So tiny..

Went to my colleague, Serene's new house today as she has just given birth to a baby girl, Janelle on 11 Sept. Ooo..9-11. Easy date to remember.

Was definitely looking forward to seeing a newborn and carrying baby Janelle just to get back THAT feeling. Ha.

So light..so still. How nice, I thought to myself.


BUT on the other hand, I wouldnt want to be doing all those night feeds and having to go through sleepless nights. So, am happy at 2!


I am also very thankful that Caleb and Danielle did not get jealous when I was carrying the baby. In fact, they seemed to like baby Janelle. They were fascinated by the sheer size of a baby.

Mid-Autumn this year..

There was CCA Commendation Ceremony today in my school where we appreciate the students who made contributions to their CCA. I was in charge of refreshments and so together with my guides, we helped to arrange the tables and chairs, as well as to serve our guests.

After the ceremony, I rushed off to my mum-in-law's place for dinner as it was mid-autumn festival. This is the time where hotels push their sales of different, strange sounding mooncakes which you just dont understand how it will taste nice. All sorts of shapes, sizes, colours and taste.

Well, I still prefer the traditional kind- lotus paste with egg yolk. Few slices of that and hot chinese tea satisfies me fully.

My mum-in-law served us more than that. We had steamed yam as well as pomelo fruits too!


After dinner, we rushed home as we knew my house's playground would have some sort of celebration-just like every year.

Despite feeling very tired since I was whole day in school, havent bathed. I quickly put down my bag at home, changed and then brought the kids down to play with their lanterns and to enjoy the full moon in the sky.

It was fun as every kid was carrying a different kind of lantern. There were the noisy electronic ones, the colourful ones with lots of different cartoon characters as well as the traditional ones with candles.

Many families got together to light up candles along the pavement.


I was also amazed at this family with many generations that got together for mooncake and tea. They seemed to be having a picnic at night!


It was really nice watching families getting together to play and celebrate this festival.

Best party attended!

Today, went to Wanling's daughter's one year old party. Its one of the best party I have ever attended. So what makes up a good party? For me, it has got to be 3Fs- Fun, Food and Family/Friends.



FUN

First of all, its fun to see the children enjoying and not even wanting to leave the place. After all, its a kid's party!


The goodie bag for the kids were so cool! They were given a cute water gun, sunglasses, a rubber ducky, ducky stickers, bubble maker and whistle. How cool is that?


There were tons of cute floats everywhere for the kids to enjoy themselves! At that point in time, I wish I was a kid once again!



They had 3 different type of pools. One for the infants or young toddlers, while the other one is a slightly deeper one for older toddlers and the last one is for adults.







FOOD

The food was unique and absolutely delicious. It was catered by Wanling's own thai fusion restaurant, situated in Katong. So there's thai, peranakan, Indonesian, Malaysian style of cooking. They had gado gado, stewed pork belly with pickled vegetable, prawn mee which was absolutely delicious as the soup was thick and flavourful. Didn't take picture on food as I was busy eating! Even the food was poked with cute little ducky toothpicks! All consistent with the theme!

FAMILY/FRIENDS

And of course, a great party needs to consist of great company.



Here's the birthday gal!


And her cute, pretty looking cake!


What an enjoyable Sunday afternoon!

Holidays come and go

During the September Holidays, I had big plans to bring the kids out and spend lots of time with them in the outdoors. However, it just flew past so quickly that I ended up not accomplishing much.

During the first few days of the holidays, I was at Suntec attending the Teachers' Conference and just witnessing the launch of the Teacher's Academy by Education Minister Dr Ng Eng Hen.

CT was away on a team bonding trip by his company to Vietnam. So after 2 full days of conference, I needed time to recuperate. And somehow, time passed to quickly that I hardly brought the kids out to play, except to the playground down at my block and visiting family.

Anyway, to make up for that, we brought the kids swimming when CT came back since the weather had been rather hot.

They enjoyed it very much.




I am proud to see the level of comfort my kids have with water. Even Danielle has learnt how to blow bubbles in the water.


And Caleb has learnt to kick beautifully with his ankles.


After the swim, we had a nice dinner and after that, went for a walk along the beach.


A very enjoyable evening and night spent with the family.

House visitation

For a long time, I have always wanted to visit my cousin, Shermaine's house ever since she moved out from her parent's place to her new home. During this September Holidays was a great time I figured to do just that. So we arranged and I popped by with the kids.

Its set in an old apartment compound, but in close proximity to great food in Siglap. So no complains!


I love the spacious living room where the toys were all over the floor and could even accommodate Danielle in her tricycle riding in it. Amazing!



I truly believe that a house speaks a lot about the owners and from it, I can tell how simple and practical Shermaine is, but yet not denying the children of anything as they seem to have everything that they need- for e.g having a piano, toy sets, computers, children's dining table and chairs etc etc.







And like Shermaine, the place exudes out a lot of character and creativity- from a nice brick wall, to a hand painted Chinese character that means 'family', keeping my great grandfather's Chinese medical hall signboard and repainting it, to making the door of the kitchen a nice drawing board for kids to display their creativity etc etc.




Caleb and Danielle really had a great time there!





And not only that, Danielle had fun trying on many dresses that were either too small for Lulu or that Lulu didnt like.


Thanks Shermaine for inviting me to your house! Loved it! Cant wait to try your cooking next time round! haha!

Last Kampung..

