I was referred to GH to confirm my due date today. The ultrasound scan done at GH showed that I am only 28 weeks pregnant which is 2 weeks delayed. According to the O&G specialist, it is nothing to worry about because it is only 2 weeks delayed. Furthermore the ultrasound done at 13 weeks confirmed that my actual due date by calculation is accurate. We shall follow that due date. But I still have to go for follow up check up again in a month time to check on baby’s growth.

Well, I guess this last baby of mine will be smaller in size compared to his jie jies and kor kors. What to do, in this pregnancy, I am always on the move and didn’t get enough rest and sometime food! No worries, Mommy will fatten you up with Mommy’s milk once you come out of Mommy’s womb.

But then arh, I got the feeling that I will give birth earlier instead of later. Maybe in March. We’ll see. Only God knows.

I hate it when I feel helpless especially when my children is sick. I remembered when I was small, whenever I am sick, my mom is always there to comfort me and take away my discomfort. Why can’t I do the same with my children?

He stripe off his clothes, rolled on the bed and cried, “stomach pain, stomach pain”. He is having fever at the same time too. I applied YuYi oil on his tummy but it does not seems to reduce the pain. Text hubby on Google chat for other remedy. “Try rubbing onion on his tummy”, he told me. That worked like magic. After a minute or two, he doze of to sleep! But the sleep was short. He woke up crying in pain again. I cried along with him coz I cannot take away his pain. I felt so hopeless for being a helpless mommy.

When nothing less works, I prayed more fervently.

The next day, he woke up early to his cheerful self again. Thank God for His speedy healing touch.

SIL who lives in Sydney, Australia managed to persuade her mom to stay with them for 2 months instead of just 2 weeks. That’s good news for me. At least I have another month to really recover from child birth and adjust to my new life being a mother of 6 before I start my DIL duty; cooking for MIL. It is like I am getting 2 months maternity leave. If can get another month even better. It is because, it took me 100 days to really settle down with my newborn based on previous experience with my other children. Oh well, 2 months is better than 1 month.

Angpows (red packet) have been given and collected. It is getting lesser each year for each child. I think arh, because I have 5 of them, some visitors dare not ask the mommy or daddy “how many children you have?” then gave the angpow to the parents to give to their children. Instead they only give to the children that they saw. hehe.

Due to having many children also makes me feel shy to bring all my children to go for visitation. This year, we limit our rounds to only those “compulsory” to visit relative. And I don’t give out many angpows too. If I see other in laws have given to that certain family that came to visit MIL, I’ll will not give. If not, they will feel obliged to return the favor. They only have 2 to 3 children compared to mine; 5 of them! I don’t want them to “rugi” hahaha. Next year lagi teruk for them; I’ll have 6!

As children we look forward to Chinese New Year because that will be the day we can get lots of cash. As parents, I don’t really look forward to CNY coz that will be the day we give away lots of cash. hehe. Anyway, thank God for His blessings. We received more than we gave.

For the past few days, my children have been discussing on how to spend their angpows collection and asking me permission to spend them. My eldest wanted to buy a doll house, my 2nd girl, jewelry and make up set and my boys wanted the revell model kits. Will they get what they wanted? Of course, NOT! We need to save money for their homeschooling materials. Homeschooling is cheaper if you have many children but it requires a lot of investment to begin.

and also The Year of the Lord’s Vengeance. This is our church theme for this year.

Everyone wants the Lord’s favor. How to get it? “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matt 6:33.

I hope that the Lord’s favor will be upon my family this year. Really, really!

At times I feel tired and frustrated living with just enough and sometimes not enough.

Many times I want to go back to work but with 5 children and one more coming. I have to really bury the thoughts of going back to work.

I pray that something impossible will be made possible if God allows it.

