Puzzles Expert

We have discovered a hidden talent in Eugene - he's very good at puzzles.
 

ABC PUZZLE

Eugene has finally managed to finished the ABC puzzle on his own.

Eugene can read most of the alphabets but he is not too sure of the sequence. While he was doing this puzzle, I have to keep singing the "ABC' song together with him so that he knows which alphabet comes next.

But I think he can still fix the puzzle together without knowing the alphabets as he will look at colours and the pictures and try to match them together.

JUMBO WORDS PUZZLE

I told Eugene to look at the picture so that he knows where to put the pieces together.

Absolutely no help from me.

"I did it!" - those were Eugene's exact words and usually followed by a punch in the air.

PIRATES PUZZLE

I thought this one would be easy for him but he got quite a number of pieces being pieced together wrongly. What was the problem?

(1) there were no picture to guide him

(2) all the parts of the puzzle were cut the same - that is, the same size, the same grooves.

Hah, the picture is becoming clearer to me.

Eugene had being piecing the puzzles by colour, looking at the shapes and patterns but also trying to see if the pieces fit snugly together.

The rest of the other puzzles - the grooves were cut differently, so if you took the wrong piece, it won't fit and so you know that it's the wrong piece.

So now, we have to guide him through this puzzle and telling him that since all the pieces are cut the same, he will have to really look at each piece and determine which goes with which.

Hmm.... does it look right?

Yes, it's ok.

Will let him try to do the Pirates Puzzle again

All the puzzles were meant for 3years plus kids, as stated on the boxes, so we were rather surprised that he could do it pretty well, considering that he's only 2.5 years old.

WELL DONE!

(Update on Pirates Puzzle : I let him try to piece it again and he was able to do it by determining the colours and patterns on the puzzle, yeah!)

Singapore's Night Skyline

19 December 2010


Singapore's skyline is really beautiful now......

Marina Bay Sands looks so impressive!

Indian Food @ Turf City & Using Fork n Spoon

18 Dec'2010

Sometimes we would drive to Turf City to have Northern Indian Food.

Don't know what the stall is called but it's the only Indian food at the stretch of makan stalls outside the building.

 Eugene fell down onto the rough surface road. Some skin being scraped off, ouch.

 

 Drinking some lime juice.

At home for dinner, we will give Eugene his fork and spoon to use. But he had been only able to use one at a time - either the fork or the spoon to pick up his food.

So we were surprised when he started using his fork to push the food onto his spoon. It's like suddenly, something clicked somewhere and he got it and able to do it.

He just loved the naan with palak paneer (spinach with cheese). He actually finished one whole naan by himself and this is no small piece of naan.

Think he was pretty conscious that I was filming him.

Melaka / Malacca

 12 -14 December 2010


Went for a very short trip to Malacce with my parents and my brother's family.


At Machap Rest-Stop

 Sis-in-law booked the Equatorial Hotel. Good choice. Clean hotel, clean room, great location.

We had the Premier rooms that comes with a kind of day-bed/sofa by the window. Eugene loved it. He slept on the day-bed instead of the cot that we had requested.


Great view!

We could actually see the next room's balcony. My brother's room was in that next room and the kids were waving to each other.

Merry Christmas !

The popular night market at Jonker Street during the weekends.

Melaka Sultanate Palace – A wooden replica of an original 15th-century palace, this cultural museum is a unique structure with ornate wood carvings and features numerous dioramas portraying the palace atmosphere of the era.

Guess what's Eugene's doing? For the mothers, you will know what's up or should I say what's out. Yes, he was pooing - see that 'concentrated' expression of his.

Ok, finished. Can smile and relax now.

Big swimming pool.

It was windy and chilly that day. Everyday was kind of shivering. But surprisingly, I didn't feel cold.

Everybody kind of jumped into the pool, thinking that they won't feel that cold. For me, kiasi, I stood in the water up to my thighs, then slowly inched up to waist and then up to shoulder.

