My Baby Turns 1!

Today marks another important milestone for both my baby and me. We made it - full 12 months! Which means that she could eat almost everything now - no more fear while I silently congratulate myself for successfully breastfeeding her for a FULL 1 year. Yes, except for a few times of formula milk when she had jaundice and also nappy rash during her 1st 2 months (but that was really rare, just a couple of times for 1 or 2 days, the most).

By now, I've introduced her to a vast variety of new food:

Strawberry, Raisins, Corn, Oatmeal biscuit (introduced by my babysitter), Ginseng soup (accidentally given by Daddy, who misinterpretted Amah’s message that she could drink it already, but was actually referring to Sze Yi), Tau sar piah, KFC (just a little bit), mee suah, pau, etc.

I took the day off since my parents were here. But I still sent Sze Juin to the babysitter in the morning since I had some things to settle. In the afternoon, we went to fetch her before we went for lunch. Hubby took the 2nd half off, and we went to pick up Sze Yi from school before we all went for lunch in Queensbay Mall. After lunch, we went back to let them have a short nap. Then in the evening, we took them down to the garden for a walk.

Sze Juin was very excited as she got to ride her sister's tricycle. We got Sze Yi that for her 1st birthday - and she could only cycle all by herself at about 3.5 years old! Either the front pedal was a little too hard to cycle, or she's not strong enough to manage that earlier. Anyway, it's good enough that the tricycle could last this long :)

We only opened the presents at night, after dinner.

The sisters playing with the ride-on cum walker (pressie from Mommy & Daddy)

Initially, Sze Yi wanted to sit on it once hubby assembled that. But after we told her that since it's Mei Mei's present, Mei Mei should have the first ride. To our surprise, Sze Yi willingly accomodated. But of course, after that, she insisted to play on it as if it was hers.

Jie Jie with all her 'babies' on the lion - except Mei Mei!

More presents to follow - which of course Jie Jie enjoyed more. She got the privilege to help Mei Mei unwrapping them.

Hehe, not this time, though. Mei Mei somehow knew how to open a present by now...

At this point in time, she could already called Mommy and Daddy very clearly. In fact, she could really communicate with us now, by letting us know where she wanted to go, or what she didn't want to do. She also showed that she understood us when we asked her questions. Too bad that she didn't want to take milk from the bottle anymore when at home (not even from Daddy or Amah). She would rather wait for me to return home. That means, only one person can bottle-feed now - the babysitter. As for sleeping, it's harder to put her to sleep now when Jie Jie was around. She wanted to play instead. So sometimes, it's easier to put both of them to sleep together, provided Jie Jie would keep her mouth shut and remained quiet - usually when she's sleepy.

Happy birthday, dearest baby. Mommy, Daddy and Jie Jie love you loads!

It's Party Time!

Yay, we're going to have a party again! And, it's my birthday party, my 1st birthday. Everyone was in a very excited mood. We've been really busy the days before, Mommy and Daddy ticking off the shopping list one by one and crossing off the checklist on what to prepare, etc. Amah had prepared the spaghetti sauce 2 days in advance and froze it in case we won't have enough time to prepare everything on the day itself.

Jie Jie was also very excited and looking forward to it. We'd gone to choose my birthday cake 1 week before (she was given the priviledge to chose the design - and she's chosen Minnie Mouse since I was a mousey). Then, Daddy and Mommy took me to buy my shoes.

...while waiting for the salesman to get my size to try on...

The day before saw us developing the photos (they had never developed my photos since I was born!), cleaning up the house, and also buying my birthday present. Mommy even attempted to bake an eggless cake for me - since I was not exactly 1 yet (we had an early birthday party). Her reasoning - Jie Jie ate her birthday cake (with egg) and she was allergic to eggs till she's nearly 3.

