Mummy... Look!

Placed baby zen in the playpen the other day and was watching him while doing some work. The playpen has not been lowered at this moment. As usual, he was half-crawling and tumbling over and biting and chewing toys.. you know, the usual...

Then he started to look for me and cried out to me to pick him up. I spoke to him but did not make any attempts to go over to him. He whined a little and then started to do this.. (excuse the blur images.. not easy to take photo with one hand and another trying to prevent him from getting too far!)

innocently biting the sides of the playpen..

let's see if I can stand..

oh wow! the view is indeed different up here..

if mummy is not coming over, I'll just go to her! *mummy has heart attack*
PS: the playpen has since been lowered.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

Thinking of investing that extra money but not sure of where? Other than the usual shares, fixed deposits, mutual funds, capital-guaranteed funds, insurance, are there any other type of investments worth investing out there?

Well, the good news is there are. And one of them is investing in gold and silver. Now most of us would have heard of investing in gold but silver? Yes, and apparently it's a pretty good investment because of the rising silver price.

So why makes the price rise besides inflation? Seems like a good deal of the world's supply of mined silver has been used for industrial purposes leaving an estimated 5%! Economics 101... when demand is more than supply, price of product will increase. Isn't this a good enough reason to check out silver bullion or coins?

Tag: Love Award

Dora awarded me this award.. oh, I feel so loved :-)

Sending loving thoughts to Sasha, Wen and Sweetiepie

Duh...?!

Received this phone call earlier..

Me: Hello?
Caller: Is it Jack the Ripper*?
Me: er... no
Caller: No ah?
Me: noooo...
Caller: Is this 012-345678*?
Me: yessss...
Caller: Not Jack the Ripper?
Me: noooo...
Caller: Jill the Ripper*? No? (I swear he asked another name similar to the first one!)

At this point, I was trying hard not to laugh!

Me: nope...
Caller: oh okay... never mind.. *click*
Me: .....?!? "never mind" ??? what did I do?!

*Names and phone number were changed... for the fun of it :-)

Tag: Dream Gadgets Meme

Got this tag from Nick...

My dream gadgets ya? well, there is this Nokia Aeon that looks pretty cool and sleek. unlike our current traditional looking keypad, it supposedly has a full surface touch screen display. Unfortunately, it's still a concept phone... wonder how long will we have to wait for it :-)

Jo-N and Shireen, would you like to share what's your dream gadgets? :-)
* Pictures courtesy of Nokia.com

A Beautiful Wedding

A very good couple friend got married recently. Unfortunately, I couldn't go since baby zen was slightly unwell and was very clingy. So only hubby went, representing us. I was slightly disappointed since I had been looking forward to their wedding for a year! Yup, a year. But I know baby zen's health should come first... Anyway, baby zen fully recovered the following morning... hmmm *raised eyebrow*

So what made this wedding so special? Well, first, it was our good friends and they had been going out for such a long time. And second, they had been planning this wedding for slightly more than a year. You see, they announce their marriage plans during Christmas 2006 and they got married in January 2008! Part of the reason for the long time frame was because they wanted to make sure they covered all the details to make it a memorable wedding. Luckily, they did get some Wedding Planning advices.

From what I heard, it was beautiful, there was a color theme and most things were color coordinated right from the invitation cards to the gifts to the cutleries! They also had professional photographers who were fantastic at capturing people's expression. Sigh, wished I were there but at least I have this remind me :-)

Exhausting Week Ahead...

It's going to be an exhausting week ahead for everyone in the family... Hubby needs to work all 7 days this week since he has some VIM (very important meetings) this coming weekend. And he has yet to recover from his cough.. poor thing. So that means he will need to have some good rests at night on top of not being able to play with baby zen much (in case baby zen gets infected).

Thus mummy will need to do more baby entertaining... but what will mummy do since baby zen has so much energy? Ahhh... mummy introduce more friends to baby zen :-) One of which is MooMoo (a beanie soft toy)...

baby zen thinks MooMoo taste good...

MooMoo being taken (or rather dragged) for a crawl...

MooMoo desperate for a break after one session with baby zen...

