Mervyn Hoe: My Daily Happenings

Well, recently, our night times are quite hectic, having interrupted sleeps and changing bed sheets in the wee hours of the night, and bathing our children. Sounds like a ghost story? I'm afraid it's not. Night time These nights, Gwen simply stays awake and wants to nurse regularly. We need to adjust her timing from US timing to Singapore timing. In the day, she would nap more, while at night, the two big eyes will stare at you! Super awake and wants our attention. Last night was a champion night, and it's not easy for us. However we survived. Josh and Kate slept early around 10pm and 8pm respectively. However, Kate woke up at 10pm, rendered her to be super awake. And at 12am, Josh was awakened by Gwen and he wanted to pass urine. So the two elder ones were awake and kept on talking. At 1215am, all my three children passed motion, one after another!  The saga didn't end there. Josh and Kate started to get active and played. I have to be there to supe...

Today, I walked around a coffee shop around Jurong East, and I have no idea what to eat. Seriously I really wonder what are some of the healthy options I can choose from. I have some criteria of what to put into my stomach. 1. Got to have vegetables 2. Less meat 3. No MSG, if possible 4. Not so salty With these four points, I will feel that the meal is balanced. Nowadays, there are so much MSG or flavoring added into our food, that I just wish to go back home to whip up a simple dish for myself. At times, my schedule doesn't allow me to cook. i really find eating out is much more a hassle and stressed event for me. At times, I will call Eve to help me out to decide. Unhealthy options I'm not sure about you. Usually after i eat these food, I will find that my pass motion is so much stinkier!   Not a wise choice to eat them. I will also feel tired and at times, bloated!  Roast Pork Rice / Chicken Rice / Duck Rice What is a meal if there is meat, ...

Everyday, my mornings to noon time are almost the same. Preparing breakfast, marketing, cooking and bringing Josh to school. It's quite crucial because it involves food for the children and the whole family. Breakfast Early in the morning, Eve and I will prepare breakfast! And it will always consists of goat's milk, oats and bread. For the choice of spread, it's either  1. Avocado 2. Self diluted peanut butter Every Wednesday is a pancake's day. And both Josh and Kate will help out in the preparation. It's very important that we all sing our prayer song before eating and also we all eat together at the table. :) Sometimes, we will get unhealthy breakfast to 'normalize' the body. Ha. It's usually once or twice a month. We get prata, chwee kueh, peanut cake... Marketing I will do this once every two or three days, depending on how fast we used up the ingredients. Now, every meal (lunch and dinner), we will have at least a vegetable dish.  My favourite buys...

This is so exciting! This week alone, I have a reply at my cooking blog saying that he has tried the silverfish dish, and it works! So happy. I have no idea who this person is, but it really makes me feel that people reads my blog! And this week alone, two people asked me about blogging and what tips I can provide. I'll first tell them that they really got to have interest and it's just this "ingredient" that keeps them going and the blog to be alive! Really hope that their blogs can go well! Blogging, in today's context, is so much easier and fun! And when I looked back my past posts, it brings back sweet memories! I just rendered the news that Josh had jaundice since birth for about 5 weeks! I even wrote the exact date. And because now Gwen has jaundice since birth, I really hope that it will end same time as Josh's. I really hope people around me can blog more often! It's so much more expressive and improves your command of language too!

Well, 15th August 2013 marked a special date for Josh. He is now 4 years old! And it also tells us that we are 4 years as parents and counting!  What we did This year, we made it a simple affair and we did not buy any cakes at all for Josh! :) We just decide to do what both our children like to do :) We went to Toa Payoh SAFRA swimming complex and they loved it so much! Josh and Kate shared the float and it's their first time using it willingly! And the baby pool's very clean! Love the place so much. For dinner, we dine at Hai Jing Lou (nearby the Toa Payoh Central). It's also Josh's favourite porridge place. Hence we decided to patronise there. And he ate like 2 bowls while Kate ate 3 bowls of porridge! Wow. Soon after that, we celebrated his birthday at Brownice at Marymount, our favourite vegan ice cream shop whereby we had our waffles and healthy ice cream! We tried his favourite strawberry ice cream and a new delicious flavor, hazelnut! So de...

On National Day, we celebrated Gwen's full month and it's really fun to see our dear friends and relatives once again! People came in one by one, and we receive so many positive well wishes! Everyone's so happy. My one month old Gwen :) Ain't she lovely! What we did Caterer We had an estimated turn up of 70 guests. Hence we ordered from two caterers - Angeli and Okashi. And the serving size is 60. Angeli has their speciality of laksa, noodles, onde onde, fried rice, vegetables and also the fried noodles.  Notice the chairs and the tables - all are rented. This is from Angeli. Nice decoration. The another view of it. Luckily our corridor has space. The pot is the laksa! Yum! And they have a wide array of ingredients e.g bean sprouts, prawns, fish cake... it's a laksa DIY. And the dou suan has the you tiao! :) Okashi has their generous and delicious spread of duck, braised meat with bao, chicken curry, carrot cake and the fried bu...

It's been awhile since I have blogged! Wonder if you have been waiting for any new posts! :) Well, last Saturday (01 Aug 2013) we did something we have never done before. We had a staycation at Swissotel Raffles, and it's really great experience! Able to enjoy it with children and relatives. Kate and I at the beautiful Harbourview Room at Swissotel Raffles. Had a complimentary bed for children. Picture of us present for this viewing The children captivated with the iPad. Reason These four years, I didn't manage to get NDP tickets for my family. And it's quite disappointing because my children LOVE to watch the fireworks. So what I intended to do? In July, I straightaway booked a Harbourview room at Swissotel Raffles . I requested for a high floor and hopefully can watch the fireworks. Hence, it's really a gamble because the view may not be terrific. The view we had from the balcony Apparently there was an NDP Preview package and ...

It's really amazing that I have come across an article saying that we should try and be 'offline' when we are having our own time, such has having meals, walking, taking transport, spending time with loved ones and even in the toilet! Nowadays, everywhere we go, we are just like busy people with the phone! Really! And I don't really think that we are much more connected in terms of people-to-people relationship. We are just more connected to Facebook, Yahoo news, Candy Crush etc. I just feel that we aren't that close to the friends we were in the past. It's the truth :(. Disconnect - It Helps Both Eve and I have tried. And it's possible. What we did is to switch our smart phones to silent mode and we do not touch it in front of our children when we are spending time with them. If we keep connecting ourselves to the phone, we are disconnecting with our children during playtime. It's not wise at all. We limit ourselves and use it when it's appr...

It's really amazing. Recently, I went to watch my old time favorite series 'Charmed' and I'm really amazed at how well planned and well scripted it is. The quality of effects, how everything can gel so well and makes it captures your attention, all totalled up to 100 points! And I researched that for this episode alone, it was watched by 7.7million viewers! Of course it's fictional, but they manage to bring you to their world. I was a big fan then in secondary school. That made me think about how one can be a good scriptwriter. The ingredients are creativity, knowledge etc...  However, what amazes me is that I realized everyone is a scriptwriter! We direct and write our own life script everyday, isn't it? And one should strive to being the good scriptwriter for your own life!  We create the daily movies in our lives. And we are the director, the actor and extras in our own movie. And how rewarding and how exciting your movie is, depends on the scrip...