Chinese Lotus Root Soup using rice cooker

Lotus Root Soup (Pork Ribs, Peanuts) using rice cooker

Chinese Lotus Root Soup (排骨莲藕汤)

Pork and lotus root soup (莲藕汤) is a healthy soup which helps to improve our immune system. The main ingredient lotus root is rich in dietary fiber, vitamin C, copper, iron, potassium, thiamin, manganese and has very low in saturated fat. This nutritious soup is simple yet is rich in flavourful with the addition of dried scallops, dried dates and dried squid.

Serves: 4-5 Prep Time: 15 mins Cook Time: 2-3 hours using rice cooker

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium size lotus root or 300g of frozen slices
• 1-2 carrots - peeled and cut into chunks
• 300g pork ribs
• 100g peanuts - soaked in hot water for 10 mins
• 8 red dates
• 3 dried scallops
• 1/2 dried squid - cut into wide strips  
• Boiling water (preferred) or room temperature water
• A pinch of salt for tasting (put in a few mins before cooking time is up)

INSTRUCTIONS

• Boil water if you do not have enough water to cook soup.
• Soak peanuts in hot water for 10 mins to soften the peanuts. Discard the soaking water.
• Wash, peel and cut the lotus root (if in a whole) and carrots.
• Cut the squid using scissors into wide strips.
• Quick rinse of the red dates and dried scallops.
• Pour everything (except pork ribs, water and salt) into your rice cooker pot.
• Blanch the meat by pouring hot water into the bowl of meat and use tongs to rinse the meat.
• Put the blanched pork ribs inside the pot.
• Pour hot water into the pot until it “just” covers the ingredients
• Start the rice cooker by pressing the necessary soup settings.
• Enjoy your flavourful healthy soup!

Deariebear Mommie Tips

• You can pour hot water into the frozen lotus root slices to give them a quick rinse if you wish to wash them but I believe this optional as they should be cleaned before packaged and froze.
• Do not blanch the meat for too long especially small pork ribs as it will lose its flavour. Please do not wash the any meat with tap water to prevent contamination.
• Keep any left-over soup for the next day and cook with noodles. 

Full video on how to cook soup using rice cooker

 

Reviews of Philips HD3087/62

Features that I particular love:

Keep food warm for 24 hours after cooked

6.0mm 5-layer pot (the usual pot is 2.0mm). Give you the big pot taste

Longer cooking time for more flavourful soup

Durability. Used for 5 years and is still going strong

I Love this pot so much that I actually bought 2 of them :) Been using it to cook soup, rice and steam food. 

I tried cooking soup like the night before like 10pm and the soup will be ready for me to pack to work in the morning or last till we come back home for dinner since it is able to keep warm for 24 hrs. You can also prepare the ingredients the night before and cook it in the morning too. This shows the the durability of the 6.0mm pot. Thick enough to withstand the heat and duration.

Some may say that it is wasting electricity but convenience and time-saving is most important to me while still serving my family warm healthy meals. 

Imagine you do not need to watch over the fire for your soup. Most importantly, you are able to serve hot flavourful soup to your children when you reach home after work.

This Philips HD3087 is considered an old version but it has been the most durable and useful one. Currently it is not commonly sold online. Previously, I also bought them in Big Box 2 years ago (yes. I bought another 2 new ones and used them in Mumbai).

The only cons that I can think about it is;

The pot is heavier than a normal rice pit because of its thickness. Other than that, it is great!

You can consider the latest Philips HD2137 which is also a multi-purpose cooker which can do pressure cooking too. I used that when I need a larger pot of soup of 6 litres as compared to this current pot of 5 litres. It can be used to stew meat, make yogurt and bake. It is currently having a promotional discount at Qoo10. 

Happy soup cooking :)

Night safari 2020

This is our first experience at Night Safari Singapore. We visited night safari on the 29th August 2020, Friday before promotion ends.

