My soft cuddly hugging baby

Gonna do some gushing here by dedicating the upcoming entries on the things I love about the girls at present. You see, i am hoping that it will ease off my guilt in the lack of entries in this cyber warehouse of parenting memories. I shall start off with the baby of the family.

I love that Arielle always hugs her plush rabbits to sleep. And it amazes me that she always gets them correctly upright with the rabbits' heads facing her rather than rabbity butts sticking into her face.

Lately, her sleeping pattern seems to stabilized. It occur to me that the rabbits might have some credit to take in helping her to sleep better. I suppose all that cuddling helps her to be more relaxed and comforts her whenever she rouses from her sleep in the middle of the night.


Other than plush rabbits, this little girl has also been doling out free hugs to her mommy here by the truckload. Well, more like she asks for cuddles and hugs rather than giving to me, but hey, I'm not complaining! Especially when she is so soft and chubby at this moment. Oh so huggable.

Yep, am loving every moment of those long cuddles where her fat little arms wind themselves tightly around my neck while she rests her head contentedly on my shoulder.

Greetings! (Finally)

Hello! First of all, happy Lunar New Year!

Us at our new humble abode on the first morning of CNY

Sorry I took a longer break from this space for longer than expected.I needed the rest. The whole house-moving-before-lunar-new-year project took a lot out of me. Post-CNY (okay, technically it's still CNY), I'm now doing a major reshuffling of the girls' routine while taking the rest of the stuff easy.

Other than that, I'm itching to use my new kitchen. The first new recipe that I have tried out is a marinade for baked chicken wings. I short listed a few recipes from the Web and finally zero in on a particular one that has more Asian taste (think light soy sauce & five spice powder) and yet not spicy which is great for the girls. Served it up yesterday and the Husband gave them thumbs up. I shall share my modified version at the end of this post (sorry, i forgot to take pictures of them though). :)

Thought I will do a short update about the two girls' progress in the last couple of months here too.

Arielle has started walking at exactly 12 months old. These days, she zips around the house and gave us a couple of scares by attempting to climb up the stairs on her own. In addition, she has also started to talk a bit. I cannot remember exactly when she started. In the recent two months, I believe. Here's a list of her current vocabulary (I'm sure I will have left out some) and its mighty cute, hearing her talk.

Daddy (da-di)
Mommy (mama or ma-meh)
Jiejie - meaning big sister (teh-teh)
Bubbles (bubba)
Ball (bah)
Amen (a-meh)
Dog
Cat (tat)
抱抱 - meaning to carry (baobao)
Pompom - meaning to take a bath
Ah gong - meaning her paternal grandfather
Ah ma - meaning her paternal grandmother
大伯 - meaning oldest uncle (da per)
婆婆 - meaning maternal grandmother (Porpor)
Gorgor - meaning elder brother
壳壳 Kéké - meaning the name of a stuffed turtle we have (ke-ke)
Bus (bah)
Motorcycle (vroom-vroom)
Chicken (ti-kern)
Egg
Potato (ta-poh-toe)
Pororo

And more...

And for Anya. She is pretty much a child now. She has started pre-nursery since the beginning of this year. She talks (on and on), she reasons (too much at times), and screams. She walks, she runs and jumps around a lot. She dances, and sings a lot these days we have lost count of the number of songs she knows how to sing. She is finally open to eating meat though still very selective and she has grew 5-8 cm in the last couple of months (I swear it happened overnight). Very soon, she will have to pay a fare for taking public transport.

Last but not least, she has become much more independent. Just earlier on, she was taking her nap when I heard her room door opened. That usually meant she is done with her nap. She announced that she needed to pee as I sprinted upstairs. And so I quickly ushered her into the bathroom.

While helping her get undressed, I remarked, "Wow, Anya is done with your nap. You slept a good one & a half hours!". To which she cried, "I don't want..! I still want to sleep..!".

I did not quite believe as I know my little girl to take little naps typically but in order not for her whining escalate into a major boohoohoo, I quickly agreed. "Okay, you want to sleep some more? Sure."

After she was done using the bathroom, I waited to see what she would do next.

"I'm going to lie down," she said and walked back into her room. She lay down on the king-size mattress on the floor (her current bed co-shared with Arielle), turned towards the entrance where I'm standing, slightly stunned and said, "close the door." With that, she reached for her favourite hankie and rolled to her side with her back facing me. "Okay, byebye." I croaked and gingerly closed the door.

Wow.

Anyways, here's the recipe of the chicken marinade. It originated here and I have tweaked here and there to my own liking.

