Growing Dinosaur

When we visited the Petrosains StreetSmart Exhibition, the kids participated in a game and received a goodie bag each. One of the gifts is a growing dinosaur. According to the note, it'll expand 600% in size when it's put in the water. It takes up to 72 hours to fully expand. When removed from the water, it'll shrink to its original size. Interesting, eh?

~ original size, about 2.5 inches ~

~ submerge in water for 72 hours ~

~ after 72 hours, about 5 inches ~

When I took it out of the water, it's a little slimy. All covered by something gel-like. After 72 hours, it only expanded 200%, so I soaked them in the water for another 4 days. But it didn't really expand some more. Well, maybe just a teeny weeny bit. And the orange dino cracked up like this due to over-soaking...

~ disfigured dino ~

To Keep Or To Cancel

Would like to share with you this information, if you haven't already known. :-)

I have called up CIMB card centre and I was told that the RM50 service tax will be charged only when your credit card expires in year 2010. For example, if your card's expiring in June 2010, as long as you cancel before June 2010, you will not be charged the service tax.

The lady told me that this applies to all banks. I hope I'm given the correct information. Please let me know if you've heard otherwise. I wouldn't want to be surprised with a RM50 charge for each of my cardS next month. Have you sorted out all your credit cards yet?

Bad News, Good News

=== backdated post : the weekend of 8/8/09 ===

The Bad...
Gu Gu (hubby's sister who's working in Singapore) was here for the weekend. She met with an accident on Saturday night on her way home. She was driving my car, no passengers. The car in front suddenly braked when they were crossing the traffic lights. But she didn't brake in time. So now the car's in the hospital (workshop) undergoing surgery (repair). :D

~ the damage ~

The Good...
No one was hurt in the accident. It doesn't matter how damaged the car is, most importantly no one's hurt.

And The Joyous...
We celebrated MIL's birthday the next day (actual day 11/8). Gu Gu made arrangements to join us in KL for the occasion. So this year, the celebration included all MIL's children (2 sons, 1 daughter and 2 DILs) and 3 grandchildren. We usually only have the full headcount during Chinese New Year. This was a very memorable birthday for her, with many mixed feelings over one weekend.

We went to Mid Valley for some shopping before having an early dinner at Amarin. As always, the food was great. As we're too full for anymore dessert (ice-cream cake), we decided to have the cake-cutting ceremony at home.

My 'Twins'

No no no no... I'm not pregnant with twins (thanks to the effective birth control method :p) but referring to the kids' look-alike baby smiling photos. hehehe Time to reveal the answer.

Deng... deng... deng... deng...

Pic 1 - baby in blue pajamas is XY
Pic 2 - baby in red bear prints is CE

Good guessing everyone! For those who got it right, Congratulations! (you don't need a medical dictionary to figure that out, right? hehehe) But if you didn't, it's totally understandable coz even PaPa couldn't differentiate some of their baby photos at one glance.

By the way, I didn't choose their pictures in blue and red clothes to mislead you. It was just a coincidence. Really! And the red bear prints tee is a hand-me-down from XY. :D

Free Gifts

After reading about the free gifts for Enfagrow/Enfakid in the latest Mama to Mama Newsletter, I asked hubby to buy Enfagrow from the chinese medical hall. Now I've collected four music sets. There're two themes - Friends of the Garden and Friends of the Ocean. But hubby said he only saw the garden theme. The ocean theme is quite cute too - a fish-shaped xylophone, jellyfish guiro, starfish handbells and clam castanets. Maybe I'll get them later. Have you collected these cute music sets for your kids?

~ clockwise from the top: handbells, guiro, castanets, xylophone ~

Uninvited Visitor

A visitor came to my house uninvited on Wednesday. My maid was the one who spotted it... in her room! Luckily she was not inside when she saw it otherwise she would have freaked out. I suspect it came in through my kitchen door. Another entrance is through the room window. But can it climb vertical on the wall?

My maid is so afraid of it. So I came to the rescue. What to do... the only man in the house is only 15 months old. :D I used the magic mop’s long stick to chase it out of her room. It was not easy coz it hid under her wardrobe. Luckily it’s the PVC type so I can move it about or lift it up. After much drama and effort (and guts... hehehe... drama coz got 2 ladies screaming whenever it tried to dart towards us), I finally managed to get it out of the house. Unfortunately, it ran into the drain and hid in the hole. And it’s still there today. Every time we open the back door, it’ll run back to the drain. Want to catch it and dispose it elsewhere but don’t know how. Sigh... how can we get rid of it without causing any harm?

Can you guess what I'm talking about? Taaadaaa! Here's the uninvited visitor.

~ look at its long tail ~

After CB saw the picture, he said it's a biawak (monitor lizard). I don’t know where it came from but my housing area is like a jungle. We’ve spotted a snake and a 2-feet iguana before. Must be from the empty lot nearby that has thick bushes. A snake was caught in my neighbour’s house a few months back. Scary hor?