Celebrations of Life

The week whizzed by. Kids started school. And just when we thought we are walking into normality, this little fella, a cute, squishy, cuddly bundle of joy sprang on us a couple of weeks earlier than expected. I wish I could claim him as mine (in actual fact I did on facebook, and it was amazing how many people fell for it! Baby number 4?? Gasp!) No, I am nearly insane with 3, but not quite crazy enough for number 4!

My brother and sister in law who has come to live with us had this beautiful baby boy. And it is with so much pleasure to have them stay with us......

But if only we are finished with our home renovations.



So welcome on board, baby A. He will be a regular on this blog from now on. :)

So in the midst of new baby, lunch boxes, two year old tantrums, bathroom and laundry renovations (I don't have washing to do! Yay! But we are nearly running out of underwear...) and 7 people lining up to use one bathroom and toilet, I created this...

Flourless orange and almond cake and dark chocolate ganache.

Very vanilla buttery cupcakes with violet chantilly cream.

It was for a very special lady in our lives...*we love you*
Happy Birthday!

***
And this is my very own baby, I still pinch myself everyday wondering how on earth I created this cupcake! I must have been real lucky.

:)

.

Chinatown in Pictures

Happy Australia Day!

Australia celebrates its National Day today. And so did we. Nothing says it better than some good ol' snags on the barbie (except hubby didn't feel like cleaning the barbie, so we did it on the stove!), cold beer and thongs. And oh, pavlova of course!

Zucchinis from the garden. Scroll down to see where it came from!

Brown sugar pavlova with fresh cream, raspberries and coulis.

And here's a bit of weirdness from the garden. The zucchini that we ate for dinner today was part of this giant monster. Just over 3 kgs, it weighs just about the same as Lily when she was born and half a meter in length! Crikeyyyy!

Reflections: The year that went by...

Cunningham Pier, Geelong Waterfront.

Year 2011 was a BIG year for us. It was eventful, challenging, emotional and life changing.

In February, we moved homes. It was one of the most arduous and challenging tasks yet. Packing up our lives in boxes, moving and then unpacking. 3 kids in tow...

In April and May, we celebrated ALL 3 kids' birthdays all within a week of each other. 3 birthday bashes, 3 birthday cakes. Just the thought of April creeping up is enough to make me shake in my boots!

June: we started renovating our kitchen and dining area. We ripped up the old and tired slate tiles, sold our existing kitchen on eBay, laid down new floors and got myself a brand spanking new kitchen. Yeah, baby!

My father in law was diagnosed with liver cancer in September. It was a tough battle, no doubt a short one. He passed away in November. It was an emotional roller coaster ride for the entire family. We missed him so dearly!

December was such a busy month. The boys started swimming lessons again, there were kinder breakups, school transitions, orientations, concerts and parties. Christmas and New Year whizzed by in a few blinks. It was quiet...but peaceful.

In just under 2 weeks, my biggest baby will be going to school. What a milestone! And my 2nd baby will be at kinder twice a week. Lily, it's you and me babe, we are going to do BIG things together!

2012 awaits us... bigger and bolder dreams, greater challenges. Bring it on!

Reunion Dinner 2012

This year, Gary and I are honoured to host the family Chinese New Year reunion dinner - a Chinese tradition, where family members gather round to eat and usher in the new year.

We started dinner with lo hei – which is a celebration where everyone gathers around a special salad called yu sang. Everyone uses their chopsticks to help toss the salad, lifting up the ingredients as high as possible, as a symbol of great prosperity in the new year.

Then came the feast, a home made banquet that was really sensational! It was a joint effort, between my mother in law and myself, my dear sister in law Ching Mei and brother Kelvin. We had abalone soup, braised sliced abalone and sea snails (hmmm... an Asian delicacy??), braised shitake mushrooms with oysters and fat choy, curry chicken, sang choy bao, roast duck, roast belly pork with a crispy crackling and pan fried prawns. It was delicious! We ended the night on a sugar high: a lychee dessert plate - Lychee and white nectarine salad on a frangipane tart, home made lychee ice cream, lychee jelly and lychee macarons.

We ate and ate - until our bellies hurt and our hearts deliriously happy.

Here's wishing my dear family and friends, my (Chinese) readers near and afar a Happy Chinese New Year! May the year of the Dragon bring in to you all good fortune, good health and prosperity. Gong Xi Fa Cai!!

Yes Ma'am!

I have a blog detective. She has been checking on my blog every SINGLE day and counting the days I have NOT blogged. Awww... we know you are our number one fan! So this post is for you.






So here are my troop, oh how they've grown. It's funny how I don't realise how big they've become (although they're constantly under my brow!) until I find last winter's coat and put them on. They've become 2 inches shorter!

