Mothers Day 2013

To celebrate Mother’s Day, the whole family including the in-laws had lunch together at Sheraton yesterday. Even though Pops is still recovering from his op, he felt well enough to come out too. Nat made a card in school for me earlier in the week...awww. 



 

The spread wasn’t much, but most dishes were tasty. I thought I wouldn’t be able to eat much since my stomach is high up in my chest these days but I nicely whacked the crayfish, and even added it to my laksa.

 

The kids at least had the artificial waterfall to entertain them and they indulged in the dessert spread. I indulged too, helping myself to the warm chocolate cake, pastries and a big bowl of durian pengat….mmm.

In the evening, we headed to Chai Chee for dinner for another mini Mother’s Day celebration, mainly for Aunty Gowrie and Ma. Kaelash tapau-ed biryani and the cousins got to chat while the bubs played. I contributed some sago gula melaka, been going through a phase of late!

Today was the actual Mother’s Day and after mass we ended up at NYDC at Wheelock because the girls wanted to eat what else but creamy pasta! I must say the NYDC carbonara is yummy and they enjoyed their chocolate ice cream dessert that came with fish-shaped chocolate chips. I wonder what brand it is.

Dinner was at Membina but before that, we brought the kids to Tiong Bahru Park to feed the fish and scoot. The girls had a chance to do the zip line in the playground and a good time was had by all, but it was sooooo hot. 

Tulipmania

The kids had no school today because the morning session had an excursion so I took the day off and brought them to the Tulipmania display at Gardens by the Bay.

I was quite psyched to see the tulips but it was a bit anti-climatic because there were a lot of patches of just bulbs that hadn’t bloomed…I think the crew replant new rows every few days so not everything blooms together. I was expecting to see row upon row of colourful tulips not green gaps in between.

Nevertheless the girls had fun monkeying around, though Nat remarked that she would like to go to Holland to see the real thing!

 

Lunch was at the Supertree Grove, there was a lunchtime special at some of the stalls and we opted for local food…big mistake. Service was slow and the food was even slower, with a waiting time of up to 30 mins or more. Ordered hor fun for the girls but their order came last so we just fed them from whatever dishes came first.

After Sasha’s nap we baked gingerbread men cookies, as requested by Gigi. Since we have ascertained that Sasha might be allergic to artificial food colouring, I used chocolate chips to decorate her cookies.

This girl never ceases to amaze me, she’s already trying to spell her name on the doodle board and can write a few alphabets after practicing on her own without help from anyone! 

Thwarted!

Thwarted! Went all the way to Katong during lunchtime in the hopes of picking up some apom berkuah and coconut candy from Glory but they were closed! My only consolation was indulging in a bowl of 328 Katong Laksa.

Yesterday after mass we headed to town and had lunch at Island Café in Tangs. While the kids enjoyed their fish and chips, I had me some carbonara…it was quite decent! Am in a creamy pasta mood these days, influenced by the kids who now request it once a week! 

It’s such a small world because midway through lunch, Nick spotted a Trafalgar colleague who is actually based in Sydney. She had come down to Singapore for some travel agent meetings and had brought her mum with her and they were spending the day shopping.

As we were leaving the restaurant, one of the chefs approached me…his name was Alvin and he’s the assistant executive chef I think. He remembered me from Violet Oon days, because we did meet a couple of times when he helped out Violet in the kitchen.

In the evening we had dinner at AMK but before that made a pitstop to visit Amah in her nursing home. Feel so bad, we hardly see her now because she’s in the home. Need to make it a point to go more often, if not the whole family, then at least Nick needs to find some time. 

Germ's flea market

Germaine and Joanne had plans to sell stuff as part of a flea market at Germaine’s office today but plans went awry due to miscommunication and the two fell out before the event started! Nonetheless, Germaine proceeded with her event and I went to kaypoh since it was just in the neighbourhood at Kampong Bahru.

I brought some stuff to display including a Prada bag and her friend bought $20 worth of tops from me, which I channelled back into buying some stuff from Germs, lol. Nat was with me and she was soooooo clingy.

She was so emo last weekend when Nick accidentally threw away Gigi’s science experiment…they had been growing towgay in school in Yakult bottles. Gigi’s one had turned mouldy and Nick threw it in the bin.

When Nat found out, she was worried Gigi would get in trouble and cried before sleeping. So me and Nick made a new one for Gigi, borrowing some sprouts from Nat’s bottle and tried to make it look as close to the original but we only had a Vitagen bottle and I had to find a sticker label. But all’s well that ends well and since then, we grew some of our own sprouts at home to show her the cycle since hers didn’t thrive either.

In the evening we went to Membina for dinner, to meet Judy and Jayna one more time before they headed back to Sydney. Left the bubs with the grandmas and maids and the cousins had a tzechar dinner at the coffeeshop downstairs. The food was surprisingly decent and the girls had a ball blowing bubbles when we got back. 

Labour Day

Surprisingly managed to wake up early today, despite catching Ironman 3 the night before at I12 Katong. Kevin even showed up in an Ironman tee! After the movie, the boy had supper at the Hong Kong restaurant next door before we joined the rest for a drink at Chevy’s. 

It was a public holiday today so we decided to head to Hort Park to feed the fish and let the kids scoot around after breakfast. The Gomezs joined us midway and the 2 older girls had fun scooting around and making use of the playground. 

The park was quite crowded especially at the back area where we parked ourselves. Nick played ball with Sasha and the 2 preggie women sweltered under the heat. 

We took ages to decide on where to lunch and ended up at Waraku @ Central. It was quite deserted and we got a booth seat where we could enjoy the view of Clarke Quay.

The kids ordered from the kids menu, their sets are pretty worth it with noodles, salad, fries, tempura, juice and ice cream plus a toy! Nat and Sasha relished their noodles and I joked that they were ready for a Japanese holiday!

I was pleased with my choice of tonkatsu ramen with tempura…the best of both worlds when I can’t decide between tempura udon or tonkatsu ramen! Came in a huge bowl!

Sasha is 3 years and 1 month today. She’s getting really good at her drawing, I’m impressed at the standard considering she just turned 3 and doesn’t go to school yet. She drew this girl with star and bird and cloud recently.

We’ve also concluded on our own that she has food colouring allergies. Every time she eats stuff like Smarties or jellybeans, gummies, especially at night, she will cough and produce phlegm when she’s perfectly well and wheeze a little too. Even her behaviour gets a little erratic and unreasonable.

So for now, we’ve decided to eliminate artificial colouring from her diet…I have to check food labels for natural colouring and we’ve told her she can’t have coloured sweets either and she seems to understand. But chocolate. ice cream, popcorn and natural coloured sweets are fine so she leans towards chocolate stuff now.

Apparently there’s no conclusive test for colouring allergies and I wanted to experiment on a day when she was well to test for reactions but Nick wouldn’t let me. For the moment we will just assume she is.