Tag: My Most Embarrassing Moment

Amidrin created her 2nd tag and I'm proud to be one of those that she tagged :-) Thanks ya... Actually am a bit embarrassed to say that I've delayed posting this for awhile... it's not an easy thing to tell the whole world about embarrassing moments... plus, I just couldn't remember most of them... hehe

Well, here's one that I can remember... It happened quite a long time ago... (cue: violin playing nostalgic music at background). I was having lunch with some friends at a pasta restaurant and it was my first visit. Can anyone remember Pasta Connection?

Back then, having pasta was a novelty. So in order to make it easier for their customers, this restaurant places uncooked pasta in small pretty baskets with labels, on the table while we go through the menu. This enable the customers to decide which type of pasta they would want to have without the waiters having to explain to every new customer.

Now, this was my first experience and I didn't know that so I innocently asked what was those pasta for? One of my friends thought it would be funny to tell me that it was cooked pasta and it's for us to taste/sample. He was quite convincing and I fell for it. So right in front of everyone, I took one fusilli and pop it into my mouth!

Imagine me trying to chew the pasta and keep a straight face. My friends looked at me with jaws dropped and after that couldn't stop laughing! And they told the waiter about it too! Good friends I have ya? I bet the other diners overheard too! I was the joke of the month (if not year) then... sigh.. those innocent years :-)

!~~~~ Start copying here and add in yours. ~~~~!
!~~~Then pass the tag along to someone else ~~~!

My most embarrassing moment at:
Faith, hope, love but the greatest is love blog.
Magical Milestone

!~~~~~~~~~~~~~End copy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~!

Now, to hear the embarrassing moments of Nick and Tammy... care to share? :-)

Tag: My Awards Day

Thanks Dora for this lovely award :-)

and Hazel for this

and this is my first award from Tammy...

and of course good blogging buddy Jo-N for this award..

It's always nice to receive awards :-) Would like to pass these on to Wen, Filipino Life Abroad, Helen... btw, can choose any which of these awards :-)

Baby Zen's "Toys"

These days, baby zen seemed to be going after unconventional "toys".

First it was the rubber mat that I used to place him on during diapers changing... He would wiggle (and I mean really wiggle) his way out of my grasp and turn himself over to bite/suck the rubber mat. Diapers changing time has recently became more of a power struggle match! So I thought he would like those rubbery teething rings... nooo way... he would sink his teeth in those rings for awhile and then threw them away before you could say "picture time"!

Then, he discovered those plastic containers (recycled from fruit juices bottles). He would attack it and then he would have a blast wrestling with it...

Make a postcard - it's easy!

Hazy Days Are Back

Guess what time was this picture taken... at noon! Sure looked like 8am, doesn't it :-) Last night, just before we went to bed, I thought I smelt smoke. First thought was to check if anything was on fire! When all was clear, I assumed it was someone burning rubbish in the middle of the night so that they wouldn't be caught and fined (err... they still do get fined for open burning don't they?)

This morning when we woke up, the smell of smoke was still lingering so there could only mean one thing... haze is back! sigh... hope baby zen won't get sick... How's the weather over your end? Hope it's better...

Shark's Fin Soup Equivalent?

Hmm... many didn't seem to know about the dish tau fu kang that I mentioned in the previous post... So how do I describe the taste.. Well, I think the dish that comes nearest to it in terms of taste (in our opinion) is shark's fin soup.

Since we don't consume shark's fin soup anymore, this tau fu kang kinda replace it... :-)

Another Weekend with Friends

Hubby had some colleagues over during the weekend for "open house" and they requested for him to cook... yippee for me! Nowadays, ever since we had baby zen, cooking has sort of been reduced to just quick meals. So what did hubby cook?

His specialty, tau fu kang (sort of like tofu stew). Ingredients include tofu (what else!), superior soup, chicken meat, prawn, crab meat, mushrooms, black fungus, carrot... hmm, what else? That's about it, quite a lot of ingredients isn't it? And it tasted great this time :-) Every time he cooks this, there are bound to be orders from MIL's side so we had to borrow a big wok from MIL to cook for everyone..

tau fu kang..

other food: nasi bakar, fried beehun and curry puff (all made at MIL's side.. hehe.. this time I relax)

Teak Beauty

I have always wanted a house with a huge garden with lots of shady trees and colorful flowers and a pond with koi fish swimming around... it'll be wonderful if there's a pool too.. ahhh, it's nice to day dream once in awhile :-)

Well, for those who have gotten your dream house and a beautiful garden to boot, how did you furnish your garden? I'm sure you have gotten some teak garden furniture right? I do believe teak furniture are good investment. Yes, they may be slightly on the pricey side but hey, it's value for money... you are paying for the quality, beauty and durability of teak wood. And they are famous for these features.

