Epic Muffin Disaster

This is what happens when you insist on making muffins without a muffin tray. 

Yes, square muffins.

The result of squeezing all the muffin cups filled with the batter together, 

to prevent it from ...like... collapsing.

EPIC EPIC FAIL.

Lesson learnt- buy a Muffin Tray!

Otherwise, it tasted pretty good! =P

The Best CNY Ever (part deux)

...and the awesome weekend continued....

CNY weekend Day 3 (First day of CNY)

We decided that it was time for the boys' first trip to the Mandai Zoo! What better time we thought? It was a long weekend, it was the first day of the Chinese New Year so certainly all our fellow Chinese Singaporean citizens would be busy visiting and we had the whole of the next day to recover from whatever madness transpires at the zoo.

The entrace of the zoo as we were leaving!!!!

And what madness it was. It could have possibly been the busiest day at the zoo EVER! We were amongst, what must have been, contingents of Bangladeshi workers enjoying their long weekend and bus loads of tourists and of course about 99.36% of the expat community here in Singapore who thought it too was the best day ever to descent upon Mandai zoo.

Ipin and the billy goats. They tried to bite off my babies little toes.
Time to buy them shoes I'll say!

For our first trip, it went surprisingly well. We didn't see much cos the boys were a tad cranky from fighting the zzzzs. They were obviously thrilled. But we have the membership passes so this will be the first of many many trips to the zoo!

We thought of Auntie Imp, whose holidaying in Shanghai,
 when we were at the Orangutan enclosure!

We did spend loads of time at the Orang Utan enclosure, which I love!!! So the boys got to appreciate why the gift we had gifted Auntie Imp was a very important one!

CNY weekend Day 4

Day 4 was a 'take-it-easy' day before life resumed to its normal frantic pace. I wanted a home-cooked meal so I planned for a trip to the nearby supermarket. Hubby was craving prata so we thought we'd make a stop at a nearby prata joint for breakfast, before shopping for groceries. Yes, with the twins. We do EVERYTHING with the twins!

It was such a delightful surprise when the doorbell rang early in the morning and I found my brother and my lil nephew waiting for us to welcome them in. They had gone on a very very early morning walk at Bishan Park and stopped by to say hello. They decided to join us for prata and it became certainly more fun than if we had just gone, the 4 of us!

It was actually very very good!

Shopping at NTUC went well and I managed to get everything I needed for an Ikan Bakar lunch. I also made baked honey chicken wings for the helper who is allergic to fish and we had scrumptious stir-fried bittergourd to round off the meal!

Oh though, I forgot banana leaves, which would have done wonders to the dish. My folks have a banana tree right in front of their place, so it didn't occur to me that I'd need to buy some, seeing that I'm now a heartlander with no space to plant my own fruit trees!

I even had enough energy to round up a batch of Apple Pie Muffins. Which didn't turn out as I expected, but that's for another blog post.

The weekend ended with me sharing to hubby, ' Our weekends have never been more tiring, but they've never felt more fulfilling and rewarding either'.

The joys of parenthood. =)

The Best CNY Ever (CNY 2012)

While our New Year started off on a terrible note, our Chinese New Year certainly started off on a happy one. In fact, I think this was the best CNY I've had ever. Yes, even my nua (do nothing but sleep by the pool) CNY holiday in Bintan with the girlfriend couldn't match up with the power-ness of this year's activities!

CNY Weekend Day 1 (Saturday)

We spent Saturday morning sleeping in late. If you consider sleeping till 8.30am late. Although it was really a result of waking up several times through the night to pacify the twins, who since falling ill early this year has just been a mess when it comes to their sleeping habits! So it didn't really count.

Anyway, I disgress. We spent the rest of the day at my mom's. While the grandparents doted on the twins, Mr Eveel managed to catch an EXTRA long snooze while I managed to catch up on my reading ( I just couldn't put down the Steve Jobs Biography). Anyway, reading always trumps afternoon naps, I'll say!

CNY Weekend Day 2 (Sunday)

Ipin happily being fed a fry by Auntie R

We had a morning brunch date with R&R and lil Nikki at Bishan Park. Bishan Park is Singapore's Central Park. In my mind at least. And if so, our place would be equivalent to the most expensive apartments in Manhattan! Hur hur!

After delightful waffles, egg benedicts, coffee and a blueberry smoothi (for moi!) we walked around the park and let the boys lookse on the green green grass. They spent time connecting with mother nature, or rather sampling her smorgasboard of dried twigs, crisp brown leaves and fresh green ones. Anything they could get their little hands on!

Upin showing his selection of dried grass and twigs to lil Nikki

Late afternoon was spent at my grandmothers. It was nice to bring the kids around and bring some cheer to my grandma's old wrinkly face.

We, including my folks and my brother and his lil family, headed to Changi Airport Terminal 3 (T3) to walk around and check out the fun stuff happening there. Okay, we wanted to go to the beach, but it looked like it was going to pour, so  T3 was a great option.

Ipin posing with a very very gaudy-ly dressed up Merlion.