I didn't feel cold when I got out of the water. Hmm.... or is it that I've got lots more fats in me now? I'm very, very small boned so it must be a whole lot of fats, definitely not muscles lor, never exercise :(

SERI NYONYA PERANAKAN RESTAURANT Halal (in Hotel Equatorial)

Beautiful setting with beautiful cutlery.

Excellent food.  All the dishes that we ordered were very delicious.

I especially liked the fried squid.

And of cos, everybody ordered the chendol. The gula melaka was sweet but not overly sweet to the point of being jerlak. I felt that the coconut milk could have been more lemak. But definitely way way better than what we get here in Singapore.


Eugene was acting up. He's usually not like this. Well, it got to the point that hubby pushed Eugene's chair slightly away from the table 'cos he was banging the cutlery on the table. When he's didn't stop whining after a warning, he was placed (in his high-chair) against a wall away from the table. After a while, he quieten down.

See his whiny face?

We didn't really go sight-seeing as everybody had been to Malacce before. So just mainly mall shopping (malls are next to our hotel).

It's more of a family gathering as we never have a whole family vacation before.

And Eugene was so accident prone on this trip :
(1) he touched a spotlight in the hotel and burnt his palm - a blister started forming.
(2) knocked his head on some furniture, ouch ouch ouch
(3) while trying to get down from the day-bed, instead of sliding down from the mattress, he went to slide down from the wooden edge where some skins were scraped from his buttock - ya, got blood lor.

Aiyah, damn drama.......


But overall, it's good to have the whole family together.

Angus Steak House

10 Dec'2010

We were thinking of bringing Pa-In-Law to Morton's for his birthday dinner but I had heard good reviews of Angus Steak House especially their beef steaks with their special in-house sauce and so decided to bring Pa-in-law there.

There is a self-playing piano and waitresses in French maid outfits....


Most of us took the set meal - easier lor, no need to think so much :)


Sis-in-law ordered the Beef Stew Pot Pie - wow, it was huge! She said that the crust tasted like roti-prata. ($27.50 ala- carte)

We had the Baked Oysters with Cheese - think the cheese overwhelmed the oysters - but it was very tasty - well, the cheese was tasty.($21.00 half dozen ala-carte)

Our appetizer - some kind of crunchy prawn thingy - yummy!

The clam chowder soup was ok lah. 

I was expecting the salad to be different but it was just pieces of greens and a cherry tomato in a sesame dressing - nothing to shout about - very ordinary.

The rib-eye steak. Those who had the steaks were gushing about it. Smooth, succulent, melt-in-your-mouth and it goes so well with their signature sauce which is kind of tangy. 

Pa-in-law was glad that it was not the usual mushroom or black-pepper sauce.

(Rib-Eye 300g, set dinner $69.50)

(Rib-Eye 200g, set dinner $58.50)

*
My Grilled Lobster. So, so disappointed with it. It was tough and rubbery. Obviously they don't know how to grill a lobster. Don't order this.($45.00 set dinner)

*

It was a very small piece of Tiramisu. Ma-in-law ordered one ala-carte - it came in the same size as the ones for the set dinner! I would have thought that if you ordered it ala-carte, it would have been a bigger slice.

($4.50 ala-carte)

Happy Birthday Pa-In-Law.

ANGUS STEAK HOUSE

#04-25 Takashimaya Shopping Centre

Ngee Ann City, 391 Orchard Road

Tel : 6735-6015

Sawing

Eugene is a very visual and hands-on boy.

He loves figuring things out - like putting together puzzles, trying to use our house keys to open the door, trying to turn the door knobs, pretends he's Bob The Bulder and saws and hammers.

Hubby got these 3 wooden boxes which was actually for his DIY hi-fi project but he didn't want the boxes now and wanted to throw it away.

I stopped hubby and told him to give it to Eugene to play.

Eugene got his toy saw and started sawing. I didn't think he could actually saw through as it looked quite solid and using a toy saw at that.

Eugene started sawing it day after day when he feels like it and finally some results.

Guess he was able to saw thru a bit as the wood's made of compacted chip wood.

Must really applaud him for his patience and can-do spirit.