Well, trying to bake one with me around wasn't easy at all. There had been just too many breaks until she was afraid it won't turn out well. It would have been dried out by the time she even get to put them into the oven. Despite her trying to coax me to sleep, with Daddy and Amah taking Jie Jie out to settle the other things, I only slept for about 1/2 hour. That timeframe was just enough for her to mix all the ingredients together (only the dry one, not the wet one yet). But finally, after several breaks, she managed to complete the eggless carrot muffins with bananas - at around 5am! Well, actually she baked for 2 rounds, the 1st with Amah's help, and the 2nd she actually started at 3am in the morning. Here's the end result - regular sized muffins as well as mini version (recipe from here with a little modifications).

Did it taste good, you might be curious. Well, yes! The first batch was rather sweet, which suited those who like it sweet. So, she put less sugar during the 2nd batch, and it didn't turn out that sweet. She didn't really like it, but fortunately, Poh Poh who didn't like sweet things thought that it was just nice, so luckily it didn't go to waste. As for me? Well, I didn't have much preference though, whatever they gave me, I'll just take.

Daddy and Mommy hardly slept the night before - Daddy was busy setting up the television (do you know that we're without television for nearly 4 months? Yes, Jie Jie's fault. She wanted to watch for the whole day, so Daddy got angry and decided to put the tele to hibernation). Yes, after that, Daddy took the whole night to rearrange the photos that they had just developed - could you imagine? That was like walking down memory lane back to the days when Jie Jie was just ~1.5 year old. So what did Mommy do? Baking, of course! And Amah just went to sleep at 3am, after she'd prepared some of the foods - jelly, fruits, etc. So you can see how busy everyone was - just for my big day! Jie Jie and I only slept about 12am that night, we're too excited ourselves.

On Party Day, I got up especially early. Mommy had gone to the 7am Mass, only to come back to a crying me. Yes, I wanted Mommy. Amah quickly started to cook the curry chicken (Mommy went to the market after Mass to get the ingredients and the chicken). Jie Jie was not up yet (luckily, so I got lots of bonding time with Mommy). Daddy went out to get the cake. Later, when Jie Jie was up, Mommy got us ready, bathed us, changed us, fed us and started blowing the balloons.


We didn't had much balloons though, since Daddy didn't really like them - he said it's dangerous, especially when it popped! But Mommy insisted to put them up coz it's party time, and we girls loved balloons. So we just settled for this...

and some inside the house too, of course. But they didn't take the pics.

Here's the birthday girl - finally changed into her new suit and shoes. Waiting for the guests (just some close relatives) to arrive, after having taken the porridge.



Here's the food that Amah managed to prepared - she's such a super woman!

Food for the kids

And here's the food for the adults.

All were home-cooked, except for the vietnamese poppiah and cream puffs which Mommy ordered from Alexendrea's Gong Gong (the poppiah's at the top of the picture below, while the cream puffs were at the bottom). They tasted really yummy - everyone said so.


Oooh... we also ordered pizzas - just to ensure everyone went back with a full stomach.

Oh, by the way, Alexendrea's Mommy has been really nice to bake some eggless chocolate cake for me. She's so considerate, wasn't she? There were also some teething biscuits, which I also shared with Cousin Samantha.

Finally, the guests arrived. Poh Poh and Gong Gong arrived first, they took a bus from Ipoh and would be staying for a few days with us. Then the rest slowly flocked in...

Jie Jie obviously had a great time too - see she was playing with Cousin Sarah (which later ended in a fight, haha!).

Would you believe me if I tell you that I dozed off halfway? Yes! I was so tired that I finally slept - in the middle of the party! And I've never done such a thing before - not in a middle of so much excitement. I guessed I was too tired - Jie Jie and I hardly had a nap yesterday, and we slept rather late last night but woke up real early this morning. Couldn't blame me, could they? Well, I was already in dreamland when Cousin Samantha started to get restless and wanted to go home. So Amah asked Mommy to wake me up for the birthday cake cutting.

