2010 in review

2010 is a year that marks many firsts for Yan Yan.
- Started Yan Yan on solids when she hit 6 months old, and over the one year period, she has now graduated to taking adult food together with us.
- Went to our neighbourhood playground for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed herself with her che-che.
- Had her first haircut (just the fringe) at 10 months old. Her hair hasn’t really grown much since birth though.
- Started Yan Yan on formula shortly before she turned one.
- Celebrated Yan Yan’s 1st birthday and papa’s birthday in style, complete with a clown to entertain the children.

As for Yiu Yiu, the highlights of 2010 are:
- Had a H1N1 scare when one of Yiu Yiu’s classmate was infected, and she was placed on quarantine for five days.
- Participated in her first ever art competition, organized by her art class – she didn’t win and was hugely disappointed. Mummy’s fault for letting her use some poor quality colour pencils :-(
- Yiu Yiu had several cavities that needed to be filled so a visit to the dentist we went. She took to the procedure bravely and didn’t make any fuss throughout the three visits we made.
- We celebrated Yiu Yiu’s birthday not once, but three times – once with my extended family, once at home on her actual birthday and another one at the kindy. Lucky girl, she is.
- The finale of the year is Yiu Yiu’s kindy concert, an impressive effort by the kindy. Few days later, she came back with an award to round up her 2nd year in kindy.

We also went for a family holiday to Langkawi with younger sister and her family, and mum.

For me personally, my company undergone massive restructuring following a merger and my boss was moved to a different portfolio, and I chose to move with her. Unfortunately, as with any merger, the chaos that followed (the disruption, the down-sizing, etc) created an unpleasant work environment and I left seven months later to join a totally different industry. It was hard leaving a company I’ve worked with for eleven years but life goes on.

On a brighter note, I got to travel to Rome for work, and took the opportunity to extend my stay in Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice. Feel really blessed to have had the opportunity as Italy is among the top in my list of countries to visit. I also revisited Beijing in the course of work.

Hope you’ve had a great year and here’s wishing everyone a Blessed 2011, and may 2011 be a year filled with abundance happiness, health and joy for you and your family.

My new kitchen gadget

MIL bought this magic machine as my birthday present in April. I was to call the agent based in KL and arrange for her to deliver the machine to me, and perform some demo on the machine’s functionality. Unfortunately she can only do it on weekdays, and I was really busy at work then and couldn’t take leave just to stay home and wait for her to deliver the machine. And so, I proscratinated and forgot about it along the way until our last trip back to Kuantan when MIL asked if I’ve collected the machine…some grateful DIL huh?

(L) The i-Smart Maker; (R) The freebies that come with it - a kitchen scissor, digital scale and a double bread pan

Since I took leave the last few days, I made an appointment for the agent to deliver the machine to me. She demonstrated by using the machine to prepare a roast chicken (she marinated and brought the chicken along), and we also baked a loaf of bread from scratch.

Black pepper roasted chicken and sausage and cheese loaf

The machine is pretty nifty – I can pretty much just dump the ingredients in, press one button, and 2.5 hours later, a freshly baked loaf of bread will be ready. The machine will take care of the mixing, kneading, proofing and baking – all in the same pan without me having do anything. No complicated DVI cable or Optical cables to deal with. The only cable I need is the cable for USB to download these photos from my camera.

The machine can also be used to bake cakes, prepare dough for pizza, pau, buns, cookies, and cooking curry chicken, claypot chicken rice, soups, etc. I hope I’ll be diligent in baking home-made bread and buns for the girls and myself.

Christmas @ the malls - Part 2

On Christmas day, we ventured to Midvalley and the Gardens.

Midvalley
Our absolute favourite for this year's Christmas décor - I must say MV has one of the better décor every year, be it Christmas or Chinese New Year. The concourse at the Centre Court was transformed into a toy wonderland, befitting its theme of Funtoystic.



The Gardens
We walked over to the Gardens after Midvalley, and were transported to an enchanted garden of whites and greens.

Christmas @ the malls - Part 1

We visited some of the malls in the weeks leading up to Christmas to admire the beautiful décor.

