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Food & Feeding

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Prior to Christmas, Emma made a list of things she would like to do before or by Christmas.  One of them was to bake gingerbread men.

And I only discovered we had time yesterday, on Christmas Day itself, to do it….so it was a fun home activity we did.  The process took a little longer than I had envisioned, because the dough had go be chilled and hardened, and then rolled out, and cut and then chilled again, before they could be baked.

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So we made some gingerbread men, and some gingerbread women, trees, snowmen, candy canes…

The fun part was piping the sugar icing on them to decorate!

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Something caught her eye in the candy store not too long ago.

We walked in and she exclaimed, “Gummy worms!! Please Mommy, can we buy them?”

“Sorry, not today, darling,” I said, trying to buy time.

Apparently her friend brings them to school as a snack. :O :O

Really?!!! Sugar, chemicals and other unpronounceable stuff?

No thanks.

So I did what any (smart) mommy would do: make our own gummy worms.

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Yummy gummy worms with ingredients we know and love, including Ningxia Red which has the goodness of wolfberries to support good eyesight!

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Kids love ‘em and adults have to fight for them with the kids… hahahaha

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Today we are making gummy bears too. Fancy some? 

Hannah turned 8 in March but I’m only blogging about it now. Yep, ticking off all my items on my long to-do list 🙂

She had a celebration in Adventurezone before but she loves it so much that she wanted a sequel, so her 8th birthday celebration was held there too.

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Happy birthday Hannah, and may all your dreams come true!

Note: We fully respect your privacy and understand how and why it is important, so if you see a picture of your child in this post and would prefer for me to blot out his/her face, please email me at joyce.cheah (at) gmail.com and I will do the needful.  Thank you.

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It’s the Year of the Monkey – reason enough to monkey around?  Well, definitely reason enough to eat loads of yummy yummy food (not just bananas) and have lots of great fun!

Traditional Reunion Dinner and 1st Day Chinese Lunar New Year in Ah Mah and Ah Kong’s house in Ipoh:

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A simple dinner gathering back home in Penang:

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Wishing everyone a happy, blessed and prosperous year ahead full of health and love in abundance!

Just over 2 weeks ago, after some positive reinforcement and influence from some girlfriends of mine, I decided to start drinking fresh vegetable and fruit juices.  I stocked up on fresh vegetables and fruits and decided to use my immersion blender, just so I could get all the fiber too.  My sole intention of drinking green juices was to help to heal my eczema from inside out, and hopefully the goodness will pass on to my breast milk and that will in turn heal Emma’s eczema too.

The ingredients I chose were primarily green, with the occasional orange.  I added water or soy milk depending on my mood.  The resulting drink is a nutritious, and somewhat filling green smoothie.

On one occasion, however, as I was holding my cup of green smoothie, and carrying Emma at the same time, she quickly grabbed my cup and put it to her mouth.  I relented and let her have a taste.

Well, well…surprisingly she loved it and kept asking for more!  She drinks the juice and eats the fiber..maybe like 4-5 sips but it’s a healthy and promising start! 🙂

So now, since I have an accidental green juice lover in the house, I make my own organic soy milk from organic soy beans and use it to make the green smoothie.  That way, I can be sure there are no preservatives and sugars added to the smoothie for Emma to drink.

Have you had your green juice today? 🙂

Cribside Chomping!

Would you just look at how Hannah lovingly takes care of her little baby sister, by offering her a drink?

This certainly brings back memories…see?  This was what Ethan did to Hannah some years back when she was just starting to learn how to drink from a straw.

Simply, amazingly PRECIOUS!

Two days ago, we gave Emma her first solids.  This time around, I figured I would attempt Baby Led Weaning.  It’s a relatively new concept and the more I’m learning about it, the more it’s making a whole lot of sense.

