Apple Pie

A friend, Jo, shared this apple pie recipe with me and I love it, especially the crumb topping.

I cheated with frozen pie crust like she did.

- About 4 Granny Smith apples (chopped or sliced)
- Mix apples with about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

In a mixing bowl, mix together:
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- a little nutmeg if you like
Then mix apples into mixing bowl and mix together. Pour into pie crust.

For the crumble topping:
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup butter

Rub butter with fingertips into flour and sugar till mixture becomes crumbly and sprinkle over pie. Bake till pie has turned a brownish color at 350F.

It's Christmas

Is it Christmas already? I really wish time will go slower. I still have loads to do, cookies to be baked and sent out (very very late). Gosh, I don't even have time to think about Christmas. This year, I'm not going to bother myself with a Christmas dinner. Have not planned what to do yet, but princess has her heart set on one. She is telling grandma and I, that she is planning the dinner menu, and she mentioned stuff like turkey, pasta, sushi, fried rice (?????). What???? Oh, whatever!

Her mini Christmas tree - everything from Daiso. Oops, not the nativity scene though.

Instead of spraying snow, we used stickers this year. Love the gingerbread house and people.

I think I caught the decoration bug from KY this year. After visiting her house with all the lovely decor, I decided to do up mine with little touches as well. What have you done for Christmas?

K2C Graduation Party

My daughter's class is the only class that has birthday invites all year round. I once asked the Chinese teacher if the other classes were the same. Apparently not. As a result of these parties, the parents have gotten to know each other pretty well. And without a doubt, the entire class will be invited if anyone in class is celebrating their birthday, unless if it's a sole girls' party then the poor boys are not invited. When we found out that the end of year celebration was a joint picnic with the entire school, we decided to have a party specially for our class. And after much emailing to and fro with over 18 sets of parents, we finally decided upon a date - 30Nov. It was not easy, I can tell you that. Just arriving on that date alone gave me lots of headache. People were travelling or had this and that thing on. At the end of it, someone said for me to just decide a date and people just had to change their schedules around. But luckily I didn't have to make that difficult decision as we manged to agree on that one day. Phew!

The dessert table. One mum ordered these beautiful agar-agar (see the graduate as well as the word 'congratulations'?). They were so beautiful no one could bear to cut them and they were there for a lonnnnggg time.

This pinata was handmade by one of the kids' mums. What a fantastic piece of work!

Jacob Ballas Childrens' Garden

We had a outing to the Botanic Gardens with two mums and their kids. It's only my second time visiting Jacob Ballas but it was too crowded the first time round, as it was some special occasion, opening of the park of something. Maybe KY can jolt my memory. We didn't get to explore a lot of the park the last time as the weather was hot as well. However, on this day, the weather was fantastic! Not much sun and a little cloudy but no rain either. But even so, princess came home with sunburnt shoulders. I had forgotten to bring along the sunblock.

A mini suspension bridge.

Our picnic food - brought by one of the mums. I only brought along the fishballs and can't remember what the other thing was. We had a brunch feast. I didn't even realise food was not allowed in there if I hadn't read about it in Camemberu's blog.

This is the highlight of the park - the water play. They had loads of fun and refused to go home.

Birthday Party

For S's party, G catered from the prison's catering service. It's not the first time that she's ordered food from them. The quality of the food is great. The cereal prawns were a favourite with most.

The broccoli and cauliflower was lovely.

For me, I loved the Ayam Masak Merah.

There was a candy floss machine.

As well as a caricature artist.

Time for cake.

Graduation

I can't believe that my little girl has graduated from kindergarten, and is about to embark on a new chapter in her life. Time flies by so fast, and I find this year especially so. It was with mixed feelings that I attended the graduation ceremony. Happy that she is all grown up, but sad that there's no more time for play. Happy that she is finally leaving the school, but sad that it's time to say goodbye to friends, even for mummy. I don't think the children feel it as much as the adults do. I'm going to miss my group of mums who will now be moving to other parts of Singapore. No doubt we'd be in constant touch, but it'd be tough to get together so often as timings of schools differ, and our Friday morning gatherings will be a thing of the past. :(

This year's graduation ceremony was nothing more than just a ceremony for the K2s. There wasn't any concert planned. Just a simple handing out of certificate ceremony, followed by a performance of 2 songs by the K2 kids (one in English and the other in Mandarin). And then it was off to the park, a stone's throw from the school for a picnic and a fun time for the kids. We were really disappointed initially about the lack of concert but I guess the kids did have a great time outdoors. There was plenty of food but I didn't manage to take any photos of them.

Posters made by the younger children in the school for their graduating seniors. How sweet.

Princess' current classroom. It's my favourite room in the 3yrs she was there. It's the hugest in the entire school. They often house the many classes of kids when they have movie days etc.

Her cubby.

Art Boot Camp

We were invited to an Art Boot Camp party and it was lots of fun for the kids. It was something different from the usual parties that we've attended. It engages kids in something that they all love - painting. And best part is parents don't have to do a thing. We just mingled, chatted, ate. There were beautiful canvas (done by the kids) to take home as gifts.

Some of the childrens' artwork.

I do highly recommend this party venue for anyone planning a party.

Art Boot Camp -

BUKIT TIMAH CAMPUS

ADDRESS
200 Turf Club Road #01-23A, Turf City
Singapore 287994
(across from Sixth Avenue. Off Dunearn Road)

CONTACT
Tel: 6469 5525/5535

Sweet & Spicy Prawns

Bought some beautiful prawns from the market and decided to make a dish of sweet and spicy prawns with leftover pineapples slices.

Ingredients:

Half an onion
Slices of pineapple (from tin)
Prawns
Garlic
Tomato Ketchup
Sweet Chilli Sauce

Weekday bbq

Wow, just looking at the date... has it really been almost a month since I did my last posting?? Well, I've been busy. Friends have been asking me to update my blog but really, I haven't had the time nor the mood with so much on my hands. But I have to confess too, that I've been playing lots with my pet on pets society in facebook. Hehe.

It has been an activity-filled Nov and Dec, what with graduation, picnics, parties and gatherings etc. KY & A called for an impromptu Tuesday evening bbq at their place. I know, I know, I have been complaining for years that they live too far away. I still think they live too far away! They must come back to the East now! However, who could resist a weekday bbq which promised to be a small gathering of family. Even small is not that small as their family alone makes 8, not including the in-laws. I managed to get my cleaner to change to another day to come over, and hubby happened to be working in the vicinity of their home, so it was really a perfect day for the gathering. KY and I have been friends since Pre-U days and I really thank God for her, for her wonderful friendship and everything that we have gone through together. We were very blessed that entire day with beautiful weather, no sun and no rain.

I think these were black pepper sausages.

Sotong (Cuttlefish) spicy and non-spicy

We had grilled asparagus.

Sambal & Plain Selar

Otah otah and prawns

Tau kua (I didn't try this)

We also had Fried Bee Hoon and bacon-wrapped bananas but by that time, I was too tired to be taking photos. Just wanted to sit down and eat. However, I did make potato salad which was very popular and it was gone very quickly. I'm happy. :)