Savoury Cheese and Onion muffins

Another cooking lesson with Tobey. This time we made several savoury muffins for breakfast. I made these using (enough for 7 big muffins)

10 tbsp self-raising flour
5 tbsp semolina flour (makes the muffin softer in the inside
3/4 mug of mozarella cheese
1/2 mug of fried onions (I got mine from the salad counter in the local supermarket)
1 medium egg
1/2 a mug of goat's milk (that's what in my fridge, I am sure cow's milk will do fine)
1/2 a bowl of frozen peas
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt

Mix everything together until you reach a gluey or "dollopy" consistency. Add more flour or milk if needed. Spoon them into muffin cases and bake at 200 C for around 20 mins (or when the top is crusty and brownish). Eat them whilst they're still warm...

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The other day I stir-fried these soya beans with garlic and chinese sausage for dinner. It's our first time eating fresh soya beans. SK stared at it for quite sometime before even touching it...they turned out to be quite tasty :)

Tobey at 2 years 5 months old

Tobey with one of the pumpkins from the garden.

With mommy ...

With Daddy at The Waffles Company

Conversation clips:

Mommy(M): Let's brush teeth.
Tobey(T): Yes, big nen-nen dirty teeth, YUCKS!

T: Didi, where are you?Mimi, where's daddy?
M: Pom-Pom-ming(showering)
T: Daddy dirty, YUCKS!

T: Mimi, HELP! (his friends where piling cushions onto him and tried to sit on him)
M:Stop boys!
T: (Tobey emerged from the mountain of cushions before mommy got to him..) AAArgh! (pushes one 3YO away and said..) No! Go away! Bad!

I was immensely proud that he stood-up and defended himself.

B0b The Builder Live C0ncert

Today Tobey went for his first live concert. The Bob The Builder one..hehe.. He went with his good friend Ethan. It's around 1 hour and 20 minutes show, with a 20 minutes break in the middle. Tobey managed to stand/sit still for the first 30 minutes. The storyline was about Bob and Wendy trying to build a recycling centre in Sunflower Valley. And all the other characters (Spud, Dizzy, Scoop, Mr. Pickle, etc.) helped.
After that he got really restless and got down to loiter around the theatre floor. Good thing was, he wasn't alone, there were other toddlers loitering alongside him. They mostly went to the foot of the stage to dance nearer to the characters which was really cute to watch.
For the parents, well, I bet most of us must have yawned at least once in during the show. If only there's a Handy Manny or Special Agent Oso concert. I am sure Tobey would enjoy it even more.

Mr. Wind

Tobey walked into his garden. Noticed his goalpost being blown down. He looked up to the sky and said "NO wind, NO!. Naughty!"

Spotted!

Today we attended a lovely luncheon held by another Malaysian mommy at her house. The guest list were 6 mommies and their kids. It was so much fun for Tobey, it was like a mini-playgroup, but only consisted of his favourite familiar friends which he plays with all the time. Her parents cooked the yummiest curry chicken. Her live-in nanny did all the cleaning-up, hence leaving her to mingle with us. We had so much laughter between us girls! So good for the soul. In such a short time in this village, I am already blessed with a group of such awesome girlfriends! Each and everyone of them are so sincere and special in their own way. I really thank God for them :)

After several hours, most of us proceeded to Camb0urne Children Centre 1st anniversary Party. There was cake cutting (yummy not overly sweet cake baked by a famous nearby village baker), various art & craft activities and also puppet shows and performances.

Look how happy they were! Tobey is at the left most

Tobey enjoyed painting the giant paper house, the singing and the cutting of papers using REAL scissors.
I was browsing the advertising board and saw Tobey in one of the promotional pictures!

I remember that day, he was fascinated by a plastic baby shark in the tank. He must have been 18-19 months old.

He was so shattered when we got home after some grocery shopping, he actually dozed off on the floor for 20 minutes, whilst watching TV.

