~ Goodie Bags Sourcing ~

It's that time of the year.... Preparation of goodie bags for our little girl to give to her classmates in school. Unlike the previous years where Hubby and I spent more time buying miscellaneous items and  packing everything together. It's always a struggle to think of what to buy and put them in the bags (especially the type of snacks and sweets). This year, we decided to try and find pre-packed goodie bags for the first time.

There are a couple of goodie bags selection available on the website with various price range that parents can choose from. We picked one set (comes in blue or pink) and ordered the amount required online. Hubby picked up the items directly to avoid delivery charges and everything is done swiftly without much hassle.

Pre-packed Goodie Bag from http://bagagoodie.com/

We spent about $47 for the 30 packs and they are packed nicely. Although the actual size is smaller than what I have expected (as seen on the webpage), The package looks nice and cute. I guess the downside is the children didn't get to pack the goodie bags themselves but that really saves a lot of time from our end. :)

~ Birthday celebration at Crystal Jade Korean BBQ ~

We love to eat and it is great and thoughtful of Hubby to celebrate my birthday with my 2 lovely children at Crystal Jade Korean BBQ! It is our first visit to the restaurant at Nex Mall and I love the food!

It has a good variety of raw meat, vegetables as well as cooked noodles, rice and food. On top of that, each of us was served with a free bowl of delicious chicken soup. Hubby and I had our tummies filled with lots and lots of beef but totally forgotten to wrap it with the vegetable and eat it in the Korean style. The children had ice-cream for desserts and it has been an enjoyable dinner together.

~ Lunar Birthday Dinner ~

It's the Lunar 7th month and it's also my lunar birthday month. Hubby remembered my lunar birthday and it's so sweet of him to take me out for dinner on this little special day.

We went to Jack's Place (without the kiddos) and had a simple and quiet dinner together. Thanks to Dear Hubby who has been so supportive during this period and brighten my heart.

~ Birthday Party @ Mcdonald ~

A couple of weeks ago, Denver received his very first birthday invitation from his school's classmate, Steffi. We've never been to a birthday party at Mcdonald before and it was our very first as well. Initially, the plan was to put Denver there and take Gladys out for dinner. Unfortunately, Gladys is very persistent on attending the party with her brother and extremely reluctant to leave. Hence, Gladys gets to join in the celebration (Thanks to Steffi's mom) while Daddy & Mommy waited.

 PS: Denver just got a tooth extraction yesterday and we can see his adult tooth is growing. :)

The children are so happy to put on their party hats. Gladys is not feeling shy at all and mingle around with the other older kids. We noticed that Denver is the only boy (from his school) that came to the party. He was surrounded by a group of girls and being the only 'grass' among the flowers. ^_^

The children indulged in their happy meal, had fun chit-chatting and played games like musical chair and word puzzles. Not to forget singing the happy birthday song, eating the long-awaited delicious cake and receiving their little toys. Denver & Gladys really had a lot of fun and I'm sure everyone had a good time. :)

~ Kayla's 1st Birthday ~

April started with a couple of celebrations. Yesterday I attended a wedding and today is my ex-colleague's daughter's 1st year birthday!

The Birthday Cake is sooooo LOVELY and PRETTY that you can't bear to eat it. :)

Denver kept himself busy with the PSP while Gladys finds her entertainment with Daddy's phone and mingling around with the other children.

As we left the party earlier, Gladys made a big fuss and cried as she didn't get to take a balloon back home. Awwweeeeee.....

~ Celebrating Hubby's Birthday @ Seoul Garden ~

Last Sunday, we had the "All-U-Can-Eat" buffet dinner at Seoul Garden (@ Downtown East) in celebration of Hubby's birthday. The good thing about dining at Seoul Garden on Sunday is kid (between 3-9 years old) dines for FREE with every paying adult. ^_^

Unlike going to the counters to grab your food and drinks, the outlet at Downtown East has monitors with the buffet menu where you can select your favourite meat, vegetables, yong tau foo, noodle/rice, desserts and drinks. The service crew will then bring your orders right to the table. Diners get to sit comfortably and BBQ their food, saving the hassel on moving around. On the other hand, there might be a longer time for your food when the restaurant is crowded. (especially during peak hours or if the system is down.)

