Sunday with my OH so dear

Nostalgic moment at Heap Seng Leong for its kopi gu you

Lunch at Parklane Wantan Noodle place, now at Sunshine Plaza. Forget to take pix. Followed by dessert time - smooth tauhuey at 

Dinner at Founder Bah K. teh

Heidi's favourite dish- satay

She likes all types of satay. This satay is made from pork.

Christmas Carol

I almost missed the opportunity to see Heidi sang at the Annual Christmas Carolling performance by Del-care  at Fuji Xerox atrium. It just so happened that I had two gatherings which fell on the same day,  quite unexpectedly and coincidentally.  I am quite glad when the morning gathering was postponed to Friday, which opened up some free time for me.  It has been an interesting experience to watch Heidi sang. Although she was standing at the side and was therefore not the centre of attraction to the ever-enthusiastic daddies and mommies watching them just less than 2 metres away, Heidi seemed very conscious of the surrounding and uptight with the crowd. Even I was just squatting in front of her, her sight of vision did not match mine (like she needed to be on her own). With each song item sang, she would accompany it with a big yawn. I think the choir sang around 7-8 songs in the half an hour duration. That added up to quite a number of yawns by my girl. I regretted not making sure she sleep early the night before, and the yawns were pretty excessive for a tired young lady.  When Boon Heng finally arrived after picking up Oliver from his holiday class at British Council, I told him Heidi must be really tired. It never occur to me that I perceive her 'yawn' wrongly, until Boon Heng told me that Heidi was not tired. She was nervous and yawning is a sign of anxiety. I was enlightened and tried playing back the recordings. Indeed, beyond Heidi's cool outlook and seemingly uninterested body movement, she was totally tensed up inside her.  To let go of her anxiety, she would touch her dress, scratch her neck and her facial expression expressionless. She seemed to be somewhere else although she sang and moved to the rhythm. The replaying of video reminded me of the concert held last year, which poor Heidi suffered from stage fright and cried on the stage.  I am glad that at least she managed her fear much better this time round.  Long day for Heidi indeed. 

Interesting read...

http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/signs/yawning

Heidi is developing a sense of humor

Heidi these days is becoming more entertaining as she tries to trick us, make funny antics like shaking her body to make us laugh. There are also a few touching moments when she brought out a pillow for me to rest my head; when I asked her to get me a cup of water while I rest on bed, she would wait until I finished and took it from me to put back on the sink. I just can't stop myself from kissing her cute little face when I think of all these moments. 

Lost and 'Found' fishball noodle

Kudo to Boon Heng's search or such luck, we found another fishball noodle which the stall sells noodle of taste quite similar to our fav Tiong Bahru noodle shop. Even the tea seems to brew out if the same tea leaf. The tea is amazingly cheap and the uncle selling it will always make a point to tell us how much is the cost - tea 60 cents, milo 80 cents. Truly, we can hardly find such cheap beverages around. 

We love the simplicity of taste in its soup, and yes, we will return every week to Havelock Road market for its goodness. 

Happy Heidi

Photo by GuGu Serena Chew

Happy 5th Birthday Heidi!

It is Little Pony theme for Heidi's 5th birthday, as my little girl loves horse.  And I thought that I shall be a bit more adventurous to bake rainbow cupcakes for her.  After searching the website for its recipe, it seemed easy, so I decided to give it a try. Just a week before Heidi birthday, I came across an article that talks about artificial colouring and flavoring in our food and how bad it was. Gosh, perhaps rainbow cupcakes might not be a good idea. I started to check for natural food colouring after Gina suggested that I tried beetroot for red colors. It was quite enlightening and fun to make my own colouring, although it took me days to make them. I started with green from pandan leaves as the extract can last about a week without cooking it. Then I made blue from blueberries, but it turned out to be greyish blue which was close to the purple which I tried to extract from red cabbage. I cut and chopped carrot into bits and blend them. Each night, I would enlist Oliver help to make the colour. Glad that Oliver test had just finished and he could help me out. Then finally, I blend strawberry on Sunday to get the pink colour. It was time consuming but fun. And I am quite delighted at the results. Hope my girl will remember down the road how much I love her, and getting those burnt mark on my arm with no regret. 

She is crazy about coin-operated cars

15 minutes of joy while waiting for Oliver to finish his haircut.

Oliver's Funtime in pool

Another fav breakfast place moving out

2013 seems to be a year for sale of nostalgia places and making way for new management to one in.  

The Keong Saik coffee shop, another breakfast place for us, will soon be moving out of its current Pre-war corner building to another place just a few doors away. Although just nearby, the seatings will be placed indoor. This coffee shop is known for its thick coffee and kaya bread.  After reading this sad piece of news, we wasted no time in planning our dinner at the coffee shop. 

These dishes tasted particularly good.  The scallop wrap was sold out before hitting 7 pm. We also didn't  get to eat its coffee pork rib, which was recommended by Boon Heng's friend. Satisfied stomach despite the moodiness of Oliver and Heidi. We rounded it up with our coffee and tea. For a while, I just feel really contented. 

Our fav Tiong Bahru Fishball noodle stall GONE!

We love the Fishball so much that we frequent this place at least once a week.  Our kids do get sick of it, but their grumbling fall on our deaf ears. We drove past the shop many times wondering when it will open.  Finally, we decided to stop and take a closer look at the shop after almost three weeks of closing. It was just unusual for it to close for such a long period. When we saw this sign, we could hardly believe it. It is closed for business. 

Boon Heng broke the news to us after seeing the sign- sad news for me and happy news for Oliver and Heidi.

First Ballet Lesson at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts

Heidi seemed to enjoy it for a start.  

2 hours of queuing at Tim Ho Wan

Tonight our kids are out at Delcare attending pajamas party and I decided to try out Tim Ho Wan at Dhoby Gaut. After bringing Oliver to school at 530 pm, I rushed to take MRT from Tanjong Pagar to Dhoby Gaut. When I reached there at 615pm, there was already a long queue with more than 50 people in front of me. After 15 min of queuing, I passed a sign that says estimated time at that point is 3 hours. I decided to try as the queue seemed to move quite fast. The server distributed bottled drinks which I thought was a really nice gesture.  After two hours, we finally got our table and the service was prompt.  The famous char Siew bao was on our table in less than 5 min and the rest of our orders were quick to come. The food turned out to be better than expected as reviews were not too good. We also ordered steamed egg cake, fried bean curd skin with shrimp, glutinous rice, siew mai and osmanthus dessert. Only har gao was disappointing. So the verdict is... We will return again if the queue is short.

An unexpected birthday celebration

I always feel awkward to be in the 'limelight' and didn't quite expect the Poon family to celebrate my birthday for me. It is indeed my significant 40 to have 4 kids singing birthday song to me. Even my age is older than the four kids add together. Time really flies since we knew the Poon family. Two overseas together and lots of weekend gathering. Next year, Jia Jun will also join Oliver in RVPS and thereafter two Jia En in 2015. Life just get better!