Side updates:

Over the weekend, we sent my aunt and uncle off to the airport. Since we were in London, we dropped by Chinatown for lunch at a Taiwanese restaurant and bought ourselves some moon cakes.
I got Tobey a Buzz Lightyear T-shirt last week. He chose it himself over another Toy Story 2 T-shirt. He acted like the character Buzz once the T-shirt in on him, such as pressing buttons on the T-shirt and launches his arms into flying mode. So funny.

Here's my little Buzz lightyear playing with playdoh.

and I can't resist posting this last pic up..hehehe...

my handsome little cyclist

That's all for now folks!

First Bicycle

He loves his bike. He ask to ride it when he wakes up. He remembers my promise for him to ride it after he takes his nap or finishes his meal. He waves goodnight to it when it's being stored in the garage. He asked us to whisper whenever we are are near where his bike is 'sleeping'. He loves his bike.

It's understandable really...it's his first mode of transportation and with it comes a certain level of Independence that means the world to a 2YO. As parents to our baby, the reward of seeing him enjoying it so much and being good at it as well, is astoundingly heart-tugging and simply priceless.

Of Lately

Tobey is seen here spotting some shades and daddy's watch (the line on his chin is not a gotti, just a stain from breakfast :P)

Eating his pasta (reluctantly and just because daddy is insisting)

Eating his dessert all by himself (willingly)

Thinking hard during some card matching exercise

Hanging out with his mates (he's actually busy picking up stones to be thrown into the mini fountain)

Tobey's Vocab at 2YO

Tobey is not the fastest in speech development. He's the slow and steady type in this department, but we love him just as much :)

Words he's still working on

Eway-Away
Tar/ "pon-pon"-Car
Pees-Please
Tetar-Guitar
Tenma-Grandma
Wewic-Music
Taptop-Laptop
Targe-Charge
Klat-klat-Chocolate
Toooool-Stool
Knock-knock-Hammer
Scoo-Screw
Bloon-Balloon
Told-Cold
Matoes-Tomatoes
Cavot-Carrot
Lin-Lin-Muslin
Pecs-Specs
Poon-Spoon
Tic-tic (said with cutting motion with his hands)- His plastic Knife
Voo-Voo-Vacumn
Chiak-Chiak-Camera
Glape-Grape
Toish-Fish
Ane-One
Tee-Three
Quare-Square
Tangle-Rectangle
Fawa-Flower
Tactor-Tractor
Pay-gup-Playgroup
Wawerfly-Butterfly
No-nore- No-More
Ta-Done-All Done
Nee-No-Ambulance

Other words he uses to communicate, along with alot of signing with his hands

Thanks, Pot, Wash (When he says WASH, that means the next thing he'll be doing is running to the sink to wash whatever he's holding), Wipe, Stand, Sit, Jump, Room, Push, TV,Toys,Poo-poo, Wee-wee,Book, No, Yes,Yeh-yeh(Grandpa), run,walk,mum-mum(eat), Drink, Leave, Go, Run, Light, Wind, Sun, Trousers, Jacket, Bag, Work, Hair, Tea, Hold, Tree,Stairs, get-up, Hot, Baby , Daddy/Dee-dee/Da-da/My Da (this is so sweet), Mama/Mommy/Me-me/ ("Mama big nen-nen" (that means he wants a full bottle of milk, rather than half a bottle, the way he say it sounds as if he's ordering a big "Milo Ice" from mamak stalls) Boat, peas, Pot, Kick, Hand,Nose, Eyes, Ears, leg, Toes, Head, Bum-bum, Teeth, Brush, Mine, Lift, Blue, Red, Yellow, Black, White, Green, Mint, Big, Small, Bubbles, Bye-Bye, More, Swim, Hat, Dark, Room, Shoes, Socks, Write, Sleep, Nen-nen/Milk, Dark (He doesn't go out when it's dark), Man, Door, Chair, Juice, Bed, Shake, Nice, Stone, Wait, Draw, Spray, Phone, Dance, Clean, Fan, Look, Bike, Clock, Sun, Moon, Star, Bird, Cat (Occasionally it's "Mau", cantonese for Cat I guess), Dog, Mouse,Duck, Sheep, Two, Nine,Ten, Round, There, Help,Glass, Disc, Drive, Buy (He will flip through the Argos shopping catalogue, point to a toy he wants and ask hi daddy to "buy"), Money,Wheel, Cook, Die, Comb, Climb, Bath, Bus, Wow, Loud, Bar (his fruit bar), House, Fly, Mist, Egg, Half, Boiled (his fav breakfast is half-boiled eggs with buttered bread), Toast, beans, Bug, bees, SNOT (I know, and he makes sure I get hold of his every snot to throw it away), Throw, Rock, Type, Dirty,Close, ...

