But all that being said, a week after Malcolm’s birthday when I still hadn’t planned anything for his party yet (partly because he had told me he wanted a Paw Patrol party and then after Adam’s party decided to switch and has been telling me he wants s Bumblebee party (the Yellow Transformer). I weighed all the pros and cons and decided that the best party for Malcolm this year would be a trip to Disney! Randy and I have wanted to take the kids to Hong Kong Disney before we leave Asia. We heard it was small and great for small kids. It’s in Hong Kong that we love and means we can see Kate and her cute babies. So we excitedly booked our flights and the Disney Hotel and bought our tickets for the park.

We took the boys out for pizza and chocolate cake to tell them we were going to Mickey’s House for Maloclm’s birthday and here is what we got. From Adam: Is it a real mouse or a person in a costume? From Malcolm: I no go, I stay home. Well, we spent the next two weeks building up Disney and overspending on Itunes to buy old Disney movies and off we went.

First ride up was the spinning teacups. Both boys later said this was the highlight of our day. Maybe because we got there early and there was no line yet? I was so excited and thought, wow how amazing. No lines at Disney.

But by the time we headed to the Merry-Go-Round, the masses had arrived and we had to amuse ourselves on line.  Thankfully Kate had packed us some leftover cake that got us through the rough patches.

The Merry-Go-Round, always a hit!

Next up- Flying Dumbo!  A looong line for this one, more cake was had by all. But it was a hit. The boys loved controlling the elephant and both stayed up as high as possible the entire time.  The ride was definitely a little short or maybe it just felt short after the long wait.

And even in Hong Kong, people stop Vin Diesel for his photo. When we finally leave Asia I think Randy may miss the super stardom his slight resemblance to Vin Diesel brings him here.

We stopped for some lunch and after lunch is where things started to take a turn towards the – should we go back to the hotel for naps territory.  Winnie the Pooh didn’t seem to have a long line but it went so slowly. We had a few tears and the kindle was brought out.

But we all rallied and made it.  Adam loved the ride.

Malcolm, not so much.  I only have this one fuzzy photos of his poor little teary eyes.  The ride had some thunder and dramatic lighting and Malcolm was.not.a.fan.

But we stopped at the gift shop on the way out and spirits were uplifted.

By this point we were all about Disneyed out and ready to go back to our warm hotel (we’re not used to temperatures below 75!).  But I convinced Randy to stay for the parade and I’m so happy I did!

Emperor Zurg was ready for the show.

So were these boys.

If we weren’t’ flying the next day I would have bought the boys some balloons.  It is really hard to find helium balloons in Manila . For all our birthday parties we have to string and tape the balloons up. I miss helium balloons. But the last time I bought one for the boys I didn’t think about how the airport (for very valid reasons) wouldn’t let us board with it and this resulted in some tears.  And there is more than you need to know about helium balloons and Ali travels.

The wait for the parade was a piece of cake with our souvenirs to occupy us! Oh and the last bit of Audrey’s cake helped too!

Then after much anticipation, the parade started!

Adam even got up to dance with the band!

As Adam said after the fact. It was fun, but the lines were long so we don’t need to go back anytime soon 🙂

Finally I was done taking pictures and we headed outside. This is why I love Hong Kong and Kate’s apartment! You walk out the back door and are in a beautiful tree lined path. It was rainy so we didn’t get to go to the playground but we still had fun.

What a great day with the Kattars 🙂 My love for Hong Kong grows every time I visit this place!

• Adam- you my best friend. 
• I lub you so so so so so so so much. 
• I mean to mommy. (Meaning, I am mad at mommy, usually because he’s only allowed to watch one Octonauts or one chocolate instead of a hundred)
• Don’t talk to me, I’m doing work
• That be funny. 

Happy Birthday Malcolm!!

For New Years we had a party at ours for our friends and Adam and Malcolm’s friends.  At midnight Manila has more fireworks go off than I have ever seen.  We’re on the 46th floor with a good view of Manila so it seemed like the best place to drink champagne and watch the fireworks.

The boys fell asleep before midnight, so we saved some ‘champagne’ for them.  Pancakes and champers, not a bad way to bring in the New Year!

Early the next morning we woke up to see that Santa had come! And eaten up all the cookies.

Even more exciting were the presents Santa had left.

After Santa’s presents we opened up all the other awesome presents that all our wonderful family sent.  Aunt Das and Uncle Nooj sent scooters and awesome dinosaur helmets that were a huge hit!

Everyone sent the boys such great present! Snowman pjs, high-tops and more from Aunt Sandra, Uncle Shawn, Roman and Isla and loads of toys from Grandma Gertch.

This one from Grandma Gertch was one of Adam’s favorites. A science kit to do experiments! He insisted we do some right then.

Here was Malcolm’s favorite-  a play-doh kit.

Here’s another fan favorite. Pie in the face.  Adam loves this mostly because he gets to eat the whipped cream off his face after.

A pretty great Christmas morning, full of science experiments, whipped cream in the face and facetime with all our family.  The boys even got to try out the new washi tape I got Adam to keep him away from mine. So maybe the only one who didn’t have a great Christmas morning are these guy. According to Malcolm, they were in time out….to clarify, I do not tape the boys when they are in time out.

Luckily they were let out to facetime with Grandma Gertch and see her give Artie some treats.

The boys had a chance to meet Santa and find their names on his Nice list. Adam was so excited and found his name all by himself! He is so close to reading! It’s pretty exciting. I can’t wait until he sees how amazing it is to read books all by himself. I spent so many nights so engrossed in a book that I stayed up all night under my covers with a flashlight to finish.

Malcolm was still not a Santa fan.  He would not let go of me for one second.

But Adam was all about it! He shared with Santa that he wanted, an Optimus Prime transformer.

After Santa, the boys had time to play with their friends, eat treats and do arts and crafts.

Then this year happened. His teachers sent all the  parents an email telling them the class was performing We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and they should dress like this:

Since we live in Manila and wellies and hunting jackets are in short demand I went with the good old camo pants and and old hat of mine.  This song really spoke to Malcolm. He LOVED it and performed every move.

Adam’s creative class wrote, recorded and performed a Dinosaur Marching song. Adam was one of the recorded voices and loved making his costume. His teachers told me he made his own design for his costume, adding feathers to look like his favorite dinosaur- Rustler.  I don’t have the heart to tell him that the rustler, from Good Dinosaur doesn’t really exist.

And here’s Malcolm wishing us a Merry Christmas with a wink thrown in for good measure.

Adam got some wonderful presents from family and friends.  But this, this right here was the gold star winner.  Adam’s friend Christine gave him a block of dirt…sounds exciting right? But inside were dinosaur bones! Adam spend hours digging out the bones and then we put them together.