Imagine enjoying a cup of tea / coffee with your family and some good friends in the morning while lazying in those teak furniture. Heck, you don't even have to worry about Mother Nature or the need to bring those furniture back into the house after that.

So if you are looking, why not hop over to check out these teak benches? They are having sale now :-)

Tag: Pass It To The Front

Sweetiepie gave me this tag...

Here are the rules:
* First copy and paste it.
* Do not remove any content.
* Just add One word related to your blogs.
* If you don't like the concept Pls! say no?
* Our main goal is we are going to circulate our number of friends.
* The more people join the "pass it to the front" the more links we generate.
* Lastly write only one word "short" for your blogs...
* Keep it simple and short, I know some of you have more than one blogs.
* The color is only black, gray, or white plssss avoid using any color okies.

Let me show you:1.-Filipina, 2.-Darling allen, 3.-Abroad, 4.-Halfway, 5.-life, 6.-culture, 7.-interracial, 8.-pinaystories , 9.-pinaysinglelooking, 10.-health, 11.-Miscellaneous, 12. Children 13. my experience 14.family 15. milestones

Here's tagging Dora, KM, Lovely Mummy :-)

Amazing Finish to The Amazing Race Asia

I've never been a really great fan of The Amazing Race until I watched The Amazing Race Asia 2 (TARA2). For the very first few episodes I was hooked! And I tried to catch as many episodes as I possibly could. There were a few teams that I liked eg Marc & Rovilson (from Philippines), Pamela & Vanessa (from Malaysia) and Paula & Natasha (from Thailand).

And I was rooting for Marc & Rovilson all the way... :-) They were absolutely the funniest, wittiest and craziest team ever (even if you count The Amazing Race)! There was never a dull moment with them! Not only that, they were quite good too, winning 8 out of 11 pitstops! Imagine one of them making a sand angel (as oppose to a snow angel) while waiting for the hourglass to run out!

Unfortunately, Rovilson was unable to complete the flag challenge fast enough, where a team member was supposed to pick out flags of countries that they had been to in the race. The winners were the Singaporean team Adrian (who has a hearing disability) & Colin. Congrats to them for they sure did overcome many obstacles :-) I wonder if the next race will be as interesting... hmm.. and a better question would be if I would have the time to watch!

A Fun Gathering

Check this picture out...

This was taken recently when we had a Chinese New Year gathering with my old (but gold) friends... Most of them have married and have kid(s) so here's a picture of the kids.. 5 boys and 1 girl... lucky her :-)

You can't (hmm, maybe you can!) imagine how long it took us to get the kids to sit still on the sofa (errr... looks like we didn't succeed ya since one was busy with a toy in his hand) Oh, baby zen is still the youngest here.. hehe

Now that we are busy with work and family, we hardly find time to meet, so catching up with them recently was great. There were some who couldn't make it though (so we suggested them to send us their pictures and we "photoshop" them in!).

Fire-Flowers Power!

In case you were wondering what in blogging world does "fire-flowers" means... it's "firecrackers" literally translated from the Malay Language "bunga api". And why am I mentioning this now when Chinese New Year is last week? Well, for the Hokkiens, the "real" celebration begins today (Friday), which is the 9th day of the chinese lunar calendar. This is when they offer prayers to the "Jade Emperor of Heaven". And part of the offering includes sugar cane.

Now, neither my husband nor I are Hokkiens but we sure did feel the festive mood :-) You see, we stay in an area where there are quite a number of Hokkiens and every year without fail, when the clock strike 12 midnight on the 9th day, there will be lots of fireworks to welcome this important day...

This year, because baby zen was sleeping, we did not manage to catch / watch as many fireworks as the years before, as we had to accompany him. He was awaken quite a few times when the fireworks were nearer and louder... but we managed to catch some before that...


On another note, we woke up this morning and found baby zen had 3 mosquito/insect bites! It was quite red and slightly swollen... poor thing but he didn't seem to mind at all.. hmmm Oh, the pictures are a bit blurred as he kept on moving and I couldn't take a good shot... :-(

Tag: Happy Valentine's Day

My first ever Valentine's wish for this year and its from Tammy!