I wouldn't want to - despite several attempts. Finally Daddy took pity on me and suggested to wait. But just then, I woke up. We opened the birthday cake - Jie Jie and Sarah were the most excited of all trying to see what's inside.

It's a big No 1 with some mousies and balloons and presents
(wondering where's the Minnie? Yes, there're 2 of them, look again!)

Everyone warned Jie Jie and Sarah not to blow the candle this time, but let me do it myself. Daddy then played the birthday song from the DVD player, and everyone sang together - led by Jie Jie and Cousin Sarah.

When it came to candle blowing - Jie Jie and Sarah behaved really well. They waited for me to blow.

But, of course I didn't know how to. So Mommy asked Jie Jie to help. She tried, but then she suddenly felt shy, and they then asked Sarah to do it. After that, Jie Jie and Sarah helped me with the cake cutting too.

Our family photo

Later, after everyone had gone back and I've taken my bath (yes, that's why I got those white white thing on my face and hands - those were the bedak sejuk which Mommy applied to my skin, which really helped to keep those rashes at bay), Amah said that it's better to let me try to eat the red egg (which was prepared by Kim Poh). It was believed that by eating that on my birthday, I would not have allergy later and I would be a better person when it comes to accomplish things (there'll be a head and tail to it - according to Sarah's Amah). Which means, I had to eat the head first, followed by the tail of the egg, haha. Mommy just said ok, and Amah quickly fed me. Just another tradition.

Hmm...in the end, Mommy also fed me a little tiny weeny bit of my birthday cake (which was chocolate flavoured) despite her saying that she didn't want me to eat egg (that's why she went all out to bake me that eggless muffin). I guessed, she felt that it's ok after all, since my actual birthday is just the very next day.

A Day of Celebrations!

It's the 2nd Sunday in May, can you guess what day is today? Yes, it's Mother's Day. Daddy taught me how to make a card for Mommy and Amah. Here's the one for Mommy. I wrote everything on my own, except for the guided heart shape.

I know, I know. It's not very pretty. Especially my writings. But at least I did it all on my own, that's what matters most, right? There's no photo of the card that I made for Amah. Mommy hadn't got a chance to take it yet and Amah had kept it. Anyway, the truth is, it's not as nice as Mommy's. I lost my patience and cincai wrote only, much to Daddy's disappointment.

But, that was not all. Last Friday, I've brought this home from school for Mommy. So now they all knew why my lips were red with lipstick that day.

Apart from Mother's Day, there's another celebration today. We're also going to celebrate my cousin, Baby Samantha's 1st birthday. She's just 6 days older than Juin Juin while her sister Sarah is 3 weeks younger than me. What a co-incidence that our Mommies gave birth to us about the same time - 2 pairs somemore!

We went to Samantha's birthday party after church. Yes, we all went to church together this time, including Amah! Actually I was the one who insisted that Amah came along too, or else I'd cry. That's why she was there too. But I was so naughty that I caused a little tension in the environment later.

At Samantha's birthday party, we had lots of fun. All my uncles were there too. Sarah & Samantha had 3 uncles, while Juin Juin and I had 2 uncles.

Juin Juin and Samantha - see how they communicate :) So small already started finger-pointing!

A close-up on the beautiful birthday girl - with Kim Poh (who's her Amah)

More pics:

Top left: The Amahs with their grandaughters' chilling out session

Top right: Me riding Sarah's bicycle with her cousin, Jason while 2nd Chik Chik trying to feed me

Bottom Left: Mommy feeding Juin Juin her porridge (yes, Mommy brought it along to the party too)

Bottom Right: Mommy carrying Samantha and Juin Juin

Yummilicious food which I've got a license to eat, yay!
The attraction of the day - the Princess Birthday Cake, which was chosen by Cousin Sarah for her sister

Singing the birthday song - can you see that Juin Juin was clapping too? Actually, both Sarah & I were more excited compared to the babies, we wanted the balloons and presents on top of the cake. And, once we've finished singing the song, Sarah immediately blew the candle, before anyone could stop her!
Birthday girl with her Mommy and Sister, about to cut the cake. Yeah, the sister got to do the cutting.

