Quiet Christmas

We did not plan anything this Christmas despite me ending my confinement a few days before.

Its a quiet Christmas this year at the homeland, just me and Baby Boy as the dearie has to work today and the parent-in-laws are out for a Christmas Party. No Christmas feasting as well..

The little boy has not been sleeping much for the past week during the day and he occupies most of my time these days as we've yet to establish a routine yet and he's cranky and likes to be carried most of the time. I sure hope this phase will pass quickly. He's well-being is the best pressie that I can have this year. (oh.. plus i can lose a few more kgs and have alot more milk in my moo moo career .. if possible.. Dear Santa)

Merry Christmas peeps and my little Braedon.

One Month

A month of mummyhood and we've survived the little one's full month celebration (Thank you dear friends for the well wishes). Time has passed so very fast..

This is the little one who occupies most of my time these days and makes my day with his winsome grin. I lurve you my baby.. Happy One Month.

Being Confined

Really counting down to the end of my confinement. Some says 40 days.. but i'll take it easy from 30 days onwards. Counting down to normal food.. woots! (Although the food that the MIL cooks have not been too gingerly .. ;p)

Its easy to see why many newly minted mummies slip into depression, with the demands of parenthood like caring for the new born baby (crys, poo and pee), worrying about their health and milestones. Add in breast feeding, a body that is still recovering from the delivery, saggy tummy, weight gain, restrictions during the 'confinement' month.. sounds quite daunting. I neber thought i'll miss the 2 daily showers so so much and i can't bear to see my belly with the saggy skin and stretch marks ! Hmm... but.. the moment i see baby with his cute smile. everything is worth it.. :)

Now, there' the baby shower on Sunday to worri about.. close to 100 pax in our tiny home.. aiz.. should have separated the peeps into diff timings.. this silly old donkey moi.

My Little Boy

Baby Braedon's details at birth:

Time: 1.20pm on 22nd Nov 2010. ( Natural Birth with Epidural)
Weight: 3.07 kg @ 38 weeks plus ( 8 days before EDD).
Length: 48 cm

My little bundle of joy =)

Hello Baby

Kinda expected the little one to arrive on his estimated due date.. but he decided to pop out early on 22nd Nov 2010. My water bag broke around one am and was admitted to the delivery suite around 2 plus. Contractions started and i had epidural injected around 5am. Was fully dilated around 12 pm and baby arrived after an hour of pushing.

It really feels kinda surreal, when the little one whom i have been carrying for the last 9 months popped out and started crying. So loud and wonderous, his first cries. It felt quite like a miracle.. my baby. ( well.. the birthing process was kinda traumatic though and i was quite drained after the whole event).

Its been one week into parenthood and one week into confinement. Baby's feeding time means a constant lack of sleep plus struggles with the demands of parenthood like breast feeding. Tiring but worth the effort. The in-laws and dearie has been wonderful and i'm grateful for their efforts. Now i can't wait for the dreaded one month of confinement to end. Baby' s doing alrights.. and he melts our hearts when he smiles.. the charmy naught little boy. I'm grateful to have him, and the dearie.. =)

A long long weekend

Took 2 days of annual leave to rest for 5 days this week ( Thursday to Monday.. hee). Its a welcomed rest. Gotta clear my leave before baby comes.

Feels good to sleep till the sun shines brightly outside the homeland. To pop some movies and soapy korean dramas into the disc player. To just walk about in the shopping malls. To forget the stressfulness of work. A short respite before the demands of motherhood sets in full time. Even had time to cook pancakes for brekkie today. Life's good.

Clothes for The Little Boy

Been shopping online a while back. Bought loads of clothes for the little Boy. And tiny shoes too. Oh.. and a pretty pink baby bag for mommie. These days, the shopping revolves round baby items. Hee. Its quite a change.

Counting Down

Our baby boy's 35 weeks 5 days old and weighs 2.4 kg. No signs of labour yet. Next visit to the doc is 2 weeks later. Hope everything goes well. We look forward to seeing our little boy.

