I Wish...

Sometimes I wish...
To have more than 24hours a day

To have longer and better sleep
To have a little getaway
To have a quiet time and space of my own

To have time go for regular facial

To have a time for a good hairdo

To have a nicely done pedicure

Before I wrote this, I thought I had a lot to wish for, I thought I was desperate, I thought there is something very important missing in my life, I thought I needed something more…but I realized that all I wished for was very trivial.

Instead of ranting, I am now thankful...

For 2 wonderful children

For an amazing family love and support

For true friends to share all the joys and sorrows

For I don't have to worry for food and shelter

Most importantly, I am thankful that I have God, the Heavenly Father, my shelter and my refuge in time of trouble.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40: 29-31

Trick or Treat!

Halloween celebration is not very popular here in Malaysia, other than seeing Halloween decorations, Halloween costumes selling at the malls young children here do not experience the trick or treat fun.

I did not have plan to celebrate Halloween, I don’t have the time, and I don’t have the energy to be honest. But Charlotte curiously asked “mommy, what is Halloween?” I felt that the explanation of “scary dress up” and “pumping carving” is not good enough. So, I had an idea of getting helps from others to celebrate this Halloween together.

Charlotte has 2 other classmates staying around our neighborhood, and another good friend staying just nearby. So, I invited all the mothers and one other neighbor and shared the Halloween idea with them and luckily all were very supportive. Since I couldn’t host the party, I asked all participate family to take turn to host and let the kids had the Trick or Treat from house to house! J

Each of them is requested to dress up in their Halloween costume, bring a candy carrier along and each family need to prepare a fun Halloween game as the kids visited their house. The kids happily shouted “Trick or Treat!!” as they visited each house and they played games, made scary faces, spent some time and enjoyed themselves before moving to another house. In total we had only 5 participated families, the highlight of that night for the kids? Of course the candy collection!! See how big was Charlotte’s candy carrier?

Actually I wanted to bring Abigail along for the Trick or Treat, unfortunately when we left for the 1st house it was drizzling. So Abby had to stay home L  

I hope the parents did not have a big problem saying “no candy today!” to their kid after that night J  

Thank you all for your participation and support to make this event successful!   



Mini Mid-Autumn Festival

I was in China right before mid-autumn for business purpose. I knew I would be tired after the trip but I want to make something for Charlotte. I felt that I have negleted her in some way, or less patience with her now that with baby Abby around. Also, they are growing up so quickly, next year Charlotte and her 2 good friends are going to 3 different schools. So, I thought it will be a good occasion to have a mini gathering.

I did not prepare anything other than just mooncakes and lanterns. We let the kids took the lanterns and parade around the neighbourhood. It was funny that it started with just the 3 girls, then 2 other boys from the neighbour joined along the way, and later another 2 boys...it was quite fun actually.

Our First Letter Exchange

About a month ago, I received a notice from Charlotte’s school that they are introducing post office, stamps, letter and etc in the coming week and we were asked to write a letter to our child and mail it the conventional way to the school address. I was excited as I think the kids will be excited too when they received the letter from their parents this way.

We were asked to keep the letter short, but take this opportunity to express our feelings, expectations, hopes and wishes through this letter. I think this is good as being an Asian, we are not as open and direct when confronting with our feelings and emotion with our loved ones. And I needed this opportunity share my feelings with Charlotte and how things have changed with Abigail’s arrival.

My letter to Charlotte:

亲爱的宣宥,

你知道吗 你是妈妈最宝贝的宝贝? 你是一个很乖, 也很贴心的孩子. 妈妈很欣慰, 也很疼你. 我都会把最好的给你, 用的, 吃的, 穿的, 包括时间和精神. 希望你能健康和快乐的成长.

妹妹出世之后, 家里大大小小的事多了不少. 妈妈也因为要照顾妹妹而很可能有多少忽略了你. 对不起! 但是妈妈还是很爱你的, 希望你会懂事. 你和妹妹都是妈妈的宝贝, 妈妈两个都爱, 两个都疼.