It sure was fun, but very tiring. Juin Juin immediately dozed off once we got into the car to go home.

But, after that, we went for a swim in the evening. Somehow, I got over my phobia of the water already, and even wiling to try the water slide. However, nobody knows how long will that last. After Mommy took Juin Juin up for a bath, I continued to stay down there with Daddy. He taught me how to play with my new surf board. Just then, I saw Amah at the balcony and I was so excited. I waved and jumped, looking up at her. Right then, I lost my footing and I fell into the water! What a shock I had. I cried and cried and cried. Daddy was afraid if that'll mean my phobia for water will return. We'll see... For now, I just wanted to rest. Enough marathon for the day!

Wesak Day

This year on Wesak Day, Daddy took us along to the temple. It was my first time there, since I was quite small the previous years. Daddy normally went at night, on the eve. But this year, he went on the actual day in the morning. So we get to go too. There were so many crowds there.

What I loved best was the chance of giving baby Buddha a bath. That was an experience worth lining up for. You see, we had to queue to get to this stage, and it's not a short line, mind you. Mommy even had time to go back to the car to get the camera (we parked quite a distance away), so you could imagine how long the queue was.

After that, we had vegetarian lunch there and browse thru some of the books. Daddy would have wanted to visit a few more temples, but since Juin Juin haven't taken her lunch yet, we went to Penang Bowl instead. Mommy wanted to find a place not that crowded and with a baby chair so that she could feed Juin Juin. We all had eaten except her, poor her. So Daddy chose Penang Bowl where we had a good environment to feed her.

It's my first time seeing people bowl and I enjoyed it. I was still too small to bowl, don't even have the energy to carry the ball. I learnt that the conveyor belt where they transfered the ball had aircond! And Daddy had a great time too, after all these years.

My First Chinese Birthday

My 1st Chinese Birthday falls on the eve of Wesak Day. In fact, my chinese birthday is actually the eve of Wesak Day. Hmm... is that why Daddy call me Little Buddha? Look at these pics and you'll know what he meant...

We had a little ceremony just like what Jie Jie had ~2.5 years ago. It's a Friday, and Mommy & Daddy took half day off to celebrate with me. Amah had boiled mee suah and red egg for me. My babysitter gave me an ang pow when Mommy fetched me back that day. At home, Amah and Mommy fed me mee suah to symbolise long life. Since my Poh Poh was not around, Mommy was supposed to represent her to feed me chicken drumstick. According to Amah, this would ensure that I always have good food to eat later in my life. They got me KFC's drumstick :) I hold on tightly to it and wouldn't want to let go!

Ah, did you see how I wanted to eat the egg too? The last photo at the bottom right. Mommy had to quickly pull it away, because she didn't want me to eat it since I was not exactly 1 year old yet according to the amoh calendar.

Later, Daddy, Mommy and Amah gave me ang pow to symbolise good luck. Did you see Jie Jie in the pics with me too? She kept wishing me Happy Birthday and was very nice to me that day.

After we're done with the food, next came the ritual. An abacus, a ruler, a book and a pen were placed in front of me. It seemed that the first object that I picked would represent my first career inclination. Guess what I took first?

Yes, like Jie Jie, I picked the abacus first. So, I'll be an accountant too next time? Mommy guessed that it's because we've not seen an abacus before, that's why we were more inclined to pick that first. Anyway, Mommy didn't really believe all this, just followed Amah's wishes for a traditional chinese custom to celebrate my 1st Chinese birthday. I played with it for quite a while and needed some promptings from Mommy to pick the next item.

What came next?
Ah, a pen, which symbolise a writer. And after the pen, I chose...

A book. I've seen Jie Jie writing before, so I made some gestures as if to mimick writing with my pen and book!

