Broken

Our new fridge went emo (translated : spoilt) on us last week. NEW here means it's less than 2 years old - infact, I think it's 1 year and a couple of months old. The hubs duly called up Hoover to ask about repairs. The parts are under warranty but the labour was to cost us £98! (The hubs would make remarks such as "Can't YOU fix the fridge since you've got an Engineering Degree?!") The fridge, I was told, costs £300+. Are they allowed to be spoilt so soon??

The engineer came in 2 days later, inspected it, and within 2 minutes diagnosed the problem as a faulty compressor. We will have to wait up to 5 working day (the most, he told me) for the part to come before someone will come again to install it. So, for the last week, we had to throw away ALL the food in the freezer and chiller, amongst it : frozen roti prata (canai to us M'sians), pork, chicken, our frozen oven food, ICE CREAM, vegetables in the chiller, butter, etc.

All is not lost, we did manage to salvage some of the food though : some vegie, yakitori, vegetarian chicken, tofu-balls, a pack of chicken and the frozen prawns. I had salvaged them by cooking a meal (ok, it gave us TWO meals *burp*) with all the ingredients listed.

The Char Hor Fun (I used "meehoon" instead of "hor fun") with massive ingredients, spot what is out of place here? (Hint : "Cube")





So, this week (lucky me) I did not need to cook dinner, only making rice and some vegetable dish - hubs will get some takeaway on his way back from work for our dinner.

As for grocery shopping last weekend, we filled our shopping trolley with canned food, canned soup (for my lunches), bottled baby food, carrots and some fruits. People must be wondering how unhealthy this little family is! And, how do we store carrots? Well, we bought a mini-fridge from Argos (4-litre capacity, TINY!) for £12.99 with the aim of storing "some food". I stash our bag of carrots in it and it was filled up - no more room for anything else. At least now we get to eat fresh carrots, huh?

(Shean Wenn checking out the new fridge)

Lesson of the week : Hoover is not known for their fridges (and now we know why).

Sun is out!

Today (saturday) has been a very good day - Sunny with no rain. Since it was forecasted to be high of 20c, we made plans to try to spend as much time outdoors as we can.

(Finally, time to get out those summer clothes)

In the morning, Meng assembled Shean Wenn's toy (a 3-in-1 playgym-music board-rocker) for her since she loves the music coming out from the "piano board". He assembled the rocker for her since she has outgrown most of the others. See how she reacts to it... she still needs time to get used to sitting on the rocker, but she does like the music!!

(Trying out her rocker - gift from grandparents Wong)

We then had lunch at SIL's place and then went for a stroll along the Thames River (we parked at Meng's office which is just near to Tower Bridge) - took alot of photos with Shean Wenn. She enjoyed herself very much by people watching, there was nary a sound from her during the 2-hour stroll, how wonderful!!! She just sat in her stroller and observed her surrounding. I think it is very good for her to go out. If only everyday is as good as today.

(We start off with some obligatory photo taken with the Tower Bridge, next to daddy's office.)

Our stroll took us from Tower Bridge (#13) till slightly after South Bank Centre (#7), passed the Millenium Bridge and Tate Modern(#8). The journey walking from Tower Bridge and back took around 2 hours with a break for some gelato (cocount and watermelon flavours, if you must know. It was ambrosial. )

(Map courtesy of www.londontourist.org)

And since the sun is out, so was everyone. Pubs and retsurants were filled to the brim with crowd taking full advantage of the good weather.

(On the Millenium Bridge, at the distance, you can see St Paul's Cathedral)

Overall, it was an extremely good day of walking. I thought I'd feel tired after the 2-hour walk, but I did not. Shean Wenn slept pretty good that night too, although she did wake up once at around 5am.

The next morning, we decided to take it easier and just ventured into the shops because the weather forecast was rainy, and also we needed to get some groceries.

Shean Wenn has been VERY clingy to me the past week - I attribute it to "teething". She will scream her lungs out whenever I am out of her sight... really stressful for the both of us as I find it difficult to do anything (cook, clean, work at the computer)!

(No teeth yet, but if you look closely, you will see her teeth breaking through the gums)

10 Months Old - Digi Scrap

My darling Shean Wenn is 10 months old today. She is filling our lives with so much joy - watching her grow has been really rewarding! Last night, me and hubs spent an hour playing with her after dinner : rolling a ball, watching her dance to the music from her toy.. cute!

Last month, I also learnt a new technique in digital scrapbook - this type of digital scrapping is called "Hybrid Scrapbooking". I am loving it! As i discover more and more techniques, I get elated seeing the results. I hope to improve my techniques over time. :)

(Shean Wenn splashing about in her tub)

Credits : Kalanis, FEI FEI, Rhonna Ferrer

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Love,
from all of us

The week in Northampton

The hubs had a 5-day business trip in Nederlands, so I packed Shean Wenn and myself over for a week to visit the chip-pea family.

This is the week in photos...


MONDAY :
Mrs Chip-Pea thought it is a good idea to go out to town, just for a walk around. By the time we all got ready, it was already 1.30pm, and just when we stepped out of the house, it started to drizzle. Lightly, but still a little wet. We hopped onto the bus and it took us about 10minutes to reach town. I had to post a letter, so we went to the Post Office to do that. After that, it was time for lunch (for the adults). Mrs Chip-Pea brought us to the Chinese Restaurant and we ordered dim-sum while catching up on our lives (actually, I don't know how come we have so much to talk about considering we chat on MSN almost daily as well!).

Shean Wenn and Tobey were relatively well-behaved although after awhile (1.5 hours), they got abit restless.... Shean Wenn and Tobey are seen reading their books here.





