As topic, Baby Serene is One.

We actually celebrated her birthday on 8th September, few days earlier than her actual day. As a new mummy , of cos this is my 1st time organizing birthday party especially for my own baby.

Weeks or months b4 the day, I’ve actually started to roughly plan how I want the party to be. At 1st I tot of doing it at restaurant which is such an easy job. Somehow on the second thought, I guess make it over the house will be more meaningful and easier to invite guest.

Other than venue, I keep on google on Pororo themed cake, and which its mostly made of Fondant. I only love Fondant for its artwork but definitely not for its cake. So I did manage to contact a few local online bakery, somehow the price seems to be freaking over our budget. I mean will you spend over rm350 for a pororo fondant cake? I will instead buy real pororo and put on top the cake and still it wouldn’t cost that much. So for us, we think its a bit over budget hence I decided to go for a local bakery and try my luck there. Finally I found one and they charge RM100 for this little half kilograms pororo fondant cake. It’s definitely still expensive but at least it’s within our budget and Serene is happy with it.

Party deco also part of my job. I knew becos I never had a birthday party like this b4 so I would like to fancy up for my baby just to fulfil my own dreams. I bought a lot of deco from taobao, yes, I order from china and post it here. The funny thing is, I was too bz and ended up some of the item I forget to take it out .

I have bought mickey and minnie balloons for the kids who attend the party instead of goodies bag I think this will make them happier. At least I feel so. Thanks to my friend who helped me pump the balloon gas.

For the food, I ordered catering from a nearby restaurant. Luckily it taste good and the portion was overloaded. I ordered for 40 person but it turned out to be enough for 60 people.

For Serene herself, I believe she did not enjoy the party. We started the party at 5.30pm just to prevent mosquitoes but somehow she is still over sensitive. She got the whole body swollen, probably due to allergies. By 8pm we ended up at Columbia Asia emergency ward. Luckily the swollen part is gone after medicine.

She woke up happily the next morning to enjoy all the birthday presents. It’s always to see her back in shape. It’s always the most torturing part when you see your baby is feeling unwell.

On her actual day, my mother in law played the picking items game with baby. Her 1st item was a calculator. Then she took a drumstick and she refused to out it down. I am not sure if sje can be a good accountant or not nut for the second choice, I have confirm that she is a super tamjiak girl.

That marks the great 1 year old of Baby Serene. Going through ups and downs. You are such a tough girl baby! Mummy is so proud of you. You are always my miracle

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mummy. Life has been fast forwarding. This is my 1st own Mother’s Day. It also marks baby 8th month.

I should feel grateful,  感恩, baby is growing healthily.  This is already the best gift I’ve got for mother’s day.

Looking back at the past months, not only I’ve gain lots of new knowledge but baby is also learning and growing up together.

From a 1 month old baby, she has already own the fighting spirit to recover from her operation. Thats something I should learn from my baby. She has been strong all these while to overcome everything, not giving mummy and daddy too much difficulties.

Month by months, we can see her growing up. She learns to flip over when she is 2 months plus. Her head is up steadily when she is 4 months. She grow teeth when she is 5 months. 6 months she start to sit and trying to explore. 7 months she begins to crawl and walk happily in her walker. 

Now she is 8 months. 

Every morning when she wakes up, she will stand in her crib and smile to me instead of crying to me. How sweet of her.

4 more months till she is 1 year old and many many years to go.

Once again, happy Mother’s day to all mummy ! Your hard works pay off today!

Baby nowadays can be rich if the parents start doing financial planning for them. Of course, I can’t make her rich in a day but I’m actually save for her rainy days.

Before I proceed this post, really have to say many many thanks to all family and friends for their gifts and angpow for Baby Serene. Apart of the fullmoon gifts,  she also receives quite a lot of angpow during Chinese New Year. So its my duty to spend save it wisely.

I am not a good financial planner but I do get several ideas from friends. So basically I’m just follow what others do. I remember when I was a kid, all my angpow will be surrender to my mom. She says she save for me but I do not have any saving account at that time. I wonder where does all those money gone, maybe its already spent on my studies.

