draw or throw

Sometimes I am not sure whether my son says "draw" or "throw". Both sound similar to me from the way he is pronouncing them. It sounds like this " dhow".

There are times he mischievously calling mommy as babi making be feels like being called a pig. He short formed daddy to "deeee" too whenever he likes.

He is frustrated when we didn't understand what he was trying to convey like last night he woke up at around 3am then had been fussing for 5-10 minutes pointing towards his drawers. I was trying to shove the pacifier into his crying mouth but he refused. . He pointed to the milk can when I was filling his tumbler with water but I know he wasn't hungry. He was just distracted by the milk can. I let him sip water and put him back to bed, patted his back for a while and he came back screaming. I touched his abdomen and realized that the head of his pants was wet from his own pee. His pee shot up and wet the pants! Now I got it why he was pointing to his drawers where I put the diapers on it. So I quickly took out his pants and he stopped crying immediately. Changed diaper and put a clean, dry pants on and I've got a sleeping toddler.

I hope he can communicate better to us so he can be understood :) One day, he will.

Spring! Oregon 2013

I came to Oregon for business trip before but I never get to visit a lot places because I was always there for short 2-3 weeks trip. However this time, my trip is a little longer but I still can't find suitable time to visit Crater Lake. ;)  Ai Chee and Chun had being such a good host for taking me out for few of the weekends to join them in their family outing with his shy little boy. 

We went to Mount Hood, now skiing but I had fun seeing the snow and the mountain in such a short distance. 

(Pic credit to Chun)

It's spring time! I am feeling so lucky to be here this time around April time because I got to experience the blooming of cherry trees. This is the cherry blossoms moment in State Capitol of Oregon which is in Salem. 

 (Pic credit to Chun)

It was a sunny bright day, we all sat down and had picnic. Chun cooked super good nasi lemak and curry chicken with "tao hu pok"! I am going back to Malaysia and cook this on the coming week I am at home.

 (Pic credited to Chun)

It's not easy to get hold of Locky. Here in the picture he's looking away because he has a very shy personality.

 (Pic credited  to Chun)

I managed to snap this rainbow that goes across the water fountain at the front of the state capitol building.

Last week Yvonne was here. She is my baby sister who had turned into this tall young lady. She flew all the way from east coast to meet me in between her school exam and class schedule for a weekend. I love you!

I took her to a few places. We went to Wooden shoe tulip festival in Woodburn. It is a largest tulip farm in Oregon. There's other small farms around but they are not as happening as this one. It wasn't a sunny day but we still had a good time photographing the colorful field of tulips.

I drove her along the scenic route at Columbia River Gorge. We went to a few of the falls and the tallest one is the magnificent Multnomah falls.

We then drove up to the Vista House to view the beautiful gorge with  a river running between it.

During the weekend she was here, the weather wasn't very good. It rained a lot. We went to Seattle and it rained too. It made the travelling on foot harder and it was so cold because of the wind. I didn't take a lot photos there. We visited the Pike's market. We had seafood feast at the Crabpot. Then took a picture at the Space Needle and few other places.

The basically summarized most of the weekends here and I am going home soon to my baby! I miss him

Birthday cards from baby J's cousins

The parcel from my sister came on the day before baby J's birthday. Inside, they are a pair of clothes and 2 cards. One from each of his cousin sisters, age 5 and  4. They drew a rainbow in the interior of the cards. Cheryl knows how to write therefore the letters on the card however it's wordless on Celine's card. Hahaha

They are innocently cute. We are happy to receive the gift from my sister's family

Baby J is One : Food

I am still in post party mood. We had baby J birthday celebration on weekend. This is the table setup where we put the birthday "cake" and cake cutting happened. I printed some colourful UP posters and sticked them on a brown hay string as decoration flags at the table. There's the ballon tied together with colourful metallic ribbons above the heads and also "JASPER IS 1" birthday banner. 

Here's the food. We didn't manage to capture all the food because some of them were taken up very quickly and there is only one photographer whom are also my husband. So he was very busy and didn't have time to photograph everything. I am thankful that I have a talented husband that can take nice photos like this.

I made this marshmallow sticks covered in chocolate and dipped into sprinkles. It's not a big hit because of the sweetness but I like it as it's really pretty.