你今年六岁了! 明年你就要升上小学一年纪了. 妈妈最担心的是在学校功课, 饮食, 样样都必须自己负责. 妈妈希望你能学得更自立, 至少在家里能开始学习吃饭和喝奶都不需要再喂就好了! 宣宥 要加油哦!

妈妈爱你!  

Few weeks later, they have an expedition, going to the post office! And I knew what’s coming although nothing was announced by the school. However, Charlotte was very cute and she can’t keep the secret (or maybe she was not told that it suppose to be a secret). She told me that I should expect her letter, in green color envelope J .

One day, I was late from work and she called. She said “Mommy, can you please quickly come home? My letter is here!” J Of course I made my way home at the soonest and she eagerly passed me the letter and asked me to read it!

She wrote:

亲爱的爸爸妈妈
我爱你们
我也爱可宥
可宥是我的好可宥
宣宥上

There was no punctuation on each sentence, and I don't know why the paper was so broken. I think she must be trying to decorate it using a shaped scissors (see the edge of the paper) and that's how it turned out. 可宥 is Abigail's chinese name but she wrote it wrongly (oops!) and the characters on the letter were she and Abigail. The envolope was nicely decorated (I didn't know that it is allowed, haha!), Mr Postman must be amuzed when he delivered it.

A Quick Update



It is time for me to post about Abigail's growth progress; it has been 4+ months! How time flies. Sometimes I really wish for the 25th hour. My days are much occupied since I return to work, no time to slack!

Abigail is growing very well; she hits every growth milestone quite timely (Charlotte was always behind by 1-2 months as far as I could remember). She is a very cheerful and friendly baby. She smiles whenever she’s called and she loves Charlotte. She responds to Charlotte very well, sometimes she coos the loudest when Charlotte interacts with her. It is very funny to see the “chicken-duck” talk between the 2 of them.

So far, she wakes up once at night for feeding and she sleeps very well when she is swaddled. However, this has ended last week since she masters her new skill to roll over! She kept rolling over and woke up on her tummy and smiling at me in the middle of the night L  I had to keep waking up, put her back to sleep and that equal to no sleep!! Help!! But she has this cute and innocent face that you won’t get mad at her. Instead, I can’t help but kiss her a few times on her cheek before putting her back to sleep.  

Maternity Leave, Ended

Wow, this is the longest blog break that ever happened to me. I have been busy, really busy...

I have returned to work 2 weeks back. Well, my maternity leave ended long time ago but I took additional 2 weeks off from my previous accumulated time off that I had not had a chance to claim. I am now learning to live with new schedule, juggling between work loads and kids and sleep deprive…

When I gave birth to Charlotte, I took everything personally. I did everything for the baby myself, even during the confinement month. It was very very stressful and tiring. This time round, lesson learned. I took the opportunity to rest as much as I could. While having confinement helpers around during the first month I let her managed every for the baby, including the night feeding. I'm still breastfeeding, but with EBM I left the feeding job to her and trust that she is able to do the job that she is paid for. I did not have to worry about Charlotte too because my mother was around to help out and to take care of her. So, confinement month was rather enjoyable this time, except the ridiculous confinement rules that I had to follow...

After the first month, most "helpers" had left but luckily we have found a baby sitter to take care of Abby. I decided to start sending Abby to her (bad mommy, I know) because I needed the time to settle some overdue errands, get quiet time of my own, rest and rejuvenate before returning to work. Also, I need to start practicing the morning routine, that is getting myself ready for office, that includes expressing breast milk, feed and change Abby, get Charlotte ready for school, and not late for work and school. I could almost imagine the chaotic situation especially when Pat is out of town. So, by starting this routine while I'm still on maternity leave I could practice and set the schedule early without having to run into morning madness (although I still think that morning madness would still happens, hopefully it will be less frequent and in a smaller scale).

It is also a good thing that I am sending Abby to sitter, I could use the time to do marketing every morning after sending both girls off, get paperwork filed, bills paid, did some exercise, facial, hair cut and most importantly, planned and get things organized. Besides, Abby is starting to recognize faces and places. Getting her familiarized with her baby sitter early hopefully will minimize the separation anxiety that I used to deal with Charlotte when leaving her with her grandma in the morning.

