Z is 21 months old!

Here are two latest pictures of Z taken last weekend. My baby is growing so fast!

5 months just went past so quickly; not easy to juggle a full time work, family and 'ME' time.

I was just looking back at Z's older pictures, selecting them to be posted in this journal. Am amazed how different Z is now compared to just few months ago and how much he has grown (physically, mentally and emotionally). 

November 2013:

We went to Langkawi for a short family holiday and the weather there was awesome! Z's favourite thing to do was going to the pool. He would point to the door the first thing he woke up; in the morning & from his naps. I think he likes the idea of staying near the pool because we visited the pool up to three times in a day.

                                       

We stayed at The Westin Langkawi as we wanted to pick a hotel that is baby friendly and could order Z's food separately. Z was 16 months old then and we were trying to delay in introducing salt and sugar to him until maybe about 2 years old. I was nursing Z by the pool with a fantastic weather and the feeling was so special :) 

We went up to the Langkawi Cable Car, a must go when you're in Langkawi. The queue management was horrible as we had to queue by standing in a line for almost 2 hours even though we were given numbers. The ride up was quite scary as it was really high up. The views were breath-taking even though the sky bridge was closed for maintenance. Heard that it was closed for quite a long time; almost two years. I would recommend every visitor to Langkawi to go up the cable car but try to avoid public holidays or weekends and try to go in the afternoon, at about 2pm. We were surprised to see there were no queue when we were leaving the cable car centre at about 2pm. 

December 2013:

Christmas 2013. Z's 2nd Christmas :)

We were at Jungle Gym, Bangsar Shopping Centre on the last day of 2013

January 2014:

Z's Calendars 2014!!!!! 

Z's first Chinese New Year shoes!

The moment Z saw these shoes, he was pointing & touching them while saying 'ar! ar!', that's his version of 'car'. His not-so-nice haircut was by his mommy :( I think I got better in cutting his hair after this haircut.

February 2014:

Z started imitating the adults by holding a phone to his year by saying 'arloo' and 'bye'. He would also use both hands to pretend to press on the phone as if he was texting. 

Chinese New Year 2014

Z the drummer boy!

Z simply loved the lion dance performances. He liked the drummer boys and would stared at them the whole performance but not at the lions. He would prefer to approach & try to hit the drums than reaching to touch the lions. Z never cease to amaze us on the things and details that he would get fixated on. He is so sharp that he would notice almost everything and would quickly point out on things that he likes.

March 2014:

We celebrated Z's Suk Suk (Uncle in Chinese) birthday!

April 2014: 

It was Grandpa Yong & Gandpa Chong's birthday month!

April was a very special month because two of Z's favourite persons had their birthday celebrations! Z was the centre of attention because he got to sit on the birthday boys' lap to sing the birthday song and blow the candles. He could hum many songs and sometimes would sing to himself. He has his daddy's trait because SJ would do that sometimes in the car when the radio was not turned on. It was quite fun to watch ;) 

Compared to 5 months ago, my baby:

Has more hair now.

He could run very fast now.

He could reach the door knob and turns it.

He could reach many things on the table.

He understands very well what we were saying.

He could follow instructions.

He could imitate the words that we speak and the words that he uttered would surprised us.

He can negotiates.

He knows what is a quiet corner. I introduced the quiet corner to him sometime in April after I realised that hitting his hands and legs did not make good sense. I would usually threaten to hit his hands if he did something that we didn't approve. There was once he was jokingly hitting his great-grandmother (Tai Poh) and I told him that he shouldn't hit Tai Poh because it hurts and wasn't nice. The moment I said: 'If you hit Tai Poh again, I am going to hit you', this entire sentence felt so wrong. How could I possibly educate my child not to hit anyone if I continuously hit him? It was there and then that I have decided to stop hitting him because he understands what I am saying now. 

He could hums the entire song of a few nursery rhymes. His favourites are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and London Bridge is Falling Down.

He could recite A, B, C, maybe for the first 5 to 6 alphabets and hum the rest of the ABC song. 

He could count 1, 2, 3 and to 10 but missed a few numbers in between.

My baby is growing so fast and looking more like the man that I fell in love with, his daddy. I love my little family :)

Now I need to make it a point to update this journal at least once a month! 

Z is 15 months now!

