It's Time To Sleep You Crazy Sheep

... is Brendan's all-time favourite book and we don't know why.

Could it be the rhymes or the illustrations?

We've I've read it so often (at least twice a day: before nap and before bed) that I've memorised the first two pages. If I can memorise the whole book, that would be great - I'll just recite the whole book in the dark while he settles himself to sleep. Ha!

I thought our trip to the library on Wednesday was fruitful, with 9 books for him and 4 for me, but I realised later that night that 1/3 of the books were related to colours. Boring!

This book isn't too bad, although I try not to be bothered by the American spelling. :D

Except that I'm still trying to get him interested enough to read/go through the whole book! 

One of his other favourite book is called Piranhas Don't Eat Bananas and it's a pretty entertaining book. It was a birthday present and he happily shrieks "Nana!" when he sees the cover, although I do wonder if he's referring to the banana or the piranha.

I'm looking for more books to buy for him, although he's stopped flicking through a few of his Sandra Boynton and Dr Seuss ones. Noooooo ... I can't wait for him to be able to read so we can go through them together! :)

My little bookworm back in April. *heart*

Crap!
I just nodded off for a second here!

I think I better get to bed ... zzzz

Spring is springing

Why, hello!

It's been a while!

I'm here because I'm wondering how long will it take for a tray of brownies to cool down before I can dig in. I'm also wondering if I should bake some cookies while waiting.

Or prepare dinner instead.

Betty Crocker's Triple Fudge Brownies - first time trying a brownie mix.

I can't believe it's September and in a few months, it'll be another new year. I dread the new years as they remind me of how old I'm becoming and how fast B is growing up!

There has been some progress in some of his skills and thought process that sometimes surprise us. I'm probably not like some mums who keep tab on every single achievement but should I?

August 2017 - He finally knew how to stack them. Almost brought tears to my eyes. :P

Just last Friday, I was chatting with another mum when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed B going down the plastic kiddy slide on his tummy. The fact that he was sliding down head first wasn't what surprised me (he's a bit of a daredevil, me thinks), but the fact that he had managed to climb up the 5 steps on his own and I didn't get to witness it the first time. Oh, man!

Mr Sociable wanted to be friends but the kid wasn't pleased to be interrupted
from his playing.

He's very keen on being friends with other children and it's hard to rein in his excitement and friendliness. When mums of the other children aren't around to guide or advise their children on how to react to B's attention, I try to steer him away, just in case the other children/mums don't really like it. 

B has a few friends at playgroup who are used to his attention by now. He likes handing over toys from the containers or anything, just to be friends. But now that he's a bit more aware of his surroundings and he is 15 months plus now, he is at that stage of wanting to play with the toys that other children are playing with. Oh gawd, I have to tell him to either share or wait for his turn, and sometimes drag him away, telling him that the other kid does not want to share the toy.

It's the truth, and I might be handling it all wrong but hey, it is NOT easy to deal with the situation, mmkay.

I know a mum who once told me she had tears in her eyes when she observed her son playing on his own while she was preparing dinner. She was imagining how lonely it was to be an only child. 

Yeah, I sometimes feel the same way, too, when I see B bored and alone with his toys, as if in need of some company. I tell myself that I need to bring him out as much as possible for play dates so he can play with the other little people like him. :)

But sometimes I want to do my own things, too ... and housework. :D

Neighbour's chilli was so spicy! I thought they'd harvest it so I left it there but they never did!

I am trying to get myself back into running and it's hard work when you have to push the stroller at the same time. It's a good workout, I have to admit, but my runs are pretty dependent on the weather. The weather is kinda crummy this week, and the sun peeks out from the clouds during B's afternoon naps! Hah!

Anyhoo, I need to post some recipes here before I forget them. I'd like to think that I've cooked up a storm for the past few months I haven't updated this blog but I don't think I've been that productive. 

Laters.

What, December Is Here??

Soooo, I've been a mum for 6 months now, and gosh, how time just seems to fly when you're not sleeping enough! 

I swear I've aged 10 years since.

I've yet to make a few more to complete the fleet.

Little B is no longer the little dumpling he was 6 months ago, but is now mummy's little sticky koala. He's a cheeky fella with a ready grin and restless hands, and doesn't take mummy's "NOOOOO!!!!" seriously.

In fact, he'll chuckle and think it's one of mummy's sound effects. (I do a pretty impressive clucking hen and yapping puppy!)

