His 3rd Birthday Celebration in A month!

Last Saturday, we celebrated his 1st birthday for the 3rd time. This time, it was with his mommy's collegues. We had a small party at home. He was obviously enjoying all the attention and lots of presents too. And he gets to cut his birthday cake for the third time and this round, we bought him a 3kg chocolate banana cake from Cake Sense.

Besides having nasi lemak, fried meehoon and curry chicken, I prepared several appertizers as well. Thankfully, they turned out OK.

More pictures of his presents and him, tearing and thrashing his presents later.

Father's Day - A Cooking Day!

My wife wanted to cook for me to celebrate Happy Father's Day. She brought out the recipe book and asked me what I wanted to eat. I chose Seafood Risotto (something that I've tried before earlier despite buying the incorrect type of rice). A very good friend of mine was kind enough to find and buy for me the Arborio rice this time.

We opted just to put in prawns and grilled salmon this round. We could not fine saffron threads. Hence, we could not get the exact yellowish colour of seafood risotto that we wanted. Nevertheless, the dish turned out to be superb and the cooking process enjoyable.

Besides the Risotto, she also prepared home-made minestrone soup which proves to be a hit!

Of course, not to be outdone, I promised her to make the desert, MANGO SORBET. The preparation is simple but just required a lenghty time to freeze to get it ready to be served.

I would said that it is a very memorable Happy Father's Day to me.

New Version of Smart Tag!

What similarities do you see between these two items? I don't see any but Ryan obviously does.

A couple of weeks ago, he did something that had us roaring with laughter!

I normally had my smarttag nicely tucked into my drivers' compartment and will take it out and hold it up everytime I pass by the Smart Tag toll booth. He has been obviously observing me doing that for quite a while because this cheeky guy had some new trick up his sleeve.

A couple of weeks ago, while we were going home with him sitting on his mommy's lap (yupe, this guy now refuses to sit in his car seat because he is just so curious), he has been playing with one of his shoes that he has taken off himself. As I approached the Subang Interchange and was about to reach the Smart Tag booth, I took out my Smart Tag from my driver's compartment and held it up, ready for it to be scanned.

This little `monkey' watched me silently doing what I am doing, and the next thing we knew, he was holding up his shoe in the same manner that I was doing, as if waiting for the `beep' sound once the tag has been scanned. He took us by surprise! As if that was not enough, as our car passed the toll booth after the tag was scanned, I put my smart tag back into the driver's compartment (the compartment between the driver's seat and the front passenger seat, just before the gear stick).

He did the next most amazing thing that gave us the next surprise. He leaned forward and push open the compartment and proceed to `stuff' his smarttag (the shoe) into the same compartment. Tried as hard as he could, the shoe just would not fit in. Not one to give up easily, he gets even more excited and push it even harder. In order to satisfy him, I took out my smart tag to give his `smart tag' room. The moment his shoe went in, he closed compartment, looked at us with a very satisfied and accomplished look and grinned.

Both of us were dumbfounded and could only laughed and laughed. On one hand, it was funniest thing he has done to-date and on the other hand, we are glad that this little guy is displaying simple intelligence that we hope would continue to grow into something useful for him when he finally grows up.

Children are amazing (especially if their are yours)!

New Trick

This is his new trick now especially when he is playing on our bed. Raising up his butt and looking at us upside down. It really amazes me where this guy pick up all these new tricks and skills but I guess it comes naturally (and NO, daddy did not show him his butt this way...haha).

Will share with you later what he used the other day to imitate me going through the `SmartTag' lane once I grab a picture of his version of the Smarttag.

Best of Friends

Many of our relatives and friends were shocked when they learnt that we have Zoewe (our toy poodle) at home roaming around freely when we have Ryan, all the more so, when they heard that Zoewe sleeps in the master bedroom as well. "You cannot have dogs at home when you have a baby!". "You should give your dog away!" "What if your dog bites him? A dog is still a dog."

We understand that they all meant well and we are grateful. Honestly, we were also apprehensive when we found out that Ryan was on the way, only months after we bought Zoewe, although we made sure that we bought a breed that shed the least and is children friendly. We too have thought of giving her away but she has become so much a part of our family and we could not bear the thought of parting with her. So, in other to have the best of both worlds, we made sure that she is constantly groomed and trimmed and used the best grooming shampoo available (to prevent disease or shedding). We are glad that we did our homework before we went ahead to buy any puppy of our fancy because, Zoewe has proven to be really baby friendly.

As Ryan turned one, we have started to allow him to interect with Zoewe directly under our tight supervision. Our objective is to make sure that he does not develop a phobia or fear of animals and above all, we wanted him to be animal lover from a young age. As you can see from the pictures, the two of them have clicked pretty well and have became best of friends. In fact, they each have found a new play mate.

We have also invested in a air filter cum air purifier to be placed in the masterbedroom to make sure that whatever little dust or shedded fur will be filtered as much as possible. Zoewe has lost that privilege to sleep on the bed with us nowadays as Ryan has taken over that privilege, but we are glad that she has not display any form of jeolousy. We just got to make sure that we have not love her lest with the addition of Ryan.

It is always a joy to see both of them playing together and hearing Ryan's laughter whenever he is with his `big sister'......

Milestone - My First Birthday Celebration!

Ryan finally turned one on the 30th May 2009. It was a hectic and full day for him as well as us. Coincidently, as if he knew that it was his birthday, he woke up bright and early, at 7:10 am., just five minutes away from 7:13 when he was born one year ago.

We had a small celebration with both my wife and my family members at Zipangu Shangrila KL (Japanese buffet lunch). Ryan was so tired yet he struggled to keep awake until the moment we walked out from the restaurant. He fell asleep immediately even, before we reached the car park. He slept on the way home and woke up the minute we reached home. From then, he was busy opening presents and then his favourite dip in his pool with his mommy.

At night, we took him to TGIF Subang Parade for another mini celebration because we wanted to see his reaction when the crew sang happy birthday to him. He was so excited and curious throughout and even went to the extend to pulling off some of the crew's hats.

By the time he got home, and when he slept close to midnight, he was totally exhausted. And so was I ....haha....what a day to remember...