My last entry was when Z was 10 months old and now he is almost 15 months old. Time passes so fast especially when you're having a good time & busy. Things at work are picking up really fast and am still trying my best to capture Z's growing up moments.

Highlights when Z was 10 months old (June 2013):

Z - He could point with confidence on the items that we named out for him; orange, car, light, fan, air-con, mommy, daddy, grandparents and more. SJ and I were so impressed and surprised one day when Z was about 10 months old; we put him on his play mat and I asked him where is Orange, he crawled to the picture & pointed confidently while looking at me that was Orange. We seldom read the alphabets to him, we're more of the random teaching 'method', where we just mention him the things in front of us and seldom repeat them but we speak to him a lot. Babies are absorbing like sponge everyday! He was so much more fun now that he is older and we have more confidence in managing and knowing what he wants.

Z gave me this cheeky smile when I grabbed him to sit with me & I said 'Smile' to the camera!

We went for our first beach holiday on the 9th to 11th June to the Redang Island. This city boy didn't like the sand at all. He kept brushing the sand away from his hands, legs and refused to sit on the sand. He only wanted to be sitting on the beach towel. It was also Zach's first get-away with his grandparents, (Kung Kung & Po Po) and Yi Yi. We brought so many things for Zach to this trip; his potty, slow cooker for his solids, vegetables, fruits and lots of toys. Zach slept on his flight to Redang & behaved really well on our way back to KL. I was glad that our holiday went so well and Z didn't have any problems adapting :))

Z fell asleep in my carrier before we board the plane & he slept throughout the flight on the way to Redang. Yay! This was Z's 2nd time being on the plane. This first was in December 2011 to Singapore. 

Daddy & Z's bonding time. 

This was taken on the morning of our last day in Redang. Z was such a serious boy. He is more fun now at 15 months. 

Highlights when Z was 11 months old (June/July 2013): 

My friend, R from Hong Kong came to visit & celebrated my birthday with me! :))) We took her to do some touristy stuffs; visit Batu Caves, Petronas Twin Towers, KL tower and had some must-eat Malaysian food.

In front of Batu Caves before we conquer the steps. 

 Inside of the cave, while Daddy & R went up the stairs to explore further, we took this opportunity to take some photos. We saw many monkeys on that day!

Next stop was the Petronas Twin Towers. We couldn't get the tickets to go up the towers because they were completely sold out by 10.30am! We thought getting tickets would not be a problem since it was a weekday but we were wrong! Lesson learnt: To buy the tickets online way ahead of time. 

We couldn't go up but we could still take photos with the towers behind us. It was such a beautiful day!

KL Tower. Getting tickets to go up was easy and zero hassle. It took us less than 10 mins to queue & made our way up to the tower immediately. 

One of the must try food for friends that visit us in KL; Roti Tissue at Original Kayu Nasi Kandar SS2 because this roti tissue is huge! It's about 3 feet tall. I was just impressed that it was so big! If we order one, I'll call it KL Tower and The Twin Towers if we ordered two :P

SJ & I are food lovers. Naturally we would bring our guest to good eating places around KL. Here's the list of food that we've introduced to R:

1. Hokkien noodles at Ah Wa Restaurant, Jalan 222 PJ. We don't think Hong Kong has dark coloured hokkien noodles.

2. Dinner at Dancing Fish, Bangsar Shopping Centre KL for a good ambience and yummy tasting indon-malay food. We ordered fried fish, satay and a huge variety of food. The chilli and sambal sauces were really good!

3. Breakfast at Antipodean, Bangsar KL. Well, this is nothing extraordinary as compared to western food in Hong Kong but the breakfast in this place was voted as one of the top 10 in KL.

4. Roti canai at Raju's Restaurant, Jalan Gasing PJ. SJ thinks the roti canai here is one of the best & most crispy in KL/PJ. They made them fresh immediately. Other than roti canai, the rest was just ok.

5. Nasi Lemak, Village Park, Damansara Uptown, PJ. Our favourite nasi lemak & it's really good! The king of nasi lemak in Klang Valley. Their fried chicken (ayam goreng berempah) is superb. Their other food such as asam laksa & prawn mee were also quite good too. 

