Bread making

My sis got me a new kenwood BM260 bread machine for my early birthday present!! I had been wanting to buy this machine hoping to make fresh breads for the family daily, so my wish finally comes true.... :)

Okay, my first loaf of bread was a failure... Sorry to say, if not for my second loaf of super soft and nice bread, I also will not know that my first loaf sucks!!! Haha...

And my guess for my failed bread should be due to the yeast used!! The first loaf, I used the bake king yeast which is in a small bottle, though it has not expired, but I did wonder how long can the bottle of yeast last once opened? I remember reading somewhere once the yeast is opened it should be used up within 24 or 48 hours!! Anyway, lucky I had another type of yeast available, which is packed in small satchets of 11g each. And viola... The second loaf of sweet bread taste wonderful and even the kids can eat them plainly!!! We have not been buying bread since last weekend!! Lol...

Am going to try the other recipes in the book... Hoping to make more nice and tasty breads for WL and the kids!!! :)

Alvan got into top 20 baby selection for KKH healthy Breastfed baby contest

Alvan follows Ashley's footstep of getting into the top 20 babies for KKH healthy Breastfed baby contest!! But during Ashley's time, top 10 would receive prize already, but now, only the top 5 gets it!! And we need to be at United Square mall and wait for the result on who's the top 5!!

Besides the main contest, they also have another segment for voting of tr "Most popular baby" award for each category! And I do not have high hope for this as based on the picture taken at KKH during the selection round, Alvan was not smiling... See the below picture!!! Lol...

This is the contest I always look forward to when am Breastfeeding my baby!! As its only held once a year and the prize is always very good!!! Just hope my Alvan is one of the top 5!!

Pictures attached were taken by my sis when she's there in the morning!! ;)

The one of me and my BB was taken by WL!!

Trip to T3 Singkids and Alvan enjoying his finger biscuit!

Ok, we had to make this trip to T3 due to my purchase of the deals.com coupon for Singkids!! I thought of letting Ashley and Adwin have some fun at those indoor playgrounds, seems a long time since their last visit to one...

Anyway, the kids did enjoyed themselves, but not WL!! He was finding it boring to be seating at the side drinking his iced earl grey tea!!

Sorry to say, this post is not meant to elaborate on how fun the kids enjoyed at Singkids, but more for me to show that my baby Alvan was enjoying his finger biscuit while we had our dinner at Crystal Shanghai!!! LOL...

As usual, we (WL and myself) enjoyed the dishes there, as for the kids... Ehm, maybe they did, but they are not telling us!! Being a blur mummy, I had actually forgotten to bring Alvan's finger biscuit!! So, after WL place an order for our dinner, I requested a 10mins for me to run down to B2 Fairprice to grab a box of finger biscuit for my Alvan!! And lucky I did, he was enjoying his biscuit, if you can see from the pix below!! :)

Oh, forgot to mention, that my 2 boys were wearing the same spiderman suit!! They look so cute in them!!!

** photos were added later as I found them in WL's iPhone!!! Lol... **

Alvan taking his semi-solid well!!

Alvan finally is accepting purée sweet potato and brown rice cereal!!! Am so happy and delighted that he is able to open his mouth for food and finishing the food I prepared for him!!! I had kind of given up trying when he rejects the brown rice and plain rice cereal. Till the 28 July (7.5 months old) while grocery shopping at Fairprice at Civic Center, WL asked me to try giving him those baby bottle food, which I reluctantly chose heinz organic sweet vegetable, that is labeled for 4-6 months old baby. As always, I will warm up the food before feeding my kids, so I only spooned out 4 teaspoons for him to try... Surprisingly, he was crying for more when we finished them!! So, WL asked me to feed him half the bottle, which I did gladly and Alvan also finished happily!!! Am thinking if it's due to him being on my lap that's why he's happily enjoying the food!! Nevertheless, I am willing to feed him on my lap if he can finish all the food I prepared for him!! After he finished this bottle of purée, I went and made him home made sweet potato purée! The amount I prepared was enough for 3 days. On the 4th and 5th day, I went on to add the brown rice cereal to the purée, and Alvan also happily finished them all!!! Guess am very ambitious too, so on the 5th day, I gave him half the bottle of the custard with banana and strawberry purée!! He also finished it!! And am now busy searching online for more home made baby food recipe which I can prepared for him!!!

Am feeling like a new mother all over again, as I never had the chance to do all these for Ashley and Adwin!! I hope to be able to start Alvan right on track on solid and as much as possible, to be home made for him! As am trying my best to prepare dinner at home daily for WL and the 2 elder kids too!! And am feeling happy when every dishes are emptied every night!! Am always feeling excited about my dinner menu daily and now with baby Alvan taking his semi-solid so well, I will be busier running to the market daily!!! :)

Kids start their first swimming lesson

I finally found a private coach and arranged for weekly swimming lesson for my 2 children and Caden at my parents place!!

We had been trying to find swimming lessons for our 2 elder kids to join. With our limited free time slots, it was really tough to enrol them into any class. As they are 2 years apart, Adwin is not able to be in the same class as Ashley, meaning we may need to either stay longer at the pool is their class is back to back, if not, we may need to make 2 trips to the pool!!