Due to convid-19, we need to book tickets online and select the time slot to enter the safari and we managed to get the earliest slot at 7pm. Please book way in advance if you are planning to visit any tourist attraction in Singapore because the attractions are restricting the number of entries and visiting slots are competitive especially the night safari is only opened from Thursday to Sunday. 1st lesson: Book a few weeks in advance.

When we entered the premises at about 7.08pm, we immediately went to queue up for the “Creatures of the Night” 7.30pm show but was surprised to find out that it was already full. Apparently, they restricted the entries to 50 per show. 2nd lesson: Go earlier and quickly queue up for the show. So we decided to take a tram to tour around.

Since it was about 7.20pm that we aboard the tram, we could see the animals pretty clear though it got dark pretty soon as the tram travelled. OMG!!! I could see these animals really close except for the lions and tiger (tiger was in an enclosure). The deers and the tapirs were so super near that they could easily come into our tram and sit with us :p. One tapir was so close to me that I thought it was going to sniff me. Oh yes, I am taking my words back which I’ve said to my boy that we were going to the same Zoo but at night. This was totally different. The Night Safari showcases nocturnal animals.

After the ride At 7.49pm, we immediately try to queue for the show (this was the only show available, the rest were not available else it will be more fun) but was astonished that the 8.30pm was full too. We asked the crew what time should we queue for the 9.30pm show and he said “NOW”. We were like “HUH!” But he was very nice to put us on waiting list for the 8.30pm show. So I brought the kids to the “food court” just beside the show queuing area while hubby was queuing up. The table which we were seated was just beside the queuing area so I can easily pass food to him if we ordered food but LUCKILY the crew told us we were able to come in because someone gave up waiting. Lesson 3: Be thick skinned and ask whether can put you on waiting list. If not, have someone to sit at the queuing bench while the rest can go to the “food court” but choose the table near the queuing bench so can pass food around. 

Yes. We got into the 8.30pm “Creatures of the Nights”. It was a little cozy performance area and the host was really good though I find the show’s duration a little bit too short. We saw  many cute animals up close (seated at the first row) which I never saw them before in the day Zoo like the white raccoon, the little white fox, the fishing cat, etc.. Lesson 4: Sit at the first row to experience these cute animals up close.

Then “makan time!”. We went to the “food court” and ordered the Satays, cheesy fries and the beef noodles. Yes, the place seem like a open-air food court with better ambience but comes with a price. A plate of 6 pcs of satay is about $6.50, beef soup noodle Around $12. Lesson 5: Eat full at home first if you don’t wish to eat there as it is the only place to buy and eat.

At about 10pm, we decided to just take another ride to see the difference. Disappointingly, most of the animals seem to be resting. But we Truly enjoyed the cool night breeze on the tram but my boy was already asleep on my lap with my girl nearly dozing off. Lesson 6: Take the tram or visit the animals or take the walking trails earlier to catch animals while the animals are still active. They were still awake at 10pm but definitely more active if you visit them earlier. 

It was a pity that we didn’t walk any trails because both kids were tired and way past their bedtime. However, this was truly a great and eye-opener for us as this was our first safari experience.

Summary of the tips:

• 1st lesson: Book a few weeks in advance.
• 2nd lesson: Go earlier and quickly queue up for the show
• Lesson 3: Be thick skinned and ask whether can put you on waiting list. If not, have someone to sit at the queuing bench while the rest can go to the “food court” but choose the table near the queuing bench so can pass food around. 
• Lesson 4: Sit at the first row to experience these cute animals up close.
• Lesson 5: Eat full at home first if you don’t wish to eat there as it is the only place to buy and eat.
• Lesson 6: Take the tram or visit the animals or take the walking trails earlier to catch animals while the animals are still active. They were still awake at 10pm but definitely more active if you visit them earlier. 

Have fun!

We are in Mumbai, India!

Hi everyone,

Its been 5 years since I blogged. In these five years, I was pretty swamped with multiple events in my life.