6. Mille crepe cake by Nadeja, 3 Two Square PJ. These cakes were made famous by the same name shop in Melaka and many people would buy these cakes and bring back to KL. They have a branch now in PJ! and

7. Huge Roti Tissue at Original Kayu Nasi Kandar SS2 PJ. There have many other things in this restaurant which are also recommended; nasi kandar, other types of roti and of course teh tarik for the tourists. 

From the list above, we really had quite a feast in R's short trip; 4 days in Malaysia. We could have brought her to more places if we had more time and if Z was older. Our schedule was built around Z's routine. I am sure R will plan her next trip soon and I hope we didn't paint the impression that Malaysians are a bunch of gluttons. 

After we sent R to the airport on the 2nd July evening, the three of us went to a neighbourhood cafe to celebrate my birthday. Last year on the same day, I was heavily pregnant and this year I had Z with me! We used to celebrate birthdays in a big way; dress up well in nice restaurants. But things are different nowadays with a baby. My priorities and needs are different now too. As long I am with Z & SJ, I feel I am the luckiest girl in the world because they both make me feel so happy :)

Going to end this long post with a picture we took at my birthday dinner. Next is Z's 1st birthday! Have a great weekend everybody!

Babymoon Part 2 (Day 3, 4 & 5 on 6-8th April 2012)

Day 3: We were dressed in RED (coincidentally!)! Heading out to Taipa Village for breakfast before we catch the ferry to Hong Kong. 

We checked out from Venetian Hotel early that morning & kept our luggage at the concierge. There were a massive amount people in the hotel that day because it was a Good Friday public holiday. So many tour groups were visiting Macau that weekend. Glad that we were heading out of Macau.

Here's a pic of me with our breakfast spread at a random shop at Taipa Village. We just picked this shop because it was filled with localsl; thinking that their buns and instant noodles were something special but turned out not.

A quick dessert fix before we leave Macau! Ice-cream pudding is extremely popular in Macau because we keep seeing them everywhere. We think it's a portugese dessert and the brand 'Serrdura' is a chain store selling puddings. I had an original flavour from Serrdura but I think the saw-dust pudding I had the day before tasted better.

Walked for a bit in the shopping area of Venetian Hotel before we headed off to the ferry jetty. They have so many big brands in this hotel and it is massive! There's a canal running around with people sitting in the gondola and gondolier was singing so loudly that his/her voice was echoing loudly in the mall. It was way better than the 'real' gondoliers in Venice! You would have to pay a huge amount of money to sit in a gondola in Venice & the gondoliers don't even sing for you in Venice. 

We took a ferry to Hong Kong and thankfully, the ride was not choppy. It was quite a comfortable ride even though the weather was cloudy. The first thing we encountered when we reached Hong Kong jetty was a grumpy and naggy but with good intentions taxi driver. He was lecturing us about the bad timing we took for coming to Hong Kong because it was a long public holiday weekend and the weather was horrible. He also advised us to check the calendar and weather in the future because the cable car ride to Victoria Peak would be surely close for maintenance or bad weather. What we didn't told him that this 'bad timing' is not new to us because we had it in almost all our holidays! Must really do more 'homework' before we plan our next holiday!

Had dinner with my Form 6 friend, Hui Yee with her hubby, Louise and son, Caleb. Caleb is so adorable; sitting in his car seat quietly. He was so attached to his face towel that the moment he started whining or crying, all I had to do was to cover his face with the towel and he would be soothed. That was both funny and amazing!

A picture with Hui Yee and family at Mikichi restaurant

We walked around AEON and a huge baby products shop in that mall, comparing prices and items that they have there with Malaysia. We found that baby items were not cheaper but they have many interesting and cute products in Hong Kong! It was quite fun just walking around and looking at these baby stuffs.

Hui Yee and Louise brought us to this amazing location to view Hong Kong's beautiful night line. 

It was cold because of the strong wind and we saw a couple standing in a dark near the pier taking their wedding photos!

