Past the mid-30s

Last Friday I celebrated my 36th birthday. So I'm officially past my mid-30s and am now a year closer to being 40 (horror!) Did anyone say that 40 is the new 30? :p

So anyway, I did have a wonderful celebration with friends and family, which consisted mostly of non-stop eating!

The first group of friends took me for lunch at Soul Cafe. The food was so good that I wanted to go back - you can read my review about it here. There were more of us this time, so we could try more dishes, and their dessert is really good too! We didn't have dessert here the previous time. So since I had previously shared pictures of their food, here are pictures of their desserts!

Lemon chocolate cheesecake - homemade specialty on that day:

Vanilla creme brulee:

Passionfruit chocolate lava cake:

In the same week, my colleagues treated me to a fancy lunch at TWG Gurney Paragon. Their lunch sets are quite reasonably priced, and so very filling!

Carrot soup:

Strawberry tea milkshake:

Main course - chicken breast:

We had 4 sets, so we could choose 4 desserts. And they were all yummy!

On my actual birthday, I took the day off, since it was a Friday, and sandwiched in between a public holiday (Thaipusam) and the weekend. So I got 4 days off :) Hubby also took the day off and we redeemed my 2 free birthday movie tickets from GSC. I also got my birthday present, a watch which I had been eyeing for some time :) No pictures taken because we did boring couple stuff like eat and watch movie and shopping haha.

That night, we had dinner with my parents and the girls at Grand Imperial Restaurant at The Top, Komtar.

3 cheeky girls:

I told my parents that I didn't really want a cake because we would be too full after dinner, so we had a small cake at Chocolate Passion which was just opposite the restaurant. The kids enjoyed it and we didn't have to finish a full-sized cake!

The Sunday after my birthday, we continued the celebrations with another group of friends at Lunarich, Gurney Paragon. I must say that Lunarich has really yummy salad. And the pastas and pizzas are great too.

Fruits salad:

Crispy bacon salad with mango:

After lunch, we headed for Magnum Cafe where we had ice-cream and a small slice of cake from Starbucks haha. No big cakes for me this year :)

So there concludes my birthday and looking forward to a good year ahead :) Thank you my beloved parents, hubby, 3H and friends for making my birthday so special!

Chinese New Year 2017

As like every other year, we had steamboat for reunion dinner. This year, I decided to put my creative juices to work and this is what I came up with :)

After dinner, the kids had fun playing with sparklers and fireworks. This year, Helene could join in the fun too!

Hubby's cousin was even more creative - see what he did with the lou sang. It was too pretty to "lou" so it sat there for quite a while before we actually "lou".

First day of CNY, I woke up and went to the kitchen and this is what greeted me. Usually my first chore of the day is to sweep the floor - hence this signage haha!

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After having a good laugh, we got the girls got dressed in their new clothes and they received ang pow from Daddy and Mummy.

Then it was off to Nanna and Kung Kung for breakfast and more ang pows :)

The rest of the day was spent at Hubby's parents' place, then we headed to my granduncle's place where my dad's side of the family will usually gather on the 1st day of CNY. It was not a small group as you can see!

On the 2nd day - we all decided to wear red! 

2nd day is usually spent with Hubby's mum's side of the family.

3rd day was a quiet day. On the 4th day, it was Hubby's office opening and they had a lion dance performance.

Then we headed to Elite restaurant to have lunch with Hubby's family. See how pretty the 1st dish was!

Hubby and his siblings:

On the 5th day, Hannah went back to school but I was still on leave so it was movie day! We basically spent almost the whole day at Gurney Plaza. Heidi was with us since she was still off from school.

I had actually applied leave for the 6th and 7th day as well, to make it a whole week, But since there was nothing much to do, I decided to save my leave and go back to work on the 6th day. We had our office CNY lunch on that day at Thirty Two.

In the evening, we headed to Lee Jetty to look at the lights. This year, they opted for neon lightings rather than the traditional lanterns. Personally, I prefer the lanterns.

On Saturday, Hubby headed to the office to finish up some work so my parents and I took the girls to have Magnum in Gurney Paragon. They enjoyed it very much and even Helene finished a whole one by herself! Look at her cheeky face :)

Speaking of malls, Queensbay Mall really outdid themselves again with the CNY deco. Have a look:

Wishing everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous Year of the Rooster!