I’m getting the creeps. My neighbor’s DIL has been smiling at me every chance she gets. Smiling is normally not a crime but coming from her, it warrants question marks popping up over my head. I don’t know her. I hardly see her. And most certainly, I’ve done nothing to offend her.

Yet in all the years she’s lived next door, she has chosen NOT to acknowledge me (even when I attended her baby son’s fullmoon party at her MIL’s invitation). She has even taught her children not to greet me anymore (they used to when they were young and innocent!).

Recently, I was talking to another mother while registering Skye for secondary school. Suddenly she came bouncing up with a huge grin and cut in to say hello and lamely attempt some small talk.

I hadn’t expected to see her there. Neither had I expected her to be so friendly. So it took me a few minutes to figure out who she was and what she was doing there. Didn’t take me long to realize she’s registering her daughter too. Sweet!

From that day on, she’s been trying to smile at me from across the fence and her children are once again greeting me. Her eldest daughter, who is Skye’s age, has even ventured to wave at Skye and Raine at school the other day.

Yesterday I dropped Skye and Raine off at our house after school before rushing off to pick up Steev. I was in my car waiting for the girls to get in the gate before driving off. All of a sudden, I saw my neighbor’s DIL at the fence gesturing me to drive off, that she would keep an eye on my girls??!! Gah!

What gives??? Hmm.

Now that our kids are going to the same school, she probably wants me to drive her daughter to/from school. For the past 6 years, her MIL has been driving her 2 girls to school while she sleeps in. When her MIL comes home, she goes off to work leaving her toddler son in the her care.

All I can say is I find her smiles pretty disturbing . What do you think? What does she want from me? *shudders*

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When my kids were babies, my handbag quickly lost its place and I started carrying around an ugly diaper bag. I used to think all baby bags were ugly. Not any more. Just look at this Ed Hardy Camo Diaper Bag. It’s so chic it’d make any mom look like a celeb mom .

Then when my kids grew out of their diapers, I switched to a roomy tote bag to carry a spare change of clothes, a bottle of water, some cookies, etc. I would love this Ed Hardy Romy Large Tote, isn’t it the hippest?

Well, guess what? You don’t have to live with ugly baby bags. Baghaus is ringing in the new year with their 2009 Double Deal which means you get to save an extra 20% off plus free shipping on orders over $50.

This offer expires January 12, 2009 while supplies last so you want to be sure to get there fast before they’re gone.

Skye, my youngest baby starts secondary school today. I felt a little emotional seeing her in her school uniform this morning. It seems like only yesterday when I was holding her little hand as we strolled to her kindy down the road. She’s the only one of my 3 kids that I sent to kindy myself so she and I have that special bond.

Last night, Skye asked if I was going to hang around to get her checked into her new school this morning. I said sure. Frankly I wouldn’t miss it for the world. But later, she assured me she’d be alright going in with Raine and that I didn’t have to wait around.

Oh no! But I wanted to. And my excuse was that I had to go pay their school fees anyways. So I stood for an hour at her school assembly amongst the eager, new parents, watching my baby as she stood in line to go to her new class and I’m feeling both proud and watery-eyed.

One thing’s for sure, the first day of school is always a crazy day no matter how old your kids are. Steev starts at his new college today but he had to go back to his old college to sell his books. It was crazy. The poor kids had to spread out their old books for sale on the pavement in the blazing sun.

Before he could sell off all his books, I had to pick him up early to be in time to pick the girls up from school. The first day of school turns parents into beasts on a rampage so you can imagine how the traffic screwed up my precision timing and I was super late getting to the girls’ school.

Well, I’m beat, we all are! I feel like I’ve just run the Amazing Race even though gladly I have no kids starting kindy or primary school this year. My blood pressure has shot up even more after hearing the first day stories from school but I’ll leave those rants for another post.

I can’t believe school will be starting again! So soon? The school holidays kinda went at lightning speed. I’ve been hearing groans all week from the kids. They sound so much like me when I was in school.

But okay, I mean which kid doesn’t want to stay up late glued to their computers and not have to go to school? But once they settle into the school routine, after a week or so, they’ll be okay.

I will miss my kids when they’re at school - terribly. I love having them home and even though sometimes we’re all busy on our own computers, it’s good to know they’re around and we can chat and laugh (and watch videos, eh?) anytime.

So to cheer everyone up, we did some destressing. After we got Steev registered for his college classes, we went to Tony Roma’s for a destress lunch. It seemed to work and we all left there with our tummies happily full.

Then I pulled out some of our old photo albums that we haven’t looked at in ages. The girls got a big kick out of looking at our wedding album. It must be wierd seeing their parents look like statues .

So we’re off now to grab some last-minute groceries before the madness starts again tomorrow…

I absolutely love cold weather, almost as much as I love birds’ eye chillies and all things spicy . It would be nice to be able to wear a winter heidi hat reversible as funky as this.

These two heidi hats are actually just one hat that can be worn on both sides. Not only do they look cute, it’s like you’re getting two items for the price of one. Worn with the flaps down, the hat protects your ears from the cold. Or if you prefer, you can tie them up on top of your head.

