~ Diaper Free Training ~

Sunday afternoons are always the time I get to have a nice nap. It's Summer time and the weather is HOT! The children are so used to the air-condition that it has become a usual routing to have it on for at least half hour.

We woke up slightly earlier and went to the Food Fair at Expo... and it is CROWDED! (expected). There sure are many hungry souls out there busy sampling and buying food... the kids love to go round grabbing free drinks, snacks and of course get us to buy food. :) We spent about $70 there and hubby's hands are full carrying all the stuff while I carried Gladys all the way! It's just too dangerous for my girl who is so short to squeeze within the busy crowd! There bound to be things that is going to hit her. I wonder how parents manage to get through with their child on the strollers!

Anyway, my true test of patience arrived tonight. Gladys decided that she do not want to put on diapers anymore. Which is GOOD! The downside however is there will be many many sleepless and disturbing nights moving forward. I hope she can get through this before hubby flies off to Manila to work. He is expected to be away for many weeks and probably till November. :( Sigh, now I got more things to worry.

~ Family Day Out 2009 ~

June Holidays are finally here again! 30th May is Family Day! There is a carnival at the Singapore River and we decided to take the kids there to Meet & Greet Ben 10.

After Denver's swimming lesson, we drove down to town but it started to rain! :( We missed the 12pm show and hence stopped by at Suntec City for lunch. Denver was disappointed and wanted to have Yuki Yaki (again). This boy really knows how to pick food.. and expensive ones.. argghhh.. Hence, we ended up at Kushin-Bo instead with the Family package meal for $60++. That kept the children occupied. They love to go buffet and take their own food. Luckily Denver surely knows how to eat to make up for the price to pay. :p

Denver making funny faces and Gladys follow her Gor Gor while they are enjoying the ice-cream. :)

Lye-Chee on a stick (Hubby's masterpiece). The children LOVE THEM!

After a heavy lunch, we pop by outside Toys R Us. There is a Virtual Ride (from Korea) at $3 per ride per pax. Hubby and Denver hop on the urmm capsule while Gladys got so upset and cried badly for not able to ride with Denver. So I carried her away to see toys instead.

About 2pm, we took a bus down to the Singapore River to watch the 3pm Ben 10 Show..

Denver and Gladys @ the Bus Stop

We finally reached the Carnival! It was a HOT HOT afternoon! Especially after the morning Rain! Denver first played with the "chinese" bowling like activity. The targets are triangular blocks with Chinese words on it.

We strolled down and saw a couple of booths along the way.


We found the tentage and the children sat down waiting for Ben 10 to appear. It was a loooong wait.. Ben 10 only appeared for awhile and we got a chance to take pictures with him. By then Gladys is already too tired and fell asleep. Hubby was the photographer and I guess due to the heat, Denver can't really smile much too. Hope it wasn't too bad for a Family Day's out.

~ Cakes!! ~

It's a cake making week! My yogurt is expiring soon and hence I made a No-bake Chocolate Swirl Lemon Jelly Cheesecake this time. I was doing it in a rush and hence the end result its so-so. No chocolate effect as I added very little amount of chocs and the cheese and lemon is too over-whelming.

I made 2 steam cakes too - Steam Sponge Cake and Banana Cake

I followed the recipes from "cookbakelegacy" and "amandalwh" respectively and reduced the amount as I didn't want to make such a big portion since it's my first try.

Steam Sponge Cake

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250 gm top flour

250 gm caster sugar

2 tbsp milk powder

6 large eggs

60 gm corn oil

1) Sift flour and milk powder together.

2) Beat the eggs and sugar together till light pale in color and the ribbon stage. (If you lift the beaters up and do a figure of eight on the batter, the figure of 8 must be visible for about 3 secs. before disappearing).

As I was using a hand whisk, it took me really long before the Ribbon effect came out.

3) Gradually fold in the flour mixture and oil and batter till well mix using a spatula.

4) Pour batter into a 8" square baking pan lined with greaseproof paper and cover the top with aluminium foil.

5) Steam on high heat for 30 mins and check if skewer comes out clean.

The sponge cake is a bit dry.. I think maybe I didn't follow the measurements correctly when I halved it plus I accidentally put more milk powder. Still, the cake is fine. I guess not too bad for a first timer.