Other than enjoying having a little quality time of my own, I managed to accomplish a small home improvement project. We never completely furnished our rooms for this current house that we have been staying for more than 8 years now. The master bedroom was the only room that we furnished, leaving the other 3 bedrooms and family hall upstairs "free style". Charlotte is still sleeping in our room, on our king + super single bed and we didn't really bother of furnishing the other rooms until Abigail's arrival. The baby stuff and everything else seem overflowing and running out of storage. So I engaged an ID company and my medium scale home improvement project was completed right before I return to work.

I think I had fully utilized my maternity leave. I am now embarking on another new chapter of life. I know it will be challenging, but blessed.

Stay tuned for my next update.

Introducing Abigail

It has been a month and I still don't have much pictures of Abigail to share. My SLR is only operated by me, and since I'm being requested to bed rest most of the time no one has been taking Abigail's picture.

This is the picture I took during the first few days, at the hospital. She was sleeping soundly after breastfeed. I took this picture with my phone camera.



This is the picture that I took 2 days ago, still with my phone camera. I think I need to take out my camera from the bag and standby all the time in order to capture a very nice moment of Abigail.

She has a rather boyish look and most people said if I give birth another child, it will be a son! Crazy!! I was satisfied with just Charlotte, and now I am very contented with Charlotte and Abigail...another one??? Don't even think about it!

Hello World!

Date: 20 Mar 2011
Time: 11PM

Couldn't sleep. Left Charlotte in the room and joined Patrick downstairs for a movie. Had the "jambu air" with rojak sauce that we just bought from town. Not too long after, Charlotte woke up. I went up in the room with her and pat her to sleep. I came downstairs again after 15min, but didn't get to finish the movie as she woke up again soon after I left.

Date: 21 Mar 2011
Time: 1.30AM

Patrick finally finished the movie. We both couldn't sleep and chit chatted. I asked, "what if baby still hasn't come after 40 weeks? What do we do? Induce? Or wait?". Pat said "don't know, better ask the doctor tomorrow". Yes, we had a scheduled check up on Monday morning (21 Mar) because Pat has to travel out of town on Tuesday. We need to make baby is not arriving any time sooner when he is not around.

Date: 21 Mar 2011
Time: 2.30AM

I felt the pain in the lower abdomen. I told Pat "hey, I felt the pain and it is a little different and intense". Pat said "so how? Is it time?", "don't know, let's wait for a bit more" I said. The pain came at 5min interval and we decided to go to hospital. I wanted to take a shower but Pat said it was a bad idea. So we woke up Charlotte and my maid and headed to the hospital.

On the way, the pain interval was every 3min and it was getting very intense. Pat was driving very quickly and Charlotte was asleep at the back with my maid.

Date: 21 Mar 2011
Time: 3.30AM

At labour room. The pain was almost unbearable!!! My water bag broke after a short while and I heard the nurse calling doctor and mentioned that I was 6cm dilated. I was in pain and I asked for Epidural. Not sure if it was a good idea at that moment but I needed something to ease the pain level, I was going insane, almost.

Soon, the anesthetist came and administered the Epidural and my Ob came too. Too many things going on at the same time and all I knew was the pain was getting bearable and it was time to push!

I heard doctors and nurses kept saying "ok push! push! keep your head down to your chest, hold your breath and push!" ...

It wasn't easy...I remembered one of my coworkers told me "if God made us (male) to bear and deliver babies, I think there will be no babies..."

Date: 21 Mar 2011
Time: 5.00AM

Baby Abigail made her appearance and greeted the world!!! She tipped the scale at 3.48kg, 51cm long.

Chiffon Cake, Finally!

Most of my friends and relatives know that I like to bake but I don't really like to eat cakes, or pies, or biscuits. I like to try out new recipes, test out my skills, and happy to see people around me enjoying the output. But there is one cake I do like and I will eat a couple pieces every time I buy them. It's the Chiffon Cake. It is very soft and light, not oily and I don't really feel stuffed after I ate it. I love them and I found out that Charlotte also likes Chiffon Cake. That makes me an excuse to try making it. Actually, I tried baking a Chiffon Cake many years back, when I was in my teen. But it was a total failure and I never touch on that recipe ever since.