Ingredients:
9 fresh chicken wings
3 tablespoons light soy sauce (I actually used 1/4 cup in accordance to the original recipe but I found it to be too salty and hence will reduce it to 3 tbsp hereon)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
3 tablespoons honey (I increased the honey because the marinade was less sticky than I was hoping for)
2 tablespoons chilli sauce
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 tablespoon chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon white pepper powder
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder

Method:

Remove tips from chicken wings and discard. Cut wings in half at the joint. Place in a large zip-lock bag. Combine marinade in a bowl and stir to mix well. Pour into the ziplock bag, seal and shake to ensure all chickens are coated with marinade. Store for at least 2 hours or overnight, if time permits. For me, I prefer to make large quantity (in this case, 9 pieces of 3-joint wings) and freeze them up and a few ziplock bags. Then I will use two bags as a side dish for dinner/lunch, a small bag where I cut up the meat into bit-sizes to use in baked rice or wrap.

Preheat oven to 160°C. Place chicken and marinade in a greased roasting pan (i used a corning ware casserole pan which worked just as well, save the scrubbing after that). Set the oven to bake for 40 minutes. 20 minutes later, up the temperature to 180°C and turn the wings over. Another 10 minutes later, turn them back again and up the temperature further to 220°C. Serve.

Note: By upping the temperature gradually, it lowers the meat to be juicer on the inside while browned on the outside - that is my own personal take. Hope you will like it. :)

WIP: Celebrations & renovation

Hello, finally! I'm gonna cleared all my backlog of pictures. Today is Anya first day of school (will leave the details on another post) and she just went down for her nap. Arielle has gone to the In-laws' place for some grandparents loving so its all peace and quiet right now. Woots!

In the past one month, all my little pockets of times such as this were eaten up by doing planning / conceptualizing and whatnots related to renovations. While we have a ID helping us but I happen to be quite particular about how the layout of the place should be, how my cabinets should look like, right down to the nitty-gritties of exactly how many drawers, what sizes and where they should be. Actually, I even drew up 2-D pictures of our walk-in wardrobes, TV cabinets and shoe cabinets. Got our ID saying in jest that he ought to frame them up.

Anyways... it's more like MIP (month in pictures) than WIP so this is gonna be a long long post. And here goes:

First, we celebrated Arielle turning one. Its was a small and cosy affair involving our two families over dim sum. We got a client of the Husband to bake a pretty cake themed.. Rabbit. It's was all pink and pretty with a sugar version of rabbit sitting on top. We thought Joanne did a wonderful job replicating Arielle's favourite plush toy. What's a bonus is her prices are really reasonable as compared to a few of her competitors that we checked out.

Rabbit & Rabbit

First taste of cake.

And then, Anya had a date with her cousin, SK, at United Square to catch Barney & friends. Her first of such mascots show.

Transported into Barney's world.

Finally... ...

The keys for our new place came.

In between the last two months, we spent copious amount of time taking walks and going to playgrounds. These days, Little Miss. Mushroom gets to have some action of her own at playgrounds too.

Loves the slide; hates the swing.

Met up with the dear girlfriends. Had a wonderful relaxing two hours catching up with them.

Another nuptial celebration!

This time, its the best friend tying the knot with my JC mate. So so happy for you both!

Renovation has started immediately after we got the keys and is still ongoing...

Every week or other, we hold a meeting with the ID to discuss details on various areas that are going to be done. Occasionally, Anya comes along. Here's how we occupy her...

When the workers saw me taking out my iPad for Anya, they rustled up a little chair for her using cardboard and a toolbox.

Self- feeding has started for Arielle. Like Anya, she suddenly refused to eat at around the time she turned one - their way of demanding more independence at the dining table.

And so, once again, I am going through the phase where I try hard not to cringe as she makes a mess of her radius of one metre during mealtimes.

This night, Anya announced that she wanted to sleep with Arielle. She insisted her way, she got her way. And she has not slept in her own bed at night since.

A substantial amount of our couple / family outings `are spent trawling furniture malls, lighting and fixtures shops etc and lugging home cartons of stuff.

Thankfully, we still managed to squeeze out some time for strolls around our sunny island.

Other than the little strike she put up for a week or two, she really loves her food.

 

And ours.

Christmas came upon us in a jiffy this year. On Christmas eve, we went for a gathering with the Husband's colleagues in the afternoon. With no prior planning, we decided to drop by Epicurious @ Rail Mall near home for a simple quiet dinner.

By 11pm of Christmas eve, the entire household were already sound asleep. Except for me who spent the night reading my novel and doing a bit of QT.

Christmas morning was a joyous one with cheers and shrieks as little girls open up their presents.

There were a quite a bit of wearable gears among baby girl's Christmas presents this last year.

All in all, we had a busy but wonderful and memorable holiday season before wrapping up 2012. Hope you all had an enjoyable time too. Wishing y'all a blessed 2013!

Hello 2013!

Like a whirlwind, 2012 came and gone, leaving us with a couple of battle scars.

Yes. 2012 has not been an easy year for us. We faced new challenges of parenthood that set me back several times. We thought having a second child was simply reapplying what we did with the first child on the second one. Looking back, it seemed almost naive to think this way. Every child are indeed unique in their own ways, and in our case, our two kids are as different as chalk and cheese.