Junior savings account
My friend introduce me to get a saving account that comes with good interest rate. So I went to RHB and get further details.  Its actually an account that joints under my name. So I am the authoriser to all her transaction.

The interest rate if not mistaken comes with 3.0% per annum. It gives dividends every 6 months. Which is pretty nice. Other than that , the kids will be entitled for personal accident insurance as long as the savings balance more than RM500.  Last but not least, junior accounts must come with toys!

I got this when I firstly open an account. I was given an elephant. I did not aware of the toys but then my friend told me as long as I can deposit RM200, they will reward you with a toy coin box. So I try again last week, and yes, this time I got a crocodile!

At least the coin box is something that encourage the kids to save money.

Come to the end, practice some savings is always good. Create a saving account is the most basic way to start it. Some parents may choose to create FD accounts or any other type of investment. I beg that kids would be richer that way! For me, start it from a simple way will do. Hope this guide could help your baby too!

Baby topic again.

Baby Serene finally start to grow tooth. She likes to bite a lot, which it started to be like this months ago. Then on one fine evening, she was biting my fingers, and I suddenly felt the tooth in her mouth!

Yeah, she is 6 months now. I guess she is following the growing path. I’ve started some solid food with her recently. Only gave her some cerelac rice into her milk. Other than that I do give her some baby biscuits to chew. She likes it a lot.

One thing I’m quite uncertain is her stool seems different from before. As I mentioned, she is now taking anmum. She used to have pass motion once per day but lately it becomes twice a day. That’s start to make me worry. Somehow I try to google for answer it seems normal. So I guess I just being paranoid.

Then again, she likes to bite and chew, she can’t leave on her pacifier whenever she wants to sleep or even during her sleep. I believe her teething must be very irritating. I know its not good to let baby keep sucking on pacifier but thats the better way to soothe her. Now her face will have rashes due to long hour sucking on pacifier. I have to put on moisturising lotion for her.

I got this lotion from SMDC last time. Cetaphil moisturising lotion. Its very expensive,  RM44 discounted price. Found that its good for sensitive skin baby. Its not very common brand but at least is safe for my baby. You can get it from local pharmacy.

My mom nagged me to start giving her solid food such as porridge. She bought some good Bario rice which is softer and nicer. So I try my best to cook some for her when I have free time. I am not sure if the nanny would mind to cook for her or not. I think the problem is not on the cooking but on the feeding! Spoon feeding is more time consuming than bottle feed!

I’m trying more kind of solid food on her now. Will update here again when I’ve done the experiment on her. Haha

Now the tooth is out, I guess the next step will be sitting on her own. Follow by crawling. Then it will definitely time for me to chase her around. Although it’s really tiring in taking care the baby but I’m actually enjoying it.

Always appreciate the bonding time with your baby, when she grows bigger you will definitely miss her baby time.

I guess every parents spent the most on their baby’s formula. Understand that breastfeeding is the most cost saving way but not every mom can do fully breastfeed. I only fed my baby up to 3 months, yet I wasnt fully breastfeed. My supply is not enough for her demand.  She has been formula most the time.

When she was born,  the hospital fed her with mamax which we continue it for a month. We noticed that her stool is very watery which is not so good at first. Follow on baby keep crying and refused to sleep, we figured out there’s something not right. Hence we google out, the reason might be colicky baby.

So we changed her formula to Novalac Ac, which only available at local pharmacy. We’ve been feeding her Novalac AC for 5 months. A tin of 800g cost RM60.50 which I think is cheaper compared to any other common brand. The pharmacist told me its because Novalac is an old brand and they did not need to do publicity, hence the price are cheaper. My baby conditions does improve from time to time. Her stool also gets more solid which is a healthy sign.

As time goes by, Ive been thinking to switch to some common brand. Reason to change basically is because Novalac AC is specialised formula treating colicky baby, since baby is fine now it should be time for those formula with more DHA. Ive tried S26 gold before, but baby seems not so fancy with it. So I stick back to Novalac.

