Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Greetings for 2009


This will be my last post for the year 2008 and I would sincerely wish all my lovely blogger friends a very Happy New Year 2009 and All The Best In The New Year Ahead. I am so glad to be able to make so many lovely blogger friends through the blogging world this year and I really hope everyone will have a nice holiday and celebration!!

Happy New Year 2009 Everyone!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Stroll at The Market

I am feeling boring at home today so I brought Angel out for a stroll and catch some fresh air at a nearby market. Angel likes to go out for ‘gai-gai’ but bringing her out is very challenging for me - alone. As at her age now, she has her own thinking and knows where she prefers to walk. Despite that we have an agreement before we were out that she will follow me closely, and she nodded a few times without hesitation, but when she was out of the house, she was just like a bird let out of her cage :)

She is not afraid of strangers anymore and would wave bye bye and fly kiss everyone that she meets along the way. While walking, she would look for those curbs and doing her little ‘jump’ down from the curbs. Sometimes, she would insist that I let her carry my shopping but of course, I have to pay attention to those bag coz she tends to leave one or two bags behind when she feels tired. There was once a woman shouting at me from afar and when I looked back, one of my shopping bag was left behind by Angel at the side of the road :P

Of course, time to go home is always the toughest as she will be crying and screaming refused to follow me home no matter how I coax her. Normally hubby is the one who ‘drag’ our poor cutie pie home and everyone will certainly noticed her existence just by hearing her loud crying voice. However, that doesn’t stop us from bringing her to wherever we go :) I just hope that one day (which I hope will come real soon), I do not have to practice my ‘weight-lifting’ in public ever again :)

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Steam Banana Cake

I have seen so many blogger mommies making this lovely Steam Banana Cake and I was eager to try it out for my little Angel too. I love the fact that It doesn’t involve any oven for this cake and the best thing was this cake is basically diary free (and you can opt for egg free too)! That is simply perfect!!! If I can make this cake without any dairies, that’s mean Angel could have her first taste of a ’cake’!! Hurrya!! So I quickly went over to the stores to get the ingredients and also the bananas ……. When talking about Bananas, normally it will not last longer enough for me to make the cake before all ended up either in hubby’s or Angel’s tummy. All of us love bananas so much especially my little Angel. Until at one point we have to hide our bananas away from her sight or even doing a fast forward on her DVDs which shows a bananas. When she sees one, she wants one. Yes, Angel goes banana over bananas!!

Ok … back to the Steam Banana Cake. So I let Angel plays the baker for the day again and she was so happy (as you can see .... :D :D). Of course some mess happened because I instruct her to pour those flour into the mixing bowl without assisting her and of course, half of it when onto the floor :P Then I handed over the bananas meshing responsibility to Angel while tiding up the place and when I return, to my surprise Angel was happily ‘enjoying’ herself with those bananas (Oh, how could I left those bananas under the care of a little monkey :P :P) but luckily, I managed to ‘rescue’ the remaining for my cake :) So after everything was done, there goes the well mixed batter into the wok and it’s done in just 20 minutes.





So here’s my Steam Bananas Cake. It looks more like a ‘pau’ (bun) rather then a cake. I think the original recipe also looks more like a pau to me too. The texture of the cake is not fluffy enough and somewhat feels like a mixture between a cake and a bread. Although I have cut down the sugar but still, the cake taste a little too sweet. Maybe I should cut down on the sugar a little bit more next time. So at the end, I eat 1/8, Angel took 1/4 portion and the rest were polished off by darling hubby. I will definitely going to make another one soon as it’s very easy to make and also taste nice.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

21 Months Old [1Y9M]

The scale is out again which signifies that Angel is another month older. At her 21st month, Angel is 81cm tall (10-25 percentile) and weight 11.8kg (50-75 percentile) thanks to grandma’s round the clock feedings while she pays us a visit here :)

Angel is napping lesser and lesser nowadays. Sometimes she would only take maximum 1 hour afternoon naps and sometimes totally skip her napping despite waking up very early in the morning and sleeps late. She is getting more and more independent as compare to last month and totally self feed herself by now. She still loves her Barney cartoon and her educational DVDs, and also showing interest in some movies which I never thought that she would love such as 1) American’s Funniest Home Videos, 2) Mr Bean - both real and animation 3) Singing Program e.g. Japanese traditional song.