Not impressed with the toy mummy made for him.

I wish I could proudly say that it has been a breeze but we all know that it would be a terrible lie. I struggle with putting him down for his naps and bedtime - bedtime is a constant battle as he often screams and wails. I amuse myself by singing "The End Of The World" which puzzles him. Hehe. I find it amusing because I suspect he thinks being left in his cot to sleep is equivalent to a death sentence and it really is the end of the world. 

Fell asleep after mummy refused to entertain his wails. Yes!!!
But only a half hour nap, though. Booooo!

And when he finally sleeps, I rejoice!

And then comes the dilemma: do I catch a few winks, too, or get on with my chores?

Bugger.

Such is my daily struggle. :)

Hiking the Northern Range track at You Yangs Regional Park.

We try to go for a hike every weekend so the parents can get some exercise in and also expose him to the outdoors where he'll be spending a good chunk of his childhood. Unfortunately there are a lot of flies and mozzies now that the warm weather is here.

Poor bub gets so bored on the trails that he tends to take a nap while mummy will huff and puff up the incline.

So far, there hasn't a need for me to feed him on the trails. Thank goodness for that!

I'm going to talk about something else besides my little bub now, lest I end up rambling about him. (Let's hope he'll continue napping until I finish writing this post!)

This is our neighbour's plum tree. Every time I step outside into our backyard, these fruits stare at me so invitingly that I wished one of its branches was leaning over to our side so I could pluck them. I found a fallen fruit in our yard that day and we tasted it. It was decently sweet, not sour at all. Lucky neighbour!

This is one of our blueberry plants. It was exciting for a while to see them turning ripe, until I realised how I had to check on them on daily basis to know when they were ripe enough to be plucked. 

I guess that's the reason why they cost quite a bit as you need tons of plants to yield enough blueberries to fill a punnet!

One of the herbs we have been trying to grow since 2 years ago is the coriander/cilantro. We bought 2 or 3 punnets from Bunnings a few times and every time they'd struggle and just die.

Then the hubs decided that he'd try and grow them from the roots of store bought ones. They flourished for a while, grew seeds and flowers, and died.

The ones pictured here are from those seeds. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise as we really didn't expect them to find its way into our vegetable patch! 

We're now waiting for it to 'pass on' for the next generation. I've even chucked some cuttings onto our nature strip in front of our house to see if they'll shoot up next year. :P

We grew some curly kale from a packet of seeds and we didn't expect them to grow so well. I lost interest in them when I realised that stupid aphids loved kale - they're a pain to clean off the leaves prior to cooking and consumption!

Not only that, we had a short stint of caterpillars happily leaving lots of holes in the young juicy leaves. The hubs had to check the plants regularly and 'dismantle' the caterpillars from the leaves and give them a new home some place else. :P

We are excited that our persimmon tree is fruiting!

It's still struggling to be a very healthy tree so we're obliged to give it tons of TLC and pray its fruits will stay with us until they're ripe.

Gosh, gardening is a tough job.

It's a pretty Aussie thing to do, I suppose, to have a vege patch. It does gives a topic of conversation to have with like-minded friends. :D


------
My post from our trip to New Zealand last December is still in draft!

Tsk tsk.
It's going to be another new year by the time it's ready.

I hope not!

2016 CNY Gathering At Our Place

Valentine's Day this year was celebrated with a Chinese New Year lunch gathering at our place. Well, it's always nice to have a few friends over during the festive season to promote/generate some positive energy in your home.

One of the main concerns I had was keeping 7 children entertained as we don't have an abundant stock of children's toys. I devised a few games to be played, which I know came to a surprise to some people! 

This year's Yu Sheng ot Yee Sang, the 'Chinese salad' to be tossed during Chinese New Year.

This year's 14th of February was also the 7th day of the lunar calendar, and better known as 'Human's Day'. It is commonly referred to as 'everyone's birthday' and rightfully, the day for the Prosperity Toss (of the Chinese salad).

This year's version excluded coloured strips of yam and decorated with segments of mandarin oranges. (Thanks Valerie and Wen Hui for your assistance!)

The kids ended up having lots of fun running around our yard, playing with cut grass and pulling weeds. Had we known weeding would keep them happily occupied, we would have set them loose in the yard sooner!

We decided that since they didn't mind being outside (although I felt it was a tad bit warm), we played Pass The Parcel.