My recent visit to the clinic made me worried a lil bit about my pregnancy. The ultrasound showed that my due date is 3 weeks later than the actual date. During my first ultrasound at 13 weeks, the due date is according to my last menses date; very accurate. I worried that the baby in my womb is not growing well. I hope that the Dr is wrong in her calculation. Or my baby is just smaller in size this time around coz I have been on my toes most of the time and less appetite too. We will know by this Feb 2nd coz I have to go to GH for follow up check up to confirm the due date.

I have been having backaches for more than a month and it went away completely 2 days ago! Unfortunately, pain still has not leave my body; the backache is being replaced with lower abdomen cramp. The feeling is like I’m almost going to due like that. Kinda weird coz, scanned due date is delayed but I’m having the signs that baby is coming out soon! I hope he won’t coz he has 3 more months to float around his life in my womb.

Please pray with me that everything will be alright.

December 2011 passed by like a speed of the light. Our family gathering fell on hubby’s birthday. He did not get the quiet birth day like previous years. Thank God his siblings did not forget his birthday. He had a combined birthday cake blowing that night. Time was too short for me to buy one of those titanium bracelets for men. He did mention that we can still celebrate with each other after the family gathering is over but we just couldn’t find the time until today. Looks like there won’t be any belated birthday celebration for him. Well, he will hit the big FOUR ZERO this year. I must plan something special for him.

Oh ya! I forgot to mention that we went for a family holiday 2 days before my birthday.

We were at Tiara Beach Resort, Port Dickson.

Even though I did not get to play in the water coz I have to take care either one of my babies, I am very happy to see the rest of my family members enjoying themselves. And I got the rest that I long for. No waking up to the thoughts of house chores to rush too and what to cook.

I had what I wanted for my 37th birthday. I went for my long overdue facial spa in the morning.

Cake cutting with my love ones.

And BBQ + Steamboat with hubby for dinner.

A simple and yet fulfilling birthday.

If you are wondering how to get longer eyelashes the natural way, this is what I did. I PRAY!

Both hubby and I did not have long eyelashes. I wanted my children to have long and curl eyelashes so I pray throughout my pregnancy that God will bless my children with long and curl eye lashes. God is good. He answered my prayer. I have 5 children. No.1 have long and curl eyelashes. No.2 does not have long eyelashes but hers curl up. No.3 have long eyelashes with no curl. No.4 has longer eyelashes than No.1 and curl too; and he is a boy! No.5’s eyelashes are still growing, no comment about it yet.

In about 1.5 months, both hubby’s sister and their family who are residing overseas will be return home for a short holiday. It is going to be 7 years since all 11 of them plus their family gather under one roof and one nation. In our last family photo, I am still holding my 2nd daughter whom I just gave birth 2 weeks before the photo shoot. She is going to be 7 years old by the time they comes back.

Even though they are leaving a few days before Christmas, we will still celebrate an early Christmas with everyone. I must start saving up my paypal balance to buy Christmas pressie for them. I wonder what will be the xmas gifts for her, hubby’s sister who reside in UK. She had quite a hard life since she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Must think of something that will bring sparks in her eyes.

A picture began circulating in November. It should be “The Picture of the Year,” or perhaps, “Picture of the Decade.” It won’t be. In fact, unless you obtained a copy of the U.S. paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner. The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother’s womb. Little Samuel’s mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta. She knew of Dr. Bruner’s remarkable surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr. Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon’s finger. Dr. Bruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile.

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, “Hand of Hope.” The text explaining the picture begins, “The tiny hand of 21-week-old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother’s uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.”

Little Samuel’s mother said they “wept for days” when they saw the picture. She said, “The photo reminds us pregnancy isn’t about disability or an illness, it’s about a little person” Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful. Now see the actual picture, and it is awesome…incredible….and hey, pass it on! The world needs to see this one!
— with Brittany Ogilvie.