She starts to be very picky and selective against her food lately and would use her tongue to push those foods she doesn’t like out from her mouth one by one like a food separator LoL. She also refused to eat foods which have weird / dark looking colours and also most of the items which we could find on a salad bar if we feed her those food directly. She takes 9 oz of milk 3-4 times per day, 2 solid meals and 1 tea break. Egg is her new food for the month and I am glad that she is doing great so far.

She starts hopping and jumping and could do them pretty well now. She was able to walk up and down the stairs all by herself by holding onto the side of the walls. Her latest stunts and a must do of all time at the moment is “jumping down from a curb / the lowest level of the a steps ” :( She also starts to do some drawings and stickers exercises. She knows how to twist opened a bottle cap too. As in terms of speech, she is in the progress of shifting from single word to 2 letter words and also showing sign of willingness to learn and would repeat words after us and/or pointing at the correct items when she was asked. Her learning capability is starting to show in the past few days and she is able to match 1) Pictures of the same kind and also 2) Head and the Body of different animals correctly. Although she is still confused and always mixed up between the ‘Lion’ and the ‘Elephant’ but she is able to recognized quite a numbers of new animals and things that we show her. When she was asked to count 1-10, she would always refused to say the the number 1 and would always skip the number 7 (seven). She would also surprise us with 1 or 2 new words everyday and that was pretty amazing.

She definitely love to mimic whatever we are doing lately. The most ‘Surprised’ act of hers was once we saw her showing us how a ‘boy’ wee wee - standing up aiming to the toilet bowl and making the shee~~~ sound !!!!! Oh my ……. I think she was actually watching/ observing hubby doing his business outside the toilet all these while!! And she is getting more and more stubborn and refused to take our orders any longer since the last few days. I have been raising my voice at home more and more each day and so does hubby. Sometimes I have to repeat like 100 of times asking her not to do that but in the end, she still does it :( Now I have one little cutie pie who simply would play deaf with me all the time which really drives me up the wall ……. until she sees the cane. But most of the time, I think she actually enjoys seeing the cane where she would laugh happily and run quickly asking me to chase her with my short little magic cane *slap forehead* Normally, I would cane my little magic cane on the table a few times when I am really at my wit’s end and it really does work magic on my little Angel most of the time. Besides that, we also accidentally found out that she is afraid of Lizards, Spiders and Worms, etc. She is also afraid of some moving object such as a moving battery powered train, a walking doll and would screams her heads off when we try to encourage her and showing her that it’s just a piece of toy. She just hates stuffs that will move on it’s own.

However, as before, she still loves and required lots of hugs and kisses from me and hubby and loves to accompany her in whatever she does. She also loves kids and would approach them and wants to play with them and totally not afraid of strangers if they don’t touch her or pinched her on her cheeks. She would wave bye-bye to everyone and even fly-kiss everyone when she is in the mall. But still, everyone still somehow mistaken her for a boy most of the time and she would normally got the compliments of “Oh, Handsome boy!” Hahahaha ……. Although she looks boyish but she definitely is one of the gentlest, most loving and caring little cutie pie which makes me love her more and more each day :)

Friday, December 26, 2008

Angel’s 2nd Christmas!

It certainly was a great Christmas day for all of us. Having a kid at home during Christmas time certainly brightens our days. In the morning after breakfast, we just went for a short walk at the markets nearby and it feels great. I think the most happiest of us 3 was our little Angel :)

This is Mommy and Angel wearing our Christmas Hats at home with Daddy being the ‘Christmas Camera Man’ for once. It’s really hard to get Angel looking at the camera as her eyes were totally glued on those Christmas gifts. She was so happy LoL.




