Phew, finally have energy left after putting the kids to bed to write a blog post.

The work trip went pretty well, I have rested very well for the past week as I have nothing to do but to surf net and sleep after work in a nice hotel. But the flying in trip was pretty bad. It departed from the airport at closed to midnight, the journey was just under 4 hours, and touched down at the Changi Airport at about 630am, meaning I hardly slept throughout the night! All the extra battery that I had recharged from the few days of good sleeps had totally gone :-(

Hubby was so sweet to wake up early in the morning and drove all the way to the airport to fetch me, so touched :-) Arrived home and the kids just woke up. They were very happy to see me, giving me lots of hugs and kisses as I expected. When we were having breakfast, my eyes were closing and I felt totally blur. Wanted to take a short nap but the kid won't let me go to the bedroom. So I have to rest on the sofa and they were happily playing around me.

Though I was still tired, but I decided to bring the kids and the grandparents out for some fresh air. Poor them have been stuck within the four walls for the past week, didn't get to go anywhere. Fetched hubby from work and we went to Hort Park. It's a really nice place that it's not crowded, with lots of greenery, and nice playground for the kids, and nice gardening stuff for my parents. While me and hub sat there chatting and resting. What a perfect afternoon :-)

Have our dinner at the famous Holland XO fish noodle, which is now at Dover. That's my dad's favourite and we quite like it too. The kids ate a bigger than usual portion of the fried Hor Fun and fish slices (三捞鱼片河粉). What a surprise! Reached home late. After putting the kids to bed, I couldn't drag myself out of the bed though I really, really wanted to.

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Hao Re has been asking to go to the Jurong Bird Park since our last visit a few weeks ago (hmm, wonder why I didn't write a post on it? I thought I have). Anyway, we enjoyed the trip very much! We started to like Jurong Bird Park more now, while we previously didn't have good impression on it. We think that the fact that the park is small is a good thing. Not too tiring for us to walk around and that we can explore the whole park. Hao Re likes to read map, he would open and "read" the map many times to make sure we have seen all birds. There are many interesting birds to see, lots of interesting things to learn, and we realised that we had actually missed out a lot of things during our previous visit. One good news is there are doing up a waterplay area, think would be similar size to the one at the Zoo, it'll certainly become a family hot spot when it opens (don't know when though).

The not-so-good things though, I found, are that the tram service is not really helpful because you can only travel 1 round. If you want to make use of the tram, then you have to miss out a lot of animals, can only see those displays that are close to the station, or you would have to miss a station or two (they have 4 or 5 stations in total only) if you decided to walk from one station to the next to see more animals. Also, to get a proper lunch is quite challenging. You can only get it at the entrance. The one in the middle of the park only serves buffet or finger food. With my parents around, they have to have proper lunch, cannot be just hotdog or such. We were a bit late for lunch also, so we only managed to reach the restaurant 10 minutes before they closed for buffet. Good that they were so kind to extend the closing time for another 20 minutes for us, the buffet spread was not good though .

We will sure be back, maybe after the waterplay is ready, if Hao Re doesn't request to go again till then.

Here are the photos to share:

The first thing when we reached is to get a map for Hao Re! See how happy he is to get his wish fulfilled - visit Bird Park! Oh, the fireman hat was a gift from aunty Viv when we visited the Central Fire Station a few months, he insisted to put on the hat all day, don't know why, suddenly likes this hat that much.



All 3 generations enjoying the park very much! But I think it's too much walking for all of us at the end of the day. We spent almost 6 hours there, no tram, on our feet all day!



Having lunch. The kids are enjoying the "junk". Hao Re's favourite is sausage while Xi Yu's french fries. Hao Re doesn't like fries and XI Yu doesn't like sausage. So no fighting at all. Hao Re even feed Xi Yu fries :-)



The map again. Lost count how many times he reads it. See the artist impression of the new playground at bottom left, looks like a really exciting playground, Hao Re is greatly attracted by it already! Xi Yu took a short nap of maybe 15minutes on Baba super comfy shoulder (poor daddy has to carry a 14kg load to walk around). Hao Re didn't sleep for the entire day despite all the walking!



Okay. These are the un-glamour photos of Xi Yu. I thought she's really cute in these. But hub may protest :-)

I am travelling for work this week. It's one of the big changes and challenges that our family have to face when we decided that I should take on this job about 2 months back. Luckily, it's not very frequent, and it is, only, a 4-hour flight away from Singapore. Many of my friends told me that business travel is almost unavoidable nowadays, I should be real grateful that I don't have to travel to further countries, like to the U.S. at the worst (I hate flying by the way), and only need to travel once every 1-2 months. So yes, I headed to their advise and be grateful for the new job, which I enjoy a lot!

