Some updates

These pictures were actually taken some time ago but I had no time to sort them out and post them, so they will be put up here in a "rojak" post :)

End of January, we attended our friends' daughter Isabelle's 5th birthday party at Equatorial Hotel coffee house. The three little girls had a good time with the balloons, party hats and never-ending supply of desserts :)



Hannah is still slowly trying to understand the concept that the birthday girl/boy will be the one to blow out the candles. She is at the stage where she thinks she can blow the candles on all birthday cakes :)



Hannah also paid a recent visit to Daddy at his office.



Her favourite thing to do there is to watch her Dora cartoons on Youtube :)



On the days that we don't sleep early, we usually have a late night snack and one of my favourites is "si koh thng" or "thong sui" (sweet dessert) which we go to at Terengganu Road or Jelutong. Hannah loves it too - see how much she enjoys it.

My Birthday Day 3 Part 2

The weather was dark and gloomy on Sunday evening and as expected, it began to pour with rain. We were meeting the Tans, Teera, Steven and Max and our initial plan was to go to Itallianies (again!) but since it was raining, it would be difficult to get a car park and walking to the restaurant would cause us to get wet. So in the end we decided on Straits Quay since it had free indoor parking :)

We were the earliest and the Tans arrived soon after.



We chose Delicious to have dinner and Hannah found her little playmates - Isabelle and Tharissa. As usual, the kids were engrossed in the smartphones and ipad.



Here is some of the food we had - mushroom soup, chicken burger, spaghetti and some sort of grilled chicken. The food was pretty good and servings were quite generous too.



We ended the evening with dessert (strawberry cheesecake) with a candle on top for my birthday.



All in all, it was a great 3 days of celebration and feasting, thanks to my dear Hubby and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. As my mother commented, my birthday last year was not much of a celebration due to Hannah being ill, so this year definitely made up for it. Thanks also to all my wonderful family and friends for your wishes via sms, calls and Facebook. Looking forward to a great year ahead! :)

My Birthday Day 3 Part 1

On Sunday, we had lunch at Chilli's Gurney Plaza (because kids eat for free as well :p). While waiting for our food, Hannah was given crayons and a paper to colour. Looks like she and Hubby were finding other uses for the crayons - see their cheeky faces :)



Hannah's food arrived first - "Yummy Drummys" and fries. I guess this is what she calls "normal" food, unlike the other night at Italiannies :)



Our food - Caesar's salad and grilled fish



After lunch, Hannah wanted to do the sand art which they have at the basement of Gurney Plaza. I thought she might be a bit young to enjoy it, but after the first time, she liked it a lot and kept asking to go there. This time she did a picture of a Smurf.



Then it was back home for a nap as the festivities continued that night :)

What a swinging time :)

We had not been to Youth Park for a while, so we took Hannah there on Saturday evening for her to release all the pent-up energy she seems to be having these days :)

Her favourite playground apparatus is still the swings, so she immediately went for them as soon as we arrived. She no longer needs to sit on the baby swings, but she can now sit on the swings for the "big people" as she calls them. She also doesn't want us to push her anymore, but prefers to do it on her own.



Our little girl is growing up fast!

My Birthday Day 2

The day after my real birthday, we went to Kampachi at Equatorial Hotel for lunch. Hubby had called to book the day before as their Japanese buffet on the weekends is immensely popular. Even though we were early (we arrived at 11.30) there were already people there and half an hour later, the entire restaurant was full. Kids below 4 years eat for free.

Hannah as usual went straight for the dessert table. Since it was a special day, we let her have her treats first before eating her "proper" food. Look at her happy face :)



Here are some of the highlights : Hubby's favourite sashimi and I like the tempura. Hubby says even if he just ate the sashimi it would be worth the money for the buffet :)



We wore matching outfits that day - red top and jeans.





Later, after lunch, we took a walk around the hotel landscape. As always, Equatorial has very nice and green surroundings.

We posed for some pictures - little girl had a ball running around and exploring every corner.





She was also fascinated by the koi pond.





In the end we had to leave even though Hannah was reluctant to go. She needed her afternoon nap and tomorrow would be another busy day :)

My Birthday Day 1 Part 2

After lunch, we took a walk around Gurney Plaza and Gurney Paragon and Hubby suggested to go there for dinner. The initial plan was to meet up with some of our friends, but Hubby told me in the morning that some of them could not make it, so they would treat me another day.

So in the evening, we picked up Hannah from mother-in-law's place and we went to Gurney Paragon to have Itallianies for dinner. Gurney Paragon is quite nicely done up and Hannah was very happy to see the water features and little fountains.



