27 Jan 2011 (Fri) - CNY Day 5: Feast!

Gong Xi Fai Cai everyone!

So CNY is officially my favourite festival of all time! Good food, delicious new year goodies, wearing new clothes everyday, meeting up with family/ friends and... GAMBLING! What better combination can there be?!

It used to be even better lah because I get to collect ang baos last time.. But now got to give ang baos liao.

Anyway, there is so much photos in my camera taken on the first 3 days of CNY.. But I'm too exhausted to blog about them now.. So skip right to CNY 'Chu' 5 (which is today)..

We gathered at my 2nd uncle place (maternal side) to gamble and for dinner.. Been going to his place for the past 3 days because of "Chor Dai Di"! I didn't play much because I need to take care of Lucas and also because it is too much excitement for my heart lah.. Not working means heart pain if I lose.. So better don't gamble too much!

My uncles and aunties cooked for us for the past few days so today was my mum's turn.. And she really prepared lots of ingredients that we cooked at my uncle's place.. What we had were...

1. Poached Chicken
2. Deep-fried Yam Nuggets
3. "Ho Liao" (translate: good stuff) Soup that has fish maw, cabbage, pork stomach & meat/ fish balls
4. "Har Lok" (stir-fried prawns)
5. Spinach fried together with lots of clams and mushrooms
6. Leek fried with sea cucumber, beancurd and fish cake
7. "Wu Xiang" (meat rolls with prawns)

LOVE home-cooked food! Especially my mum's! These pics are for those who couldn't join us today..































*Must clarify that it was a very last minute decision to cook. Those who missed it.. too bad lah.. Maybe can ask mum to cook another day for you!

22 Jan 2012 (Sun) - End of the Rabbit Year

So today is the last day of the Rabbit Year.. and we will be going to my in-laws' place for the reunion dinner later. This is the 2nd year we are celebrating a new year with our ah-fat baby and we had a mini-reunion dinner yesterday. Just the 3 of us at Jumbo Seafood Restaurant... more on it and pictures later.

My year ends with a tinge of disappointment and lots of anger. I thought  that I would be going back to work pretty soon but it is not happening anymore. My ex-company is so full of shit.. not that I don't know about it.. but I thought they were sincere with the offer. I know that everyone has their own agenda (hidden or not) and everyone wants to play the good cop. But I didn't expect 'these crap' from them. By 'these crap' I mean = Playing dirty tricks behind people's back, not honoring her words and pushing the blame onto others. Yet. Again.


Screw you! I'm glad that I finally told her off + gave her a piece of my mind + refused to accept her excuses as reasons for her unacceptable actions. Thank you but you can keep the position.

So back to our dinner yesterday.. we went to Jumbo Restaurant at East Coast Seafood Center:

We had super tasty Sharkfin Soup, Salted Egg Shrimps and big, fat, juicy Black Pepper Crab. Best of the 3 items has got to be the Sharkfin Soup! I finished my bowl of rice with it alone! 

Ending this post with a picture of my ah-fat bb, 2 nice pictures of the sunset and not to forget... a picture of my big ah-fat.. hahaha!

 

Wishing all a very Prosperous & Happy New Year!

06 Jan 2011 (Fri) - X'mas Lunch & Meetup with friends

This week really flew by so quickly.. didn't manage to go out much, except only to Tampines Mall for a short while yesterday.. Lucas is teething again (*huge sigh) and was grumpy throughout the week. He was crying while eating.. no mood to play by himself.. cry to sleep and just want me to carry him. I remembered him being cranky during previous teething periods.. but this time round is alot worse as his upper and lower molars are popping out one by one. Poor baby lah..

Though I know that he must be feeling very uncomfortable.. but all the crying really gets to me at times. Anyway, I was thinking about searching for a job.. not now but after I ensure Lucas is settling well at childcare in May.. when I get a msg from my previous company asking if I would consider going back. I was skeptical as there was some unhappiness before I resigned.. but it might just happen because they offered me part-time which is exactly what I am looking for. Not that part-time is my permanent plan.. but I thought it will give me the time to get used to working routine. See how it goes and hope things turn out well.


Moving on to the pictures that I took on X'mas 2011:

Naughty boy playing with my camera cover while we get ready to go meet Serena and family at Changi Airport T1 for lunch at Astons..

 Does he look like his daddy? Fatty daddy with his ah fat son.

My camera sucks big time.. always get blurry pictures whenever I zoom in.

Angel Mimi.. she is very lady one.. but her mum says otherwise. Haha! She is always very calm and girly when around us leh..

Matching anot ah? Hahaha!

After lunch, we popped by Jes's house to pass Ethan his present! The above 2 pictures are taken by Jes and it seems that she always manage to get Lucas to look at the camera. My ah fat likes playing with Ethan's toys!

