Welcome! Year of the Rabbit

This year, we had woke up to a leisurely start of the Chinese New Year. The lion dance which is usually on the first day is to only visit the house on the second day. So we woke up, had a slow breakfast and then got ready (i.e. shower, make up, dress up).

For Mei-mei, you were given an assignment "To serve tea to her parents". So we took a cup of tea to the living room and prepared for the "ceremony". Daddy was shocked when you kneeled down to serve him tea. But that was what was apparently taught/briefed to you at school before the holidays. So we went ahead with that: 

Serving daddy's tea

Then time to give out ang pows:

Family picture

Then we went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Kor Poh already had the soup starting (or done..), Yvonne Kor-kor fried the eggs, I cooked the mee suah and Mei-mei cut and squeezed the lime for the chilies:

Always so delicious

Did I tell you that we seem to have a very relaxed Chor Yat this year? Well, we were sitting around the kitchen, and as we started to prepare for dinner, I took out the fruits to cut for our lou sang. What did I have to do? Break a mug and cut my foot! So daddy had to clean my wound, kakak had to sweep the floor and Doctor Chek Kong had to come earlier to clean and dress the wound. So my doctor gave me an "MC" from the kitchen for the day. The rest of the family including the 3 girls who were not cooking helped to cut and make our rabbit lou sang.

This was the rabbit

After my wound was covered, I hobbled to the kitchen to check out the lou sang. Slightly tweaked it and we're ready for dinner. Here is our dinner spread:

Lou Ahhhhh...

And of course our night entertainment were playing fireworks (big and small ones):

I wasn't ready for the big fireworks.. only got a partial recording.

Headed back to the house where the kids entertained themselves and the adults dared each other to try out Ah Chor's antique wine.. (claimed to be deer pen*s wine)

Can you see the contents clearly?

And so that is how our first day of CNY ended. 

CNY Eve

The eve has finally arrived. We spent the morning eating whatever leftover or kuih and cake and cookies there were in the house. Then we continued to julienne and cut up the rest of the vegetables for popiah. Lunch was roasted pork bone porridge. 

Later daddy and I worked to blend up the sesame, peanuts and melon sugar for the seung wan yuen. 

Urgh.. it was a mountain to shape into balls! Luckily Kor Poh came to my rescue. 

Done! Albeit larger in size than it should be

Soon it was time for daddy to put his muscles to work.. help to mix up all the ingredients. 

Working with 2 supervisors

Such hard work

Dinner was served. We started eating at around 6.15pm. Poor kiddies had to wait for the stew that Yvonne Kor-kor was cooking. Mei-mei seemed to enjoy it. 

Popiah!! Yummy!!

Later in the evening, the kiddies went to the garden to play with the variety of little fireworks that daddy and Ah Pek had bought. Then we brought out the big guns... 

Ipoh! Here we come!!

Since Ko-ko didn't want to travel to Ipoh yesterday night, we agreed to leave the house at 7am. But of course, by the time everyone was ready, we left the house at 7.30am. Luckily there was no school, so there was no jam at the traffic lights nearby. We wanted to try our luck to buy Char Kuey Tiau. While daddy checked the tyre pressure, I tried calling one of our usual shops. He was selling for the day still... but not yet open. We attempted to drive to another shop near to Super Tanker.. but the traffic there was standstill because of the nearby market. So we gave up and headed to the bridge to begin our drive back to Ipoh.

We took a slow drive as we were transporting fireworks and heavily loaded boot. When we finally arrived in Ipoh, we offloaded all the stuff then we leave Mei-mei at home and headed to Jaya Grocer to pick up the other things needed for the house: drinking water, beer, lemon, etc. We decided to try our luck at the Chee Cheong Fun stall and it was open! Hopped down to buy several packets.

These old men.. so busy yet so friendly

We had our curry mee lunch and rested a bit. Soon it was time to start work in the kitchen. 

This kid.. came to help for all of 5 minutes then ran away to play with Martin

Daddy was also busy fixing all the stuff that needed to fix, the lantern, the soap holder in the bathroom, whatever lighting and wiring around the house. 

Dinner was delicious fried noodles and fried rice from Tong Hoi. Jack Min Ah Pek and family also arrived just on time with yam cake made by Ah Mm.. 

Later that night they all went out to buy some BBQ chicken for supper.

Can tell by the expression how yummy it is

Reunion Dinner in BM

This year, we decided to dine out for the reunion dinner with the Yeoh's. So I booked a room at Daorae in Icon City. It was not too crowded, and we got to pick the larger room. Daddy ordered 2 of the sets and even wanted to add some lamb, but our nice server said to hold that lamb order and eat what we have first. It was good advice. We were all too full from the 2 sets, and he even packed up the kimchi soup we had. We were even given free tteokbokki (which we also packed home). 

Family picture.. missing your 2 uncles

Our super yummy stew with noodles and many plates of banchan

Gurney Plaza's CNY Decoration

We decided to take a drive to Gurney Plaza in search for some new clothes (to no avail). Also took this opportunity to take pictures with the beautiful decorations there:

Lucky Day

After dropping Ko-ko at tuition on Friday evening, we decided head over to Mercato in Island Plaza in hopes of finding more ciabatta for our sandwich day on Saturday. When we were done shopping, you decided that you needed to pee. On our way to the toilets, you reminisced about the time daddy won you toys from the "claw machine".

