The cell kids played with cookie dough yesterday and out came these marvelous creations! Wanz made the dough and even Sophie got to use the moulds, add chocolate chips and M&Ms. She loved it! The best part? EATING THEM!

Look at how happy she was!! Her favourite were the chocolate chip ones. We brought some home and she’s been happily eating them too. Wanz made some coconut milkshake for the kids too. Sophie loved that too! Such a treat to have a friend who is a good cook!

I decided to cook lunch today.

I’ve been so busy that we’ve been eating out, ordering in or eating packet food most days. I went marketing today so I bought some pork n made sweet sour pork, a fav comfort food of mine. Sophie had steamed pork ribs with veggies. I added in more water so she had some soup too. This girl has too much Cantonese blood in her. She asks for soup at every meal. Yummy.

A mummy asked for ideas for babies’ breakfast. Since I replied her via email, I might as well post abt this since I’ve gotten so lazy in posting.

Few months back, Sophie has weaned herself (argh!) off those gooey baby cereal. I don’t blame her. I could never bring myself to taste it.

Breakfast now includes a cup of milk (120 ml) + one of the following:

1. Milk + cornflakes (Classic) + Fruit after
2. Yogurt + Fruit (Fresh/Dried) + Crushed Cornflakes
3. Bread + Cheese (OR jam - I started giving low sugar cherry jam, spread little little) + Fruit on the side (SEE PICTURE ABOVE)
4. Muesli (Heinz) + Milk/Yogurt + Fruit (Fresh/Dried) (Originally, she didn’t take the muesli but recently, i made it less thick and she eats it.)
5. Egg sandwich + Fruit after (Hard boiled egg mashed + a bit of mayo & spread it on a slice of bread - just tried this. She finished one slice of bread, not bad. Alternatively, just chop up the egg & chop up the bread & let them self feed - same thing right? Into the stomach it goes.)

I find that putting her food on different plates and bowls excite me, hopefully it excites her to eat too! For this breakfast, she is eating toast with cheese spread & nectarine, arranged nicely on a bright yellow coloured ikea plate (you can buy 6 of those for like $2.90 at ikea - red, blue, green, pink… cool lah).

Sophie LOVES bread!

I’ve been busy making soup. The weather has been quite cold lately and it’s just nice to have hot heartwarming soup. Plus Sophie hasn’t been keen on porridge (I really don’t blame her) so rice with soup is great!

I made pumpkin soup for lunch and zucchini and watercress soup for dinner.

It’s really SO simple to make. I premade chicken soup/stock yesterday and froze them. Just needed to fry garlic & onions with unsalted butter, put in the veg and the stock, blend and voila - SOUP! For the zucchini and watercress soup, I just stirred in the bunch of watercress after the zucchini is soft, turn off the fire, let it simmer and then blend. Zilch salt, zilch sugar. Pure veg.

I’ve always known watercress to be really good for health but never really knew how. Did some research and found out that it’s a superfood! Full of vitamins and minerals. It’s a bit of an acquired taste but everyone in the family loves it. Read more about that here.

Sophie kept asking for more. In fact, she finished most of the pumpkin soup, including what I left for James. He got only two spoonfuls.

Great to know that both my babies are well fed. Makes me feel so good.

This season has been bananas, papayas, nectarines, plums, kiwifruit, grapes and watermelon. She loves them!

We spent the whole of Saturday with Mama and Yeye.

First we went to Adam Road Hawker Center for the shiok shiok prawn noodles. Sophie had a cream bun, without the cream bien sur!

After that, we went to Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden. But it was raining so we headed to Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden to kill some time before our lunch appointment. It was still drizzling a little but at least we got to see the Bonsai Garden that I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. I always miss it coz we get there quite late. It’s only opened in the daytime. It’s so pretty.

After that we met the rest of the family for lunch at the Tung Lok restaurant at Jurong. The food was so good and everyone was happily entertaining Sophie that I got to eat and forgot to take pictures. But we took some at the end of it with Uncle Norman + Auntie Serene and Auntie Wendy, James’ cousins.

After lunch, we headed to The Expo for the Metro Big Sale. Nothing much there BUT … Sophie had her first meal from a restaurant. We ordered porridge for her. We were running late, too close to dinner and nowhere nearby we could find a supermarket. So we had dinner at Macau Express. Fish porridge. It was too watery, she didn’t eat very much. Like my friend June said, Sophie likes her food "gao" (thick). Yep, with substance, not watery.

That ended our very long but really enjoyable day out.

Sophie’s been wanting to drink from our glasses when we’re out. So I decided to let her drink from a cup and she LOVES it!

Look at her! hahah… the glee when she gets a cup. Sometimes it spills if she holds it on her own so normally I’ll hold it for her. But this lil one demands to hold it on her own… and she’ll scream if i take it away. Ah…. oh wells, I still take it away. Hahaha…

Guess where we were again today? FORUM! Hahaha… James had a meeting at Palais Renaissance so we went down town together.

Took Sophie to the playground again. It was less crowded today and I managed to capture some pics with my new phone. Not very good pics but still pics. It’s so good lah, indoor, aircon!!!! The weather is just too crazy to be outdoors. I know I love nature n all but still……

From left: Daddy teaching Sophie how to drive, Sophie getting confident being in the pool of balls with bigger kids, Sophie driving on her own, Sophie having a lemon moment.

Yes, James gave Sophie a wedge of lemon. She loved it! She’s really one adventurous eater. We decided to let her self feed at the restaurant so we could have dinner together, much to the amusement of the waitresses. I felt so bad coz the floor was so dirty after but they were so nice about it! Thumbs up for Genki Sushi at Forum. Love the waitresses.

Yep, needless to say, we stopped at our fav ELC.

Ok… maybe not.

Sophie did have a teeny weeny bite off the chicken satay though… haha…

But we have started to introduce her to table food, eating together (with her self feeding) and hopefully some table manners. That means no throwing food around when you’re done with eating.

Recently my MIL got us a new steel rice cooker, not the non-stick types. She also gave me a glass saucepan. All these as a result of all the news about how non-stick pans/pots are no good for health, esp for precious grandchild. hee hee.

I love the glass cooking pot and new rice cooker by the way. I have new inspiration to cook. It’s just so pretty to see your food cooking and bubbling thru the glass.

I’ve started to give Sophie rice and soup/sauce. Made this random dish recently. I had chicken, pumpkin and apple in the fridge so in it all went. Hahaha… Topped it with some rosemary. I like rosemary with chicken. It went on top of the rice in the cooker to be steamed. So easy. Yumms.

She finished 1/2 of the rice and 1/2 of the dish. Not too bad!

Now that Sophie is older, it’s so fun to watch her try new things.

She was so fascinated by the plastic cookie cutters which I got from Cold Storage for $1.99 (so cheap!).

We made cheese sandwiches with softmeal bread and cut them into shapes for breakfast. Going to try pancakes next!