I always like the idea of meeting up with my brother so that Yee Sinn gets to play with my 2 nephews. They are actually quite sweet little things, especially the elder boy. He’s 3 this year and loves to play with our little girl. Well, sometimes he’ll share the toys, sometimes they’ll fight like crazy… but I guess it’s all part of growing up. I like it when the little boy gets ever so excited when he comes over, seeing Yee Sinn around so that they’ll be able to play together.

On the other hand, I do dread meeting up with my “other” in-laws. My hubby’s sister too, has 2 boys. They’re both 12 and 10 this year. The older boy is a kind lad but it is not so for his younger brother. He tends to via for attention with a 2 year old, and loves to irritate everyone with his obnoxious behaviour. During one of the Chinese New Year gathering, he was jealous that his dad was carrying our little girl that he placed his hands around her neck and attempted to strangle her… much to our horror. And just over the weekend while we met for Qing Ming, he tried to terrorize Yee Sinn again by constantly poking her with his toy. It seemed that both his parents are so helpless in disciplining him that they have practically gave up and continued to allow him to misbehave in public.

Hubby and I are very sure that we don’t want our girl to grow up being a brat; hence we have been very consistent in our disciplining methods. It can get painful and even frustrating at times, but I’m sure if we start to put things right now, things in the future will be a breeze.

Brought our little girl to Royce Gym again over the weekend to expand her energy. I was pretty surprised that they've increased their entrance fees from $10 to $12 per hour. They have several sets of new toys and they've also re-arranged the place a little. Guess that's how they keep the kids coming back.

There were many new sets of doll houses and I wasn't surprised that our little girl showed little interest in them. Instead, she enjoyed playing with the cooking stuffs the most. Her next favourite toy would be climbing and sliding down the giant slides. I must remember to take a picture of her doing that the next time.


We thought the weather was pretty good so we scooted off to the Botanic Garden after Yee Sinn's nap at Grandma Chang's place on Sunday afternoon. We brought a few slices of stale bread to feed the fishes and the birds. Our little girl really enjoyed this simple activity... she wasn't scared of the birds when they came so closed to her. Hubbby and I just simply love to stand by the side and watch how she intently pull out bits and pieces of bread for the birds.. sometimes she'll place them near her food (and the birds will come really close to her) while other times she'll throw them further away.

Here's a picture of both of us playing with bubbles. I bought a small bottle of bubbles at 70 cents at a nearby mama shop sometime back and placed it with my picnic mats and ball that is always kept in the car boot. This way, we can always swing by any parks prepared anytime we want to.

We're more or less done with most of the Chinese New Year visiting. Left only 1 more group of friends who will be visiting this coming weekend. It has been a good opportunity for both hubby and I to meet up with these friends and relatives every now and then. It's also good that we expose Yee Sinn to these people as well so at least she knows who Papa and Mama's friends are.

We also met up with Yee Sinn's cousins on Sunday evening for dinner. My brother-in-law suggested eating at block 21 at Lorong 7. Though he made a reservation for a table, we had to wait like over and hour for our food to be served. Food wise wasn't too bad though so I guess it was worth the wait.

To keep our little girl occupied, we got her a $2 medical toy set from a nearby Dollar Store. It includes a kooky plastic pair of glasses, a tiny doll in a nurse dress, syringe, weighing machine etc. Though it cost only $2, it kept the kids occupied throughout our wait.

We also managed to visit the River Hong Bao at Marina to check out the crowd and the exhibits. Nothing fantastic except the huge lanterns. I was glad that the crowd was quite managable as I heard that it was very crowded the weekend before. On the whole, it was a good family day out.

First day of Chinese New Year was a mad rush for us. Yee Sinn work up later then usual because we all stayed up later than usual the night before to usher in the Year of the Golden Tiger.

So on day 1, we quickly had a breakfast that consisted of left overs from our Reunion Dinner (which is actually pretty good food) before dressing up and getting ready for our visiting.

We started the day praying for blessing for the new year at a nearby Burmese temple, before heading for Grandma Chang's place. We met up with my brother's family before we proceed to our relatives place. It was the usual exchanging of ang pows, eating tibits and gossiping about others during our visits. We ended quite late cos we were at Grandma Lee's cousin's place till 9ish in the evening. Surprisingly, our little girl was still an energetic bunny till 10 plus!


Day 2 was much simplier. We only had to visit 2 relatives - one in Bishan and the other in Clementi before heading for lunch. Since we had some time, we decided to visit a grand aunt at an old folks home at Choa Chu Kang. The above picture is of Yee Sinn on the 2nd day of CNY, all dressed up and giving the camera her widest smile. (We told her to smile "big big" and this was her attempt to please us)

As most stalls and resturants were still closed, we managed to find a small cafe at West Coast that was opened for lunch. Food was so-so and service sucks. Guess it was due to the lack of staff during this festive season that explained for the slow service.