My precious second child was born in 2015 and this time it is a boy :) I was busy in understanding and adjusting myself to be a mother of two. Everything seems to be more difficult. From getting my baby to sleep (I had sleep trained him at 4 months old instead of 6 months which I did for my girl. I will share more about this in another post), to getting him to crawl and roll and to get him to eat. Oh yes, he started only rolling and crawling at the very late 6-7 months old. You can imagine how anxious I am. We ended up signing him up on a program to get him moving.

He is pretty a fussy eater and so I have to think of different tactics and even stories to get him eating things like vegetables. You will love him if you see him. He is a bundle of joy. My kids love hugs. You will get one if you see them. :)

Our bundles of joy.

In 2017, my younger brother passed away. He suffered from an illnesses called Huntington disease and was bedridden for years. This picture was taken in 2012 where he was still able to walk on his own. He is a warrior and he is one of my closest, even closer than my mum. I didn't choose to share much about this condition in my posts because it hurts to even share in my posts. Huntington disease is a rare genetic condition which on the surface looks like Parkinson disease. I might share more about this in other upcoming posts.

My family. My beloved brother.

When I was back from my one year maternity leave, I worked hard and devoted myself to work. I was busy managing my family and my brother and thus I did not have the energy or maybe the "mood" to do any blogging. During that three years, I revamped one of the marketing module into full Flipped classroom and team-based learning concept and received praises from students and colleagues. In the process, I won different awards including a teaching award from Singapore Polytechnic. Oh mine, I was really super proud of myself. :)

My teaching awards. Different categories.

My next adventure begins in Mumbai, India. My family relocated here since late November 2018 due to husband's posting. Sadly, I left my work place which I had been working there for 8 years. However, I'm glad I made that decision. Nothing beats together staying as a family. After trying to settle down for almost a year, I decided to start blogging again. Stayed tune for more updates :)

Starting a new chapter in Mumbai.

Baby Claire's personality at 1.5 years old. Holding hand is her fav!

Hello Baby Claire,

This is how Papa and Mama will describe you when you are 1.5 year old.

Every child is different and has his/her own unique personality. So does our little Claire.

At a young age, Claire has a pretty fun and jestful personality. Her personality often brings us lots of laughters but yet at the same time annoyance.

I'm wonder whether it's due to us "over-playing" with her when she was younger, forming her extroverted character? We have a lot of videos that captured her in action.


Recently, she loves holding hands with other young children. Ever since she started holding hands with her cousin, Chriselle and her neighbour, Xinyi, she went around touching hands of little strangers, eager to hold their hands. But she sometimes will run off at the verge of success because of shyness. :P I got a feeling that she is going to be a really sociable girl

So happy holding hand in hand with her cousin, Chriselle

She loves to kiss her toys, books and of course people she love. Every night, she will peck gently on the cheeks of her grandparents and us. I started her on the night kisses which I think it is a good habit to thank especially her grandparents for taking such good care of her during the day. Must be tiring as she is a really active girl, always on the move. And talking about her kissing books? she loves to kiss pictures of little children and babies especially boys found in her books! I think Justin Papa will frown at this sentence :P

Big eater! She is a very good eater. For her age, she can easily eat half a bowl of rice and dishes during lunch and dinner. Cereal, bread and fruits during breakfast, Drinking milk 3 times a day which amounts to around 570ml. And she will request for bread by saying "包! 包!" To be honest, I am not a fan of bread. So this must be influenced by the grandfather after she saw him eating it every day :)

美美! She wants to look pretty. Now that she has her own little cupboard, she will want to choose her dresses. According to grandpa, she specifically wanted to wear a red gown to the polyclinic.

Another way to describe baby Claire is a turning round machine. She loves to turn round and round whenever there is music played. She can turn round for 20 to 25 times without stopping. I believe we will become giddy after doing this. She will laugh it off because she find it funny. Weird and funny child is it? I dunno where did she learn this from???

So the above says the fun, sweet, a bit eccentric Baby Claire. Now came the not-so funny traits.

