LUNAR NEW YEAR 2013

I have recently become a fan of DIY (do-it-yourself) thingies. As a result, after Tommy's birthday cake, I decided to make a homemade Lunar New Year celebration. Daddy was in a business trip until the New Year Eve, so I was in a rush to do everything myself, but the final results seemed to be good. The blossom flowers were made from paper and glued to a tree branch found in the park. The lily flowers were Origami products learnt from the Internet. The vase was made from recycled milk cartons (two 1-litre cartons woven together).
Enjoy the party and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2013!

TOMMY IS 2 YEARS OLD! HOW TIME FLIES!

Tommy is no longer a baby: he has become a little man already! He is so sweet, adorable and of course, the most handsome guy in our home. Imagine in the early morning when you are still sleeping soundly, a little hand touches your face gently and a kiss is put on your lips, How could you blame the little person who has just waken you up for breaking your sweet dream? because he IS your sweetest dream coming true!

Tommy's most favourite toy is undoubtedly CARS, all kinds of cars. His favourite activities including taking apart all breakable parts of any car such as wheels, steering wheels, windshield, etc. and inserting tiny items into the car's body. He could pretend play with any car comfortably on the laps of his parents. Tommy also loves playing Wii (specifically Super Mario Bros) with his Daddy and Mew, although most of the time he hides in a bubble. He loves Mew's room very much and enjoys spending time on the bed with his sister. If Mew closes her room's door, he will run to Mummy or Daddy and cry out terribly.

Tommy is a little slow in learning to talk at his age but it is not a big concern for us though. He is trying to imitate words from video clips and could even count by himself without any help from us from 1 to 10 in both our language and in English. He also can point to different shapes and speaks their names in English (but his pronunciation is not yet accurate). He could also recognize alphabets and their names in English. He can arrange number puzzles correctly from 0 to 9 too.

Tommy's favourite food is noodles, any variety of noodles from udon to vermicelli, spaghetti. He would find out very quickly if we plan to cook noodles and run into the kitchen to ask for some. If we finish the bowl of noodles without sparing some for him, he would definitely cry miserably "Het, het roi!".

Oh, and Tommy can imitate his Daddy and Mew in doing push-ups every day. How funny it is to see three of them performing the same pose!

Mommy decided to make a homemade birthday cake again this year for Tommy but in the shape of a car. Everybody knows that Mommy is never interested in cooking (honestly Mommy hates cooking!) but store-bought cake is too sweet and the quality of ingredients could not be guaranteed, that's why Mommy had to opt for a DIY cake. Google is Mommy's best friend and after a few days of Internet browsing, Mommy had some ideas for making a 3D car-shaped cake with all the ingredients, utensils and tools available at home.

The cake itself is a normal sponge cake baked from cake mixes (too lazy to make it from scratch). Mommy baked it in a rectagular pan and cut it up in halves and topped one onto another. With some scraping, cutting with a sharp knife, it became looking like a real car. Then Mommy made a sheet of marshmallow fondant from scratch according to the instructions from the Internet and covered the cake fully (after frosting it with strawberry jam). Four wheels were Mini Oreos and Chocopies. Mew helped Mommy to decorate the car with sprinkles, edible gel pens, Campino candies, etc. It turned out a beautiful cake. Mommy was so glad to see that her first attempt in making a professional-look-like cake was not bad at all. Thank Mew for lending Mommy a hand to make this fabulous birthday cake for Tommy!

We also had a warm and yummy party to celebrate Tommy's 2nd birthday at home. Mommy made an edible fruit bouquet instead of fresh flowers to add some flavours and colours to the party table as well. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR TOMMY! LOVE YOU SO MUCH FROM DADDY, MOMMY AND SIS MEW!