She wore the dress that "Uncle Tee-Ven" bought for her again and since there was a huge space for her to run around, she danced here and there and twirled her skirt like a flamenco dancer :)



When we got to the entrance of Itallianies, we saw quite a long line waiting outside and I thought that we may not be able to have dinner there after all. To my surprise, Hubby walked straight it and I saw our friends already there, seated by the window. It was a lovely surprise and they told me that they were using the menus to hide their faces so that I didn't see them :)

The girls and guys:



We ordered quite a lot of food, and in big portions too! The pizza was enormous - 16 inch (which is about the size of some car tyres :p) and the stuffed mushrooms were delicious. I especially liked the Sicilian chicken salad because it was a twist of the usual Caesar's salad with grapes and mango cubes tossed in. Kids eat for free at Itallianie's (just like at Chilli's or TGIF), but when Hannah saw her kid's meal, she asked "What is this? I want the normal one!" "Normal" to her means regular french fries and not grilled potato wedges like they serve at Itallanies. Nevertheless, she enjoyed her fried fish and finished almost all of it.



Since it was my birthday, we also had a complimentary cake (or rather bread pudding). It was also very good.



We also got one of the waiters to take a nice picture of all of us.



Gurney Paragon at night is really nice too, as they have the dancing fountain with lights. Hannah was super excited to see it.



Hannah was running around, trying to touch the water without getting herself wet, but she stopped long enough to take a photo with Szu Fu and Hooi Lee.



We left around 11 pm that night and Hannah slept in the car on the way home. Preparing our tummies for the next day!

My Birthday Day 1 Part 1

I celebrated my 31st birthday with a 3-day long celebration of eat and eat :) The actual day was a Friday so we had a special long weekend. I took the day off from work and so did Hubby. He actually had to attend court in the morning, then after that came home and got changed before going for lunch.

Before leaving the house, we took some pictures of ourselves. We had dropped Hannah at her Ah Mah's house in the morning, so it was just the two of us.





After much consideration, we decided to have our lunch at Suffolk House. We were there for lunch on my birthday two years ago and the lunch menu was just as good as before, and now there were even more choices. I much prefer lunch rather than dinner at Suffolk House as somehow the food tastes better and it is not overpriced.

Here is what we had: Pumpkin soup, Grilled salmon steak, Fish & chips and a delicious cake (I forgot what it was called).



After lunch, we took more pictures in the gardens.



Day 1 Part 2 coming up :)

Happy long weekend

January and February are chock full of holidays - not so good for employers but great for employees like us. However it now looks like we are in for a dry spell after this past long weekend.

As usual, Hannah was pretty excited that we would be at home to play with her and take her "kai-kai". On Saturday morning we took her to buy tickets for Disney On Ice coming to PISA this March. I had in fact intended to purchase the tickets some time ago but with all the happenings during Chinese New Year I completely forgot about it until Caris' Mommy posted on her Facebook that she had bought the tickets.

We went to PISA to buy the tickets from their ticketing office but unfortunately there was no one in the office, despite the brochure stating that the tickets could be bought on Saturdays from 9 am to 1 pm. Other disgruntled parents were there too, but since no one was around, we had to either purchase the tickets from Queensbay Mall or Gurney Plaza. Since it was almost lunch time by then, we went to Queensbay for lunch and thereafter bought the tickets from the Yamaha store. It was a very excited little girl who couldn't stop talking about Disney On Ice from the time we left PISA until we bought the tickets at Queensbay. In fact she thought that the show was on immediately that day itself and we had to patiently explain to her that we only bought the tickets and she would have to wait to see the show several weeks later.



We had lunch at TGIF since kids eat for free. Hannah enjoyed her chicken fingers and fries while we had pasta and salad. She also got a free balloon :)





After lunch, we had an appointment at Straits Quay to meet up with some of our friends. We took Hannah along because our friend Szu Fu's wife, Hooi Lee wanted to give Hannah a present she bought for her. We were there early so Hannah was admiring the boats and yachts docked at the marina.



This was the toy that Hooi Lee gave her - it was a cute giraffe.



Later on, there were some performances since it was still Chinese New Year.



Sunday and Monday were pretty quiet, but yesterday we took her to Gurney Paragon to have a look-see and whilst we were there, look at what we saw. Of course, Hannah was super excited to see the "dancing water". Apparently at night it is even nicer.



So that was our long weekend - hoping that there are more to come this year! :)

The Big Day Part 4

We just got some new photos from Stefanie's official photographer so here they are:

We went to the bride's house in the morning to await the arrival of the groom. Hannah was quite curious to see all the crazy things the bride's "ji mui" made the groomsmen do.



At night, the photographer managed to capture nice shots of the two little flower girls.





Leading the little procession:



Hannah kept looking back to see if either Hubby or myself were following her, so we are always in the background of the photos :) Here you can see me:



And Hubby too:



Made it safely to the front without any major drama :p



Happy bride and flower girls!