Recently I try Snow NEO BABY. I started it with small tin , she adapt it quite well. The stools are fine as well. So I decided to go for bigger size but who knows her stool become greenish and too watery. I didn’t expect this to happen. Ive bought 2 big tins. I discussed with nanny(babysitter) and get some opinion from other mummy, so I decided to make a change again. This time, I go for Anmum.

At first I get a box of free sample from the clinic that we always visit. Noticed that the stools are getting better. Once again I slowly switch to Anmum. I just started Anmum for 5 days, so far the stool are changing to normal. Hope it persist then I can keep on feeding her with Anmum. I realise also Anmum is not as sweet as other formula. Its less oily as well. Oh ya, another good thing about anmum is you can keep the plastic scoop and send it for gift exchange.  Thats pretty good idea.

Comparing the scoop for each oz, anmum also has the smallest scoop too. Meaning that you can save a little bit by bit of the formula.

Everytime when I make a change, I will also have a few sip of the milk just to check out the taste. So far the most awful taste is Enfalac and S26. Im not sure why but maybe I hate strong milk and yet both of that are quite oily.

Enough of changing, I pray hard this is the last change. Baby is 6 months old now, she need to start on solid food so I must make sure her digestion is good before I start anything solid.

This post marks her 6th months! Happy 6th months Baby Serene !

I went to do some grocery shopping with my mom this morning.  Knowing that I still have few vouchers to spend before it expired so I quickly grab this chance to buy more diapers for my baby.

So this topic come to my mind, what is actually the best diapers in the market. I ever search for this question in google but actually there’s none the best diapers only the most preferable.

In case you are here because you wanted to know some diapers knowledge as well then come and read this on.

From this picture above , you actually can see 3 major brands of diapers. You might be curious why all these brand seems not so common. I know, common brands are like huggies and mamipoko right?

Personally I dont like both huggies and mamipoko. I used to buy that but too bad its not suitable for my baby. Huggies total protect, the one in red packings, cant stand for heavy flow. I need to change diapers around 3-4 hourly. If use it on day time it should be fine. Huggies is good if your baby skin is sensitive. Also on the diapers packing it actually come wirh wetness indicator. However looking at the cost I would rather use whoopee.

Whoopee is another new brand. Heard its only available in Malaysia. When I first started to use I doubt its quality as well. The size is consider a bit small if compared to mamipoko. But everytime when I change diapers, my baby skin is dry. So I believe it has a very good absorbent.  Its only rm0.4+ per piece, which I think is the vheapest brand ive tried.

For night time I will give my baby Pampers diapers. This brand used to be
very common in the old days. Where everyone call diapers as pampers regardless of brands. However, I cant actually find this brand in local supermarket nowadays.  Im not sure why. Since Miri is very near to Brunei so I choose to buy it from there. It cost about rm0.6+ which is cheaper than mami poko.

Sometimes I will still encounter leakage if baby keep sleeping on 1 side. It dont really happen that often tho.

Anyway, all these are just my own preference. Definitely there’s no such  things as best diapers. Its all depends on your baby skin also. Hope this post is helpful to you. Happy parenting!

I bet this is nothing new for everyone else except me. Mobile blogging has exist since long time ago . Its just the matter of time for the apps to improve.

So today finally I receive my Samsung galaxy Note II back from service center. Well it really gives me a big headache ever since I switch to this phone.

Initially I am big apple fans. But then I changed to this Note II for its flexibilities for media. Who knows this phone has caused me so much problem.

My Samsung Note II problem:
There’s one plot on the right of the screen is less sensitive.  Solved.

The memory card always removed by itself and whole memory card condemned. So they change the whole chip. He even called me personally to guide me not to overly abuse the memory card. Thats because I keep on watching downloaded drama using 3rd party software.  According to him , this is too heavy for its processor.  Hence the memory card keep on failure.  I accept his explanation.

