Busy weekend

Adam the Cat and Laura the Bunny! Testing out the "costumes" on Saturday before party on Sunday. The theme for Kate-Lyn's (Laura's classmate) birthday party, was "Animals". Knowing that Adam wasn't keen on getting his face painted, I rummaged through the kids' dress-up box and found a tiger/cat mask for him Laura was looking forward to getting her face painted and dressing up for the party.Late morning, we noticed that Laura's left eye was a little puffy and red. She also had a lot of dried up muck (can't think what it's actually called) on her eyelashes. Does she have conjunctivitis??! If she does, then she won't be able attend the birthday party. When Laura heard that she may not be able to go to the party, she put on a brave front but we all knew she was devastated. She quietly went into her room. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore and started crying softly. PT rushed to the pharmacy to get an eye drop for her. By the evening, her left eye wasn't red anymore and not puffy. One more dose of eyedrop and she was sent to bed early.

While the kids were in bed, PT and I were out with friends. I'd met up with my former schoolmates for dinner. Six of us have been friends for many years, some going as far back as primary school. Last night was Hazel's birthday celebration. We went to a restaurant in Sect 19, PJ for dinner. This place served buffet style steamboat-Korean BBQ-teppanyaki. Yup, all three in one. Interesting concept, I thought. However, as soon as I stepped into the place, I felt uneasy. I thought the place could have been cleaner but hoped I was wrong as my friend recommended the place. When everyone arrived, we requested for the stove in the middle of the table to be started up. The staff came, flipped over the plate inside the stove and viola, we had a hot plate for BBQ and four short spikes in the middle to hold the bowl for steamboat. Teppanyaki was to be ordered from a counter at the end of the room. We all went to get our food at the buffet in anticipation of enjoying some steamboat and BBQ. There was quite a varied range of food but I noticed also that most of the food was highly processed. Crab stick, sushi-shaped seafood rolls, fish shaped fish cakes, lobster shapped shrimp cakes, fishballs, fish cakes, etc, etc. The BBQ food was marinated and ready. Just put them onto a plate, bring the food back to the table for cooking. By this point, I was getting annoyed with a fly which had been buzzing about near our table and then at the buffet line. At the back of my mind, I was concerned about getting a tummy upset from the food. Not wanting to offend my friend who chose the place, I continued taking the food. I consoled myself by thinking we're going to boil the food anyway, so hopefully we'll be safe from food poisoning.

When the waitress arrived with our "pot" for steamboat, our jaws dropped. The size of the "pot" was about as big as a soup bowl! Seriously! Needless to say, we very carefully put in the food stuff to cook, making sure we didn't cause the bowl to overflow.

Since we met up to celebrate Hazel's birthday, I'd made her a cake. Instead of one cake, I made some cupcakes which would be decorated and assembled to resemble a flower. As can be seen from the photo, the cakes were decorated by Laura and Adam.

I must say the dinner was a disappointment but company was good. It was a chance for us to catch up with each other. Halfway through dinner, my friend realised she'd booked the wrong restaurant! Aiya!!

While I was at dinner with my friends, PT was at Kurt and Andy's for dinner. Kurt had prepared baby back ribs for dinner. Fortunately, there were some left for me when I arrived later. Yummm! Nothing like homecooked food and Kurt is the king of the grill. I enjoyed more great company. We finally got home at 4am.

I woke up early to check Laura's eyes. Laura had resigned to herself that she wouldn't be attending the birthday party so she left us to sleep in. PT woke up with a start to tell me it was almost 11am, the time the party was scheduled to start! Laura woke him up earlier and he saw her eyes wasn't red anymore. Checking her eyes while still sleepy was a mistake 'coz I couldn't see properly, assumed that her eye was still red. So we all rushed to get ready to go out. I put on Laura's face paint in record time!

Laura's classmate, She Jia Xin, dressed up as an elephant.

The birthday girl, Kate-Lyn, next to Laura.

Laura enjoyed herself tremendously at the party. Adam was afraid of the entertainer who was in a gorilla suit so stayed outside the whole time the party was on. He finally went into the room when he saw the gorilla-clad entertainer get into the lift!

Seeing that the children hadn't eaten properly and it was lunch time, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. Also, we knew that Richard, the balloon sculptor would be there. He is quite familiar with us as we'd gone to HRC a few times on Sunday. Richard is there every Sunday to make balloon scupture for kids of all ages. Here he is with a poodle with chicken pox, I mean a "dalmation". The kids believed him when he said it was a dalmation, so there! Laura and Adam came home with lots of balloons.

When we were there, a group of kids arrived for a birthday part at the HRC. A set of twin girls were celebrating their 5th birthday. Their birthday cakes were two Barbie cakes with the dress being the cake. Laura looked at the cakes for a long time, then turned to me, "Mama, you won't be able to make that cake for my birthday ya? Too difficult ya?" Now that's a challenge I'm prepared to accept. Some time soon I will try to make the Barbie cake to see if I will be able to make one for Laura's birthday in June.

Then I got an sms from Kat, who reminded me about performances at the Great Eastern Mall today to celebrate Chap Goh Meh. The children and I went over just in time to miss the world-class tournament winning lion dance team. Fortunately, there were other performances on. We saw some acrobatic acts like juggling and unicycle performer. Then we saw the lion dance troupe go into the mall again. They were going to go around the mall to the various outlets. Laura and her friend Hui Yi ran after the lions to watch them perform. The two girls must have followed the lion to at least 4 outlets before they gave up. Lion dance groupie? :D


In the meantime, Adam was in the Choo Choo Train shop to play with the Thomas the Tank Engine display. He played with the set for a long time. I was beginning to feel quite embarrassed with how long he was in the shop and I hadn't purchased a single item from there. I wanted to get Adam something from the Thomas the Tank Engine range but GASP! the price of the items almost knocked me out. At least now I know what cake to make for Adam's birthday.

We were home after dinner. The children (mine and Kat's) still wanted to play on but we could see they were very tired. Sure enough, both Laura and Adam knocked out for the night soon after we got home and washed them up.