1 year older

I turned 1 year older today.

We celebrated with the girls 1 day earlier with a simple dinner at Din Tai Fung (Kae's favorite noodle joint) and with my favorite cake from The Patissier, the Passion Fruit Meringue.





I was really looking forward to my birthday dinner this year, as dar decided to bring me to CUT by Wolfgang Puck at Marina Bay Sands.

"CUT restaurant in Singapore is the third location for master chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck’s critically acclaimed, award-winning Beverly Hills steakhouse of the same name in the Beverly Wilshire, a Four Seasons Hotel. Widely acknowledged as one of the most popular restaurants in the United States, CUT has raised the bar within the fine dining industry and the Richard Meier-designed LA location has garnered high praise from prestigious publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times (Three Stars), Wall Street Journal and Wine Spectator and was named one of the top three steakhouses in America by Bon Appetit Magazine."

And I love love love the food!

Dar managed to snag a semi private dining booth at the side for the both of us, so we were not disturbed by the loud voices talking over dinner. Yah, even though it is a fine dining restaurant, it is not as serene as other fine dining places like Jaan.


And before we placed any order, the staff would whisk out their beef for us to see. Yes. Talk about being up close and personal with the red meat. They never looked so yummy! Look at the marbling on the meat!


We had a starter to share, as we were afraid we would be too full to enjoy our main course later. We chose the Maple Glazed Pork Belly with Fuji Apple-Fuyu Persimmon Salad, Spiced Almonds and Sesame-Orange Dressing. It is a refreshing oriental dish to me in an all american diner.


And then comes the highlight of the dinner. My red meat. I had the True Japanese 100% Wagyu Beef from Saga Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan, with foie gras as a side.



While dar had the American Wagyu / Angus "Kobe Style" Beef from Snake River Farms, Idaho.


The presentation of all the food is the same. Each and every meat or sides is placed on a huge white plate. Yes. If you order 3 sides, you will have 3 plates. I kind of like this simple layout. The focus is on the food. And oh my, beef will never taste the same again, ever. Wagyu is my love now. I cannot forget how the meat just melts in my mouth. Yes, they literally melted. Top grade wagyu. Yum!


We ended the sumptuous dinner with their chocolate souffle. They actually poured in the chocolate sauce, some milky thingy, and ice cream into the souffle right in front of us. Lovely!



Thank you dar for a wonderful birthday celebration! Hmmm, now what do I want for my present?

Birthday blues

As my birthday is approaching, my dar asked me: So are you meeting your friends to celebrate your birthday?

Sadly, the answer is no.

It just hit me that I have always been the one to initiate meet-ups to celebrate another year passed in my friends' lives. Of course the main reason is to meet and catch up with one another, and the meet-up may not be on the actual date or month, as everyone is busy with their own lives.

So, I can't really initiate to meet up to celebrate my own birthday can I?

I know this sounds kind of childish and silly. But I kind of feel neglected. I always try within my means to meet up, even though my time is really tight being a mother of two, and that I have to plan everything in advance to head out without my 2 kids. It is not just leaving the 2 kids in someone else's care. I still have to prepare their food, their toiletries, their toys, their clothes etc. And when I get home, there is so much tidying up to do. Sometimes I really don't feel like heading out as there is more work involved than staying home.


Thank god I have my dar, who will always remember and celebrate my birthday with me.

Great start turned Bad

It was supposed to be a great start to my birthday week.

We attended my cousin's wedding on Saturday which was lovely, and I was looking forward to my Sunday afternoon off having lunch with my netball friends.

Then the bomb. 2 bombs actually.

First, the lunch was rescheduled indefinitely, as three out of the seven of us had something to attend to and couldn't make it in the end. One of the remaining four was not feeling too well, and was too tired to make it as she is heavily pregnant. So, the lunch was off.

Me and dar still went ahead with our plan to leave Kerri at the in-laws' place and we took the chance to bring Kae out.

2nd bomb.

Kae had been sick since Friday; she was down with fever. However, she seemed to be getting worse on Sunday. She was in a super whiny mood and fell asleep on daddy while we took a coffee break.


She was so sick that I decided that she would have to give school a miss again today; she skipped school on Friday due to the fever.


And boy, I hate being home alone with the 2 girls. It is emotionally and mentally exhausting.

What a great start to the week.

Slow and Steady

Kae knows all the upper case letters of the alphabets at an early age compared to her peers. It is only recently these few months since last year that she has been learning how to write the
letters.

Actually if I've been diligent enough to let her attempt her Little Neuro Tree homework weekly last year, she would have known how to write even the lower case letters by now.

But no matter, she can write now and that's the most important thing. I am so proud of her!

She knows how to spell her name and mine, and write them out all by herself without any help.



Erm but her letter N needs to be improved upon. They seem to be a mirrored N. Heh.

Ralph & Sophia

We attended the wedding of my cousin today.


Sophia is 1 year younger than me. She can only celebrate her birthday once every 4 years, as it falls on the 29th of February. They tell me that I would run away from her when I was young as she loved to bite me.

We managed to attend their solemnization at Rider's Lodge in the late morning even though Kae was down with a fever, flu and cough. Yes, all that in another post. We decided that we should get out of the house as poor Kae was cooped up at Whitewater the whole of Friday.



The weather worked out fine for the happy couple. Yes, it was hot and humid, but at least it didn't rain! The ceremony went on without a hitch!




And rained it did, in the later afternoon, but the weather cleared up just in time before the wedding dinner at night.

I didn't manage to take more photos of the couple, as me and dar were busy taking care of the 2 kiddos, and Kae was super whiny that night. So much so that she didn't want to take photos together with Issac, Chole and Kayla. But Kerri was super friendly, and was totally intrigued by the other children.





Congrats again to Ralph and Sophia. Here's wishing you both a lifetime of happiness, bliss, and love!