Unlike Jie Jie who picked all 4 items, I didn't. I didn't want to pick that ruler. Maybe because it's so hard to pick up? Instead I went off to play with Jie Jie :)

P/s: By the way, today I learnt to use the potty, and I managed to deposit some gold bars in it :)

Kor Kor's Wedding

Last Saturday, I attended my first wedding dinner. It was Kor Kor's wedding. This Kor Kor is the 2nd daughter of my Chik Kong.

Hmm...I attended my first when I was not 1 yet (2 more weeks to go), while Jie Jie attended her first after she's 1 (about 2weeks after). That was Mommy's colleague's wedding.

Everyone was nicely dressed up:

The wedding dinner:

Jie Jie was having fun with the Chik Chiks. 2nd Chik Chik fed her that night, and the other Chik Chiks (Sarah's Ah Kus) entertained her. Luckily they were there, because she was rather occupied and didn't fight with me for Mommy's attention.
I was having fun with my drink - yamm.....seng!
I was rather sticky to Mommy, and didn't want anybody to carry me. Daddy was sitting at the main table with the bride & groom, so he's not always available. But at times, he came by and helped to carry me so that Mommy could eat and take breaks in between.

The bride and the groom and their parents:

During the tea ceremony:

On the bottom left, the lady with us was Kor Poh (Daddy's Aunty) while at the bottom right, that was 3rd Chik Chik (Daddy's youngest brother). Daddy didn't managed to take a photo of Kor Kor the bride, but Jie Jie noticed that she's dressed in pink. Oh, not the normal white wedding gown yet, because the actual one would be in KL at the groom's side next week.

1st Hair Cut

I was quite hairless compared to Jie Jie. The only time they do anything with my hair was during my full moon, where my head was completely shaven like Jie Jie.
But, unlike Jie Jie, my hair had not really grown much since then. So, maybe that's why it never get trimmed either, although Amah had wanted to trim it during the Chinese New Year but she never get to do it.

Ah, talking about hairs, it reminded me of this. Did you notice that I had this heart shape at the crown of my head?

Nobody knew why, but when all my hairs grown back, it's not that obvious anymore.

Ok, back to my haircut. So yesterday morning, I had my first haircut at home. I was rather kuai and let them do it without much interruption.


Hmm... after this, Mommy continued to trim my front fringe, and here's how I look (not much different actually due my lack of hair state).

My 1st Trip

Last weekend, we went to Cameron Highlands. It was my first trip outstation, other than to Poh Poh & Gong Gong's house. But you know what? I realised that Jie Jie also haven't been to Cameron Highlands before. So we're both very excited.

Mommy packed lots of food for us, just in case we got hungry halfway. She prepared pumpkin porridge and also baked some potatoes as our lunch and dinner for that day. On top of that, we also had raisins, cocoa crunch (which I still can't eat yet) in between meals. And oh yes, Jie Jie got to eat the home-baked banana cake which Mommy ordered from Alex's Gong Gong. I could see that it was very yummy, all of them enjoyed it. Why, oh why I couldn't eat it? But Amah curi-curi gave me some tar sau piah, so oklah, I don't feel so bad :)

Our first stop was a the Rose Garden, after a short lunch at one of the restaurants in Brinchang. To our surprise, we also saw other things there, like cactus, rabbits, peacock, ostrich, etc.. Being kids, of couse we're more interested in the animals rather than the plants, including the rose.
Halfway touring the place, Jie Jie suddenly said she wanted to do her big business. Mommy told her to wait until we checked into the hotel. But she said, can't. Yau chu lai liao. So Mommy took her to the public toilet. Ah, according to Mommy, she's doing very well. It's the squatting toilet, and it's her first time outside. Phew, Mommy had been worried before on how to handle it when it comes to this when we're outside, and it turned out to be ok.

After that, we checked into our room at Equatorial Hotel. We had some fun checking out stuffs and relaxing in there.