Daddy bought Mommy a necklace for Christmas Present. *Thank you so much Dear!* But unfortunately Mommy does not bought Daddy any gift this year as too busy preparing Daddy's roasted beef on Chirstmas Eve *hehehe* And look what Mommy bought for Angel …. A Wooden Mini Loader (Angel was very interested in toys on wheels lately)




And also 2 very nicely designed 1/24 scaled Volkswagen New Bettle Miniature Cars! Oh …. But Angel is so afraid of those 2 (see pix below) because they will run ‘by themselves’ when the car was pulled backwards :( I think they look really nice and finely made too with doors which can be open. Hubby says the cars were more suitable for a car enthusiast’s collections rather then for a kid to bang on the floor :)



A 4 pc Wooden Picture Blocks. Somehow Angel doesn’t know how to arrange those picture blocks yet but she just can’t wait to play her stacking game again. She really loves blogs so much :)



Teng teng teng teng ~~~Time to open Daddy’s gifts. Ta daaa ….. It’s a Baby Minnie Mouse Bag!! Oh ….. she absolutely loves the bag although I think she mistaken that for a Minnie soft toy LoL She even kissed the Baby Minnie on the nose showing how much she really loves them :)



Oh …. What’s inside this red package? Oh …. It’s a Christmas gift from Angel's beloved Grandma! A Fisher Price Medical Kit set. I think she loves the kit set so much until she refused to let go of her toy even during dinner time.



Evening time, Daddy says it’s pool ……. Oppssss …… ‘Bathtub’ Splashing Time!!! She has a good 1 hour playing in the tub before Daddy prepares our dinner :) Yes, Daddy is the chef for the night too. Oh, that was really one of the nicest Christmas Day of all:)

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas Eve Dinner

I am planning to make a roasted chicken on Chirstmas eve as mentioned before. And I really though I was going to make a roasted chicken for our dinner. I have looked up a nice recipe to transform our bird into this aromatic and juicy looking yummy chicken and also I have got most of my ingredients ready, anxiously waiting for the ‘moment’ to come. My mind was all over ‘Roasted Chicken! Roasted Chicken!’ for the pass few days already until yesterday midnight before sleep, hubby suddenly says, “Oh ……. Why not we have a roasted beef tomorrow night? I have a sudden crave over those chucky roast beef lah ……. It won’t be too hard to cook, will it?” And I was like “………………“ Blank!!!

Ok, cut the story short, I have not done any roast beef in my entire life let alone seen how to bake one. Maybe I have seen how a roast beef looks like a couples of times over the buffet counter where they will cut and serve us a tiny piece (that was also after I have done some ‘homework’ then I get to know they are actually ‘that’) but I really have no idea how to do one. But on the other hand, hubby must be a bit disappointed for not having one on Chirstmas eve, will he? (Although he did say that he does not mind having roast chicken though ……).

So in such a short notice, I have no time to look for recipe. I just have enough time to do some basic studies of ‘What is a roast beef’ (yes, I am that bad), also studies some of the parts of a beef, the texture which is great for a roast and also taken some notes on the basic crucial ingredients and heading towards the supermarket nearby. Angel was crying for the entire shopping process because she wants to play outside and refused to go shopping inside. So I was shopping with a crying and screaming baby in my trolley, picking up whatever I could and headed home straight. It was really “fun” because this was the very first time that I was carrying my little Angel who was crying and throwing tantrums in one hand and holding onto a big shopping bag full of breakables on my other hand :P

So after much chaos in the kitchen ….. finally my roast beef was done! Phew …… Hubby was so happy to walk into the house with the aromatic of the beef roasting in the oven and after the meal, he actually commented that he actually likes the taste and prefers the roast beef over the normal steaks. I am glad that he likes the dinner. I think they really taste good too. Unfortunately, I do not dare to let Angel taken the beef coz she is on her ‘eggs’ observations stage and I do not want to introduce another new food to her as yet. Maybe next time :) So finally, hubby got his wish come true – a roasted beef, and I have learned something new today too. But after such a hectic day, I have decided that I am going to take the day off tomorrow (and maybe the day after too and also the entire week???) from cooking :) :) Merry Christmas to all the may all your dreams come true :)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