Got to go.. ah fat is awake and crying... bye for now!

01 Jan 2012 (Sun) - Pictures from iPhone

Happy New Year everyone!

We have gotten a Xbox recently, after trying out the Left for Dead game on Desmond's Xbox, we were hooked and decided to buy a set too. So I have been busy.. Haha.. With killing zombies.. Until I realized that the game has been making me nausea.. Lousy right? Boat rides out on choppy water don't even make me sick.. Strange that I would feel giddy at playing games.

There are so many stuff that I want to blog about.. Want to share my new skin care products, Xmas lunch with Serena and family etc.. But firstly, some of the pictures I have on my iPhone..










First time trying out the food at Paradise Inn.. We had braised pork, winter melon soup, some jelly seafood stuff, fried Kailan and deep-fried prawn roll.. Food was so-so and honestly, dining at these mid-range restaurants is so expensive and over rated. Food portions are generally quite small. I read from yahoo that the standard of living is higher in Singapore as compared to hong kong and it was so true.. We were ranked no.6 and HK was no.9. Example, we had dinner at the Jap restaurant, Watami in HK and spent about S$35 there.. Similar dinner, with an extra drink, costed us S$65 in Singapore!



This is baby Lucas acting cute with a penguin hairband!





Just realized that most of the pictures on my iPhone are of Lucas and food.. These were taken at Paragon and Takashimaya on a weekday.. Brought him to toys department while waiting for his dad to join us for dinner.



He likes playing with the small drum that his Sally Ah Yi has gotten for him..





Trying out hats at Espirit.. So cute leh!







Playing at the children corner in Birdpark! Sometimes I feel that my baby is growing up too quickly..



Love this picture! Taken at Hard Rock Hotel and both Desmond and Lucas looked very natural in it!



My ah fat looking fresh and big boy after his morning bath..



My mum and Sally cooked up a storm on Dongzhi (Winter Solstice Festival).. Got braised pork knuckle, prawns, abalone with spinach and radish soup.. Everything was good but the soup was super yum.. I like!



Another damn giant lizard that Melvin caught... In my house! Super gross.. And ugly!

21 Dec 2011 (Wed) - Updates

I have just came back from Loyang Point.. Had cravings for MacNuggets and so we went to buy some before 3pm.. Haha.. You guess right.. It's cheaper to have it before 3pm.. Kinda silly promotion to have on a long term basis. Super love the weather today.. Cloudy and windy.. The perfect weather to go for long walks. The last time when we had such good weather, I remembered that I brought Lucas on a long walk to Loyang temple. My baby is turning 15 months soon and in 3 months' time, he will be ready to try out childcare.

The past few days were packed with activities for us. We went to check out the new mall, I12Katong (I want to Katong) on Sat. It was a relatively small mall and some of the shops were still under renovation. I find that there was not many shops selling fashion apparels.. However, there was quite a number of restaurants.. And more importantly a cinema.. Shall try catching a movie there some time.

And on Sunday, we went to Vivocity to shop before checking in to Hard Rock Hotel. Desmond got us 2 rooms there for a night. It was very crowded at Vivo.. There was lots n lots of people everywhere. I guessed everyone was doing last minute X'mas shopping.. Sorry friends and family, no presents for you this X'mas.. Wait for me to go back to work first.

After shopping, we checked in and stayed in the hotel room as Desmond brought his Xbox zombie game for us to try.. I'm sure my siblings will disagree but still.. I think that I'm very good at killing zombies! Lucas was so adorable.. He was screaming along when I was attacked by the zombie..

It was supposed to be a really fun day.. With a buffet dinner planned at Starz Restaurant.. But I fell sick right before dinner. It started with a headache and I thought that I was just hungry so I had some snacks and a panadol. But it got worse right before dinner and after my first plate at the buffet.. I felt nausea and my stomach turned queasy.. I threw up and I thought that I would feel better after resting for awhile.. There was so much food that I wanted to try at the buffet line.. Drunken prawns.. They used huge live prawns ok!.. Ham n log cake.. Laksa... But I just couldn't keep any food down and threw up 4 times that night. I thought I was going to die.. I felt hungry one minute.. And when I try to eat or drink something, I felt sick all over again. There was so much wind in my gastric. And not to mention the headache.. My head was pounding so badly that I don't think I would feel any pain if you hit it with a hammer. Yes, it was that bad. Lucky my mum and sis were there to help me with Lucas.. And I did mange to sleep after drinking some warm water.

Yesterday, we brought Lucas to catch Cars 2 at Plaza Sing. It was a movie session specially for mums and babies.. Jeslyn and Serena joined us with their hubbies and kids as well. I should have planned for a lunch together because we ended up having lunch separately. Sorry sisters.. Will do a better job the next time round.

