Baby J is One: Celebration & People

This is the birthday boy! He is a year old now. I posted this write up in my status in facebook on his exact birthday.

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He didn't give me morning sickness during pregnancy, made my skin glows and hair so voluminousness. He is a good baby since I carried him, only back pain because of my weak back. This time a year ago, my baby just came out to the world smelling fresh. We are happy parents until today though there are times whining and fussiness are all over him, but it's normal for a baby who is as active as him. He has been crawling, walking with support and without support since becomes mobile. He laughed when daddy played with him. He looks for mommy when he is sleepy and hungry. He remembers where he hid his toys and sit there hours to retrieve them although they fell into unreachable space. He smiles at daddy when daddy flash the camera at him. He has 8 white shinning teeth that can eat full solid food. There are many more fond memories of his little actions and baby mischievousness and we hope for many years to come. I hope he still let me kiss him when he grew up. Mommy and Daddy love you very much. Happy 1st Birthday to our little man! 

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Baby J mingled around. We invited 11 people and it brings to total of 23 adults and 7 babies/kids.The guests came with spouse and I counted myself, my hubby and in laws.. That's how the number came up to 23. The house was very crowded. I would like to invite more but it's impossible to fit them in our tiny home.

The Sii brothers

I like this picture because it shows the decoration I put :)

Baby J with Terry and Kai lin

Tze Yee took the camera and snap picture of the Wong's family. However he meant to show himself in the pic because we can see his reflection in the mirror. Look, there is FF and HH too !

My buddy, Xiao Wei and her lovely hubby Leo

Group photo <3>

Baby J was so excited when daddy sang birthday song for him!

Another excited baby J photo. He loved it when we put him in the paper bag for a photo. Thanks to everyone who came and gave baby J presents and angpow! The presents are lovely and the money can be put to good use for baby J.

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 :)

Brief cover page on our Taiwan vacation

We were back from Taiwan yesterday on Singapore Airlines. We flew there with AirAsia. It wasn't a promotion ticket so don't bother to ask us how much is our flight cost. It was a sudden trip that I had managed to convince Weeliem to go with me after months of persuades and bribes. We had a fun and interesting trip double date with my school friend and her fiance. They had their pre wedding photography in Taipei and we joined them for 4 days in Taiwan. The rest of the days we were on our own. It was a 6.5 D 7N trip because we reached Taiwan in the evening and left for the airport at 5 in the morning.




The special thing about our vacation this time is that we experienced an extreme weather change throughout our trip. The first two days was raining. It rained heavy making the Taipei wet, cold and freezing cold. Everyone was with umbrella. From what I heard from our taxi driver,it rains 6 months in a year and this year the winter prolonged. It was not supposed to rain anymore at the time when we had our trip but it still did. It was snowing at "Hehuan shan" and we were there after two days lucky for us that our car can make it up there because they had cleared the road and it stopped snowing. Snow is not melting yet so we stood a chance to see the mountain covered by snow and put our feet on them. There are cherry blossom too. We saw them on the way to " Hehuan Shan" within Taroko Gorge National Park and at "Yang Ming shan" at Taipei, both pink and white. After the 2nd day of rain, the sun came out. However it was misty at all the places we went due to the difference in temperature day and night. It was so cold at night and sunny in the day time. Most of us got really bad sun burn especially for my friend who were supposed to have their photography session the next day. Now both Weeliem and I are really tanned. You count, we see rain, sun, snow, mist, freezing cold and hot sun. Quite worth for a trip except that visiting places in heavy rain is really a torture. Obviously we did not bring jacket that is thick enough to sustain a 7 degree celcius (or lower) temperature because I thought the weather would be similar to Cameron Highland. Who the hell wear winter clothing to Cameron Highland? Luckily I packed 2 pairs of gloves and they kept our hands warm. Another thing that we never prepared for is on the humidity condition. We read from internet that the humidity is somewhat similar to Malaysia and none of use lotion or lip balm back in Malaysia because it's always so humid here. So we had really dried skin and broken lips during the trip until we bought sheep oil lotion and lip balm to save our poor skin and lips.