LUNCH IN A BOX

Last year at the daycare, we did not have to worry about Mew's lunch because it was included in the tuition. The daycare teacher also helped the kids to eat their lunch and the atmosphere was very comfortable for young kids. It is totally different at the kindergarten however. Kids must bring their own snack and lunch to school and the lunch time is very limited with only 1-2 minutes for warming their lunch in the collective microwave. Although there are supervisors at lunch but they do not "help" kids as before. Consequently it becomes a headache for parents to prepare their kid's lunchbox to ensure a proper nutritious value but it is not too complicated for kids to handle it by themselves. It cannot be too much either because kindergarteners are often not able to finish a big lunch within 30 minutes. It should be easily frozen and defrozen or microwaved so that kids do not have to wait too long for their meal to be warmed. It should be also attractive enough so that kids do not get bored with their lunch, etc. A lot of things need to be taken into account.

Although I am very admired at Biggie at Lunch in a box, I unfortunately am not as talented as her nor love cooking enough even for the sake of my kids to venture myself into a lunch-preparation journey. So, I decided to make it simpler for both me and Mew. Luckily, Mew is not a picky eater and normally she eats what I prepare for her, and sometimes she is even more than happy with the same meal for all 5 days in a row if she really likes the ingredients. Thank you, Mew, for your complete change in eating habit since your age of 4. If not, we parents would have already died from exhaustion to cater for your food needs.

Here is some pictures of Mew's lunchbags. The Princesses one can be put inside a medium-sized backpack but the two-compartment California Innovations lunch bucket cannot fit Mew's daily backpack so she has to remember taking it back and forth (she has forgotten twice so far but luckily found it later).

The most frequent lunch I prepare at home for her from scratch includes fried pasta with vegetable and soy sauce, glutinous rice made in shapes with seaweed and shaped boiled egg, mashed potato with cheese, milk and egg, fried mixed rice, sandwich bread with slices of cheese and ham made into funny shapes.

 

This is the lunch for tomorrow. Mew insists on having her "fake sushi" so I cooked glutinuous rice with grean bean and molded it while still very hot to make star, heart, flower, triangles and onigri shapes. I used seaweed to roll around each shape and also cover their facets. Next compartment is fresh vegetable, namely carrots, mushroom and olives. I put a small container of Ranch sauce for Mew to dip the veggie. To ensure the protein input, I boiled an egg and molded it into a fish shape. Finally, for her dessert, I tossed in some Funcheez (dinosaur-shaped cheese) and Allens fruit punch.

 

This "obento imitation" lunch was from last week. The same recipe with "fake sushi". The egg was mold into heart shape and cut into halves (due to the lack of time, this egg did not shape well). I did not forget vegetable with mini carrots and steamed cauliflower florets. I grilled a hotdog then cut it small and poured some Heinz ketchup sauce (Mew prefers chili sauce but she coughed a lot so I did not allow her to touch any spicy ingredients).

 

The most popular mixed fried pasta with a lot of kinds of vegetables, frozen imitation crab or sometimes cooked ham, pasta sauce or soya sauce, olive oil and voila ... enough for 3 ready-to-go meals in the freezer.

Quick and easy - toasted sandwich bread slice cut into snowman, Xmas bell and frog shapes by cookie cutters with cheese slice of the same shape in between. I tried to make a funny face for the snowman but finally his eyebrows made him a bit scary instead. Mew's lunch cannot be without some veggies so I tossed in mini carrot and olives. To add some more flavours, I grilled a BBQ hotdog with some melt cheese and dropped a little ketchup sauce.

 

Very traditional recipe of mixed fried rice with enoki mushroom, jambon, asparagus and egg. Seasoned with soy sauce as usual.

  

For her snack, I put button cookies, banana, apple, strawberry or blueberry, grape, etc. For her beverage with lunch, I give her juice, Kool-aid jammer, soy drink, etc.

And above is her ustensil kit including spoon, fork, chopsticks, toothpick, tissue, ice blanket or ice pack, toothbrush and small cup for oral cleaning after lunch.