I also prepared this cheese plate. I assembled the blueberry, cheddar and cheese cracker together. It's awesome combination however being in Asian country, I don't think everyone will think this is awesome as I think it is.

We also got a french vanilla mille crepe and I prepared a jug of refreshing pomegranate & lemon juice.

This is our birthday "cake" . I showed my idea to our patissier and want her to bake 25 mini cupcakes with colourful frosting as the ballons while I provide a 3D house for her to stick it at the end and attach some ribbons to the chimney of the house. It looks perfect with the royal icing on the random vanilla and chocolate cupckes. The patissier is my good friend and her shop is going to open soon in Nagore Road . The shop name is Mon Delice Patisserie .

I ordered a few other stuff from here like the mini quiche with mushroom and bacon fillings however no photo on the quiche. Here's another dessert which is made especially for kids and babies because it's made from all natural ingredients. Even the vanilla bean is imported from Madagascar. This is panna cotta with raspberry gelee.

Here's the highlight of the day! This is called croquembouche, a tower of  40 cream puffs with random mango/chocolate filling. Yummy

Till then..

Baby J is One

Today we had birthday party for baby J. The birthday theme is UP. I had planned this since November, making some printout, 3D  craft paper figure, props, thank you favors etc. Here are some of the stuff I prepared. More photos on the birthday participants and invitees later.

At last my globe is up for good use. I assembled all the items I made together and created this props at the entrance into our home. 

The birthday banner! It's simple.

 I borrowed the doll house from a colleague. Got it a day before the party and the colleague paid RM2 to his daughter to clean the house before passing to me. I guess I need to pass him RM2 as well. I stick Russell sitting at the door step of the house, hang some colourful ballons from ceiling and tie ribbons at the end before securing them to the roof. We didn't get helium ballons, just did some DIY way to make the ballons float.  

The thank you favor is simple stuff. I bought some tic tac candies and remade the label. Then give to each invitees. There is Carl with his walking stick at the back. The birthday "cake" is actually some colorful royal icing mini cupcakes tied to a paper 3D house. I ordered the cup cake and the fondant blue sky board from my good friend. I also ordered some food from her. I will show more on the food I ordered and I made my own  in next entry.

Till then :)

Fabulous 30

I turned 30 and fabulous. When these two being added together, it means I am fabulous 30! I was really happy because this time hubby bought me a cake without me begging him to get me one and I got to blow candles! yay! It's chocolate velvet cake from Humble Beginning and it was so good.

After so many months, I finally got the chance to savour the sticky bone pork rib. We went to Morgan Field for my birthday lunch. This is my first time stepping feet to Paragon. Both of us ordered half rack but of different flavours. We also ordered sauteed mushroom for appetizer and I had a special drink ;) with no alcohol. We were so full after the meal.  This time I brought some finger food for baby J and whenever he screamed I just pop one into his mouth. For dinner , I cooked  "lau shu fen" soup because I need to eat something plain but tasty. 

Here's the latest picture of baby J. He's so naughty nowadays, always scream for no reason. He is also very cranky because his gum is very itchy. His 3rd and 4th teeth are coming, I guess.

 

So as this is my big 30, my dearest buddy Stephanie organized a birthday celebration for me during tea time with Lay Hoong. Lay Hoong's birthday is on the exact date last Thursday when we had the celebration. The cake was very yummy. It is creme brulee from Secret Recipe. I also received hand made card from buddies , Stephanie and Suet Yin. Suet Yin mailed the card to my house and I had already forgotten if I ever give her my home address before ;) It's a surprise then. 

Happy, happy ;) in the arms of my loving hubby and baby

Anticipating

There are 2 more weeks before my maternity leaves official starts. However I am not sure if I need to be off so early but that's what the labour's law says. So let's see. I am taking off 2 days to recuperate. So I am sitting here right at home playing jigsaw puzzle in live messenger with my sister. I have been putting up some gifts from friends over the months for our little sunshine so it's not fair if I do not post this up. This is a gift from my buddy Suet Yin that can fit the baby at later stage. A little to big for him at the moment. :D Thank you very much.

Home, childhood home.

