Category Archives: Family

A GORGEOUS DAY FOR A WEDDING!

15 May 2012 23 comments

Our Australia holiday was one of the most UNholidays we’ve ever had. It was the first time we’ve gone for an extended (2.5 weeks) trip with a child and, boy, was it different to our pre-baby holidays!! To be really frank, it was one of the worst experiences ever in terms of sleep deprivation, and has scared me off going on another holiday for a very very very long time :X

Hunter was pretty awesome during the day time, his usual cheery self.  But come night-time, all hell would break loose and he would WAIL himself to sleep – no amount of ignoring, or cuddling would placate him. Then, he would wake up every 3 hours or so, whining/crying until he was patted back to sleep. In the morning, more often than not he would wake up crying too. It was INSANE. Considering he was a sleep-through-the-night baby at the tender age of just over 2 months old, it was a HUGE AND NASTY SHOCK for us, to basically be dealing with a ‘newborn’ again.

Even more bizzarely, the moment we arrived back home in Singapore, he IMMEDIATELY went back to his 12-hour uninterrupted sleep – falling asleep by himself, and waking up cheery. I guess he loves being home and in his own bed, and can’t tolerate being away :X So the whole time in Australia, we were zombies and poor Chris had to deal with an extremely irate wife almost daily… oops.

But, at least we had a TON OF FUN during the day! Hunter was so fascinated with everything, loved going out, and we had heaps of fun catching up with family and friends.

Most importantly, we were there for Chris’ sister’s wedding. This was held in Canberra, so we stayed there for a couple of days first. The weather there was so cold though! It was nice in the afternoons, but mornings and evenings were pretty painful. All 3 of us suffered dry/peeling skin and lips as we had to acclimatize ourselves to the climate. However, the benefit was that my hair and skin loved the dry weather.  Helloooo good hair days! I really noticed it especially now that we’re back in Singapore and I see how the humidity destroys your hair and skin ;)

Hard to tell that he was a real terror the night before!

 

"A night terror? Me??"

 

The wedding was held in a really lovely high-ceiling cathedral, and I loved the black-and-white colour scheme, which I thought was super chic. It also brought back such nice memories of our own wedding.. and was really nice to see Chris’ sister so happy on her wedding day :)

Hunter was supposed to walk down the aisle as well, but it didn’t work out because during the rehearsal, we saw that the aisle was actually really long.. which translated to major distractions for him, and we weren’t confident he would have the focus to make it all the way down, especially with a ton of eyes staring at him!

Saying their vows

 

Drowsy after waking from his nap in time for the ceremony

 

I was also delighted to do a reading for the ceremony. I almost pulled out at the last minute, because I developed a bit of a cough and was worried I’d start hacking up a lung mid-reading. But thankfully all went well and I did the reading without any issue – whew!

Doing my reading

 

Afterwards, we had photos outside the church and in a park/lake. The skies were GORGEOUS… though the temperature was quite chilly down by the water. But Hunter didn’t seem to care and had a fab time tottering around the lake and running around on the grass.

The wedding party

 

Meeting one of our college friends for the first time, and trying to charm the socks off her

 

Family pic by the lake

 

Hunter with his great-grandma and nanna

 

My 3 loves ;)

 

The wedding reception was really lovely, with some fabulous food! The beef… OMG *faint*. Chris and I actually shared a large pizza prior to dinner, because we were too hungry. But I still stuffed in appetizer, main, and dessert and cleared my entire plate.. because the food was fab!!

Everyone was having so much fun, and Hunter had an afternoon nap (rare, because he naps 1x/day) so he could stay awake for a bit to join in the celebrations.

Us with our pajama-clad baby

 

"Hiiiii Uncle Matt!"

 

Hunter discovered he could make Uncle Matt drink by stuffing the bottle in his mouth and then tilting upwards. I think both boys had a lot of fun with that ;)

 

The wedding party again. I LOVE that quote!!!

 

Chic table setting, and Hunter got his own special goody bag :)

 

Oh and Chris was MC for the evening! He did a lot of public-speaking when he was younger, and is a natural in front of an audience. And he really nailed it. He’s an awesome MC!

