It was a lovely day.

JD had a lovely surprise with his new bike. He took it for a ride on the street with his new Spiderman helmet. Some of the kids on the street got a new skateboard, a basketball hoop, a mobile phone, some got a keyboard and all the kids on the street were running around with their newest present.

Chloe being the little darling she is, just enjoyed watching the festivities around her. Unlike her brother whom was going around shaking and volunteered to open everyone’s present, she was the happy contended little baby happy to be in our arms.

We had a feast tonight. Fresh prawns, salmon, turkey & chicken sausages, black pepper steak, my homemade chicken satay, a watermelon & prawn salad and a huge plate of Greek Salad made by my brother in law. We finished all the food, no leftovers! Yeh!

Everyone were happy with their presents.

No doubt, with festive day like this, you always get some hyper kid whom have consumed far too many candy canes, overtired running around throwing a tantrum and being an absolute pain. Yep, we had that, and I whipped out my “naugthy corner” tactic and put a stop to any tantrums that might show its evil eyes again in the night.

Luckily we ended the night happily with everyone clutching their presents going home for a good night sleep…

I am going to have a good rest for the rest of the year and going on a holiday with my little family unit tomorrow.

I have had a great year 2006, with lots of wonderful events especially the arrival of my baby girl in July, my ever so crazy n loving JD who is still bringing me lots of smiles, my hubby, my wonderful family whom have made a special trip to Perth this year! I love you all!

Till the new year, have a good one everyone, with lots of love from us all here in Perth!

Now, u better be good! Otherwise Mrs.Claus Junior won’t be bringing u much Christmas cheers this time round! And remember to leave her a glass of milk and a cookie

Here’s a special Merry Christmas from our 5 months old celebrating her very first Christmas!

And a special present is now sitting under the tree. I can’t wait to see the look on JD tomorrow morning.

Lately JD has a new interest. Building. He builds and builds, through day and night. Lego blocks, Duplo blocks, Gear blocks, you name in, he builds it. And he is into rockets, space ship, aeroplanes and robots these days. He will build them using his blocks.

We can spend the whole day together building blocks.

“JD’s Robot”

And he gets really upset when his sister accidentally kicks his creative genius while doing her “aerobics” on the floor. He said “Chloe, you are still too little to play my blocks!” Eh seh!This morning, he told me he is building a city! A city with dinosaurs that came to eat children! Oh my! You see JD lying down on the floor. He would actually spend some time admiring his own creation each time he finished building something. A proud achiever indeed. And he should be.

JD posing with his “Scary Dinosaur”

Perth is a beautiful city by night! A place that I have called home for the last 9 years.

Now this is funny. I always carry my digi camera with me everywhere I go. I take pictures of the kids, my food, people, scenery, myself, my cooking and etc etc. This morning I was taking pictures of some of JD’s creations which I will talk about in another post. I think he had enough of me clicking away constantly he decided wanting to have a go. So I did, and look at this, picture of me by my 3 year old. I was impressed, more than impressed.

Yes, only 4 more days to Xmas! I got my Xmas dinner sorted, but I still have a huge to do list. Better get off my chair and stop blogging!

This year, I am doing something a little bit different for Christmas in terms of gifts for friends and families.

My kitchen Aid mixer has been working overtime, my oven has been baking hundreds of biscuits over the last few days, I recycle gift boxes, I got JD to help me roll the cookies dough into little balls, I cut the cherries, he helped himself along the way…all for the fun of Chrsitmas baking. I spent all my time in the kitchen the last few days, basking myself in the oven heat and while it was 35deg c outside. And I wasn’t doing anything to conserve energy either, I had to turn on my aircon at one point to cool the house down.

Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to bake all the biscuits and forgotten to take any pics of JD in his little apron stuffing his face with cookie dough and cherries.

But here is the final product, box of Custard Cherry Biscuits and beautifully wrapped for JD’s care provider at daycare.

I brought the kids out this afternoon to get some groceries. Along the way, I stopped by at a shop hoping to get some vegies. And we bump into this Asian lady whom was friendly at first but soon turned into my joke of the day! Luckily I was in a rather humorous mood, and wasn’t offended by the conversation.

This was our conversation with this Asian lady at the shop about Chloe and what I think my little baby girl must have be thinking as the Asian lady rattle on in Mandarin.

唉哟妹妹，你的脸为何红红的？妈妈说因为我还小，有时因为天气热，皮肤会痒。

所以就红红咯！

可是老Aunty说，

妹妹脸红红是因为妈妈没给她搽 cream！

还说是妈妈的手有 “poison”,

所以有搽cream，妹妹的皮肤也是痒！

我看老Aunty有点“something wrong” 吧！

You see, I have noticed that the elderlies at times like to use silly stories to frighten us. Come on, I am not a first time mom, well, 2nd time mom, but I am not stupid to believe her old wives tales!

And the English version of the above conversation, and speaking in an Asian accent:

Old lady: “Eh, why your baby’s face so red red ah?”

Me: “Oh, she has a bit of eczema and the heat makes her more prone to it”

Old lady: “You got put cream or not? Eh, your cream good one or not?”

Me: “Oh yeah, as prescribed by her pediatrician”

Old lady: “Ummm, u know what, I think hor, is because your hands got poison lah. So hor, even you apply cream for her, the poisons on your hand also make her skin red red you know!”

Me: “Ummm, is that right?”

She makes my day because I have never laughed so hard at someone’s silly idea and she said it with such conviction! But then just imagine if that was someone else suffering from anxiety or slight depression, that person would have been heartbroken.

Since moving to the OZ land 9 years ago, I have a few Aussie must haves.

One of my “must haves” is to own a barbecue (or barbie as we call it here)! Yes, an Aussie household is not complete without a backyard barbie, where you can throw pieces of steak, fish, sausages on the barbie, sit outside in the back garden, have a nice cold beer on a nice summer evening.

For years, I have had wanted to get one. But each year I kept putting it off, maybe just not sure of which one I really like, or I was just too stingy not wanting to part with my money.

Anyway, after spending countless evening, breathing in the aroma from the neighbour’s barbie, hearing the laughters in the back garden, thinking how nice it would be, I decided I am getting myself a barbie for Christmas this year. Actually for the family.

And so we did. I walked into a barbie shop with Chloe last Tue morning, greeted by a very helpful middle aged salesman, half hour later and a phone call with the husband, I was sold. He was honest, straight to the point and he thought Chloe was cute as a button.

So, we spent an hour this afternoon putting it together and we had out first barbie at home this evening. I was thinking, this will be a way for the husband to do the cooking on the weekend. Hee hee.

And we are definitely having a barbie for this year’s family Christmas dinner. I am not cooking a big fat turkey with the oven going at 200 deg c and when it is forcasted to be 39 deg on Xmas day and at the same time with my air conditioning going at full blast, it just seems so silly!