Mummie will learn to be a wonderful mummie okies.... my little baby Braedon =)

Turning 30

Gosh, I'm turning thirty in a few days. The past decade has flew by so very fast. Graduated from Uni, got my first job, first boyfriend (the dearie) whom i married, got our own place, travelled to Europe and Japan, started my second job and now expecting my little one.

Time flies and it takes great effort to maintain ties with the friends i so cherish. I so hope the next ten years will be wonderful as well. Had high tea today at Fullerton Hotel's The Courtyard with Fen. Hee.. scones with cream and jam makes moi a happy babe. So good to catch up with friends.. Birthday celebrations these days are subtle and without fanfare. Feels good to catch up with the good friends.. The countdown to the big 3 zero has began.

He's Five

The nephew turns 5 this week and his parents had a mini celebration of sorts for him at their place. A simple gathering with close family and friends.

The baby has grown into a fine little boy, still so very cute and so very lovable. My little one will have ready playmates.. i sure hope i have the energy to organise such celebrations for our baby.

Brunch Weekend

Its Brunch galore this weekend as me and dearie had brekkie at Swensons before heading for my medical appointment on Saturday. Value for monies brekkie..

This was followed by brekkie at Boomarang with the babes on Sunday. Buttermilk pancakes.. yums. Yup, I've been into having late breakfast recently.. Hee.

A Year

Today marks one year, one year into the new job. I like the colleagues, sure hope that i'll be able to stay till the second year mark before more pondering the future, work wise =)

The Little One

Yup, we're gonna be 3. 3 of us. Me, dearie and the little one. Our little baby boy. 21 weeks and counting. The tummy is growing rounder by the day. Am moi, waddling like a duck whose's gained too much weight. The question i still ponder these days.. will i make a good mommie? I really don't know. But, i'll try my best, for the little one. Hee, its part of the reason why the blogging's been rather slow.. i'm slacking.. in anticipation for the little one's arrival. 19 more weeks..

Busy With..

The past few weeks kinda just passed by in a flash. The little ones went for their long overseas trip together with the Mother-In-Law. The Father-In-Law got hospitalised the day they went overseas. Which kinda freaked the dearie out. So, we packed our bags and stayed over at the In-Laws place. We even managed to buy some furniture (a bed and shelves) which was needed in the next few months.

The Mother-In-Law came back about a week plus ago. We are slowly moving back to our own place. Work has been kinda crazy. My new colleague who just joined and took over the diff portfolio has just resigned after 2 weeks into the job. So I'm kinda struck with the 2 portfolios, and its a shitty sinking feeling and it kinda spolits my mood most days.

Other than that, I've managed to catch the entire series of Down With Love in the few weekends..a taiwanese idol series staring the drool some Jerry Yan and Ella Chan. Its a cute series, one of the rare ones which I have truly enjoyed recently. That pretty much sums up the past few weeks.

Looks like the current moodiness over work issues will continue for some time to come. Haiz. Silly Old Me.

Pilling Up

The to-do-list at work is piling up... gurrp.... is it me, or the workload simply too much? *Signz* Sure hope things will change for the better soon.. It Must! It Will!

Day out with Fen

Celebrated Fen's birthday with an outing to Vivo City on Sat. Mango Cake at Secret Recipe (They were out of White Choco Macadamia.. sobs) followed by some shopping. We din manage to catch SATC 2.. the tixs were sold out for the 3 shows! We ended the day with Dinner at.. *Drum roll*.. ha ha.. JPot lor.. Moi and not very creative with food choices.. ;p

Pork Ribs Soup and Laksa Soup Base

Tea time- Mango Cake

A Wedding and Brekkie

Was busy last Sat with the Sec Galfriend's wedding. Woke up bright and early and travelled all the way to the West to her place. She only had 2 jiemeis. Both of which are married.. coz she's the last in the group to get married..Hee.

The groom only had one xiongdi. Wha, so its a rather easy affair. She had her tea ceremony at her place before the whole entourage moved to her new place in the East for the second round of tea ceremony. Wha..the bride had 3 outfit changes during the ceremony.

It was the church wedding thereafter. A very fast event, i must say. A simple ceremony attended only by immediate family and a few friends. This was followed by dinner. Hee.. tits a long day.