The food in Taiwan didn't really made an impression to me as I don't really fancy fried stuff. The roadside snacks all are not my favourite because they are fried food! except for grilled mushroom and wild boar chinese sausage. Weeliem and I don't like to eat while walking so we don't like to buy food at the night market. We ate 3 times of beef noodle (read : sit down on a chair in restaurant and eat in order), one of our all time favourite. 688 Beef noodle restaurant, a small restaurant in Shilin market and a restaurant at opposite of Shilin MRT station. The first was the most expensive beef noodle we had cost about RM30+ each bowl. They even sell RMB10000 beef noodle which translate to RM1050. The one at Shilin market was the best , cost about RM13 and the last one is nice as well cost about RM13 too. The thing I love on Taiwan food is their rice. It's very similar to Japanese rice, round and juicy, so yummy. I had beef rice when Weeliem ate beef noodle at the shop opposite Shilin MRT station. We also had rice at a shop operated by aborigines in Taroko Gorge, super yummy hot mexican beef with white rice. The beef in Taiwan are mostly imported from Australia so they taste really yummy. We also bought a packet of "buah pinang" to try. Our taxi driver kept asking us to test.


We tried the outdoor hot spring at Hualien. It was really relaxing to soak in HOT water facing the beautiful nature scenery(mountain). The water is at 41 degree celcius. We also had sauna and jacuzzi at the same place. The outdoor temperature is at around 16-18 degree celcius. Nice?




I am going to write more on the interesting and beautiful places that we had visited in next entry. I don't have any photos of those now. So now let me show you the clothes, shoes and bags that I purchased. I didn't buy any mask at all and not much food as well, there isn't enough time to do shopping because we were out on trip away from Taipei. Two of the bags and a top are for my sisters.

Becoming Mrs

It was a bright morning, everything went smootly. The addition of nasi lemak with blood clam sambal was a great kick to start the day off with. People arriving in time, or I should say they were punctual + early :P. You guys were great. Thank for dad for rushing from work for me and the troop that travelled 3 hours to be there.



I really enjoyed the morning we had, tying up hair, make up in my own room, making hair for baby sis , saying yes you can wear this to sweet sis and other little stuff. The girl friends showing up in their cheerful smiles made up my day. WL's family arriving with happy faces brought my spirit up skipping in the sky.



We are very glad to have our family and friends together at Klang Hokkien Association to witness our registration of marriage.



Thank you all for the lovely presents I received and for being kind enough for being my photographers on the day. Credit goes to Bryan, Pei Li and my sweet sister. Also not forgetting wishes from Her Hau from hundreds miles away. Ya, I love the lacey basket and the lacey ring pillow. You girls are just too lacey.. Haha.




The sun was so bright after the ceremony but we took a little time posing around the building for some shots.







I know, I know. You are happy


Legally, the Mrs.

2010 Mid Year Trip - Singapore

The trip is about meeting up with old friends and have a short getaway from work.We did both. I think my life is ruled by internet. I cannot live without internet so I wified in the hotel whenever I am in the room.

That was us the girls loafing in the hotel lobby waiting for the complimentary cocktail session after a lot of walking in malls along Orchard.




Walking again in Clarke Quay in the evening. There were so many people around because it was the day to celebrate Argentina loss to German all down.



I super <3 the hotel's breakfast. We had breakfast in executive lounge on the 27th floor. The staff felt a bit strange for a young couple to sit in there with a lot of angmoh so one of them asked us, where are you guys from? WeeLiem answered proudly, Malaysia while I looked down all the times . lol




After visiting Kim at her new home, Ailene and Bryan brought us to the city for a little tour. This is the wealth fountain at Suntec




And a big clock.. haha. don't know what is that for..




We went to the Esplanade and saw many plastic made sculpture, creative but strange


Picture with the durian


City at background



Group photos with Marina Bay Sands at the background. Believe me, we walked from here to there!


Our loyal tour guide doing lovey dovey posing



We walked so much that it exceed Ailene's maximum perday. Anyway I think Hong Kong is a lot worse than this :D



He said he likes this picture a lot.



Last picture for the blog


We had simple dinner at one of the foodcourt inside Suntec tower, which the place is used for some expo too, left for hotel right after because our tour guide need to work the next day. Weeliem and I took a short stroll in Orchard again when we reached hotel... not to waste the beautiful night ;)

loh bak

This is what I made tonight: loh bak (and stir fry vege which is too normal to be mentioned here :P)


My friends are so super fab! Her Hau made Kim Gary curry chicken, Sim made his mat tong tong salted egg /pumpkin rice, Cannas fried namyu chicken!, Alan's wife (Smin) cooked asam laksa!!!

hehe. TM and Xping brought fruits and Cath with her boy took the liberty to buy us drinks because they are from mainland and it is not convenient for them to go back just to cook as they had some activities in the morning which I didn't join.