We went Birdpark after the movie which turned out to be a wrong choice. It was too wet to walk around after the rain.. Not to mention the mosquitoes that were aiming Lucas.. And most of the bird shows were cancelled due to the rain.. I don't think we will go there again in a long long time...

Before I go.. Here is a gross picture of a huge-ass lizard that Melvin caught at home on the night that I was staying over at Hard Rock...



Lizard has got to be one of the ugliest creatures on earth.. Infact, I can't think of anything uglier than a disgusting lizard at this moment. Melvin was so brave lah.. I would never dare to catch one myself.. Or to take a photo of it some more.. To all dumb lizards, don't think you can come play in my room while I'm out ok!.. You will get it when we are back!

12 Dec 2011 (Mon) - Lucas went movie..

I first brought Lucas to catch a movie about 2 months ago.. It was very random, last minute decision.. We went shopping at Eastpoint and got bored.. So we took the train to Tampines.. But by then I was tired with carrying him so I plucked up the courage and bought a movie ticket for Johnny English Reborn.. I was thinking to myself that if he makes too much noise in there, I will just bring him out.. It would only costed me $7 to try and surprisingly, he was quite cooperative and took a nap in the cinema after settling down.

And last Sunday, I wanted to catch a movie again and this time round, Melvin went with us and we watched Happy Feet 2 at Vivocity. Im happy that we could engage our baby in more of the activities that we used to do before we had him.. Travel, go movies.. It's fun!

And I brought him to Orchard by bus on last Friday.. It was the 3rd time I brought him to town all by myself.. Although the bus journey was very long.. Close to 1.5hrs.. He behaved quite well on the bus.. Napped as usual!

So far I have brought him to quite a few shopping malls on weekdays.. We frequent Tampines Mall, Whitesand, Nex.. And we went Chinatown, Orchard, Daimaru, Bugis Junction, Compass Point a couple of times too..

I used to think that it was impossible for me to bring him out.. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to manage him on the public transport or how am I going to have my meals or use the washroom while carrying him.. But I guess if there is a will, there is a way.

We are going back to the Universal Studio this Sunday.. Followed by a night stay at one of the hotels there. Hopefully the weather will be cool and breezy.. The weather has been real hot for the past 1 week.. Hate the sun.

08 Dec 2011 (Thu) - Macaroni Soup

Usually I eat out or pack something home as cooking takes up too much time and effort. Lucas always want my attention whenever he is awake so it is especially tough to find the time to cook - have to go buy the ingredients I need.. wash and prepare them.. cook and finally cleaning up after that. Long process. I try to do the preparation and cooking when he is napping, but sometimes, he wakes up after half an hour of nap and I have to stop mid-way.

But those who often settle their meals outside will agree that eating out can be so boring and unhealthy after awhile. I realised that it's difficult to have sufficient intake of vegetables when eating out.. and it's boring because sometimes, I will walk around the coffeeshops/ foodcourts several time as nothing seems to appeal to me.

Although cooking is troublesome.. I love it and I am making an effort to cook more frequently these days. I try to make simple one-dish-meal to cut down on the time needed... e.g. Braised soya sauce chicken with mushroom, fried rice, seafood soup, fried beehoon.. and I will make enough for lunch and dinner so that I don't have to cook twice (a day).

Today I made Macaroni Soup for Lucas and myself. It is very easy to make and I'm sure most of you would have cook it before.. but this is my version:

*Follow my steps to minimise the pots/ utensils needed = less washing to do
**I won't specify the quantity of each ingredient unless critical to the taste. You can use according to your own preference.

Macaroni
1) Start with boiling the macaroni in a medium size pot for 8 - 10min. Drain the water away and keep the macaroni in a bowl for later use. Keep the pot for cooking the soup (no need to wash lah).

Soup Base (Sliced Carrot, Minced Pork & Tomato Cubes)
2) I marinated the minced pork with a little salt & cornstarch prior to cooking. Start with frying the minced pork with a little oil. I was slicing the vege while cooking, so that I could just throw them in the pot and save on the number of bowls used. Add water, salt and let it boil for ~15min.

You can use ikan bilis or off-the-shelf stock cubes instead of minced pork. Sames goes for the vege.. you can choose to add potatoes and sweet corn like what I have done previously.

Main Ingredients (Fishballs, Fish Dumplings and Baby Bok Choy)
3) I only add in the macaroni, fishballs, fish dumplings and baby bok choy to the soup when I'm ready to serve/ eat. Don't over-cook them. You can also put in whatever stuff that you fancy.. e.g. fish slices, prawns, broccoli, cai xin.

I love corriander & pepper so I added some when serving.. and this is the final product!

This is a very nutritious and yummy dish (if you like soupy stuff).. and this photo doesn't do any justice to it. I will try to take better pictures next time.