The boys went literally nuts at the viewing lounge. I can't decide whether I like that the floor is carpeted. It does look all soft inviting and comfy, but seriously carpets can be nasty stuff. Uncarpeted floors are sooo much easier to clean. But then again, I have never been terribly particular about my kids cleanliness. Although stomach flu over New Year's did prompt me to review my parenting philosophy.

Upin enjoying the space to crawl and climb!

Anyhoo...we did meet a lady who was by herself, and he mini bible, who spoke to us and watched the kiddos play. She told my folks that we were a very blessed family. She could sense the joy and felt that we were prosperous.

That made me happy. I later told Mr Eveel that we had so much to be thankful for. We are certainly blessed.

(....to be continued)

Cold feet n general uselessness

Shhh!!! I'm gonna share with you a little secret. I was supposed to return to work on Tuesday. Upin, who started vomiting on Monday morning was looking better and my mom-in-law, who was staying over, seemed to have a good grip of things. But as I was dressing up, I begun to feel a swarm of butterflies flutter excitedly in my stomach and I felt, like I myself,was about to vomit. Sheer and utter panic. It swept over me like a mighty wave crashing on the shores of Uluwatu. There was no way I was going to make it into the office. I was scared of the emails that awaited me. I was afraid of all the work that had been done and the notion that i wiuld never be able to catch up. I was afraid to learn that the wole world went on without me. And they didn't want me back. No, they didn't need me back. I felt sick. So I called my boss and took another day of childcare leave. But I couldn't jolly well stay home, now could I? What would my mom-in-law say? So I headed to town, parked myself at Starbucks with a skinny cappuccino and opened up my office laptop. I spent the good part of the day slowly going through emails. I felt much much better after that. And once I caught up with the stuff going on over emails, the butterflies slowly disappeared and I started to look forward to going back t the office. I'm happy to report that no panic attacks took place today and I had a good first day back at the office. Except worrying about Upin who was still sick and at my mom's! But its not all happy la la la...it is appraisal time. And looking back, I really dont have much to show for this year, It sucks, i'm usually a productive member of any team but this year...sigh..I dunno la. but I'll blog about it more, another day.

Separation Anxiety

My twins have been separated now for almost a week. Ipin is being cared for by my mom-in-law and I at home, while Upin is being cared for by my mom at my parent's place. It's really for their own good. To ensure that Upin doesn't catch what Ipin has.

But after receiving a call from my mom last night, sharing that Upin hasn't been sleeping well and crying a lot at night, I started to wonder whether separating them is really the best thing to do?

Feeling terribly guilty about being away from Upin while caring for Ipin, I went back to my parent's place last night to spend the night with Upin. My mom was right, he had restless sleep, kept crying and sobbing during the night.

I thought my heart was already in a million tiny fragments. I didn't realise that during the night it would slowly fragment into tinier and even tinier pieces. At one point, after being unable to console my sobbing child, I pulled out my iphone and showed him a video of his brother. Only then did he seem to calm down, cuddled me close and shut his eyes.

My dad told my mother, that if he could miss my mum after being a day away from her, he couldn't imagine what Upin must feel being separated from Ipin for a week. After all, they've been since the first second of life, never spent a whole day apart.

The person I'm closest too is my husband. And even I had pangs of separation anxiety when he didn't reach home the moment he was supposed to (by my own mental calculations of how long he'd take to get home from the exact second he's supposed to finish work). I threw a small fit  when he told me that he was spending some time after work getting stuff for his class. How dare he leave me for much longer that he needed to, without informing first!

Noone asked Upin whether it was ok for us to 'ship' him away for a week, either.

I can't imagine what my poor babies are feeling.

I'm starting to feel that it's better to have them together instead of wait for Ipin's diarrhea to subside.

Oh my, what am I supposed to do? This motherhood business is super tough. What was I thinking when I decided to become a mother? And what was god thinking when he gave me the 2 of them!

*SOB*

A kinda crappy start to the New Year

I had a kinda crappy start to the New Year.

We hosted a NY Eve lunch to celebrate Mr Eveel's grandmother's 79th birthday. Which was loads of fun. 

But by 8pm, Ipin (twin 2) had vomitted 5 times. So we rushed him to the emergency room. We initially thought it was related to a couple of hard knocks he's had on his head (the boy is learning to walk and seems to be in quite a hurry to learn!) but it turned out to be a tummy virus that he got from hubby and I. Yucks!

We didn't think it was the tummy virus at first, cos we had food poisoning during our annual 'pilgrimage' to Malacca and KL with the brunch kakis. But it was.

So we spent New Year's eve, day and public holiday after that in hospital. He's out of the hospital now but the diarrhea and vomiting continues. Also, to ensure that Upin, twin 1 doesn't catch what Ipin has, we've had to leave him at his grandma's. Which is horrible cos I miss him soooo much!

I don't want to talk about it anymore but want to share some lovely pics of my boys and us, before this horrible episode took place.

Ipin at my office Xmas party

Upin opening presents that Aunt Mai brought along during her visit!

The twins exploring our Maya hotel room during our KL stay- you can spot a bit of the twin towers on the right.

Gorgeous Durian Chendol at Jonker Walk @ Malacca

Last happy family photo (in Malacca) before the crappy end of year stuff took place.