We had a movie session afterward. I like the way they squeezed into my living room laying againts each other watching "The Day After Tomorrow". But not Smin because I think she didnt feel comfortable sitting on the floor. Anyway, I was happy and I hope they did too. I didn't have a photo of them in my house because my camera is with WL now which I hope he utilizes it to snap some tulip photos for me.

I forgot where I copied the recipe from so if anyone found it someone, please help to quote me. I don't want to be blame stealing other people recipe. hehe. I had hard time finding water chestnut in the market because I don't know what it is called in Chinese! Anyway lucky that I recalled it is called "ma-thi" later. Also, I almost bought the wrong bean curd because I thought bean curd is "tau-ki"

Ingredients:
400g pork
4 water chestnut
diced 1/2 bombay onion
diced 1 tbsp chopped spring onion
1 small egg
1 large piece bean curd sheet, cut into 14x7cm each piece
* Cut bean curd into smaller pieces


Seasoning:
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tsp five spice powder
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp corn flour or sweet potato flour

* Marinate meat for several hours

Method:
1. Cut pork into thin strips
2. Combine meat, water chestnut, onion, seasoning and egg into a mixing bowl. Mix well. Add spring onion to mixture. Marinate meat for several hours in fridge.
3. Put 1-2 tbsp marinated mixture onto each bean curd skin piece. Form into a long roll. Roll up tightly and twist on both the ends.
* After steaming


4. Steam rolls for 8 minutes. Remove, cool and then deep fry in hot oil until golden and crispy.
5. Cut into slices and serve with dipping sauce.

Reminder: Do not wrap too big roll as it would be difficult to fry it.

Awal Muharam long weekend

It was some continuous long weekends in Selangor from 2 weeks back till 2 weeks later. They had Sultan birthday, Awal Muharam, gonna have Christmas and New year holidays.

I went home for some personal matters, at the same time to attend Pei Li's bride side wedding reception. I missed Alan's house warming. I already missed Her Hau's one in October. Sad.

Anyway, things happening at home both cheered me up and brought me down. It has been months since Celine's birthday I last saw the two babies. Both had grown so much. Celine is walking now, like a man walking on stick balancing herself using her legs. Cheryl has become a big sister answering everyone's question confidently. She can recognise all A-Z, reciting after us and spotting some common animals pretty amazing for a two year old plus. This is what happen when she has a highly educated mommy at home coaching her in everything.

3 pretty ladies. Ops, babies. That's baby sucking her yummy thumb all the times

I cannot make it for Pei Li's official chinese marriage ceremony this weekend as I have other programme to attend. Year end is always busy period for everyone. I rushed to her wedding in time to help at the reception desk after the long journey back from visiting sister. Aileng said I looked tired though which is very true. Above photo is compiled from Aileng's camera and 2 below were stolen from Shiao Shuan's facebook. I have to do so as I don't have any photo with bride in it.

Another table of our friends.

Bride and groom with friends at KEC.

Yee's wedding

I am still having my whole mind full of Twilight movie's scene after watching it at her hau's place yesterday. Now I put the fault on weeliem because he told me that this is a bad movie and I didn't even want to watch it. This movie is so goooooood. Edward Cullen is a super gorgeous vampire. If weeliem not coming back tomorrow morning, I will forget how he looks like already.. okay, I am joking. I am looking forward for the new Twilight movie, New Moon in the theather. I can't wait. I have to stop wiki-ing and google-ing


Enough of the teenager scream of cute Robert Pattinson, I am going back into reality. I was here over the weekend because I had a few buddies coming over. It was Yee's wedding last Sunday. I had this really bad food poisoning over the food we took on Saturday, we ate all spicy and sour food.

Three of us from her hometown, accompanied her on her wedding day. It was a sunny and bright day.



Teamed up with Yee's female coursemates, a photo taken with the pretty bride



Wedding reception.. Yee's dinner gown was super beautiful, her make up was really natural stunning.



Four of us stayed together for the past 2-3 nights. Lucky that they were here, accompanying me. We had enough liquor on every nights, thanks to aileng for the supplies :D

I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him... Ops.. my mind is still with Twilight. Bubbye..