Our Christmas week in photos

First off, Happy New Year to all! I hope everyone's had a lovely festive season!

We had so much going on, you have no idea. Lots of Christmas entries to come. I have so much to share! Warning! Photo heavy entry.


K and I both came down with a yucky viral infection that left us both covered in bright red spots a week before Christmas. Thank god we both recovered in time to soak in the Christmas festivities!

Just before Christmas Eve dinner, we went to catch our local fire brigade Santa Christmas parade!

It's faster if you pedal K!

We came back after and had some frozen watermelon trees!

Photos with the little man were almost all blurry because he wouldn't keep still (hence the playdoh in his hand) or he refueses to look at the camera!

Christmas Eve was just us. Our little family of 3. I made a really simple chicken roast, scalloped potatoes and some organic greens. Here he is, waving to us to hurry up! It's chow time!

 Christmas for us is a huge extended family affair. Most of my mother-in-law's family lives here in Melbourne. And she ranks number 15 in her family. She has 14 other siblings! FOURTEEN. The little ones running around, the teenagers (where by rank, I am, urgh. Their grand aunty, due to the huge age gap between the senior members of the family) all slouched on the couches and carpet (on their gadgets of course), the parentals all gathered around the long dinner table sipping on their wines and gossiping, and us toddler moms sharing our latest parenting woes while trying to make sure our minis aren't scoffing down too much junk food! I love it!

Oh the food! We have some restaurateurs and chefs in the family, so we really do get spoilt at family occasions.  I always forget to take photos because I get too excited wowing at the food, calling out "Who made THIS yummy!?", pleading for recipes and piling my plate high. So I only remember my camera towards the end (where I jump up from my chair, leave my empty plate in its place to take photos of the food. So these were the sweets they were just only just starting to serve towards the end of the evening. No photos of my plate. I was too busy keeping little fingers picking marshmallows off reindeer cookies from me.

 

By the way, this is my yearly contribution. I'm the one that brings the finger lickin good (if I could even say so myself!) sticky date pudding. Short of putting a decorative bunch of mint leaves and strawberries on top, I have resigned to just leaving it look all boring and brown. So long it tastes yum I say!

My father-in-law's homemade silky smooth beancurd dessert - gone in minutes! So good!

Looks plain, but these were worth a mention because there were made by our 13 year old niece. They were so surprisingly soft, fluffy and fragrant! I see she gave up icing them, she made hundreds of mini ones!

Haha, I'm beginning to see a trend here. Plain again, but so melt in your mouth goodness! Fruit parcels these ones.

By 9pm, the little ones were getting feral, tired and grouchy. For some, it was a long drive home. It was an indication it was time for pressies!  The army of kids and teenagers gathered in the large family room and the sound of paper ripping was followed by squeals of excitement that followed.

He opens his first present. His favourite one of all!

Looks like it was no secret that K is addicted to the app =) You should have heard him laugh when he saw it!

He kept getting distracted, soon he was engulfed by his own presents. 

The boys checking out each other's presents. By the way, we got that Thomas book as part of a present for K's cousin, but because he picked it out for little D, he kept stealing it back thinking it was his!

It

It was a very big night for Kayden, we got home at midnight. He was all stimulated and sleep was not an option!  The very next day was Boxing day. After a light lunch, it was presents again. Round 2! K doesn't really get the significance of presents at Christmas yet. He now thinks all presents wrapped up belong to him and he has to open them all! We had dinner that night at his grandparents. And of course, it was Round 3 after dinner. He's abit of a Thomas (& Cars. Not just the movie, but especially the movie) fan. There were trains and more trains, cars and more cars!

This wasn't a present, a hand me down from someone but he couldn't get enough of it!

Mommy and Daddy got some goodies too! I have since put away some of his Christmas pressies. I'm rationing them out throughout the year.

 In short, we had a great Christmas. The little man got spoilt! And so did we. Surrounded by the ones we treasure near and far at this time of the year. Sharing the laughter and smiles. I took lots of mental snapshots too. There is NO dieting to be had. With Chinese New Year coming up in a few weeks, what diet!? Easter choccies have already made their appearance on the supermarket shelves!

Pizza night

Kayden's little best friend just returned from a long overseas trip away. As a welcome home party, 3 families on our street gathered at one house and we spent a whole evening creating our own pizzas and cooking them in a wood fire pizza oven which the host built himself! They tasted amazing!

Oh boy were the 2 little boys happy to see each other again! There were alot of noisy games of chase and racing each other on their trikes to be had. They giggled like little girls as they 'cheers!' themselves with little slices of pizzas. Too cute!

At the end of the night, we even had a loaf of bread from the leftover pizza dough to bring home. But the best part? Was it only took us 15seconds to walk home. How good is that! 