I have been trying baking Chiffon Cake for the past few weeks and I had disasters that no one could imagine. I didn't come across any of the challenges mentioned in every recipe such as difficulty in removing the cake from the cake pan, egg whites not beaten to the right stage, cake did not rise properly and etc. What I had was my cake raised perfectly and I didn't have any trouble removing it from the pan because it fell off from the pan the moment I inverted it! So what I had from the last few attempts were all collapsed Chiffon Cakes that looked like this...although it all tasted great.

I asked the experts, I checked the recipe, I bought fresh ingredients, but nothing helps. Finally I was looking into my oven last night and I realized something. I realized that my baking tray was closer to the upper heat element of the oven than the lower ones. I recalled all my Chiffon Cakes had nice golden brown top but the bottom and sides looked "naked" when removed from the cake pan. Maybe the bottom wasn't completely baked and that's why it fell off the moment it was inverted. So I moved the baking tray to a level lower and tried baking another one. This time I tried the Orange Chiffon Cake recipe as I ran out of coconut milk (santan) for Pandan Chiffon Cake and I had no more bananas for Banana Chiffon Cake. I separate the egg yolks and eggs whites carefully and followed the recipe steps as much as possible. I want to rule out all the possibility of "is it something wrong with the ingredients I put, or is it my skill in making it".

And finally there is a decent looking Chiffon Cake from my oven...

And a happy customer...she's my biggest supporter afterall and she said "mommy, 你成功了!"

Next, I need to work on the skill removing the cake from the pan so that the side doesn't look so "cacat", haha!



My Pregnancy Memory

I didn't write down any pregnancy memory when I was carrying Charlotte. Back then, I didn't even have a blog. I only started blogging 2 years after having Charlotte. And this is it, a blog all about her.

Now that I am expecting my second baby very soon, and I think I have a perfect place to keep not just about my kids' growing up memory, but also start all the way back from my pregnancy memory.

I remember clearly the night before I found out that I was pregnant with Charlotte we invited a few friends to our house for dinner. We cooked steak and had a very nice wine and we stayed all night chit chatting. The next morning, I decided to take a home pregnancy test since my period was late. When the test result came out positive, the first thing I recalled was "damn! I was drinking last night!"...it wasn't a planned pregnancy but Pat and I did talk about it as we thought we'll just take it easy and if it happens, it happens...and it happened!!!

I swear and was 101% sure that I will not have a second child. I guessed I was not prepared to welcome another baby experience along with the responsibilities and commitments associate with it. I was overwhelmed, my tried to do the best (I think I did) for the Charlotte, I was committed to breastfeeding, I sacrificed my career commitment to allow bandwidth to take care of the Charlotte, I gave up many opportunities on both personal and professional growth. Naturally, I was in phobia to commit another one. Pat on the other hand, always wanted a second child. But he couldn't push to hard for it to happen because half the time he is not home and he knows that the responsibility is all mine. His brilliant idea is to have maid to help out, but I am someone that cannot rely on maid entirely, not on baby, not even on house chores. Baby is too fragile and I can never imagine to have something happen to a baby because I "outsource" the responsibility to a maid and accident happened. So second baby was out of the equation for quite some time. Charlotte is turning 6 this year and maybe I'm kinda forgotten about all the sweat and tears, and I also missed the feeling of having a baby kicking inside your tummy when you are carrying him/her, but I also realized that now I am 6 years older, my stamina and health may not be in the same condition as 6 years ago. Can I still cope with the night feeding marathon? The miserable colic cry every night? The washing and cleaning...so just like the 1st pregnancy we were not to serious about it but we are blessed!

I found out that I was pregnant at around the 5th week the first time, and this second time was maybe just around the 3rd week. We couldn't see any sign of embryo formation when we went to see the Gynae, just a sign of positive pregnancy with thick wall on the uterus. I was in a little denial for a couple of weeks until the presence of an embryo showed on the ultrasound scan later on. So the pregnancy journey started...

