Happy Birthday Daddy 2010

Actual day 29 Apr, I've brought daddy to a new place for lunch the Vittles at nearby Yishun..which serve free flow yummiest pop corn..and he had lamb shank..very nice too..



The lamb shank...nice!




Lunch at the vittles!

Dinner we had a family celebration with at Sin Tian Ti restaurant along balestier road..and there Jared presented him an angpow written with his good wishes prepared since few wks ago..



Ang pow from Jared

Family pic taken 29 Apr

Daddy's Birthday 2010

Finally I fulfilled my all time wants..bake a cake for birthday!

I've been thinking to bake a cake for daddy or the kids birthday for so many yrs(the last bday cake was baked by daddy for his own bday on 2007, I know nuts about baking then)...and always ended too bz or no mood.

This yr, Jared has grown mature enuff to help..When I told him to quickly bath and get changed to his white clothes(baker), and finish his school work...and he followed suit.

We had a major problem when trying to setup the steamer.. Our cake tin is those that can separate the base, and we do not have a proper steamer..so water easily come into the tin!..After daddy try here & there, we managed to set it up somehow. Jared had a lot of fun seeing stones(from flour/coco powder) fall down into the mixing bowl while sieving them..and get scolded by me for trying to mess up the sifted flour..But he did a good job in mixing all the ingredients..

The recipe called for 45mins steaming..but we actually steamed for full 2hr for it to fully done..
Nevertheless, we had a nice & moist cake in the end. Since I can't do icing, so had gotten the deco sheet from Daiso, Japan...which works perfectly fine deco with some icing sugar...It made the plain black cake looks so beautiful!

Next round I shall put in some chocolate chips to make it more chocolaty..
p/s this is an advance bday...Daddy's actual bday is on coming thur where Jared gonna choose him a cake from bengawan...and then we will go to Phuket for another celebration!

Recipe

Ingredients:

Makes one 9" round



185g butter
180g fine sugar -> Reduce to 150g
200ml evaporated milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
125g all-purpose flour
70g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla essence



Method:

1. Combine sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla essence and butter in a saucepan.
Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved and butter has melted. Remove from heat.
2. Add the beaten eggs into the slightly cooled mixture and stir till well mixed.
3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda into a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs mixture over the flour and stir till well mixed. (Batter should be runny).
4. Heat up the steamer.
5. Lined and grease a 9-inch baking pan
6. Pour the batter into prepared pan and place into the steamer. Cover the top of the pan loosely with a piece of aluminum foil.
7. Steam over medium heat for 45 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting a skewer into the cake. If it comes out clean, it’s done. If not, steam for a further 5 minutes.
8. Cool the cake in pan before turning out for further decoration.

- Reading
He has completed daddy's book for primary 1 series..now we are trying to let him start with primary 2 book 1&2.
Peter & Jane: He is at Book 3a

This series is really good, both no story line unlike daddy's book.
but it repeated use of key words like here, that, they...make him finally can remember these words.

Interestingly the most common words he, here, you, that, there, they, are the hardest to go into his mind.

The more difficult ones like cabinet, kissing, belly button, cousin, just need to repeat 2-3x he could remember it..But those in the key(sight) words..are sooo diff.
But with peter& jane, somehow his reading has improved tremendously.
However, we could not make it that he read books, cards everyday..now maybe 1-2x a wk depend on his mood..

-Writing
He has finally completed writing A to Z on the 3 line workbook...
We started him to write phonics words like
mop, top, mat, pat etc
and interestingly he suddenly know phonics..
before this no matter how you teach he got zero knowledge on phonics, and couldnt go into his mind, while daddy & mine knowledge on phonics is zero too.
i guess the school has finally done their part heheh..

-Chinese writing
Finally he could write his chinese name since last mth 4yr 4mth
When I saw him struggling with his yi4, I asked daddy if we could change it to "-" hehehe..
When I don't even know how to write his yi4, I dont really have that expectation he can write lah..but now he can write his name pretty well..

He also proceeded to write, papa mama, nai nai under waipo's guidance
Unexpectedly, his chinese handwriting is far better than english..and of cos far better than mine...

*Lazy mummy has not take a picture of his work, I shall do fast, before meimei tear his book" hah

-Violin
Still very slow, and inconsistense..
sometimes he is playing real well, sometimes he just seemed don't know violin at all..*headache & heartache(fees)*

Because of his slow development, Prof thanh has been teaching him some simples lines with no name?? and refused to teach him little einstein which is played in ensemble class.
So teaching little eintein become his daddy's job..hah.
Feel like giving up sometimes..but luckily he has not requested.

-Abacus
He is going to start abacus class again under his persist request, waipo brought him to enrol at whampoa cc..and since then he has been counting down to the day when classes starts..*faint*
I wished to send him for art class, cos till today he can never color properly...but he refused.

Kaylen is 19mth...

again w/o us realising..

Enrolled her for little step play grp..which she can only start next Mar/Apr when she turned 30mths..

and other than that she didn't go for any enrichment class...since all the bullet are spent on Jared.

But hey, i thought her developments are not bad ..from what I read from forum, those kids who attended many enrichment class...Kaylen is lucky to hv kor kor around to guide her (or she guide koko ?? ) hehe.

1) Talking
She's talking in mandarin about 4 words.
waipo bao liao (full)
bao4 bao4 shui4 jiao4 (carry to sleep)

2) singing
She can sing many many songs now...quite clear the lyrics, especially auld lang sign and a few fav cd in the car.
She can also sing ko ko violin song, DDAA.BB etc hehe.

3) Love waipo...:( more than us
She cried to insist to sleep with waipo everynite, every fri she'll definitely cry so hard not willing to go back Sembawang. Faint..wasted my effort to bf her so long.

4) possesion
Bags belonged to me, must be carried by me..Daddy cannot help to carry.
She would say "Mummy de4"

5) Hate reading
she not only hate reading books she also don't like to see others read..She'll throw away the books , step on the newspaper.

6) Loves eating outside food
when we eat out, she'll never eat her porridge..So at 19mth, she ate kfc 1 drumstick on her own!, la mian, zer chao stall food , bread talk's bak hu bread
anything the koko eat she would want a share...anything we eat too.. Faint!