Monthly Archives: August 2011

Win a chance to Paint a limited edition SMURF with your family

August 31, 2011 – 11:00 pm

In conjunction with the first 3D SMURFS movie by Sony Pictures, come meet THE SMURFS at Frasers Centrepoint Malls this school holidays from 26 August to 11 September. I’m very happy to announce that my blog is working with the organizers for my readers to win a chance to paint a limited edition SMURF with your family.

Its very easy to participate. Simply tell me which is your favourite smurf and why it is your favourite writing a comment in this post (include your email address as well). The 1st 10 readers who respond will get the opportunity to paint a limited edition SMURF with your family on 3 September 2011 between 5pm to 7pm at Northpoint. Contest ends on 2 September at 12 noon.

For more information, you may visit Smurfs in Malls for details.

Tags Frasers Centrepoint Malls, Northpoint, Smurfs | Comments (4)

A Tuesday morning at Strictly Pancakes

August 31, 2011 – 12:13 am

Its a public holiday and rather than staying at home, I brought the children to Strictly Pancakes for breakfast or maybe lunch? I’ve heard about this place and had been wanting to visit it for a very long time. From the moment I had more information about the place to the time I visited it, I’ve got these 3 points in my mind.

1. Awkward Timing
You may call me old fashion but shouldn’t we have pancake for breakfast? I’m quite disappointed with the late opening hours. Well, they open at 11.30am to 10pm on weekdays (generally) and 10am onwards on Saturdays and Sundays. Personally to me, I thought the time is really late.

2. Limited seats
You will need to be there early in order to get a seat. There are limited seats within the restaurant itself so you might want to be contented if you can get a seat at the outdoor dining area.

3. Not family friendly
Strictly Pancakes is a place for the adults rather than family. First, they do not have baby chair and second, other than providing plastic fork and spoon, the rest are pretty fragile.

The children generally enjoyed themselves and I even got them to take a group photo.

The pancakes were alittle thick and was actually quite filling. I was quite full after having 2 pieces. But it is at this place that Evan got his taste of pancake and I supposed he like it.

Personally, I think it is not a must visit place but if you have time, probably you might want to drop by. For more information, you may visit their website for details.

Tags Strictly Pancakes | Comment (0)

Soya Beancurd at Old Airport Road

August 28, 2011 – 11:04 pm

Soya Beancurd or 豆花 has apparently taken Old Airport Food Centre by storm. Many people are queuing up for it and on average, customers like us will have to wait at least, 15 minutes. I must stress its AT LEAST. For 2 consecutive Sundays, I tried 2 different Soya Beancurd. The first I tried was 51 Beancurd. While I was queuing, I thought I will be buying Soya milk because the soya beancurd looked really watery. They had original, strawberry flavour and almond flavour. Unfortunately, all except the orginal was available as they were all sold out. Probably it was not refrigerated, the beancurd was so soft that it immediately melts in the mouth. One word to describe, Excellent.

The second one I had was 老伴豆花 or Lao Ban Soya Beancurd. Long queues were formed and I’ve estimate that I was probably in the queue for nearly an hour before I got mine. Just take a look at the queue, you can’t even see the stalls.

Just like 51 Soya Bean, they had another stall within the food centre and while queuing, we were diverted to proceed to their alternate stall to continue queuing. The queue had brought much inconvenience to the other stall holders. We were told to move and re-queue twice.

Back to the soya beancurd. It was alittle hard, probably it was kept refrigerated for alittle longer but it was still creamy and soft. If you ask me to compare, I can’t really tell which is better and I think both are equally good.

If you have time, do take some time to queue and try these soya beancurd and I’m quite sure you will not regret.

Tags 51 Soya Beancurd, Lao Ban Soya Beancurd, Old Airport Food Centre | Comment (1)

Fireworks

August 24, 2011 – 9:35 pm

I know National Day is over but I came across an excellent video on Facebook which recorded shots of Singapore from evening till night and showing the fireworks during National Day Parade Preview. The effects were well coordinated with the music and the creator (in my opinion), had done a wonderful job. Enjoy the video.

Tags National Day Parade | Comment (0)

Evan at 8 months old

August 23, 2011 – 11:58 pm

Time is passing by us quickly everyday and Evan is now 8 months old. At 8 months old, Evan continues with his teething with 2 additional ones which Ethan proudly told me about it (actually, I’ve noticed it for about 2 weeks). Apparently, Evan doesn’t like the maid at all and he always want us to carry him. He knows when is the right time to get us to carry him. For example, when he notice that we are at the dining table eating, he will be keeping quiet and playing by himself. But when he starts seeing us leaving the dining table, he starts making noise and signal to us that he want us to carry him. As compared to Ethan and Ezanne at the same age, we noticed that he is more responsive to whatever we are doing.

