Preparing Baby Claire 1st year Birthday Party

It is going to be one year ever since our little baby came to our world. To us, time really flies. When we were looking at the photos taken during this past one year when preparing her birthday montage, there was a gush of feeling that came over us.."oh mine...see how much Claire has grown and developed". I even mentioned "Claire looks pretty fat when she was younger, no wonder his uncle said she looked like Hao Shao Wen, the famous shaolin monk kid actor". Now, she looks much more like a girl (refer to the 2nd pic). At least, some passerby asked "She is a girl rite?", not "Is she a boy?" :P

Papa Justin has volunteered to take up the task to create the montage. Can't wait to see how it looks like. Aren't you are excited as me too?

So what are we preparing for the party?

A checklist of items:

• e-invitation
• Banner. This took me some time. I have to cut and copy from her favorite characters from Baby TV.
• programme with activities
• Cakes, cupcakes, buffet, special plates, cups for kids
• Decorations
• Present Wish-list (Since some of our friends asked for a wish-list)
• Claire Video + surprise babytv clips
• Venue @ Bukit Batok CSC, Children Party Room. Initially, we booked a chalet at Aloha Changi. We decided to change venue due to inaccessibility and ...lots of mosquitos which we don't think it will be good for the kids
• Kids' goodie bags
• Play mat, coloring materials for kids
• Music

We wanted to make it a Baby TV theme however, the lack of decorations may be an issue. Thus, we will made do of whatever we have. We will include characters from Hippa Hippa Hey, and characters from Baby Hood.

This is the invitation card created for our relatives and close friends. A friend mentioned that it as so cute. It seemed that Claire was the one inviting them. :)

This is the programme outline. We hope the party will be full of fun for the families and kids. The wonderful thing about this venue is that kids are able to run to the indoor playground next door to have some physical activities.

And..nothing forgetting the cute little things like cupcakes. The rainbow cupcakes from Hey Cupcakes are so cute and yummy for kids. We bet they will love them. Claire can't wait to take a big mouthful of it. :P 

Last but not least.....the Kids Goodie Bags! Pretty simple stuff. A sneak preview into one of the items, the hand clappers! Claire loves it and started clapping with it :)

3 more days to go! :) 

Cheers,

Deariebear Mommie

Chicken Stew Recipe for our Xmas Dinner 2013

Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells. Jingle All the Way. Yes, Xmas is here! It is our Claire's first Xmas. We bought her a shaker from Bintan when we had our couplehood vacation at Angsana Bintan last week. This resort is really highly recommended if you love clean and beautiful beaches, quiet and relaxing environment with really good massages and spa.

Before I start chatting about our vacation, let us share a great recipe for your family Xmas dinner. It is really a yummy dinner for your little ones too.

Adapted from Annabel Karmel's Easy One Pot Chicken, we adjusted the portion to fit enough for 6 Avent VIA cups for freezing, a portion for Baby Claire and 2 adult portions for us for Xmas Eve Dinner.

Ingredients:

1. 2 tbsp olive oil/ cooking oil
2. 1 onion (around 100g)
3. 2 boneless chicken breast, cut into chunks
4. 6 pieces of small drumlets (For adults)
5. 1 carrot, cut into small bite-size 
6. 200g of sweet potato, 200g of potato, all peeled, and chopped into cubes
7. 1 small apple, peeled, and chopped into cubes
8. 400-500ml of chicken stock (depending how watery do you want the soup to be but at least must be able to cover the pot of ingredients)
9. 80 g of frozen peas

Here are the following steps.

	You can also put in the drumlets here or later.

This cup of chicken stew looks so colorful, full of flavor and definitely very appetizing! Have fun cooking :)

Cheers,

Deariebear Mommie

Chicken Biscuits for your Baby

A couple of weeks back, I had this urge to cook some healthy snacks for Baby Claire.

Happily, I googled online and found poached chicken balls from Annabel Karmel and adapted from it to make chicken biscuits.

These were a bit overcooked. I didn't managed to take pictures of the biscuits that she had today which were better well done. Remember to remove any burnt sides before your baby snacks on them :)

Look at how she was immersed with her new snack.

These chicken biscuits became her top favorite snack and I encourage mummies to try it out.

Recipe:

• olive oil 
• 1 cup ground chicken (Steamed and blended into almost puree form)
• 1/3 cup fresh bread crumbs 
• 1/4 sweet apple, peeled and coarsely grated 
• 3 Tbs. freshly grated Parmesan cheese 
• 1/4 tsp. fresh thyme leaves 
• Some home-made chicken stock to make it taste better (hee hee, I don't remember how much i put, don't put too much else it will become too watery and you may need to put more flour)
• 2 table spoon of plain flour (not in her original recipe)

How to cook?

1. Add the cooked chicken, bread crumbs, apple, Parmesan, and thyme into the blender or processor. Process until well-combined. 
2. Brush some oliver oil onto the oven tray. Put a tablespoon (or more if you want bigger biscuits) of the mixture onto the tray.
3. Heat oven to 180 degree Celsius and bake for around 6-10 mins. Anyway, the chicken is already cooked so we need not worry whether the meat is uncooked. It is best that you check the biscuits after 5 mins. If you realized that they had become yellow and a bit black at the corner, it is time to take it out :)

How to refreeze and reheat?

I let the chicken biscuits to cool down before I put them on a zip lock bag and into my freezer :) Whenever you wish to give your baby a tasty snack, take them out from the freezer and pop into the oven or toaster. Today, we used toaster to heat it up, for around 8-10 mins to ensure that they were really heated up.

Cheers,

Deariebear Mommie

Baby Claire snacking begins!

Baby Claire started snacking only recently and we encouraged her to try to hold the snack herself. At first, she was reluctant. Her mouth would just open WIDE and wait for us to feed her, refusing to handle the snack. She is 11th month-old and I felt that we may have started her a bit late in handling food with her tiny hands and fingers.

Thus these few days we have started giving her snacks of a size that she can better handle herself. I am also really glad that my mother-in-law don't mind the mess. She is the one who encourages Claire to snack herself and said that we can clean up the mess afterwards :)

 So far, Baby Claire have fed herself white bread, banana, biscuits, and today a big cucumber.

Just look at the how good she is with the cucumber.

A week ago, I also created some baked chicken biscuits as snacks as well. However, we didn't let her grab it herself and just fed her directly. She loves it. I will write a quick recipe on it on my next blog post when I am able to capture a picture of the chicken biscuits tomorrow. :)

Cheers,
Deariebear Mommie