Kitty's Birthday

We were fiddling with the balloons in my bedroom when the clock strucked 12 midnight. "Happy Birthday", I wished my sis and gave her a hug. "Happy Birthday, Er Ee", Zerlynde followed. Kitty opened her various presents; a set of art & craft glitter glue from Zerlynde, a set of karaoke VCDs from Zuwern and a pearl pendant from both hubby and I.

We went to Tisha & Sasha to observe the "balloon sculpture lady" in the morning, then headed to Plaza Damas Paddington Pancakes for lunch after that. Kitty had invited some friends to join us and we chatted till about 4pm. As usual, Zerlynde got to blow the candles. Later, Zerlynde insisted that "auntie" Yang Hoon brought her to Citisuper for grocery shopping. According to Yang Hoon, she took some tomatoes and cucumber, put them in plastic bags for weighing and pricing, then asked "auntie" for some money to pay for those items. A savvy shopper Zerlynde was, apparently.

Kitty received 3 bouquets of flowers this year! Zuwern tried to pick and taste the flowers.

Crazy About Balloons

We are throwing a party to celebrate Zerlynde's 3rd Birthday soon. So we thought of giving out balloons to the kids on that day. None of us could sculpture balloons however. And a professional will set us back by RM400-00. So I told hubby that it will be his responsibility to model balloons that day. I got him a packet of balloons and a pump, and got him to start experimenting and practising last Friday evening. For a beginner, I must say, my hubby was pretty good. My sis joined him later, and soon I found myself trying to sculpture a butterfly. My fear of balloons vanished seeing both their enthusiasm. Later, I even checked out the website http://www.balloon-animals.com/, thanks to a blogger friend's recommendation and learned to make teddybears and flower bracelets.


Previous years, Zerlynde was too young to be involved in the preparation of her birthday. But this year, she's very excited about the whole coming event and has been helping me, with the party loot bags and the invitation cards; sticking stickers on them, putting them into envelopes, etc. We are also in the process of making a pinata which hubby said he was going to make but ended up only making us the glue...

Movies Recently Watched

I must say The Unbearable Lightness of Being was somewhat erotic. Bringing up Baby on the other hand was really comical. The dialogue was simply witty.

Also watched Carnegie Hall Salutes the Jazz Master: Verve 50th Anniversary on DVD, a concert co-hosts by Herbie Hancock and Vanessa Williams. Hancock and John McLaughlin's rendition of Turn Out the Stars was out of this world. And seeing Jobim on the piano and sing The Girl From Ipanema (knowing that was his final appearance) made my hair stand on its end. He was so inspiring! Was also very impressed with Betty Carter's How High The Moon. Check out the link below.

Books

Currently reading Elizabeth Bowen's Death of a Heart, Milan Kundera's Immortality and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Just finished Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir



Also reading Guidebooks on London:

All I Want is My Two Front Teeth

My baby's got 2 tiny teeth at the bottom already!

Zuwern's on solid food now. We feed him lunch everyday, sometimes dinner too. His diet consists of:

• mashed steamed pumpkin & sweet potatoes
• mashed avocado
• boiled papaya, carrot & sweet potato porridge
• minced chicken, carrot & pumpkin porridge
• mashed banana
• soya bean curd
• steamed apples
• Nestle's brown rice cereal
• Nestle's mixed fruit cereal
• some Japanese vacuum packed mixed vege porridge

Oh! And he loves his melt-in-the-mouth baby crackers and Rusks biscuits too.

Resemblance?

I was going through some old pictures with Zerlynde this morning. When she saw the pic above, she asked "How come Zerlynde is there?"



Any resemblance? :)

June 2002 Bali

Hubby and I went to Bali end of June 2002. It was there at Ulu Watu when he proposed to me, on his knees with a diamond ring and all :) It truly caught me by surprise!

We went to a studio to have a traditional Balinese wedding photo taken a few days later, just for a good laugh.

Fourteen (14) Years Ago.........

