Our Bundle of Joy, Joel Tan (陈俊文)

Today, Joel is 2 weeks old.

Mummy's favorite picture

Joel arrived to this world on 25th of Jan 2009 @ 9:05pm... It was a Chinese New Year Eve. He was weighed at 2.8kg and at the length of 50cm.

Joel's Tag

I went through a hard long labor. Joel was in a very awkward position during labor. Though his head was engaged to my cervix but his body was curved toward the left. Initially, Doc used vacuum to pull Joel out but FAILED. So, he quickly changed to forceps. When he was trying to pull baby out, he realized that baby's unbiblical cord entangled around his neck. Getting an EXPRERIENCED doctor is very important at this point. It was too late to go for emergency C-sect. My Doc quickly unwind it and pull my baby out safely. Well, poor Joel suffered few bruises here and there. So, when he was out, he was frustrated and tired at the same time. He didn't cry very loudly. Doc suggested that to keep him in ICU for a night for observation. Thank GOD he was OK.

How about ME? Was I in PAIN? Hehehe.... Thank GOD I was on Epidural. So, I didn't really feel the 'pain' throughout the labor. But I could feel the whole process of baby being pulled out. I'm sure without Epi, I'll faint!

Thanks to nurses and midwife from Mount Alvernia, They were very caring and patience. I always thought nurses from hospital were very fierce and unforgiving. But not them, they are encouraging and they even cheered for me when I was pushing. ;) Of cos thanks my Doc, who did a great job in delivering my baby. We will like to apologize to him for rushing back to hospital after his reunion dinner. =P

Well, my dear husband was with me the whole time. He was asked to cut Joel's unbiblical cord and shouted "I AM DADDY" (X3)....

That was me in delivery suite

Baby Joel

Joel with Daddy. Joel looks exactly like his dad.

Joel with Mummy

I've uploaded more other Joel's photos in my Flickr album. Feel free to browse.

Baby Joel is really a gift from GOD. I would never thought having a beautiful child of my own.

Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
(Psalms 127:3-5 ESV)

Crazy me! Baking Chocolate Chip Muffins...

Counting down to Joel's coming.... My actual delivery date is on 21st of Jan 09, Wednesday, which means 2 more days to go... My gynae said if he still refuse to come out after the actual date, then he'll need to do something about it... I pray that, Joel will come naturally.

BUT I still feel like baking... Some of my friends said I'm crazy... but just couldn't help it... The night before, I bought 2 cakes of butter from NTUC and my husband was giving me that look 'ARE YOU SURE?'.. Managed to convince him that the butters can be kept for future use and it's on promotion (Buy 2 @ S$3 something)... 

So, yesterday, I've baked Chocolate Chips Muffins!!! I got the recipe from Rei's Double Chocolate Chips Muffins. You can find the recipe here.

I don't have cocoa powder at home, so I replaced it with 2 tablespoons of MILO.... Taste great!

It's really easy to make... Took me less than half an hour to prepare the batter... All done in one single mixing bowl.... ;)

Give it a try!

Our Baby Room

Guess what! Our baby room is double the size of our master bedroom!! Lucky Joel! What you see here is only 1/4 of the room.

The wall is originally red. The Chinese believes that you are not suppose to use the paint during pregnancy, otherwise baby will have birthmark on his face. Well, I don't really believe it but I believe that paint has lethal chemicals and it's not safe for pregnant women. So, it's better to paint after delivery. :) Hence, we decided not to paint the room until baby is born. And I will like the wall to be in blue.

In order to decorate the room, we have wall decal across a portion of the room. We changed the curtain that bought from Ikea. Besides that, pasted some cute wall stickers. Simple but I like it. :)

Oh, that froggie is a laundry basket that I got from 'pasar malam' (night market). :)

"Dear baby Joel, this is what mama and papa can do for you for the time being... Hope you'll like it... "

Baby Project No.4 - Hot Air Balloon

My fingers are numb and very swollen since few days ago... :( Crafting has became a challenge to me cos I can't hold needles & scissors for very long....

So, took me awhile to complete this project. And think this will be my last project before going for my delivery and confinement.

Tea Break - Apple Cinnamon Muffins

What's for tea break today?

I had an early lunch and was hungry around 2 plus. Suddenly thought of baking muffins. Rei told me that baking muffins is the easiest and less washing because just throw all ingredients into one big ball & mix them all together. Besides that, I was trying to use whatever that available in my kitchen.

