Mervyn Hoe: My Daily Happenings

On 30th December 2012, we embarked on Taiwan trip with our children. Indeed, it was an adventurous move for us because it is the first time we go to a cold place with our two children.  Family picture of Mao Kong cable car. It is only S$4! Josh is so fascinated by the paranomic view! Josh wants to kiss Kate on the cable car ride. We alighted at the peak and bought their very own sweet potato! So delicious! We also bought their corn too. Organic one! Yum! We went to the Mirama Ferris wheel located at the shopping centre. The queue was very long. It was a very nice sight to see the wheel spinning slowly. Happy picture on the Ferris wheel. The fireworks located above the shopping centre. This is taken at our hotel room. I tried to take good pictures via the camera. However I couldn't. Instead, I quickly take picture of fireworks on TV. Cheapo method! Picture of the Tou Cheng Farmstay hotel. The bed is like a rock! We made ou...

Well every Wednesday is Pancake day as breakfast. Josh and I will prepare the ingredients for it and we shall dine to start the day right. It's getting easier and easier now as the steps are in our heads already. Here is what we did. For the batter, 1 cup of white flour with whole meal flour 1 egg yolk 2 tbsp of molasses sugar 1 tbsp of oil 1 cup of milk Some pine nuts Some chocolate chips Steps: 1. Blend the egg white till it's fluffy. 2. Mix the batter with the egg white. 3. Place some oil on the pan and scoop the batter on it to fry. 4. Flip it after one minute. To taste, you can actually add avocados and maple syrup! Delicious. Josh loves his pancakes so much and will point to me the various utensils to use! So proud of him. Kate will come and help to see what I am doing at the cooking area. Picture of Kate with the pancake. Notice the hole in the pancake? She ate by herself! It's such a joy to actually see your children eat happily the food...

Girl! Girl! Girl! ----------------- Baby daughter's ultrasound picture Yes! It is 90% confirmed that our third child is a girl! We went to check for the 15th week check and Dr Paul Tseng told us that she is the gender! :) Gender is not a matter for both of us. Most importantly is that our child is a happy and healthy one. Initially he placed the heartbeat probe on her womb area, and he could not detect it. We both grew silent but he assured that 15th week fetus is too small to detect it. And he used the ultrasound sonar probe and immediately, the regular heartbeat is detected. It was her initial position in the womb that made the heartbeat probe quite hard to detect. We are very happy that her head size is normal shape! Yeah! So happy! Name -------- We kinda thought of Leah Hoe. It will be similar to Josh Hoe in the sense that there are two 'H' right beside each other. Leah Hoe. What do you think? I feel it will be a nice name. We still have 6 more months ...

Krabi is a very nice place indeed! On 17th Jan, my organisation organised an outing to Krabi and I brought my whole family out for the first time, without my mother-in-law! It is definitely a test on our faith as well as our parenting skills overseas as there are quite a few unknowns that we have to handle. Things such as air flight, food at Thailand, the lodging conditions, the environment and their adaptability at the place. Apparently, things turned out fine for us! We are indeed very glad that we brought our children with us and they shared the equal joy with us. There wasn't much, in fact, no one brought their children except us! Hence we have to stay as cool and calm as possible if there are some fussing around. We are very thankful that my fellow colleagues actually helped out involuntarily and gave us some 'resting' and 'eating' time for both of us! The Elements Hotel ---------------------------- We stayed at the Elements hotel and boy, I tell y...

Now both of them can actually hang around well outside the house. Did I mention outside the house? Ha. They actually fair better outside because through outdoor activities, they are able to play together, run and catch each other too. Anyway, it is advisable to engage outdoor activities at least one hour everyday. And most of the time, it's either Eve, my mother in law or me, who will bring them down. Looking at how they communicate, I can see that Josh takes care of Kate quite well, and at a few instances, he will look back and wait for Kate, as she is quite a distance away from him. I will occassionally remind him to share the tricycle that they have having, as Josh may feel that it is 100% his. I am really very touched today when bringing up the tricycle and the playhorse up the stairs, I asked Josh to hold Kate's hand when climbing up the stairs. Kate reached out her little hand and Josh took her hand and accompanied her up the flight of stairs. I quickly snapped the pi...