Our Father's Day

Yesterday morning, Sharlene wished daddy Happy Father’s Day and handed to him a card which both of us did for him on Saturday evening. Instead of buying a cake, I just baked a batch of chocolate marble cupcakes for that occasion. Shall post pix of the card and cupcakes another time.

We made a trip to our paed office yesterday morning. My 8-year old niece has been complaining of soreness in one of her breasts. Upon checking, my sil discovered a lump in her nipple area. When the paed examined her yesterday, she said it’s only a ‘breast bud’, usually occurring at the beginning of puberty in girls and it’s perfectly normal. Since Sharlene was there too, she’d her Hepatitis A jab. The jab was administered by the paed in a second… and she didn’t even know what’s happening…haha. Another dose will be in 6 months’ time.

I’d earlier on promised Sharlene that I will bring her to McDonald’s. Her special treat from me for being good…hehe. So after the paed visit, we brought along the 2 fathers (hubby and brother-in-law) to McD for lunch :D We spent almost 2 hours there and both Sharlene and her piao cheh had an enjoyable time playing at the play land. Yesterday was the first time Sharlene had a fillet-o-fish burger and she finished the whole burger by herself. Normally she only fancies french fries and sundaes.

For dinner, we had fast food again. My sil ordered KFC! I’m feeling really guilty after consuming all these high in calories food. But I tell you, the kids enjoyed them tremendously. There shall be no fast food for the next few months, I hope!

1st & 2nd Day Of CNY

The way we spent our first 2 days of CNY was very much the same as previous years. It has been a tradition of hubby's family to observe a ‘vegetarian’ diet on the 1st day of CNY. All of us have no problem at all in following this healthful diet especially after a heavy dinner loaded with meat and seafood on the night before. Moreover, it's only for 1 day.

Well, before I went to sleep on the eve I’ve thrown in some dessert ingredients into the crock-pot. The next morning everyone had a bowl of sweet ‘tong sui’ before leaving the house. We headed to hubby’s aunty’s house in Ampang to ‘pai nin’. It was so nice of them to prepare some vegetarian dishes for us. So we took our lunch and continued to hang around there, doing nothing but eat, eat, and eat….and of course, yak a lot too....hahah! I just love to binge on cookies and other CNY stuff there. Hmm, we didn’t take any pix there as both hubby and I were too busy eating and chit chatting away with our cousins. It was fun for Sharlene too as she got all the freedom to munch on the goodies placed on the table. Back home my sil cooked a few simple vegetarian dishes for dinner. We had our dinner and the rest of the time just went by so quickly. But overall, it was an enjoyable 1st day.

I woke up very early on the 2nd day of CNY. I was really worn out due to lack of sleep, but what to do...i need to get ready for prayers and then cook again for lunch before we travel down to JB. Both hubby and Sharlene slept so soundly when I left the bedroom. I had already started the prayers by the time hubby came downstairs at around 8.30 am. He took over the praying task from me whilst I hurriedly went to the kitchen to cook again. After an early lunch we left for JB (my parents’ house) and we stayed there for 5 days.

I shall tell more about our stay in JB next. In the meantime, let me just show you some pix of the 2 kiddos....

Sharlene enjoying her ‘pak cham kei peh’ (chicken drumstick). She’s removing the chicken skin and shoving it into her mouth! Gosh! She must have learnt this from Jasmine (her cousin sister) who loves chicken skin to bits. For me, I wouldn’t dare to eat it at all. Darn fattening!!

The 2 sweeties having their own dining area here. Due to lack of space, we have to separate them from the adult dining table. They were more than happy to have their own territory...haha. Btw, look how pretty Jasmine looks with her flowery cheongsam. I should have gotten Sharlene a cheongsam as well. Perhaps, next year :)

Last but not least, allow me to parade the CNY dishes we had on the 2nd day....

'Hoe Si Fatt Choy' which consists of dried mushrooms, dried oysters, dried black sea moss (fatt choy) and boiled broccoli. Hah, you can’t see the broccoli, right? Cos it was buried under the mushrooms.

Five-spice pork rolls ('bak kien') made by bil's sister served with chilli sauce and mayonnaise.

Buttered prawns with oats.

Steamed chicken

and Hong Kong Kai Lan with mushroom sauce.

Well, that’s about all. Have a nice weekend everyone!

CNY - Reunion Dinner

We had a simple reunion dinner at home on the eve of CNY. The menu for that day was planned a few weeks before CNY which consists of ‘yee sang’ (Chinese style raw fish salad), 2-variety of chicken, steamed fish, prawns with XO sauce, stir fried sugar snap peas and baby corns with prawns and lotus root soup. This year I started preparing and cooking the above dishes very early and hence, we finished our reunion dinner as early as 6 pm.

We started tossing the ‘yee sang’ before we went on with other food on the table. The whole idea of having this dish during CNY is for everyone to get together and toss the ingredients (as high as possible) while saying auspicious phrases. Let’s hope everyone in the family will have better luck this year after tossing the 'yee sang' :)


Here’s the plate of colorful ‘yee sang’ that we bought from Tesco. The only stuff we added in was shredded carrot and radish. We even sprinkled some of our own ground peanuts and sesame seeds as the one provided in the package weren't fresh anymore.


Sharlene in her new moo moo T-shirt didn’t want to miss out the fun too. She stood up on the chair with a pair of chopsticks and started to toss and mix the ‘yee sang’ together with all of us. While tossing, all of us said out loud ‘lou hei lou hei’, which means prosperity and longevity followed by an auspicious phrase by each one of us.


If you take a closer look at this pix you will notice that someone is trying to pick up the cracker bits on the ‘yee sang’. Guess who?? ............... ??



Of course, it was my little girl, the most mischievous one at home lor…hahah :D Sharlene didn’t fancy the ‘yee sang’...she only likes to nibble on the cracker bits.


Well, here are the rest of the dishes we had on that day which I mentioned above. No pix of the steamed fish as it was still in the process of steaming when hubby took this pix.

Stay tuned for more CNY pix in my next post!

Happy New Year 2009!

Time really flies. Today is already the last day of 2008 and very soon we will be welcoming the New Year at the stroke of midnight. Well, the meeting that started off this morning is still ongoing, so looks like my wish of getting 1/2 a day off today will not materialize. :( So sad but it’s okay la. Anyway, we have no plans for tonight so basically we will just stay at home and glue ourselves in front of the TV with lots of snacks...haha. I’m sure the kids will have some fun and enjoy themselves tonight.

What about you? Any plans for tonight?

Before I finish with my final post for this year, I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009! Let’s hope 2009 will be a better year for everyone. :D