Cutest moment ever: we were seated at the table in front, right where Chris was standing. As he was speaking, Hunter kept pointing to him and going “Da da!!!” loudly and happily, much to people’s amusement. And then he would clap his hands in glee, seeing his Daddy up there. LOL!!

Chris the MC

 

Hunter went to sleep at around 8:30PM so I had to go into a back room and sit there with him. Unfortunately no one brought their maids/nannies, so I had to be there the entire time! It meant I missed out on all the fun stuff in the latter-half of the evening.. and because Chris was MC-ing, he couldn’t really be there keeping me company either. And my iPhone had run out of battery. So I spent the entire time just sitting there staring at the wall. D’OH!! But, at least Hunter slept well considering all the music and noise.. so I was happy.

"G'night guys, it's bedtime for me!"

 

It was a pretty epic day, but we all dealt with it really well considering the lack of sleep we had. Hunter was in a good mood throughout, and adrenalin kept us going.. though we did leave a little earlier to get ourselves to bed. It’s so nice being at a wedding and joining in the celebrations!

 

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HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY AMANDA!!

18 February 2012 6 comments

My little cousin is not so little anymore. She turned 30 years old! She’s just 4 months younger than me, so we have a lot of memories growing up together. She and her older sister are in my earliest of memories.. of us playing ‘cooking’ together, drawing hopscotch patterns at the gazebo (much to my Mum’s horror), making my Dad crawl around the house through our ‘obstacle courses’, playing board games together (I was always the sore loser that would get super-pissed if I lost!), having my bowl of noodles all the time at school.. but only wanting to eat the noodles.. so she would eat all the meat in addition to her own bowl of noodles – haha!,  etc etc etc. Could write pages and pages elaborating on all the little crazy things we did :P

When she married her long-term love and popped out a cute son, I was kind of shocked because… well… she was my little cousin. She’s not meant to be all grown up! But here she is, at 30 years old, happily married, with her own successful company (HELLO Cookyn Inc), and with a very clever little boy. I think many would envy that.

The happy family

 

LOOK AT HIS BIB!!

 

Dad with his 2 favourite boys in the world

 

Hunter, not so convinced with the way his tie was put on..

 

So she invited a couple of us over for her Black Tie in the Backyard birthday bash! Hence why all of us are sporting a black tie with our outfit (I was a NINJA).

There were tables set up, lots of drinks and wine, and we enjoyed the cool evening air whilst chowing down on some fabulous food.

Buzzing around with our drinks

 

The food. YUM!!

 

All of us!

 

A birthday serenade from our famous guitar player ;)

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our little big Mei! Here’s to many more to come :)

 

CHINESE NEW YEAR EATING

3 February 2012 14 comments

So we didn’t have a mad banquet of never-ending food during Chinese New Year. It’s supposed to be really good (guess it shows you’re prosperous and fat?? Heh) to have helluva lot of food such that people can’t finish it.. but we were totally unprepared for it, since we were supposed to be on holiday for Chinese New Year! But it was cancelled at the very last minute since Mum was in hospital (and only discharged the day before), so we had to make do with pretty simple food.

Anyway, no regrets and I liked it that way.. because it meant that 1) Mum was safe and out of the hospital, 2) we were still celebrating as a family, 3) it was kinda nice having a relaxed and chill CNY.

Breakfast on CNY day itself was waffles with bananas, maple syrup and ice cream. It was because I had all the stuff already in my kitchen and so could whip it up for all of us. Plus, Dad LOVES waffles.. and I thought it would be nice to do breakfast and coffee together for CNY :)

The waffles were those pre-made ones that you simply pop into the toaster. Verdict? Crappy. They become pretty stiff and crispy, and SO not like the waffles that I like – all moist and soft on the inside, and light and crisp on the outside. In retrospect it was silly of me, since it’s super easy to make waffles from scratch since I’ve done it many times before. Duh..

Waffles with bananas, maple syrup and ice cream

 

Lunch was a very last-minute decision.. as we had to figure out which places were actually open, that weren’t fully booked. We ended up having Japanese at the Raffles Town Club, which was an awesome decision because the food there is fantastic!