Here's wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day and since its Valentine's Day today, would like to pass this tag to everyone and if you feel like tagging it along, do feel free to do so ya :-) Am feeling lovey dovey today!

Creative Red Packets

Nowadays, the Chinese New Year "red packets" are so interesting... gone were the days where its a simple red packet with some chinese characters wishing the receiver prosperity...

Here are some red packets that baby zen received that are quite creative. Oh, some were those that we've got but didn't want to use them since there were so nice.. hehe. I kinda like the gold packet on the top row left. The bank made it in a way that we can reuse the envelopes for other festivals as well as for wedding gifts...

Honeymoon In Kauai

A closed couple friend just got married at the end of January and has yet to plan for their honeymoon... They had been asking around on where would be a good place to go for a honeymoon... Since this couple loves (make that "absolutely loves") the beach and sea... we suggested that they check out some Hawaiian vacation information

We heard so much about Kauai (one of Hawaii's major island) that it might just be the perfect spot for honeymooners. For one, only approximately 3% of its land is being developed for commercial and residential purposes, thus there's 97% of the island left for exploring! The other thing is there are some great Kauai vacation rentals deals that's worth checking out.

There's just so much to do in Kauai. For a relatively small island, it has quite a huge range of geographical and cultural interests eg Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, Makana Peak, Waikanaloa Wet Cave (underwater caves for diving into!) and of course not forgetting those beautiful beaches for that romantic sunset strolling. Plus there's no worry about accommodations, they can always find good Hawaiian Beach Rentals

Guess Who Got Left Behind...

Guess what we saw in this car at a hotel car park during the recent holidays...

It was this little shih tzu... not sure how long it was left in the car with all the car windows wound up.. We parked just beside it and when we got down, it jumped up and down happily at us... it was a very sweet dog.

I supposed the owners couldn't take it along since it was a no-pet-allowed hotel.. hmmm, in the first place, they shouldn't have bought it along... ?!? Was hoping the owners didn't leave it in the car for too long.. poor thing..

Chinese New Year Celebration

Had been busy during the last few days... visiting, eating, traveling, taking care... and by taking care I meant both baby zen and hubby!

Poor hubby was sick.. he had fever and sore throat.. He was already feeling slightly feverish on Monday, saw the doctor on Tuesday, tried hard to fend off the inevitable on Wednesday but came down hard with fever and bad sore throat on Thursday (first day of Chinese New Year)...

Normally, we would return to my home town on the first day afternoon after we visit hubby's parents.. This year, we went back on the second day of Chinese New Year (CNY) when hubby was feeling slightly better. But probably the traveling had made hubby feel tired as he was having fever in the evening.. sigh..

On the other hand, baby zen had a good time :-) He was the youngest and of course the center of attention and he received quite a lot of red packets .. which is going into his education fund! LOL!

A Minor Accident

Hubby had a minor accident in the evening, on his way home from work.. He knocked into the car in front.. Both cars were not badly damaged, only the bumpers were dislocated and some scratches... but hubby will need to reimburse the other guy as well as repair our own car... Though the accident seemed minor but the costs of repairing and painting of both cars will cost quite a bit... sigh.

Am really glad that nobody was hurt in the accident but couldn't help but feel a little sad... and this happening just before Chinese New Year seemed to have dampened the mood a little... On top of that, hubby had always been a good driver so this sort of made him feel awful, not to mention he is coming down with sore throat... hopefully things will be better in the Mickey Mouse year ahead...

Have You Rank Your Blog?

If you had been blogging for awhile, you would indeed noticed that much has been said / blog / complained about how the Google's Page Rank's changes has significantly affected the ranking of many blogs in the blogosphere... I've read about how some blogs which used to be quite highly ranked has taken a fall on the ranking ladder and many have complained that it's an egg (zero) they've got now!

Hmm... I don't think this make sense.. I mean how can a blog's rank take such a big tumble overnight?! Unless everyone suddenly decided to sabotage that blog, though I doubt so... From what I understand, this changes in ranking affects those blogs which have paid posts opportunities... hmm

But, fret not... here's the good news => IZEARanks.com which is a tool that churns out data on Blog Ranks based on ACTUAL traffic and influence! All you need to do is registered and install the code... simple isn't it?