It poured again when we were leaving the town to go home and we decided it is best to hop into the cab instead! And to my utter surprise, a Black Cab can ... yes, fit not only ONE, but TWO strollers in. Shean Wenn by now, is sleeping after her afternoon milk.. while Tobey is still fully alert and posed when I snapped a few photos in the cab.






WED & THUR :
We stayed in on Wednesday and Thursday (and luck has it, both days were gloriously SUNNY!). See how the two of them getting along at play... actually, sometimes they get along fine while other times, they just can't! Shean Wenn has a tendency to cry (yes, with tears) when Tobey gets excited and "shouted" at her. She is a little diva, she doesn't like loud noises or sudden noises. Hmmph, what am I to do with her? I suggested to the hubs sometime back that it would be a good idea to bring her out to playgroups once in awhile. We will see how that goes - that is, IF i can find a suitable one near our place. I need to research harder.





THURSDAY NIGHT : we went out for dinner at a tapas restaurant! Both babies were also relatively well-behaved here. Phew!

Little geeks

Shean Wenn meets with Tobey again. This time, for a week.

This evening, Tobey's dad decided to pop into the shop to get this for him. Tobey is a gracious host and decides to share his toy laptop with Shean Wenn.


Tobey : "Ok Shean Wenn, I let you type on my spanking new laptop. Go ahead!"
SW : "Ok Tobey. Thanks"


Tobey : "Shean Wenn, can you please let me have a go at it as well?"
SW : "No Tobey, you can use the mouse"


Tobey : "Uhh, Shean Wenn.. you have been typing for a long time....."
SW : *busy typing*


Tobey : "Give it back to me .. or else ......"
SW : "Hey!"


Tobey : "Gee, I have been relegated to using this laptop instead (it has way far too little keys. Where is the QWERTY keyboard?)?"


SW :" Teeheehee.... all to myself!"


Tobey spotted the REAL adult laptop! Smart boy...


After their dinners : There they go again..... just can't get enough of it!!

Awesome Blossom!

Actually, what's so awesome is the "action" tools that I discovered just now which enabled me to create this great 3D Collage effect from a single landscape photo. Credits to PanosFX.com (get your free downloads there).


My photo taken in Oct 2006 (Honeymoon in Korea)with slight tweaking with photoshop. Photo credits to the hubs.

(Tomorrow I shall be blogging from another place. Teehee... more updates in a few days's time)

9 Months 2 Weeks Old in photographs

Her developments the last 2 weeks have kind of plateau off. That only means she is reinforcing her current skills, in my opinion. She is still learning to stand, and still is hard at practice doing that.


Words recognition :

Since a month ago, she has been able to recognise or identify objects with what I say. It was quite a pleasant surprise when one day, while "filming" her (on the videocam) as she was pulling to stand in her playpen I had said "Where's monkey monkey?" (referring to her toy monkey which makes the sound "Hoohoo hahaha" when you press its tummy) - she, my little 8 and a half month old baby, turned around and looked for it and then crawled towards the monkey and grabbed it to play. Yes, I thought it was just a coincident. But I tested it a few more times that day and indeed she does recognise the word "Monkey"!

Another word she recognises (just today) is the word "Bear". If I put bear and monkey next to each other and say to her to get whichever one, she will choose the right one.



Reading :

She still likes to read! She is seen here trying to reach down to read the "electronic book" (ok, I think it's called an "interactive" book).





Hehe! Here being her cheeky self again - I hope she doesn't grow up to say that to me, of course!!

Little Ms Potter

This is what she does when I let her "roam" around the apartment freely....

Sometimes, she sneaks off to the kitchen to "inspect" what kind of food goes into her porridge (Clearly, she likes them potatoes Organic)


Pigeon-Poo watching : As most of you may know, London is notorious for pigeons (her dad says they are "rats in wings") . These pigeons somehow love to hang out above our balcony and create a mess on the balcony. Shean Wenn is looking out of the window trying to scare them away!


When she's bored doing that, she tries her hand in figuring out how the remote works - ah, they use batteries to operate this!


And when she thinks I'm not looking, she goes into the bathroom looking for stuff.


Sometimes she tags along while I put back laundry. Here she is trying to be helpful by re-arranging and re-folding the clothes. Thank you, dear! More work for me!!


Rummaging through the toy basket under her highchair.


"Oops, hi mom! What are you doing here?", she grins. This is her "I'm-up-to-no-good" cheeky grin.


Winding down : read a book.


Finally... she goes to sleep - exhausted and contented after her afternoon milk! And look at the trail of mess caused by Little Ms Potter! It's time for me to clean up.

When mommy says NO.

For weeks now she's been practicing standing without support. Sometimes she holds onto something before releasing her grips and she then "free-stands" for a few seconds. The longest I think was 5 seconds. Short time for us adults, but for her, it's a great feat - And I'm proud of her.

(She wasn't holding on to anything on her right hand, and was trying to balance herself without support)

"Why...", you then ask, "is Shean Wenn not wearing long pants in cold spring (18 celcius in the room)?"

Well, I'll tell you, it is because this little girl was so naughty! Just 10minutes before that, I put her in her cot with a tub of her nappy rash healing cream to play (she was drumming it)... and went to the bathroom to clean up after her bath. Yes, she had just taken her bath - all clean and yummy smelling. And when I came out - horrors! Look what I found? And she didn't find it horrofying at all even when I gasped and told her in my sternest voice (while trying to hide my amusement) that "She should not do that! NO!"

"What did you just say mom?"

And yes, I had to wipe all the remnants of the cream off the cot and the floor!