Top of my list is throwing things! She loves to throw, and I mean out-right throw things in front of you when you ask her to hand them over. Even if she is playing or eating, she will throw away her bowl, her spoon, her book, her heavy musical Mozart box. This definitely annoyed me especially when we are outside. The latest incident was at Choa Chu Kang market where we order dishes from a stall. I had to constantly hold her plate where her peas and corns was placed. In a spilt second when I accidentally released it, she threw the plate behind her, and then "Plank?!". The aunties of the stalls are staring at us, shocked. Sigh...can anyone tell us what to do with this?

Next would be stubbornness which I believe all of us have it too. She will insists on things she wanted, be it bread, be it book, my handphone, etc. Her latest trick in the bag is to lie down on the floor with her entire body relaxed when she doesn't want to follow out instruction. We will then have to bend down to pull her up. Believe that's how I got my backache.

Lastly, would be she is a very active little girl. Sometimes we will ask "Are you a boy or a girl" and often in Chinese "你是男孩， 还是女孩呢？" She will answer "boy!" Oh gosh!!

The above is a little glimpse of my baby characters and traits at her 18 months. What about ur baby?

Love,
Deariebear Mommie

Baby's latest hobby? Zipping!

What is Baby Claire's hobby? It is zip, unzip, zip, and unzip all zips she can find in the house. It can be a purse, a bag, a cushion, a jacket, etc.

I wonder what is the fun of zip and unzip, and zip stuff again and again. Well, at least that keeps her calm and focus without running around the house the whole day. I can also relax at the sofa watching her doing that too. :P

She is even capable in unzipping very small coin pouch, and took out all the coins. Now, she loves to challenge herself to more difficult items to test her zipping skill.

Cheers,
Deariebear Mommie

My first bath together with Baby Claire

During my April vacation, Baby Claire and I had our very first bath together. Don't ask me what it took me so long. I just feel paisei or embarrass to have someone looking at me naked. Furthermore, I was afraid that she might catch a cold while bathing.

I am envious of what is shown in the TV commercial with a mother having fun with her baby in the bath tub. Now she is 15 months old, and tried a few times playing at the swimming pool, she should be"stronger", I'v decided to give it a try.

Baby Claire's usual bathing tub

Before I go into more details, this picture shows how do we usually bath her. Familiar? Yes, a baby bathtub! I love this tub because it fits nicely for her as well on top of the toilet bowl. Every night, I am still using this tub because I am able to bath her slowly without her standing up or running around the bathroom. :)



Ok. Back to our topic. To start things slow, we used stools bought from iKea and we bathed together sitting down.

I am not so adventurous to try our big bath tub at the master bedroom's toilet first especially if Justin Papa not around. I feel safer this way because the floor is pretty slippery and we have yet bought any slippery mat.

When Claire looked at me naked for this first time, she was giggling, and trying to pinch my nipples. She found it funny seeing mommy naked. :P After that first time, we had morning bath together for that few weeks and now, almost all morning on the weekends. Though, she found it fun bathing this way, she is still trying to adjust herself to have water spray onto her hair, which sometimes is a bit hilarious to see her struggling with water into her eyes..i am a pretty naughty mummy :P No No, not only me. Daddy too! He will say "I will SPRAY AND SPRAY onto her eyes! Wahahahaha".

I guess the next step will trying out the bath tub..and sorry..no photos will be taken. :P

Cheers,
Deariebearmommie

SAHM for two weeks with Baby Claire

Sometimes during my school's vacation break, I will try to take at a week off so that my in-laws are able to take a short break from taking care of our little Claire. This time round, I took 2 weeks in late March to early April which was kinda exciting yet a bit worrying for me as the last time I took more than a week was last Sept 2013. That was like 6 to 7 months ago. Will I able to handle this cute little "monster" by myself? Especially now she is so active. Can I survive?

Before I begin to worry about this and that, vacation came and here I was with Baby Claire enjoying our 2 weeks alone together. What did we do together and what I've learnt about her during these few weeks? There are so many things which I would love to share what I had discovered and it will be slowly revealed in the coming posts. Thus stayed tune!