Now my childhood version of Pass The Parcel requires the person who gets the parcel to complete the task s/he uncovers on the paper. But the Australian version involves a prize uncovered at every level!

So you can imagine how gutted they were that they were playing my version. Hehehe.

Examples of some of the tasks at hand, illustrations provided by the hubs because I can't draw for nuts.

At the end of it was a bag of chocolates to share among themselves, which the kids did so without complaints.

One of the tasks of Pass The Parcel involved everyone receiving a cookie, which was the heart shaped cookies I baked and iced 2 days earlier.

The next game was a treasure hunt involving the small owls I had made as a 'door gift' for the kids. However, I had made a mistake with the variety of colours - where 6 girls are involved, it's best to have more pink options available.

Earlier on I had subtly asked what were their favourite colours and only 3 chose the colours I had made for them. One girl burst into tears because she wanted a pink one, so another girl was made to give hers up in order to appease her tears. (I was earlier informed that her favourite colour was red!)

ANYWAY, I've just completed a replacement pink owl for the nice girl. She was a champ for not succumbing to tantrums whatsoever so I might just make her an extra something.

The first game the kids played was Pin Olaf's nose. It was a nice ice-breaker game which got all the kids intrigued at having a go. I'm mentioning this here just so I can keep this picture of the drawing as a memento!

Just for the record, this year's cookie stash is a bit of a disappointment for me. I tried 4 new recipes and only 1 turned out excellent (in terms of taste). I also made my 2 usual ones, peanut cookies and butter cookies which lacked something ... focus? love? Hahaha I have no idea!

Hope everyone else is enjoying the Chinese New Year festivities. We have one more gathering to attend this Sunday which will mark the end of binge eating sessions! :)

Keeping The Family Entertained is Hard Work

My family came over last month two months ago (September 2015) for a short visit. A week is definitely a short visit, especially when there's so much on the itinerary to cover.

Day 1 - We visited the Werribee Open Range Zoo. I remember enjoying my visit back in 2006 and prayed that it would not be any different this time, if not better.

The best bits:

1. going on the ride that brought us around part of the Park. It kills 20 minutes and you get to rest your feet. You'll also be amazed with how much land they have for the animal to roam free!

2. Seeing the gorillas up close. They have 3 gorillas and they looked magnificent. If you were as tall as a 4-year-old, you'd be almost face-to-face with them.

Niece refused to pose with me.
[Bin's pic.]

The not so good bits:
1. Weekends are always packed and it's not easy to find a picnic table and seats for a group of 7 for lunch.

2. It was a warm day and everyone was tired from walking.

Photo credit: Bin

3. Did not cover the entire place because my parents were too tired from walking. My niece was getting bored, she just wanted to go home to do some painting with me.

Day 2 - It was a long drive along the Great Ocean Road and got as far as Wye River to spot the wild koalas. But seeing that the koalas were high up in the trees and were doing nothing, it was the birds which attracted my niece's attention.

She was more interested in the birds. A kind lady offered her some bird seeds to feed the birds but my niece ended up throwing the seeds onto the ground as she was scared of the birds.

Wild koalas in the trees outside of BIG4 Wye River Caravan Park.

Day 3 was spent shopping in DFO South Wharf, before picking Bin up to head out to Lygon St for dinner. I don't seem to recall the name of the restaurant ... it goes to show how much of an impression the food gave me. :P

After dinner, we headed to Il Dolce Freddo for gelato, which I tell you, is probably the best on Lygon St. They have durian and ferrero rocher flavours! Bin and I tried Casa Del Gelato, supposedly the oldest gelato store in Melbourne before and it was disappointing. 

Day 4 was spent walking around in the city before heading off to Squire's Loft, Albert Park for ribs. Yeah, I confess that Bin and I were quite tired of eating out but our guests were insistent that it was their holiday and might as well eat out and enjoy themselves. The beef ribs were pretty good as we found the pork ribs a bit dry.

Tea at Laurent, 3 hours before dinner.

I didn't even have a chance to bake Bin a birthday cake that day. :P

Day 5 was a long drive to Yarra Valley for lunch in a vineyard. We stopped by the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery before lunch. The niece was happy with the free chocolate tasting.

Playing Lady and the Tramp with a breadstick.

We had to rush off to De Bertoli for our lunch reservation. I think Bin and I had the rabbit and lamb dishes, while everyone else had pasta. My niece had a shock of her life when I told her that her aunt and uncle chase little rabbits and lambs for their meal. She moved away from us to sit with my sisters for about 15 minutes. :P

Yummy rabbit tasted like chicken ... oh gawd, I can't look at it right now!