On our way back, daddy decided to give it a try. We put in RM6 for 3 tries but daddy failed to get the pink unicorn. He said that he was down to the last RM2 and this would be the last try.. and luck was with you (or him)... The unicorn tipped into the chute and you were rewarded:

Picture with your latest toy

Introducing "Sparkles"... I think you have renamed her "Precious Sparkles"

Having chee cheong fun for lunch

She follows you up and down and you have declared her to be your "travel bolster" which you would be bringing to Ipoh (and wherever we travel to). 

Eating Out

Ah Ma said that she wanted to treat us to lunch at Din Tai Fung. And as it was a replacement public holiday, Gurney Plaza was quite full. By the time we reached the restaurant, there was a queue outside. As usual, the inside was not full, but there was still a queue. Nevertheless, the waitress was polite, inquiring on how many people were dining, and even gave us the menu and order form up front so that we could decide on what we wanted while waiting to be seated. She had also explained that they were short of staff, hence they could not seat us.

We gave her our order form and were finally seated. Our food arrived shortly and it was nice. We had to add another portion of noodles as they were rather small. The waiter told me it would be a 15 minute wait, but in the end, I think we got our noodles in less than 10 minutes. 

Xiao Long Pau

Photo for daddy, who didn't join us today

Happy New Year 2023

It seems like the celebrations are still on-going. Today is another delicious meal cooked by daddy and Ah Ma. We had a simple Japanese meal at home. There was steak, prawns, vegetables, garlic and a little piece of salmon.  

Dinner

Mine with Japanese soju

Our family picture around the table before dinner

New Year's Eve

We spent the day taking down the Christmas tree. Mei-mei helped me remove the ornaments while Ko-ko and daddy went for a haircut. Then when the boys came back, we put away the branches and tree. Daddy was in a CNY mood.. so he very efficiently put up the lights. lanterns and "ang chai" at our front door. Mei-mei was tasked to put up the 2 rabbits we bought as well as hang more decorations on the cherry blossom tree (beginning to feel like our Christmas tree!!)

For dinner, we managed to get the beef bacon, so Spaghetti Carbonara it is for dinner.. Yummy. Mei-mei was the garlic bread maker.. 

Our dinner

We planned to have a cheese + sausage platter to usher in the new year. While waiting for midnight, we watched a movie and at 11pm, Ko-ko started to prepare the cheese and helped me fry the sausages. While the plan was to start at 12, we started savouring the platter once it was ready... around 11.20 pm! My oh my, you sharks.. just inhaled the food.. and us the Prosecco *grin*

Well, I guess it does count as a "New Year Platter" since we only finally cleared the board totally after 12am... 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023!!

Christmas Eve Dinner

This year, we had extra guests for our Christmas Eve dinner. Chek Kong, Chim Poh and Kor Poh joined us. We finally decided to go with barbecue as this would ensure that the menu would be suitable to our guests' food preferences.

We planned the timing to cook and roast the food, but sometimes, things do not go as planned. The chicken took longer than anticipated (not hot enough). Daddy got a little stressed out. Look at his 3 supervisors:

Of course, I needed to take a picture of "the best present" we had under/near the tree. Can you guess which it is?

Finally the chicken, prawns and steaks were done and the salmon were slowly cooking in the grill. Daddy went up for a quick shower while the steaks rested and we prepared the dining table:

Our dinner spread

A family photo before dinner was served

We were all rather hungry by then. So everyone started tucking in the food. Soon, it was time for the salmon to be served. 

Salmon on cedar wood planks.. heavenly

After dinner, the two of you went out to roast some marshmallows. Ko-ko tried to get the fire hotter:

It was finally time to open presents. By then, Ah Ma said that she had a tummy ache and had gone up to her bedroom. Mei-mei failed to get her to come down again and join us. We had to send up two elves to get her to join us. She finally came down. 

No points for guessing who was the busy elf tasked (or volunteered) to distribute out the gifts:

This was made by Mei-mei for Kor Poh

I always love these quiet dinners at home with close family.

We managed to stay up till past 12 midnight to welcome Christmas. 

Cousins visting

This weekend, we had visitors. Ariesse, Vianna, Ah Pek, Ah Mm, Pek Kong and Mm Poh stayed over on their way back to KL from a holiday in Hadyai. 

Mei-mei was very happy to have 2 girls to play with. Too bad it was a short stay and we could not arrange for some stuff for you all to do outside of the house. Mei-mei could not miss another ballet lesson since she had already missed 2 and this Saturday, Miss Foo needed to assess if she could take the upcoming Grade 3 exams or not. 

So right after ballet, the 3 of you set work to paint the ornaments we picked up from Ikea. 

3 busy bees, painting

Ornaments you all painted: Tree (collaboration between the 3 of you), Vianna's round bauble, Ariesse's Santa Bauble and Evelyn's tree bauble

You all painted very beautifully and now we have 4 customised ornaments are on our tree.