Let see, I had left-over butter (around 70g) and self-raising flour. All I need was to find a recipe to bake muffins.

I found this recipe sometimes back, but I couldn't remember where I got it from. :( It's Apple Cinnamon Muffins. I massaged the recipe a bit so that I could use the 'left-over'. Here goes the my recipe:

Ingredients (that makes 7 muffins):

• 200ml of water
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 apple (skinned and sliced into cube)
• 1 cup of raisins (you can reduce or add more)
• 1 egg
• 70g butter
• 50g corn oil
• 1 tbls cinnamon
• 280g of self-raising flour

Methods:

• Combine water, sugar, apple, raisins, butter, oil, cinnamon powder in a pan to boil.
• Cool completely
• Preheat oven to 180 deg
• Then, in one large bowl, sift flour
• Add egg into flour and whisk well
• Then, add in the mixture and stir
• Transfer the batter into muffin moulds that are lightly greased (I'm using aluminum foil mould)
• Bake for 20mins

Thanks to Rei for helping me too. Actually the recipe requires all-purpose-flour and baking soda but I ran out of flour but it can be replaced by self-raising flour. And what she said was true.. Baking muffins is indeed easier than cake... Thank GOD!

A hot muffin goes well with a hot cup of tea. Can't have Earl Grey, so choose Lemongrass & Ginger tea instead. =P

What for Breakfast?

Most of the morning, I'll have bread with butter & kaya... Cos that's the easiest and most economical way to feed myself every morning... However, last Saturday, we ran out of bread. Dear Hub didn't buy the night before. So, no bread... =P I was so lazy to go down. So, I've decided to make pan cake.

When I was young, pan cake was always the solutions to feed our hunger... Cos, it's easy to do. My brother is very good in making pan cake. During our exam period and while stayed up late, he would be the one making pan cake for our supper... Yummy!

Here goes the recipe of the pancake:

Ingredients:

100g of flour

100ml of fresh milk/water

1 egg

Sugar to taste

Method:

Mix the egg and milk/water evenly. And add the flour and mix thoroughly. Lastly, add sugar. Drop ladle of batter onto the preheated and lightly greased pan. Use low fire. Until you'll see bubble, then flip to the other side.

For Serving... We love to put kaya & butter or if you have peanut butter, better still. Then, roll the pancake... Wah! YUMMY!!

 

 

And I FINISHED ALL... =P

Seraphina Hand Carved Stamp

I've asked Magda from Craft Pudding to hand-carve Seraphina stamp for me few weeks back... :)

Note: Seraphina icon was created by my brother. Thanks Bro!

She did a good job and I'm loving it. Will be using it for all my handmade stuff as trademark....

I've bought the stamp ink from Daiso and stamped it on a piece of fabric... Very nice... :)

Baby Project No. 3: Baby Crib Bumper

Baby crib bumper is a very common baby product, where it is put around the the baby cot to avoid baby's legs, hands or head trap in between the cot slats.

Well, initially I wanted to get one set of the bumper but was like S$100+ for one set (without bed sheet). It's so expensive. So, I've decided to make one. Thought it would be easy...

I wanted to get a cute material to make the bumper and it has to be like more than 2m long... Cos, normal baby crib bumper is around 2m long. Went to Chinatown and Spotlight but just couldn't find suitable fabric. UNTIL, I went to IKEA last Friday!

I saw this cute fabric from Ikea, but it was a quilt set for children. My hubby said, can buy one set and dismantle it, since it costs around S$12. Not very expensive. So, we bought and I started to dismantle it that afternoon. WOW!! True enough, the fabric was measured around 2.5m by 1.5m. It's big enough to MAKE TWO SETS of BUMPERS!! Besides that, the fabric is thick and the cartoons are so cute.

So, I've completed the first set of bumper which I did it for the first time yesterday afternoon. Pretty tedious.... Especially sewing the pad. :( I've put two layers of pad so that it's thick enough. If you look carefully, the sewing was badly done.... But hub said, it's OK, baby won't notice... hehehehe

Gonna make the 2nd set today. Hopefully 2nd set is easier than the 1st set... :)

A Small Little Hat for Baby Rachel

Finally, I can blog about this... I've made this little hat for a friend's, YL, daughter.

