Baby Lucas is one month old!

Baby Lucas turned one month old on Nov 26, and we had a mini celebration with family and close friends to celebrate.

Update - he's chubbier now, thanks to the constant supply of fresh milk from his cow (that's me :P). When I weighed him at home on my digital weighing scale, he was 3.8kg on Dec 1 - not a bad accomplishment.






Too bad he couldn't eat any of his cakes...


The star was mostly sleeping throughout the event, but attracted lots of "visitors" like an animal in a zoo (Baby Paul Frank outfit courtesy of Aunty Irene)

Back to (sewing) school

Ok, I suppose you can't exactly consider it sewing, more like "Dummy's guide to teddy bear making". But well, with much anticipation over my goddaughter's impending visit (yes, I've missed her so much since the last time I saw her in Sep!), I decided to give, or make, her something that she will like, and her mummy suggested a teddy bear (why not?).

I made a trip to Spotlight, when they sell all sorts of stuff for arts and craft, but no luck. No ready-packed DIY teddy bear kit there.

It was with much delight when I chanced upon it at Toys R Us a few weeks later, when I was there with Pi for his usual toy hunt. It seems easy enough, and with my handicraft and sewing experience, it should not be a daunting task for me.

And indeed, it wasn't. I only realized, when I got home, that the kit was meant for children above 3 years old - well, that's me alright.

And after a few hours of intensive work in front of the telly one night, here is the result!

Ta da!




Notice the customized bits? Well, I'm proud to say that these were not in the instructions, but I wanted to make it "Kayla's bear", so there!

Oh yes, before I get "bashed" by Pi for forgetting him, he did contribute to the bear-making process - by helping me sort out the wool for stuffing into the bear. Better something than nothing, right?

Of families and celebrations

It's been a hectic last week for me, hence my "disappearance" from the blog.

I've been sick all week - drats to that flu bug that started with a sore throat on Sat and progressed to a full-blown flu with blocked nose, cough and all. I think the bug is travelling around the office too - with many of my colleagues also feeling under the weather.

It didn't help that last week was earnings week, which meant that I had no respite from work. I was literally working my ass off arranging one media interview after another, at the same time having performance reviews for my staff and preparing for a global launch. It's times like this that I really wonder why I'm the only one in the office doing real work - and at a lower pay than some of my peers, no less! I'm really not in an envious position, as glamorous as the title may sound.

Ok, enough about work.

I did find time for some quality family bonding over the weekend. Sat was Nana's 1st birthday party (in advance of the actual day, which falls on a Monday), and my brother had rented a holiday chalet (more like a bungalow actually) over the weekend. The Ong Fam stayed over for the night, and I had fun playing with the two gals. The only part I didn't enjoy was the unearthly hour of 10am (ok, it was not that early :P) that we all had to wake up the next day, but breakfast with the Fam at Ah Kun saved the day - boy, that morning cup of kopi-o is really a lifesaver.

After a short nap in the afternoon to make up for our lack of sleep, Pi and I met his mum and brother (and his gf) for some crabbing time! Yes, I'm talking about my favourite Mellben crab bee hoon and chilli crab *yum* and flu or no flu, it's not going to deter me from them! Pi's brother gave us a treat to thank us for treating him so well (*blush*).

My only grouse was that the crabs that day were not at their best - they weren't really big and the meat was not that full. But it was still really delicious! Between the 5 of us, we polished off 3 crabs, 10 fried mantous and a plate of sambal veggie in no time at all.

You know you're with family (and true friends) when you can drop all pretences and dive in to good crab with both hands - finger licking and all (the same goes for KFC, by the way. I told Pi that I used to order nuggets at KFC cos I didn't want to attack the chicken with both hands, lest he thought I was not ladylike, but now that he's "fallen into the trap" - haha - there was no need for me to pretend anymore).

At the end of the day, we went back with full tummies and I, with full contentment that I had spent yet another fulfilling weekend with family.

One for the road - the Ong Fam:

Tinkling with the falsies (Part 1)

Ok, here's the promised post on my trial with the falsies... *ta da*

Since a few weeks ago, I have been toying with the thought of going for eyelash extensions, cos I simply adore the doll-eyed look that many Jap gals are sporting. It's also the lazy gal's cure to the daily tweezing and mascara.

But after hearing horror stories on the Internet while doing some background research (yes, they say that when the extensions drop, they bring some of your natural eyelashes with them, which means that you will end up with bald patches which will take forever to grow back!), I decided to take the safer route and experiment with falsies first to judge the effect before deciding on the next step.

Trial 1:
I think this was on 23 Dec, just before my dinner date with Evon. I have bought two pairs of falsies from The Face Shop (upon a friend's recommendation), and decided to try one of the less dramatic ones (the criss-cross one which is supposed to look more natural).

Before


And after



Somehow, it looks really scary and unnatural. So in the end, I took them out, applied some eyeliner and went out without them.

When I shared my experience with Evon, she recommended me some more natural looking ones from Sasa instead. These sport thinner base line (the line holding the lashes together, if you know what I mean), so they are less obvious on the lids. I bought one box of 10 pairs (unfortunately, they only come in that) for a second trial.

Trial 2:
On Xmas eve, I tried the ones from Sasa.



Not bad at all, at least they don't look frightening, although my only grouse was that they are not as obvious, but it's not bad at all for a first successful try!

Verdict:
I'm loving it (although Pi still prefers the au naturel me, hehe), and I'm definitely going to sport those falsies more often. And I'm already planning another trip down to Sasa to get the other thicker and lushier ones... ;)

Welcome to the dark side...

After reading all the rave reviews on the forums, I kept a look-out for it when I made yet another visit to one of my fav shops, Daiso.

Let me digress here for a while, as I rave on about my fav shop...

Yes, at Daiso, you never know what you are going to find. There are all sorts of contraptions for all sorts of stuff, that you'll be amazed by the creativity of the Japanese. And the best thing of all, they are not going to burn a hole in your pocket at just $2! So no more pondering over whether you should buy it - I figured, what the heck, it's just $2, just go for it! There's nothing to lose after all!

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. So when I finally found it, I was sooooo happy, I quickly grabbed a tube before anyone else could lay their hands on it.

So, what am I talking about? Here it is...


Yes, this little tube of black goo that supposedly can do wonders for your face. It's a charcoal mask purported to have blackhead and whitehead removing properties. For the more hairy ones, this can even remove your baby facial hair, doing away with the trip to the face threader (is this what they call them?).

Being the one with sensitive skin, I of course tried it out on my guinea pig.

After washing Pi's face and doing some manual extraction of Pi's blackheads (a beauty routine that I regularly perform on Pi and something which he enjoys a lot, although maybe not the end result - the red spots on his face that sometimes stay for a few days!), I spread a generous amount of the goo on Pi's face.

Here's Pi looking all relaxed, not knowing how frightening he looks...






According to the instructions from the forums (since I can't understand the instructions on the tube as they are in Japanese), let it dry for 20 minutes, and then tear the hardened charcoal sheet off. Voila, a clean face totally removed of blackheads, whiteheads and what nots!

Isn't this amazing?

Now, I'm wondering whether to try it on myself....

Oh yes, and I'm dragging Pi to Daiso again on Mon! :)