Probably missed several words out, but more or less they are here. He is willing to try to pronounce new words after us, when he's in the mood. Else, he'll scoot off to play......which is really what 2YOs ought to be doing now ;)

Ending of a good Summer

Tobey enjoying a nice big mug of homemade iced mint tea on a hot day..."aaaaahhh..nice" he said.

The weather has been rather unsettled lately. Amidst the sunshine that we are so used to now, we have very windy and rainy days. Autumn is fast approaching. Sigh! Before you know it, it would be grey, cold and miserable again. I can bear the run up to Christmas, but January and February has always been difficult. Chinese New Year season and away from family back home. Anyhoo, here's another post on the joy of Summer this year. I think Tobey really enjoyed this one. Hopefully, he will have equally much fun (or more) next Summer.

1) Cambourne 10th Anniversary...

was held on the 15th August. It started off with march of the school band. As soon as we heard it from our garden, we quickly walked out to the centre to show our support. It was celebrated in the usual English Fete style, with reenactments of medieval war times (they actually used swear words in this one, and the head of the war troop actually hit one of his soldier's steel hat with something that looked like an axe), fun fair, face painting, stalls selling food and such. The only twist was the Chinese Lion Dance. Strange. They probably found it to be loud and amusing for the kids.

This "Man-On -Sticks" kept talking to Tobey. The boy just froze and stared at him each time.

As usual, he insisted on going on the ride. £1 a ride. What a rip-off.

2) Chives-Tomatoes-Pumpkin-Pear

I've been distributing lettuces to my friends around the village. As we found it hard to finish these garden crops even though we eat them almost (more like every single meal) everyday. Some of my friends also have vege patches in their gardens. One of them gave me bags of Chinese Chives. I love them. I used them in wonton, fried with eggs and also with coriander in a savoury pancake mix of flour, egg, salt and water.

These three wontons are the only few dainty ones I made for this pic. After that they were all "rushed-for-time" sized. During dinner SK said " This is not wonton, this is a ping-pong ball staring at me!" You get the idea..hehe

My Chinese pancakes :P

The Tomatoes are beginning to ripen. I've stopped buying tomatoes from the supermarket for 2 weeks already. We've planted tomatoes in our old place before so we know from now on, they will keep on coming...aaarghhh help! Tomatoes soup anyone?

We planted our fruit trees this year without expecting any harvest until at least next Spring obviously. But this Pear tree seems quite enthusiastic to show us a preview of what it can bear.

Don't think this will grow to be a proper sized pear before winter sets in.Again, this is the first time I saw a pear growing. I was expecting them to grow like Rambutans, but not bulging from the bottom of a flower. SK was the one that pointed it out to me. Can't wait for next year's harvest :)

We are now seeing some form of Pumpkin growing. Unfortunately, these would not grow into a pumpkin big enough to carve for Halloween. More like those for a lovely pumpkin soup.