Had brekkie @ Graze with the babes on Sunday. It meant more travelling to the West! Brekkie was great manz.. although i din really like my dish which had quite abit of avocado mixed with feta cheese. We ended the meal with the dessert platter. It feels good, meeting up with the galfriends, especially for brunch. Gotta meet up with the fres more often =)

Dessert Platter

Jinny's Hash Brown

Han's Eggs Ben

Hui's order -Omelette

My Brekkie

Weekend of Cakes

Its the dearie's 32nd birthday last Saturday. We had Thai food with the family and spend Sat shopping. The little nephew decorated a cake just for his dear uncle. Wee! We even had rather good mango dessert at the bugis area. We enjoy simple things in life, especially my heartlander hubby!

Dearie's Birthday cake decorated by little Javen

Sunday was little Aloysius and Charlotte's 1st year celebration. More cake! Check out the pretty Noah's Ark themed cake that Qian got for the little babes. So pretty! So many cakes this weekend of mine..

Its Noah's Ark (Cake) ..

This weekend

Most weekends are spent sleeping these days ( more updates on the reason why soon). But I managed to meet Fen, Wen and Cecilia after work on Friday nite for dinner at the Bugis area (Liang Seah St). We had steamboat at Xian De Lai and dessert at a dessert place a few doors down. ( I still like ah chew desserts which is opposite Xian De Lai). These days, i dun eat much for mains, but i sure luv my desserts..Hee!

Also, met up with the babes for dinner on Sat at Orchard Central. The mall's pretty quiet for a sat nite.. i feel its probably due to complex layout of the place. We had dinner at Heaven's Loft. Great place for chilling out..since the restaurant has a outdoor section which over looks Somerset. We ended the meal with dessert at fruit paradise. The fruit tarts are good manz. Will definitely try the tarts at the other outlets. Slurp. Feels good, meeting up with the babes.

Its been a good weekend. Its challenging times ahead .. ;p

Wanderlust 2010: Central Japan

Yup, we've been to Japan and back. 28th April to 5th May 2010. Central Japan to be exact. Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto, Kobe in 7 days. (5.5 days in Japan to be exact because of the travelling time). Japan has always been high in the list of places I would like to travel to, since the teenage days with the popularity of Japanese Dramas. The travel agent had a 2nd pax travel for 50% off, so we decided on Japan instead of our original choice of Korea. Its a good deal me thinks, so its Nihon , land of raw fish, sakura..here we come.

We travelled by Japan Airlines. Another experience i would say. i quite like the Yuzu sky juice provided by the airlines. Ours was an overnight flight from Singapore. We reached Narita Airport early morning and started day 2 of our tour straight. Totally zonked out when we were at Disneyland Tokyo. The place is huge, compared to Hong Kong Disneyland manz. We did some rides although the place was very crowded as it was Japan's Golden week. The entire country's on holidays and travelling. So glurp.. imagine the long long queues for the rides. We headed to Ginza for some shopping. Yup, me luvs shopping. Although i din get any burberry blue label bag in the end as i din like any of the designs. The dearie did get a black label shirt though. We had dinner at Ginza area before checking into our hotel for the night. We stayed at Tokyo's Hyatt Regency. Hee, liked the hotel. Our hotel's within walking distance to Shinjuku. Our guide brought us there for some shopping. We had ramen for supper.

Disneyland Tokyo

Shinjuku at Night

Ramen Shop- Where we had our supper

Day 3 started with a visit to Ameyoko. A local products market. This was followed by outlet shopping at Gotenba Premium Outlet Mall. Hee, the time we had there was too short. There's Coach outlet, Gap outlet, Prada outlet and many many other outlets (i wonder if its be more shiok outlet shopping in the states). We also went to Shirato-no-Taki Falls, where we had our first glimpse of Mt Fuji. Our hotel that night was a traditional hot spring (onsen) hotel. We had a traditional Japanese Meal and the dearie even tried out the onsen. Moi will definitely try the onsen the next time we are in the country (Hokkaido maybe?!) . Is also interesting how the sky is bright and sunny at 4am local time (3am sgp time).. so bright that moi kept worrying about oversleeping. Hee, our days start rather early with morning calls at 6-6.30am local time.. *Yawns* and breakfast at 7.30 am ( imagine eating rice at 6.30 am in sgp .. glurrp!). The locals usually have a full fledge morning meal consisting of rice. So diff from my 2 pieces of bread routine at home..

