The Red Cherry

Been busy the past month planning and preparing for the opening of my pop-up shop : The Red Cherry. It's in a spanking new mall - The School which opened its doors just last week on the first day of December. The School is Malaysia's first enrichment mall to cater especially for kiddos. The main tenants are Yamaha Music School, Learning Fresh, Junior Science Lab, Bee Bop Circus Play gym, Blok Space and Center for Asian Photographers. As for my little shop, it's actually located in an area of The School called Pop. 

Pop is a retail hotel for vendors like me. There are many lots available for rental varying from XS size to XL size. Rental charges depends on size of the lot and duration. I can check in  and check out my goods any time e.g. 1 day, 1 week, 1 month etc. I don't have to be there physically to sell my goods as Pop has a centralised cashier system and vendors are provided with barcodes. 

The Red Cherry stocks Gymboree children's clothing, LEGO toys, lunch boxes, toothbrushes and baked goods e.g. cupcakes/cookies/cakes/macarons. So far, business has been rather slow due to the low traffic to the mall - being new. In anticipation of this, Pop is giving all vendors 3 months stay at the price of 1. Hopefully more and more visitors will drop by The School once all tenants have moved in.

My kids posing with a huge letter 'I' - for ice cream with a red cherry on top!

October Updates!

*Sigh* Time just flies and it's been almost 2 months since my last blog post *gasp*

Been really busy with cakes and parties and also the kids! 

So here's what happened in October:

First up on October 5th was the very first Nuffnang Food Fest. Am very proud to be part of this event as The Cherry on the Cake was invited by Astro's Lifetime Channel to be their baking partner. I personally baked a total of 1000 pcs of chocolate vanilla cupcakes! Total of RM1146 was raised on that day for breast cancer welfare charity.

 Astro's Lifetime channel's booth at the Nuffnang Food Fest 2013

Together with a few friends, Marissa and I watched The Gruffalo at PJ Live Arts, Jaya One. We bought premium tickets and had a good view of the stage! The show was so enjoyable - highly recommended for families. The next show coming up is Aesop's Fables by Jim West. We watched Jim West's production before last year and it was really good too. 

For the very first time, my kids participated in a Halloween costume contest held at Bangsar Village. Free for all Toys R'Us members. All participants received a goody bag and also a meal set from Nando's. Evan dressed up as a mad scientist and Marissa was a good witch. We had fun putting the costumes together! After that, the kids get to go trick or treating around the mall and they amassed a huge lot of candy. Obviously I didn't allow them to gobble the candy all up in one go….. The next day, the kids participated in another round of Halloween costume contest at Bangsar Shopping Center this time and went around trick or treating as well. 

 Both boys won honourable mention awards in the contest

Marissa refused to go on stage! 

So that pretty much wraps up what happened in October!

2nd Homeschooler's Sports Day & Fair

After the success of last year's event, the homeschooling community decided to go ahead with the Sports Day & Fair at the same venue - the field at Section 5, PJ. The weather was lovely throughout - no rain and minimal sun. All participants pay RM10 for registration. The funds collected were used to pay for the rental of the field and to purchase medals. Volunteers from homeschooling families helped in the organization of the entire event. 

This year we decided to take up a booth - only RM10 but no tables/chairs provided. We brought everything ourselves! Evan wanted to sell donuts and Marissa wanted to sell Hello Kitty. So we ended up with a confectionary stall called Sugar Rush selling jellybeans, candy, chocolates, marshmallows and Hello Kitty butter cookies which I baked & decorated.

There were lots of other booths as well selling crafts, cold drinks, home-cooked food and even games stalls a la fun fair style. Evan playing a target game at one of the stalls there.

The kids competed in various telematches in groups according to their age groups. After that they had individual sprint events. Compared to last year, the number of participants tripled! Lastly the medals were presented to all winners. Actually everyone had a medal to take home! 

Telematch

Evan's 8th birthday

Evan had a few simple and mini birthday celebrations this year that he turned 8. Supposed to blog about this last month but alas got so caught up with work that cobwebs are already forming on this blog. Anyway back to the subject of Evan and his birthday celebrations.....

The first one he celebrated with his friends from music group class - he calls it his 'favourite homeschool class'. I made some push pop cakes for him to bring to the class. Here's a pic taken by his teacher - ahem! so many girls in his class. There's another boy but he was absent that day.

Next up, we had another mini party with his Godma & family at Marco's Pizza. I made a minion cake and ordered macarons from fellow baker Jaclynn who's a macaronologist if there's such a word. Minions and Macarons and Pizza. What could go wrong with that combination? 

Last but not least, as with previous years, a simple birthday do at the ballet school. Minions again but in cupcake form...... and his wish is to do well in ballet (same wish as previous year). My wish: that he will continue to grow in the LORD and to walk in all His ways all the days of his life.