Exploring Malaysia with Kate and Alex

Happy Hari Raya and Ramadan.  This month is Ramadan.  The whole of Malaysia is decked out and all the restaurants are packed for "break the fast" since fasting ends at 7:30pm at night.

They have these little "kampung" (country) houses in the middle of the malls as decoration.

Kate and Alex are visiting!  Kate is Mike's sister and Alex is her husband.  Yey our first visitors.  Their first day here we took them to Suria KLCC and the Petronas Towers for some photos.

Then we walked to the giant park below the towers to let the boys run wild.

We ordered the famous char kway teow for dinner and I think they liked it.  Mike also got us Taiwanese chicken and dumplings.  It was a feast.

Then the next morning Helen and I took them to Brickfields for breakfast.

Brickfields is little India here in Malaysia.

This is the restaurant where we got breakfast.  Helen ordered for us roti chanai, chipati, masala thosai, mango lassi, etc.  It was another feast.

Here is the main Brickfields road with the arches.

Kate and I are doing our best "cute Indian girl" pose.

We are invited to a wedding this saturday so we got Andrew and Joseph little Indian outfits.   These are the guys that run the store where we bought them.  They all wanted Joseph's attention.

Everyday life here in Malaysia

Every day during the week I take the boys downstairs between 4-6pm to play on the grounds of our condo complex.  I always forget to bring the camera along.  

So last weekend Mike and I took the boys out and we took some photos for their grandmas to see them in action.

 Joseph LOVES his monkey backpack.  I cannot emphasize enough how much he loves it.  He thinks he is so big now.

 We bought this little trike for Andrew back in the states and hid it to give to him for his third birthday (his birthday is end of October).  We finally broke down this week and gave it to him early because he has shown so much interest in bikes.  He pedals some of the time.

 One of the "Book Club" rooms downstairs has a model of our complex and Andrew always wants to go look at the mini model cars.

 Grass!  Clean grass!  That is hard to come by here.

 Joseph and I go to Gymboree classes every Thursday (thanks Ana for the passes!).

 Above: Andrew's favorite place to hang out is by Helen's dryer rack by the cleaning buckets.  Yes, he is sitting in a bucket.

 Joseph is now facing forward!  He is so happy.

 We never get out on the weekends with the boys, so finally we planned to go to the longest indoor slide in Malaysia which is in--wait for it--a mall.  The mall is called "Empire Mall."  Everything here seems to be in a mall.  Malaysians love their malls.

Happy Birthday Buh-buff

 Guess what everybody!  Joseph turned ONE yesterday.  He has been saying the following words: shoes (of course), toys, stairs, Jesus, Dadda, etc.  Note he has not yet said mamma.

 Here he is playing in one of his favorite places--the wet kitchen.  He hangs out here while we cook.  Usually he is begging us to pick him up so he can watch what we put in the pots and pans (and give him some nibbles to sample).

 Hanging out with dadda (interupting dadda with his reading time as usual).

 More funny Joseph looks.

Birthday visit fro Sister Ima.  She loves Joseph so much.

 Walking up the car park ramp all by himself!

 Here we are driving to our friends the Tolman's home for dinner.

 Andrew and Joseph love playing with the Tolmans.  Plus the girls Kiara and Kailee set the table so cute--complete with little roses.  Kiara even drew Joseph a card with Bob the Builder and Elmo.

 Joseph was just happy to play with the utensils!

 Happy birthday song time...

including apple vanilla cupcakes with apple cream frosting (all GFCF of course).

 Here we are singing (off key I am sure) but Joseph loved it.

Andrew actually picked up a cupcake and picked at it.  He did not venture to eat it, but even picking it up was big!  Good job Andrew.

This is a funny picture where the Tolmans and Joseph are all lovin their apple cupcakes.

 

We love you Joseph.  Happy birthday.

Lastly, bedtime!  I put Joseph in Andrew's monster pjs (size 3T) and they looked so cute on him even though they were a bit big.