Eva's 2nd Birthday Party

Eva helped to pack party bags for the kids & blobs

Little Creatures in Balwyn is where we had Eva's 2nd birthday party.  It is a cosy play space with different sections of play - supermarket, a kitchen, library, tent, slide, costume dress up room, etc and they allow outside food so, between Evelyn (lola aka nana) and myself we catered the "adults food".  There was no official theme but we based the party on zoo animals as Eva loves her animals.

Nasi lemak cake

Cross section of nasi lemak cake

Besides the nasi lemak cake, I had individual boxes made up and used them as hand outs and must say it was a "sold out" item.  I saw some people stash 2-3 boxes for take out!  What a cheek cos the late comers missed out!!!

I was responsible for the jelly, buffalo wings, fruit platter, cheese/antipasto, nasi lemak, mini bite sized fancy desserts, vegetarian quiches and Evelyn baked the birthday cake, red velvet cupcakes, chocolate cakes, biscuits, aranchini balls and sausage rolls.  

Animals roam freely on the kiddies table!

All baked by Evelyn

Mummy's school mates

Batman was at the party too!!!

Some of the food on display

We did not manage to have many photos of the birthday girl posing face to face with the camera, but she was "shy" and "overwhelmed" by the crowd! When asked if she had a good time - she replied "yeah"!

In a nutshell, it was a great cosy party with lots of food and the children had fun, so it was worth all the hours of preparation and  over all too soon and Eva is now officially 2 years old!!!

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Some extra random party shots and a few pixs from Eva's little home birthday on her actual birthday 4/3/2020.

Evelyn's bake "shop" goodies

Playing costume dress up

ACTUAL BIRTHDAY ON 3RD MARCH 2020 ... EVA WOKE UP TO HER ZOO FRIENDS!

Eva's zoo friends

Bite your birthday cupcake!

Lola and Fred came round after work so we had a simple meal and blew out 2 candles on the little cupcakes.  Its official!!!  Terrible 2's???  We shall see if this myth is true.... 

Eva made buttermilk pancakes

Eva made fluffy buttermilk pancakes and we had a breakfast picnic on pohpoh's bed ... the "ice-cream cloth" laid on the bed belongs to Becky so its 36 years old!!!  When she was born, my mom (Eva's great grandmother) made this huge cushion cover for Becky.

What's a party without balloons - my signature party balloon garland

House of Delight = Corona Virus Scare

On the 2nd day of Chinese New Year (26th Jan 2020) I gave a few of my "makan friends" a treat at the "House of Delight" in Glenny as they suggested they wanted steam boat, and this place is an all you can eat steam boat type venue, with lots of desserts and is a mix of east and west type cuisine.  Great value and ever so popular spot and always enjoyable with friendly quick service too.

3 days later, (29th Jan 2020) Ray was mumbling something about this restaurant and that a person with Coronavirus was dining there and to my anguish it turned out that we were there at the same time and was only sitting one table away from this infected man!

Without hesitation, I got on the phone to Alice and the rest of the makan friends and Alice suggested that I go over to her place and quarantine myself from Eva and "Simona" as Becky is preggers at the moment.

I ran upstairs and got my toiletries together and I always have a "go to" bag packed in my car, so I just added a few things and I raced off in a flash to Aliceinwonderland.

Ray started disinfecting the house, changed the sheets etc as I had laid down on their bed and was looking after Eva the past couple of days!  Anyways, 14 days quarantine is the minimum isolation time required to see if we have any symptoms within this period.  So by 9th March, if nothing is wrong with us, then hopefully we are all safe from Coronavirus.

Meantime at Alice's, we made ourselves busy and each day My and Gareth will come round to Alice's and we will be cooking and or making something to kill time and this 2 weeks was really good as we had a "buddy building rapport session" and Michael and SAnne also joined us whenever they could manage to find time.

I even made a Loe Sang so all of us could toss this dish and wish for NO CORONAVIRUS just for the fun of it.

Meanwhile, on the homefront, Ray got this kick ass mask and Eva seems to think its fashionable wearing it and she looks so kewl!!!

At Alice's we were all stressed and on edge if we did or did not catch the virus, so for our peace of mind, we all gallivanted to the Doctor's and had our nose and throat swabbed except for SAnne as her Doctor told her to just act "normal" till she shows signs/symptoms so she did not do it.

Well, when we all went back to get our results, everyone had their copy NEGATIVE but would you believe it, I was told that the Lab has lost my swabs and I did not have a result! 

SO I had to re do the entire test and wait another few days for my results.  Obviously, its also NEGATIVE but who knows, and I am a firm believer in "when your time is up, its up!" so the jolly in me just kept enjoying myself with My and Gareth and normally the 3 of us would still go out but we avoided crowded places and kept away from the asian suburbs!!!

Gareth was the most pathetic one amongst the 6 of us.  Each day he would be feeling nausea or have breathing problems and the next day it would be some other Corona symptom but we just ignored his wolf cries.

Anyway, we all survived the quarantine and got to know our friends better in good times or bad times, but I can assure you that none of them would go back to "House of Delight" for steamboat!!

Reunion Dinner 2020 - Year of da Rat

It is the year of the Golden Rat, this 2020.  Becky was born in the year of theGolden Rat.

As per normal, we did not do much except eat, eat, eat and it repeats itself for 13 days and then on the 14th day we celebrate again as its "chap goh meh" like a chinese version of Valentines Day.

Can't believe I survived all the cooking but must admit after all was over, I went to bed and did not get out of it till 2pm the next day!!!

We could not get Eva to wear her cheong sum as she was complaining she was itchy - it has a high chinese collar closed neck and I guess even adults don't like it, so we did not force Eva to stay in it and gave her this casual chinese looking dress instead which I purchased in Singapore.

The tossing of the rainbow salad aka loe sang is like a tradition for us and this year, Eva did a really good job of mixing it up.  She had so much fun, after we served her a portion in her own bowl, she kept tossing it over and over again!

We only had the immediate inlaws over to join us for the reunion dinner and kept it low key.  By tradition, its only for family, so cooking for 5 and 8 makes not much difference!

Had 11 dishes all up including dessert, so it was a pretty good effort on my part even if I have to say so myself.  This year, Eva joined us at the table and she behaved like an adult!

All too soon, dinner was finished under an hour, but luckily for us we had Eva to entertain us jumping up and down the couch onto her little lounger on the floor.  We clapped and encouraged her and she was all hyped up and was jumping and laughing and giggling so all in all, it was a good nite.