How is my experience being a SAHM? To be honest, life as a SAHM is tougher than a working mum, well..at least for me. Stress from work is a different level as compared to having a child constantly vying for your attention. As we do not hire a maid to help out, I will need to do a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, etc I was pretty exhausted after end of each day. Those are the challenges I faced.

HOWEVER, if given a choice in life, I will still choose to be a SAHM. Spending time with Baby Claire is priceless. Though she is always on the go and sometimes I wonder "Is there a stop button on you???", I am fascinated how much she progresses and grows, and how she can be so happy on small little things like playing with a box, going to the playground, zipping and unzipping bags, etc. I learnt from her Life can be simple and yet happy at the same time. :)

I also learnt that I need to let go of certain things. E.g. toys will be everywhere in the house like in the bedroom, kitchen cabinet, tabletop, floor, and once I found a ladle inside the toilet bowl, etc. I need to take care of my poor back and stop picking up every single toys that she throws on the floor. I might as well clean up after she sleep because a few minutes later..the house will be back to the same messy look.

Another thing that I love being a SAHM is that I will get more hugs and kisses from Baby Claire. Though sometimes I feel irritated that she kept pestering me when I am doing my housework, I feel I am needed and important. :)

That being said, I am so looking forward for my next vacation with Baby Claire perhaps in June or Sept this year. :)

Below contains some of the FUN pictures taken during these 2 weeks and some of these photos may reveal what I am going to write in my upcoming posts.

Love,
Deariebearmommie

Haircut experiences at Junior League Children's Style Salon

As new parents, we are kinda afraid a few things when it comes to our little baby's hair.

"She already have so so little hair, if shave, then really botak, look ugly leh" said Justin Papa.

I continued to add in the jar of fear, "She is so tiny, how to shave her hair? will the shaver cut her head or not?"

However, after some really deep considerations for several months, we decided to shave off her hair when she was 4 months old given that her hair didn't grow evenly and looked like some poor little puppy with hair which was not properly groomed.

We decided to try out Junior League Children Style Salon at Vivocity. Seriously, we do not have any complains except that her clothes were full of hair after the shaving. The auntie was patient and at the same time able to shaved her head really clean at fast speed. She is really a professional!

Claire was distracted, looking at the LCD screen which was showing the Barney show. She was pretty calm until the end when the auntie brushed off the hair from her face. I guess she didn't like the prickly brush.

I think we paid around $20-$22 for that haircut. That was in May 2013.

Claire also seem much happier after the haircut too except with Justin Papa calling her BOTAK for months :) And see how fast her hair had grown after 1 short month.

Last Sunday we decided to bring her to a haircut again because her fringe and her hair behind was getting longer and untidy. So we decided to try Junior League again but this time round at West Coast Plaza.

This time round, an auntie gave her stickers and balloon. She is really good too. Fast and know how to stop for a while when she moved. Or can I said that the auntie is agile? She really enjoyed these gifts and obediently sat through the haircut :)

Baby Claire's hair definitely looks neater. Gosh, I think she looks like 樱桃小丸子。 Hahahaha.

Cheers,

Deariebearmommie

Why is baby Claire always smiling?

Many people asked us or commented "Why is she always so smiley?", "she is so happy!".



Even when we pushed her on her pram along the pathway to the car park, I will hear grannies sitting at benches of the pathway saying "hey, she is smiling at me".

 

The recent comment we heard over weekend "Your baby is always with smiles. It must be from both of you since both of you are always smiling. You see, Daddy was smiling just now when swiping his NETs card". Alamak, I was like thinking...what a good salesperson!

Yesterday, Justin papa commented "Baby Claire is a happy baby because she eats and sleeps well."

So what makes a baby so happy?

Seriously, I am not a psychologist or trained in anything like early childhood programmes. I guess it might be the following:

As a marketing lecturer, I taught students on "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs".

 

 

From the most basic level, "Physiological", Baby Claire was provided with all the necessities. An example would be good nutritious food. I can proudly said that she was exposed to many different fruits and vegetables before the age of 1 year. Now, she started to eat chopped broccoli and cauliflower instead of those puree form. Working full-time is challenging to prepare lunches and dinners for your kid. Thus, this may not be possible if I didn't do batch freezing once every 2-3 weeks.