Jie Jie and I loved the bed, we jumped and rolled on it for quite sometime. Then, since none of us want our nap, Daddy and Mommy and Amah decided to let us try the strawberry-picking experience at the farm just outside the hotel.

It was fun, but rather dangerous since the plants were lined up on the slopes. Still, we managed to pick rather big ones. And there's how I got to taste my next new food - strawberry. I loved it.

After that, we stopped by Kea Market to buy some vegetables. Halfway shopping, Jie Jie was so tired and slept right there! Daddy took her back to the car, and I slept later when Mommy breastfed me in the car. Instead of going back to the hotel to rest, Daddy took us for a scenic drive since he didn't want to interrupt our nap. But none of us got to see it since we're still sleeping. Here're some photos taken at the Bharat Plantation.We woke up not long later. So we stopped by to have a charcoal steamboat dinner in Brinchang. Hmm...maybe I should rephrase. They had the charcoal steamboat dinner, while I ate my porridge & baked potato which Mommy prepared this morning. The restaurant owner was very nice to heat it up for us. Jie Jie only ate a little of that, she finished the raisins instead.

At night, it took awhile for us to settle down because we're so excited from the day's trip. 4 of us slept on a king-sized bed while Amah slept at the additional bed which was placed just beside the king-sized bed, so Jie Jie and I got more space to roll around before we finally settled into dreamland. Ah, but I cried in the middle of the night, maybe I was too excited from the day's experience.

Well, since it was very cold, Amah was afraid that Jie Jie would wet the bed, and wanted to let her wear a diaper to sleep. Daddy and Mommy brushed off the idea, since she was already toilet trained. But anyway, Amah had brought along an extra disposable diaper (leftover from Jie Jie's last time after she was toilet trained about 1 year ago). And Jie Jie liked the idea to be on a diaper again, so she wanted to try. She seemed so proud (all for the wrong reason) and ran around showing off her diaper, to me, to Mommy and Daddy and even went to look at herself in the mirror - telling us that she's on diaper like Juin Juin and laughed out loud. So, you must be curious to know if she wet herself the next morning? Well, she slept until very late the next morning and Mommy didn't make any attempt to wake her up in the middle of the night to ask her if she wanted to wee wee. But when she woke up to wee wee the next morning, her diaper was still dry. Bravo Jie Jie!

The next morning, we went to the Boh Tea Plantation after having breakfast in our room. Mommy wanted to go to a tea plantation again since we missed the scene yesterday. Furthermore, she wanted to let Jie Jie see how the tea was being processed (how about me? well, I'm still too small to understand, she reasoned).

After about what seemed like ages going thru a very narrow and dangerous road, we reached the tea plantation. Jie Jie seemed to enjoy the movie of the tea-making process rather than the actual factory tour. Where as Amah would rather sit at the cafe to enjoy the scene with a cuppa Boh tea, muffin and strawberry tart.

After that, we had our lunch at one of the restaurants in Brinchang. What did I had then? Mommy mixed my brown rice cereal with dried anchovies (prepared by Amah before this trip), and some instant red rice powder. It was delicious! When Jie Jie saw me eating that, she also wanted, although she could eat the food that they ordered.

After lunch, we went to buy some souvenirs for cousin Sarah, before stopping by the bee farm. Jie Jie and I had fun watching the bees making honey. We also had a second round of strawberry picking. Jie Jie's an expert by then. After that, we stopped by our last destination, the butterfly farm, per Jie Jie's request. I think she enjoyed that the most.

When we're leaving, Jie Jie asked Mommy, "Where are we going now?". Mommy replied that we're going home. Then she said, "Oh. Home where? To hotel ah?". Both Amah and Mommy laughed, telling her that we're going home to Penang.

When asked what's the best part that she like from this trip, she replied, "Staying in hotel". Mommy asked her if she enjoyed the strawberry picking, she said yes, but not as much as the bees and butterfly farm.

As for me? I guessed I also enjoyed the hotel the most :) That's the only place I would be let down and do some stretching!