Cooking with Gracelle

家家酒... Masak masak. Put up your hand up high if you know what I am talking about.

Yes, is pretend cooking!

A play kitchen encourages kids to all sort of creative pretend play. I was tempted attracted to buy one of those kitchen set, but many of these kitchens are either overpriced and/or too flimsy. For a 2.5 year old kid who knows nothing about the concept of value of money, she would not understand what is expensive or cheap. Finally, we happened to get it at a reasonable price while it was on sale! This kitchen is perfect for us because of its price, size and functions. The kitchen set is equipped with wash basin, oven, water dispenser cum refrigerator, and the burner makes boiling and sizzling sounds when you turn the knob. It comes with a few utensils and 2 mini cupcakes.

She started to serve us cupcake, which is absolutely adorable. She don't just serve us, but also her stuffed toy friend, Mr. Bear. This has keep her occupied for an extended period while I was doing the real cooking. Really a great pretend play toy with a small price to pay!

On the other note (out of topic) - Assembling the kitchen is not the easiest task for the handy man-daddy. He spent longer time in assembling the kitchen set as compared to assembling his IKEA clothes hanging rack. What a joke?! (LAUGH out LOUD!!!)

A family who cooks and eat together, stays together.

Nap Time for Kid

How come nobody ever told me that one of the most challenging task as a mom is to put the kid for an afternoon nap? I wonder, wonder, wonder... Am I the only one who experiencing it?

This will usually happen on the weekend or public holidays. Because these are the days when she does not goes to the babysitter; hence she got all the time she needed to roam around the house, pour out the toys on the floor and play, read a book, watch cartoons, etc............... (never ending). The last thing on her mind is SLEEP? You want to sleep? I asked, and 95% of the time I will get the same response, "No, No!" 5% of the time, I got lucky because she was tired. 

This is what I do on when is time for her nap.

Attempt #1: Tell her to STOP jumping around, NO talking (shh!!!), lie down and close her eyes. 

Attempt #2:  Threaten her "I see your eyes are open, I am going to get angry and scold you."

Attempt #3: Cover her eyes with her little blanket. Do not allow her to peep or push away the blanket.

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Guess what is the most effective way?

YAY! Did you guess it right? Yes, is attempt #3. It works, 3.5times out of 4 weekend in a month.

What is your most challenging parenting task? Let me know if you brilliant ideas how to put the kid to nap {wink}

My Girl and Her Mooncake

This is the mid of the seventh lunar month 农历七月 in the traditional chinese calendar known as ghost month and I am talking about mid-autumn festival 中秋节?

Mid-autumn festival falls on 3 October, the 15th of the eigth lunar month 农历八月十五. All the famous hotel with their highly anticipated selection of mooncakes are already available for sale. The signature mooncake, the newly introduced mooncake is nice... BUT the prices are going Up, uP, UP!!! Famous hotel mooncakes prices range from S$60 per box and above. To get the best out of this S$60 dollars, you should grab it NOW to enjoy the early bird discount! (is this a "kiasu" mindset? oops!)

Not willing to pay the price? Yet wanted to expose my girl to mooncake without the artificial coloring, excessive trans fat, etc. I decided to give it a try and make my very own snow skin mooncake 冰皮月饼.

I got a packet of Pinpe Premix Powder and Kao Fen (fried glutinous rice flour) from Kwong Cheong Thye. Because it was my virgin snowskin mooncake, I am reluctant to spend on mooncake mould, hence, I took out my Winnie The Pooh cookie cutter to mould the mooncake.

(I was inspired by Ann's mooncake, and hoping it will turn out well like hers.)

The girl was happy with how the snowskin mooncake turn out to be a "bear". YAY!

 A family that eats together stays together. 

My final product. The presentation may not be as fantastic, but I can assure you that the taste is good! I blended pandan leaves to get the natural color and fragrance. The snowskin texture is very smooth and silky. SUCCESS! YAY!!!

Garden by the Bay

Two weeks ago, daddy brought Gracelle and me to Garden by the Bay. The moment Gracelle heard that we were heading out, she was excited! Mummy was also looking forward to embark on the latest attraction in Singapore! (excitement minus the tiring walk with a big belly)

Located at the Marina Bay area, this is a park spanning 101 hectares of reclaimed land. The park consists of Bay South Outdoor Gardens, Cooled Conservatories, and OCBC Skyway. The best thing about Bay South Outdoor Gardens is that the admission is FREE!

We had no intention to visit and pay for the entrance tickets (yet!), as we were only there for a morning leisure walk. Gracelle was delighted just to walk and run around in this green space.

First stop, the dome-shaped pavilion with plenty of bright looking "mushrooms". Amazingly, this pavilion is an echo space! Well, she is more attracted to sit on the "mushroom" instead of making some noise to hear the echo.

On the way, she saw a stone goat and happily ride on it for a photo. To her, a photo is all that matters?

Next up, the Chinese Garden with many stone sculptures. She seems to be very much attracted to stone sculpture? She ran from one to another and requested to take photo with each and every sculpture. (The papa ~sweat~ BIG time... HAHA!)

Towards the end of our visit, Gracelle stopped and took the time to smell the flowers.

Do not underestimate the size of the free access outdoor gardens. It takes a long walk to stroll the whole outdoor garden. Nice place to spend time with family and friends.

We will definitely be back to visit the conservatories, the Skyway and of course to caught a different sight at night of the SuperTrees.