12345 Once I caught a fish alive

My current favorite song burned in my mind and whenever I wanna count something. Haha...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Once I caught a fish alive. 

6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Then I let it go again. 

Why did you let it go?

Because it bit my finger so. 

Which finger did it bite?

This little finger on my right.

Happy Lunar New Year

Today is already day 6 of the Lunar New Year. My bad. I'm late. I wish everyone a prosperous Lunar New Year. Huat ah~

This year's Lunar New Year is different from all the previous Chinese New Year. This year we have a LO with us. Man... I was worried about her sleep and feeding. End up, the feeds were ok. Just the sleep. She was too excited with all the crowd and chatterings.

Eve of CNY
Lunch's reunion was at home with the hubby's immediate family. There's braised duck, chicken, pork, soup, braised mushroom... Too much food. Some cooked, some bought. And most of the time, I was with LO, making her sleep. Ah..

Reunion dinner was at my parents'. We brought Latte over with us too. My parents cooked a very scrumptious meal. Desserts was icecream. Burps...

Haha.. LO wants to taste her angpow. 

Day 1
Happy lunar new year! New schedule this year. Instead of going to the hub's grandmother's place in the morning, we headed to the hub's uncle's place for lunch. Lots to eat. And they had this cute Angry Bird fishcake. Haha..

Next was to my grandmother's place. Alamak. Second round of lunch. Ate alot. Again. LO was kinda the centre of attention. So was her cousin, JY. She was running all around. I guess next year is LO's turn.

Wefie with my sister. Squish is sleeping in the carrier. 

Dinner at home with leftovers from Eve. A quiet, we-time. I'm grateful for it. There's just too much excitement for LO.

Day 2
We went to hub's grandmother's place for visiting. Yup, eat again. My nephews were busy running around and making everyone busy. Haha.. Kids..

Then we went home to have dinner with my family. They lugged the heavy wonder pot from home, with very 入味 food. While they rested and played with LO, Hub and I took Latte to the park. He's a happy boy. Tired (from running) and happy.

Day 3
It was a slower paced day compared to the previous days as we have the entire afternoon to ourselves. Tried to make LO sleep more and the hubs was busy doing his assignment. 

We then headed to friend R's place for steamboat. Left pretty early as we have a second round of dinner at my Uncle's place. 

Ahh ended quite late and missed LO's bedtime. We had a hard time making her sleep. Sigh... My poor girl. 

Day 4
Visiting at Hub's godpapa's place. Simple yet yummy lunch. 

Then we brought Latte for his annual vaccination. He was terrified. And he's the most jittery one among the other pets when waiting for his turn. 

On the whole, Latte is good and the vet praised Latte on his clean teeth. 

Day 5
I spent the entire day at home. Gf Ying asked me out for lunch as she's on leave, but I declined. This whole week's weekdays will be spent at home. LO has already has her fill of fun and (over)excitement on the eve and first 4 days of the lunar new year. She needs her sleep and her routine.

Day 6
Stay home day 2. Daddy came over to play with LO with my lunch. Haha.. I'm a slacker with my own lunch as time away from LO is very very little. Fire over the stove is too dangerous with such short amount of time. 

Reach for your toes

LO's new milestone today. Playing with her feet. Flexibility is very important. Remember sit and reach in school's Napfa test? Hahaha

Milk bath

I have lots of expiring frozen breast milk as I direct latch most of the time. And LO kinda rejects bottle too (oops).

So today is Milk Bath day! First time bathing her in her food. To be honest... Frozen breast milk kinda stinks. It has this metallic smell. No wonder she doesn't like. 

Although it's not necessary to rinse her, I did rinse her in water with her shower gel. But the fbm smell is still around. Haha.. Oops. 

Will try this again in another few days. 

And now... "Pa"

In the midst of all the "mom" and "ma", "pa" appeared.

Happy!

She's 4 months 10days~

"Mom" and "Ma"

Today, when she got hungry or wants attention, she started to call "mom" and "ma" in between her crying. I wonder if she's calling out to me, to milk, or just someone to help her. Haha

She sounds so sweet and gentle when she "ma" and "mom". My heart melts whenever she calls out. 

Mummy loves you. My darling.

Happy Lunar New Year

The baby and family wishes everyone a prosperous new year. May the year for you and your family be filled with love, health and wealth.

Gong xi gong xi

CNY eve eve

It's Chinese New Year eve today. Starting of a stress period. Worried about how LO feeds and sleeps. Praying hard for a smooth period. First day of CNY will be the most tiring and stressful as we had to go quite a fair bit of places. Just hope LO will not be too overstimulated to sleep, especially at night. Stress. 

Yesterday spent the whole day cleaning up the house. Yep. A last minute job and hugged buddha's leg. Very tired after that. Cleaning and clearing the whole house in a day is not easy. My fingers were dry and yucky. And I am glad LO helped by napping more for me do get to work. 

Flip: Back to tummy to back

Baby now can roll from back to tummy to back. In one line. Hmm. Will be rolling out of the mattress on the long side soon. Haha.

Gave her the teething beads from gf TS. She was busy licking it. Haha. I love the colours. Very bright and colorful. It's from First Years. If you are interested, she's selling on Carousell (http://carousell.com/p/12493436/). 

Happy Valentine's Day

This year's Valentine's Day is a 3 human and 1 dog affair. Haha. 

Hubby gave me a Hoodie Pooh at midnight as this year's v day gift. Cute! LO likes it too. Lol. I did not get anything for him but made him mini cheesecake (cupcake size). 

