Happy Father's Day!

Hi papa!

Happy Father's Day!  I've been calling you all day long today.  Yet so far away you are....

 ....missing me out! I'm getting good at this... :)

Played with mama for a bit today...

Toro mao let me play with her... but only for a bit. :(

See you this coming Friday.  Miss you much!

Love,
Yang Yang

Look who's turning 1!

I know I am not the most "on top of it" blogger, but I had to document this special occasion on our blog, for this is a very very happy day in our house. :)  I can't really describe in words how special this day is to me.  It was such a milestone year for us, and Wei Yang is the biggest blessing I could possibly imagine.  After all, it took us soooo long just to have him!  Tonight, we went to Sushi Tomi to celebrate... sat at the sushi bar. :)

Time has flown by... Wei Yang.  Your first year has gone by so fast!  It was really a day to celebrate seeing as less than a year ago, you were just a teeny tiny little one... born at 5 lbs 15oz., and came out fast!!  The nurse who's in charge of me that night missed it, the doctor missed it and your dad missed it too!  For the first 4.5 months, you have never been a good sleeper, been a persistent crier but always happy little chappy when held, rocked and walked about! You love playing with water; splashing at us... you think it's hilarious!  You sleep on your stomach with your butt sticking up high and with all sorts of weird postures. You don't like baby food anymore and prefer any food that we adults are eating.  You love to be carried and sometimes finish off with a big munch on the shoulder! OUCH!  You haven't been very happy while teething. You love chasing the cats around and terrorizing them.  You talk up a storm and your smiles and giggles light up the room. Today, you were so eager to walk all over the place without any fear of falling, and ate all the freshly picked blueberries in our backyard. You are such a joyful, thriving and healthy little one year old man! :)

Thank you for picking us as your family.
We love you much.
Happy First Birthday my little man! 

It is quite hard to throw a nice big party now that we have to deal with a demanding little human.  Difficult indeed... but not impossible. :P  I worked my butt off getting ready for this party.  And there were definitely times I questioned why I was spending so much time preparing for a party that my son would never remember.  Guess there is something very special about your first baby having their first birthday, and kind of celebrating my first year of motherhood as well. :D

Anyway, ...sharing some of the party photos that we took last Saturday with you! (whoever you are...)

WY's 1st Birthday

Wei Yang's walk

Wei Yang is almost 1-year old now. We just had his first birthday party last Saturday, he received many gifts from his uncles and aunts. Equipped with his new tools, he managed to gain enough confidence to stand and walk on his own. Check out the video below with his kor kor's toy. Two days ago, he didn't even know how to push the toy around. Today, he is in control of this thing. His new toys certainly help!

We have to say this is a milestone for Wei Yang. Unassisted, he now can stand and walk on his own, albeit only a few steps. He will zoom from say the sofa to coffee table. He still looks unstable, so I am scared that he will fall.

Quick grocery shopping

sleepy eyes...

Went to Wholefoods today to buy some milk for Wy 'cause it's running out!  I'm already substituting some breast milk with organic whole milk  since he's 10 months old.  It's slightly more than 2 weeks that I stopped nursing him directly... just pumping for now.  One more week to go and I'll be "free"!  Can't wait!! I'm sick of washing those pumping accessories.

It wasn't his nap time yet while we were at Wholefood but cutie pie seemed a bit fussy this afternoon... probably due to waking up too early this morning.  He's not very happy even when he's in the cart.  So I ended up Baby Bjorn-ing him. :(

He woke up like around 5:45am this morning, and we let him cried for like 45mins! :P  ...too tired to entertain him this early and hoping that he would fall back to sleep.  Unfortunately not... :(    Anyway, his schedule for today is pretty much screwed up.   

Wy has been waking up once in the middle of the night for the past 2 days, and he woke up very early, like between 5:30am-6am!  We think it's probably due to the daylight at that hours, plus we just changed his usual soft and fuzzy velour crib sheet to the regular cotton crib sheet....  he doesn't like it.  So I've just ordered the blackout shades this morning and will get the laundry done by this evening so that he can get his soft and fuzzy crib sheet.  Blackout shades won't be here until 1-2 weeks later.  Maybe some contractor paper on the window will do... temporarily. :P  We'll see then...

Morimoto Napa!

Never would I ever thought that my first blog post of the year would be a post about food!  Mummy was here for about 2 months taking care of baby Nathan.  During weekends, she spent some quality time with Wei Yang.  One week before she headed back to Malaysia, we brought her and Wy to Napa for a little weekend vacation. Weather was excellent!  We stayed at the Westin Verasa Napa, which was the same hotel we stayed when Pei Yean was here last year.  Wy was here too... just that he was still staying in my pitch dark womb.

