Singing Happy Birthday

Surprisingly, Miss K can sing the birthday song! I discovered this while we were singing in the car during the week. I guess she must had a few practice sessions at childcare (they sing happy birthday in all 4 languages at her childcare!)

So, when I told her its Ben Gorgor's Birthday on saturday, she has been happily singing "happy birthday to Ben Gorgor" since Friday night...We missed the party at Explorer Kids (our fault, was glad we did not tell the little one that we are going to a "big playground" for Ben's birthday as we were so busy with scheduling other things that afternoon or she might be thinking we lied to her!) but we managed to get to the party at night.

The first thing Miss K spotted as soon as we arrived at the party- The slide!

This is a daring Miss K climbing up the slide...

 which is higher than my 1.65m height! 

Yes, that's me, tip-toeing, grabbing tightly onto her, as she proudly stepped onto the slide on her first climb up the monkey bars!

The BBQ food was good, the fellowship with our cell group members was great! Unfortunately, I did not manage to snap a photo of the food. The highlight of the night was the "Angry Bird" themed Birthday cake.

This is Ben with his Angry Bird Birthday cake!

J managed to capture this shot with Ben's baby brother, Don. He's such a cutie! And Kate looks like a big sister here!

Happy 7th Birthday, BEN!

Miss K's first visit to Bollywood Veggies & Hay Dairies

Breakfast in a farm in Singapore? That's exactly what we did on saturday!
Tuck in the north west corner of Singapore is Bollywood Veggies. Their Bistro, Poison Ivy serves fresh produce from their farm.
Sipping coffee and tucking into our breakfast, most of which came from the plants just 100 meters away from your table is something which I never thought would be possible in our city state.

So what's our pick?

Miss K's favourite would be the organic banana and tapioca chips which came with the nasi lemak (obvious, huh!).

My favourite would be the banana bread, kueh Bingka and Kueh Kosui.

J's favourite, his aloe vera drink!

Would love to come back here for lunch one day as they have jackfruit curry and organic veggies freshly picked daily from their farm. They use no MSG in their cooking and little salt. I have to add that they definitely got the right amount of sugar in their banana bread and kuehs, well done!

For those who wants to bring their pooch along, there's actually a dog run at the farm! On our next trip here, we will definitely be bringing Gigi along.

While walking around the farm, we saw this sign. 

I was seriously thinking of going in to check out the "sanctuary", but with Miss K refusing to walk and only wants "mama to carry" we had to make our way home.

So, here's my little koala, all fully "urbanised", refusing to touch any leaves, refusing to trod along the garden path. Sigh. I guess I have a long way to go in educating her to appreciate the countryside.

On our way home, we made a quick visit to Hay Dairies as I promised Miss K that we will go and visit some goats that morning.

I felt sorry for the goats. They were all caged up, looked thin and weary, (AVA does not allow feeding by public anymore, which they once allowed, I totally support this new rule)...and when I heard a few of them bleating away, I just felt sad for them. Having seen fat, healthy goats in Europe roaming free, grazing in the green pastures, I am sure these goats will be so jealous if they know that their europeans cousins are leading such a good life 6,000 miles away.

I had wanted to get Miss K to try some goat's milk, so I got a small bottle of chocolate flavoured one for her ($2) and suprisingly she loved it! Very fresh tasting, much fresher than cow's milk, actually. I love it too!

So, will I succeed in educating Miss K about appreciating the country side? Well, I can only hope...

Sweaty Bub

My Little K was a very sweaty infant.
She had sweaty feet, sweaty palms and a drenched full head of hair after each milk feeds and naps (we do not let her sleep in an air-conditioned room).

We were then quite worried about her sweating problems.
If you do google about sweaty infants, there are a whole list of sickness related to sweating!
However, I'm so glad that her first trip to Europe somewhat proved that part of her 'sweatiness' is mainly due to us living in a tropical climate.

J is worried about her sweaty palms and how her future boyfriend would react to that...hmmm.
Recently, I do see an improvement - both her palm and feet are less sweaty. That means, no more smelly shoes - yay!.

That being said, having dinner at home is still a sweaty affair...

"Exploring Time" with DORA

J got the little one a watch, a DORA watch! Miss K was all excited when she saw the watch.
She started to love Dora after our US trip in April; we basically watched the Dora-athon (2hours straight of Dora and Diego and learning spanish) every morning at the hotel for a week when J goes to work.

It lights up to the tune of 'its a small small world' when you press the cover flap. The first hour in possession of the watch, she must have pressed it 100 times!
And if you lift the flap, there's actually a digital watch beneath it - yes, its a real watch.

Miss K's First Watch

My 21 month old singing 'parrot'

i.e my little Princess.