My gallery has always slow in loading. Probably because I sync too much with other accounts.  So this time I do not sync my photo just let it be purely on camera photo only. So far, so good.

So now, it shows me this error again. Sim card will not be detected after a while. Even in the midst of a call. This is not fun. I guess I should change a new sim card before I send back to warranty again. Else they will have new excuse ask me to change from Celcom to other operators. Haha!

Lets pray hard my phone will be alright.

In order to make sure I still remember how to blog, so I am forcing myself to upload my recent Korea trip photos and share it up here. It’s really good to be back to blogging. I just read back all my previous post, I really put my effort to keep my blog tidy and interesting. Imagine those days I have to edit photos using Photoshop just because those days there’s not much tools to simplify the editing process. Things are getting simpler with the advancing of the technology, so I believe there’s no more excuse other than lazy for me to continue blogging.

So this is a pretty heavy steps to step on before I start.

I am lazy to edit photo, so I just update directly to flickr. Not sure if it’s still functioning as before but I try.

Let’s begin with my Korea Travelogue again, although it wouldnt be as comprehensive as before, but I shall treat it as a diary That’s it!

It’s definitely a good news, because we were given chance to participate Sunweu Elite Partner’s Korea Trip 2013.

Our trip was backdated on Jan 2013. It’s winter in Korea, so I’ve actually need to be well prepared before I leave for the trip. I was so excited also because it’s our first Korea trip and it’s also the 1st time experiencing real snow in my life! That’s amazing !!

One of the itinerary in this trip was going to the SKI. So we were given 1 night to stay at this Vivaldi Park. All the SKI equipment and clothing are provided, or actually they rented it for us. So we just need to measure our size at a shop and they will hand it over to us. If you are going by your own, you can either buy it or rent it there.

This is the view from our hotel room. The SKI park operate till very late, which around 2am I still can see people skiing at the park.

The hotel rooms are actually apartment style,  which comes with 2 rooms. All the rooms are complete with TATAMI style , we actually sleep on the floor. Since it’s winter, there’s no aircond needed and all their floors are installed with heater which will keep us warm.

Then, this is how the Ski park looks like in the morning.

So the Ski experience begins the next morning. We had rented what we should, so hanging around with friends over the night with the local wine, SOJU. That’s really great experience to drink in such a cold weather. Oh, did i tell you the weather was NEGATIVE degrees? I can’t exactly remember how cold it was but I only know the coldest went down to -17c. That’s crazy!

The moment we enter the Ski park, the snow begans. Everyone is getting more excited with the snow.

It’s really not an easy task to wear up all these. I am too bulky to move, I skate instead of walk. It’s really too heavy. Especially the shoes, they says you will feel like a ROBOT. That’s true. The shoes must be tight in order to hold the blade. Everything is so difficult for an inexperience beginner.

Our tour guide will coach us how to Ski. Somehow, we were actually only given 2 hours to experience it. We are not here to be professional anyway. So everyone start to walks like a crab. I have to be honest that I’m totally a failure for this sport.

I only went to ski for 1 round, I fell down, so I gave up immediately. It will be full of fracture if I keep on falling down. I let Alex go have fun with others. While waiting, let me fully experience the cool air and the SNOW!  I’m not the one who keep falling down, see in the picture, at least 2-3 people is on the ground. When you are practicing on Ski , you will totally forget about the cold weather. In fact you will be sweating because you keep on moving. That’s really a good exercise.

Lot’s of local Korean will likes to spend their weekends at Ski Resort. This Ski resort is only an hour away from Seoul.

Snow is getting more, I am getting more excited. I think I spent at least an hour at outdoor. I am so brave. Cos I am not skiing and I was just there enjoying the scene and breeze. Crazy!

The streets are full of snow too . What a beautiful scenery. But watch out the slippery floor, it’s very dangerous too!

Sweet Sweet moment in Korea 2013. We enjoyed the trip very much!

We are heading back to Seoul after the ski resort. More travelogue to update!