While he is playing happily, there is one thing that we had problem with – changing his milk powder from Stage 1 to Stage 2. We’ve seen the doctor numerous times and he seems to be allergic to some form of the ingredients that were found in the formula milk. We’ve not found an exact answer or right formula milk yet, but we hope we are on the right track.

Right now, I’m eagerly waiting for him to start crawling, or probably, he might just start walking without crawling just like what Ethan did.

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Ezanne is singing

August 21, 2011 – 10:45 pm

Finally, Ezanne is able to sing somewhat a complete song. The first song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Personally, I feel that this is one of her milestone at 2.5 years old. Surprisingly, she was not shy when she knew that I was recording her singing and was pretty much comfortable with it. I guess she was probably in the mood to do record the video. Its not easy to get Ezanne to smile in front of the camera and even record a video, so this was the moment. Enjoy.

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Ethan’s first hospital stay

August 20, 2011 – 11:35 pm

Last Friday, Ethan was diagnosed with bronchitis and had no choice but to be warded in KKH. It was his first hospital stay and we were all worried with what was happening to him. It all started at the Children A&E where he was put on ventolin inhaler for about 4 hours and showed little signs of improvements.

The doctor then decided that he needs to be warded to be observed and get his ventolin inhaler puffs at regular intervals. With his condition, he was required to be on the wheelchair when he was transferred from the observation ward to the normal ward.

When we looked at him, we knew that he was feeling really uncomfortable and when we were carrying him, we could feel his heart pumping really hard. But he was a brave boy and did not complaint at all.

As the clock ticks, Ethan was beginning to show signs of improvement. This was also the time when he began to show signs of boredom and started missing home. Luckily, there was an iPad to keep him occupied.

He started to tell us how much he miss his sister and how much he love the family. From the tone, we knew how much he wanted to be home. He wasn’t really happy about what’s happening initially and was really moody. Luckily, we managed to get him a balloon which helped to cheer him alittle.

Its very important for our children to be healthy. Hopefully there will not be a next time.

Tags KKH | Comment (0)

Does age matter?

August 19, 2011 – 12:42 am

I was driving to work today when I saw a car that somehow got itself in between the centre divider.

Then, the driver, who was probably in his late 60s or early 70s came out with another 2 elderly passengers. Upon seeing this, I started wondering if there should an age limit for drivers to drive on the road. For this particular incident, he was lucky that there isn’t much vehicles during that time. What if this happened at a busier road or an expressway? I’m not trying to say that our senior citizens can’t drive, but probably there should be some measures put in place to review their suitability to drive.

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Ethan’s 1st NDP at Marina Bay Floating Platform

August 16, 2011 – 11:01 pm

Ethan has been to the Marina Bay Floating Platform last year for SYOG, but this year, he got the chance to go to the platform again to attend the National Day Parade on 9 August. The weather was pretty hot and he was excited to attend the parade.

We seated about an hour before the actual parade started. Being a boy, its not surprising that he was extremely interested in the army stuff such as the parachutes and the helicopters.

When the National Anthem was played, he was paying attention to the Singapore flag that was flying past in front of us.

Like the previous parade, the finale is always the fireworks. Our skyline looks stunning and the fireworks were simply amazing. Ethan had an enjoyable night.

Tags Marina Bay, National Day Parade | Comment (0)

Ethan misses home

August 14, 2011 – 12:41 am

Ethan has been warded in the hospital for about 2 days and as he recovers, he is beginning to show signs that he is missing home. My dad told me that Ethan told him that he love his family and I remembered this evening that just before we left for home, Ethan held his grandpa’s hand tightly.

Ethan has always been a strong boy. He may be alittle dependent especially when mummy or grandma is around but he knows how to put on a brave front. He asked me why Ezanne did not visit him and I told him its not suitable for her to visit since she was coughing as well and so I asked him if he wanted to talk to her.

In fact, this is the first time that both of them spoke on the phone.

Ethan: Mei Mei
Ezanne: Kor Kor
Ethan: Mei Mei, I miss you. I love you and Di Di
Ezanne: Kor Kor

While they always fight with each other and Ethan did not really understand what Ezanne was talking about, the conversation (their tone and how they communicated with each other) itself shows that they missed each other very much. I was personally very touched.