We made a quick pit stop at Healesville Sanctuary for my dad, sisters and niece to pet the kangaroos. We only had 2 hours to cover the place before it was closed for the day! Saw the dingos, wombats and Tasmanian devils, and platypus!

Photo credit: Bin

Right after that, we drove all the way to Chadstone shopping centre because they wanted to do some late night shopping, seeing that it was a Thursday night after all. Bin and I were exhausted, so were my parents, I could tell, but we had to soldier on.

It was a long drive home and we were all knackered.

Some of our chocolate stash from the Chocolaterie.

Day 6 was their last day in Melbourne and it was time for some last minute shopping. We met up with my uncle (mum's elder brother) for dinner that night at Lazat, Sunshine.

After they left the next day, the house felt pretty empty. It's always sad to see your family go after such a brief holiday, but everyone has their work commitments and probably missed sleeping in their own beds!

I had to adjust not having a little shadow following me around anymore and insisting I sat with her during meal times so we could chat and eat together. OK, it probably involved me feeding her as she takes forever to finish her meal. 

My temporary 'mini me'.

Keeping a toddler entertained is HARD work!

For the past few times we have been on Skype, she tells me that she is coming to visit me again really soon, and asked if I could go home for a visit really soon as well. :)

Surf Coast Hell Run 2015 - Relay Team Challenge

When: Saturday, 5th September 2015.

Where: Lorne, Victoria

Time: 7.00am

Distance: 21.1km (half marathon)

So, Bin and I kinda retired right now. That's right. 

Then Jon invited Bin and I to be part of his 21km relay team less than 3 weeks ago. 

Best team name ever!!!!!

We spent Friday night at Lorne Foreshore Caravan Park and spent the of race day at Sheoak picnic area.

Due to too many events taking place in August and September, the crowd at the inaugural Surf Coast Hell Run was a small one. It felt so much more cosier this way, which I rather enjoyed, although I'm sure any race director/organiser would prefer it the other way round.

The 21km runners were flagged off at 9am.

There were 4 categories: 7km, 21km, 42km and 63km. Except for the 7km, the rest of the runners had to run a 21km loop which consisted of a U-turn point at the 11km mark. The 63km runners needed to do 3 loops and the 42km runners would do 2.

The route was described as, 'up, up, up, and then down all the way.' Despite the undulations and 'gentle' slopes, the route was mainly made up of 4WD tracks with no trail technicality involved.

"WHERE'S MY TEAMMATE??" Jon panicked.
"Hello????" I furiously waved my arms in the air to catch his attention.

SCTR Laksa Lovers was the 1st team to sign up, with SCTR Catch Me If You Can signing up at the last moment. There was friendly ribbing between the 2 team captains Gavin and Jon a few days leading up to race day.

Clueless me went into the race thinking our team was just in it for a relaxing weekend run. Haha!

Gavin and Jon were the 1st runners for the teams, with Gavin coming in at 2:11:xx and Jon at 2:18:xx, giving the other team an 8-9 minute head start. I was pretty impressed with these 2 chaps!

"I'll just keep ... running ... until ... that tree ... over there ..." I huffed.

The weather was nice and cool that day, with occasional showers. 

The first 4km of the run was filled with teasing undulation, which made me think, "OK, this isn't too bad!" until 4km. The next 4km involved trudging up (with the help of 2 sticks) and a few seconds of flat after every 1.5km.

It probably doesn't make any sense to you, so don't bother doing the maths!

"Let there be a view!"

 7km in, the slopes were a bit kinder to the legs... kinda.

No view.

I was looking forward to the aid station!

The one and only aid station at the 8km/14km mark.

John Yoon and George Mihalakellis were there to greet me, with George telling me hurry up as Ken was 14 minutes ahead!

*yawns* 

I was like, "Whatever..." :P

Hello September, Goodbye August!

Time flies, and it's zooming by really quickly.

Where are the brakes?

I don't want the year to end so soon!!

It's been 2 years since I've moved to Melbourne and there's so much I've yet to experience or see. We probably need to speed things up a little but it's hard when a) they can cost a bomb and b) we just want to stay at home and do some gardening, or go trailrunning, or catch up with friends.

