Stir-fry scallop with celery and mushrooms

This is an all time favourite in our house. We love the sweetness in the scallops and Mummy loves the celery and mushrooms. Mummy had been trying to modify their dishes for us so that she won't have to cook separately for our dinner and this is one of those dishes.

Ingredients
Fresh scallops
Celery 3-4 stalks, cut
Garlic, chopped
Button mushrooms, halved
Mixed herbs (optional)
Olive oil (optional)
1 red chilli, shredded (This is the big red chilli, not those chilli padi)
* Do away with this if your child don't take spicy food at all.


Method
1. Add some oil (or olive oil) into the pan. Throw in the garlic and shredded chilli. Fry till fragrant.
2. Add the celery. Add abit of stock or water if too dry. Stirfry for 5-10mins till celery is half cooked.
3. Add the mushrooms and scallops and stirfry for another 5 mins before lowering the fire and simmer for another 5-10mins.
4. Sprinkle the mixed herbs on top or add a dash of pepper for taste and serve.
5. Cut the scallops, mushrooms and celery into smaller pieces before serving to children.

Toys

If you all had noticed, Mummy hasn't been getting toys for us lately. She finds that we are at an awkward age which makes choosing toys for us a more difficult task now. She needs to find something which can encourage our creativity, develop our vocabulary, introduce concepts and words, enable free play, help in our mental development, promote sharing & etc ... Sounds challenging?
After soucing around futilely for the last couple of months, Mummy finally remembered those new but forgotten toys in the storeroom. She had gotten those during the last few toy sales and had stow them in the store cos it wasn't suitable for our age then. She managed to dig out a bag of soft blocks and a set of play doh for us. Our storeroom is just like a toy shop!! There are still some more in there.

K's Kids Block N Learn



We find this bag of soft blocks so interesting. It helps in developing the logical intelligence.

Logical Intelligence is the ability to make connections between pieces of information. Toys like Puzzle, Building Blocks help strengthen a child's intelligence of logic, sequence, conceptualization, reasoning and finally problem solving. Examples of toy: Blocks, Puzzles, Toys that encourage repeated actions.

Each side of the cubes help in teaching different things.
1. Animals - we are supposed to match the heads to the bodies of the animals
2. Vehicles - same as the above except that it's all the types of vehicles
3. Numbers - no. 1 - 10
4. Opposites / Cause and effect - eg. shows a long pencil on a flip and there's a short pencil behind.
5. Pictures of a few of the same items for us to match to the number 1-10
6. A single picture for Mummy to talk to us about


Playdoh


How do I use this scissors?


Aunty's helping me with it.


Let me try it on my own.


Yeah, I can cut it.


Reyes cutting with a knife

PLAY-DOH modelling compound meets all of the criteria for free play. It stimulates imagination and learning and different parts of the brain are engaged at the same time: motor and sensory skills (texture, colour, shape, etc.), imagination and creativity, and social skills, in the case of group play.

Benefits of free play:
Free play, besides being fun, boosts the natural qualities that all children possess: curiosity, enthusiasm, a love of discovery, and the drive to "figure stuff out." In addition, free play lets children control their environment, which builds self-esteem and provides an outlet for creativity. Child development experts say that free play is crucial for children's intellectual and emotional growth.

Gathering at Dempsey Hill Gogobambini

Same story about Jacob Ballas Children's Garden, rained and didn't make it there. Ended up at Go-Go Bambini. Wonder what's wrong with that place. Out of the 10 times we planned to go, it rained 9 times. Anyway we had a great time at Gogobambini so isn't too bad afterall. This is the 2nd time the Mar mummies had a gathering here. The last time was the Mar Birthday Bash and most of the babies were still unable to walk. And after a period of 7months, all of us were running and climbing around the place. And apparently we had much more fun today even though there were only 7 toddlers - YT, EJ, Seth, Bel, Leia and RR, not forgetting BB Sam too.






RR busy climbing everywhere while Mummy runs after them and takes pictures at the same time.


Reyden stranded on a ball island



At the ball pits


Aiyoh mummy, you are so slow. They are already looking away.


