#thenandnow :)

merry christmas everyone!

HA HA HA. maybe in a few years time, the hubs would also be wearing "very frilly, very pink outfits" unless we are going to have another kid, and a boy. ha ha ha.

His younger children are also unimpressed by him being Jamie Oliver.  

‘Most of my weekends I spend hours playing with Petal and Buds. But I’m not allowed to be me. I have to be a princess or a character of their choosing. 'I spend a lot of time in very frilly, very pink outfits and I’m told where to move and what to say,’ he says.  

‘I’m hoping now that Bud’s getting older, the testosterone will kick in and I’ll get to be a soldier or a knight. Man stuff.

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2882148/I-m-addicted-not-sleeping-Jamie-Oliver-reveals-s-make-major-lifestyle-changes-combat-big-problem.html#ixzz3Maif2N42

the colours are up!

the living hall.

its actually sandy brown.

clamshell (if i never remember wrongly) by dulux.

my bed room.

its actually blue grey but i dont remember the name of colour. 

we used NBC white which runs through the whole house. =)

my daughter, who is just one, send her first ever instant msg to me on facebook...

=)

... its from the hubs, just in case you have not figured out.. 

they always says to be careful what you wish for. well i didnt.

i wished that my little girl would hug me like her monkey when she goes to sleep...

i miss the days when she was younger and would let me carry her to sleep. and after she falls asleep, she would lie still on me for awhile till i put her in her bed when she is soundly asleep.
nowadays, she likes to sleep on her own. she will be like a worm if i wanted to carry her to sleep.

but last night, she did. she climb on me and said "抱抱"! and because she is so big now, she slid off a few times but she climb on again and made me hug her. i was over the moon as you can imagine. my little girl still wants me! YEAH! =)

i was like her monkey.

there was something about her monkey i forgot. she bites him like her teether.
so now i have two bites marks - one on each side of my shoulders. but i am glad she did not bite my nose like she always does to her monkey...

looking at the amount of rubbish, it seems like more people already move in this weekend.

we need to hurry up too!

my little buggy is ONE! officially.

we put her together with her presents and she seems only to be interested in the dog.. lol..

 

wanted to have a bbq today with immediate family but it was rainy the whole day.
so we use the oven to cook the already-ordered food and had a indoor "bbq" instead which was quite fun too!

happy birthday.

i really hate rude people.

they just assumed everything is theirs

first is my puppy, now is my dress.

they dont ask if they could borrow your dress on tues but asked you what shoes should they wear to go with your dress O.o

is that my dress or your dress?

i tell them the yellow pair looks good cus i believe i am not a selfish person.

but please ask me first the next time round.

i think that is basic courtesy.

and no, i wont send the dress to the dry cleaners so that you can wear it. thats nonsense.

my little buggy is ONE!

threw rosanne her first birthday party over the weekend. =)
was planing to have extended family and friends but in the end all was there. fortunately the tiny function room was able to accommodate all and we all had a blast - at least i had.. lol

i got my all time favourite caterer - smiling orchid.
i remember having smiling orchid when i was younger at one of the family gathering - maybe CNY or a grandparent birthday or something. not sure why, but it left a deep impression and i always remember this brand.
during my work at my last work place, this brand was one of the company's client too.
so for my wedding, i just had to have them. no, no special offer. i dont think they even know me and on top of that, i dont believe in bargaining for good stuff... lol. the food was good and lots of our guests agree. wanted to have them again for the little girl's full month but was a little expensive on top of the hubs' must have prata display. so this time round, i just have to have it! luckily the hubs did not put up much protest.

i got the western menu cus it has my favourite Baked Pacific Dory in Peppercorn Cream Sauce! but always does not turn out well in photos so i never take photos of it this time round. hahaha..
the dessert offered, chilled chin chow with longans, was not very western i must say. =P

saffron butter rice with toasted almonds

tempura prawns with wasabi mayo dip.

the top favourite at the party; was the first to be OOS!

overall, i am happy with the food and so does our guests. =)

this is us putting up the decors.

i am so glad i manage to finish crocheting the banner!

