Birthday lunch and gathering

Sis asked us out for "lunch" which turned out to be a mini-belated-lunch-gathering among our family and friends. We met up at this little restaurant called 5 Drunken Rabbits which my Sis said was located at Elias Road. Sounds familiar, but I just thought its another restaurant. Apparently it was a sea-side bistro and it was such a hot and sunny day! But I was dressed in long thick pants and I was sweating away like mad!

Other than the blur waitress which irritates the hell out of me, the food was pretty good and it was an enjoyable meal. Mom even bought a chocolate cake for me! We polished the whole thing off naturally. Our family never say no to dessert. :)

After the meal we strolled to the beach and took some photos. Being a little overdressed, we only hung around for awhile as it was getting a little too hot!

So we bade each other goodbyes and went our separate ways again. Until we meet again!

Happy 32rd Birthday to me!

On the early morning of my birthday, while we were still sleeping, Cobby suddenly received a sms. "Must be one of them slave drivers... crazy leh, sms people so early in the morning." I thought, as people from Cobby's work usually have zero EQ and love to call or sms people even when they are on leave or during after work hours. I thought nothing of it as I laze in bed and Cobby stumbled out of the room. But got a really pleasant surprise when he came back into the room and magically presented me with the most gorgeous bouquet of red roses!

Apparently it was the flower delivery guy who sms-ed him, telling him that they had arrived early, that's why he had to get out of bed and go to the door to get the flowers. Haha... So sweet!!! By then Jolie had joined us in bed and was quite upset when she found out that it was my birthday. She was sad that it WASN'T her birthday and SHE didn't get any presents! Haha, oops, this silly girl!

Cobby had arranged a nice lunch for us at Pizzeria Mozza, a pizzeria opened by celebrity chef Mario Batali at Marina Bay Sands. But before that, we had an appointment with our gyne, Dr Judy Wong. So we dropped Jolie off at mother-in-law's place and headed out. I love my monthly appointments as I get to see my baby! So I really didn't mind going to the clinic on my birthday as I thought it was the perfect birthday gift to see my baby boy and know that he's growing healthy and strong. KISS!!

After the doctor's appointment we headed to lunch. The place was surprisingly nice and cosy, filled with noisy weekday lunch crowd. Even before our food arrived we greedily gobbled down their complimentary appetisers, these delicious parmesan crisps!

We ordered to our heart's desire, from:
Bone marrow al forno $18
Prosciutto di Parma & Bufala mozzarella $32
Their famous wood fire oven pizza with fennel sausage, panna, red onion & scallions $28
Butterscotch budino, Maldon sea salt & rosemary pine nut cookies $16
Caramel copetta with marshmallow sauce & salted Spanish peanuts $16

Overall the food was quite good, the pizza dough was delicious, but I didn't really like the fennel flavour on the sausages. Their desserts wasn't very impressive either, but overall it was an enjoyable experience. If we go back, I think I would just stick to just pizza. :)

After our delicious lunch, I wanted to go hunt for some art materials as I wanted to make a name plate for my baby boy's bedroom, so we headed down to Bras Basah Complex, where we found this place called Art Friend. The place was amazing! You can find almost anything you need for an art project. We got the plate and stickers there, but the glittery alphabets I got from Popular Bookstore.

This is the completed look, nice? :)

Well that's about that. Apart from being hit on by an uncle at a foodcourt after shopping for arts supplies. Urgh... Cobby was buying drinks for me and this uncle sitting at the opposite table suddenly just smiled at me and asked me if "I'm from Singapore?" Erm...
1) do I look foreign?
2) even if I'm not, why do you ask? Do I look like a foreign woman you can hit on?
3) if you are hitting on me, that's super inappropriate! Can't you see that I'm pregnant? Or you didn't see my giant tummy beneath the table?

I gave him a disgusted-WTF-DUH look and ignored his question. When Cobby came back, I think he realised that I was not alone and took his food and moved to another seat. Eww... Cobby wasn't very pleased when I told him what happened but it's alright, no harm done. Haha... You know, as you grow older, I feel that you appreciate the thought more than the material stuff like presents and parties. It was a simple birthday celebration, which I totally enjoyed. After spending a peaceful afternoon with my hubby, I went home and hugged my baby girl, all the while having a baby boy inside me. What more can I ask?? :)

A Busy Saturday

We have a full Saturday today! In the morning, we have our usual gym class at Marina Square. After a fun filled hour, we headed back home first. At around 12 plus, we headed to Char's place for Keira's 1st birthday!

It was pretty fun. Jo had a good time playing with the balloons and later even found a friend to play with. I guess the highlight for us was the delicious chocolate birthday cake!