So, while our little feisty Arielle throw us a curveball every other week; big sister Anya become more and more of a person of her own which brings about a new set of challenges suddenly. On good days, she is that sweet, joyful girl who is eager to please us. On bad days, she can be whiny, uncooperative, and listens poorly. Just a week ago, I almost lost her in a mall (twice!) within a span of half an hour.

A little bit more than a year of mothering two small children has left me feeling burnt out more than a couple of times. I have felt, on many occasions, an acute need to get out of the house for a short holiday, a respite from all the madness. Yet, I can't bring myself to do so. And so, I trudge on, relying on the support of the Husband and the strength of God.

The lessons that I am taking with me into 2013 are to be less emotionally attached during meltdowns and face-offs, and to be patient, trust in The Lord, and.. Simply ride through it. I am ashamed to admit that I had, on more occasions that I can count, went on a shouting match with Anya. After the losing-Anya-in-the-mall incident, I have a revelation: Raising my voice is not working. In fact, it is counter-effective. It builds up all these negative energy and feelings that does me nor Anya more bad than good. Prayerfully, I can keep up with this cool act till its etched into a part if me.

The biggest lessons i have learned in 2012 about parenthood is that to put their needs before mine as well as to take joy in little things and find rest in little pockets of times. All these, seriously, will not be humanly possible for me if not for the grace and strength of God refreshing me, bringing me through every day. I believe I can say the same for the Husband.

With 2013 here.. well, actually I have not put in much thought as to what to expect or hope / set out for. Maybe it is because we have been taking in so many curveballs that I no longer dare to hope. Well, I just want to take a quiet moment to type this out and remind myself to simply commit all things onto The Lord and trust in Him that with Him, all things will come through. So... ...

Bring it on, 2013! Blessed 2013, everyone!

P.s. I realize I failed to mention the other aspects of my life other an parenthood. Well, I suppose I AM quite preoccupied with the kids presently. The other aspects are generally good, I'd say. May I just add on one biggie in 2012 is the purchase of our next matrimonial home. We are thankful for the finances to bring us through the transition smoothly, as well as for doing up the place which is ongoing currently.

P.p.s. I know I am really tardy in doing my Week in Pictures post. I have a big bunch of photographs that I have yet to up load and they are continuing to snowball at an alarming rate. Sorry folks (and my daughters who are my main targeted future audience), my life has taken on some serious reshuffling in their priorities right now - all many urgent tasks on hand. I have, however, been updating on Instagram on a more regular basis. You know, photo logging on the go which is easier for me right now. Do find me on Instagram if you are a user there too. It's Joyce_TS. :)

Leaving behind a place full of memories

We put up our current flat for sale a couple of weeks ago. Within a week, we loaded off our place.

In that course of three days, we had around ten different groups of people who came to view our flat. On the first day, we made a point to be out of the way during viewing time. Partially because we thought viewing will not be conducive with two noisy toddlers around. Another part was because we were afraid we might feel funny to have people scrutinizing and sizing up the place we call home in the last six years.

By the second day though, we decided we would stick around. Too much hassle disrupting the girls nap times. For them to miss naps two days in a row is likely to cause unthinkable detriments. And so, we hung around. It was not so bad. It did, however, enlighten us one thing - While the potential buyers move from one room to another sizing up our nest, unbeknownst to them, we find ourselves sort of sizing them up too.

You see, this place is filled with so much of our memories that we will fondly remember. On top of that, we have wonderful neighbors. Therefore, we (very much prefer) hope to find a buyer whom we will like, and we think will make good replacements for our neighbors too. Thankfully, of that handful of viewers that we got to meet; only a particular family left us feeling discomfited (let's call them "not-so-nice" family). The rest were either "okay" or "nice".

BUT. To our dismay, the "not-so-nice" family requested for second viewing, together with another two groups of "nice" families.

That very night, the Husband and I discussed at length if we should accept their offer in the event they made one that matches what we have in mind during their second viewing. Truth be told, after some contemplation, we decided that we were likely to reject the offer if that happens. We trusted that The Lord knows our hearts' desires, given all good intentions. So if we are not comfortable with them, we did not think it is right to go ahead. The only tough part is, how do we explain ourselves if they asked why? So imagine our relief when they told our agent that they decided not to proceed with the second viewing. Phew!

Eventually, both "nice" families turned up for second viewing and we closed with one of them. We like them, we think they will make nice neighbors and we feel peace leaving our very first matrimony home in their hands.

P.S. I haven't been doing my Week in Pictures post because my new laptop has been giving me problems. Right now, the kind IT whizz Brother-in-law is helping me to do whatever he does to make it right. Until then, there is not much I can do. Oh, I am on Instagram though. So if you are on it too, do drop me a message, and I will be glad to exchange our usernames. :) meanwhile, I am hoping the new laptop gets up and running quickly as I have loads of pics on Arielle's birthday celebrations in my Olympus that I'll love to share.

P.P.S. Renovation for our new place commences this week so it means I am likely to be mad busy. So this space might be a little neglected... ...