Rottnest work trip

Who knew I would go to Rottnest island not for a family holiday but for a work trip! It was a little bit chaotic at the start (2 out of 6 didn’t make the ferry !) but it all turned out well in the end.

For some reason there were a lot more quokkas around this time, they were everywhere and I almost fell off my bicycle a few times trying to avoid them.

It was surreal cycling along this beautiful island, the weather was phenomenal, sunny and breezy. I was terrible at cycling but I enjoyed it so much! I would love to buy an electric bike and cycle to work everyday to get some daily exercise, but I am also afraid because I am not great with travelling on the road or cycling. Maybe it’s time to challenge myself ?

It was a good team building event and I really felt like I got to know the team a lot better. The yummy food and cocktail helped too, but for some reason even though it was just an overnight trip, I missed my girls. They didn’t miss me at all though haha, they had a fabulous staycation at Gung Gung mah Mah’s, these kids are so lucky to have a second home that they love so much.

Making memories! I’ve always wanted the girls to experience buying icecream from the icecream van that plays Greensleeves to let everyone know it’s here.

Look at these happy faces 😻 I was happy too because I got to have my fav soft serve too. I always think of Ah pa when I have soft serve ice creams because he was always my partner in crime in having an icecream.

Everywhere in the shops there are signs that Christmas is very near! I enjoy Christmas because it’s a nice festive season and I like spending time with the family.

Kids bugged Gung Gung to put up the tree so of course the doting Gung Gung did, they had fun decorating the tree.

Hi cutie. She’s getting very cheeky nowadays, she has been eagerly counting down the days to her birthday. I don’t know what she’ll do when it’s over, I guess she can start counting down to Christmas and then the holidays.

Showing me her drawing, they love drawing and colouring a lot, and I find their drawings very cute haha.

Spent the night prepping lunch bentos for the week, this is an all vegetarian bibimbap. I wish I had a nicer kitchen, I love cooking and it would be so nice if I had more space to prep and prepare! Sigh maybe soon …

4 days to Saitaomei’s birthday !

The week that was

Reunion dinner

We had a belated reunion dinner last week and there was so much good food ! Ah ma cooked up a storm and it was all really delicious.

I love ah ma’s stir fried shark fin dish, I wish I had more of it but I was so full.

Ah ma’s asam ak

Ah ma’s duck dishes are the best, her asam duck dish is so morish, again looking at the pictures makes me wish I had more that day.

I finally washed and cleaned the pig intestines to make loh bak and teng for the family. I really should try to make kueh chap for the family one day.

The cny cousins

Tristan and LG looking very festive! My girls were in party dresses, next year I will be more organised and get them some pretty cny dresses.

Back at work, the first week was relatively calm and quiet. Everyone seems to be panicking and stressed already but maybe it’s because it’s my first week back so I’m still very chilled.

I’ve enjoyed waking the girls to school and getting to do some pick ups and drop offs. I pray that my wfh days last and I’m able to at least have a couple of days where I can be for present in my kids’ school lives.

A photo for remembrance, I am looking forward to the days when we no longer have to hunt for RATs and the supermarket shelves are not empty and bare. My father in law is undergoing a major surgery next week and we can’t be there for him or for my MIL, I feel really bad for R, I know he’s secretly worried.

When to visit my friend’s grape farm where he left nice grapes for us. I’m sad that his dad isn’t well, why do people have to get sick and age? Sigh.

Saitaoha lost her first tooth, of course tooth fairy visited but she let her keep her tooth.

Grape season

Thin skins and such a great crunch, juicy and sweet.

My cute Saitaomei and ah pa’s 丝瓜, he is always bringing the girls around his garden and letting them pick his fruits of labour. It must be so satisfying picking and eating your own homegrown fruits and veggies.

This playground at my parents backyard was a lifesaver during Covid days and gave the children a great area to run around and play in the sun. It is still a lovely garden and I always feel relaxed and happy walking around the garden and checking ah pa’s latest fruit of labour.

My girls are so big now. Sigh.

The weather was nice enough for us to venture to their favourite playground on Sunday morning.

She always wants me to push her on the swings and refuses to let her papa do it. Both of them in fact are always fighting with each other to sit next to me, or even something silly like having their towel hung next to mine ! While it is sweet being so loved by my girls, I wonder when they will no longer fight to be close to mummy?

