CNY Ang Pows 2016

There were 2 versions this year, the rectangular ones were for the adults, the monkey ones were for the kids!



Extending last year's idea, I wanted the kids to do some artwork on this year's ang pows to make them more personalized and original. There were some hiccups along the way e.g. yellow printer ink was running out causing the colour of the ang pow to be off, the flower plum cutter that I bought could not cut through felt cloth (wanted the kids to stick different shades of pink flowers on the ang pows) and the idea had to be abandoned, the gold paint did not settle well on the red packets, etc. Due to time constraints, this was what we came up or rather, made do with for this year, the year of the Monkey.

As for the monkey-faced red packets, I stumbled upon a YouTube videos on origami monkey and thought it would be fun to have origami monkey as ang pows. I took me a while to search for a folding method that could allow me to encase and slot money in. I then did a template with folding and cutting lines and filled in the colors I wanted. I created 2 versions of it - girl monkey with ribbon and boy without. I gave A the boy monkey ang pow and B the girl monkey ang pow as 压岁钱 on the eve of CNY! They both love it and the ang pows are still under their pillows! :)

The process was fun and B had been a great help this time round! :)


Related Posts:
CNY Any Pows 2015
CNY Ang Pows 2014
Ang Pows 2013

CNY 2016

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快乐！

 Our matching outfits on CNY Day 1. :)

Not a lot of places we went to this year. We've only managed to go parents-in-law's (10:20am), DC's uncle's (伯父) (11:15am) and DC's aunt's (姨妈) (1pm) on Day 1; DC's aunt ("Lai"姨) on Day 2 night (8pm) when B got better; B's nanny's (10:45am) and my parent's (12:30pm) on Day 3.

Both kids had fun visiting the relatives from house to house, so much that A didn't want to go back home on the first day of CNY! B learnt that every family would put sweets in trays and she ate quite a lot of them! A was just recovering from his cough and B was having runny nose and slight fever this year. Her fever went up at night on CNY Day 1 and she had difficulty sleeping. Both of us only managed to fall asleep at 5am. As a result, the next day which was CNY Day 2 we could not do any home visiting... It didn't help that I had to work on that day, rotating shifts to monitor our stuff following some unnecessary alerts that came out on the eve of CNY! Yes, CNY Day 2 was quite a damper! So, on CNY Day 3, after DC and A went to work and school respectively, I resolved to take B (whose childcare centre was closed) out to continue our visiting. :)

Some snippets of Day 1:

Besides the fire engine that they have been playing for years, now there was this to entertain them, or rather let us be entertained by them! I was pleasantly surprised that both of them were not afraid when their grandaunt handed them the lion and I must say they did a reasonably good (first-time) job imitating the dance! They must have learnt from the lion dance performance we took them last Sat when our MP came for the pre-CNY celebration at the clubhouse!

Jenny biscuits from Hong Kong! 

We had guests on Day 1 :) The boys played cars and the girls played the doughs.

This was what B made:

Snippets on Day 2:

Pictures above: A and B posing with oranges.
Pictures below: A and B at grandaunt's place. The kids couldn't get enough of the seaweed crackers that, like last year, they packed some back home!

Snippets on Day 3:

Look what Ang Pow B got herself at her nanny's! It's now sleeping with her every night! :)

After that, my sis drove us to our parent's for a nice lunch. We had food that were brought back from paternal uncle's place (ngoh hiang, prawn balls) and maternal aunt's place (abacus, vermicelli). Yummy food! B had her ever so tasty porridge cooked with love from my mummy! :)

We went to find Daddy after B's nap, for coffee and cakes and then B had her rides, before we went home for dinner and A! :)

Snippets on Day 4:

B on CNY Day 4. She skipped school, as I had to take her to the doctor's! This was her at one of the shops, after the doctor visit. We also went Toys "R" Us where I got her an Elsa gift. :)

Day 5 was business as usual, how we wish CNY could last the whole 15 days!

Reunion dinner

What a spread. There's Lo Hei too.

Steamed pomfret, salted egg prawns, steamed chicken, sea cucumbers, abalones, scallops and lotus root soup.

The Revenant

The Revenant

CAST
Leonardo Dicaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Lukas Haas

DIRECTOR
Alejandro G. Iñárritu

GENRE
Action/ Adventure

RELEASE
04-02-2016

RUNNING TIME
156 minutes

SYNOPSIS
Deep in the unchartered American wilderness, hunter Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is severely injured and left for dead by a traitorous member of his team, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy). With sheer will as his only weapon, Glass must navigate a hostile environment, a brutal winter and warring tribes in a relentless quest to survive and exact vengeance on Fitzgerald. Inspired true events, THE REVENANT is directed and co-written by renowned filmmaker and Academy Award winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Birdman, Babel).





~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DC has been waiting for this to be shown as the critical response for it was very good. It's about how a man survived against all odds to seek revenge for his son stabbed to death by his mate.

It was a cruel world then, betrayed, abandoned and left to die. I admired his wits and determination to stay alive but at the same time thought that some parts were quite unreal... e.g. crawling out of his grave when he was so badly injured, falling down the cliff unhurt while the horse died, outfighting a bear, etc

I did feel that Leonardo Dicaprio deserved a big win this time (The Revenant won three Golden Globe Awards, and was nominated for 12 Academy Awards) as playing this role was really hard work for him!