and the white and gold table cloth, which was a splurge, was worth it - it saved the day!
it is a splurge because i just find it pretty and had no actual idea where and what i can use it for. on the day of use of the function room, the sample metal door grilles was still there. mad ugly.
the hubs managed to it moved it and we use it as a backdrop covered by the pretty table cloth! YAY!

but hor because all these are so impromptu, we did not have enough stuff to pin up the decors. the smiling orchid guys saw us struggling to secure the decors, kindly gave us some name cards and loaned us a box of pins! and all our decors stayed up the whole night because of them! #EXCELLENTSERVICE
but to be fair, i do not think this is part of the standard service. they are just nice and helpful people. so if you order food from them, dont expect name cards and box of pins ok! hahaha.

the cake cutting table w/o the cake.

while waiting for guests and cake to arrive, the little went around taking photos with friends and family. =)

 
the little girl with grandaunt florence.

with grandaunt eunice and granduncle john.

with aunt joan.

for some reason, the little girl seems to like aunt joan.

not to say she does not like other people.

she usually takes time to warm up to people but with aunt joan, its like an old friend.

she will be very still in her arm and listening intently to what aunt joan says.  

with uncle joopheng.

with rosanne!

with junior.

the little girl with the hubs.

♥♥♥

and this is her 4kg ruffle cake!

the top layer is cookies and cream and the bottom is black forest.

and aunty ivy actually gave this as a present for the little gir!

so nice of her right?!

http://ourlittlebakery.blogspot.sg/

CAKE CUTTING TIME!!

her face expression here is because she got a little scared

when everyone started to sing her the birthday song

and she held on tightly to me.. 

hahaha.. my silly girl -_-"

happy family.

 ♥

=)

thank you all for your presence and presents!

oh, and did i mention that i did the little girl's outfit? hahaha..
her crochet bow headband is from my merry messy life.
her tutu skirt was diy and onesie was also painted by yours truly.
the onsie says - miss ONE-derful. i searched high and low for the gold paint and made numerous trips to spotlight to find it. finally manage to find it on a shelf not together with other frabic paints..
the tutu skirt was a little tricky cus i could not find the 6″ tulle spool. i only manage to find 3m wide tulle in spotlight. so the hubs helped me to cut them into strips. i love how both the items turned out..
had loads of fun diy-ing and painting and stuff.. thinking about my next project now..
what should i do next?

so this is what i been up to lately.. =)

preparing for the little girl's first birthday party!

i have settled her birthday cake.
here are some cake i saw and like online.

requested for ruffled buttercream cake and aunty ivy says she is going to make a HUGE cake for her.. i am excited!!

going to make the little bunting and find a cake topper. =)
should i crochet her cake topper too? i am such an overachiever that i am starting to find it irritating. but then if i dont do for her, who i do for?

i am not going to lie but i am enjoying myself while i do all these things. it brings back memories of my younger days where me, meli and other fom-er would paint our shirts and stuff, bake muffins and all other artsy stuff. we even paint youth room, including a mural. we were so proud of ourselves. 

ojisan, tigeress, pj and i would also make birthday cards/presents for each other, decorating the classroom (my favourite back then was chalk on black paper. i would even wax it later so that the colour would not come off) and spending endless time on decorating autograph books. lol. 

i loved making friendship bands. no pattern was too difficult for me. #nojoke 

i can even design my own band. that was how insanely i was obsessed with it.

but as i grew up, other stuff took time away from my love for craft. =(

like diablo, sims3, etc.. hahahaha

i wonder will the little one be like me also. 

then i will have a kaki to do such stuff together.. 

but then if she like me also not good. later end up like me never study keep doing all these 有的没的.. lol.. 

something useful to have since now baby can "talk". =)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2797466/the-handy-guide-toddler-speak-poos-farts-hello-telephone-booby-trap-bra-ghost-broccoli-cauliflower.html

repeat after me, F L O W E R

went to visit my grandma who had a fall last night, again. she was just discharge from the hospital on monday from her previous fall on last tues night. she is fine from both the falls but just weak and tired. she is also a little paranoid that her time might be up. =(

anyway, while we were there, jelly took the little girl to grandma's garden. she came back and told us that the little girl can say flower.
sceptical me: are you sure?! couldn’t be lah.. you must [have] heard wrongly.