She is very athletic and agile, so good on the monkey bars, obviously she doesn’t take after me, I have no physical abilities whatsoever.

Is this supposed to be Byron Bay?

They are used to me taking lots of photos of them. I want to chronicle their childhood and document their lives, our lives growing up and growing old together. This is also the reason why I still blog to this day. I recently started writing on dayre too, it’s fun to take photos of my daily life, snippets and sudden moments and thoughts, at that time, I had this thought and I felt this way. That’s Dayre for me.

Kimchi fried rice

Sundays are the days I replenish R’s lunch bentos, I like to think that despite my hectic work life, he’s never run out of lunch boxes !

Pasta bolognese, penne for the kids and spaghetti for R, because they both prefer different kinds of pastas 🙄, I aim to please.

We had a Sunday steak dinner that somehow morphed into a Valentine’s Day dinner. The food was surprisingly good if I may say so myself, R and I were in a good place this week, and the kids were happy too, they soak up our emotions and when their parents are happy they are happy too. It’s as simple as that I think.

Tiramisu

Befitting dessert of Tiramisu to end the night. I hope the next week is good too and I get to spend quality time with my family again.

A great weekend

A great weekend is when …

the weather is beautiful, sunny with an autumn breeze, blue skies with not a cloud in sight. It starts raining on the Sunday, but that’s great too because rainy mornings are best for Sunday sleep ins, and the husband remembered to bring in the laundry before the rain came in.

Vegetarian bibimbap

A great weekend is when you finally get some household chores done, when there’s Korean music playing in the background whilst you are cooking R’s lunch bentos for the week of vegetarian bibimbap. There’s a hum of satisfaction when you line up the healthy lunch boxes in a row, I know that R will enjoy them especially since he is always trying to eat more vegetables and less meat.

It’s especially nice to have the kids pottering around me, they are playing together in the playroom. Saitaoha comes into the kitchen ‘Mummy!’ ‘Yes Saitaoha?’ I stop mid cook, spatula in the air, thinking maybe she needs water or a snack. ‘Nothing! I just wanted to tell you I love you!’ she giggles and runs away. For the umpteenth time, I marvel at how my kids turned out to be such affectionate, sweet little girls despite their undemonstrative parents . I love you too my girls ❤️❤️❤️.

A great weekend is when you get to bake some cakes for your family and neighbour, the cakes didn’t turn out as beautiful as I wanted them to, but I’m told they were quite delicious.

A great weekend is when you go for your daughters’ swimming classes and see them improving every week. I love swimming and am glad they love the water too. Weekly swimming classes are also a great time for me to hang out with ah ma alone, despite living so close to each other, we don’t get to chat by ourselves that often, so these weekly outings together are always something I enjoy. It’s like when I make myself a weekend caramel macchiato from ah ma’s coffee machine, a simple pleasure and so enjoyable.

A great weekend is when I get to experience a new Korean food place with food that jump out from my Korean dramas and variety shows, the kimbaps, jajiangmyeon, teokbokki. The best is going with my foodie sister and chatting about the latest shows we’ve been watching or not watching.

Cousin worship is real

A great weekend is when you know Saitaoha is having a great weekend because she finally gets to hang out with LG jeje, with no Saitaomei or Tristan in tow! She loves her cousin and sister but loves having one on one time with LG jeje whom she worships.

Can you see how much she is brimming with happiness and excitement?

Hotteok

We finally tried hotteok and it was really nice. So nice that I bought a box of hotteok mix and I’m going to try making it for the family one day.

Saitaoha had a wonderful playdate and was all exhausted and played out when she came back home.

A great weekend is coming home to a Saitaomei who greets you as if you’ve been gone for a year instead of a couple of hours ‘Mummy I miss you!!!’ She proceeds to stick to me for the rest of the afternoon and even joins me for my daily exercise routine, a planking Saitaomei is super cute I must say. A great weekend is also one when you get to find time for exercise.

A great weekend is having an indulgent afternoon nap with Saitaomei next to you. Waking up to cook dinner and welcome back a sleepy Saitaoha. Sitting down for a family dinner and folding laundry together with the kids ‘helping’.

A great weekend is having a cup of tea and slice of cake with R. Getting the kids ready for bed and taking turns asking for ‘very very very big hug and kiss’. Saitaomei pretending to struggle when papa gives her a huge hug and saying ‘no papa too big !!! Small hug and kiss! Small!!!’