I had a very easy pregnancy the first time. Everything was normal, I ate as usual (maybe was eating a lot more than usual), sat, walked, slept as usual. No morning sickness, no backache, nothing...so the whole 40 weeks passed by very quickly and Charlotte born just 2 days earlier than the EDD. The 2nd pregnancy is a whole new experience, and I never thought it could be that challenging although I had heard many difficult pregnancy experiences before. It started with a very bad morning sickness, or maybe I should say all-day sickness because that's really what it was. I felt so sick all day long, nothing (food/drinks) seemed to be able to comfort my tummy. I was hungry but everything that went in came out pretty soon. What makes it worse is the washroom in the office, the look, the smell, even just the thought of using it made me sick already. So I was really dragging myself to work everyday in the first trimester. Not only that, I started to have backache even at 8 weeks along. I couldn't bear the pain even just walking a short distant, imagine back then my tummy had not really show and I was worried sick about the remaining 30+ weeks journey. In between 1st and 2nd trimester, I had numerous occasions of spotting and visited A&E very frequently. I spotted when I was slightly overworked, slightly over stressed, did a little bit more house chores than usual, baked a cake or two over the weekend...I was on bed rest many times so far. I felt so fragile and weak with this 2nd pregnancy, but I was all energetic and active during the 1st. No wonder the old wive tales called it unique pregnancy...but I call it "age does matter pregnancy"...

With Charlotte, I had a very clear sign of labor - my water bag burst at 40 weeks, at 4+am. I knew for sure I had to check myself in to hospital by then. I am now 38+ weeks and for the last one whole week I kept having false signs of labor. I felt the contraction last Thursday late afternoon, Pat was away from home and so I drove to the hospital myself and had a CTG check. The nurse asked me to pack my bag and check-in that night because the contraction was strong and consistent. On my way back, I called Pat and asked him to come home immediately. Pat came back late night, but we didn't check ourselves in because the contraction had went away, and it was nothing for the next few days. I woke up on Saturday morning and found out that I had "show" and this time we packed and put all the necessary things into the car and went straight to the hospital. Strangely, the contraction that morning was very mild than usual and my Gynae said there was no dilation yet. He sent me to CTG monitoring again and when the result also showed mild and inconsistent contraction I was sent home. I had my follow up today and my Gynae said my baby likes it in my womb and decided to stay a little longer...(sigh!). I'm home once again.

Will the bell rings next week?

Double Reunion & Happy New Year!

I am very lucky that I still get to have reunion dinner with my parents every year, and still make it with my in-laws. My parents usually start early whereas my in-law has a big clan and it usually takes awhile to start and to finish. So, each year I will steal the opportunity to have double reunion, start with an early dinner with my parents and then adjourn to my in-laws.

As usual, lots of food, lots of chit chatting, and the kids had fun time of their own. My father bought them a whole big box of "pop pop", I think there was 50boxes inside and 4 kids finished it all in 1 night. They were also very creative in playing it, not just throw and popped it but they had a strategy. The boys built a "castle" with the empty boxes and they fight to hit the castle to blow it down. My girl, at 5+ years old was not very far behind the game. She was quite a "samseng" as well, catch her in action here...

My mother is usually nowhere to be seen. It is rather difficult to have her to sit down, she is always too busy with the cooking and serving. My dad will be joining the kids, monitoring them as they play. In the end it was the 3 of us and our spouse sitting by the dinning table and making noises as we chit chat, joke and sharing funny moments (hehe).

I had no picture taken at the in-law house (oops), usually there were too many "photographers" and too many cameras...so I just keep my and concentrate eating (haha).

After the 2nd round of reunion dinner, the adults at my in-laws usually gathered and play card games while the kids were warming up and waiting for the fireworks moment. We stayed there until almost midnight and get back to my house and get ready for this...

We moved Simba to the next junction before the clock hits 12.



and then it was action! Sorry, bad angle picture because I was scared myself (haha)

So that was it! Officially welcomed the year of Rabbit!

Eve of The Eve

The Lee clan actually celebrated the eve of the eve this year and we headed for a festival feast at the Spice Market Cafe Rasa Sayang, catching the buy 1 get 1 free deal.

