Thank you Bryan for giving us a wonderful christmas

Happy holidays and lots of festive cheer. Christmas has always been the time of the year I look forward to, because there are happy faces and loud laughter from the many gift exchanges. but this year, Bryan made me feel beyond that, he showed me pure happiness. How so? You may ask that he doesn't know the real meaning of Christmas, not that many who celebrate it really do, or what it stands for just yet - precisely that's what makes his happiness real pure. Perhaps it's the increase in the number of beautifully decorated Christmas trees around, or maybe it's the sudden opening of many presents on Christmas morning. I think it may be the many parties organized around Christmas, that he senses the festive spirit. With warm neighborly camp-overs, BBQs with friends, lunch and visiting with grandparents, and gift exchanges in school, Christmas landed right on bryans doorstep like sudden snow falling from the December sky. He embraced it naturally like how I wouldn't have expected it.

I don't know exactly what it is, but for the first time, Christmas felt extra special to me. I used to go to church or midnight mass, visit relatives every year and partake in that Christmas shopping build up to gift exchanges. This year, just seeing that happy Bryan face after a family hug did it for me.

Love u both.

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Little drummer boy

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Apple juicy apple sweet!

We asked Bryan to draw an apple on his mini magnetic board and he came up with this!


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Bryan is 2!

 Ice cream cone cupcake surprise - the cone rim is welded with hazelnuttella and dark chocolate cereal balls. Underneath the upturned muffin is a treasure trove of candies - mixed M&Ms and japanese jelly chocolate beans. Topping it all is a swirl of nutella, sprinkles of rainbowrice and a marshmellow flower to soften up your guilt. Overall, this army of candies will obliterate all sweet tooths and chocolate cravings.

Ade and Aunty Rose woke up early this morning to make these for Bryan's party.

 The party was littered with children jumping, somersaulting, rolling, hopping and smearing. The ceiling was strewn with multicolored balloons. All daddies were made to jump for their kids' favorite color. Bryan's excitement came from letting go of balloons. Daddy almost jumped off all the calories from the cakes.

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 You know when the little birthday boy is in a good happy mood when he produces moves like the above. Its as though his little body cannot contain all the multi directional excitement in the party, so he had to shake it off through his 4 limbs and that bobble head.

 As if shaking it off isn't enough, as we had anticipated. This mini bouncy castle was a superb solution to burn off the rest of Bryan's happy energy. It was a blast, especially when he recently grew some serious jumping beans.

"fan fan! fan!! i want fan!" Bryan loves fans so much. Everytime we go to NTUC, he turns on all the fans on the shelf,and demands that all the ceiling fans be on. From 1km away, hes able to spot a tiny distant swirling object.

Mummy planned the fan cake project from months back, researching on the net, producing sketches with daddy, and a couple of drafts. We even used AUTOCAD to create a template for cutting the fan blades.

Chocolate sprinkles were from a special source, which we serendipitously got hold of during our anniversary celebration.

For this cake, mummy took leave and did a trial run. Days of shopping, testing, brainstorming, dry and wet rehearsals turned into the most beautiful three dimensional fan cake ever baked. Beautiful as it must be in Bryan's heart, as his favourite fan became a cake, and it was made by his dear mummy.

Balloon sculptor got really busy with challenging requests. He churned out tulips, hats, swords, barney, fan, heartshaped gifts, dogs and etc. The buffet catering was really delicious this time.

Celebrating our 4th year wedding anni(bryan gets involved)versary

 We got to the hard rock hotel at resorts world in the afternoon after picking Bryan up from half day childcare. Bryan was really excited. This trip was the second part of our wedding anniversary celebration, the adeline-surprise-luther leg.

At the concierge, we tried to leave our bags at the counter before proceeding for lunch, but Bryan got really protective over his school trolley bag. He was truly distressed when the nice aunty wanted to help him keep it. 

Lunch was at chillis, super yummy indeed. The anticipation of going to our hotel room gave us a good appetite.