My Lilypie will soon be 1, Lucas 3 and Lachlan 5! How time flies...

So yes Madam Detective, I don't blame you for missing these gorgeous faces. I know you miss their smiles, their laughter, hugs and kisses. I am saving them all until we see you again soon!

I want to apologise to all my loyal readers, who has also been checking up on me. No particular reason why I haven't blogged as much as I used to. At the end of each day (if there's such a thing!) I plopped myself down on the sofa, lazy and uninspired. Gorgeous faces they seem to be, they're little energy zapping bunnies.

On a more positive note, there's a LOT happening. Socially, there seem to be birthday parties every weekend in April and oh, did I mention we will be throwing 3 birthday parties in successive weeks? The home business is blooming wonderfully and soon I will be losing my wonderful SAHB work-from-home husband to a little shop nearby. AND the house! We're enjoying it.

XOX

Camping at 'The Prom'

Over the Christmas holidays, our family went for a camping trip at the southernmost point of the Australian mainland, Wilsons Promontory (affectionately known to Victorians as 'the Prom').

Day 1: Yanakie Caravan Park

31 family members, a convoy of 7 cars packed with tents, camping equipments, food supply, 7 pitched tents, 4 camp sites and 2 cabins. Well, we sort of went "camping". When we stayed very comfortably in our very well heated cabin, the rest of the family were freezing their butts off in their tents!

The drive from Melbourne to Yanakie was quite pleasant. The kids were well behaved and Lily slept most of the way there. We settled into our cabin, while the rest pitched up their tents. We spent the day just relaxing and lounging around the camp site, exploring the caravan park and its surroundings. The boys watched boats being pulled to the docks and released into the water and dug on the sand in a near by beach.

Day 2: Wilsons Prom and Mt. Oberon



The drive from Yanakie to the Prom was interesting. Blackened trees amidst bursts of fresh green eucalypts, the views were simply breathtaking although what's left behind was a sombre mood, a memory of the "Black Saturday".

Early on the morning of Sunday 8 February 2009, the day after what is now known as Black Saturday, a dry lightning storm passed over Wilsons Promontory and a bushfire ignited. Lightning struck a gully just north of The Cathedral, a mountain at the north end of Sealers Cove on Wilsons Promontory's east coast. This bushfire burnt 25 200ha over five weeks, close to 50% of the national park.

We saw some wallabies and kangaroos along the way.

What we did on day 2 of our trip amazes me, up till today. Some of us still shook our heads in disbelief! We hiked up Mt. Oberon, ALL 5 of us! I had Lily (8 months) in a backpack carrier, Lucas (2.5 years) managed a third of the hike on foot and the rest on alternating shoulders of various strong gentlemen. Lachlan (4.5 years), well HE DID ALMOST 100% of the hike (up) on his own. It was 3.4km each way, with a gradual moderate slope.

Photo credit: Top photo was taken at the peak of Mt. Oberon, panoramic views of the prom. Second photo, on the way up to the top. Both taken by an uncle (Thanks Uncle Yeoh!) :)

We did not bring our camera as our hands are already full as you can imagine!

Squeaky Beach.

Exhausted but not defeated and very VERY hungry, we got takeaway fish and chips and headed to squeaky beach for a picnic. Wrong move. When you put a 2.5 year old and a 4.5 year old in a beach with sparkly quartz sand that squeaks AND fish and chips, you end up eating very VERY sand peppered crunchy chips. What a cute name for a beach don't you think? It was because of the squeaky noises made when you walk on the sand. Squeak, squeak!



Day 3: Whisky Bay

There are so many beautiful beaches at the Prom, and we love them all! Day 3 was spent at Whisky Bay. Here are some snapshots of the kids...



It wasn't her first touch of the sand, but here Lily had her first real taste of the sea! She rolled in the sand with the gentle waves, ate fistful of sand, and then another. She splashed her hands and feet in icy cool water (the water is still very cold although it was a rather hot day) and had sun kissed nose for a couple of days. (But she is still very VERY fair, just like her mummy who tried so terribly hard to get a nice golden tan. Did not happen!)

Day 4: Home sweet home.

End.

Hello 2011

Why, hello there! It has been a while hasn't it? Here's wishing all of you a very VERY belated merry Christmas. I hope you all had a fantastic time celebrating with family and friends. I hope you are well rested and rejuvenated for the new year and I wish you a blessed and successful year ahead.

The last few weeks for us has been interesting. A little crazy, but we had a blast. We celebrated Christmas and ushered in the new year with guests from Kuala Lumpur, Klang, Shah Alam, Sungai Petani and Brunei. Exactly how many of them I don't actually know, that's because I loose count everytime I hit 30. We had mattresses rolled out in the lounge room, people lining up to use the bathroom and puzzled neighbours wondering if we were hosting a convention.