Basically with Baby Led Weaning, the baby is given “real food”, as in food that is as close as possible to what we as adults would eat (minus the salts and sugars, of course).  With Baby Led Weaning, there will be no food purees and mushy food that is always linked to weaning a baby.  A baby is encouraged to feed herself by holding on to food and chomping or munching as much or as little as she wants.  At the same time, breastfeeding is fully encouraged and baby can drink as much as she wants.

I’ve read that babies who adopt Baby Led Weaning tend to have healthier appetites, are not fussy eaters and become more independent with feeding themselves.  This in turn (hopefully) will result in happier meal times, because the entire family eats together.  Another obvious PLUS is of course that I don’t need to spend time making ground rice, pureeing fruits and vegetables and frozen food cubes! 😀

I’m still learning about Baby Led Weaning as I go along, so if there are any of you out there who has advice or suggestions, please feel free to let me know! 🙂

So I didn’t buy any rice cereal this time.  Instead, for Emma’s first solids, I boiled some soft Bario red rice grains and shaped them into little rice balls.  The boiled Bario red rice looked a little like porridge, soft and palatable.

She grabbed the little rice balls immediately.  But I suppose her hand-to-mouth coordination is not that advanced yet, so she didn’t really know what to do with the rice balls!

She ended up chomping away on the side of the bowl!

When she threatened to fling the bowl over the side of the food tray, I decided to place the food on the tray itself, so she could have easier access to it.

Well, she didn’t eat much of the rice that first time.  I did allow her to hold the bowl again, and she happily licked the bowl a little! 😛

I didn’t expect her to eat much this first time anyway.

Today, I tried again, and she did put a little into her mouth, but she became quite frustrated when she could not eat a lot (we think).  So I used a spoon and fed her small tiny spoons of the red rice porridge.

Guess what?  She grabbed onto the spoon and nibbled at the porridge!  Looks like she likes it!

And she drank some water too after that, with a sippy cup!

Great job, Emma!  Mommy is so proud of you!  Here’s to more healthy eating days ahead!

Hannah has certainly come a long way learning how to eat with chopsticks.

Using a pair of regular chopsticks fixed together with chopstick holders (to enable kids to learn this skill), she eats her slippery udon this way.  Personally I find it more difficult to use the chopsticks with the holders, compared to her training chopsticks at home, but Hannah seems to be able to master it pretty well.

She’s always asking me if she’s holding the chopsticks correctly too!

During the past one month where I have been learning about this new world I’m in, Daddy and Mommy has brought me to so many new places!  So many new things to see, I can safely assume I have been to more places than most of the newborns around! 🙂

  • I visited my pediatrician twice; once when I was 2 weeks’ old and one more time when I was a month old.  I didn’t like it when they undressed me and placed me on this weighing scale thing, but Daddy and Mommy sure seemed happy after they took my weight.  Also, I had a Hepatitis B jab during my 2nd visit.  Didn’t like that at all!  Hmmph.
  • I’ve followed Daddy, Mommy, Ethan and Hannah out on countless occasions to several restaurants for their meals.  Japanese food, Vietnamese food, fast food…they sure eat a LOT.  Me?  I’m just contented with Mommy’s breast milk – yummy!
  • One several occasions, they brought me along to this ice cream store called Coldstone Creamery where they bought their ice cream to go.  Daddy said something about me crying, so they had to get it to go.
  • I’ve also been to grocery stores, sometimes just Mommy and me.  It’s never too early to learn about shopping, they say.  Mommy pushed me around in a stroller and managed to get the groceries done.
  • Mommy has also brought me along to my brother Ethan’s school to drop him off, and she also takes me down with her when she drops my sister Hannah off at her school.  The cool weather is just right for me, but there were a couple of days when it was a little bit windy.  I heard Mommy saying that it’s much warmer now and that it was a good thing I was born a little later, after the unforgiving cold winter.

I’m looking forward to more exciting outings ahead…psst…I heard that they are planning some as we speak!  Well, I ain’t complaining as long as they keep me clean and dry and ensure that my supply of milk is readily available all the time! 😀

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