Little Twinkle #8 - Homemade pasta for Baby

Little Twinkle has been rather fussy with her food lately, since she's been eating porridge since she was 6 months old (though with various permutations e.g fish with vegetables)! Guess she's really tired of porridge YET AGAIN! Hehe

So we have decided to make pasta for her lunch today! We have given her pasta before today too, but at that time (about 11-12 months old) she couldn't really chew well and thus didn't really like it.


Tadah!!! We made home-made tomato-based salmon with broccoli pasta. *burps* Delicious yet without any salt or sugar, perfect for baby and young toddler! *feeling accomplished*

Little Twinkle finished almost all of the pasta, with only about 2 spoonfuls left. Yippee! Maybe we cooked slightly more than what she can take. Haha... But still really happy that Little Twinkle loves the pasta! :)

Got this recipe from a mummy on a Facebook group that advocates healthy eating for baby, who learns this recipe from her Italian friend (also a mummy!). Thus we used herbs such as Basil and Rosemary today as per the recipe.


Also got the above olive oil (for cooking) and extra virgin olive oil (for salad) from Cold Storage. Hehe the little hand on the right is Little Twinkle trying to reach for the olive oil. Have been contemplating to get it for Little Twinkle's dishes but was rather lazy to think of other dishes other than porridge (hehe porridge is so easy to make!). So now that I got this, I guess I have to be hardworking and starting looking for new recipes for Little Twinkle's dishes.


This was Little Twinkle trying to get my attention when we were in the kitchen making her pasta. Drama queen right? Haha!


Her many cheeky expressions as usual when we were playing!


Little Twinkle trying to mimic what we do when we talk on the handphone! LOL

On a side more, I discovered a really good iPhone application for blogging on the go. So now I don't need a laptop to blog, I can blog while watching my cheeky Little Twinkle buzzing around. Perfect for mummy with busy toddler! Haha...

I been wanting to blog our Europe trip and taiwan trip for memories sake, but just couldn't find time to do so. Guess it would now be possible with this app! Hehe :)

And that's our last Saturday of year 2013 - a lazy one!

Little Twinkle #7 - Baby, you are my sunshine!

On the saturday that just past, Little Twinkle went for her first audition at the PS Baby Competition. There were sooooo many babies and parents, even though we were given 1.45pm slot but we still have to wait for maybe about 45 mins - to register, then queue for her photo to be taken.

The theme is "Most Sunshine Baby", and this is what she was wearing that day. Haha... given we thought it's just for fun activity, we only started looking for clothes to match the theme at the very last minute. We managed to find her hair accessory just the night before because Cecilia kept emphasizing on "accessorize accessorize"!!! haha...

Nevertheless, Little Twinkle didn't give her sunshine smile when she was on the stage. :( Every participant only had few minutes in front of the camera, then the photographer will try to get the baby's best shot. MNG went up the stage with Little Twinkle but didn't manage to make her smile. She was busy looking at both the photographer and coordinator warily. In the end, the coordinator did manage to make her smile briefly when she threw the colourful ball to Little Twinkle but our guess is that the photographer didn't manage to capture that. Oh well, it's an experience for all 3 of us too! :)

Daddy's sweetheart having her princess treatment and still unsure of what's going on...

Daddy very focused on dolling up Little Twinkle, but of course Mummy did the final touch ;p

Happily walking into the "battle ground"

Having a proper formal shot before the real audition

Dancing to the nursery rhymes

Daddy, where are you?? 

On a side note, daddy's lil girl is gradually showing her 前世小情人本色. Yesterday we were shopping at IMM for her winter wear (as we are travelling to He Huan Shan in Taiwan and heard the temperature is about 3-6 degree celsius). It was past her sleeping time and she was constantly rubbing her eyes and looking real tired. MNG was carrying her so that she could lie on daddy's chest to sleep, but she was kept awake with all the activities around her. Worried that she might throw a tantrum again if she got overtired, so i tried to persuade her to sleep....i placed my head against MNG's chest and said to Little Twinkle "if you don't want to sleep, mummy will sleep on daddy's chest." Without thinking, she quickly pushed my head off daddy's chest and hug daddy indicating that daddy is all hers. So i  tried several more times to place my head on MNG's chest and every time she quickly pushed my head off daddy's chest again and quickly hug daddy to herself. Haha... indeed 前世小情人本色 manz! There's no more room for 今世情人already... LOL

xoxo

Sensory Play for 1 Year Old #1: Empty Bottles

This was unintentional - we were drinking yakult and Little Twinkle insists / whines to have the yakult bottles, so I decided to wash the empty yakult bottles and let her play with it.

And Little Twinkle managed to play with the empty yakult bottles for a good 40 minutes! Impressive! I didn't expect empty bottles can be so attractive to a 1 year old. And this will help us reduce some expenses on buying toys *ka-ching* :))))

let me test whether it's hot

see my finger skills!

let's see what lobster can do to it

I wonder what is the effect if I knock them together

let me try the taste...

how about blowing??

look mama, i can support with my mouth alone!

hmm...what else can i do??

mama, how about you try it out for me?

I continued to take photos when she wanted to pass me the empty bottles. So she stand up and walks towards me and camera. Oh oh... 

mama, help me with the bottles

After this intriguing (to her) play experience, I enthusiastically told our helper to keep different shapes and sizes of the clear bottles we used going forward. Since Little Twinkle is so interested with bottles at this stage, we will collect the bottles and rotate them for her to play with (and saves money from buying new toys! hahahah).We did the same thing 2 days ago and filled up an empty bottle with colourful peddles which Little Twinkle really likes much.