We were lucky to get the coach head to guide them. And for an hour lesson, we are paying $270 for the three of them for 4 lessons. The kids are really enjoying!! The coach is fun and patient and managed to trick the kids to go into the water and blow bubbles!! Adwin is definitely enjoying his bubble blowing session that even after his lesson, he was still running into the adult pool and blow his bubbles!!

Digital playground

We found a digital playground at the market we go in Yishun! This is really interesting... All thanks to the advance technology, even playground is digitized! And it's tough to tell children what we were playing with when we were children, for example see saw, swing and slide...

However, not many kids were seen at the playground.. Maybe kids find it boring compared to x-box or wii!

Am wondering how long would this playground be around... Where would the power supply be coming from or would it be powered by solar energy? But this is really the first and only digital playground we found!

Alvan's 2nd outing to east coast park

WL decided to bring the kids to the east coast beach today, seeing the good weather...

We went for our late lunch at old town before heading to the beach. Their menu had changed! Maybe we had not been there for quite some time and all looks good in the menu! Haha,.. So, we had a super duper full lunch!!

As usual, Ashley and Adwin enjoyed making sand castle. WL tried to teach them to play beach ball and frisbee. The kids tried and gave up after playing a few rounds...

We finally had a try on the quad cycle today!!! I thought its due to the weight of 3 adults, 2 kids and a baby, cycling it took alot of effort!!! Lucky is, each of us can take turn to take a rest when the other 2 is cycling!! But a nice try though... Abit ex? $28 for an hour...

Kids attending the Sushi workshop

Starting from last year, I had been trying to sign up the kids for workshops and fun activities, thinking they are big enough to enjoy and learn to make things without creating messiness at home!! Haha...

The first workshop we signed them up for was Ice Cream workshop!! Bu Adwin did not quite enjoy it as he had just woke up from his nap and while he was taking some snacks, one of the staff was nice to tell him that his snack is dropping, and off he went, not attending the workshop at all!!!

The second workshop was to bake and decorate a cake, which they totally enjoyed!!!

And the recent workshop is to make sushi!!!

Ashley dropped her first tooth

Ashley finally dropped her first tooth on 22 May in school!! Actually it was consider very late for her, some of her friends started dropping when they were in K2!!

In fact, her permanent teeth had actually grew at the back of these baby teeth. We had asked her to visit the school's dentist when we first saw we permanent teeth growing out, but the dentist was saying we can wait for the baby teeth to drop or opt for the dentist to have them (in fact, 2 of the teeth had started growing at the back), but my Ashley had told the dentist not to remove the baby teeth!! There we go, our waiting game...

It was really an experience for her, cos she was really scared when her tooth was shaky, she had refused to take her dinner the night before as she's afraid of swallowing it!!! She was trying her best to push the tooth out with her tongue, of cos, not successfully!! And I had also thought the toughness of an apple is enough to help push the tooth out!! Haha... Silly mummy right?! Anyway, now we are waiting for the other tooth to drop again.... Haha...

Oh, forgot to mention, Adwin was extremely frightened to see Ashley's gums of the dropped tooth!! He would run away disgusted whenever Ashley show her mouth to him!! Haha...

Alvan's first try on finger food & high chair

I was waiting patiently for my baby Alvan to turn 6 mths and start him on semi-solid and those finger foods Ashley and Adwin loved... However, he does not seem to like those rice cereal (first try on 11 jun) and even the heinz baby finger biscuits.

We tried to put him in the baby high chair at the restaurant (celebrating Father's day earlier at the Si Chuan Dou Hua restaurant at the Park Royal Hotel at Beach Road) giving him the Heinz Finger biscuit. Guess he's not able to enjoy it fully as it was really tough and him being toothless, was not able to savour the goodness of it. Very fast, I saw the biscuit landed on the floor un-bitten!!! Haha... Anyway, I am trying to get him the Baby Bites biscuit which is much tastier and crunchier... But I need to find ways to make him likes rice cereal first!!! :p a tough assignment for me now...

Alvan's first movie!!!

We brave the cinema watching Madagascar 3 with Ashley, Adwin and our 6mths 11days old Alvan on a thursday afternoon!!!

He was sitting quietly watching the ads when we sat down... But was making noise before the movie started!! Based on my past experience with Ashley and Adwin, they would fall asleep after nursing them due to the darkness and coziness in the cinema... Sadly, this does not apply to Alvan!! Lucky, I had requested for the back and side seats so I can craddle him to the side in my sling and comfort him to la-la land...

It took me about half the movie duration before I can sit down to enjoy the rest of the movie. But, soon I realized I was fast falling asleep too!! Haha... Anyway, this was a nice experience to begin with!! More movies to come baby!!! ;)

Baby Alvan on nuebuliser

Baby fell sick again since last Thursday with cough... And saw his running nose on saturday afternoon... And while shopping at PS, we can feel his body temperature raising... Thus left at 4+ after collected WL Father's day cake from Rive Gauge... (he's officially 6mths 1week old)

I feel he was breathing quite hard since sunday and decided to bring him to the PD on monday morning... Lucky I brought him over, as the PD said she can hear some whizzing sound in his lungs... Sigh... And he was assigned to one time nuebuliser treatment in the clinic...