kaven later took her out and came back with the same response, she really can say flower ley!
still sceptical: oh really? [in my head: the little one must have said something that sounds like flower…]

just now at my mil place, the little girl was in the walker passing-by little zt who was having her dinner. she stopped and pointed to her dress and said "flower", in front of me.

now i have to accept the fact that my baby toddler knows what is a flower and can say it. -_-"

was struggling to keep awake through a series of 4hrs morning talks. was blaming myself for not bringing along my organiser so that i at least have something to scribble on to help me stay awake. 

keep switching my phone to flight mode to save power cus i won't be in office the whole day and have dinner appointment tonight. 

after lunch, i opened my bag and miraculously, both the organiser and power bank (fully charged and with cable) is in my bag?!

oh where oh where is my brain?

and today i am late for 10mins. what is happening to me? :( 

11 months.

i know there have been instances that the little girl have been walking steps unassisted long before today. But today, is the day i saw with my own eyes and they were slow and steady steps.

MY BABY CAN WALK! and so now the day i have been dreading is here. she is not a baby any more - she is officially a toddler! =( i got no more baby.

for the record, she is almost 10kg and is 73cm tall.

so she can walk and likes to crawl after me.. i love that - she is like the puppy i never had.
^_____________________^

she understands a lot of things but cant communicate yet. that is quite irritating for me but more for her. she points a lot nowadays and "speak" some long sentences that i cant understand. there was once i asked if she could repeat herself. she did. but i still do not understand a single thing. so i told her, i am sorry that i can not understand her. she gave me that look and probably thinking to herself, tough luck, my mom aint that smart... -_-"

she learnt a whole lot of stuff this month when staying with my in-laws.

this is her in good mood at my in-laws - playing by herself.

but her 奶奶 told me that, when she does not want to be in the crib while she does some chores, the naughty little girl would stick her legs out of the crib and pretend its stuck or something and cry. 

so have to have a friend to accompany her.

lol.

she has learnt to put her hands to her ear and pretend to make a call. but nowadays she prefer the real phone. give her one and she will put it next to her ear. hahahaha..

she knows was is a 熊貓, 風扇 / fan, lights, etc. can wave good bye, sign for milk (which she use also for food), stand on her own and clap. know how the play the chinese tambourine.

thanks to her 奶奶 who have been practising hard with her. 

she also practised to walk a lot this month.

using her daddy as human walker. 

she think its so funny (so did we!) and you can hear her laughing.. 

she got a hand me down float from her 大伯母 which she enjoyed using..

you can see her keep slapping the waters and kicking to move around.

i am so glad that her "baby-sitter" is back from her canada trip and the little girl is slowly adjusting back to her formal schedule.

cant wait for next month and she will be ONE! can you believe it? i cant. =P

i dont know about other babies, but i know my baby and i know my baby understands me perfectly well.

just last week, i took her to our new place. she crawled towards a socket and wanted to stick her finger in. i told her "no" sharply and briefly explained that its dangerous to do that. i dont expect her to know why but she knows that she should not stick her finger into one. she tried to stick her finger in again but held her finger near the hole and look at me as if waiting for me to tell her no. i told her no and took her finger away. she tried the same thing again - putting her finger near the socket hole and waiting for me to say no. after a few firm "no"s, she crawled off to find new stuff to play with.

like making noise with the stools.

playing in the box.

hahaha.

i am pretty upset cus it seem that there are people who thinks otherwise and people who knows me know that i am pretty cool with different opinions except when they start to force it down my throat. i dont even think they know my baby as well as i know her before saying such things. i also know that i should not be bother by such comments but i really put in a lot of effort to understand her and communicating with her. i really feel angry that people, who matters to me, just writes off my effort so easily. =(


just another proof my baby understands.

saturday morning, i took her out of the room and place her on the floor while i make her morning bottle. she started to whine and cry and do not want to be place there on her own. so i told her to follow me while i boil some water and sterilised her bottles. she understood and was smiling happily with her new task – to follow me. so i had a little puppy crawling happily behind me while i go in and out of the rooms and kitchen.