Here were were at the old folks home. Yee sinn was initially asleep and grand aunt kept asking us to go home cos we were all so tired. We waited awhile for our little girl to be awake and when she did, she brought lots of smile to grand aunt. Grand Aunt is now about 90 over years old... a little senile but she still could remember Hubby and Grandma Lee very well. She couldn't however, remember things that happened recently. We hope she'll continue to remain healthy and alert for a long time.

On day 3, we had some of Hubby's friend over at our place. He was happy to meet up with these long time friends of his while I was happy to play host to them. I loaded them with the usualy CNY snack (hoping to they'll all be finished by end of CNY) and drinks.

Later that evening, we headed to my friend Mindy's place near 6th Avenue to check out her new place and her pet dogs. Yee Sinn was initially hesitant about the dogs but it didn't take long before she warmed up to them. She enjoyed herself there and kept telling us about her "encounter" with "Auntie Mindy's Big Big Dog" throughout the night.

Again, we had to settle dinner outside with so-so food and lousy service. We were at holland village and had to wait so long for our food and bill to arrive. Yee Sinn was really tired and bored with all the waiting. Guess you can tell from the picture above.

Everyone was busy on New Year's Eve... even our little Yee Sinn. Hubby and I were occupied with polishing all our rosewood and teak furniture. Grandma Lee was busy scrubbing the kitchen floor and preparing the reunion dinner's food.

We had a simple prayer in the afteroon to our ancestors to give thanks as well as to pray for blessings in the coming year. We got Yee Sinn to help out in in candy box. We told her to put all the similar sweets into 1 compartment. Looking at the picture, I think she did a good job.

Above is a picture of our humble dinner. It was quite a spread actually. As usual, Yee Sinn was happy to have helped herself to her favourite fishballs and fish. What a simple girl.... just like her father. Simple food like these just made their day.

Happy New Year to All!

Chinese New Year is just around the corner.... Next weekend in fact. We've been doing our routine Spring Cleaning every now and then, but the tasks never seem to end. I bought a pot of Pussy Willow from Ikea several weeks back and got our little girl to help out in decorating them with Chinese New Year ornaments. This picture shows her work and she calls the Pussy Willow her "Christmas Tree".

We brought her to the Library the other day and we met an Ice-Cream man along the way home. We decided to give her a $1 ice-cream treat and Yee Sinn was so delighted.

See the mess she made... but it's ok. As long as she's happy, what's a little cleaning up at the end of it? Little treats like these are rare though, as we are mindful not to spoil her with sweets.

We came across this Seaseme Street kiddy ride at IMM on Sunday evening and Yee Sinn was so happy that we allowed her to take a ride.

We had an early re-union dinner yesterday at IMM with hubby's sister and her family. It was a simple steamboat dinner and the kids were generally well-behaved. The beauty of eating out means there's no need to have a post-dinner cleaning up. Hee.

Today, our little girl turned TWO!!!

We're not too sure of her current weight but I believe it is around the ballpark of 13kg. Don't think she's underweight and definately she's not over weight.

As for her height, she's now 89cm. Some people were telling us that if you multiply the height of the child at age 2, that will be the maximum height the child will grow into as they become adult... so it's kind of scary that our little girl MAY grow into an audult with a height of 178cm!!

I took a day off from work today to spend some time with Yee Sinn. Together with Grandma Lee, we all went down to NTUC in the morning to pick up some grocery. We picked up some of Yee Sinn's favourite snacks such as her "Tiger Cornflakes" - Frosties and a punnet of Kiwi fruits.

We went to OCBC bank soon after to bank in her Ang Pow money that Grandma Chang gave over the weekend. The counter staff gave us a pleasant suprise by popping out a huge Birthday Bear for Yee Sinn. It was a nice gesture and we were all very pleased with their personalised service that they gave our little girl.


I initially wanted to take Yee Sinn to Royce Gym in the afternoon but she was napping away till almost 4pm. So with a last minute change of plan, we decided to head down to Orchard for dinner before popping by Isetan to let Yee Sinn browse at the Gundam toys there when hubby got back from work.

We picked out 2 slices of strawberry cakes from the bakery at Isetan basement before heading home. We had a small birthday celebration at home with just 2 candles and the 2 slices of cakes that we bought. Though these were simple pleasure, our little girl was delighted with blowing out the candles and sharing the cakes amongst us 4.

We feel very blessed to have a child like Yee Sinn. No words can describe the amount of joy she has brought us. With her around, we have learnt to be more selfless and our lives have became richer with the many lessons we learnt together. Hubby shared that he feels so blessed that he was able to celebrate Yee Sinn's 2nd birthday, something that his own father was not able to.

I'm contented... and I'm sure out little girl had a great time today.