Blessed New Year

Time flies, and it has been 10 years since I left Singapore. The first few years were tough as I was still taking my classes, and it was impossible for me to go back Singapore for Chinese New Year celebration. After I had my littlehon, we tried to go back to Singapore especially during Chinese New Year as it's a great time for family and relatives to get together and catch up with one another. Although, each time when we go back, the total spendings including air tickets, and other expenditures in Singapore easily hit about SIN$10K, Rodney and I find it all worthwhile as it's the only way for our children get to know their grandparents, uncles, aunties, and cousins, for them to know more about Singapore culture, and for them to visit the places of interest in Singapore, for us to enjoy the yummy food in Singapore, for me to lug back all the Chinese books which are hard to get in the States, and if time permits for us to catch up with some friends but priority are always given to both sides of our families.

We went back to Singapore last July, and we never thought that we will be back again too close too soon. God is good, as He has always be. We want to thank God that He has always blessed us financially and that this year, we decided to spend Chinese New Year with our families. As we are away from our families and we don't get to see them everyday, reunion dinner and Chinese New Year celebration have become more meaningful to our families especially. Though the visit was rather short compared to the last visit, Rodney and I were glad that we were able to have our Reunion Dinner with our families.

I pray that God will grant our parents good health, and everyone will have a great year ahead. May I wish you a Happy and a Blessed 2012.

Welcoming 2012

Indeed 2011 has passed quickly with our new addition, and as I looked back, most of my time were spent on nourishing and nuturing His Masterpiece. At the same time, a lot of energy was also spent in dealing with my littlehon. As my littlehon gets older, more time is spent working with him. Now my littlehon tries not to take his afternoon nap which sometimes I prefer he does, as it gives me more time to myself when both my littlehon and His Masterpiece are napping together.

It has been a year since His Masterpiece was born and within this one year, my life has changed, changed for the better I think. Being a mother of two now is so much different from being a mother of one. I thank God for His strength to handle my everyday life. Sometimes I wonder if His Masterpiece is just active and energetic or I am just getting old and incapable to handle two kids as my energy and strength have to be divided between my two boys. Sometimes I wish I had a domestic helper to help around with the housework, cooking, marketing, or looking after the kids while I take a break to re-energize. However, many times I am just glad that I don't have one.

I pray that as 2012 arrives, God will continue to give me strength to nurture my littlehon and His Masterpiece and guide me to teach them His ways. I pray that my littlehon will continue to enjoy learning as much as I enjoy teaching him. As I discover and learn more about His Masterpiece's learning styles, I pray that I will be able to apply new teaching methods to help him learn more and better. Most important of all, I pray that God will grant my family good health and that He finds favor in us in whatever we do. Amen~

Healthy Living

Cooking for a meal can be very time consuming, especially when I have two little ones at home, and most of the time are spent on taking care of them. Thus, I don't really have much time to whip up delicious meals :( As our family love to drink soup, I decided to get a pressure cooker for soup making so that I don't have to spend so much time preparing soup. I think this pressure cooker really saves me a lot of time and it takes about 15 minutes to make any soups I want. This is my first time using pressure cooker, and I learn that it retains more nutrients compared to traditional boiling. How true it is, I am not sure, as long as it saves me time getting my soup done and ready on dinner table ;). Surprisingly, it is cheaper than I thought.

I bought the magic bullet when I had my little hon, and it's a blender for grinding grains, coffee beans, or baby food. However, I find that Magic Bullet cannot make really smooth texture, so I decided to invest on Vitamix 5200. Wow! This monster blender really makes great smoothie, baby food, ice cream, soup, dips and interestingly it could make dough too! I am trying to be on whole food diet for healthy living, and trying to make spinach ice cream for my little hon in order to get him to eat greens ;P. Thus, Costco's price of US$395 for this monster is worth the grab, and it is backed with full 7 year's warranty.

Recently, I am into baking when I started to get my little hon to learn some baking skills. I try to bake more instead of buying from stores. I don't really bake well but I love baking when I was younger. I love madeleine, and learn to bake some for afternoon tea whenever I have time. I hope to bake other pastries when time permits. My first batch of madeleine turned out too brown, practice makes perfect ;P

Too fat?