Finally there’s quiet and darkness. It’s back to the daily grind tomorrow but thank goodness for the memories of a great weekend to get you by before the next weekend.

Give and take

Arghhh I somehow lost my blogpost! It was a blog to say that I took Friday off and had a glorious long weekend. In fact my boss gave us a team day off, work is finally slowing down and we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Saitaoha and her first book week dress up, she was a dancing fairy 🙂

It was lovely having Friday off, I could walk Saitaoha to school, bring Saitaomei out shopping where she has a lovely time basking to the full attention of her parents.

Saitaomei and her big red bus

Mummy I found Pikachiu!

On Saturday the girls and I had a fun day out with my sister at Carousel. I always enjoy my outings with my sister because we always do what we want when we want which is impossible for me when R is around.

I’m not sure whether it’s the same for others, but R and I have such different personalities, lifestyles and habits. He is quite rigid, disciplined, neat and clean. I am messy, chilled and not disciplined at all. Our dietary habits are so different, he doesn’t like snacking, hates fast food, tries to be healthy and eats less meat etc. I live to snack, like fast food and don’t like many veggies. R hates wasteful behaviour and is very strict with the kids finishing their meals properly and cherishing their toys etc. Let’s just say that the likelihood of us going to McDonald’s for dinner as a family is very slim!

So when I’m out with my sister, I let the kids have icecream, they are allowed to have happy meals for lunch, I spend money without overthinking it. I also indulge myself and don’t order food that I think the kids will eat or R will eat, it’s just something that I want to eat for a change. Any mums with me? Days out with my sisters are fun and relaxing.

Ice cream treat for the cousins

At the end of the day, it’s all about compromise and balance. R and I try not to give each other a hard time about our differences even though I wish he was less rigid and I’m sure he wishes I was more disciplined. I hope by compromising with each other we reach a fine balance and can have a generally healthy lifestyle with routine and room for fun at the same time. He closes his eyes when I let the kids have snacks, I try not to get frustrated when he insists on the kids finishing every last drop of their meals, I cook him veggie bibimbap for his lunchboxes, and he enjoyed our Pizza Hut takeout nights.

Veggie bibimbap

It’s not easy but I hope we can both keep working hard to make it work. After all, it’s better to bend a little than to break a relationship right? Give and take is much better than make or break!

Hooray to more long weekends ahead 🙂

Playroom

My view from the kitchen window. The playroom is a success, even in its half done state. Saitaoha loves the room and spent the most of the morning in it. The majority of the dirty, hard labour is done, we’re on to the fun part of furnishings and decorations.

Saitaoha is so big and tall now. Still loving her shoes haha, she insisted on wearing her new shoes today, but was also admiring her other pair of new shoes gifted by da yee. She has too many shoes now, never a problem for girls I reckon.

Winter is almost over and I thought we didn’t do too badly illness wise. Bang, here we are, sick again. I feel guilty and wonder whether it’s because I haven’t found time to reschedule the kids for their second flu short yet. I didn’t get my flu shot this year too 😓.

Today’s chicken and mushroom risotto was a success, it mostly comes out overdone when I cook it using my instant pot. But I shortened the timing and liquids this time and it seems nicer? Will ask for resident risotto fan R for feedback.

The nice thing about taking a sick day, it gives you time to potter around the house, do household chores, cook, I wish we had four day work weeks, how nice that would be.

New phone

Our Sunday oyakodon lunch. I was reminded of Goldilocks and the three bears when I took this photo. Obviously the size of my bowl was ‘just right’. Saitaoha finished her bowl too, can make this for her in the future.

Standard loh bak lunch bento. I asked R whether he’s sick of pork belly, he said he can never get sick of pork belly. Ah Ma is always nagging me about skipping meals or being the last to eat my own cooking. The truth is by the time I’m done cooking, prepping bentos, washing up and feeding the kid, I don’t feel like eating my own cooking anymore!

It is good that she likes brushing her teeth. I’m worried about her open bite which is a really of her dummy addiction. I want to wean her off her dummy but her papa said to give her a little more time. I think it’s because our friend told us a horror story about how her child cried for three months when she weaned him off cold turkey 😓.

This is my first post written on my new iPhone! I’m so excited and pleased with it. All my backups worked and my old photos,apps and contacts are alive in my new phone. I’m so bad with tech stuff I thought I would stuff it up, but luckily R pretty much did it for me.