Goodies at Ameyoko

Our room for the nite

Dinner at the traditional styled Inn

Day 4 was visit to Mount Fuji! The weather was rather good that day, we had a wonderful view of the famous mountain and even went up to Mt Fuji's 5th Station. Very beautiful views (although my fav is still Switzerland's mountains.. opps). We proceeded to Oshino Hakkai with its crystal clear pond and more views of Mt Fuji. We left for Nagoya after that. It was shopping at Nagoya ( at Sakae shopping street near Nagoya TV tower and the Oasis 21 Complex) before stopping at Gifu, where our hotel was located. I rather liked this hotel we stayed at. Out of the way, but nice.

View of Mt Fuji

We headed for Kyoto, Nara and Osaka on Day 5. We visited Kiyomizu Temple which was a temple built in 1633 in Kyoto. We had lunch and shopping at the street next to the temple. I luv Kyoto, which provides a glimpse into the rich cultural history of the country. The next place we headed to was Nara. We visited Nara Deer Park where many deers roam freely . Todaiji Temple which housed the largest bronze Buddha Structure in Japan was housed within the park. We ended the day at Osaka, whereby we had time to do more shopping!

Osaka Castle

Day 6 was Kobe City tour. We opted for the city tour instead of going to Universal Studios. The entire tour went for the city tour as those who opted for the amusement park were not able to get tickets due to the long queues (golden week mah). We visited Osaka Castle, followed by Kobe Chinatown, and Kobe Harbour. Did more shopping and ended the day at Osaka again. More shopping and eating at Shinsaibashi (Osaka's shopping and eating paradise).

Really Oiishi Peach Jelly.. Expensive but good

Kobe Harbour

Shinsaibashi's food street

Day 7 was for last minute shopping at the shopping complex near our hotel before we catch our domestic flight from Osaka to Narita and subsequent flight back home. *Sighs* time passes when we are travelling. The wallets are lighter, but the mind is rich with the sights of the places that we've been to the past few days. Feels great, finally being able to visit Japan. We'll definitely be back, either Hokkaido or a free and easy trip within Tokyo. Hee hee, moi is a happy donkey. Such trips light up my life.. i heart the sights, the cultural, the food. Till the next long trip next year (hopefully Korea or Australia) =)

Osaka Airport

Lunch at Osaka Airport

The shopping loot!!

Sleep Patterns

The sleep routine:

Sundays to Thursdays Nites: 11.45 pm to 6.20 am. (6.5 hours)
Friday & Saturday Nites: 12am to 11am and later.

The lack of sleep on weekdays lead to almost full day sleeping on weekends. Gosh, moi must really sleep earlier on weekdays to reduce the topsy sleep patterns. =)

So Sunny

For the past few workdays, i've been having external meetings which ends rather early. Some days, I am home by 5.30pm woa.. a luxury which i have never (almost lah) experienced before . The sky being bright and sunny from the windows of the homeland. Today, i managed to finish the novel which i had been reading by 8pm. Ahh..the price of leisure on a weekday. i so wanna find moi a job which allows me to knock off on time and yet bring home the moolah. Such wistful thinking i know.. just like the loads of work left undone because of the meetings. *signs*

Changing Times

More changes abound. More updates shortly. For one, the travel plans are getting more firmed up. If all goes well, we'll be travelling end April. Haa..

3 Days Already??

Gosh! You mean 3 days have passed already?! The long weekend came and is gonna be over soon. We've been sleeping late and waking late. Relishing the moments of simply doing nothing. The days passed in a blur.. We celebrated the MIL's birthday at a Zhi Cha restaurant nearby on Friday, plus trips to both the parents' place. The mommie was doing this qingming ceremony thingy today and we popped by. I really need to spend more time with the mommie. I so wish that she would move nearer to us. *Signz*

I think I'm having long weekend withdrawal symptoms and dreading work tomorrow. Pondering the meaning of a purposeful existence. Is work the end all and be all? Perhaps I'm simply overwhelmed having to cope with 2 portfolios in this transitional period at the workplace. *Aiz* I sure hope things pend out well...