I used to be wearing size 0 (bottom) and small (top) before I give birth, and after giving birth to my littlehon 3.5 years ago and His Masterpiece last Dec, I can find extra fats here and there :( I was so determined to lose my tummy fats 3 months after I gave birth to His Masterpiece but the trip to Singapore in July obviously didn't help. Instead, I ate more than I needed just because once I am back to US, I wouldn't be able to taste the great food of Singapore (not any time sooner). I guess Rodney must have thought that the tummy fats hanging around my waist looking like a muffin has caused some sore eyes that one day when we were shopping at Tajong Katong Mall, he dragged me to OSIM store. For what? Of course, he was trying to hint that I needed to do something to my muffin waist, and kept wanting me to try out the OSIM Ukimono slimming belt. Errr...is my tummy fat really that bad? I thought it was just a little bulging which is pretty normal for women who have just given birth. Seriously I don't believe that investing in such gadget will help make my tummy flat. We have been back for 3 months, and I have not been disciplined enough to use my Ukimono to see the effects. In order to see the effect, I promised myself that I will start using it for 30 days to see if it is really effective. Wish me luck, and hope that I can be slim again...haaaa....By the way, the color of my Ukimono is red, my favorite, of course ;P

I am back!

It's been almost 3 months since I am back from Singapore, and have been super busy eversince His Masterpiece learns to crawl and climb. Besides busy taking care of my two princes, the house work and cooking for meals are never ending! Sometimes, I feel that I really need another break or more breaks! I try to update my web blog possible for my family and friends abroad, and even though FB is very popular, I am not a big fan though, and definitely I am no lurker! Seriously, I have not been visiting FB for many months, and sometimes I think I should cancel my account ....hmmmm...can I? I hate posting where everybody can see the posts which are meant for certain groups of people, and seriously I don't like the idea. I guess I am more personal and old fashion, and prefer to communicate via emails. Not that I don't care about what's happening in my friends' life, I wish I could sit by the computer or use my Iphone every now and then to update every little things on FB, but I guess I have other priorities. Anyhoo, pls don't forget about me (I know some of you already did ;( ) even though I am not a frequent user :(

Last year March, I shared about some thoughts on how I felt about Singapore.

I had a blast in my recent trip back to Singapore, and I guess it's because we are able to bring our littlehon to more fun places and he can appreciate it better as he gets older. The first place to visit is always the Singapore library to get books for the rest of the weeks. I was so happy when I was able to borrow 12 books (just my card) when I was there. Just when I thought Singapore Library has increased the number of books (each 6) to be borrowed, the librarian told me that it was due to holiday and 12 books are only allowed until end of July :( I was so disappointed upon hearing that :(

Next, I find that my experience with Singaporeans giving up their seats for those in need are somehow more positive than my previous trip. More Singaporeans are more proactive in giving up their seats when they saw me with two kids, entering into the MRT. I wonder it's because Singaporeans have learned to be more gracious now or they are worried that they will be STOMPED? Having said that, there are still few incidents that no one gave up their seats even when we stood right in front of them! Many of them just ignored or pretended not to see us :(

This lady saw Rodney holding His Masterpiece who was fidgeting but she ignored and continued reading her book. She was taking up the seats of those in need! Men holding babies also need a seat as much as those women who hold their babies, can't they just give up their seats to those who have kids?

We also encountered less incidence of Singaporeans using the MRT enter/exit gantry for disabled or stroller users, and this really made those who have strollers entering and leaving the station with less waiting time.

I seldom visit the swimming pools whenever we go back Singapore. However, this trip we visited the pools almost every weekends. I am very impressed with the huge pool play area when we visited Jurong Swimming Complex, and both our littlehon and His Masterpiece just loved it! We will definitely visit this pool again if we visit again next year!

This trip, I wanted to bring my littlehon to the theatre to watch a play about recyling, and we tried to hail a cab one morning to the DBS Art Theatre, and I was surprised that the taxi driver didn't know where it is! In the end, we had to miss the show because none of the driver knew the place! I guess the drivers are foreigners and thus didn't know the actual locations. How sad! Singapore is getting in all the foreign workers who don't really know Singapore well enough. I also encountered some bus drivers who are from China, and when I asked if the bus passes by certain places, they couldn't tell me : ( ...It's really sad to know that my Singapore is no longer the same Singapore that I know :( .......................

