Happy 2nd birthday Heidi!

Our 2nd little princess is 2 today! When she woke up this morning, we could see the excitement in her eyes as she knew it was her birthday. We asked her "Whose birthday is it?" and she said "Me!" We promised her an evening out today so she's looking forward to that, and Hannah too :)

Happy birthday princess and stay cheerful and bubbly always! God bless you today and always! Lots of love from Mummy, Daddy and Jie Jie Hannah :)

Will blog more about her birthday party and presents in another post.

Sisters

Now that Heidi is almost two, she and Hannah are very close as they can play together and communicate with each other. Heidi loves to imitate her Jie Jie, so she will copy everything Hannah says and does.

The other day, we went out for dinner with friends at Gurney Paragon, and Hannah wanted to wear her necklace with a heart pendant. Seeing Hannah wearing a necklace, Heidi also wanted to wear one, so Hannah lent her one as well.

We had dinner at Rakuzen, and we were early, so here are the kids posing for pictures before the rest arrived.

Hannah also seems to think her sister is some sort of a real live doll. One of their favourite games is where Hannah sticks clothes pegs all over her sister's (and her own!) hair. This is the result:

So yesterday, besides putting the pegs on Heidi's hair, she also decided that it would be a good idea to peg her sister's skin! Of course Heidi wailed the place down and she now has a bruised shoulder as a result. We didn't scold Hannah however, as she was quite remorseful for having injured her little sister. She immediately showed me Heidi's bruise when I got home from work yesterday. We just explained to her that she must not do it again as it is very painful and she seemed to understand.

But she definitely sayang her little sister. Heidi's birthday is approaching so Hannah wanted to get her a gift. Heidi's favourite character at the moment is Olaf from the Disney movie "Frozen" but unfortunately we don't have the merchandise available at the moment. So we got her the next best thing, a stuffed snowman. It's all wrapped up now, but Hannah took a picture to show her Daddy what she bought for Heidi.

Our two little princesses..we hope that their loving sisterly bond will last even though they are all grown up :)

A few of their favourite things

Aside from the title of the post, I would more describe it as a few of their favourite foods! There is no doubt that my little girls love what all kids love. Hot chocolate, sunny side up eggs, and McDonald's!

Here are some pictures of them enjoying their food.

At Dome - where they are entertained by the junior menu and colour pencils while waiting for their food:

And at McDonald's - the grin on Heidi's face says it all :)

Heidi @ 23 months

Heidi will be 23 months in 2 days' time, and next month she will be two years old! My little baby is growing up way too quickly. She seems to grow more lengthwise than sideways though, lol. I brought back a dress (in the picture below) for her from Australia back in Sept 2012 (the tag says its for 12-18 months), but after trying on and putting it back in the cupboard for the last few months, she can only wear it now, and even then it's a bit loose.

As always, she loves to pose for the camera, and recently she has learnt to do the "peace" sign. But she can't seem to get it right just yet, so it looks more like she's doing the girl scout pledge with 3 fingers (and sometimes 4!).

The two girls are really close, despite the inevitable bickering at times. I suppose it's normal with siblings to constantly hear "Mummy, Heidi beat me!" or "Mummy, Heidi pulled my hair!".

The two girls have their favourite places to go and eat. For breakfast, it's Coffee Bean.

And of course, they love ice cream! Instead of always going to Haagen Dazs or Baskin Robbins which can be quite pricey, we found out that they also like Qbean soya bean ice cream, which is a fraction of the price, and more nutritious too! Hannah used to get a cone and Heidi would get a cup, to avoid messiness, but recently, she wants to be the same as her jie jie. So one cone for each of them, but Heidi's will usually be shared with Hubby.

Double celebration 140214

This year, the Western Valentine and Chinese Valentine (Chap Goh Meh) fell on the same day, 14 February 2014. Apparently, this only happens once every 19 years, or something like that.

To avoid all the crazy commercialism outside, we decided to have a nice meal at home with some friends. As it was a weekday and a working day, we decided on steamboat (again!) as it didn't take long to prepare. In fact, Hubby prepared everything the night before and stocked up the freezer, and his mum helped us to prepare the soup and fry some squid.

Here is the table all laid out with the yummy food, table arrangement also courtesy of Hubby ;)

The kids had fun playing together:

And the adults had fun eating and chatting :)

So that marks the end of the Lunar New Year this time around. Here's to a good year ahead of health, wealth and prosperity!

CNY 2014

Is it just me, or did Chinese New Year this time around seem more quiet than previous years? People must be scaling back due to the increasing cost of living :p

Anyway, this year lil Heidi was big enough to appreciate the food, fireworks and of course, the ang pows! As usual, we had our steamboat reunion dinner at Hubby's parents' place. The food was enough to feed the whole kampung, as Hubby would say ;)

The two youngest girls had similar cheongsams bought for them by Hubby's brother and his girlfriend. Heidi was busy posing in her little outfit and refused to take it off!

Our two little girls on CNY eve:

And at home on the first day of CNY:

It now seems mandatory for us to have a a few family picture on the stairs every CNY, usually before leaving the house (and this year, also on other people's stairs :p)

As usual, Heidi loves posing for pictures and here she is giving us her widest, cheekiest smile :)

The four youngest cousins on the 2nd day of CNY:

My dad was with us on the 3rd day of CNY so we had the "stairs" picture again, first with his granddaughters, and then with all of us.

A very Italian birthday

My birthday every year always falls sometime around Chinese New Year. Having said that, eating Chinese food is not really an option, since we have been eating it for the past few days straight, not to mention that Chinese restaurants normally increase their prices during this time.

So when our friends asked where I wanted to go for my birthday, I chose Italian food as it is one of my favourites, and I've probably tried all the Italian restaurants in Penang already. However, after doing some searching on the Internet, I found this place which we have not tried before. It's called Il Bacaro and it is located in a little boutique hotel called Campbell House in Georgetown.

The ambience was pretty nice, and the food was not too bad as well, although I have had better. We forgot to take any pictures of the food, as usual, but the Vanilla Panna Cotta with Berries Sauce which they decorated and fashioned as a birthday cake was pretty yummy.

Hannah and Heidi joined us as well for the dinner, and as expected, they were more interested in the "cake" than in taking pictures!

Family picture of the four of us and then of everyone together:

A few days later, another group of friends treated me to dinner at Itallianies, Gurney Paragon. I have always enjoyed the food there, and kids eat for free! 

My favourite Sicilian chicken salad and stuffed mushrooms:

We also had a ginormous pizza with four different flavours:

The girls were very excited to go outside and look at the dancing water fountain display, but we managed to convince them to come inside and take pictures when we told them there was cake!

Again, a picture of the four of us and then one of all of us:

And here are my birthday gifts from hubby and the girls:

Instead of a cake, I chose Haagen Dazs ice cream, and there is no denying that the girls enjoyed it more than I did! :)

And here was my proper gift - a lovely necklace chosen by hubby and Hannah. I have had the one I had been wearing for many years now (given by Hubby before we were married), so he thought it was time for a new one! :)

Another year older, and hopefully a little wiser!