 

I also agree with hubby that she has good sleep. At 13months old, she still sleep around from 7.30p.m to 7a.m and has around total of 2 hours of nap time during day time. I guess Baby Claire benefited from the sleep training given to her when she was 6 months old.

 

What makes a baby happy again?  

We believe is the support from our family and friends.

 

Next two levels, "Safety" and "Belonging-love". Baby Claire has lots of love, hugs and kisses everyday.

 

She has very doting grandma and grandpa who selflessly look after and care for her. Baby Claire particularly loves to stick to grandma and "bullies" grandma to ask her to carry her around frequently.

 

 

And of course, our niece, Chriselle who loves to visits and play with her.

 

 

So why our baby is happy?

 

 

 

Definitely we cannot forget the lots of fun, tickles and laughter at home.

 

For the last two levels, "Self-esteem" and "Self-actualization" should be harder to achieve though we are doing little things like praising her when she is able to climb down from the sofa. Yah!! she is now able to climb down the sofa after I guide her like 3 times.

 

This article from BabyCenter mentioned about different ways to build self-esteem for our kids. Simple ways for example if your kid did something wrong, instead of saying "you are naughty", we need to try to say things to focus on the behaviour instead of the person, "the book is now torn and we are not able to read stories from it" ~ interesting reading.

 

Have fun making a happy baby!

 

Cheers,

Deariebearmommie

 

 

Baby is walking!

In this new lunar year, we would like to share to the whole world the good news that our baby is walking!!

Still remember that Baby Claire's one year old birthday party not long ago? Back then, she could stand but not able to walk very steadily.

 

Now? Oh mine. You cannot believe how much she has progressed. She is walking very fast, even faster when I tried to walk backward taking this video. Very soon, she can run. And if you see a mother running after her kid and way behind...yes, it will be me.. I'm not physically active..so I will need Justin Papa to do the running then :P

 

And you know what, she is also able to climb up the stairs of the playground though we brought her there for the very first time.

Our Baby Claire is definitely a very active baby and growing up really fast. :)

Love,
Deariebearmommie

Daddy words on video journey to celebrate Claire's one year birthday

Justin Papa's words on the making of this video. 

          A year in the making. We decided to produce a short clip to showcase the different stages that little Claire had went through for the party. Searching and picking the right mix of photos and videos capturing her many milestones was arduous and enjoyable. Felt like I just went back on a time machine.

          Her every smile, cry, laughter and sound bring new joy to our life. Selfishly, hoping she don't grow up so fast but also eager to see her reach another new milestone like walking, running and her first word.

          The simple iMovie tool in our MacBook again help us through this. Music chosen was Beyoncé "God made you Beautiful" for my lovely, always smiling little Claire:) but could not load it online with the video due to copyright.

Love,

Deariebear Daddy

Review of Mozart Magic Cube

In Claire's recent one year old birthday party, she received a Mozart Magic Cube cube from one of her aunties or uncles.

The magic cube is very colourful and when you press the blue side or the word "Orchestra" of the cube, it will perform an orchestra of different Mozart songs. The fun thing about this cube is that each side of the cube represent an instrument and play the same song. When Claire press more than 1 side, instruments are added into the orchestra till it became the full orchestra. One more thing, she can easily press the side to activate the music and lights emitted when the songs are playing.

Claire really loves this toy. With this cube, she will play with it alone when I am busy with some chores. When I walked with her around the house, she will insist to walk back to the living room and squat down to press the cube for music and continued the walk with me.

In shorts, what are the benefits of a Mozart Magic Cube?

• Toy with attractive colors
• Sides of the cube have big surface area for easy pressing to play sounds
• Interesting on how the different musical instruments come to live to perform an orchestra when you individually press the sides
• Display of lights from the cube is fun too
• The cube is safe because the edges are rounded
• Child will learn cause and effect from this toy. Claire pressed one of the side and accidentally press on the same side again when the music is played, and it stopped. She then pressed it again and the music restarts. 
• Enjoy the music. You can see that Claire truly enjoyed the songs when she swayed her body side to side when she hears the music

Here, we would like to thank the person who bought the toy. Unfortunately, the name of the sender was not indicated on the present wrapper. Thank you so much because Claire loves it.