Green is the new brown

We have a lawn! No more looking at the brown dirt! Whooopeeee!I know its just plain grass out there but all that colour makes me very happy. But I must confess we didn't do this ourselves. We have a sizable yard and it just was not DIY-able with a very inquisitive toddler around. Just putting in a handful of trees on the side fence was abit of a nightmare. Kayden was stuffing soil into his nappy! His gumboots! Sprinkling dirt into his hair! I think I spent more time cleaning out the shower and bath after I washed him off.

We got instant turf and it will take around 4 weeks to settle and hopefully bind together. So at the moment I've been watering it 4 times a day.  We have only 2 taps outside and I have to shuffle the hoses and sprinklers around to make sure I get all the grassed areas. It get a bit tricky when you have a very clingy toddler who's wanting to follow you everywhere. But it's all good once I have the sprinklers set up and going. There's something very therapeutic about watching and listening to thousands of little drops of water swirling around in a very rhythmic pattern. That fine white mist falling onto a carpet of green glistening under the sun. Just gorgeous!

And as expected Kayden just cannot wait to go roll around on the lawn. He sneaks onto it every time I'm not looking! It's not ready to walk on yet, not at least another 3 weeks or so. I am not risking little yellow patches all over. So I hand him a small shovel and tell him to go play with the dirt on the edges. And then wash him off everytime.

Oh and we just struck a deal with our neighbours, we're building a sandpit (soon hopefully), and they're getting a swing set. Fun summer times ahead!

CYA

I had some pretty cool professors at uni back in my days. They all left us words of wisdom. At one particular tutorial before the exams, our research prof walked in empty handed, except for this one transparency (and a texter). Which he proceeded to flip the overhead projector on and wrote 3 big letters on it.

C Y A

He wasn't telling us all 'seeya later!' We most definitely do not want to see him ever again for repeating the same unit that's for sure. CYA means COVER YOUR ASS. Oh my, I laughed until I cried during tut I think. Whatever you do in life, just make sure you cover your ass, he says. Well that's made an impression for sure.

And Kayden my son, you most definitely need to learn this one important life lesson. No matter what you do, always CYA. Doing the above is not CYA-ing. You almost got away for the number '9'.But the 'Y' and the 'U' is a big red fat FAIL my boy.

Remember boys and girls, always CYA!

Everybody fall in!

Hopefully this ensues even when he's a couch hogging teenager. The being tidy part. NOT looking forward to the couch hogging.

Down sold

Usually upselling involves getting a better and more expensive item. But last week, I found I was down sold by Coles. We were running out of pasta for the boy (I normally buy the small spirals, macaroni or shell) so as I neared the shelves I spotted this!

Well to be honest, not really. There was this other parent who was talking to his partner and he said, "Get the dino one!" as I was pushing my trolley near them. So just like that I got sucked into buying a pack. Normal pasta $3. Down sold pasta $1. Bargain!

When cooked every piece was a good size. K fits about 1 to 2 on his spoon when he scoops. They don't necessarily taste better, but CUTE don't you think!


P.S. In case anyone recognizes the flowers from my previous wedding post. The groom announced at the end of the night that we were welcomed to take them home. I was eyeing them all night long. So I pounced and grabbed them! So pretty!

Groovy baby!

With Christmas already in the air, there is much joy to be had. We attended the wedding of a cousin yesterday. Almost all week long it was sunshine and warm breezes. But the day before the wedding. It POURED. It poured so much, our backyard looked like a mud pool, Kayden would be more than happy to roll about in. It was so gloomy and horrid. There were reports of flash floodings. 

But someone must have been listening to all our prayers for the wedding couple. Because the next morning, it was as if that torrential downpour never happened. (if you don't look at my backyard).

He had his own glass. And of course, he had to clink glasses all night long. "Cheers Mommy!"

 

See us? On the bottom right hand branch. Towards the tip of the branch, that little cluster of 3 leaves pointing down?

It turned out to be one of most beautiful of days. It was a beautiful wedding, very befitting for a stunning looking couple. We are so happy and grateful to be part of their special day.

We wined and dined.  We danced with the family. We listened to some very touching speeches. We laughed with one another until we reached for tissues.

 

Kayden wolfed down his shoestring fries. Just fries for his dinner. I didn't take a photo. He swooped at those fries so quick it was almost all gone by the time i remembered. That scrumptious looking chicken he went "cut! cut! CUT!!!" went untouched. He wined on his serve of tomato sauce. I heard his 2.5year old cousin dunked his dinner roll in it. They both indulged in individual platters of ice cream served to them. Complete with chocolate fondue, smarties and rainbow sprinkles. He's never ever set eyes on Smarties. Oh.Nope. Correction. As I type this, I just realised. I made milky way cars for his birthday. Of course he remembered! Sugar rush!