After LO's nap and milk, we headed out for lunch. It was 2 plus when we reached. It became a pretty late lunch. I was craving for Taiwanese food, so we settled at Lee's Taiwanese. Not sure why, but LO fussed alot to sleep while we waited for our food. I am guessing the loud music (though usually she will just sleep through when in her carrier) and the talking from nearby tables. 

Desserts was llao llao softserve. Yummy. I can eat more. Let's have more soon!! Yummy~ This big cup cost $6.90 (If I didn't remember wrongly). With chocolate, almond nuts and fruits. I like the softserve and almond nuts. Fruit I can do without in this case. Chocolate is nice, but the person drizzled lots on the spoon and stuck there after hardening. Duh. Wasted!

We window shopped a little in the 3 connecting malls and grocery shopped for dinner. The hubby is cooking. Yay. Seafood pasta with scallops and mussels. The seafood were from Big Box and not very expensive. We intended to get the alaska king crab legs. But... It's huge. I doubt any of our pots is able to fit it in. Haha...

The day was ended with homemade mini cheesecake (in a cup) that I made the day before. Hmm I'll try the nobake version next time. LO always wanted attention at the time when I have to look after the oven for any sign of overcooking. Haha.. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Flip: Back to Tummy

Today, just a while ago, darling flipped. At four months old. From back to tummy while mummy is busy pumping. She did that for a few times. But asked for help when she's stuck at her tummy.

I wonder why now she just refuses to flip from tummy to back. It's not like she doesn't know. She just lie there, head resting, drooling and asked for help. 

I'm a happy mummy. 

Latte's jogging trip

Little sister requested to take Latte out for a jog with her. And she did. 

But I went along as I know Latte's pattern and his stamina level. 

True enough, he's all tired after a while, panting hard. I do worry about him being too exhausted. 

While he rest and she jogs her usual, I spent some time taking photos of/with him. Gotten some nice photos of him. 

My wefies with him look horrible. I look horrible. Very tired looking and in a mess. Oops. 

And he's too camera shy. Mostly he either look away or just turned his head away. Like this. He's facing the back. If you can spot his tongue. Haha. 

Little sister back from her jog. 

Instagram - Arranging filters

I did not know that we can press, hold and drag filters to rearrange or hide on Instagram. Well. Now I know... Accidentally. Hahaha.. Good feature. I have already repositioned my frequently used filters to the front.

Bah Kwa

Decided to try out making my own bah kwa after seeing Baking Taitai's recipe, especially since I have most of the ingredients. That's one criteria when cooking or baking from a recipe. I hate to buy stuff that we would only use that one, two occasions.

Here's my successful batch:

First attempt. TOO thick. Omg. It's like meat patty.

Second attempt still too thick (but not as crazy as the first) and maybe of the uneven thickness, some parts got burnt.

Third attempt, success. Looks good. Taste is there but of course not as good as the pros.
All three attempts were done in one batch of ingredients as per the recipe. My oven is pretty small. So I divided them and it's good since I can trial and error. But of course, it's very electricity consuming (oopsss).

The only ingredient that I did not use was the cognac/alcohol. None at home. Or rather. The cognac is not opened. Haha. Maybe that's the taste that is missing.

A few days after I attempted this, Baking Taitai came up with another recipe using pineapples (Baking Taitai's Pineapple Bah Kwa). Maybe I will try that... Maybe. But I will need my little boss's approval. Haha... Tight and busy schedule from her.


From Baking Taitai
http://bakingtaitai.blogspot.sg/2014/01/homemade-cognac-bak-kwa-chinese-pork.html

Ingredients:

• 100g brown sugar 
• 1 tbsp premium light soy sauce 
• ½ tbsp fish sauce 
• 1 tbsp premium oyster sauce 
• 1 tsp premium dark soy sauce 
• ¼ tsp Chinese five spices powder 
• ½ tsp salt 
• 500g minced pork (with some fat for greater taste)
• Honey Glaze (for brushing on the cooked slice pork)
  1 tbsp honey dilute with 1 tsp water 

Method

• Put the first 7 ingredients in a bowl and mixed well into a sauce. 
• Place the minced meat in a big mixing bowl and pour the mixed sauce into it and start mixing together with a pair of chopsticks. 
• Blend and stir the mixture in one direction until the meat becomes gluey. (this is important, otherwise the meat will break up) 
• Store in the fridge for several hours or overnight.  
• Spread the marinated minced pork thinly onto the baking tray lay with parchment or non stick baking paper. 
• Bake at pre-heated oven at 130C for 12 mins. After the meat is cooked at this stage, remove from oven. Increase the oven temperature to 200C.
• Cut the cooked meat into 9 pieces or any desired size. Flip to the opposite side and brush the meat with the honey glaze.  
• Put the tray back into the oven. Grill one side for 8~10mins, remove from oven, flip over to the other side, brush with honey glaze before putting it back to the oven to grill for another 6~8mins or until golden brown with slight burnt. 
• Once done, let it cool and enjoy!

Nemesis: The Bottle

Today is another heart breaking day. She was crying real hard just now. Yep. We bullied her. Bottle is really her nemesis.

Last month we managed to coax her to drinking from the bottle. Of course it was heartbreaking to see and hear her cry so badly. But we managed it after a while of changing the bottle from avent to nuk latex teat. 

Then I had to come down with matitis. My supply dropped to the pits. And to increase my supply, direct latching is a must. 

And hence... Today's heartbreaking episode. Sobs. 

Sorry darling. It's mummy's fault. Sorry that you had to cry so hard and long, till your eyes and eyebrows were so red. Mummy feels so heartbroken to see you in that state. But we have no choice. You have to get used to bottle feeding for emergencies. It's just once a day. Jiayou darling. Mummy loves you lots.