We ordered a lot of meat and the kids had fun eating while Daddy and Mommy were busy BBQ-ing. Denver tried almost all the food and Gladys enjoyed her cup of milo and desserts most! It was a HEAVY dinner but the children still have room for CAKE!!

Birthday is never complete without a Birthday cake and singing Daddy a HAPPY BIRTHDAY song!

Even simple things like cutting the cake make the children so happy! Not to forget having a bite of the yummy Blackforest cake from Bengawan Solo. :) 生日快乐！

~ Father's Birthday Lunch - Part 2 ~

Last Sunday, we had another lunch together with brother's family to celebrate my father's birthday. This time we went to Peng Catering Services Restuarant (亚平）located at Lor 1 Realty Park (near Hougang Ave 3).

I was first introduced to this restuarant through dining with Hubby and his family/relatives. It serves very delicious Teochew food and has always been one of our most frequent dining place during special occasion.

We ordered the $238 10-course set that comes with Longevity Buns, shark's fin soup, fish, chicken, spinach with scallops and others. I enjoyed almost every dish and my personal recommendation would be the cold dish, steamed pomfret and sweet yam! The steamed prawns are very fresh too! There is too much leftover food and we have to packet the chicken, yam basket and noodles back home. :)

Father & Mother enjoys the food as well as the company of the little ones. :) Happy Birthday once again, Dad!

~ Happy Birthday Daddy! ~

It's Daddy's 76th birthday and we took him out for a nice lunch at Imperial Court Shark's Fin restaurant at Grassroot's club. The Peking duck is really delicious and I think Daddy enjoyed the food. We also tried the fried ice-cream for dessert and it was something new for my parents.

Happy Birthday Daddy and wishing you good health and happiness!

~ Happy 3rd Birthday, Kaiser! ~

Today is Kaiser's (my nephew) 3rd birthday! Earlier we had a little mini celebration at lbil's place. The children loves the presents and had fun playing together. Birthday is never complete without a birthday cake. Lbil got Kaiser an ice-cream cake from Swensens. Pretty and delicious. Yummy!

Kaiser is very co-operative and is smilely in front of the camera. :) He looks really happy. Happy Birthday to You, Kaiser!

~ Happy 4th Birthday Gladys! ~

It's Gladys' 4th Birthday and we started our day as early as waking up at 5plus in the morning. Why so early? We are going to the airport to send my lbil's family who is going oversea for a vacation. :) The children loves going to the airport. It's breakfast at Mcdonald, play area at Terminal 3 with lots of space to run about and quenching their thirst whenever they see water-cooler units.

Gladys can't wait to open her presents when she got home. The anticipation on what is behind those pretty wrappers and it is fun to see her expression when she finally sees her presents. You'll know at that moment which is her favourite. :)

It's MOVIE Time! Hubby & I took the kids to AMK Hub to catch "Alpha & Omega". The movie, with a simple story focusing on how two wolves (Kate & Humphrey) tries to get home after being taken by the park rangers. In the meantime, back home, the rival wolf packs' conflict emerged with Kate's dissappearance and how they will help to restore the peace. It may not have the best graphics nor special effects one can ask, but it is a pretty funny and entertaining movie suitable for the entire family to watch and relax.

Gladys has really changed and grown a lot over the past year. She started going school, learned how to write the alphabets and numbers as well as her name in English & Chinese. She can spell a few words (eg. 1-10) and her recognition of words increases. Gladys looks prettier now (not so tomboyish) but she is quite tough and rough. Always yelling and shouting whenever she don't get her things. :)

Apart from liking balloons, Gladys loves bubbles too. She received a mini bubble gun in one of her presents and the children can't wait to go and play with the new toy.