Outside the Japanese restaurant. We're wearing RED cos it's meant to be good to for CNY!

 

And we had this dish called Yu Sheng. OMG IT IS SO GOOD YOU WILL DIE OF HAPPINESS EATING IT………  Seriously. WHERE HAS THIS DISH BEEN ALL MY LIFE??????

I had Yu Sheng for the 1st time 2 nights prior (will blog about that later) and now I LOVE SALAD. Can’t believe just veggies and salmon sashimi can taste so good?!?!?!? It’s tasty, sweet, and utterly addictive. So this one at the Japanese restaurant was my 2nd time having Yu Sheng, and it was ‘Japanese style’… which basically meant it had a lot of sashimi of various types of fish. It was freakin’ awesome :)

Yu Sheng. Utter perfection.

 

So, the point of Yu Sheng is that you mix all these ingredients together (and there are a TON in the dish!). Each ingredient signifies something good…. I’m not sure specifically what they each signify, but it’s just meant to be all ‘nice sounding’!

AND, I remember hearing that it’s also supposed to be good to mix the ingredients hiiiiiigggghhhhh up in the air. I don’t know the exact reason why, but I think it’s something like the person that manages to reach the highest, is the person that has the best year ahead. Whatever. I’ll do whatever it takes just to get my hands on more Yu Sheng – yum yum yum!!

Quite annoyed that it took me 30 years (?!?!?!??!!!!) to discover this dish, because it actually ranks up there as one of my favourite dishes ever. Plus, I’m even more pleased that I like it, due to the fact that HELLO it is a salad! When ever in my life have I ever liked, let alone eaten, a salad dish?? My only regret is that this dish isn’t available year-round, which I reckon is quite unfair :(

Forced smile from me cos all I wanted to do was to eat it!

 

A few more photo ops with Hunter ensued.. mainly cos I think he looks spiffy in his CNY blue outfit :P

Fascinated with the bronze horse

 

Outside the cafe at Raffles Town Club

 

Our CNY Eve dinner was the really random one, because Mum had just come out of the hospital and we didn’t have any dinner planned. Obviously couldn’t go out to eat ‘cos it’d be madness in the City, plus Mum wasn’t really in the position to go out for a dinner.

So we ended up with….. steamboat!

Funny thing is, I was realllllyyyyyy EXCITED about the thought of having steamboat, because we hardly/never have it, and I thought we were all rather cool to be doing a steamboat when everyone else was probably having CNY tradition food or something.

But later, I saw all over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc etc… everyone was freakin’ having steamboat too!!!! So either everyone else stole our fabulous idea, or steamboat is actually quite common to have on CNY Eve. Pfffttt.

Anyway, Mum has a steamboat machine thingy.. and all it requires is just raw meat and veg to chuck in. It thus makes a very simple, little-preparation-required, meal. Plus, it’s fun cooking the bits of food in the bubbling broth :)

My fave part? Throwing in the instant noodles and an egg into the broth. SO YUMMY!

Our (not so unique) steamboat dinner for CNY Eve

 

I reckon CNY is equivalent to Thanksgiving in the USA.. where family get together and feast. There isn’t something similar in Australia though, oddly. I guess Christmas in Australia might be the closest, but it’s still quite different, because Christmas in Australia is also spent with friends and has a lot of partying involved, whereas CNY in Singapore is family-centric, in the home, and completely focused on food.

Anyway, hope you had a fabulous time celebrating (if you celebrate CNY)! And hope you didn’t gain too much weight :P I’ve put on around 2KG. Not too bad since I remember when we lasted celebrated CNY when we were 18 or 19 yrs old, Chris and I put on almost 5KG….. Each. Any improvement is an improvement, right? :P

 

 

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HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

2 February 2012 16 comments

Hey guess what, it’s Chinese New Year!

OK, Chinese New Year actually started more than a week ago.. but I’ve been busy on playdates and looking after Hunter, so haven’t had a chance to blog about it yet. And anyway, was preoccupied writing up his 1st Birthday entries :P

But yep, Chinese New Year is really exciting for us this year because it’s the first time we’ve celebrated in …. believe it or not….. over a decade. I think the last time we celebrated was when I was 18 yrs old or something like that! It’s not exactly big in Australia, and in China the whole country practically shuts down whilst everyone visits their own relatives, so we could only bum around at home.