This morning, CT decided to take the family to visit the last surviving kampung (village) in Lorong Buangkok. I have always wanted to visit the place since its rare now in this modern day Singapore.

But before that, we had breakfast at Jalan Kayu.

My kids enjoyed eating the prata! Danielle had 1 and a half!

The Kampung was just few minutes away. Took us a while to finally reach as there wasnt any clear road signs to this secluded area except for this small signboard along a small and narrow road.



It was nice to see how people live so simply. Makes me grateful for what I have and assured me that even if I didnt have lots of money, I would still be able to survive in this country.




During our walk, I asked Caleb if he wanted to stay here and he immediately said no without much thought. The reason he gave was that the place is dirty and muddy.



Oh well..Caleb doesnt like to be dirty as mentioned by his teacher as well. His teacher, Susan commented to me before that Caleb would kick up a big fuss if he dirties his clothes while eating. Quite surprised because I thought kids love to get themselves all dirty and sweaty.

Anyway, during our walk, we managed to see some interesting sights like fruits and flowers




many ants everywhere. There were a few that went to my feet and bit me as well.



And birds in the open that you seldom see except maybe in Jurong Bird Park.



We all had a wonderful time opening our eyes to see another side of Singapore- a quaint little village whose fate is still uncertain.

Early birthday celebration

Celebrated my dad's birthday early this year as the restaurant was fully booked during that week and the week before. So we ended up celebrating 2 weeks in advance.

Went to Grand Shanghai Restaurant (it has been now my family's favourite haunt) for the celebration. Invited my relatives as well. So we sat in two tables. My parents love the place for its delicious food and ambience.


My dad's birthday is on the same day as my Pak Leong (Father's Brother's Wife) and my Gu Ma's (Father's Sister) birthday is also on the same month, just few days ago. So it was an all-in-one celebration!



I enjoy the live band and singing as its a flash back to the old times with soothing music. Great entertainment for the kids as well. So, it makes them sit still for quite a while!

This is a picture taken by Caleb


After a while, the kids got restless towards the end of dinner, just before dessert. So they went out for a walk along the Singapore River.


Had a great time. Definitely a more relaxing place than our usual Por Kee Restaurant which we go to every Chinese New Year but of course, way more expensive too! ;)

CT's colleagues

My hubby has been a chemical engineer after graduation and the life of a chemical engineer usually ends up either in Tuas or Jurong Island (the other side of Singapore). It's not an ideal location that most people would look forward to go to work in because it's not only far for CT to travel, but it's not convenient to get food there.

Anyway, after changing jobs a few times already (by the way, they were all in Jurong Island), he had finally joined a company called Afton Chemicals that is based next to Somerset MRT! How big a contrast is that- from Jurong Island to Orchard Road? However, he still needs to go to Jurong Island most of the time but at least, he drops by at his office once in a while which I feel is a good breather from the smelling of fumes and 'ulu-ness' of Jurong Island.

Anyway, CT's colleagues from America (Hans, Chente and wife-Taiwanese who migrated to US) have been coming to Singapore to work and so we hosted them for an afternoon lunch at my parent's place.



I wanted to let them taste home cooked food in Singapore, instead of the usual restaurants they go to in Orchard.



I knew my mum would play a good host to them as she really has a gift of hospitality.

After a wonderful lunch, my mum actually served 9 different kinds of fruits for them to try.



There were snow lotus fruit (texture is like lotus root but its very thirst quenching. Taste a little like water chestnut), papaya, mango, pomelo, dragon fruit, longans, duku langsat, durian and mangosteen. What a spread!

And lastly, mooncakes with lily flower tea.


Could tell that everyone enjoyed the food!


At night, CT and I went to his American's friend's house. They have been staying in Singapore for quite a while already and they are actually from Texas. So they invited us over for a Texas BBQ session. How could I reject? Love American BBQ!

One amazing thing about this American guy is that he actually purchased a world class Gemini brand BBQ pit, and a smoker pit for cooking smoked food. He bought that from US and got it shipped to Singapore. He said that he went to Tanglin and saw the same BBQ pit for $3000 while he bought it in US for US$600 and after shipping, think he amounted to US$1000. So that was why he got it shipped over from US.


And probably typical American BBQ, there would be lots of drinks!


Frankly speaking, I am not a big fan of BBQ ribs. Reason is because I do not really like the smoked flavour of it plus the BBQ sauce which ends up overpowering the actual taste of the meat. And most of the time, the meat can be dry and there isnt much meat in the ribs. But I have to tell you that tonight, I had the best smoked pork ribs IN MY LIFE!! It was so meaty, tender and juicy. The smoker pit which he bought was really worth it!

There was also smoked beef brisket which was so tender and tasty, mashed potatoes which was absolutely delicious, black eyed peas, salad, BBQ chicken-super tasty, corn which was extra large in size and BBQ jalapeno with mozerella cheese and bacon! It's so good!!!



Here's what I had..(on my plate)



After dinner, the Americans all stayed back to play Texas Hold 'Em while CT and I drove some of his colleagues back to the hotel.

One of my wish is definitely to organise my own BBQ session with the kind of comfort food I love in a BBQ. Here's what I would have...

1) Mashed Potatoes with Egg
2) Garden Salad
3) Jalapeno with Cheese and Bacon
4) Steak
5) BBQ Chicken
6) Chilli Beans
7) Corn

Yep, that would be it. Love to keep it simple and straightforward.

Cant wait for my own BBQ pit..