So many little babies! Next year we'll probably have more to join the party!

In the evening, Marl actually invited us all to her place for her annual Hari Raya dinner. Zinc planned to hang around Char's place till evening before heading over to Marl's place, but I thought it would be better to let Jo take a nap 1st, so we headed home.

After her nap it was right on time to head out for the 3rd time of the day! This time it wasn't so pleasant as Jo was throwing a tantrum and I was having a little mood swing. So Cobby and I had a little heated "discussion" on the disciplinary action. When we go into the car I was so mad at Jo that I refused to sit at the back seat together with her.

Cobby decided that if Jolie had to sit alone at the back seat, it would be safer for her to be on the booster seat, safely strapped on with the seat belt. Of course, Jolie was crying and refused the booster seat, but Cobby insisted and sweetened the deal by letting her play with his handphone. I was already in a bad mood, so naturally I thought that it was a stupid idea and he chose a horrible timing to make her sit on the booster seat.

Surprisingly, after a few minutes of whining, Jolie actually became quiet and just sat there, strapped on, playing with her Dad's handphone!

We have failed so many times, that I was still skeptical. I was wondering when she was going to start screaming and pull herself out of the seat, but surprise, surprise! She actually sat in her seat throughout the whole journey! When we arrived at Marl's place, Cobby and I rewarded her by showering her with hugs, kisses and praises. Telling her how happy we were and how extremely proud we were of her for sitting on the seat all by herself. She was very happy hearing our praises, and we had a good time at Marl's place.

This year's crowd was a little smaller. UJ and Zinc was already there, along with Suv. Marl made some delicious black pepper chicken with spaghetti, along with lontong, chicken wings and her famous nutella cake. Yumz! Jolie was so busy playing with Marl's nephew's toys and ended up munching on all sorts of snacks that she didn't eat her proper meal. But seeing that it's a party, I closed one eye. ;)

After the meal we left early. All the running to and fro made me feel a little tired, and I just want to go home. So we bade everybody farewell and headed back for the last time for the day. Jolie made us very proud again by sitting on the child seat all by herself. Encouraged by our praises, she even said that she loves her seat and she's a clever girl for sitting on her seat. :)

So the day ended great with us reaching another milestone. It feels so liberating to be sitting in the front seat while Jolie sit at the back, safely strapped in and not fearing the traffic police! Hahaha... Happy Day!

Happy 3rd Birthday Jolie Part 3

On Sunday we celebrated Jo's birthday with the family. On Monday, she celebrated her birthday with her classmates. Cobby and I actually bought her present since Christmas, but we left it in the trunk of his car and didn't have the chance to give it to her until Wednesday. So Jolie got to celebrate once more with presents from Mommy and Daddy!

She loves to draw, so we bought her an easel. Also, she's quite into the Princess thing now, so I chose a purple (her favourite colour) tiara with matching earrings for her. She absolutely loved her presents!

So now she's got 2 tiaras, one was bought by my sis last month, and calls them her "pink crown" and her "purpur (purple) crown". Since she prefers her purple crown, she lets her teddy bear wear the pink one instead. Then she'll announce that she's Princess Jolie with Princess Teddy. Haha, poor teddy had become a princess. She loved the photo below, as she's wearing a purple shirt and crown with a purple balloon. She called herself a purple princess that day. :)

She loved the crown so much that she wears them even when painting. It's so funny to see her painting with her tiara and earrings.

The easle has a whiteboard on one side and chalk board on the other side. Finding those soluble magic markers and chalk was turning out to be more difficult than I expected. I can't find them anywhere! So meanwhile she just have to stick to painting on paper. But I don't think she's complaining. :)

Happy 3rd Birthday Jolie Part 2

It was Jolie's birthday yesterday, so I thought it would be nice to let Jo celebrate her birthday with her classmates. Cobby and I were supposed to go shopping for the cake and party favours during the weekend. But he was caught up with work, so on Sunday, I had to sneak out while she napped to do it. I headed down to woodlands to get the cake before going back to sembawang to get the party favours. Then I headed back home, drop off the stuff before taking a cab back to toa payoh, just in time as Jolie wakes up from her nap. Shaq man...

Anyway, that morning I dropped Jolie off at school before going for my workout session. The teacher asked me to come in for the celebration at 9.45am, so I had to quickly exercise, take a quick shower and immediately head back to school. Phew!

When I got there, I thought it was so cute that they have arranged Jolie to sit by herself on a special table. So we started blowing balloons for every child. After 5mins, we realised that it's going to take awhile to blow up 12 balloons, so it's better to go ahead with the cake 1st and we'll continue to blow balloons while they eat.