New Food – Steam Whole Egg

Angel is doing fine with the egg yolk since my last post here. It has been more then a week now and she is accepting the yolk nicely. I have started to let her taken the whole eggs and this is her 3rd day today. So far no sign of serious allergy although I did noticed that there is one small tiny patch of red spots on her left leg (maye or maybe not because of the eggs) but I am still observing her tolerance against the whites.

On the first 2 day, I only gave her 1/3 and 1/2 of an egg mixing them into her porridge and gradually increase to 1 whole egg today. As for today’s lunch, I am making her a steam egg to go along with her porridge. Still, no salt or seasoning is added and I think she actually loves the steam egg very much as compare to the hard boiled egg yolk (she refused to eat the yolk directly).

I think steam egg is a good menu for young toddlers as they are tasty and the eggs are very easily meshed up by using a spoon. I am glad that I have delayed the introduction of eggs to Angel until she is 1Y8M as I can see that her body is more ready to accept this new food. I do hope that Angel will be doing fine with the whole egg for another week or so and I will keep eggs in her menus for this entire week (searching for eggs menu now) and I am hoping for the best. I think she will definitely love her new found food.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

3 X’mas Hats and A Pair Of New boot

Hubby come home today and bought us 3 Christmas hats …… hhmmm, I wonder will we really need those Chirstmas hats …… at home?? Worst, I really cannot imagine 3 of us wearing those hats and making a parade in the malls because our age certainly does not permit us to do those crazy stuffs anymore, hahaha! But It was so sweet of hubby to bought those hats for us although I wonder will Angel be able to fit in one of those adults size hats LoL But I think Christmas mood certainly is all over hubby already :)

And finally, I manage to get Angel’s red red boots! Hurray!! Actually this is also Angel’s first pair of boot and I have been searching for a red one for quite some time already. I guess with this pair of boot, I certainly “hope” that it will marked an end to my shopping spree for little Angel because it has been a “crazy” shopping spree so far :) I have to hide some of Angel’s clothes and toys and take it out one at a time so that it will not looks too much for ‘somebody’, hehehe :P :P But hubby is so sweet and play it along whenever he asked “Oh …. Is this Angel’s new clothes again? Never seen this one before either?” and I will answer, “Oh …. This one WE bought few months ago, don’t you remember …..” and he will go “Oh …. Really?” while admiring his little princess with a contented smile on his face.

Hubby does commented those boots look so “Yeah” whatever that means but I am glad that at least Angel will want to wear them. I hope she will not think the shoes are too red because red is definitely the colour that she’s going to wear for th
is coming Christmas and also for the entire week of Chinese New Year :D :D

Sunday, December 21, 2008

A Christmas Greetings

Wishing All My Dearest Friends and Family a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2009!!! Hope that everyone is in Good Healthy, Good Life and may all your Wishes Come True!!!

P/s: This is Baby Reindeer Angel’s picture which I submitted for EOE online X’mas contest. If you like the picture, please cast your vote here before 30th December 2008 ya ........ *Muaks* Thank you all so much!!

http://www.eoe.com.my/en/funs/competitionItem.jsp?_=1229153651592&r=hits

Our X’mas Preparations

Yeah, finally all our Christmas decorations are all up last week. Actually I am sooooo into the Christmas mood already since the beginning of the monht. Although we are not Christians, but I do celebrate this meaningful and joyful day every year. (Last time I even joined the carolling group in a charity body for the deaf poeple :P).