30th of May marked Miss K's 21st Monthsary.

She is at the 'parroting' stage now and seems to be parroting everything we say, including words which (i think) she does not even know what they actually mean, e.g. promise, gather, problem.

I am starting to enjoy her singing :) Yes, she can sing bits and pieces of the kiddy songs I play in the car when we drive to work/childcare every morning. As of late, she has been listening to her favourite VegeTales CD which her 小 姨 gave her as her Christmas present last year.

Songs and chatter aside, she is now mummy's awesome helper; passing me hangers while I hang up the laundry, takes her clothes to the laundry basket after evey change, throws away her diaper in the bin and brings her milk bottle and place them on the kitchen top when asked to do so.

Alright, time for me to sit, relax and enjoy the music...

Favourite photo of the month!

First step to potty training...

...is to be a member of the National Library!
Finally, we brought Miss K to the library, and she now has a library card.

I had a slow start to potty training and the only thing I have achieved so far,was to successfully made her sit on her potty....for 10 seconds.

A colleague advised me to go get potty books, so that was what I did.

I was at Toa Payoh Library and was impressed at the amount of Baby Books available! Those who go to the library often to borrow books for your kids must be thinking that I'm really a suaku but seriously, I was impressed!

Alright, Miss K will have mummy reading her Potty Books when she does Potty Time this coming week!

Spargel

'Spargel' is the White Asparagus. Apprently, its in season now. J came home with 2 bundles of 'Spargel' from Germany. I think the Germans love these white asparagus to bits as they even have a 'Spargelfest' - Asparagus Festival once a year!

Well, I guess the fact that it is only available once a year makes it extra special. 

Miss K was rather perplexed with that bundle of asparagus, she was scrutinising it for a while, then turned to me and said "draw?" (I disrupted her drawing session, so she must have thought that they were new sets of crayons) - I told her no, its asparagus and its for dinner. Then she immediately said "mummy cook". Yes, well done.



A slightly different preparation was needed for these white guys, so it took me a while to search the web for the proper way to cook them before it ended up on the dinner table! Such a shame I totally forgot to take a picture of my creation, but it was yummy!

These white guys are definitely much better than their green counterparts!

My Little Food Connoisseur

Last weekend, we decided to have our yearly buffet at the Bar & Billiard Room.
The little one was oh-so-eager to sample the yummy range of food on display.
They still have a very good spread of entres and mains, but the dessert spread this year was rather disappointing.
So what did our little food connoisseur think about the buffet spread?
Below is Miss K's review:

She totally enjoyed the duck, she had 3 servings of it!

The duck was indeed delicious, such a shame I could not remembered the exact description of the dish, but the little one was definitely contented with her duck. The white bits on her plate is Black Cod in parchment. That was a little bland but the little one loved it too!

The wild mushroom and prawn spaghetti was rather tricky as she refused to have them cut into bits (tell me about the terrible twos!) She decided to ditch the fork and spoon; I guess they taste better this way!

 It got rather messy, so I tried to convince her that the spoon with chopped up spaghetti bits was a better option but she just gave me this cheeky grin. I conceded defeat! Argh!!

Our little food connoisseur insisted that she tried the dessert selection I had on my plate. Guess which dessert she liked best? Yup, guessed it right, the chocolate looking one. She ignored the rest!

J insisted that we should give Miss K some fruits to prevent her eating "more junk" i.e. chocolate looking desserts. I'm so glad she still love her fruits as much as she loved her duck, cod, spaghetti and choc-walnut-torte.

Ratings you say? Well, I'm not too sure about Miss K but I guess I will still give it a 7/10.

Cake Pops & Cupcakes

My newfound obsession or hobby rather, is baking.
I stumbled upon Bakerella's blog and that got me really inspired to try making Cake Pops.

Decided to make a small ensemble of cupcake and cake pops for a friend's birthday this Tuesday.

Here are a few of my creations.



Dark Choco Swirl, White Choc Heart Sprinkles & Dark Choc Mosaic Cake Pops



Mosaic Tree Cup-cake-pop



 Heart Sprinkles Cup-Cake-Pop 



My first try at making cake pops and am glad both Miss K and J loved it!

My past recollections...

... has been restored - at least for the selected few.

Some of you might know the 'birth story' of this blog. At times, I still mull over what happened, however, I shall let bygones be bygones and bring on the future!

That being said, I truly miss reading and sharing my past entries on Miss K when she was tiny.
I miss looking at the baby photos and how those photos reminds me of how fast time flies and how much Miss K has grown.
I have to admit that managing this one blog is one too many already, really.
So, assimilating the past with the current is all that I can do...for now.