RSR



Bel, Reyes and Bel's daddy

Funny pixs of the day

Seth: Can I kiss you?


Reyes: No, no


Seth: I don't care!!


Reyden mistaken for Reyes??

Stir-fry minced meat with egg and mushrooms

Mummy had been trying out different things to go with our minced meat. Not that we "rejected" her minced meat with celery, minced meat with zucchini or minced meat with scallops but the 1st two too greeny and the 3rd one tasted abit fishy. So it's all depending on our mood for that day as to whether we finish the minced meat or she stuffs herself silly with it.

Therefore she's bent on finding out what are the best things to go with the minced meat that we'll finish it all the time. And good for her, she had tried this recipe with us thrice and we didn't leave any of it for her so far

p.s.: Ok, once again the picture isn't doing justice to the dish.
We need a better camera, daddy.




Stir-fry minced meat with egg and mushrooms

Ingredients:
- Minced pork/chicken (preferably "yao rou" for pork or thigh for chicken)
Marinate minced meat with corn flour, few drops of sesame oil and pepper for at least half an hour before cooking.
- Button mushrooms or white fresh mushrooms, diced
- 1 egg, mixed
- Half an onion, chopped
- Olive oil
- stock/water

Method:
1. Heat oil in a pan and stir-fry onions till fragrance.
2. Add in meat and mushroom. Simmer for a few minutes till meat is cook, adding some stock/water when dry.
3. Add the egg mixture into the pan and stir till egg is cooked.
4. Serve with rice.

Little Reyes goes to market

Let me choose a nice pack of cherry tomatoes for Gor Gor and myself.


Mama, shall we get this pack? It looks fresh enough.

New books and writing materials

Daddy and Mummy brought us to Compasspoint for breakfast this morning and there's a Popular sale at the atrium. Mummy recalled Aunty Aida had asked her to get us some books that teaches us ABCs and alphabet writing. Now that we can hold our pen/pencils quite well, Aunty says it's time she can teaches us how to write the letters. She had told Mummy that she taught her previous employer's boy to write his own name at 2 yrs old. Mummy didn't really believe that's possible. She said she'll only believe that if we are able to write our names when we turn 2. Aunty must have felt stressed, that explains why the daily writing activities with us recently. Naughty mummy ...


Things Mummy got for us - An ABC book for baby, 8 pencils, 2 pencil sharpeners, 2 write and colour books with stickers and a wipe-clean learning book.

Talking about books, now with the table and chairs set up, we can sit at the reading corner flipping thru books for quite awhile.

Our favourite books - Baby's 1st Prayers and Baby's 1st Bible.


The only Chinese book we have and it's Mummy's favourite for reading time.

Something amusing

Mummy's post:

This had happened 2 weeks ago and I forgotten to blog about it till now.
It happened on one of the night when I was putting Reyes to sleep. Usually she'll finish a bottle of milk and then goes to sleep within the next 15-20mins. If she doesn't, most likely she had not had enough and I'll call out to Kent to make some more for her. The reason why I can't leave the room is Reyes will happily follow me out and gets all active. Then my past half an hour's efforts will be a waste.
That night I wanted to call out to Kent who was in the living room so I shouted "Dear!!!" To my surprise, Reyes took out her pacifier and kind of like shouted "dear" too. I thought I heard wrongly and I wanted to reconfirm so I shouted "Dear!!" a 2nd time. This time round Kent was already at the door of the room and we both heard Reyes said the word "Dear" loud and clear. I burst out laughing and the amusing part isn't over yet.
Reyes has the habit of calling "papa" very sweetly every morning she sees Kent. And guess what? Yes, you are right. She called him "dear" instead of "papa" the next morning she saw him. I couldn't help but laugh at this silly gal of ours. Her "dear" must have melt Daddy's heart. Though cute and sweet but we had decided it's not going to be right if she calls him that outside so I spent half the day telling her it's "papa, papa, papa" until she calls him "papa" again. Apparently she had forgotten about the word "dear" till now. I had also taken care not to call Kent by "dear" infront of them.