As usual Charlotte had lots and lots of fun with her cousin brothers around, especially Abraham...or should I say she is close to anyone who has iPhone, iPad, Wii, PS and etc. See how she monopolized the iPad from her cousin brother...

Meal time was long, or intentionally long. We spent a lot of time chit chatting and enjoying the reunion. My brothers, Pat and myself have a lot in common to talk about, like career, family, investment, hobby and my parents are usually listening, observing and laughing at some of our crazy moments. 

Overall, we had a great time at the early reunion and it is always a must to capture a family photo...I was at 32 weeks!



年年有鱼(余)!

It's the year of Rabbit and Gong Xi Fa Chai everyone!! This year I didn't bake any of the Chinese New Year cookies because physically I just couldn't cope with the chores. However, I still did something, something easy but interesting --- Jelly. I bought several fish molds and with simple coloring I made Japenese Koi Fish Jelly, symbolizing 年年有余. My initial attempt only yielded half of the portion. The control of the coloring wasn't good, and the mold was a little too difficult to handle. But the result was very nice. So I decided to do it again, and I had 100% yield the 3rd time, at last. I gave this auspicious symbolic jelly away to my parents, brothers and in-laws. They all loved it!

I also had several demand of cakes that I used to bake, like the Orange Cranberry Buttercake and Cheesecake. I had my brother to buy back a big pack of dried Cranberries from the States and it was just in time for CNY baking. The biggest hit this year was a new Cheesecake recipe that I found. I tried it a couple of weeks before CNY, and I baked it for my parents on new year's eve and then I baked it again for another gathering with my in-law. It has great smooth and silky texture, not too sweet, not too heavy. I am definitely adding this to my recipe collection!

Wrapping Up 2010!

I was partly very busy with work, plus the pregnancy progressing into the third trimester and having to have a frequently traveled husband I missed updating my favourite celebration of the year, Christmas!!! I looked back my SD card for photos took, unfortunately I didn't have many as well *sob*. I guess I will just do a brief wrap up for 2010...

A week after my babymoon to KL, we actually had another trip to Melaka. It was a planned to trip with the Chan clan. There was a lot of walking, eating, talking and driving. A short trip, but I think everyone had fun, especially Charlotte.

Then it was Christmas celebration. I can't believe it that I didn't take any picture of Charlotte in her beautiful dress that Pat bought her for Christmas eve! I have no picture to show what so ever took place during Christmas, not even a family photo under the Christmas tree. How lazy was I? Or I should blame it to the pregnancy *hehe*?

Anyway, we attended Christmas eve service at the church with my family and spent the entire Christmas day with in-laws. We had Christmas dinner at one of Pat's sister's house and Pat assigned me a real good challenge - roast turkey! I made it, with Pat's help of course. The bird that we bought was about 5kg in size and I couldn't manage that weight myself. It turned out to be quite a success. But just when I thought it was over, Pat threw another idea after the Christmas dinner with the turkey left over. He suggested to have another lunch the next day and asked for "kiam chai boey" with the turkey left over. So I woke up early the next day, rushed to the market and get the ingredient and rushed back to cook for lunch. I have to tell you that the "kiam chai boey" was the best I did so far (thanks to the turkey) and it was probably the most expensive chai boey ever *ha*. Unfortunately, no picture on the turkey and also the "kiam chai boey"...

Some random pictures in Dec 2010...

loved the grand piano that cousin Rachel has! 

picture with cousin Christopher at Melaka

The war ship at Melaka

Playing PS III - cousin Samantha helping her

Pressies under the tree - the new scooter from daddy is Charlotte's favorite!

 

The lady bug backpack from KimKim

I think my next post will be CNY. Hopefully I will have a better story to tell and more pictures to share.

My Babymoon

It was recommended that it is now time to do a little getaway before the baby comes - people call it "babymoon". So we did, but it was not just Pat and I. For those who knows me, I never left Charlotte behind. We spent the last weekend and the public holiday this week at KL and Cameron Highlands, again.