1-Utama
It was Christmas Town at 1-Utama. There was a Christmas orchestra occupying centre stage while we were there.




Sunway Pyramid
The decoration was better outside the mall than inside. There was an event going on at the main concourse so we didn’t take any pictures there. The only photo we had was with this character who was walking about the mall.



The Curve
It was a magical world of Toy Town under the Christmas Tree at The Curve, with characters like Sleepy Suzy, Barry the Clown, Tiny Tina and The Watcher welcoming visitors at the main concourse.

The giant Christmas tree @ e-Curve.

Handicrafts from arts class

Yiu Yiu looks forward to attending her arts classes every Saturday, and here’s the reason why:

Left (top): snake hanging mobile; left (bottom): bee (or is it butterfly?) fan; right: candy stall

The proud owner:

Bento #186 – #190

The last of 2010 bentos:

Pan fried chicken drummet with cauliflower and broccoli, a small section of corn on the cob, with one piece of pear


Spaghetti Bolognese with pear


Home made chicken nugget with potato wedges, and orange wedges. There’s some ketchup in the blue tub


Cheesy sausage puff with orange wedges


Homemade red bean bun with star fish cake, and grapes

Bento #181 – #185

Before the year is out and another school year reopens, I thought I had better post these up before the cycle begins again. But then, I’m not sure if I can still sustain the stamina…anyway, here are some of the bentos during the last few weeks of kindy.

Smiley onigiri with deboned pan fried chicken drummet and cubes of pear


Leftover fried noodles with fishballs, and pear


Chocolate mantou with meat balls, and a small section of corn on the cob, with one piece of pear


Chocolate Swiss roll snails, with a piece of pear


Red bean pau with heart cocktail sausages, a small section of corn on the cob, with one piece of pear

Outing to Aquaria with Yihao

Two weekends ago, sis took Yihao and Yiu Yiu to Aquaria as a birthday present to them.


As it was a treat for the kiddos, they get to have McD for lunch too.


And had some fun at KLCC and the KLCC park.


What was the most fun part of the trip? The LRT ride...


Sis could have saved some moolah just taking them on the LRT rides without visiting Aquaria :-)

Random

Three trips and numerous phone calls later, this came in the mail:

My early Christmas present

It wasn’t the full refund though. The excess tax paid in 2009 was not refunded. I guess they must be keeping it in case I have “Cukai Tambahan Perlu Dibayar” in this year’s assessment.

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I was out at 1-Utama during Awal Muharram and was looking at some bags when a lady came up to me and said that she’s a reader of my blog, and mentioned something about Yiu Yiu's kindy. I was quite surprised and could only mutter “Oh really?” She had recognized Yan Yan, whom I was pushing in a stroller. She left after saying that it’s an interesting blog, and to keep up the good work.

This is the first time a stranger actually approached me as a reader of this blog :-) To the nice lady who came to say hi, it was lovely meeting you, and sorry I didn’t even get your name. Shame on me!

Weekend at Majestic Melaka

I had to attend an event in Muar and Melaka last Friday and Saturday respectively, and since I was booked to stay at this classic hotel I persuaded hubby to come along with the girls.

Photo from here.

We reached Melaka at about 3pm on Friday, and I left immediately for Muar with my colleagues, leaving hubby to handle the girls alone. They took a walk around the hotel in the evening before going for dinner. When they got back to the hotel, hubby filled the bath tub and the girls had their personal private pool. By the time I got back to Melaka, both had already knocked off.

I had almost the whole day free on Saturday as my event was only at night but the weather was not kind to us – it started raining when we were having our breakfast, just like the last Melaka trip. We went to one of the malls to grab something, tapau lunch for the girls and went back to the hotel as it continued raining the whole day with only intermittent stops. We spent the whole afternoon in the hotel and since we couldn’t hit the pool, the girls got their time in the bath tub yet again.

After breakfast on Sunday, we took some photos in the hotel before making an early departure as hubby had a lunch function back in KL.

BUT why is this post devoid of photos??!! Boohoohoo…when I wanted to choose the photos for posting, I realized THE.FOLDER.WAS.MISSING. I’ve searched high and low in all my drives and Recycle Bin but there was no sign of it. The only possible explanation is that I accidentally deleted the folder permanently when I was done editing them on Sunday night :-( BUMMER!