And just as well he decided to hit the dancefloor to boogie the night away! Me being the photo hoarder, the memory card screamed FULL! at me somewhat towards the start of the music! I only caught a few photos and videos here and there, but mostly blurred from all that booty shaking! Extremely cute! He imitated the adults. He did the twist, joined in a conga line and he even tried doing the swirl during the waltz while holding onto someone's hand. Heck, he even almost ran in to cut into the new Mr and Mrs first dance! It was a whole different style of head, shoulders, knees and toes for him!

My cheeky monkey!

We changed Kayden into his PJs just before we left the hotel. As expected, the boy was sound asleep, by the time we pulled out of the carpark, dreaming of more dancing in his slumberland, I'm sure of that. He was still dancing on the way to our car.

What a wonderful way to spend an evening!

On our Christmas tree

 I don't know if you'll agree that the christmas tree does take a little bit of an effort putting up. We have a tall 2m one and it's one of those that u need to stick the branches in and then fluff up the pine leaves. Without decorations, I gather it took me about 45 minutes alone just setting up the tree. To make up for all that effort put into it, I try to put my tree up as soon as the malls do.

 Our new Christmas wreath bought at the post Christmas Day sale last year. I don't remember how much, but I do remember it was about 70% off! I love the colours. I have a thing for pastels for my Christmas decors. Instead of hanging it on a plasticky 3M hook I decided to string a ribbon through it and hang it over the door. I feel like it needs a butterfly bow on the top of it, it looks abit bare at the moment. But we'll see.

 I love the look of a tree flickering its lights at the front window or through a glass entryway at a home. But our side panel window next to our door is frosted, like the little strip windows on our door. So it will be abit of a waste putting the tree there. I've decided it will sit in front of one of our windows in the lounge. But the view from/to outside isn't spectacular.(Lawn's being laid soon! Yay!)  But its a great spot next to our wall of family photos. I think the tree will feel quite homely there.

 

The bestie and me exchange Christmas ornaments for the tree every year. We used to prowl Orchard Road in Singapore when the streets are fully adorned with all the lights, taking photos of all the pretty decorations. Back then it was a yearly ritual for us.  We hope that eventually our trees will look similar. We live in 2 different countries, and by doing so we hope we carry abit of each other throughout the Christmas season. It carries for me that significance and nostalgia of yesteryears.

Glass baubles and ornaments like this one are hung way out of reach of baby boy's prying fingers. While I was putting up the decorations he dug into my Christmas box and dropped one of my glass baubles. He wasn't hurt. He even pointed out to me that it broke. *Tear*

I got these bears from work almost 5 years ago. They were doing a Christmas clean up and were throwing out bags and bags of these cute teddies. I got a decent haul. I was waiting for the time where I have a baby in our family to appropriately have them sitting on the branches of our tree.

The Tree. In all of its glory. It will be even better when the lights go on it, I think. On a lookout for a skirt to put under the tree, without breaking the budget. And maybe a better bow for the star. That was just scrap ribbon I found in my craft box. The string of pretty lights are still sitting in their box. Waiting for the time where it will be safe for me to put them on without sticky hands trying to 'help' me.

Do you decorate your home for the holiday season? Have you started yet?

Let the Christmas decorating BEGIN!

Note that he is holding onto a purple crayon. 

He wants to help Mommy colour the christmas bears on our tree!

The letter S

Skip this post if you're easily grossed out by nappy talk.

So the weather was a glorious twenty something degrees yesterday afternoon. But the house holds in the chill from the night before for a few hours in the morning. Hence I usually dress him in long sleeved tops and cotton pants just for the morning.

Baby boy must have decided it got too hot for him by noon. As I pottered around doing house things I stopped short when I noticed he had taken both his pants AND nappy off.


"Baby! Why have you got your nappy off too!?"

Kayden raises his brows at me and points over to his alphabet foam mat.

"EEEEEEEk!! YOU DID A POO POO THERE!?"


But oh oh. I think my reaction was alittle too animated because he was starting to whimper and tear up.

"Ohhhhh. You did a poo poo with your nappy off! Good boy baby!! Goooood boy!!"

He starts to smile and rushes over to give me a hug.

"But baby? Next time we sit on the potty to do poo poo ok?"

"OKAY."


So the story is, Kayden is well and truly capable of lifting the tabs off his own nappy now. And combined that with the fact that I have been starting to toilet train him now by sitting him on the potty must have finally clicked that is what we do when we need to poo or wee. But obviously he hasn't worked out he has to tell me first, AND get to the potty before he does the deed.