This is also Angel’s 2nd Christmas celebration and initially I wanted to buy a Christmas tree for our decorations, but since Angel is getting very mischief and ‘curious’ on this stage, I think my Christmas tree will soon become another ‘interesting toy’ for her or worst, become a poor ‘bold’ trunk before Christmas arrived :P Nor do I want to become the ‘bodyguard’ of the Christmas tree 24/7 either and yelling at her at all the time. At the end, I decided to have my Christmas tree hanging on the wall instead. Although it’s not as nice as a real Christmas tree but it sure does create a warm festive feeling at home.


Of course Angel is very delighted to see the decorations and wanted to lay her hands on them in every chances she has but I am glad that the decorations are too high for her to reach :P :P Sometimes she will be so happy and claps her hands in joy. She loves all the Christmas lightings in the malls and now she could enjoy them whenever she wants. I am very happy that I got my Christmas decorations for our family without having to worry about our cute little destroyer at home. I have also bought a cute Christmas dress, a cute hairclips, still searching for a pair of shoe to go with her little dress and also bought a Barney Christmas DVD for Angel to watch when she is boring. No turkey for this year but I hope I manage to come out with a roasted chicken instead ….. that is if Angel is not too clingy on that day because poor hubby might be (hope not) working and won't be able to help much on that particular day. I just hope that this year’s Christmas will be a great one for our little home sweet home as well as yours :) Merry Christmas everybody :)

What? It’s Winter Solstice already?

Ok, I have been receiving a few SMS wishing me a Happy Winter Solstice and I thought they were so nice to send me those SMS in advance. My brother MMS me telling me that his was eating his sweet and warm ‘Glutinous Rice Ball’ (TangYuan) at home and I thought he just will be too busy to celebrate it later ….. then a friend MSN me wishing me Happy Winter Solstice again …… hhmm, strange!! Not that she will not be MSN-ing tomorrow then I asked …….. OMG, now only I knew that TODAY is the festival and not TOMORROW …… and it’s 4pm already and I did no preparations at all!!!!! (Oh boy ……. I still told hubby yesterday to come home earlier on Monday because it’s “Winter Solstice”, hahahaha.) At the mean time, my bag of glutinous rice flour is still sitting nicely and happily with the rest of its’ friends in the supermarket (I was planning to get them tonight initially ….. @~@). Well, I think this year we have to eat out and also get those ready made ‘TangYuan’ from the market instead of making it myself. How could I make such a mistakes? What makes me think that it’s tomorrow? But I am glad to found that out at 4pm and not 4 am on Monday, hahaha ….. silly me :) At least I didn't get to miss the festivals totally :) :) Have a Happy Winter Solstice everyone!!!!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Angel’s New Trick

I am very tired and sleepy lately as you can see why in my previous post so I am going to do a quick post here. Angel is napping very little lately and today, she only managed to nap for a good ½ an hour and also extremely active. So as usual after I prepared her lunch and came out of the kitchen, I saw her surprised me with another new tricks of hers ……….



Oh my ……. She is actually holding onto our dinning table, both feet off the ground and swinging BACK and FORE …… I nearly fainted!! Although I am glad to have an active and playful little girl who doesn’t seems to run out of ideas to entertain me and hubby at home (which also means that she is eating well and growing healthily) but this new trick of hers really is dangerous!!

Oh Angel my darling, Mommy knows your new tricks are so cute …… Mommy knows you have discovered something new today ………….. Mommy knows you are full of surprises as always ….. Mommy also sees that your tiny little arms are so strong that you can hold on to your entire body now …. But you are our little precious princess my dear! Please don’t let mommy having another heart attack ya ………. ” LoL


I really must keep an eye on her every second from now on.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A Sleepness Night

This photo was taken at 3am this morning and yes, Angel has been refusing to go to sleep again. Actually Angel is really not her normal self yesterday. She was very cranky and moody for the entire day, whining and throwing tantrums all the time especially whenever I tried to put her to bed for naps. I can see that she was a bit tired but she was very energetic still and thus refuse to take her nap. Despite trying to put her to sleep ‘n’ times since the afternoon, finally I gave up and she stay awake for the entire day grumpy and grouchy. I didn’t even get to cook lunch or dinner at all because she wants me to carry her and hug her every single minute. Even during dinner time, me and hubby have to take turn to comfort our shouting and crying ‘queen’. Hubby and I did check on her from head to toe but we found nothing wrong with her ……. So that is Angel, crying and whining for the entire day for no reason :(