Second year in kindy - the finale

A day before her kindy party, Yiu Yiu came back with this:

I was quite surprised as I don’t think her handwriting is all that nice. On a good day,when she’s is a good mood and not tired out, these are the results…


But on a bad day, her handwriting can be truly hideous. Mind you, she’s even capable of falling asleep while doing her homework…haha.


I later found out that she was given the award based on the writing assessment during the exam, and after seeing the paper during the Parent-Teachers Day, in my biased opinion, I think she deserved the award :-)


Anyway, the first thing that her class teacher, Teacher Kathleen, told me at the Parent-Teachers Day was that she’s a sensitive and emotive child. Apparently one of the days during the last week of kindy, the children prayed for two of their classmates whom will be leaving the kindy. Yiu Yiu started crying coz she was sad that she would not be seeing Teacher Kathleen anymore next year (as 5yo and 6yo classes are held in different blocks). That made Teacher Kathleen teary as well. Drama leh? Haha...

Development wise, we were told that Yiu Yiu improved in all aspects compared to the beginning of the year, and she was rated “Excellent” in almost all aspects of evaluations – be it motor skills, work habits, social emotional skills, academic as well as arts.

She sure is growing up fast, and next year will be her final year in kindy. Read about how she did during her first year in kindy here.

Kindy’s year end party

The notice for the kindy year end party came way too late – just a day before the party last Friday! The children were required to wear their concert costume so it wasn’t a problem, costume wise. But as customary, each child was asked to bring a snack to share, and by the time I got home from work and saw the message book, it was already 8pm. I rummaged through the fridge for my stash of frozen bento food and managed to dig out some homemade wantan. Phew!

As I had a meeting at 9am on Friday morning, hubby sent Yiu Yiu to kindy, and stayed back to capture some photos, so I’ll just let the photos do the talking.

Random shots with her friends

With Teacher Esther (her 4yo class teacher) and Teacher Kathleen (her 5yo class teacher)

Makan time

Yan Yan – 15th & 16th month update

At 16 months now, Yan Yan can verbalise few words clearly – papa, mummy, che che, kor kor, yeh yeh, poh poh, and her all time favourite, yao (要). It’s her all time favourite because that’s her usual response when asked, “Do you want mum mum” or “Do you want nen nen” or “Do you want kai kai” :-) At 12th month, she would shake her head instead of nodding even though she actually meant yes, but she now knows to nod her head for yes, and shake for no.

She can also identify all family members by pointing to the right person when asked – papa, mummy, che che, yeh yeh, mah mah, poh poh, yi yi, kor kor. And she’ll point to herself when we ask, “Who’s Yan Yan/Yan Xin/mei-mei”.

The other week, we were at the paediatrician clinic as she was having fever plus cough and cold, and while waiting, I showed her banana, flower and ball on a wall chart, and she could point them out later when asked. She weighs 9.1kg, by the way. No idea about her height and head circumference as these were not measured at that visit.

She insists on self-feeding these days, though she’s still not too good at it, so will usually make a mess. The trick to get her to eat is to have a small portion of food for her to practice self-feeding, while I feed her from a different bowl. She generally likes noodles, pasta and rice and have no problem finishing the portion we give her, but will shut her mouth tight upon seeing porridge, so that makes one less thing that I can cook for her :-(

She’s started to enjoy rolling the ball back and forth, and loves to climb onto furniture (and giving me heart attacks in the process). She loves to scribble and always rummages through her che-che’s bag to look for pencils and papers/books to scribble on.

She understands simple instructions like “Put your clothes in the laundry basket” and will bring my handphone to me when she hears it ringing. She cooperates well when putting on/taking off clothes by manourvering her arms around the garments.

This little missy may look like a little angel, but she has a fiery temper. Many a times, when she doesn’t get her way, she’d throw herself on the floor. But she’s also smart enough to do it ever so lightly so as not to hurt herself…haha…and after a few moments, will steal glances at us to see if we’d give in. Sneaky eh?