My ultimate challenge

I had tried to visualize the whole process of my challenge, and I figured out that the cloth carrier is the best way to hold on to His Masterpiece as it's light and easy to put on and take out as I faced the challenge. With His Masterpiece in front of my chest, and pushing my littlehon in his stroller, just in case he fell asleep. Bravely and strongly, gritting my teeth, I finally faced my ultimate challenge of my life so far.

After Rodney's prayer, he left us for his work. I thought I'd better take a picture and emailed Rodney before I faced the challenge.

Ultimate Challenge: To bring two children, age 3.5 years old and 7 months from US to SIN in 20 hours.

Challenge 1: Going through the security check with the hazzle of declaring liquid items, fold and unfold the stroller, holding His Masterpiece without carrier as it needed to be on the scanner as well.

Challenge 2: After clearing the custom check, I needed to find a place to put back items, and tried to bottlefeed His Masterpiece before boarding. With His Masterpiece (still no carrier as need to board soon), and pushing my littlehon on the stroller, I went to the Gate to change seats. Then, I realized that I left the milk bottle near the security check point and has to walk about 8 minutes with both back to the security check point to look for the milk bottle, and walked back to Gate.

Challenge 3: His Masterpiece's 1st long flight and not sure if he is a good little traveller like my littlehon. Turn out not too bad.

Challenge 4: Entertaining two kids is never easy when his Masterpiece is at his teething stage and he gets very cranky. Fortunately, i decided to bring along Sophie, and he was chomping on it most time. Other then that, he is either drinking or sleeping while my littlehon was entertained by the games in Andriod. I wanted to let him work on some worksheets but he prefers his games.

Challenge 5: Sleeping time. Thank God that there was a 3 seats for us, and my littlehon and His Masterpiece were able to lie down to sleep

Challenge 6: My littlehon drank a lot of milk, and had to go pee many times. I found this is the most challenging part. Whenever he needed to pee, I had to lug His Masterpiece as I couldn't leave him at the seat. Imagine the small toilet room with 3 persons inside! One hand grabbing His Masterpiece, the other hand, trying to carry my littlehand to stand on the toilet bowl. As he was standing too high up (unlike standing on the stool at home), he splattered all over the bowl. I had to help clean up. At the same time, I had to go too myself. So with one hand holding on to His Masterpiece, and the other hand trying to zip and unzip my pants.

Challenge 7: Physically I was exhausted from not having enough deep sleep, but I was able to have some cat naps here and there which is a consolation.

Challenge 8: Claiming two luggages of 50 pounds each, with His Masterpiece hanging on my chest is never easy. Thank God that the staff at the airport helped to claim and push to the arrival entrance where my brother, Elmos, & Roy came to the rescue.

YEAH! I have finally conquered the challenge, and ready to face any challenges with God's strength. I want to thank God for His strength that He has given me, and also His protection over me and my two children during the long flight of 20 hours. I can now proudly testify that God has seen me through my challenge in my life. With God, everything is possible. Will you let go and let God see you through any of your challenges everyday of your life?

Give me strength, Lord!

As I am typing, I am actually feeling very nervous about the challenge that I mentioned two Saturdays ago on the 9th July post. I can't imagine that the greatest challenge that I will be facing so far will be tomorrow. The day has come, and now I feel so unprepared mentally. I have yet to visualize the whole scenerio and walk through what might be going to happen during the challenge. Seriously, I have no idea how I will be able to handle the challenge but I want to leave it to God whatever it takes to face the challenge. I know there is no turning back to back up from the challenge, and as I think about it now, I am really getting nervous. Rodney is pretty supportive but at the same time he reminded me that it is my choice. Seriously, I don't think it's my choice, and I believe that there is a purpose for me to take up such challenge and God has already confirmed it through another sister in christ. Whatever it is, I strongly believe that God will see me through since He has put me right before the challenge. I know I can make it with God's strength, and with all the prayers that surrounded me. I pray that I will not be mentally and physically defeated after the challenge, instead I will feel much stronger than I could ever handle. But still I need prayer support and may God give me strength and more strength. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen~