Christmas 2007

We ushered in the Christmas a few days earlier this year. Our tree and presents were all in Melaka so we had a little party the weekend before Christmas. We had a small BBQ with some friends which turned out to be superb. BBQ foods were fantastic, especially the lamb!

It was a good celebration. Jia Wen and Jia Xiang got a lot of presents. Jia Wen especially got a lot of presents. Her favourite present is her binoculars which she has been asking for and we got it for her.

Jia Xiang

OH MY GOD!!!

25 December 2007

I could not wait to put these pics of Jia Xiang up. Isn't my son gorgeous?

12/12

Pics taken on Jia Xiang's actual birthday 12/12

12/12

Jia Xiang's 1st Birthday Party

Jia Xiang's 1st Birthday Party

We celebrated Jia Xiang's 1st birthday last weekend with a few friends and families. It was a small party but the house was packed alright. Jia Xiang had fun despite the crowd. The cake and cupcakes were by Happy Belly Bites. The cake was a tower in a shape of a numeric 1 but the tower crashed during its journey to Nilai. Eventhough it crumbled, the cake was still very nicely done and the "ruin" made it more authentic. If only we had a minature canon somewhere.

Entry (part 1) on my trip to the States is here.

MGM Studios Disney World, Florida

Magic Kingdom Disney World, Florida Part 2

Magic Kingdom Disney World, Florida Part 1

Melbourne Beach, Florida USA Part 2

Thanksgiving @ Melbourne Beach, Florida USA

Melbourne Beach, Florida USA Part 1

Jia Xiang is ONE

10.2 kgs, 75.5 cm – that’s Jia Xiang’s vitals as he turns 1 year old today (12/12).

As I look back exactly 1 year ago, I drove and admitted myself into SJMC awaiting for the arrival of my second child. Jia Xiang arrived on 12 December 2006 (12/12/06) at 0859 hrs, about 3 weeks earlier than his expected due date.

Today, he is 1 year old and is acting like any other one year olds around with a little character of his own. He hasn’t quite learnt to walk yet but he makes is presence known everywhere he goes. He is a screaming baby who screeches. When he cries at night, he doesn’t cry – he screams and squeals. Good thing the neighbours hasn’t called the Child Welfare on us… yet. He can scream for a good one hour and anyone outside would think that we are abusing and torturing him. You should see him when something is taken away from him, he’ll scream and shout at you. He is a happy baby and yet sometimes he is a very determined, opiniated “angry” baby. Or whenever you raise your voice at him or try to scold him, he’ll shout back at you. The comedy is really when he and his sister “quarrels”, the will seriously have a shouting battle and he usually wins! At the moment, it is still funny to us but I am sure soon, I’ll have to break them off. It is a love-hate relationship between the two of them. They cannot live without each other and yet cannot live with each other.

When everyone sees Jia Xiang in photos, they think he is a huge baby that weighs a tonne but when they meet him in person, they will say “Hey, he’s not that big!”. But there are quite a few people who when they see Jia Xiang, thinks he is a sumo wrestler with yummy delicious thighs. Well, I think my baby boy is an average (maybe a little above average) in size but in weight, I can hardly carry him for more than 5 minutes. Whenever I carry him, he’ll just slowly slide down my arms and sometimes in supermarkets when I have to carry him, I’ll carry him like a football but seriously, 10 kgs isn’t light. Imagine carrying a gunny of rice!

Jia Xiang loves to eat and eats almost anything you put into his mouth even spicy foods. He loves “wan tan mee” and must take a few bites off whatever his che-che eats. Whenever I feed Jia Wen, I’ll have to feed him some too or he’ll be pulling my hands or the plate! He currently have 3½ teeth but swallows everything you put into his mouth.

Jia Xiang is a typical boy who has itchy fingers. He loves touching and fiddling with things that he isn’t supposed to namely CD players, Astro decoders (can even pull out the sim card), remote controls, electrical plugs and computers kjsfgqwiuakqifkjva,fisfdkj (see what I mean?)! We never had such problems with Jia Wen last time. Jia Xiang already knows how to climb up and down the couch and climbing up the stairs is breeze. He is also a very attentive kid who listens out for any opportunity to climb up the stairs. We have a safety gate at the bottom of the stairs and whenever he hears anyone going up or coming down, he will quickly crawl to the gate and wait for it to be opened. He is very quick. Jia Xiang loves to play with toy cars which I find exciting cos Jia Wen never quite like anything in particular when she was this age. Jia Xiang would push the toy cars all over the house and fight for it when his sister takes it away from him.

Despite all the screaming and shouting, he is very adorable and lovable. I wish all of you can come and watch him and fall in love with him. You’ll love him.

USA Trip - Entry 1

Nope, I haven't forgotten to blog and I haven't forgotten my obligation to this blog. Its just been very hectic with so much happening since I came back and not forgetting the jetlag. My conscience have been bugging me about not blogging and how I haven't uploaded my photos of my trip since I came back a week ago. Perhaps I should also blame it on Facebook. Since uploading pics onto Facebook is so much easier and faster, all the pics are in there!

Alright already, let me start but before I go on, I think this will be a long blog so brace yourself.

Jia Wen & I left on a 25+ hours flight to Florida on the 17th November. It was a journey that I was worried sick about for weeks prior to the departure. I was mainly worried about how Jia Wen would be during the flight and throughout the whole journey. She's never been such a long flight before and honestly, I had packed some prescribed sedatives with me for the "just in case" situations and to keep my sanity. But guess what? I didn't need the sedatives at all. In fact, the thought didn't arise - both ways. Jia Wen was superb on the plane and during the whole journey. She didn't complain once about the long journey. She didn't even utter the phrase "Mummy, why so long wan"?. She was an angel in the plane except for being a little chatty but I cannot complain. She didn't sleep very much but kept herself entertained most of the time. She did colouring and played games on the 'inflight entertainment' unit. Overall, I would take her on such a long journey again. She never got out of her seat unless to go to the toilet ok!

We arrived at Orlando airport at midnight after transitting at Arlanda, Stockholm and changing flight at Newark Liberty Airport. Orlando airport is a nice airport with a hotel right in the centre of everything and very spacious compared to Newark Airport. Jacqui, Lars & Aurora came from Melbourne Beach (about 2 hours away from Orlando) to pick us up and took us back to Melbourne Beach. By the time we got back to the house, it was about 2+ am and I was ready for a bed and so was Jia Wen.

We were in Melbourne beach for a week. Jacqui and Lars has a beautiful home there where Lars' parents live. The house is in a development and it is built around a golf course. Beautiful place. The golf course is right in front of the house, just barely 100M away. Theres a pond right outside where sometimes we can see aligators swimming in there. Its really really nice. And inside the house, at the courtyard of course, there a swimming pool! Jia Wen spent most of her mornings in the pool with Carl Jr & Olivia (Lars' nephew & niece from New York). Jia Wen got 2 shades darker after 1 week of swimming under the sun. She looked good with the slight tan. she would sometimes even swim alone and sometimes she would go into the pool a few times in a day. Aside from the swimming pool, she was also kept busy with doing crafts. Karin (Lars' mum) has a basket full of craft stuff and she was literally glued to it. She cut and she cut and she cut. She really really enjoys cutting paper with scissors.

Jia Wen enjoyed Carl Jr and Olivias' company and had a good time with them. They went cycling and went for walks too. She misses them dearly and when it came the day for them to go back to New York, Jia Wen was sad and told me "Mummy, I don't want them to go".

The highlight of our stay at Melbourne Beach was Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is celebrated every 3rd Thursday of November and we purposely timed our trip for this ocassion. Every Thanksgiving, Lars & Jacqui will be celebrate it with his parents and brother Carl's family from New York there in Melbourne Beach. The whole family will be there a few days prior to the Thursday and the kids will have fun in the pool every morning.

An excerp from an email I wrote home while I was there (too lazy to rewrite):

we went to be beach - to another development where lars' brother has a house there. he doesn't live there but the house is there. very very very nice house. you know the holiday houses we see on tv by the beach where the waves are crashing into the beach with mist floating over the sea and the holiday homes will big huge balcony overlooking the sea (atlantic ocean)? it exists! Kevin (lars' bro) has a house in this beach cum golf course development called the windsor where there are houses with english styles. there's a horse stable there too and everything you can ever imagine. the pool house has a very lovely english clubhouse and there are poolboys running around with fresh warm towels like the ones we watch on tv. apparently ivan lendl (the tennis player) lives there. there are big houses, huge houses and gigantic houses. looks like my daugther has to marry an "ang moh" for me to perhaps have a lifestlyle like this! gosh.. beautiful.

Thanksgiving experience was definitely a wonderful one for me as we all watch it on TV all the time and long to be a part of the celebration and this time, I got the opportunity to experience a true Thanksgiving celebration. Preparation for the wonderful meal starts a few days before from collecting the turkey to preparing and planning the menu on Thursday is when you see the real action. The most important dish of course has the priority in the kitchen and the person preparing the turkey has top priority to the kitchen. Karin was in charge of the turkey and I was there to witness the preparation process. The turkey they got this year weighed 22 point something pounds = <>10 kgs! It was huge bird alright and carrying it around needed 2 people! It took exactly 6 hours for the turkey to be ready and at the meantime, the rest of the dishes were prepared i.e. salads, mash potatoes, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. It was like a mini army operation in the kitchen from morning till dinner time. Ro (Lars' sister-in-law) and Jacqui did most of the cooking while I stood by the side watching. By 5 pm, everyone was dressed and ready for dinner. We had 12 adults, 4 kids & 2 babies seated for the dinner. It was a superb dinner and the turkey was absolutely delicious. Jia Wen enjoyed the turkey the most! Thanksgiving dinner is never complete without pies - we had pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie.. gosh sinful! Apple pie was my favourite. It was a wonderful evening and a wonderful celebration.. I think we Malaysians should celebrate Thanksgiving too!

(gosh, this entry is never gonna end. i think i am going to stop here and continue about Disneyworld in another entry. enjoy the pics)

I AM BACK!

Yes Jia Wen and I are back from the States. It was a good holiday and everything went fine. My anxiety about travelling with Jia Wen was not necessary as she behaved really well and I think above what can be expected of a 3+ year old girl.

Lots to tell and lots to show but not now. I have hundreds of pictures to go through and loads to share. So keep on tuning in.