It's a step forward right? Or it could be very well just a fluke.

And what does this have to do with the letter 'S'?

That was the alphabet he did the deed on.

How. Very. Appropriate.

Fruitfull!

Like most other kids, Kayden doesn't like his vegetables much. Green ones in particular. But he will happily munch on carrot sticks and cauliflower florets. Basically anything non green in colour.

And thankfully, to make up for the lack of fibres through his greens, he consumes a huge amount of fruits. He LOVES his fruits. Apples, oranges, watermelon, strawberries, grapes, mangoes, kiwis, pears, mandarins, bananas, the list goes on.

If I let him have his way, he will most probably only have fruits for breakfast, lunch and dinner! On average, he has 3 whole fruits to himself a day. He prefers them peeled or deskinned and will eat the apple down to its very core. As a result, our fruit bowl is replenished at least twice a week. But it is never empty.

Is there such a thing as having too many fruits? I don't know, but surely it can't do too much harm?

2nd Birthday Fun

 

We celebrated K's second birthday over the weekend! The little man had so much fun with his little friends he slept in till 11.30am the next morning. I got together all of his little friends for a kiddy tea party. K had no clue why people kept giving him bags and boxes but took them anyway. After we all sang him happy birthday, he puts his hands up in the air when we say hip hip hooray!

In the evening, we had a small family barbecue where we sang him happy birthday once again. We opened up all his presents. Little man was spoilt rotten! The look on his face like above was just priceless.

As he (tries) to blow out his candles, a little girl piped out 'He didn't make a wishhhhh!!!!!!!'.

But Mommy did my boy. Stay happy and healthy always. May you always be surrounded by love and joy.

Rainy day in the city

When I took a shot of my beautiful afternoon tea set in front of me one afternoon at the Hyatt, I thought yes, this is a photo definitely worthy for the blog. But then, a week later, Kayden hijacked my camera, scrolled through my photos and deleted just ONLY that one photo. So here you have my view from where I sat in front of the fireplace where me and our friends spent a glorious 2 hours relaxing in their soft, deep velour chairs.  All that time Kayden was fast asleep in his pram next to me. Pure bliss!

We set out early that morning for a trip into the city. We were going to head to the open range zoo in Weribee, but 5 minutes after we left home it the skies opened up. So we rounded everyone up and headed to the Melbourne Aquarium instead. Perfect rainy day activity right? Wrong. Little man was NOT interested this time. Not even the penguins. A giant crab enclosure freaked him out. So off we all went for a Korean meal.  Ahh....... a much more enjoyable activity Mom!

Back from a blog hiatus

We've had plenty of sunny days over the past few weeks (and some downpours as well). K was happiest when  he's out and about playing with his bestie 2 doors down. We do live in a very child friendly suburb, and are extremely lucky to have 3 playgrounds to choose from, all within walking distance.

Back from his play, he declares "Apple!". He prefers them whole and will  happily munch on one for half hour or so. Work those teeth!  Pink hot pants he was wearing was a handmade gift someone made for him. I love it! No gender discrimination here. He uses the pink IKEA kiddy utensils too. 

On a cold rainy day, he lounges on Pooh bear with the iPhone attached to him. I mean literally. The only way to get him to release his hold on it is by force. Or in exchange for some sultanas. Otherwise he turns into a shrieking maniac loud enough to summon a ear cracking headache.

Apple makes it waaay too easy for babies to navigate through it. He's been uploading videos of himself through an app onto you tube! I have no idea how. I only barely manage to catch him hit send and its gone.

And the hubs is more than pleased when this warmer spring weather gets my kitchen creativity juices going and I whip up a new dish here and there. His favourite asian is easily Hainanese chicken rice. No doubt he was the happy chappy when I had that on the dinner table one evening.

But, tonight, an experimental balsamic lamb roast and a potato gratin. They don't always turn out good these experiments, but from what I smell from the marinade just then, I think its going to be a winner!

An impromptu trip to the lake

I know, I've been away for way too long! But I have been keeping busy and I LOVE it!

Our new place is literally a breath of fresh air. Spring has finally arrived and these days I throw open the windows and doors and let the sun shine in.

Daylight savings has just started. We are now 3 hours ahead of Singapore. So when there was plenty of light when Daddy came home from work, we made an impromptu decision to a local park to feed the ducks!

I think someone made a comment that very often a photo is taken of Kayden, it has to do with food! Haha! On this occasion, he threw the first few crumbs of bread to the ducks. Then, he discovered that they were good enough for himself to eat! (Luckily it wasn't stale bread this time.)

It was such a perfect spring evening. Just not as enjoyable for this poor little duckie who got chased sooo far away from the lake by K!