He's on medication for now and just hope he can get better during this week and will have to be back to the PD next Monday to make sure his lungs are cleared...

That's the problem when baby has elder siblings, they tend to fall sick often... And it's tough to keep telling the elder kids to stay away from the baby brother when they are sick... And baby had actually just recovered from cough and flu for a week! Really hope my poor baby recover fast...

Alvan sitting upright

These 2 days, Alvan been able to sit upright without support!! He's officially 6mths 1week old!!

And he also managed to flip over on his own!! But tough to video him on action!!

Brought him for the Healthy Breastfed baby contest assessment organized by KKH yesterday... Ehm, the assessor actually thought by putting him on tummy they can witness his flip!! And they also thought he can perform his favorite stunt, him putting his feet in his mouth!!! Lol...

Our first Outdoor Photoshot -- Hort Park

We had our first outdoor photoshot at Hort Park by ZX Workshop... This session was bought with a promo in Groupon.com and we were really happy with all the shots taken!! Must thank our photographer for all his suggested pose and locations!!

Here's just a few of the shots we had... as you can see, my dear Adwin's right arm was still in cast during the shot!! I had actually asked if we can postpone the session, but as this is a long overdue claim of the session and the photographer had limited slots for me, we had no choice but to proceed with the agreed time and location!! Nevertheless, all shots turned out wonderful!!  But we can see that my Adwin was trying his best to 'hide' his casted arm! Hahaha....





This shot was taken on 15 April 2012, our first weekend without a maid!! Well... I still have a long story to tell in regards to our maid... :(

Alvan's full month celebration

Haha.... This post is looooong overdue!! My Alvan is about 4-1/2 months old now, and this post is to blog about his full month celebration... Another reason is, the photos were uploaded to WL's PC rather then my laptop, therefore the delay... LOL... me & my excuses for not updating my blog on time! :p

This is our 3rd full month celebration, did not intend to have a big celebration actually, but as we received quite a lot of red packets from our relatives, therefore came this invite! Anyway, we thought our friends may find it boring to come for 'another' full-month celebration from us, so this party is a mini one...

As usual, the kids enjoy themselves more... and I had ordered balloons just for the fun of it! :p  Ehm... I forgot to the take the picture of the balloons using the camera... LOL...

Here's our VIP for the day!!! Presenting Mr. Alvan Phang... in a romper suite bought by 婆婆!!

And, I did the designing of the banner myself and send for printing... which am happy and proud of! :p

Here's the pictures taken with our immediate families only... No time for photoshots with our guests! :)

Oh no, Ashley did have a picture taken with "her" guests (Keelia Lee & Amber Chew)... haha...

And, here's all presents & ang-baos for our Baby Alvan....

Adwin's right arm in cast!!

I had been pretty 'suay' (unlucky) recently!

First, my first maid, Maida Grace told me on 11 April that she wants to go back home to continue her studies!! And it's on the same day she request she flew back!! And in an instant, am maid less!!

To add on to my misery, adwin had a small fall in school and ended up in a cast!! His fall was really was small one and we did not expect it to be so serious especially when he only complain of pain at the wrist but during the night, I can see that he dare not move his whole right arm and that's when we decide to bring him to KKH the next day for a check!

The PD was not able to find anything amiss in the right wrist X-ray and thus after some examination on his right arm, decided to take X-ray on his elbow! The PD pointed to an area which he says is swollen and a minor hairline crack, and decided to put him in a cast for a week till his review with a orthopedic next Tuesday.

One lucky thing for me is, we managed to confirm another new maid at the agency the next day and will have to wait for 6-8 weeks before she comes.

All the best for me for the following weeks being maid less!!!

Alvan first playdate with other Dec 2011 babies

I finally managed to be able to join the other Dec 2011 mummies for a lunch last Friday, 30 Mar, at Shangri-la hotel for a high tea at the Rose Veranda.

All mummies who saw Alvan was full of surprise!! How did my Alvan who's been only drinking mummy's breast milk to be such a strong boy with a pair of super yummy thighs!! Haha... And as of that day, Alvan weight 9kg!! I did enjoy myself cos at least we do have some common topics on baby's progress.

I seriously do not know why and how Alvan's weight is picking up so fast! As compared to Ashley and Adwin, he did put on more and much faster!

Here's a summary of his weight:
- at birth: 3.63kg
- 1 month: 5.4kg
- 2 month: 7.5kg
- 3 month: 8.77kg
- 3 month 3 weeks: 9.4kg

Alvan first public transport ride

Mummy finally found the courage to bring me in her sling and took bus and train to town for the baby fair at taka and meet my daddy there for shopping!!!

Before we board the bus, I had fallen asleep in mummy's sling! And lucky a nice Aunty gave up her seat for mummy and me, as I was sound asleep!! But an uncle next to me was talking on his mobile that woke me up!! Lucky I managed to go into Lala land again before we reach orchard!!

The 3 men in the house...

Here's a nice shot of the 3 men in the house...