (6 fours)

             3. Yaodianliubo (6 ones)

             4. Heiliubo (6 of the same, except fours)

             5. Wuhong (5 fours) 

             6. Wuzi (5 of the same, except fours)

Lowest 7. Sihong (4 fours)

Two prizes for No. 2 Scholar (Duitang) A straight.

Four prizes for No. 3 Scholar (Sanhong) Throw 3 fours

Eight prizes for No. 4 Scholar (Sijin) Throw 4 of the same, except fours

Sixteen prizes for No. 5 Scholar (Erju) Throw 2 fours

Thirty two prizes for No. 6 Scholar (Yixiu) Throw 1 four

For each of the winning dice combinations, 3-gor had prepared various prizes - moon cakes, chocolates and fruits! It was such a simple game, but it threw the family into fits of laughter. The best part of the game was that everyone in the family could participate - no one was too old or too young for the game (ok, except Amanda) - with Uncle Choo being the oldest and Wayne the youngest! In fact, Wayne was probably the most enthusiastic player! He was competitive. Each time he won a prize, it got him ecstatic. Haha. 

Some photos from the night:

All we need for the game : dice, bowl, prizes and the rules of the game!

3-gor 'teaching' everyone how the game is played

First to try his luck in the game!

Winning combination - by Wayne!

"Yay, I won a mooncake!" and who is that photo bombing behind!

And another round!

And more prizes! Biggest winner!!

Daddy's turn

Prize presentation ceremony

Zhangyuan - the top prize goes to 2 gor!

And that was how the night ended, lots of goodies on the table! Everyone went home with their many prizes!

Thanks to 3-gor for all the efforts in organizing this fun game!

Cousin Chloe

These two absolutely adores each other. Each time they meet, they would immediately hold each others hands and hug each other. Love seeing them play together! Its nice that they are of the same age and their meimei and didi (coming soon!) would be of the same age too!

The great-grandmother and grand aunty. Love. 

Celebrating Children's Day and Lantern Festival at Mindchamps

Email from Mindchamps:

Children Day’s Celebration Cum Lantern Festival

Date: 28.9.2012 (Fri)

Celebration Time: 9.30am to 11.30am

Champs are strongly encouraged to:

·       come dressed in Party Clothes

·       bring finger food to share with their friends

·       bring a lantern

Looks like it was a fun day at school for Wayne last Friday, as they celebrated both the mid autumn festival as well as Children's Day!

When Wayne told me he needed to wear party clothes to school, mommy was wondering "What are party clothes???".. Thankfully, Wayne helped me with it, deciding he wanted to wear his 'policeman' outfit that day so that 'he could catch Conrad' (his own words!!). 

So he wore his policeman outfit on Friday, brought some chocolate biscuits to share with his friends for the party and.. yes, how could we forget his Thomas and Friends lantern since it was the mid autumn festival celebration as well!

Mommy had, together with meimei, searched Orchard for lanterns the afternoon before and when mommy saw this Thomas lantern, mommy knew there wouldn't be another lantern that Wayne would love more than this. And love it, he sure did! He was so proud of the lantern and told me his friends all loved it too (sans the irritating music!). Wayne told me during the celebration, they had switched off the lights and walked around the school with their lanterns. Mommy could imagine how noisy it was if every kid's lantern had the same irritating loop music, haha. No wonder we noticed that the teachers had pasted a scotch tape on Wayne's lantern in a bid to soften the music (Note for next year : lanterns without irritating music please).

The champs were also treated to lots of goodies, it was after all Children's Day! Miss Afiqah, Shen laoshi and Miss Dayah had put in a lot of effort in preparing the goodie bags and colorful cards for the champs.  Mommy especially loves this card, which had a polaroid of Wayne posing by the colorful balloon sculpture at the reception area of his school, looking all smart in his outfit which had a tie.

Happy Children's Day, my little Wayne!

Presents from 2-gor!

Thank you 2-gor for the wonderful presents from Taiwan for both Wayne and Amanda!!!

Love

Da-yi shared this and I thought it was really beautiful. Indeed, Gabe has taught us love.

To our darling Gabe, we love you so very much!!

How many smiley faces?

Three smiley faces for Wayne!

He told us the teachers gave him the smiley faces for asking questions during story telling time. 

"Momma, please buy underwear for me"

Wayne came home from school one day and asked me to buy underwear for him... "Momma, please buy underwear for me".. Imagine my surprise at hearing that. *What underwear? Aren't you my little baby boy? Babies don't wear underwear..... *

Sigh, yes my little boy is no longer a little boy and definitely no baby anymore. He has grown up, now ready to ditch his diapers and wear underwear, like all big boys do.

For the past month or two, he has started his toilet training in school. Thank you, Mindchamps! Mommy and daddy had not done a good job in this area. 

So.. Wayne is now able to let us know when he needs to pee or poo but problem is when he is wearing his diapers he would conveniently just pee and poo in his diaper. Lazy perhaps or maybe he just doesn't want to have to stop while playing with his toys. So we decided we will just have to 'force' him to go to the toilet by removing his diapers. And it sure helps that he actually wants to wear them! Which is partly friends' influence, as he told us that he wants underwear as his friends in class also wears them. He even told us that Conrad has spiderman underwear! Haha.

So adding to his collection of Thomas and Friends pyjamas, toys, story books, luggage, face cloth, bag, clothes, lantern and DVDs .. he now has Thomas and Friends underwear too!

Round 1 of vaccinations - survived!

At two and a half months, Amanda weighs 6.395kg and she is still at the 97th percentile. 

Had a good laugh at the family's reaction when I told them her weight. 

This visit, she also had to take three vaccinations. Two jabs and an oral - the 6-in-1 jab, pneumococcal and rotavirus. During the jabs, one on each thigh, Amanda screamed her lungs out for two whole seconds and stopped once I cradled her. Brave girl. Thankfully, Amanda did not develop a fever from the vaccinations. She was pretty much her normal self, except that she seemed to want to be carried a little more that day. Phew, I didn't have to lose sleep over a fussing baby!

Next round of jabs - at 4 months!

H-A-P-P-Y

Just had to share these photos!

Mitten-less

Dainty little fingers.

After two months and a week, we finally trimmed Amanda's fingernails and allowed her to go mitten-less. To wait two months and a week before trimming her nails does seem pretty long, doesn't it? I don't think we waited that long with Wayne. I think we were influenced by the nurse at Mount E who told us not to cut her nails till one or two months later, as there was a newborn whose fingers bled as her parents had cut her nails at just a few days old.

Anyway, time for Amanda to now start realizing she has ten fingers instead of two balls of fist!

Whipping up pancakes

Hooray to another fun outing organised by San-yi!

Heard of Nook House of Pancakes? It is a pancake cafe where you can cook your own pancakes. What a cool concept, for the kids at least. Wayne was so excited and enthusiastically made his pancakes with the help of San-yi and Uncle Ken. He had pancakes in the alphabets of his name, which he merrily decorated with M&Ms and chocolate sprinklers!