Check out the Angry Bird cake! So cute right?!

The teachers insisted to play the music video of "Happy Birthday", which was fine, except that it took forever to find the song and the song played for so long!

Well, it was a pretty challenging party. Kids fighting for balloons, messy chocolate cream everywhere, time running out... But at the end of class, we finished the whole cake, everybody was happy with gifts and balloons. Jolie was such a great helper, distributing the cake, giving out the gift packs and balloons to her friends. Good girl!

So the total damage for this little party was:

snacks $11.40
party sets $18.20
balloons $7.20
candle $1.30
party bags $2.50
birthday cake $17.80

Total $58.40

Happy!

Happy 3rd Birthday Jolie Part 1

It's Jolie's 3rd birthday today! We always planned a party for Jolie's birthday. This year Miss CoCo was feeling rather lazy, given that Chinese New Year had just passed. So, I've decided to give the big birthday party a miss and instead, go for a family-only celebration.

We booked a table for lunch at New Ubin Seafood Restaurant, one of our favourite places! As usual, Bro was late driving my parents there, so we took some photos to entertain ourselves while we waited.

Finally they arrived after 20mins. And Bro gave Jolie her birthday present. He gave her a book, Oliver Twist. O_o

I think it would take another 3 years before she can read that book. Besides, it's so boring, I don't think that she'll be interested to read it even if she can. Anyway, he said that it's better than buying another toy, which I agree. So, thanks Bro!

I was so hungry! Thankfully the food came quickly and we all dug in. I think everyone agreed that the highlight was the crabs, and the best tasting one was the butter cream one.

It sounds oily and heavy, so MIL didn't even take a bite. But it was actually super duper nice. It's got a buttery fragrance together with curry leaves, and they added chilli padi to give it kick as well as balance, so that the dish wouldn't taste too heavy or oily. Geninus. When the fried mantou came, everyone was mopping up the butter cream crab sauce rather than the chilli crab sauce! YUMS!

I think we ordered too much food, but even so, we finished everything! It was a great feast. For dessert, we brought out the cake Cobby bought for Jolie!

Jolie looking very pleased with herself after she cut the cake. Can you see the anticipation on her face?

Yummy yummy black forest cake!

Jolie was enjoying her whipped cream when her naughty Kaufu tried to steal her cream! But Jojo was fast enough!

Ang paos from Jolie's grandma and aunt. I thought their well wishes were very sweet!

The meal was very enjoyable, unfortunately Cobby had to go to work after lunch. Sucks man, but what to do? So we headed to my MIL's place and let Jo take her nap there. I think we ate too much, cause Jo, me and even my sister-in-law fell asleep pretty quickly. Haha...

For dinner MIL, SIL, Jo and I went to the central to have a simple dinner and went back with a new toy.

Well, it is her birthday. :) Happy Birthday Jolie!

Happy Birthday Cobby 2011

Thru Cobby's workplace, we managed to book a night's stay at the Ritz Carlton at a very good price. So we decided to make it a birthday treat for Cobby! Before we checked in, we had lunch at one of our favourite place, 2nd Mini Steamboat. We usually eat alone, so it's different with Jolie around. (BTW, check out Cobby's Liverpool jersey! Hope that his team would have more luck this year, go Liverpool!)

After a long wait, we finally checked into the Ritz Carlton! First thing we checked out was their famous bathroom with the giant window overlooking the city. Cool!

The bedroom has a sofa area, a desk and of course, a king size bed! The sheets were crazily soft, but the downside to everything was that they have ran out of extra beds! DUH!!! The last time the whole family shared a bed, we were at Sentosa and Jolie-the terrible kept us up all night. I was hoping that we wouldn't have to go thru that again, but no such luck!

Anyway, it was nap time for Jo, so we made her take a nap. After her nap, we headed down to the pool. It's pretty cloudy and cool, but we went anyway. The water in the pool was too cold to swim in, but thankfully they have a warm jacuzzi pool, so it's like swimming in a giant bathtub! SUPER SHIOK! Cobby and I didn't want to get out, but Jolie was determined to torture us by dragging us to the freezing pool every once in awhile.

After we've washed up, we headed out for dinner at the Food Street at the Singapore Flyer.

After dinner we went for a ride on the Singapore rider. The last time we were there, Marina Bay Sands wasn't even finished building yet, so this time round the view was spectacular! My home country looks SO beautiful! *PROUD*

I've promised Cobby a birthday cake, so after the ride we went to Marina Square for a slice of cake. Too bad there's no candles!

Happy Birthday Cobby! I love you!
Last year's celebration