Oh, one very important bit of news: We are SOLD! Yayy! It was a few days before Christmas, and our lovely neighbour Pam saw us jumping up and down the nature strip posing for photos! She must've been the first to know.

:)



Santa (you know who you are!) had been very generous to us. While I was busy cleaning windows for house inspections, I was totally unprepared and disorganised for the silly season. Even our christmas tree was put up haphazardly a few days before. As it got closer to the day, presents started piling up so high I was getting worried. We have to move. But thank you! Thank you all santa(s) for spoiling us silly!


Christmas morning 2010.



Even I got spoilt rotten by my own personal santa. He bought me a book, the exact same book I have that had been sitting on the shelf for a couple of months!

I have forgotten how many christmas dinners, banquets, feasts we had but this was one of them:


Roast turkey with a pork, walnut and cranberry stuffing and Chorizo sausages.


Pumpkin, caramelised onions and brie tart.


Hassleback potatoes.


Chocolate ripple log with fresh berries and cream.


Smooth and elegant, red velvet cake.

So yeah, that was our christmas in a few pictures and words. I hope there's more to come from me to you in the next few days.

Welcome 2011! Here's to an exciting new year, a new house, a new chapter of our lives.

The K.S.G.

Here's something I wanted to share. My husband calls it the K.S.G.

Koay. Sweat. Gene. Koay being my family name.

It would be in the middle of winter. My boys go to bed rugged up, but not excessive. Their limbs and torso would be nice and warm. Sometimes even cool to touch. But their heads would be drenched... in sweat. They call out, waking up in a puddle. Their pillows soaked through.

Now Lily has the K.S.G. too. She has little beads of perspiration on her cute button nose and it's just terribly TERRIBLY cute! Her soft black hair curl up in thick wet locks. I must remember to take a picture one day.

There was an incident that I wouldn't forget. It was in the early years when I was still a little girl in Malaysia. My father had taken the family out to dinner. We had curry and rice on banana leaf. When Papa was signing for the bill, drip, drip, drip. There were droplets all over the bill and the waiter attending to us had looked up to the ceiling, thinking that there MUST be a leak on the roof. Drip, drip, drip. You should've seen the look of astonishment when he found out!

It was the K.S.G.

We Are Ready!

So, this is the place we called home for the last 7 years. It has served us well, a fairly decent sized house: 4 bedrooms, a study, 4 living areas including 2 dining, a magnificent kitchen, a double garage, a private courtyard and an ultra low maintenance garden.

The past week, busy is an understatement. We have given this house a makeover, a fresh coat of paint on the outside and window frames, a little touch up on the inside. We now have a lawn! The biggest task of all perhaps was to get rid of all the clutter, and it's amazing how much stuff we collected over the years. We are truly lucky to have enlisted the help of both sets of parents/grandparents. My dad dug and levelled the soil for the lawn. My mom looked after the kids. My father-in-law painted the awnings and ceilings. Even my mother-in-law was up on a ladder painting the window frames! My handy husband did an amazing job with the alfresco area, pulling down the old screens and shade sails and replacing it with a new ones with a modern edge. While I had the endless task of cleaning, decluttering, more cleaning and redecorating the joint.

Now, we are ready to sell.

A whole new adventure awaits us.

Morning Walk

I'm in dire need of some serious exercise. Post baby fat and some recent indulgences in good macarons food, need I say more?

So this morning, while everyone is still asleep, I slipped into my joggers, zipped up my woolies and stepped out into the frosty cold. Brrrr.....

I walked to my sister-in-law's house a good 1.5km, snuck in through the side gate, ran to the back and dug out four fresh stalks of lemon grass. The missing ingredient for my satay beef marinade. You didn't even noticed, did ya? ;)

All in the name of food!


Oh, a plate of satay skewers coming your way...

The Icing On the Cake

Lemon Butter Cake
with White Chocolate and Lemon Ganache

Royal Icing

Hand Moulded Toppers, Marshmallows and Sugar Fairies

...

Let me explain. This is what I love doing.

A lot of people asked me where I'd find time to do all these. Well, I just do. I would happily give up that extra two hours of sleep to dust out the rolling pin and roll out the icing. I don't mind the red and blue pigments around the edges of my fingernails, even if they stay for weeks. I love creating that little fairytale scene on the cake. Little pirates on a pirate ship. Toadstools and fairies and chocolate freckles. To see their smiles on their happy faces... it takes them to a different place. It takes me to a different place.

By the way, this cake was especially for a little girl named Elizabeth. She turned 6 years old this week. Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

Notice how the pictures of all my cakes are taken in the dark? Haha... that's when the pixies come out to work! (Or rather when all my little pixies are fast asleep!)

XOX

Click here to see some of my other creations.