she also understands “time out”. she was throwing a tad too much tantrums on sunday and her dad gave her a time out of 5 minutes. at first she struggled and was angry but her dad and i held firm. she sat in her dad’s lap quietly for more than 5 minutes! SEE! she understands!


i dont think my baby is smart. my baby IS smart.

for the first time, my daughter peed on me... -_-"

you crossed the line.

this what she does the whole day - 

crawled to me and tugged my shorts to remind me that she is still here.

she have been uber sticky to me since my parents went away.

poor girl, i think she misses her grandma and grandpa and has been acting out. =(
she doesnt want to be in the car seat or pram, which usually are her favs cus it means that she is going out. she shriek/cry/kick up a fuss when we try to put her in either.
she doesnt want to be carried by any other people except me. =(

finally - a place of our own :)

i am still very disturbed that my daughter cried till she puked last night. she is only 9.5months.
i am really scare of her being too stubborn and hard to teach in future.

why did she cry? we have no idea.

was she unwell? no.

did she saw a ghost? maybe.

ROAR! its friday again!

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2736518/Rare-black-tiger-cub-does-best-terrify-s-cute-s-good.html

not into guinea pigs but i think this is the cutest i have ever seen!

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2734543/Dapper-new-guinea-Rodent-latest-celebrity-animal-block-cute-outfits-attract-thousands-admirers.html

and so today is the last time my baby had breast milk and also officially ends my first bf journey. i watch her gulp down the last pack of bm with bittersweet feeling.

during pregnancy, i read about how to bf and in the process i gained information on how beneficial it is for the baby. i also read how some mothers struggle with bf, especially those not born by natural birth, and i told myself to just stay calm if my baby doesn’t latch.

the first time the nurse carried her to me for feeding, maybe it’s the anesthetic, i was pretty relaxed though something was shouting inside my head. magically, she latched perfectly and we bonded well though she was born via a cesarean and the voice in my head died promptly.

BUT all the reading i had, did not prepare me for my bf experience. bf moms seem to only talk about how good, nice, how much they are pumping and all other positive things about it. they don’t talk about how the not nice things.

the truth is, it is damn tiring and painful - mentally and physically exhausting.

i was carrying her every 1-2 hours and for 30mins to almost an hour each time. and when i carried her (that little pumpkin weighed almost 4kg) my cesarean wound hurts like it’s a fresh cut. there was once it was so painful, i thought the scar was going to split open and i gave her first bottle of formula. my wound took a long time to heal.

over 5 months, i have latched her for 192hrs & 6mins. and over 6months plus, i have pumped a total of 377hrs & 44mins and produced about 2,247 oz. just for record purpose.

if i have a next kid, i will still take the same approach and mindset. i will not insist on exclusive bm only. i had that thought at first cus i was told by parents that babies wont fall sick if they are fed exclusively bm. but i have learnt that its not true at all. they still get sick with cold, flu and fever. which i think is normal for babies to be sick.

the only two things i love about bf is probably her contented smile after a satisfying meal and how she looked at me like i am her whole world when i latch her. =)

here are some furry / non furry animals that made me smile today! happy friday everyone!
going to be a busy weekend since the baby fair is in town. SHOPPING! my favourite! hehehe..


up first is Houston Zoo's clouded leopard cubs.

the nicest blue eye baby i ever seen.

and i can say this freely without feeling any guilt cus my babies wont have blue eyes.. HA!

aww.. dont you just want to cuddle them too?

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2729822/Posing-paw-traits-Introducing-Houston-Zoo-s-cute-leopard-cubs-just-want-snuggle-teddy-bear.html

***

next up!

cheeky lemurs posing with camera.

 so curious.

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730172/Say-bananas-Cheeky-lemurs-creative-camera-left-paddock-interested-climbing-taking-snaps.html

***

lastly..

this little guy (girl) has such a contagious smile ^_^

she is wombat, if you are wondering.

she was so little only when they found her.. =)

source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2730137/Will-I-grow-fur-soon-mum-Super-cute-baby-wombat-adopted-human-mother-dead-mothers-pouch.html