This is my first attempt. I got the pattern from one of the Japanese Cotton books that I've bought couple of months back. Never had a chance to try, cos I always thought it would be difficult to make, plus I'm very bad in using machine to sew... =P

Phew! Got it right for the first time.

I'm glad that YL also likes it very much. :)

Baby Project No. 2: Baby Pouch

While packing my hospital bag, I didn't know where and how should I pack my baby's stuffs... Some of my friends put them in a zip-lock bag... Hmmm quite unhygienic, don't you think so. So, I decided to make a baby pouch, just for packing baby's stuffs...

It's a simple pouch that I've divided it to 3 compartments....

These two compartments are for diapers/nappies, mittens & booties and hanky

And lastly, the bigger compartment is for baby's clothing and towel.

This is how it looks like when I fold the two side together. The size is around 22cm by 28cm... Just nice to put inside my hospital bag. :)

Tatted Doily

This is my first time completing a doily using tatting... And did it by the rule... =P Though it's small but I'm quite proud of it. I'll try to do a bigger one next time.

 

Again, it's not for me to keep... It's made for someone special.... :)

Christmas Fruit Cake

Tomorrow, we will have a Boxing Day party at my cousin's place. I plan to make a apple crumbled pie and fruit cake.

This is my first attempt baking a fruit cake. I just followed the recipe blindly. My friend, Huiz told me that as long as I can see bubbles in the cake batter, the cake will turn out just fine... That's how I access my cake. True enough, the cake turns out pretty well... :) However, I still need more time to 'understand' my microwave oven.

 

I've cut away the top part, cos it was quite tough and dry. The filling is just nice, not very soggy and not very dry... I like it.

The recipe is adapted from KC Forum: Boiled Fruit Cake by Connie. I actually halved the recipe (In italic)

Ingredients
(A)
1kg Mixed Fruits (400g Mixed fruits - but DH said too much fruits)
125g Brandy (65g Orange Juice - Can't take Alcohol)
125g Water (65g Water)
250g Butter (125g Butter)
150g Brown Sugar (Original recipe is 200g) (80g brown sugar - still can be reduced)

(B)
5 Large eggs, lightly beaten (3 large eggs)
1 TBsp Treacle (1 tsp of honey)
2 tsp grated orange rind (1 tsp grated orange rind)
1 tsp grated lemon rind

(C)
265g Plain flour (135g plain flour)
50g Self raising flour (25g self raising flour)
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

Method
1) Sift ingredients (C) together several times, set aside.
2) Combine ingredients (A) in a pan. Stir constantly over heat without boiling until sugar is dissolved.
3) Once sugar is dissolved, bring to boil, then reduce the heat to simmer covered for 10 minutes.
4) Transfer the hot mixture to a big mixing bowl and let it cool to room temperature.
5) *Greese a deep 9" round cake tin, line the base & sides with 2 layers of silicon paper. Prepare another 2 layers of silicon paper (Paper height: 7cm) to tie around the cake tin with cotton string. bringing the paper 5cm above the edge of cake tin.
6) Once the fruit mixture is cooled to room temperature, add eggs, treacle, and rinds and stir until combined.
7) Stir in sifted flour until combined. 
8) *Baked at 140C - 150C for about 2.5 hours or test it with skewer.
9) Cover the cake with aluminum foil and cool in cake tin.

I was using a disposable aluminum tray (215 x 110 x 55)mm to bake the cake. Baked with 160C for 1 hour and reduced the temp to 130C for another 10 minutes.

Christmas ATC Exchange

Blessed Merry Christmas to ALL!!!!

Since it's raining, I stayed at home to complete the Christmas ATC (Artist Trading Card) card to be exchanged during our KBCC this Saturday.

I've tatted a Snowflake (Pattern from Faizon's Snowflake Collections). And made a simple 2.5" by 3.5" card.. It's a simple ATC.

Christmas Gifts - Pouches....

I'm trying something new this year... Making pouches using fabrics... My sewing is really bad! It took me three days to complete these two pouches!!! Nearly gave up.... I think I still prefer to crochet and tat.... =P

This is something like a grab bag and I've combined two patterns in one... Specially make for ML so she can use this during lunch time.

The next one is a simple pouch for a friend who always makes jewelry items for me... Initially, I plan to crochet the whole thing, but a bit lazy... Then I decided to combine fabric and crochet. For this piece, I hand-sewn the whole pouch... I've given up with sewing machine. =P

Season of Giving....