Steam Banana Cake
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Ingredients: (6 big muffins)
2 Eggs
100g sugar
2 ripe bananas, mashed (200g)
150g Self-raising Flour
1/8 tsp Baking Soda
75g oil (any flavorless oil)

Steps:
1) Sift together self-raising flour and baking soda, set aside.
2) In a mixing bowl, whisk together Eggs and sugar till ribbon stage.
3) Mix in mashed bananas, beat till combine.
4) Gently fold in flour mixture and Oil, taking care not to deflate the eggs and sugar mixture.
5) Pour Batter into muffin pan, lined with muffin cups.
6) Steam over high heat for 15mins or till an inserted skewer comes out clean.

As I did not have baking soda at home, so I used Baking Powder instead. This time the Banana cake is soft. Not as dry as compared to the Sponge cake. Hubby said it is too sweet.. I'll probably reduce the amount of sugar next time if I'm making it again. Still I think it's not really his kind of cake. I guess my only audience is Denver as he will always eat the food/cake that I made so far. :p

~ Drawings - Random Theme ~

The kids and I did some drawings today... We were back home early and they want entertainment. So each of us was given a sheet of paper.. Denver and Gladys did 2 pictures while Mommy who spent more time on a prettier one. :)

Denver's Drawing - Robot Family and Rainy Day

Gladys' Drawing - Lines scribbling

Mommy's Drawing - Animals

Gladys' drawings are colourful with a lot of lines. You'll need imagination to understand what she has drawn. Gladys loves rainbow and hence she tends to use more colours. (unlike her brother who only pick green when he was younger :p). On her first drawing, she uses different colours to draw the lines to make her Rainbow. On the 2nd drawing, she initially started drawing a Volcano on the right and making it very colourful.. then seeing Mommy drawing a Lion on my picture, she follows suit and tries to draw her on Lion (on the left). :) Cute huh. Kids really have their own imagination. The final attraction after completing the drawings are to stick them out for display on the wall in the kids' room! :D

~ Window Shopping @ Suntec & Tampines One ~

Just some updates on the couple of things that we did for the past few days... We went to Suntec Convention Hall on Saturday to see the "License 2 Play" and Electronics Exhibition.. Urmm.. Nothing much there really and hubby didn't find any PS3 games that are attractive to buy. Anyway, Denver who is always hungry says he wants to have lunch.. :S One Problem with him is he always wants to eat "Yuki Yaki" at Marina Square! I have no idea why he likes that place soooo much? Anyway, its' way too expensive so we ended up taking him to eat the Porridge buffet at the Convention Hall instead. (Plus Gladys gets to eat for Free).

There was a mini car exhibition nearby and the kids hopped on a Harley Davison. :p Looks cool huh! :p I don't think I'll ever approve them to ride a bike when they are grown ups.... It's too dangerous.. so let's just keep it this way.

Sunday evening is a night out to the new mall - Tampines One. Tampines is always soooo crowded and it is such a pain to find a carpark. Still, that's because it is an entertainment location for the heartlanders staying in the East area. I won't say the new mall is very big and hence we didn't take too much time to walk around. Apart from the usual shops and new resturants (Japanese, Thai etc), there is an arcade located on the top floor and a extremely small food court beside it. Finding a seat there during peak hours is super competitive. We gave up and ended settling our dinner at an outdoor food center instead. Better still since it's cheaper (plus with air-condition). :)

 

~ Ashton's Full Month Celebration ~

Brother held Ashton's First month birthday celebration at his home. We went early to visit as hubby got to take Denver for lesson shortly. This is my 2nd time seeing the little baby boy and carrying him for the first time. It has been awhile since I carry a baby and hence I'm not so used to it. :p Babies are so small and delicate and just need to have extra love and care.

Took a picture of Ashton while he was bathing. I never took pictures of Gladys and Denver naked... and I wonder if this is something that I will miss.

Gladys was busy 'running' around and refused to let me take a nice photo of her. :S The buffet came at around 11am and we left after eating. There was a nice box of cakes to bring back too. The box is so cute that I kept it after finishing the food inside. :)

Happy First Month Ashton!