We have a blow-up of this pic on our bedroom wall. When asked who the couple is, Zerlynde said "mummy and............", she couldn't recognise her daddy. Hehe...

Every Girl Needs a Sister...

I am glad to have mine..............

Happy Birthday, Kitty!

Back in Penang

We were back in Penang a few days end of last month. Since it coincided with my birthday, we decided to spend 2 nights at Northam Hotel. The first day, we stayed in the hotel the whole time as the kids wanted to play in the bath tub. The second day, we went to this place called Summer Garden near Hillside for lunch with some friends. In the evening, we invited some close friends over to the hotel to catch up. Most of them brought along their kids, so it was pretty lively.

Zerlynde had a swell time those few days. Firstly, she got to spend time with her favourite cousin Jonathan. Secondly, she got to blow out the birthday candles twice in a day. She actually thought it was her birthday and went around saying “her friends” are coming for “her birthday party”. A real social butterfly, she is!

And what a lucky gal I am. Hubby got me a Haagen Daz cake in the afternoon and my favourite Secret Recipe White Macademia cake in the evening. On top of that, two of my former staffs gave me a lovely chocolate cake. And I received so many pressies too; books, CDs, Bodyshop, Crabtree & Evelyn, scents, lotions, sexy blouses and dresses, jewelleries and flowers, etc. etc. However, my most precious gift is and I remain thankful for the opportunity to spend the day with close friends and loved ones.

We rushed back to the south on Sat to attend a friend's 40th birthday dinner at Rawang. Another opportunity to catch up with some friends. Zerlynde surprised us by singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Baa Baa Black Sheep" on the mic, her first public performance ever. My superstar had absolutely no stage fright! We are so proud of her.

Zerlynde at 35 months (2 years 11 months)

Barbie Dolls

When my sis and I were 9 and 10, our granny went to Melbourne to visit his son, our uncle. Before she left, she asked what we would like to have as gifts.

We wanted Barbie dolls.

One of our friends had not 1, not 2, but 3 Barbie dolls at least. At that time, it was indecently luxurious! We used to go to her house, some 2 minutes walk away, just to play with her Barbie dolls. One day, we even persuaded her to lend us the dolls to bring home, on the pretext that we could and would make lovely gowns for them. Once home, we had to fulfill our promise. Problem was, we couldn’t sew on a button, let alone make tiny gowns. But we did the best we could, asked our granny for some leftover fabric, did some cutting and sewing, and came up with a few stuffs resembling gowns, crude notwithstanding. I don’t remember what our little minds were thinking at that time. We even cut open the dolls’ neck at the back, beheaded those dolls, I think, in order to slip the gowns in.

As one could easily guess, we were mortified when we discovered we couldn’t sew back the necks. So, we avoided our friend for weeks, until her mum had a word with ours.

Anyway, coming back to our granny’s visit to Melbourne. She did come back with 2 Barbie dolls, one for each of us. But were we disappointed! Our one and only Barbies are the cowboy ones. One consolation though, our Barbies could wink.

I wonder what happened to them………..

:) Now Kitty and I get to play with Zerlynde's princess Barbies, to our hearts' content...........

I Am One Cool Baby

........thanks to auntie Kitty who gave me a new hair style!

Janet Seidel and music talk

Was introduced to Janet Seidel lately. Bought 2 of her CDs today. Her Comme Ci, Comme Ca is soooo good! While the babies were asleep, I stole some time listening to her songs with my sis in her room, talking about old times when we "borrowed" our dad's albums to listen to over and over again when he was not around. I remember we loved the song "Sixteen Candles" and Strauss's waltzes. Also songs from movies and musicals of that time; Jesus Christ Superstar, Sunrise Sunset, I Will Wait for You, Love Story (Where do you begin), etc. We were not too fond of Moon River then because of the "simple" chords, as my sis put it... Those were indeed good and simple times. We were 6 and 7 years old then.

I found a link for sampling some of her songs in this CD. Enjoy.