But THIS year, we’re in Singapore and can celebrate! And, even better, we have Hunter now. It was his 1st CNY so of course we had to dress him up in a traditional Chinese outfit. I figure since Hunter is a mixed kid, he would look pretty funky in it :P

"Oh maaaaan.... what have Mum and Dad DONE TO ME?!?!"

 

Getting into the CNY spirit :P

 

It was still a pretty low-key CNY celebration for us, because my Dad’s side of the family don’t even celebrate it, and my Mum’s side just barely. So all we really got was to go over to my Aunt’s place where she had an ‘open house’. But it was fun! Sooooo much yummy food (which is kinda my benchmark on whether a party is good or not, heh!!) and lotsa family friends there too. Hunter was a bit shocked with the people, but had fun :)

Cute decor!

 

All comfy on my parents

 

Chris finding out what it's like to be Dad to a lil girl :P

 

Mr and Miss Chinese New Year

 

"May I have a snack too, Mum?"

 

My aunt dug out this photo.. of my 2 cousins and I! I'm on the right of the pic, if it isn't obvious :P

 

HUNTER’S 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY: THE NEXT DAY…

1 February 2012 8 comments

We stayed in the ONE°15 Marina Club hotel on the day of Hunter’s 1st birthday party. It made things a LOT easier, as it meant he could have his nap in a nice hotel room, we could put all our stuff there, and not have to pack everything into the car and speed home after the party.

The room was spacious and really lovely. Oddly, the bathroom was as big as the main bedroom?! But no complaints, because we thoroughly enjoyed the sunken bathtub and had a nice soak in there at night. When was the last time we actually ran a bath? I think it was on our honeymoon in the Maldives – yes, THAT long ago!

The hotel room

 

Running a bath with L'occitane green tea bath soaks

 

Breakfast was buffet-style and seated overlooking the harbour and yachts. Such a pretty view and I guess a bit of a novelty since you don’t get this often in Singapore. They had all the standard Western breakfast stuff, which was good, but I thought the Asian fried noodles was the best part – they were SO tasty :D

Hunter had a blast with his own plate of freshly-cooked scrambled eggs, toast, and baked beans. A bit of a treat for him because he rarely gets to eat the food served in restaurants (I fear that I don’t know how it’s cooked, how good/fresh the ingredients are, and all the salt/additives in there). He ate up every single bit ;)

My 1st plate of the buffet breakfast

 

Afterwards, we had a quick dip in the pool again, because Hunter really enjoyed the swim during his birthday party. It was pretty quiet in the morning, so a lovely time for a splash around and chill out. He thoroughly enjoyed it, and so did we :)

In his other spaceship outfit :P

 

Blowing bubbles to amuse my boys

 

Hunter, very pleased to have so much attention

 

"HELL YEAH, I'M ONE YEAR OLD!"

 

Enjoying frolicking around on the pool's chairs

 

Family shot :)

 

Since the club gave us a complimentary birthday cake (banana!), we decided to let Hunter dig in. You know those cute pics of kids with cake smeared all over their faces? Yeah… we never quite got that! Hunter, of course, is definitely not one of those kids that quickly snatches at stuff.

Rather, he eyed the cake veeerrrryyy carefully for a good few mins, and only gingerly reached over for a gentle poke after much encouragement from us. And even then, he only very slowly put it into his mouth for a careful nibble. He did like it though, because he reached over for more! But no matter what, still no mad grab for the cake, let alone stuffing it into his mouth :P

A gentle poke

 

Nom nom nom...

 

We helped Hunter open his birthday presents the next day.. And we were pretty surprised at how awesome they all were – SUPER cute clothes for him, or toys or useful stuff that was right up his alley! I think my friends all have really good taste or something. Or, they know him well :P

He is one very lucky and blessed lil boy!

Delighted with his stack of presents

 

...though I will admit, he was pretty fascinated with the wrapping paper too ;)