You may be asking.. so what's so great about this new ranking system and why should you sign up. Well, for me.. I like the fact that they calculate the rank based on the actual traffic to my blog (so I can't complain here..) as well as the possibility to compare your blog with your friends.. hehe.. Here's my comparison, please note the red line at the top of all the other blogs is not mine unfortunately, it belonged to a seasoned blogger buddy of mine and she definitely deserves this ranking... hmm, have got some catching up to do :-)

Happy Chinese New Year!

Here's wishing everyone who's celebrating Chinese New Year
a very Happy Mickey Mouse Year
and may this year brings you lots of joy!

Gong Xi Gong Xi from baby zen, daddy and mummy!

Tag: Break Out Blogger Award

Martini gave me this award... just what I need to cheer me up!

Am awarding this to... Adeline, Jo-N, Dora, Sweetiepie ......have a "Break Out' day everyone!

Blog Buzz

To those who would like to see some increase in traffic to your blog, here's one way to do so -->



All you need to do is sign up for free (yup, free) and register your blog or post (or picture or song or whatever you prefer) and sit back! They will do the marketing work for you... good deal isn't it?

We may have a great post but just imagine the number of posts being uploaded in one day (and I'm not even counting songs and photos), its certainly quite tough to make ours stand out. There's where Buzzfuse comes into the picture. They will help market to your friends initially and then to everyone, thus expanding your readers circle! And you know what... you may even earn some money in the process!

Uh Oh!

Something cute happened yesterday morning. Baby zen woke up about 7 something in the morning and was lying in bed, occasionally practicing his crawling skills... When hubby got dressed and was ready to go to work, he came by to baby zen as usual for his goodbye kiss and morning bonding. Just as baby zen saw his daddy, he cried out softly "uh oh"... we were speechless! Baby zen's (un)official first word! hehe... I think he was just trying out his vocals (?) and somehow managed something that made sense to us adults! After that, we kept teasing baby zen whether he did something naughty...

It's All About Connections, Connections, Connections

Ever wonder what's it like in Tinseltown and what it takes to make it big here? Well, wonder no more. I recently got to know through T-Mobile and M80 about a new series called Connected which we can catch it here.

Here's a chance for us to take a peep into the ups and downs of Hollywood superstar wannabes and their agency! See how they struggle to survive and how the head of their agency, David Newman struggles to "help" them get to the top in a town where all that matters is having the right connections. Do expect a lot of divas and hilarious Hollywood drama, which makes it a good watch when you are looking for something to have a laugh at...

I personally love Emily. She's so down-to-earth amidst all those pretentious divas and a great assistant and friend. Just wished her love life was better! Oh, and you also get to see a lot of T-Mobile's Sidekick LX, which I think is absolutely cool!


David Newman, head of The Agency
has his hands full trying to make his clients happy and to stay with The Agency

Emily Rhine, David's assistant

everyone's favorite gal





Amy King, teen movie star
spoiled, prima donna






Troy Floret, British superstar
charming heart-breaker

Good Deed Day

When we were computer-less last week, one of the things we did was to spring clean and gather some old clothes and toys to be donated to an orphanage... We initially wanted to visit The Good Samaritan Home. We called ahead and found they needed diapers, milk powder, canned food, sugar & salt and marker pens. Yup, they did say marker pens...

Then we got to know that there was another orphanage which needed help more urgently. This home is managed by a mum and daughter (who's a Tibetan nun) and housed orphaned kids, kids from very poor families and single mums who had no where to turn to. So we thought we will visit them this time and the Good Samaritan next round. We didn't have any contact and a very vague direction to the home but somehow we found the place... :-)

We bought along the clothes and toys as well as some essential items we thought they needed... turned out they were extremely in need of rice (luckily we got them 20kg but we forgot the sugar.. aiyah!). There were about 22 kids in that home (not counting some single moms) and the youngest was only 2 months old, poor thing.. luckily her single mom was also staying there. But overall, I do sense that some of the kids lack the warmth and love of a family as they were a little cold... perhaps we were strangers...

Anyway, these were those "lucky" toys that got the big job of making some other kids happy :-) I missed Snowy the most (he's the carrot-holding bunny who's been with me for more than 15 years!)... Hubby kept saying "are you sure..?" and "last chance ya.." and "say goodbye now.." sigh

"group photo before the mission..."

"those that stayed behind..."