Some good photos taken by my husband which I view once in a while to remind me of the childhood home I used to grow up in. Too many memories in this place, I always miss the sweet one.

I like particular one where my mom always waits in front of the door at 1.15pm for me to get home from school so that she can take an umbrella out and shade me from the hot sun from 2 metres outside of gate until the car porch. It was a short distance but the act matters. Many times, I was lazy to take out and use my own umbrella kept in school bag. She is a good mother.

Our kitchen joint project for the year 2011

Since we are not supposed to celebrate valentine's day news1, so I guess we should not celebrate Mother's Day, World AIDS Day, Father's Day, Children Day and Women's Day as well since they are all advertising gimmick. Hope nobody celebrate Mother's Day with Rosmah in the future.

Anyway, to support in conjunction with V-Day we decided to cook at home to avoid falling into prey of those blood sucker that offer couple package. Our project cost is RM20 per pax. I think it's reasonable considering we have salmon, bacon, prawns and cocktail!

We had wild mushroom soup as starter. Baked salmon with olive oil, salt, basil and lemon slices on top while the fish cooking in the oven to avoid it from dehydrates. Sides are butter garlic baked prawn and asparagus wrapped bacon. We had the food with cocktail made of the citrus orange, grape wine in cold syrup.



Our first V-day after I become a Mrs.

Some 2011 chinese new year photos

Since I had to be away from home for the few most important days during chinese new year this time, meeting up with my family was really a happy thing. It was noisy and full of celebration atmosphere especially when WL and I arrived at my sister place. We saw the nieces jumping and shouting gong xi fa chai! gong xi fai chai! non stop, my parents, my sisters and bro in law.

I seldom post a picture of my sister and I. This is the amazing woman who gave birth to the 2 beautiful babies, works full time as a high profesional career and manages the household that looks like a breeze but in real is really tough. She baked a lot of cookies for cny slipped into her very very tight schedule. The lousy me already complaining not enough time to bake cookies when I have no kid and 2 days weekend off but she can make a dozen while attending to 2 kids, a big house to clean and only 1.5 days weekend. We were not very close as a kid because of the 1 year apart sister syndrome but we chat quite a lot nowadays and update on each other life occasionally.


When I arrived at their home, I straight away hold up my niece and she began manja-ing.



How comfortable is this baby niece sitting on my lap while sucking at her own thumb and watching tv.



I was helping Cheryl to tie up her super long hair , dressing up to visit my grandma.



A photo of myself before we depart to the restaurant for mom's birthday dinner CNY lou sang.



Happy faces when tossing fish salad. THis is the first time my mom ever lou sang in a restaurant. Watch her excitement!



Fireworks seen from our home in Penang.

Malacca on 1-1-11

Finished writting focal at 10.45pm, I decided to make steamed yam cake because my dad gave me a yam last weekend and he reminded me to must use it within 3 days to preserve it's freshness. I came over to my desk to reply Ailene's IM and overcooked the batter. I felt a bit sad however let's look at the result later in 30 minutes? I used my sister's recipe from her blog. It is steaming for about 30 minutes already and another 30 to go. So, I am here breathing a little bit trying to dig something to update in my long time blog.

The just past weekend was New Year holiday. We went down to Malacca with my family for a short visit because Wee Liem wanted to shoot some photos, hoping to brush his skill in photography. I am very proud of him, really.

3 of us took a quick drive to town to visit St Paul but and could not find A Famosa, epic lol :P It was very jam so the "quick" is not so fast afterall. It took us like 2 hours to get there. Everyone was crowding Malacca during holiday season from all sort of places. We saw car plates from KL, Singapore, Selangor and Johore.


Big wall



@ Jonker street buying earings, RM1 each.


So here, we were at Portugese Settlement on New Year night



With lotsa lights decoration


I bought 3 packets of pop-pop , the lame "fire crackers" that gives you pop sound when you threw it againts hard object, eg floor. The kids were happily playing



The next morning, brother in law took us for dimsum breakfast and later Wee Liem, mom and I drove over to MMU to look around


For lunch, we went for chicken rice balls at Jonker street again and had cendol


Wee Liem took some great photos including this one, pretty.


We left afterward back home.. feeling very tired because for us, we drove 500km to reach there. Anyway, happy trip.