It is a very nice timing to visit most of the malls this time around, with all the fancy and beautiful Christmas decorations. In fact, we went to KL almost every year around the same time. I didn't take any pictures at KL as I was too tired and too lazy to carry around a huge camera bag. Kinda regretted now :(

We did most of the Christmas shopping and food exploring in KL, on top of that we also took Charlotte to watch the Rapunzel at Cathay Cineplex at e@Curve! It was the first time I bought a 3D movie for Charlotte. She was terrified when we went to the 4D theater at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2008. I was hesitated when deciding 3D or 2D ticket but Pat assured me that Charlotte is ready now, plus it is not 4D like the one we experienced in Disneyland. It turned out to be quite alright, Charlotte enjoyed the movie and the 3D experience. In fact, we were the one feeling uncomfortable wearing the 3D glasses for so long.

On the 3rd day, we left KL and headed to Cameron Highlands. We made plan and met my parents at the foothill. I enjoyed going to Cameron, I like the cooling weather, the greens and the slow and relaxing pace up there. Our last trip to Cameron was in Feb/Mar this year, together with Charlotte's friend, Chloe. The only thing Charlotte remembered was she went with Chloe, and they went strawberry picking. The weather was very nice and cooling, and we were lucky that it wasn't raining! Spent a very nice cool evening having a traditional charcoal steamboat dinner. My grandfather used to use this type of steamboat every Chinese New Year when he was around. It reminded me so much of him and also the reunion dinner when I was a young kid.

Of course the strawberry picking...

and the vegetable farm...

and the tea plantation...

It was a short trip, in fact too short for Cameron Highlands. Will probably plan another trip before the little trouble maker arrives...

In My Head

I have been much of a couch potato at home lately as my belly gets bigger. I rest on my recliner while teaching Charlotte homework, watching movie, reading newspaper, reading emails...not very good pregnancy exercise, I know.

One evening, I was watching TV on my recliner, Charlotte started to sing "mi mi mi, mi mi mi, mi so do re mi..." (Jingle Bells) and I was surprised how did she come out with that. She actually sang it correctly, the whole song. So I told her to go to the piano and play it out. I told her to go ahead as I can hear if she plays wrongly and I continued to glue myself on the recliner. I was expecting a boring right hand play, but she showed me this...

It was still boring, but I was very pleased! She is just starting JMC book 2 and she could improvise this!

Pat had told me to teach her "jingle bells" once after the Saturday lesson but I have been procastnating it. I was surprise to hear it came from Charlotte that night. Further more she was playing with her left hand too. So went next to her when she played it again. I asked her if her teacher had taught her this but she said no, she said "I had it in my head!" 

What's In The Mail?

I came home from work last Monday and saw a sweet pink color envolope, with very nice handwritting addressing to Charlotte Chan. I flipped to the back of the envolope trying to find who that was but it wasn't written. So I guess it must be a nice surprise to Charlotte. 

I went to pick her up from school and showed her her first (real) letter that came in the mailbox today. She eagerly tearing the envolope apart (first timer, don't know how to open an envolope) and it side it was a beautiful birthday card!   

It was a birthday card from Auntie Cheah Wei and her daughter Yan. I had invited them for the party but unfortunately Auntie Cheah Wei was travelling that time.

The card was a very authentic idea, every single words was hand written by Yan and that includes the address on the envelope (very nice job) and there is also a McD voucher. What a wonderful idea, thanks CW and Yan!!!

Charlotte's 5th Birthday Party

We celebrated all Charlotte's previous birthdays with just close family members. This year Charlotte started to request to invite her friends and she started counting down many months back. Pat and I agreed that we will organize a birthday party for her since she has established her own circle of friends now.

We made this party all by ourselves, invitation, decorations, cooking, kids activity and etc. Both Pat and I took a day off and started the preparation since 8.30am. We first went to the market and get all the fresh ingredient and my busy kitchen only got settled down shortly before 6.00pm, just right before the guests arrival.

Charlotte came back from school and her first reaction was "wah!!" and she exclaimed "Thank you mommy and daddy!" as she noticed all the decoration we had put up.

She especially excited with the children's table setting, she chose the party hat herself and I think it was a perfect choice!