 When we got to our room, Bryan got ballistic about the springy bed and chaise lounge. In his mind he must be thinking this was our new house.

 In the evening, we got the night pass into universal studios. During the 45 minutes that we waited for the fireworks below to start, Bryan was super happy running around the waterfront stage.

 Funny thing was that during the fireworks display, Bryan was afraid, but after that, he said he liked it. ahahahha. gungho bravo machoshit. Super cute.

 That night we were tired and really happy.
Bryan changed into pyjamas and got ready for the usual night routine at a  completely different place.

The next morning, we had a great family swim at the play pool, as seen from our room above. All in all, it was a beautiful anniversary.

Baking Green Tea and Chocolate Snow Skin Mooncakes

The completed mooncakes from the top.

 Bryan's godma Eileen came over to try making mooncakes with Ade yesterday morning. It was both their first tries. I brought Bryan to take refuge at his grandparent's, so that the ladies could whip up their snow storm.

The results are as shown i.e. delicately printed powderd little medallions of creamy paste made of three different flavours:-

• Snow Skin Green tea and mango paste
• Snow Skin Chocolate almond nips lotus paste
• Snow Skin Green tea almond nips lotus paste

Fit for royal consumption. Excuse me while i go sink my teeth into one of them, before the little prince ravages them all.

Half view of mooncakes showing the chocolate and greentea variations.

Rochester buffet breakfast play

It was a feat getting a nice big group out of their beds on early Sunday morning, as we all met at 7 Rochester for a morning toddler gathering. By 10am, all the individual families have arrived and were digging in the breakfast.

everyone was donned in red in the national day theme.



Behind the jar of apples lie the breakfast buffet counter, which laid out the food which could do with more improvement, like softer pancakes for example, and better hashbrown. However, the nice greenery and outdoor location made up for it slightly.






The playhouse was lovely. For a nominal fee, our feisty little children got their hands and bodies real busy in the clean and organized playroom, perfect for leaving mummy and daddy with a little solace for a greatly yearned together time without having to juggle a squirmy worm with breakfast sausages.


When time was up in the playroom (they charge by the half hour after the first hour), Bryan's expression above says it all on how much he wanted to get back inside.

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After a fun morning at Rochester

Bryan is expending the rest of his almost boundless energy at hong kong cafe anchor point.


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Ketchup slurping monster

Bryan newly discovered the joy of dips. At mos burger Jurong point, everything edible went into the ketchup tray first, including his fingers. After a while, mummy realizes that he ain't eating the French fry at all, but the sauce dish was starting to empty out.

We tried giving him a piece of bread to distract him, but it turns out the bread was like a better sponge.

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Bryans haircut

Before haircut




After haircut!

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Swimming with little friends - 24 July 2010

We had a baby gathering with all his baby friends from the forum, and lunch time was a crazy jumparound in the kid pool, followed by a warm down session in the hot jacuzzi, in the rather cold Saturday weather.

The pot luck lunch function room not only had great food which all the daddys and mummys contributed to, but there were also baby slide, safari ball pool and the santa fe express train set for the kids to ride on.

The menu of the day included -

Ee Fu noodle
Ham, tuna & cheese sandwich
Fried bee hoon
Spinach quiche
Carrot cake
Chocolate brownies
Konyaku jelly
Lychee agar agar
Strawberries
Star puffs
Cheese cake
Baby juices
Soft drinks








































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Sunday morning read

This weekend, a couple of mini miracles happened:-

1) he managed to pronounce 'ah-kong' finally, when all along he use to call his grandpa 'ah-tah'

2) he managed to count with us alternating from 1 to 10 by himself (daddy: one Bryan: two daddy: three Bryan:four......till ten). We were all so astonished because he only could count till 3 by himself previously.

3) he started completing the last word for each phrase for songs and rhymes that we often sing and recite for him.

Only now we truly realize how much is probably stored hidden in his brain vault, waiting to spring out, and also how important it is to keep stimulating your child even though there may be no immediate response because he is registering it!

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Godma and yiyi comes to visit

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Bryan at his first Sunday school

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