Apparently, Iron chef Masaharu Morimoto opened his first west coast restaurant in downtown Napa.  We decided to have our dinner here to try it out, also to celebrate mummy's birthday and Choon Ping's "118." :P  

Wy was very fussy before we headed to the restaurant. He'd been crying and screaming for almost an hour due to unfamiliar to the hotel crib... just simply couldn't sleep on it.  We gave up and decided to just go to the restaurant.  It was less than 5 minutes drive.  Thank goodness that he dozed off almost right away once the car started to move. :)

Inside the Morimoto restaurant itself has a very energetic and chic city feel.  Through a huge entry hall, the hostess walked us... passed the open style kitchen, the bar, and then to our excellent seating place, where it had a perfect spot to park Wy's stroller.  The room just buzzed with excited diners enjoying their meals and good conversation.  After flipping through the menu back and forth, we decided to indulge ourselves with the omakase, which is a Japanese phrase meaning "I'll leave it to you."  It's sort of like a tasting menu except everything is at the chef's whim.  So, we really didn't know what we were having....

We were very happy that Wy was still sound asleep at this point.  He actually woke up just before our 6th course (main dish).  Such a goody goody boy!  He let us enjoyed our meal. :D

The omakase has a total of 7 courses:

The 1st dish: Toro Tartare

It was an awesome starter dish.  Toro was served on a wooden thin slab dish looking just like a picture frame with a rainbow of condiments including nori paste, wasabi, sour cream, chive, guacamole, and crunchy rice crackers.  It also came with a tasty soy sauce for dipping.  It was exquisitely presented and very pretty to look at!  We were supposed to use the metal spatula to mix and match the flavorings.  However, we thought it's much easier using the chopsticks.  There's a yamamomo (杨梅, Japanese moutain peach) on the side to clean our palate.

2nd course: Kanpachi (amberjack)

A very light, delicious pieces of fish gently rolled in a light oil with a light ginger vinaigrette presented on a simple elegant tray .  Soooo yummy!

3rd course: Bagna Cauda

..."hot dip". It's a fusion of the Japanese and Italian in Morimoto's take.  It's like a fondue.  There's a small flame heating up the oil and garlic anchovy bits at the bottom.  The dipping material ranges from colorful cauliflowers, baby carrot, asparagus, brussel sprout, baby butternut squash, 2 small pieces of toasted bread that looked just like french fries, and there's one thing that we couldn't identify.  Oh yes,  there's a very deliciously fried chicken tempura on a skewer as well.  Excellent dip!!! Soooo good.... one can always dap some chili powder to add a little bit of "kick".  The chili powder was cleverly presented as a red slit on the plate.

4th dish: Foie Gras Chawanmushi

Such a rich savory!  Extremely tender duck meat on the egg custard.  And yay... Wy was still snoozing. :)

There's a palate cleanser intermezzo dish before our next course was served.  It was a cool sorbet served on a contemporary small double walled bowl which has a bowl-within-a-bowl design.  We were too excited that we finished this dish, then only realized that we forgot to take picture. :P

5th dish: Nigiri Sushi Plate

Artistically and carefully created sushi laid out on a rectangular plate.  Toro again.. :)

6th dish:  Main course of the evening

From the left, toro (Ha! Can't go wrong with more toro) wrapped together with unagi and foie gras with nori and ?? drizzled with some sweet reduction.  Yum!!  Seared wagyu beef with sweet onion foam, and a beer battered chicken tempura. The chicken nugget was VERY tender... soooo good!!

7th and the last dish in the omakase was a dessert.  This was basically one scoop of black sesame ice cream in the middle, a piece of dark chocolate cake and a scoop of ice cream on top of it on either side.  We couldn't remember exactly what it was as we were outside the restaurant busy entertaining Wy.  So only mummy was around when this dish was presented.  It has melted quite a bit by the time we got back.  Anyhow, it was a wonderful, refreshing dessert!

Entertaining Wy...  Look at the pretty wisteria on the arbors!

It took us about 2 hours to finish our meal.  Specially made Morimoto chocolate was served just before we paid our check.  It's gd too!   

The dinner was truly a treat. The omakase  at Morimoto Napa was indeed an epicurean adventure akin to eating the most refined French meal uptown, except that it won't burnt a hole in your pocket and one doesn't have to dress up or wear a suit!!  It was definitely the place to be and be seen in Napa Valley. :)

2011 in review

2011 seems to have come and gone. People says that happy time flies. So we decided to look back in our photos to see what are the highlights and make sure it wasn't just another episode of missing time. Turns out, happy time did fly. But also baby did suck out half of 2011.

Back in Feb, we decided to take our "last" vacation before the baby comes. So we went to Puerto Vallarta. Had a great time there! Stayed in a nice hotel Garza Blanca in our own suite. This is our "babymoon". I highly recommend it.