It's Bubbles Everywhere. ^_^

After a whole day of fun, we had dinner at KFC with fil and bbil's family. A birthday won't be complete without a Birthday cake and Happy Birthday song. :) Gladys chose the design of the cake by herself and it is not difficult to guess what she likes. (Pink and Princess) The whole cake looks so sweet!

Singing a HAPPY BIRTHDAY song to GLADYS and it's time to cut the cake. :)

Is the cake Yummy? Is all written on her face. :)

HAPPY 4th Birthday Gladys

~ Birthday setup for Gladys ~

Gladys has been asking me to decorate the house for her up-coming birthday since last week. I guess she had that impression since I surprised her on her last year's birthday and ever since then, she remembered. Mommy didn't want to disappoint our little princess and took out the birthday banner and put up some pretty balloons. Gladys LOVES balloons and she always could not resist the temptation to get one whenever she saw other children holding one in their hands at the shopping malls (especially the helium ones).

Gladys is in an extremely cheery mood today as she gave out all the birthday goodies bags we prepared to her friends in school and her playmates at bbil's place. She also received early birthday presents and was happy to see the living room decorated with balloons. ^_^ Tomorrow is going to be a special day as we celebrate Gladys' 4th Birthday!

~ Gladys' Lunar Birthday + Goodie Bags ~

Today is Gladys' lunar birthday (八月初四). As per Chinese tradition, hubby made longevity noodles (长寿面) and 2 hard boiled eggs for our little princess. Well, she won't be able to finish them all but it is just symbolic for her to just have a bite in each egg.

Gladys will be celebrating her 4th Birthday in another 2 weeks time. We bought some lollipops, biscuits, jelly and balloons earlier and got Denver & Gladys to help pack the items into each bags. These goodie bags will be distributed to Gladys' classmates in school as well as to her friends. The kids had fun packing the goodies and even packed one for themselves too.

~ My Birthday Presents - from Denver & Gladys ~

Simply spending my birthday with my love ones is a blessing. Hubby took me to eat dim sum for breakfast and helped me with some of the housework. This is always the best chance to ask for his help since he will usually obliged on a special day. :)

We picked the kids after they finished school and went out to window shop around Orchard road. Dinner was at Cafe Cartel and the whole day of work and walking has exhausted Hubby totally. :) Thanks Dear for putting in such a big effort.

Denver & Gladys on the other hand seems to be pretty active still. They worked on drawing me a birthday card as soon as we got home. (I was instructed not to peek while they are at works.)

Gladys wrote "Gladys Heng Love Mummy" on a piece of paper, put it in an envelope and sealed it with glue. She happily passed the letter to me and said "Happy Birthday, Mummy!". Awwww .. so sweet!

Denver on the other hand, spent more time decorating his card which is so colourful. "Happy Birthday Mummy" and there are so many balloons, confetti, shapes and hearts. Gladys seeing her gor gor made such a pretty card for me decided to re-do her card but this time with more colours! Competitive.. Hahaha!

The cards are so pretty! I framed them up and it is now in the children's bedroom for all to see everyday and night. :p

Birthday is not complete without a birthday song from Denver & Gladys. They are sleepy by now but still very playful. ^_^ Thank you Hubby, Denver and Gladys for just being with me!

~ My Birthday Presents and Lunch @ Nihon Mura ~

Another week to my birthday and I have been looking forward to having lunch with my close friends. They are really nice to make so much effort just to come all the way and plan for this day. We went to dine at the Nihon Mura branch at Jurong West Sports & Recreation centre and they have a lunch special at $7.99++ which includes choosing from a range of main dish (A) , a side dish (B) and a dessert (C).