Because that Xi Yu started childcare on the 1st July 2011, my parents are here in Singapore to help us, hoping that it's easier for Xi Yu to adjust, especially for the dinner. They are indeed of great great great help! The kids are so happy to have grandparents around everyday to play with them. Xi Yu is adjusting to the childcare very well. She has more or less stopped crying starting this week (I still sent and fetched them on Monday as I only flew out at night) according to her teacher.

But they have to take school bus for the rest of this week it's quite difficult for hubby to rush back to pick them before the childcare closes at 7pm. Since the grandparents are around, we let them take school bus. When I talked to hubby just now, he didn't mention anything about the school bus so I guess it's all good.

On Monday evening when I left the house, Hao Re cried very badly. Xi Yu followed him. And when I reached the airport and called, he was still crying, making me feeling so bad :-( But the next morning, hubby told me as soon as he stepped into the house, the two of them didn't cry at all and went to bed obediently at the usual timing! Kids adapt so fast, and probably they felt a lot more secure when they see their Baba.

I definitely miss them. Lots. But I am also very glad to know that they are adapting well to the routine without Mama, though I know they do miss me dearly! And that hubby is forced to leave office on time to release my mum from the two kids as early as possible, and to put them to bed, so it's a ultimate precious bonding week for the daddy with the kids too!

Hubby taught Hao Re to come down to the day I will be back. He told me "3 more days and I will see you. When I wake up tomorrow morning, it will be 2 more days". See, daddy is doing such a great job, learning maths at the same time, haha :-)

Oh, and, forgot to mention that it's such a rare chance that I am having totally free time after work! Not interested in TV, don't want to work on the working stuff till I get back to Singapore, so so much time to spend, hehehe :-P

I was very enthusiastic when I bought the oven a few months back, and imagining of myself taking on baking very well. It shouldn't be that difficult, I thought. It's just finding a recipe, getting the ingredients, following the instructions and that's it, is it not?

True, it's actually not difficult. I have got myself a few books and printed a few recipes from the websites. Got all the necessarily basis baking tools, and I did bake for several times. But, all this while, I was only using the same old cupcake recipe from the Annabel Karmel recipe book for babies and toddlers. Well, it's a simple recipe, healthy enough for the kids, tasted quite nice, and Hao Re doesn't seem to get bored of it (because that's the only chance he is allowed to have marshmellow :-)).

After this few rounds of baking, I have concluded that baking is really not something I would enjoy (well, at least I have tried!). Firstly, I am very bad in following the recipe, when it says add 100g of flour, I usually add more or less of that, don't really care, like why it needs such precise measurement, it's not like when doing experiments that you a different of 1g would ruin your whole day of effort, got what I mean, so I anyhow add, or let Hao Re add. Secondly, both me and hubby are not cake kind of person. So some of the cakes ended up in the bin often. Hao Re likes to eat only because of the marshmellow on it. Thirdly, nothing really make me happy, not during the process, not when all the nice smell comes from the kitchen, not when it comes out nicely (though I did pretend to be excited). Lastly, I wanted to start baking all because of the kids. So that they can have fun.

And you know what? They did have fun. So I would continue to bake with them whenever they want to. Maybe try a different recipe next time :-)

We baked the cupcake again (think it must be the 5th or 6th times already, though I only blogged about it twice) on Monday night, upon Hao Re's request.

Hao Re does like and enjoy the whole process. From getting the ingredients out of the drawer, measuring, beating the eggs, mixing up the ingredients, scooping up the mixture. He, as always, has very good attention span and he is very patient.


While for Xi Yu, sometimes she wants to join us. Sometimes she doesn't. This time round, she didn't even bother to know what we were doing. She was happily playing with the toys, books, puzzles, alone, at the other end of the room. But when we were ready to put on the decorative stuff, she ran to us so fast and climbed on the chair and said "I want, I want, meimei want!"

Yup, that's the part the two of them enjoy the most, esp to put some into their mouth from time to time :-) Guess if I even try a different recipe, I should look for one that has this similar step.


After all were done, Hao Re ate 2 big ones and Xi Yu ate 2 small ones on that same night, and finished all of them the following nights. Not bad, ya, this time round :-)

Oh, by the way, I actually did try baking of the sesame crisp over the weekend, which I took from a very nice children food blog - food-4tots, click here to find the recipe. It's very simple to make and it's tasted great (especially for sesame lover like me :-)). My mum helped me with this as she likes sesame me too. We used a mixture of black and white sesame instead of just the white. The black makes it tastes more strongly, it may indeed taste better with just the white. But I like how it look. And we were very lazy to lay it nicely to make thin crisp. So it ended up became thick-and-not-so-crispy :-) I think it still tastes nice. Hao Re and Xi Yu ate some. My hubby only ate one and said no thanks, haha. They would all go into my tummy, eventually :-)

Don't they look nice :-)


The conclusion - yes, I would still bake, but it's more for the bonding with the kids, and not to turn into a hobby. I am just not make for baking :-)

Since my last post about toys and books at our household 2 months plus ago, we haven't been buying more, since the kids seem to be happy and it seems that we have enough to get them entertained.