So finally, hubby managed to put her to bed at 10.00pm despite some crying episodes. At around 12am, she suddenly wake up in a jolly good mood and refused to go to bed again while pointing at the living room showing us that she wanted to watch DVD :( :( So in order to end her never ending whining, in the middle of the night, me and hubby was sitting in the living room watching 'Barney' until 3am until hubby and me could no longer hold our concentrations. We dragged our crying baby to bed with us where she tossed and turned + constantly kicking on me here and there until 4am before she finally dozed off.

She woke up at 7am this morning and very active, but me and hubby are extremely sleepy. I really feel like a very drunk zombie today …… hopefully I still manage to differentiate between the salt and the sugar later in the evening preparing out dinner because just now, I am cooking Angel’s porridge in our rice cooker (really blur blur already) LoL

Monday, December 15, 2008

Spaghetti In Meat Sauce

I have started feeding Angel with another new food - tomatoes since last month and today, I have decided to cook her a new menu - Spaghetti in Meat Sauce (one of my favourite dish :P). The ingredient for the meat sauce is very simple, just skin the tomatoes and blended in into puree, do the same with the onions and meat as well. Then stir fried the onions and mince until half cooked, add in the tomato puree and few tablespoons of water, shimmer for another 10 minutes, add in 2 spoonful of Ketchup and it’s done! I do not add in other seasoning other then half a teaspoon of sugar because the tomatoes which I got are a bit sour for my liking. Maybe I should opt for cherry tomatoes which are less sour in taste next time?


I am glad that Angel loves her Spaghetti in Meat Sauce a lot. She does choke a bit on the mince meat because they tend to get stuck on the throat easily. Maybe I should have cut the meat into tiny chunk rather then mince them. Oh, too bad that Angel hasn’t outgrown her intolerance against cow milk products as yet or else, a dash of parmesan cheese and will surely taste heavenly good on those spaghetti, yum yum :)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Prune Spread

I bought a pack of preserved Prune for Angel but I think it is way too sweet for a toddler. So normally I would add the prunes into her plain yogurt or cereal but today, I decided to make a puree out of those prunes and spread it over some bread during Angel’s tea break for a change. So Angel and me did some bread-cutting in the kitchen and she is having a good time playing with those bread cutters. Of course I didn’t get her to do the jam spreading as she does not want to get her hands on those ‘black’ looking prune spread. I think this is the very first time she saw such a big black patch of prunes spread over her beloved bread and feels a bit reluctant to hold them. I noticed that she is more colour observant towards her food now and she would normally refused food which looks totally black / dark green in colour :(



As she refused her bread so I have to eat them in front of her making a ‘delicious’ face and then sandwiched the prune spread nicely in between those bread so she couldn’t see them ….. and finally, she tried those bread and seems to like them too. Although I have added some water to make the prune more watery and less sweet but I think it’s still too sweet for my liking. I am still thinking a way to tune down the sweetness of those prunes further more …....

Uber Amazing Award

I received this award from Ling and I would like to say a big thank you to the lovely couple for the award and also having such an amazing blog :) Thank you so much *hugs* . So here are the rules:

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Uber (synonym to Super) Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who: inspires you, makes you smile and laugh, or maybe gives amazing information, a great read, has an amazing design, and any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

The rules of this award are: Put the logo on your blog or post, nominate at least 5 blogs (can be more) that for you are Uber Amazing, let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog, share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

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I would like to share this lovely award with few of my blogger friends:
1.
Mummy Moon
2. Queenie
3. Family First
4. Daddy and Ryan (Baby n Me)
5. PeiWun