Making Tiramisu

I was at Vivo City some time back and got some lady fingers biscuits ( Savoiardi biscuits) at Candy Empire. So, moi decided to try making Tiramisu. Managed to get the requisite Mascarpone at NTUC Finest, plus some brandy and cocoa powder. So, I followed a rather simple recipe. The dessert was yummy, although the lady fingers could be more well-soaked in the coffee mixture. I used very little of the lady fingers biscuits and the cheese mixture was spread rather thickly too. Will try to improve with a more complex recipe the next round. Buts..Hee, the dearie likes it!!

Limited Space

Sometimes I feel that I have quite limited space in brainy land. Strange that I just cannot seem to remember my debits and credits from the schooling days. My theory? That i forget stuff by modules. Ha ha.. obviously the basic accounting knowledge from the secondary and jc days have been totally squeezed out to make space.. ;p

Bottled Up

I wish that he would lead a proper life, I pray that he would come to his senses. I hope that he would one day become more sensible, responsible and rational. I so wish that he would make good of his life.. For her sake. Its not too much to ask for, I sure hope. He remains my greatest source of worry, even if I have to shoulder the responsibility alone. I will. Or perhaps, I am simply too harsh, my expectations of him too high. Whatever, will have to see how it pends out..

Mommie's Birthday

We took the day off from work. Am I sure am glad we did. Its the mommie's 56th birthday! We caught up on lost sleep before heading out for the day. The mommie had wanted to visit the Flyer, and so we did ( I know, we quite "mountain turtle" ah..going only so many months after the opening!).

Lunch at Popeyes

It was a rainy afternoon and the rides were temporarily suspended due to the bad weather. We had a late lunch at Popeyes while waiting for the rides. Luckily the rides resumed around 4pm and we gamely got our tickets despite the slight drizzle. Its a good experience, being able to view my favourite landscape and the construction going on at the nearby Integrated Resort. (Despite the pricey tixs and the short half hour ride.. ;p)

Still Drizzling Outside

Beautiful view of the City

Top of the Wheel

This was followed by dinner at Vivo City. Yup, we brought mommie to dinner at JPot. We chose Dinner Set B this round, and added some items from the menu like vegs and bean curd. We had the superior broth and Bak Kut Teh broth again and ended up totally stuffed. We had free flow longan tea and drank many many cups of the drink too. Dinner was yums, and reasonably priced as we had a discount coupon for $20 off. Hee, perks of being an auntie with loads of membership cards.. We ended the day with shopping at Vivo and moi brought back loads of goodies from Candy Empire.. ;p

Pasta Tonight

We brought some fresh chorizo sausages from the supermarket over the weekend. The chap at the counter mentioned about cooking the sausages with Pasta. So I did, for our dinner tonight. I was afraid there would not be any vegetables in the pasta, so i threw in some carrots, diced tomato and button mushroom to balance the saltish spicy sausage. Hee.. used up my sun-dried tomato sauce.. gotta go grab more. I quite like the pasta paired with the sausages combi. Will definitely be rustling up more sausage pasta soon.

A Boy and Dragons

Worked from home (or from the MIL's place rather) today, so i promptly shut off the work mail at 5 plus. We had an early dinner and took the darling little boy out to the movies. Its the first time that he's watching a show with his jiu jiu and jiu ma. So, of course we caught a cartoon, and a 3D one as well. Yup, we watched "How To Train Your Dragon". At $11 per pax, it sure is a pricey movie.. but worth the moolah for the 3D version.. ;p

I only knew it was a show about dragons, but golly.. its a great show. Simple story lines about misfit boy "Hiccup" saving the day.. but the whole movie rocks. I sure luv "Toothless" the cute Night Fury.. ;p Plus, the little boy enjoyed himself too. Its been a good day and start to the week, just like its been some time since we've last caught a movie.