It is an enjoyable thing to eat, chit chat, gossips and talk about everything under the sun. The other main highlight is of course presenting me with my birthday presents! hahahaha. Wow.. didn't expect to get two. :) They are really innovative when it comes to buying presents. Because of this group of pals, I get to receive stuff that I will never expect myself to buy or do. Now I got a new 'baby' to care for - my little plant. Gladys saw the plant on the table when she got home and says it is a flower. :) She even get ready to water it and luckily I stopped her just in time before my plant falls ill due to over-dosage of watering. hahaha..

THANK YOU ALL!

~ Celebrating Two Birthdays ~

We attended 2 Birthday Parties last Sunday. Our neighbour's son is celebrating his 2nd birthday and had a combine party together with another girl who is also celebrating her 2nd birthday too at Rivervale Cres Condominium.

The function room is decorated with a big banner filled with pink and blue balloons and a little play corner for the children. Music fills the room with yummy food and assorted drinks. Blue and pink crown cupcakes, door gifts, 2 birthday cakes (each for the prince and princess) and a playground which is just outside the function room.

Gladys is very fond of balloons. Especially those filled with helium gas since they float in the air. She has been grabbing them ever since she arrives and only to let it go when they went outdoor to play. Slides, monkey bars, running and playing with other children is what they enjoyed most.

Of course not to forget the yummy cupcakes which are finger-licking good. :)

Later in the evening, we went to Hubby's grandmother house to celebrate her birthday in advance. A sumptous buffet spread has been lined up and many relatives gathered at her house for dinner, chit-chatting, mahjong session and watching YOG live on TV. That's how we spent our Sunday.

~ Boyan's 1st Year Birthday ~

We just came back from a Birthday party. My colleague, Andrea's son's First Year Birthday. Children always love to go to birthday party since they get to eat and drink, sing Happy Birthday song, get goodie bags and have lots of yummy cake. I also get to see a couple of old friends and its nice to see their kids too.

Boyan of course is the highlight of the evening especially when he comes out in his Superman suit. So CUTE! He also got a BIG 3kg Superman Birthday cake. ^_^ Denver and Gladys have been eyeing on the cake and standing in front all the time. hahaha

~ Happy 7th Birthday, Denver! ~

Denver is 7 years old and another good news is it still falls within the school holiday! :) He has been counting down and looking forward to have a good time today.

Since it's his special day, we travel all the way from Sengkang to Jurong East Swimming Complex. Why? Because Denver loves to have fun in the water and there are Water slides, Lazy River, Waver Pool and many more available at the JE Swimming Complex!

We woke up early in the morning and reached the pool at 930am. It's our very first visit and the children are so happy to see the slides and pool. ^_^ (More details on how much fun they had on our travel blog - to be posted later)

After having a great time at the pool and settling our lunch at KFC, we went to IMM. It has been many years since we go to IMM and there are many more shops and resturants. We shopped at Daiso, bought new shoes for the children and they spotted free popcorns and candy floss give-aways. Yummy.....

There are many kiddos rides within the IMM building and Gladys is very busy hopping up and down on the various big and small cars, aeroplanes, boats etc....

Sharing their desserts at Kopitiam

We picked my inlaws and met up with bbil's family at McDonalds @ Compass Point for dinner. The kids love their burgers, nuggets, french fries and cooling drinks. Not to forget the most important thing... Denver receiving his Birthday Present! A gift from Bbil and Bsil. ^_^ This was what he has been looking forward to since morning. :) A new pack of Yu-Gi-Oh game cards. Royston and Denver can now have more battles and challenges at home now. They already planned to do so on Monday. :)

After dinner, it's ICE-CREAM time! Swensons is just opposite and we popped in for Round 2. 

Here comes Denver's Birthday 'cake'. ^_^ Instead of 7 candles, he has 1. :) We all sang a HAPPY BIRTHDAY song and see how happy he looked. Wishing you a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY, my dear son. We Love You!