Can’t wait to try out the camera on the kids tomorrow 😍😍😍. I’m usually not excited about tech gadgets but there’s something about this phone being my Mother’s Day gift that gives me a warm and fuzzy glow inside.

My girls

This little girl is not so little anymore. She replies to my instructions with a cheery ‘ok mummy!’. She will emphasise her requests with a ‘please!’ ‘Please mummy, chock-late please!!’ 😅 It makes it quite difficult to say no. She’s not so into milk anymore but is drinking more water which is great. After her snacks and food, she will grab her water bottle and help herself.

She’s quite OCD about the placement of things. She will take off her shoes and socks and line them up neatly on the floor (she even does it for our shoes haha). She stuffs her socks into her shoes just like how her papa does.

Saitaoha is no dainty little flower though, she’s boisterous, cheeky and funny. She loves the new beanbag that we got for the house and launches herself like a rocket into it.

This little one has the loveliest smiles first thing in the morning.

I love kissing her boing boing cheeks.

Ah Ma put her in the high chair, soon she’ll be ready for solids. I hope this means she sleeps longer at night. Part of me wishes she could stay a baby forever. I will miss my koala.

Beansprout noodles bento, R says he could eat this everyday.

Braised beef shank with tau kee, I thought with two kids, that would be the end of my favourite type of slow cooking. But hooray for instant pot, this took 20 minutes and it was so tender and flavourful. I’ve reserved all the master stock and beef brisket for R’s fav beef brisket noodles for the weekend.

A good day today.

In the doghouse

And it’s Monday again 😔. Sunday was filled with terrible two tantrums and meltdowns. At one point I patted a weary R and said ‘see, surely you don’t want a third kid?’ Miraculously she became better towards the evening, but I think it’s because her cousin and my sister kept her entertained and distracted. I will torture my parents later, let me play first.

Having fun with LG.

Dancing to the Wiggles. She is a delight when she has my full attention.

Feels like it’s been a while since I’ve posted on my #daitaohabento. R’s favourite egg noodles with bean sprouts.

Made char siu for dinner, but I didn’t leave it in the oven long enough.

Had another go and caramelised it further at home. Much better. Only I was busy on the computer and forgot about it on the stove. I’m now soaking my burnt pot 😓, sigh, my mummy brain is so befuddled nowadays. Another horrible post partum symptom is that I’m shedding hair all over the place. Poor R is vacuuming the floor all day, the other day he looked at me sadly and said ‘it’s like having a dog’. 😅😅😅

MKR Sundays

Headed into the city this weekend for some shopping.

Tried the coffee @Moana (Hay Street mall) which shot coffee lover chills up my spine. Darn it, I thought I had downgraded my caffeine addiction due to the lack of good coffee in East Perth but Moana made me so sad that I’m not working in the city anymore. Moana is a quaint little cafe too, I will be returning.

Pork Belly ramen from Zen (Subiaco) which we went eons ago because they were the one of two Japanese restaurants in Perth that served uni (sea urchin). Sadly they no longer serve uni and the restaurant was quite disappointing. R found his ramen pretty tasty but Andy thought it was similar to instant noodles (oops).

Another Gordon Ramsay recipe, Morrocan lamb with sweet potato and raisins. I am surprisingly finding Gordon Ramsay’s recipes quite easy to follow, I should have reduced the stock a lot more and it was a tad too salty, but I can imagine myself doing it again because one pot meals are so handy!

My foolproof teriyaki chicken and mushrooms with tamagoyaki lunch bento :). Hope the work week goes by quick!

Sunday family dinners

I now have a bigger family to feed 🙂

Monday lunch bentos of fried beehoon. Beehoon is great for bulk cooking hehe. Other dishes that I’ve tried include lasagne, what should we have for next week?

Nasi lemak for Sunday family dinner. We source the satay which are great from Jo’s colleague. My nasi lemak however wasn’t great, rice too dry and my sambal sotong was a bit too watery. I’m going to ask my mum for her sambal recipe next time.

I wonder whether these Sunday family dinners will become a family tradition and when the kids grow up we will talk about ‘remember how Daitaoha yee yee and yee zhang used to come over every Sunday for dinner?’

I snapped a picture of the evening sky just when we were about to leave Jo’s home. I love Perth’s pink skies. Sigh, and the weekend is over again. But woohoo, at least it’s a long weekend next week! Counting down again …