Steamboat

pic courtesy of pinkcocoa
On NYE(New year's eve), we had steamboat again. We had all sorts of fishballs, mushroom dumpling. tofu, salmon etc. and veggies.
we had miso flavour broth. Wondering what everyone uses on the broth?
Do share ...

Christmas Menu

This year, jake decided to have a bbq for christmas day. I told him that Christmas won't be the same without a turkey and ham. So at the 11th hour, we rushed out to the supermarket to get turkey and a tiny ham. We also have invited a friend over and had pinkcocoa staying with us during this festive time. So this is what we had...
For entree, we had Berry Friands and christmas mince pie, and some biscuits etc. The lovely mince pie and biscuits are from my friend M.

The entree

The Lamb shank

Marinated wings - jake has marinated a few flavours.

The turkey

Self-crusting broccoli tart

There's also the simple salad that I posted in my previous post.

Simple salad

pic courtesy of pinkcocoa

This is an incredibly easy salad recipe that I came across from Food Network.

Ingredients:

Tomatoes
Cucumber
Avocado
Olive oil
salt & pepper
lemon juice (I omitted this as I don't have any)

Cut tomatoes into wedges, and slice cucumber thinly. You could choose to deseed or keep the seed. I deseeded mine.
I cubed the avocado and scooped them out.
Mix the ingredients altogether and use Salt & pepper to taste. The creamy avocado realy coats the cucumber and tomatoes well...
It's a really easy dish to whip in the hot summer month.

Mozart in the making?

N playing (more like banging) on the digital piano. He also especially loves playing with the button (to change sound etc).
Pic taken early December.

Manchester part 2

jakes cousin brought us to the Lowry centre, Trafford centre etc..above are just another sampler of manchester, mostly of the Lowry centre.

happy new year , and more travelogue

happy new year everyone from our myself, jake and Noel. 2008 has been great. wishing everyone had a blessed and joyful 2009.

i attached the above photo sampler of our trip to Manchester. we took the train from London to manchester.

Photo sampler from birthday

The Birthday party

We celebrated N's birthday on 15 Nov which fell on saturday. we invited our friends from LG and choir, and jake's colleague and boss who's N's godgrandpa:) and his friends from creche.

Party started at noon time but we started the prepration much earlier than that.

We got a two tiered cake and as you can see, it was a pig cake and it drove the kids nuts.

The theme was jungle party but we've dressed N up in his grandparents present (the tux) so i think the official theme should be james bond in the jungle.

Round and Round

this was taken on late November, a week after N's birthday.

have tried to upload several times, but it didn't attach properly.

Jungle Bells

this year my company held the annual Xmas function at the Auckland Zoo. the event started from 6pm and once we get our wrist band we were free to roam around the zoo and congregate at the rotunda at 7pm to get our feed.

Taking pic with Mega Bull one of the company mascot ;)

The giraffe was the first animal we saw at the Zoo. Btw, do you know that giraffe's tongue is as long as 45cm!?!?!?!?! man, that's long!!!!

Zebra..

Flamingos..don't you think the flamingos are not very pink?

Jake showing N the bird. N seems to be into bird at this stage..

More birds..i just love that red and purple coat of feather on the bird..

The giant turtle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SPider monkeys which were getting quite rowdy there..

my colleague 's grandchildren. I love their face painting .. Lachlan, charlotte and oliver..L loves Harry Potter (hence the HP's glasses on his face)..Charlotte is super cute and has this really nice voice..she even let N play with her pink handbag!!! Oliver has cheetah/leopard type painting on his face..

taking picture with one of the popsicle band member..

there must be 1000 of us (employees and family)..there were babies, toddlers, strollers everywhere.

N checking out the products..

Above is us around the zoo. Me bumping into colleague's daughter..and we tried to pose with "sanka" the southern hemisphere santa who wears the 'lava lava' (the islander version of 'sarong' on men)..our food for the night ..and the rotunda where everyone congregates ..N munching on his bread while me and jake quickly had our dinner..

From this to that ..

Night before the haircut ...

After the haircut..

N.B. We brought N to a hairdresser. His name is Mr Hung :) he's very good with kids..

Spring Festival

Our church has organised a spring festival to provide an alternative for Halloween on 31 Oct.

It was like a mini fun fair. You can go to different booths, and get tickets and exchange toys with the tickets collected from the booth. There's hop scotch, fishing booth, bubbles booth, etc..

N at the 'crawl' scotch booth.
Photo booth..





Fishing booth

Face painting..

There's even a petting zoo!!!! the little girls were all super excited about riding the pony and playing with the rabbits and mices.

N taking photos with Ms Amy, who usually looks after him during sunday service at the creche. N here is apprehensive because he can't quite recognised Ms Amy who has now grown extra plaits..

N with wilma..

"Man of steel" attempting to bowl...

Checking out mommy's diaper bag

N checking out the bouncy castle..

The aMAZEing race...

It was a very enjoyable experience. Not only did the festival cater for our own congregation, we get a fair amount of visitors coming to the spring festival..