Sensing that next year's valentine will be different, my wife decided to make me a nice valentine bouquet.

Then in April, Pei-Yean came to visit us in the US. We took a weekend trip to Napa, enjoyed beautiful spring weather there and some nice wines. Wait, did we? Pei-Sun was pregnant if that's not obvious in the pictures.

Chuen-Howe visited us from Singapore. We went on a day trip to Carmel. The cats were sensing the arrival of the newborn, they were especially cuddly...

Soon it was about time for baby showers. 2011 is the year of the rabbit. Also the year of babies for many of our friends here. The first baby shower belongs to Zainab's. Pei-Sun hosted the baby shower in our house. Note that I said year of the babies...

 Then Lynn and Jocelyn hosted Pei-Sun's baby shower at Lynn and Jack's house. This was where we got a lot of the goodies and it felt real that Wei Yang is finally coming.

Then Pei-Sun's mom came in time for the delivery of Wei Yang. Well, she came a bit early, and we had time to make a trip to Monterey. Getting ready, but not yet!

 

 

Long story short, we missed the delivery because she had such a quick delivery. So quick that everyone missed it including the husband, and doctor. The nurses were in charged. It's all good. All that matters is that mom is safe and baby is healthy. Our Wei Yang was born on June 7th 2011.

After much sleepness nights, it was time to celebrate Wei Yang full month. Friends and family gather to celebrate the happy occasion. We also took the opportunity to follow the tradition and shave Wei Yang's head. It is believed that by shaving his head, he will grow thicker hair in the future.

And shortly after that, Wei Yang's other grandparents visited from Malaysia. The first thing they noticed was how dark is his skin tone. We blamed that one sun bathing that he had to do to get rid of his Jaudice.

On Sept 16th, Wei Yang's cousin Nathan was born. He is a big baby. After Nathan's birth, Wei Yang's grandparents moved to stay with Chin Ping. I thought our first month was tough, sounds like Matt and Chin Ping have quite a bit of hard time early on as well. And soon it was time to celebrate Nathan's full month.

Flowers for our wedding anniversary.

Then it was time to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. Chin Ping and Nathan gave Wei Yang a dinosaur's costume. We thought he was too young to go out, so we just stayed at home and prepared candies for all the kids in our neighborhood.

This year's Thanksgiving was different. Not only because we have a family now, but we also hosted an American family, Matt's parents. We invited them over, and prepared traditional turkey thanksgiving and served it to our American friends. We were glad that they enjoyed the lunch. Even complimented the food as one of their best thanksgiving turkey and stuffing.

Winston unwilling to move...

Weather is getting chilly... :P

Enjoying swing at Cuesta Park.

We decided to take a vacation to Florida as a practice run for our upcoming trip to Malaysia. Florida was fun, the flight wasn't. We spent a night in Conrad Miami. Wei Yang really liked hotel bed, he also liked his own bed. For the rest of the 5 nights, we went to Marathon in the Florida Keys. P'ng and Judy came down from New Jersey. And Dave and Xiaoli came down from Toronto. All the kids came and had a blast. It is our belief that during this trip, Wei Yang learned how to crawl from Darren. Since Darren is 3 months older than Wei Yang, they ended up interacting with one another quite well. :) And then Kai Yi is also super cute, always asks for Wei Yang and cuddles with him. Amy also loves hanging out with Wei Yang, treated him like his little brother. Cute! During the trip, I also have 5 kids singing Happy Birthday songs to me. How lucky was that! There were many first in the trip, Wei Yang actually dipped in the hot tub(more like a warm tub). He enjoyed himself. Sounds like we should go to the pool when in Malaysia.

Enjoying complimentary buffet breakfast!

Conrad Miami

View from our room

Dinner at a fancy restaurant in Miami.

Having fun at hot tub... actually warm tub :)

Kai Yi & Wei Yang

Darren & Wei Yang

Kids singing birthday song!

Amy & Wei Yang

my birthday cake.. :)

Hemingway's House w/ a polydactyly cat

Hemingway's House at Key West

Strolling along the street at Key West.

Diaper Cake that I made for Jocelyn's Baby Shower

Christmas is finally here. We are in town. So we party again. This time, we had a small party, had some steaks and other food. Yummy... Have to admit that with Wei Yang, it is harder to throw parties, have to simplify on the food or ignore the decorations. Well, we managed... I think.

Yummy Christmas Eve's Dinner :)

Wei Yang's first Christmas Gift!

The day after Christmas, we went to watch a concert by Sandy Lam. Wow! My favorite singer of all times. She is still the best. She kept me company for the past 20+ years. Never expected I would ever see Sandy Lam in person. But I did, so fair to say that my life is now complete!