Just googled and realised there are many things that people used to fill into empty bottles for baby/toddler to play with!  This is so cool! Such discovery bottle toys can easily be recycled from materials around the house which is cheap and easy to make!

Some DIY sensory discovery bottles inspirations:

1. Water with brightly coloured Hama beads - for noise, color and movement

Credit: fun-a-day.com

Beads with water. Credit: The Imagination Tree

2. Ripped pieces of tin foil - for gentle, slow movement and reflection of light

Tin foil. Credit: The Imagination Tree

3. Colored water mixed with 1cm of vegetable/baby oil - for mixing and separation of liquids

Colored water with baby oil. Credit: Modern Parents Messy Kids 

Colored waters with oil. Credit: Play-trains.com

4. Brightly colored bottles - for visual interest

Credit: familylicious.com

Credit: familylicious.com

Coloured bottles - for visual interest. Credit: Plain Vanilla Mom

5. Blue water and a variety of sea shells - for gentle sounds and interesting objects to examine

Credit: fun-a-day.com

Credit: bhoomplay.wordpress.com

Blue water with sea shells. Credit: childhood101.com

6. Water, plastic crystals and a large amount of silver glitter - for noise and beautiful movement 

Credit: thebestjobintheworld-mummyhughesy.blogspot.com.au

Credit: artsyants.com

Glitter with water. Credit: modernparentsmessykids.com

7. Colored water with a large squirt of dish soap - for shaking and creating bubbles

Credit: play-trains.com

Credit: familylicious.com

8. Mixture of poms poms in various colours and sizes - for visual stimulation and early maths concepts

poms poms. credit: pinkpistachio.com

9. Colored shaped buttons - for fabulous noise and exciting colors.

Credit: innerchildfun.com

10. Multi-coloured dry rice or pasta - for fabulous shaky noise

Credit: messforless.net

Credit: organicaspirations.blogspot.sg

11. Coloured water with alka seltzer - for visual stimulation and beautiful movement

Credit: jugglingwithkids.com

11. Animal toy and shredded paper - lots of shaking for animal to appear

Credit: pre-schoolplay.blogspot.sg

Little Twinkle #6 - She can walk on her own and some updates

Mr Nice Guy (MNG) wanted me to commemorate yesterday (11.10.2013) as the day in which he officially recognized that Little Twinkle can walk on her own (at 14 months)!!! He went back home earlier and saw Little Twinkle walking around the house on her own (without any support!!!). When he tried to hold her hands, she refused and insisted walking independently. Mr Nice Guy was so touched and lost for words by her courage and persistence that he kept asking me to remember this date on my blog - he has been reminding me about it repeatedly in case i forgotten or was too tired/lazy to blog.

To celebrate this big milestone of Little Twinkle, we decided to put together the various video clips of her learning steps towards independent walking. Both of us love the video clip but MNG find it a bit plain without any music, in which i do not know how to insert music at different intervals. LOL. Nevertheless I will just upload this "somewhat plain" video for us to remember this very day! :)

The weekend following our return from Europe trip was a busy one. We went to a colleague's housewarming party on Saturday's afternoon and the 3 nats met again (all the girls' name start with nat that even sometimes I get confused... haha). Coincidentally, it was Little Twinkle's afternoon nap time then. You can see in the first pic (of the 3 girls together), she was looking sooo tired when we just reached. Luckily the gracious host allows Little Twinkle to take a 1+ hour nap in her bedroom, and Little Twinkle was back to her happy self after her dutifully nap. :)

The 3 Nats

Little Twinkle sleeping soundly at the gracious host's bedroom

The girls found Little Twinkle sleeping, and was wondering whether to wake her up ;)

Thereafter, we went to a little boy's baby shower. Seeing how tiny a 1 month old baby is makes us realise that Little Twinkle is really growing fast! Mr Nice Guy used to be able to carry her in one arm, but nowadays he kept exclaiming that he's breathless after carrying Little Twinkle for a short distance. Haha... The elder brother Cyrus (about 5 months older than little Twinkle) was very friendly and wanted to hug Little Twinkle several times. Little Twinkle, on the other side, appears to be rather cool. haha...

Mr Nice Guy carrying the 1 month old baby in one arm easily.

Friendly Cyrus and Little Twinkle

On Sunday, my cousin and family came into Singapore to do some shopping and swing by our place to visit us. Below are pics of Little Twinkle and Yu Xuan (2-3 weeks older than Little Twinkle).

Yu Xuan and Little Twinkle

Little Twinkle also attended her first class, but we were prohibited to take any pictures during the class. Also visited a girlfriend who just gave birth to an adorable little boy Caleb, but we didn't take pictures then as we did not want to disturb Caleb who was sleeping.

On a side note, Mr Nice Guy and I have completed our first homework for Little Twinkle. We have made another step in parenthood! LOL. The task is basically to draw and colour 4 items starting with alphabet "A" and "B" respectively. See our great masterpiece below - drawing by MNG and coloring by me! :)

The first homework!

Lastly, this is a collage of Little Twinkle with her favourite scooter at the moment. Loves the rainbow dress that she's wearing - we got it from the Phuket trip in July. A little suntan beach babe :) (p.s: Little Twinkle has been quite tanned since the Phuket trip and most people don't dare to tell us that she's very tanned, so they normally ask us "did you all often bring her for swimming?" *chuckles* )

Little Twinkle with her favourite scooter

xoxo