New Toy from Ikea

Xavier had his last pneumococcal jab today at Kid's Clinic. Dr. Allison was surprised at his motor skills (being able to walk without support at 12 months). He even reversed a few steps when Dr. Tan walked towards him and that, Dr. Tan says, is an advance motor skill for baby his age. As parents, these comments put a grin on our faces.

He also had fun playing with one of the toys at the clinic that we decided to get it for him at Ikea. Here's a video of him entertaining himself at home.

Xavier, 12 months on...

"The Road is Long..."

Xavier's progressing very well. He was stumbling around trying to walk on his own just before his birthday and now he is trying to run. This year's CNY has by far been the most tiring for Lilian and I as we followed behind Xavier's every step (like bodyguards) to prevent him from destroying other peoples' houses we are visiting.

We were at my uncle's place for the usual CNY dinner and he found something new to explore, The Stairs. He was having fun climbing each step slowly on his own. I wanted to capture a shot of him going up and many of the shots were blurred as the lighting was low and I didn't have my flash with me.

As I reviewed my shots, this shot turn out to be my favorite. In fact, the lyric "The road is long..." from the song "He Ain't Heavy, His My Brother" began to sing in my head when I saw the shot.

He can call out a few words and "Ball" is his favorite. He use it to refer to almost anything and everything. He is always swaying his body and head when he hears dance music, as if he is ready to dance. He is also more responsive during play time. Here's a video of him clapping along with the song.

Here's a video of him parading his birthday balloons at home.

Here's a video of him getting his haircut for CNY.

Happy 1st Birthday Xavier!

Exactly this time one year ago, Xavier broke Lilian's water bag when she was at her friend's place eating CNY cookies and playing games like "in-between". Time really flies as we celebrate Xavier's Birthday today (actual day is tomorrow).

Initially we wanted to have a party by booking one of those function rooms but we changed our mind after doing up the guest list and realise its gonna be too big to handle. So we decided to just have lunch with immediate families and cut the cake at our place.

We still got him the balloons though.

Happy Birthday Hat Balloon with customisable name.

Huge 1st Birthday Balloon.

The 1st Birthday Bouquet from Xavier's view.

Xavier having fun with his balloons.

Xavier checking out the menu to see what to order at Noble House.

Lilian and Xavier sharing a light moment. Xavier is pratising how to "Gong Xi, Gong Xi" with mandarins.

Pooh Bear Surprise Deco-set and Xavier's 2-Tier cake.

His cake with his one year old candle. The deco-set is pretty cool as all three characters seems to be looking at the candle.

Xavier up close and personal with his cake.

Blow the candle!!!

Happy family.

I will be uploading the rest of the photos onto my Flickr over the next few days so check them out next week. Special thanks to Johnson for helping us with the photo taking at such short notice. You certainly made Xavier's day. See how happy he is at dinner time?

Pine Garden's Cake

So many food blog post and photos I want to do, so little time...

Xavier's birthday is around the corner. We were initially planning on throwing a party for him (like those 1 year old parties at function rooms we been attending quite alot recently). But due to many reasons (Chinese New Year, want something more cozy, the need to time the party to his mood and sleeping time, etc), we decided to celebrate with the very people who are important to him now, our immediate families.

But we wanted to get him a nice two-tier birthday cake (very popular now) since you are only 1 year old once right? Lilian wanted to check out Pine Garden's Cake and we ended up ordering the cake from there.

As we flip through the photo catalogue, I keep seeing these acronyms and a price behind. Being someone from the mountains (when it comes to cakes as I'm never really into cakes since young), I thought that's the price of the cake. It turn out its the "Artistic Charge" for designing the cake and making it pretty and this charge is on top of the cake price. All in all the cake cost just under $100 for 2kg, excluding cake toppers (toys to decorate the cake).

We initially choose a Mickey Mouse design but ended up changing it to Pooh Bear as I could not find the Mickey cake topper in the photo (the other two available were not very nice). Will post photos of the cake after his birthday. If you are looking for balloons and party flavours, I found the following two local sites useful: Kidz Party Store and Babyterror.

Anyway back to Pine Garden's Cake. Its actually a neighbourhood cake shop in Ang Mo Kio but they are actually quite famous with numerous reviews. Their must have are the Blackforest Cake and the Pandan Cake. We actually bought a few small slices of the following cakes to try. Presenting, unique Orange Zest Chocolate Cake, sexy Blackforest, innocent Lychee Martini.

Verdict from the guy from the mountains? The Blackforest is yummy. The cream is fresh and alcohol is well balanced (not overwhelming). Once you start, you dun wanna stop. The Lychee Martini taste like... Lychee Martini. I didn't like the first taste of it but the taste grows onto me. The Orange Zest Chocolate Cake (what a mouthful name) taste like those orange chocolate, nothing special.

If I were to go back again (and I will have to to pick up Xavier's cake), I would get more Blackforest, definitely. Then again, they have so many other flavors that I wanna try too, like Bailey Chocolate Crunch Cake, Raspberry Choc, Pulut Hitam, Hazelnut Crunch, Citrus Drop and many more...

Pine Garden's Cake

Blk 529 Ang Mo Kio Ave 10

#01-2369/2329

Singapore 560529