Recently, one mummy shares with me that she bought toys and learning stuff from Amazon because it is cheaper.

In Amazon, it cost around $35 to $37 Sing Dollars with shipping. I also found a few local companies that sells this online. Kulily sold at around $38 with shipping and the rest of the online stores seems too expensive. I am not too sure how much this cube will cost at our retail stores in Singapore. Perhaps anyone who has info can share with us by putting down in the comments?

Cheers,
Deariebearmommie

Baby Claire One Year Birthday Party Experience + photos!!

That day had finally arrived. It was Baby Claire 1 year old Party!! It happened on the 31st of Dec 2013 @Bukit Batok Civil Service Club's Children Party Room.

This is the banner which I've mentioned in the earlier post. (Please read about our planning in this post) I personally felt a sense of achievement after completing this as it took me some time to nicely cut and paste the Hippa Hippa Hey and the Baby Hood characters from Baby TV. Fortunately, we also have pretty good resolution photos of Claire which completed the picture for this banner. Doesn't it looks cute and nice with the colorful background of the room. We also managed to get cute helium  and colorful balloons from thePartyStuff online to liven up the room.

Even the kids love the colorful balloons. This little kid is a natural in front of the camera :)

Claire also received her special balloon which is a giraffe. The balloonist is so skilled in creating this on the spot! Look at Claire's surprised look!

Beside balloonist, we also hired a magician from the same company, THAT Balloons , who did a fantastic job in making both children and adults laughed out in joy through his various tricks :)

We also received compliments on the sweet delights. Since our aim is to make the party as colorful as possible. We just can't do without the rainbow cupcakes. They are soft, fluffy and topped with yummy cheese cream. These are from Hey Cupcake!

And the main item for the party, the Cake! We discussed with Pine Garden's cake shop and designed a Baby TV theme cake with her favorite characters on it. Took their recommendation to opt for the Hazelnut Chocolate Crunch cake which had been a hot favorite with children. Our friends and relatives found them yummy too and some asked for a second helping :)

And one necessary item to take note! A good photographer with patience. I took some time to search for photographers who have experiences in children birthday parties, and finally chose Waipeng to capture the key moments for Claire's first birthday. We really appreciate how she mingled so well with the kids at the party and Gosh!, I was surprise when i noticed that she even remember their names. Look at more of the nice moments from the party.

Our Birthday Girl! Looking so so happy at the children playroom, just beside the party room. This was taken after the party. Many kids stayed after the party and went wild in the party room :P

Lastly, Baby Claire and us would like to thank lots of people. 

Thank to all our relatives and friends and their kids who took special effort to come to our party despite it being a holiday eve. All of you made it a great memory for us and Claire. Of course, thanks for all the wonderful presents too. 

Thanks to our brothers especially Ah Yuan, who took half-day to come down to help us to set-up the place.

Thanks to our caring family members especially to my parents-in-laws who selflessly offered help and patiently took care of Claire this past one year. They have sure made her a very happy baby.

To my devoted hubby and daddy who plays, cares and loves Claire. Though he is tired, he still tolerate my nagging, and my stubbornness in creating a well drilled routine for Claire.

Last but not least, to my little girl, Claire. Time really flies and sometimes I really hope the clock will stop as you are growing too fast. Thanks for coming into our lives. We found new joys in life which will not happened if you are not here with us. Thank you for sharing with us your vulnerability, clumsiness, mischievous actions, mesmerizing smiles and infectious laughters. We hope to hold you for a long long time before you are ready to let go of our hands and explore the world independently. Though, I hope that day would not come too soon... :)

More beautiful photos can be found via our facebook page and here. Please like us at our facebook page for more updates on tips for new parents. :)

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