3) Injury

I don't really like to blog about Tobey's sickness or injury in this blog. I find it too painful to reread/remember it. But this has to be recorded as it is officially his full fledged toddler play injury. We were invited for a weekday lunch by a mommy friend. Tobey was having fun playing with the other toddler boys. Whilst playing hugging with one of them, that boy probably lost his balance and fell on Tobey, or maybe he just decided to push out of over-excitement. My darling baby fell backwards and hit the back of his head on a corner of a table. There was blood. My heart was ripped out. I concentrated in staying focus and stopped his bleeding. Checked for any other anomaly. By then he was back on his feet and wanted to continue playing. Brought him to the surgery to be looked at. Nurse told us that it's a superficial shallow cut. The reason why it bled so much was because the scalp is full of capillaries. She just cleaned it with salt water, put band aids on and told us to keep his hair dry for 3 days. I took him there for another check-up after that. After a week, on his second check-up, we were instructed to wash his band aids off as the cut has closed. He still has a small swell around the wound which I am keeping an eye on. If only I can rewind time. Then I can take the fall for him. I think only mommies out there can understand this.

4) Best friend?

Hong-Hong is now officially the boy's "best -friend" . Even though at a picnic today, Hong-Hong fell down, Tobey tried to help him up but instead of a thanks, Hong-Hong gave him a slap, Tobey still smile and asked to play with him whenever possible...Hmmmmm....

All-in-one

Nowadays, so much have been happening. I find it easier to just jumble them all up in a single post :)

1) Water Play

After watering the plants on a muggy evening, this is how he cools himself down.

2) £5 Unlimited ride funfair
There were like 4 'ridable' rides for toddlers in thefair, but Tobey didn't mind going on the same ride over and over again. His favourite was the bike. But the operator of the bike carousel let the rides went on for too long! There's once he actually let a ride went on for as long as it took him to finish his plate of chips!!!

3)Hands-in-pocket training

He loves all things electronic (like daddy). He also loves browsing them in the departmental stores. Especially televisions and cameras.To ensure he doesn't break anything, we told him to place his hands in his pockets whilst browsing, else he'll go back into the stroller or we'll leave the place.

4) Hair cut

A friend of mine recently commented how long Tobey hair is and must be uncomfortable for him in Summer months. She was right, and Tobey is quite a 'sweater'. Today I braven myself and gave him a much shorter haircut. In the pic above, he's holding his crotch because he's bursting for the loo and wanted to get this shot done as over with ASAP!

Last but not least...

5) The Lilies

They've at last bloomed gloriously in the garden. Planted by my greenfinger FIL, they refused to bloom before they flew back to Malaysia. So here are the pics

Pics update

I love these two pics. Will frame them up one of these days.
Gum-gum face after the initial thrill of handling a hand whisk all by himself and realising mommy wants him to kept whisking till it's pale and fluffy......hahaha

Nowadays he's doing his daily chore of watering the plants via a hose, instead of a watering can. SK would set it to 'mist' mode and spray it upward, he would then run under it and says "naining, naining!" (raining, raining!)

Wysing up the kiddos

Wysing Art centre held a 'Den building event' in the communal green area right opposite our house. Excerpt from their website;

"Wysing Arts Centre is a research and development centre for artists set in 11acres of rural Cambridgeshire. At Wysing we support artists to practically test out new ways of thinking in contemporary visual art. Artists working from studios or undertaking international residencies are encouraged, alongside visitors, to take creative risks in a supportive environment in which the exploration of process and collaborative ways of working are paramount..."

Kids from around participated to build tents/dens together and had a picnic under it right after. Parents can help too. I didn't call to book a place for Tobey, thinking that he's still too young to help erect tents and such. But since it was held right outside us, FIL just too him there and they allowed him to join in. He was the youngest participant. The older kids kept an eye out for him too. I don't know whether he acquired the skill of "working in a team" or anything artistic, but he sure had lots of fun!

Here are several pics taken by FIL;