However, I couldn't resist the temptation on buying more books for them, especially it's such a good bargain to get from an online shop from China, Dangdang. So here they are, the new books that I got for the kids (plus 2 books for myself :-)).

The whole lot plus my 2 books costs less than $50 including all postage! The one on the right is a hardcover set.


I have read one book each from each series, and Hao Re likes them! Pretty good I would say, in term of the content and the quality of the print. Happy. Except that the set on top left is quite a busy book, lots of pictures and not arranged nicely on each page. To finish going through one book would easily take 1 hour! Just like the “100 层的房子”that I got last round. It's a very interesting book and it's Hao Re's favourite by far. But to read it would take a long time, and we usually only read books before bedtime. And Hao Re must make sure I tell the story the same like the last time, and I cannot skip either storey, so to finish 100 storeys, it takes, a long time :-) Hope he likes these books as much.

In the past few months, we only bought 1 toy for time. It's a Lego Thomas train set (Mega block). Hao Re insisted to buy this. We made him agreed to earn some good boy stars then we would go back and buy. We bought for him after he earned 3 good boy stars. It's an expensive set. But good thing is he enjoys playing with it pretty much. Hope he and Xi Yu would continue to play with this set for a long time.
The kids with their new toy, which they only get once in a few months, or even longer.

I always wonder what's so nice about a tiny little man-made beach at the Sentosa. Why it's able to attract so many people there every weekend year after year.

Just last Saturday, we ran out of places to go, kinda, and also because we needed to bring Hao Re to a "Build A Bear" shop to get his Brownie (which we got for him as his 3rd birthday present) mended. We chose the shop at the Harbourfront as it's the most convenient for us. Brought the grandparents along, had our lunch at the Sushi Tei at Vivo City and then we made our way to Sentosa. The very first time we stepped onto the sand of the Silosa Beach.
Okay. It's really nothing that nice at this beach. It has very find sand, cleaner than other beaches in Singapore, and the water is also cleaner. It is, to me, still a tiny little man-made beach.

But, mind you, most importantly, the kids were having lots of fun!!! And that matters most to us, at this stage. So yes, we might be coming back again, to this tiny beach of this tiny island :-) It's a very hot there, and we were there from 3pm to 5.30pm-ish. As you can see from the pictures below, we were hiding below the shade of the coconut trees, so not too bad. We again, forgot to bring sunblock :-P

Xi Yu was dressed with her nice green skirt. But not long after she started with sandplay, we took it off so it's more comfortable for her.



There was no other activity but to play with sand with very limited pieces of tools for almost 2 hours! Hao Re got on pretty well with his imaginative play. He made "ice-cream" for us, and also offered different flavours. Xi Yu almost licked the "ice-cream" :-)



Xi Yu enjoyed the sandplay so much! She self entertained most of the time and we so we just watched her (and took photos of her and Hao Re).



So glad that we have this pail ($2 from Daiso, keke). Really helpful to keep the kids happy, when we took turns to bring them to scoop some water.



Finally, after 2 hours of sandplay and many rounds of scooping water, the kids cannot resist the water anymore. They both decided it's time for waterplay! Xi Yu said "衣服，脱掉!". As so wished, we took out her shirt and her diaper. The kids played/swam happily!


We have to call it a day when they have played for almost 30min or so. It's OMG, that Hao Re threw such a big tantrum!!! He refused to leave the water, we dragged him out and got him washed. He then refused to get dressed. We let him go naked for some times while many by passers stared at him and at us. He finally allowed me to dress him. But then he wanted me to carry him, and that's another OMG, 16kg leh!

During the car ride, we talked him out of his unhappiness and he was all bubbly and talkative again when we have our dinner at Bukit Timah Plaza and then did our groceries shopping.

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Sunday we stayed at home most of the time. Except went to Jurong Point at late afternoon, to get new shoes for both of them and a new bag for Xi Yu. Had dinner and came home, nothing special, except that Hao Re threw another BIG tantrum, as we didn't want to buy the Thomas the Train set for him. Told him he has to earn enough good boy stars before we buy one for him. He kinda agreed but still wailed and wailed till he was too tired out and fell asleep when we were having dinner.

Hao Re requested to buy durians. So we stopped at Jurong West Street 25 to grab some. Because he skipped his dinner, he ate SEVEN seends of (bitter) durians!!!