I still feel that this is the best gift to give to your loves one during Christmas.... :)

Guardian Angel.

It is simple, elegant & meaningful....

Baby Project No. 1: Bean sprout Husk Pillow Cases

Finally, starting on my baby projects... Well, most of them involve sewing and I never know how to sew properly... =P

Start with the easiest project, making pillow case.

If you follow my blog, I have this entry about bean sprout husk pillow. My cousin told me it's very useful. So, I made 5 more pillows.

Look easy huh.... BUT I've spend 1 hour plus on the first pillow case. =P Thanks to my aunt, she taught me how to get my sewing right. Otherwise, I think I'll spend more than an hour.

I like the fabrics very much. I bought them from Spotlight and Chinatown.

My final order of the year - Wedding doll for Gan

At last! This is my final order of the year, before my delivery next month.

This sweet gentleman from KL ordered one pair of wedding couple for his wife few weeks back. I was thinking of rejecting it cos kinda tight up with my baby's stuffs... However, seeing him so sweet & sincere, I agreed to do it... I wish both of them happiness.... :)

He wanted to hold a heart... So, I've crocheted a heart for him to hold....

Oh Yea.... Gan requested the groom to wear a spec too... Then I realized that I didn't have any stock left... So this morning, I went to spotlight to get a pair of specs for him... CUTE!!!

In the box, ready to be delivered.... Hope this sweet couple will like it....

Tatting BUGS!

Gosh! Ever since I've met my tatting crafter friends, tatting bugs have never stop attacking me! I get so hooked to tatting that I tat everyday...

It has been awhile since I touched my shuttles... When I started, most of the pieces were done wrongly... Well, these are a few good one. Now I have mastered the art of UN-PICK! =P

It all started with Ellen's Simply Tree... I had redo the pattern, but still not as good...

I got this snowflake pattern from Faizon's Snowflake Collections. I bought from her and never had a chance to try. I LOVE her patterns! They are so challenging and interesting.

This snowflake pattern from Faizon's Snowflake Collections too. However, in her pattern there are 6 motifs but I only did 5... :( So, lazy to un-pick so just keep on doing... Well, it's not so nice, still can find some flaws... I'm still practicing... Hehehehehe

This pattern is from one of the Japanese tatting book.

Currently, I'm doing a pouch... Do bit by bit everyday.. =P

Apple Crumble Pie

Last Friday, met up with Betsy and Dewi at Betsy's home studio. Dewi is my polymate and she's learning crochet from Betsy.

I baked an apple crumble pie for them... It was my first time baking a pie... I didn't know it was so easy. And delicious too... I got the recipe from KC once again.

Here goes the recipe (abstracted from KC by Elaine):

The crust
125g butter
225g plain flour
1/2 beaten egg
The apple filling
4 apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 tbsp brown sugar
sprinkles of cinnamon powder
lemon juice from a slice of lemon
some water
1/2 tbsp corn flour

The crumble
70 - 80g butter
1 cup self-raising flour
4tbsp sugar

Method
1. Make filling first by cooking the apples with the rest of the ingredients with some water. Add corn flour to thicken.
2. Make the crust by combining the butter, flour and egg to form into a dough. Press dough on to a pie pan. 
3. For the crumble, gently rub the butter and flour to form into crumbs and add sugar and mix well.
4. After crust is baked, pour in the apple filling and sprinkle top with the crumble. Bake at 200C for about 30 - 45 mins or till crust is nicely browned.

Well, to make the crust, I used fingers (taught by Rei & Gina) and added egg after the butter and flour were evenly mixed.

I didn't use pie pan, I used aluminum baking container to bake.

Wedding Items for Gynn

Few months back, Gynn asked me to make 9 corsages for her sisters and a pair of wedding couple... Her wedding theme is crystal... Wow! Challenging....

Managed to rush it out before my delivery...

What I did was, I added iron-on crystals on the ribbons and also sprinkle 'disco-dust' on the roses. Unfortunately I couldn't captured the effect. The 'disco-dust' did sparkle under lightings... Very nice! Glad she likes them... :) 

 

Well, as for the wedding couples, I added press-on crystals on the wedding gown so that they will sparkles under the lighting... Besides that, I made a brooch using crystal flower (real Swarovski Crystal) for the groom... Hope she will like it.... :)