Having Michelle as his wife is very challenging when it comes to buying gift her. To this date, he has yet to present the perfect gift for her. The gift must be very practical. Most of the time, he can’t afford the practical gift that she wanted. She used to be very high maintenance but having him as her husband, she has mellowed down a lot. She tried her best to live within his means. She still hopes that one day God will bless them financially; more than they could ever imagine. And maybe at that time, she could afford the perfect gift that she has always dreamed of.

Since I stopped working, I only buy new shoes and new clothing for my children once a year. That is for the Chinese New Year celebration. I have turned into my parents. When I was small, I only get new shoe, not even privo shoes, just a normal shoe from the “Kedai Pondok” a month before the Chinese New Year. Sad huh? At that time lar. Thinking back, it is a good practice because we appreciated our shoes and took good care of them. Now, I want my children to learn the same thing like I did.

Guest post written by my buddy Keith Kramer

My mom thinks we don’t spend enough time talking so I came up with a really great solution. Every week on Thursdays we have a movie appointment where we watch a movie on TV together over the phone. She loves it and I get lots of credit for being a great daughter! We both have tvBYDirect.com satellite so our channels are the same and we alternate who gets to pick which is a lot of fun. I know she really appreciates the time we get to spend “together” and I just like getting to watch the newest releases when they come out. The only problem is that we have totally different tastes in movies but I guess that’s why we alternate, right? I love my mom to death but I can’t afford to get on a plane and see her as often as I like so this seems like a really good solution in the long run. Mom, if you’re reading this, know how much I love you and how much I want to be a good daughter!

Today, our maid should return to Malaysia and it has been an hour since the plane touched down LCCT. We still have not received any call or sms from her. She did not reply my earlier sms too. Even though we lose in term of the expenses incurred when hiring her and also sending her back for the holiday, we don’t feel upset that she did not return because most of us don’t like her attitude and she is rough with my children too. My eldest girl shouted “Hurray!” when I told her that Kakak is not coming back. We do not plan to hire a new maid either. By God’s strength and wisdom, we can managed the household and also taking care of MIL.

One of the disadvantagse of not having a maid is, we can’t leave MIL alone at home when we need to go out. Either we leave our children to accompany her while we go dating or bring her along with the whole family. If we need to bring her out with us, our sedan can’t accommodate her. Time to buy an MPV? A motorhome would be fun but motorhome repairs can be quite costly right? We are praying that God will provide us with finance to buy an MPV soon.

Hubby left for Medan today for a mission trip. He will be there for about a week. I hope he would be able to buy Ambon cake for us. The last time he went to Indonesia, he brought bake one Ambon cake and I couldn’t get enough of it. This time, I told him to buy 2 Ambon Cake. Gonna eat till I drop. At the same time, I hope he would also have sometime to hunt for log furniture. I heard they have good quality log furniture at a very cheap price.

On a serious note, please pray for him and his team that they will be able to minister to the Christians in Medan. Pray that their presence there will be an encouragement to the Christians there and also to his team members as well. Don’t forget to pray for me and my 5 kids.

Thank you!

Hubby and another church member bought over an internet cafe. As you all know, we do not have any savings besides our gold investment account. To get the capital to start the business, we were planning tosell gold at goldfellow.com. I was kind of reluctant to sell my gold because they are our children’s education fund and the price of gold keeps on increasing each year. The percentage of increase is more than the bank loan interest. And yet at the same time, we do not want to borrow from the bank. Thank God I have a retired dad who is quite spendthrift. I managed to loan from him some cash. I still have to sell my gold but not so much anymore lar.

I was pretty upset with myself for forgetting my firstborn son’s birthday. He is the son that we have been waiting for after having 2 girls. How could I forget? He is also the only child that I gave birth without hubby beside me in the labor room. I asked my son whether he is angry at me for forgetting his birthday and not buying any birthday present for him, not even a barcode scanner. He told me this, “Mommy, I cannot get angry because today is my birthday.” He also forbade me from scolding him throughout the day. He said, “Today is my birthday, you also cannot get angry with me.” 0.o