You can get this heidi hat and other winter wear for women and girls such as beanie hats, two-sided scarves, gloves at 50% off at the Little Miss Matched clearance sale. I have to warn you though. Stocks are limited as this sale has been extended to end on January 30, 2009! So don’t miss out, get there fast!

And so we went to watch the fireworks last night to ring in a even better 2009! While waiting, the five of us whacked off 9 cups of Starbucks coffee *hic* and watched the movie, Transporters 3, on our HP Mini notebook!

2008 has been such an interesting and wonderful year for us I was actually sad to see it end. Looking back, let’s see…

Music made a smashing appearance in our lives beginning with our first, the Backstreet Boys, concert. Then the girls stumbled on Simple Plan (love ya, Pierre!) who brought out the budding guitarists in my girls. Now sweet music fills our home. You go girrls!

No surprises either that blogging is not only my passion now, it’s our official family obsession! Also the kids made the A Team many times and I’m one proud peahen mama!

It’s been a year of connecting, sometimes stumbling, sharing laughs, tears, hugs and kisses, and learning from each other. Thank you, babies, for your incredelicious support, for making me a better mom and for just being my kids, love y’all like crazy *muax*!

Resolutions? Nah but I’m sure I’ll make something up as I go along like reminding myself to be more like Fluffy (private joke !). Cheers! Don’t let all that gloom and doom talk get to you. Have a happy, safe and prosperous New Year! Rock on, yeah!!

You would not believe how long it’s been since I last visited the jewelers. Not that I used to visit often except if I’m shopping for a gift for someone’s wedding or a baby’s full moon.

Even then, I don’t make it a habit to buy jewelry as gifts any more since most people are fearful of being robbed and prefer to lock their jewelry away instead of wearing them. So what’s the use in buying jewelry to collect dust and cobwebs, right?

Of course, not all jewelry needs to cost an arm and a leg. HolstedJewelers.com has some in their collection that are fairly affordable. So if you feel the need to flaunt a little this coming new year, head on over there and select your pick .

I almost forgot that I still haven’t gotten the kids’ school books. The reason I put it to the back of my mind is because I’m not sure if the text book loan is still on for next year. It’s been strangely quiet and no one seems to know what’s become of the loan scheme. Is it on? Or should we buy books?

We’ve been buying school books till this year when they started issuing text books to all students, not just the needy ones as has always been the case. Since this is the first year, we don’t mind since the books will be brand new.

Next year, Raine will be using Steev’s old books and Skye will be using Raine’s if the same texts still apply. I only managed to get Raine’s book list at her school this morning while we were there to collect her pmr results (she scored 7 straight A’s, by the way ).

I’ll have to go back tomorrow to pick up Skye’s book list since they ran out today and the photocopier is down. The book store was crazy crowded today but at least I managed to buy all the exercise books, so that’s one thing off my mind!

By now, it shouldn’t surprise anyone how our weekends revolve endlessly around food. Something else I haven’t done in a long time, and which the kids miss a lot, is my blueberry cheesecake. My girls and I rarely have time to bake a cake together so what better excuse to turn the kitchen into a floury, buttery mess!

The cheesecake tastes great but the base didn’t turn out too well this time. My fault entirely. Seeing as how crazy grocery checkouts get on the weekend, I sent the kids to go line up first while I went looking for the digestive biscuits for the base.

Murphy’s Law cut in and the line started moving faster than ever. Either that or I got waylaid looking at other stuff. It happens . Anyhow in my hurry to get back to checkout, I reached out and grabbed the nearest pack of biscuits without even looking. Turned out it was greasy and made the base ugly and soft.

What do they say? Beauty is skin-deep. Well, this is it. It looks ugly but believe me, nothing tastes better than when it’s baked with love !

Raine and Skye got their haircuts yesterday. There was a new male stylist at the salon and well, Raine, the adventurous one, decided he looked like a safe bet. I had my fingers crossed behind my back the whole time!

He snipped away swiftly, almost a little too effortlessly from the experience culled from his salon job, no doubt. But teens are very particular about their appearance and with school only a week away, I really don’t need a disaster on my hands.

Well, the back of her hair turned out something like the Rihanna bob she’d always considered ‘ew, lame’!

I’d asked him to layer the back with wisps at the base but oh well, maybe I didn’t explain it too well in Chinese.

But no harm done. It’s nice and short and Raine was happy to try a different style from the one she’s been sporting.

“Whatever!” she said, “it’ll grow back pretty soon”. Whew!

I’m not real fussy about my hair either but in general, I think male hair stylists are more creative and so their cuts turn out more modern and less boxed-in. So even if the style isn’t quite what you want, it’s just never that bad.

Women hair stylists seem more conservative and hesitant about deviating from the norm, even when I sometimes tell them to do something drastic like leave one side longer than the other. I could be wrong!

How do you feel about a guy cutting/styling your hair? Have you had a male hairdresser? Were you happy with the way your hair turned out or did you have a disaster in your mirror?