Mervyn Hoe: My Daily Happenings

I'm officially 32 now! Had a great simple birthday celebration back at our newly renovated place! Honestly, I feel so blessed to have a steamboat birthday celebration and it's healthier, cheaper and we can eat wearing comfortable house clothes! Eve went to buy the ingredients early in the morning Our group photo with our parents and children. My dad also brought his rice balls! Every year, during my birthday, it's also eating rice balls! Love it so much! A group wefie! Currently, we are dining in this new room - the study room.  Erm... A Christmas and Birthday cake for me? Thanks to my friend Jian Bang for getting this cake for me! Love this funny picture Happy birthday to me! They smiled because I told them: "The one with the greatest smile has the largest piece". Family is indeed very important and I will definitely be much more efficient in my work-life balance in the coming 2016!

  On 15th December 2014, we celebrated my mother's 65th Birthday! It was a simple affair with a simple strawberry cake! And the children simply placed the candles on the small available space on the cake. It's memorable and love the pictures!   My mother and my three children! We had to borrow the lighter from our neighbour! Look at the candles! There is just not enough space to place all of them. A happy picture of Kate   Grandmothers and grandchildren    Our family picture with the cake! My mother, my sister and my three children, just after we sang the Happy Birthday song...  My love ones! :) Honestly, I am very thankful to have my mum to be supportive in whatever I do ever since I'm young. After I graduated from university, she supported me in giving me the green light to be an insurance adviser! Until today, I'm so glad that I did not make the wrong decision and stayed in this fulfilling career! Thanks Mum! ...

 August is also a month of birthdays for our family members. On 3rd of August, we celebrated 90th birthday of my grandmother-in-law! Amazing right? We held it once again at Castle Green.     Prior to the cake cutting session, we did our individual games such as going to the playground, swimming as well as having the catered sumptuous dinner! After that, I conducted games for the relatives! I really enjoy hosting the games and I'm glad that the children enjoyed too!     The first game was FOOD TASTING!   The children were to be seated and they have to guess what is the food given to them! Surprisingly, they are able to guess them very well. I have prepared a few food such as pop corn, blue berries, water chestnuts, apples, raisins...   Picture of me feeding Josh, as the children are eagerly waiting to guess what's the mystery food! Yes! The children have to close their eyes when being fed! Next is the adults turn! I have pre...

  Josh is 5 years old already! And yes, we are also 5 years old as parents! Totally amazing journey, watching him from a baby, to toddler to now, a big boy! He has taught us many lessons and skills! He has made me much more efficient as a person too. From 2009, both Eve and I worked even closer as a team. And together with her mum, the journey of setting up Hoe Family is honestly both challenging and rewarding. Over the years, we have enlarged our capacity as people who can - do meal planning for family - breastfeed at home, outside = anywhere (kudos to Eve) - mix and match our daily schedules - do shopping at wet markets - research on better alternatives for diet - include exercise into our weekly schedules - travel overseas with the children - home organisation - do budgeting ( not to spend on things we don't want) - research on ideas to teach our children on language, arts, music and trying them out - plan park trips and picnics  - go to chur...

  Time flies and I tell you that a year ago on 9th July 2013, it was raining heavily in the wee hours of the night! Soon after, Gwen was born. And a year same time 9th July 2014, it was raining heavily too! This time, she turns 1! Amazing! The weather made me recall what both Eve and I had went through last year. This time, we had two celebrations for both Gwen and Kate (as their birthdates are 9th July and 11th July respectively) and it was simply amazing to have relatives uniting and enjoy the meals together too! Both Eve and I even joked that we can aim for the 4th child to be on the 10th of July! Lol... That will be 2 years down the line. Anyway, on that day, we planned and conducted a series of games for bonding too! I'm just so glad that I can be the host for the day... It's been quite a while since I host! Love hosting!  Picture of Eve's relatives  4th Grand Auntie and Gwen For the food catering, it's the first time that we engaged a...