Of course we had to end the night with DESSERT! Haha! Since we missed the steam egg/milk in Macau, we found a rather popular shop via blogs near our hotel, Novotel Hotel at Jordan. We went to Yee Shun Milk Company which was only a few minutes walk from our hotel. The menu was all in Chinese and we couldn't read any of them. We asked an uncle in the shop what is good? His reply was everything is good! Our next question was what's the top three best sellers & he pointed on the menu that the first three on the list are the best sellers, which didn't help us to order at all! :S Later we told him that we couldn't read chinese, so please read them out to us. He was puzzled, probably wondering why we can speak cantonese but cannot read. I get this puzzled looks quite often. He finally read out the top three bestsellers: ginger steam-milk and double layer steam milk which were what we ordered. I must really send my kids to chinese school! He later came back & advised SJ that he must not stir the egg because that was not the right way to appreciate this steam egg :S 

Left: Ginger steam milk (mine!) and SJ's double layer steam milk on the right.

We went to bed happy that night because we had our steam-milk desserts! :)

Day 4: Exciting day ahead because we were planning to have dim sums at this place that has Michelin one star rating! The last time we had was last year, June 2011 at Mong Kok & this time, we went to another branch at Shum Shui Po because this branch is bigger, hence, less waiting time. We waited for 2 hours plus in Mong Kok & only about 30 mins in Shum Sui Po.

The massive amount of people waiting outside of this restaurant. 

Good thing they have the menu in English. 

Thanks Kok Hoong & Yu Ling for bringing us to this yummy dim sum place

FOOODDDSSSSSssss!! The 'char siew chan pau' (BBQ buns) on the bottom left in this picture is super yummylicious! I think both SJ & I can have these buns every single day! Haha!

I don't think we will ever say 'NO' to egg tarts in Hong Kong. We bought these from a popular chain egg tarts store in Hong Kong. Just had to grab these while we were on our way to the MTR station. 

 Then, I saw these! Chinese Pudding or 'put chai kou' in Cantonese. 

Had to buy one and try because I've never tried before. Yes! I can eat really a lot as you can see my huge belly in this pic :P

Later that evening, we had dinner with my uni friend, Rockie & her hubby, Ocean in a chinese restaurant. Forgot to take photo of the main dishes. Only had a photo of dessert. Haha! Really dessert junkie! Here's a picture of coffee pudding (it was similar to our Malaysian many layer kuih but it was in coffee flavour), sesame seed roll (interesting! and apparently it's very rare nowadays as not many people make this dessert anymore) and finally my favourite glutinous rice in ginger soup (YUMMSSSS!). 

 Even though we had desserts after dinner at the restaurant, Rockie still suggest that we go to another dessert place to have more dessert and chat! We went to Hui Lau Shan and they served many desserts with mango and other varieties of fruits. 

Day 5 (Final day!): Last day to eat before we head back to Kuala Lumpur! 

Morning picture at the hotel before we go eat ;)

Read about this 'Australian Dairy Co.' from a blog and it was near our hotel! We went the day before our dim sums lunch but the queue was too long, so we've decided to go on our final day in Hong Kong and we had to make sure we were up early to start queuing. Here's a picture of SJ, standing about two shops away from the restaurant. We waited for about 20 minutes before we were shown to a table. 

The efficiency level in Hong Kong is really superb! The waiters really tried their very best to make sure every table is full. If there was a table of 3, they would sit another single person in that table. We being the 'foreigners' and cannot read chinese (they did not have an english menu) plus not knowing what to order; we were looking around & told the rather impatient waiter that we wanted breakfast sets, not knowing what are the breakfast sets. The only thing we understood were how to order our drinks and a rough guess of how we wanted our eggs. Then, suddenly came two bowls of macaroni with bacon, SJ had scramble eggs with toast and I had fried eggs with toast. Even though this restaurant has a very english name but the food served were so chinese! Quite misleading.

 Many bottles of milk, which I believe were imported from Australia. They served steam-milk desserts too. 

Then, it's time to leave to catch a ferry back to Macau and then to catch a flight back to Kuala Lumpur. 

We were planning in the ferry what we should do and eat before we get to the airport. We really wanted to try the famous pork chop bun with its original buns again and we also wanted to buy the famous Macau's almond biscuits and almost pastries. So, we split the tasks as we had very limited time: me to queue for the pork chop buns and SJ to run over to buy the biscuits.

This is the long queue to get the buns. 

SJ with almond biscuits/pastries and me with the pork chop buns. 

A photo to end this post of our Babymoon: Daddy SJ sitting happily on a bench by the street eating his pork chop bun! 

That's the end of our Babymoon! I saw my doctor the following week & I gained 3 kilograms but I am a happy mommy! :)))