Remote Control Car 2

Eugene having a fun time trying the remote control car.

He had tried before (see here) but was not very good with his hand coordinations but he is getting better now.



He is able to press 'forward' and 'reverse' but unable to coordinate turning right or left. So I set the car's wheels slightly at an angle so that when he press 'forward', the car will just go round and round.

Hashbrown & Cheese Omelette

I don't know if Eugene is just going through a phase at the moment but he don't seem to like to eat rice.

Hubby and I have our dishes with rice for dinner, so I don't know why he don't want to eat. Is it because it's brown rice and it is harder and don't taste as nice as the white rice? I cook the brown rice with more water now, so it's not too firm. But Eugene's still not biting.
Hubby and I have been taking brown rice for a long time already so I guess to those new to eating brown rice, it's kind of hard as my friend SY had said.

Eugene likes cheese bread, hash browns, omelette, char-siew paus, roasted chicken (prefer thighs so that he can gnaw on the bones), cakes (just plain cakes no frosting, cream etc. he especially likes the banana cupcakes from my sis-in-law), pastas (especially with cheese) - well, you could say he likes the ang-moh food.

I thought since he likes pastas like spaghetti, he would eat the teochew kway-teow, mee-pok noodles etc - spaghetti is also noodle, right? Well, sorry, he don't really like the chinese noodles :(

So when I cook pastas like cheese macaroni, any kind of spaghetti, lasagne - he will eat a lot.




His favourite hash-brown and cheese omelette.

Eugene used to eat and finish his food all by himself. But recently, he will finish half his food and then will walk around to play with his toys and I will then have to feed him the rest of his food.

My guess is that he is eating a bigger portion of food now and this takes a longer time for him to finish. He gets restless and off he goes to do his own thingy.

I suppose him sitting down on his own and finishing half is not too bad already as I think most kids won't even sit still to eat.

Marina Barrage

20 November 2010

Heard so much about the Marina Barrage that we have to go and check it out.


Oh, so this is where the 7th Storey steamboat restaurant have shifted to. They used to be at the 7th Storey hotel at Beach Road.

Hubby and I used to have steamboat at Beach Road. The hainanese chicken is very good and the rice too, they will serve you the chicken rice instead of plain rice even for the steamboat. But what I liked best of all is their chicken rice chilli - it's those that have a layer of sesame oil - so fragrant.

I took a quick look at their steamboat menu - not cheap hor - for 2 persons, expect to pay about $40ish - if you want fish, please add extra $$$.

Marina Bay Sands looks very impressive.

THE GREEN ROOF

There is a shop there selling knick-knacks and kites. Hubby had a chat with one of sales-girl and apparently, kite enthusiasts even fly their kites at night even after midnight.

So how do they see their kites at night? Well, the shop sells some kind of light attachment that you can attach to your kite. Must be quite a sight to behold.

 

THE WATER PLAYGROUND

Eugene initially refused to play in the water playground. He was apprehensive of the gushing waters. 

I just carried him into the area and he started crying. I guess I should not have rushed him.

Eugene likes to watch first and I guess see if it's safe or not.

 Here he is - watching...........

We actually left and explore the rest of the barrage before coming back to the water playground again.

Hubby led by example. Hubby went in the water and walk around while Eugene looks on. After seeing that hubby is ok and the water is not scary, Eugene allowed hubby to lead him.

It's not scary after all!

 

 *
As you can see from the video, his shorts is almost slipping off due to the wet, heavy and expanded diaper.

 I'm quite impressed with the thoughtfulness and design of this row of wash areas.

I was quite worried that Eugene would be shivering after his washing. But as we approach the area, I can feel the warm air. Seemed that the round structure houses some engines and warm air is coming out of it. There's no smell or anything, just warm air.

Water soaked diaper. It got so big and heavy that it was dragging his shorts down.

Eugene loves this hoodie t-shirt that I had bought for him quite sometime back.

An ice-cream treat!

Marina Barrage

(http://www.pub.gov.sg/marina/Pages/default.aspx)