In my kitchen, I have:
1. Hokkien mee (typical Penang prawn noodle)
2. Seafood Marinara
3. Roast quarter chicken
4. Mash potatos
5. Tang yuen (glutinous rice ball in pandan and ginger soup)
6. Cranberries orange cupcakes
7. Horlicks doggie cookies
8. Ice cream
9. Party give aways

From other kitchen supply:
1. Birthday cake
2. Mini fruit tarts
3. Sweet tapioca kuih

Too bad I didn't manage to take the pictrures of those food that I prepared, but that's not the highlight of the party. I think the highlight of the party was the cupcake decoration activity.

I baked the cranberries cupcakes, and prepared some colorful butter cream, fondant cutouts and sprinklers for the kids to experience cake decoration, and they can bring back their own creation :) I had a lot of help from all the mommies to make that session successful...

And the results...

I prepared boxes for the kids to bring home to share with their love ones. I think that was a lot of fun!

This year, the birthday song was sang very loudly and very warmly, and there was a lot of happy smiles we noticed. The birthday girl was definitely thrilled to have her friends around her.

The one thing she kept pestering was to present tea to us. I had wanted her to do that after the party but I think she wanted to show to everyone this special practise that her school had taught her. So we gave in and this was how she did it, in front of every guest...that was priceless!

Another priceless showoff - All these happy faces!

At night Pat asked Charlotte if she was happy and enjoyed the party, her response?

"Yes, and when is the next party?"  *mommy fainted*

A Big thank you to all for attending the party, and all the best wishes from friends and relatives!

A Letter To Baby

Charlotte wrote a letter to baby last week, I can't believe that baby's 1st letter was from her sister...

I love mommy because I like mommy. I oso love you baby so I like you baby. I love baby when baby come out. I will take care, I will not fight with baby. Baby is my friend, I love you baby. This is for you baby.
I am Charlotte. I oso your friend.

She's Such An Angel

I am very blessed to have Charlotte, she's such a sweet, understanding and sensitive girl even at this age. As I am marching in further at 2nd trimester, many of the early stage pregnancy sicknesses are gone but some new symptoms have surface too. When I was suffering from morning sickness, I tried to avoid letting Charlotte see or knows about it. I remembered once it hit me really badly and when I came out from the bathroom, Charlotte was crying and said "I don't want mommy to sick, I love you mommy!". It must be hard for her because I always seem strong to her and she probably felt insecure when I fall sick. It took her awhile to overcome and understand that I was ok after all.

Lately, I have been suffering from backache and I woke up with severe but sudden muscle ache on my left arm the night before. The pain was unbearable, but there was nothing I could do as Pat was not around and it was already midnight and I couldn't get help anywhere. I waited until morning came, get Charlotte ready, dropped her off to school, went to office for an important meeting and by the time I get myself out to hospital was almost 10.30am. I put on the cream subscribed by my Gyne all day when I was in office but it did not relief me much. I couldn't bother much at work because of my workload but when I got home, I felt like my arm was falling off my body. It was almost 9.30pm when I finally decided to visit to a nearby pharmacy and ask for help. I knew this pharmacist and he was very helpful for my last few visits to the store. He recommended my a patch and also a hot water bag. I immediately the patch on when I got home and Charlotte was watching me. She was again breaking down in tears "I don't want you to sick mommy!" while lightly pat on my arm. No matter how I assured her that I will be fine and the pain will all go away soon I couldn't stop her from crying so sadly. She was still sobbing when we went to bed. She did her bedtime prayer and this was what she said:

Jesus, I love my mommy and daddy, so please ask my baby to be good and don't make my mommy sick. Because she is so pain and I don't want my mommy to (feel) pain because I love her. Please ask my daddy to come home tomorrow so (that) he can help my mommy and my mommy not pain anymore. Jesus hear my prayer, Amen.

I was so touched hearing this. This is how sincere a kid can be, and I am glad that she knows to turn to God and ask for help. That night I hugged her to sleep and deep down I also pray to God to relieve my pain and let me have a good night sleep as I have a heavy responsibility at work and at home. I had a hot water bag on and I slept like baby in no time.

I am all recovered in the morning! Hallelujah!!