Winter has been tough, in a sense that we don't feel so inclined to go out there and run. We found ourselves doing a bit of workout in the comfort of the gym and I have to say that multi-tasking (watching TV while running on the treadmill) makes me a happier person - I wanted to watch Masterchef Australia!

Now that Spring is coming, we can't wait. More daylight means being able to tend to the garden when we return home from work! We'd feel more energised, too when we arrive home after work. Winter's dark evenings kinda sucked the life out of us that made lazing in front of the TV more tempting than going out for a run.

Last weekend saw us taking an hour drive from our place to Olinda, Dandenong for a 20k trail run. Jon wanted to recce the route for the Dandy Hipster Run (taking place on 26th Sept) and seeing that we needed some training for our race this weekend, we succeeded in dragging our fat wobbly arses out of bed at 5ish am. 

Disappearing into the wilderness.

Photo credit: Jon.

We felt so alive! Wooooo....

We walked up this stretch and joked about setting up a few mobile coffee stands along the way.

I thought it was the end of our run but turns out that we had another 2k to go after this this.

It was great running in the Dandy's again. We love love love being surrounded by the lush green and tall trees and the muddy trails. I rolled my left ankle when I tripped over nothing and it took 10 minutes of rest before I could continue on. With 5k to go, it seemed like a huge feat but somehow, I could walk OK, especially on the inclines. Once my ankle felt much better, I managed to jog the last 3k as the route was flat. I was pretty pleased; thank goodness no major injuries. *mixed feelings*

Yet somehow I managed to twist my RIGHT ankle a few hours later. In my tired state of mind, my foot slipped off the pavement while we were walking towards Freedom. Arghhhhhhhhhhh!

Now that hurt 10x more than the earlier incident!

I sat around on the sofas in Freedom while waiting impatiently for Bin to make his purchase and go.

I hobbled around most of the day and it was only at night (after our dinner guests had left - we invited them over at the last minute so we could continue catching up) I managed to ice and heat both ankles.

Anyway, to cut the long story short about my being a heroic idiot with 2 injured ankles, I haven't been able to walk properly not because of them, but because of my very sore quads! My ankles are good, albeit just a little swollen. :)

Website: Inaugural Dandy's Hipster Coffee Run

A Quick Getaway to Gold Coast, Queensland

Friday, 3rd July 2015

We flew into Gold Coast via Jetstar and landed at the airport before noon. As we queued to picked up our rental car from Budget, the lady at the counter asked the hubs if we were there for the Gold Coast Airport Marathon. :D

We were pleasantly surprised to have been given a new red car, woohoo!!

We decided to stop by Burleigh Heads for some lunch as our tummies were beginning to grumble. Unsure where to go for food, we found ourselves outside the fish and chip shop.

Might as well!

Shared a single platter for $17. No biggie but good enough to keep our tummies happy. :)

Walked towards to beach after lunch for a quick look-see.

We were rather too chilled for words - instead of stopping by the expo to pick up our bibs, we headed straight to our accommodation to check-in, rest a bit before heading out again.

We found ourselves at the unofficial Main Beach parkrun because some friends said they'd turn up. *no names mentioned* While waiting for team McCleish to arrive, we chatted with Trish, a runner from Brisbane. She was there with her husband and running buddy, and they were doing the half marathon on Sunday.

The crowd began to build up and Tim (General Manager of parkrun Australia) kicked it off with an opening speech and introduced several people to the crowd. There were a couple of elite runners that day, but for the life of me, I don't remember their names.

SCTR represented!

The legs felt good. We were stoked to find ourselves mostly running on a track instead of a concrete pavement. Most of the run was on a track and it was pretty cool - I would say it's a light trail for beginners, with a little undulation every now and then. Every now and then, we'd catch a glimpse of the aquamarine sea beyond the trees on the route back to the start area.

The pictures I have don't do the route justice. I have to say that it's a pretty good parkrun route. In fact, I loved it!

If you're in Gold Coast for the weekends, do join their parkruns on Saturday mornings at 7 am.


After that, we rushed off to Surfers Paradise to meet up with our friends from Malaysia for dinner. We didn't expect it to be so difficult to find a parking spot!

*sigh* There is always a photobomber trying to be funny!

Bin and I were clearly under dressed for that rather breezy evening. :D

We were indecisive where to have dinner and eventually decided on Belly Busters. We took a while to decide what to order (we were pretty clueless) but after 15 minutes, we made our selections reluctantly. The whole stack of ribs was huge!