Jaden is SIX :: Part 2

Friends that know me, will know that I crack my head every year trying to think of what to do for Jaden's birthday every year and this year was no exception, except I already had a location in mind that I know that Jaden could get to eat the food cooked by the location, and need not me to prepare his food from home in advance.

This year, 2013, we held his birthday party at the private dining area of Curry Leaf Restaurant at Damansara Uptown. 

I would greatly recommend that restaurant as their service is top notch and they are really what some other restaurateur should learn from, this is 100% service with a smile and very accommodating to Jaden's food needs and also helping me with setup and table arrangements.

Usually, when we had our party elsewhere previous years, I was the one that needed to decorate the place up by myself. This year at Curry Leaf, they had two waiters to help me set up while I just sit and supervise.

Clearing of dirty plates and glasses were fast, and replenishing of plates/glasses and food were also fast as some popular dishes were quickly wiped out by Jaden's guests. The restaurant was not selfish with their drinks replenishment too. 

So that is why I would greatly recommend Curry Leaf Restaurant.

After locking in the location, I proceeded on to send out birthday invites to close family and friends to the party.

Of course, after securing location, I started searching high and low for cake bakers and found this lady, highly recommended by all my mummy friends and after looking through her gallery of cake designs, I was very sure she was talented enough to give me what I wanted. Best thing was that she could do all three commissioned work as required by me and she stays near me. 50 cupcakes for school party, 40 cookies and a 3D cake for Jaden's private birthday party. 

After some exchange of emails and agreement, I started looking online for some ideas on how to dress my theme up more for Jaden but in the end, being the pregnant me and with that little time, I used what I do best, getting colourful balloons instead. Firstly, they do suit the theme and secondly, all children loves playing with balloons. BINGO!

I used to prepare party packs for all Jaden's birthday guests previously, but since I already had the cookies to be given away to all the guests, I thought that preparing party packs for the children are more appropriate. So, once again, following Jaden's birthday theme, I got the children colouring books and colouring pencils, a ball paddle for them to play with and since there were going to be two babies under a year old, I prepared two baby books for them each. 

Since I am already 29 weeks pregnant and my bodyline ain't exactly fitting for most dresses or clothes that I owned, I panic a bit as I really did not have anything suitable to wear for Jaden's birthday party. Thankfully, his godma SChee was in town the weekend before the birthday and we went together into KL, with the boy in tow of course, and snagged a few maternity wear off the racks from H&M. Thankfully, I found the size I could fit in too.. and Jaden, being Jaden, managed to trick his godma into getting him a few shirts here and there too. :p

This year is albeit a bit special as Jaden has his classmate, Harry, to attend his birthday party. His very own friend instead of mummy and daddy's friends. Of course, there were other children too, such as his own cousin, Howard, Jaden's little godbrother, Haidn and then there was Marcus, Aiden and Rheanna, Herman and Hanson. Baby Sofia was the latest addition to the children's collection as she is just 4 months plus and such a cutie pie. Hubby sure had a fun time carrying and entertaining her. 

Jaden's birthday guests sang high praises of the food that we had ordered. In fact, there were a variety of food such as Briyani and White rice, Honey Chicken, Tandoori Chicken, Chicken Lakshimi Kebab, Masala Prawns, Fish Head Curry, Fried Squid, Mix Vegetables, Pineapple Kootu, Snake Gourd Kootu, Fried Tenggiri Fish, Chicken Varuval, Potato and Brinjal Vegetables, Fruit platter of papaya, watermelon, rambutan and mini mandarin oranges. Iced Barley and Orange cordial was on the house, free flow. 

I prepared some snacks for the kids, just in case they did not want to eat but at least they have something to munch on. I know its definitely not healthy but I think I did a great job by not overpreparing them. Just nice enough, the number. I bought M&M minis, some mango puddings and jelly gummies. Just nice enough for the children that came and some adults too. 

Jaden was really happy to be able to eat his briyani rice, which the restaurant used only ghee and not butter, tandoori chicken and fried tenggiri. 

So what is this birthday theme that I have been going on and on about?

We did not do a cartoon theme for Jaden this year round as we realized that he was more into art stuff and everything colour. Colour pencils, Watercolour, art blocks.. anything to do with art and he is a happy little boy.

So I had Angeline (cake baker) to bake me 50 cupcakes that comes in assortment of colours -blue, green, purple, yellow, orange, red and pink. 

Then for the 3D cake, I had her to bake me this cake and the inside was a rainbow cake to suit the occasion of being colourful.

As for the 40 cookies that I gave out to Jaden's birthday guests, they are in the shape/design of a paint pallette. :)

She really met up to my expectation and I could not stop eating the birthday cake. Lets just say the birthday cake was quite a hit too and it was wiped clean too, not a bit left to be taken home. That was how good it was. 

As for Jaden's GFCFEF cake, I have to give it to that another cake lady too. Her name is Mas Ayu. She, too was talented enough to come up with the designs that I wanted for Jaden, pretty enough to suit his birthday theme and at least.. at least he got to eat a few bites of cake. 

Jaden, this year, seems really aware of the cake and he was so impatient, wanting to have a taste of the cake before we could get to finish singing his birthday song for him, and having him to blow out his candles. :p I am just glad he got to eat together when others are eating around him too.

Jaden was really into eating papadom and he went from table to table to eat papadom. *sigh* Thankfully that was on the house too and they replenish it when we ran out of them. 

The children, in the end had a blast with the balloons and boy, by the time the party was over, lets just say the whole of SimonYap clan was pooped.

Luckily, Hubby's friends helped us carry Jaden's presents and stuff back into the car from the restaurant. The car boot was filled to the brim with all the leftovers that we took back too. Not to say that there were lots of leftovers, but enough to feed us for two meals. Some birthday guests that stayed behind did tapao-ed some back too. 

The tiny Teo family (Jaden's kai-yeh, wife & son) helped us to carry stuff back from the car up to the house and lepaked a bit with us at home. It was really lovely.. just intimate. 

Little Haidn even practiced and sang Happy Birthday to Jaden. It was really cute. 

I bathed Jaden after he cooled down, and then I attempted to take some photographs of him posing all his birthday presents. The word is attempt as he was just on a move all around, but well, I did manage to capture a few and then had him to open all his birthday presents. 

This year, the presents turned out just the things that Jaden would be able to use right away and also educational. So thank you once again and to those that also contributed in the style of education fund investments. :) :) 

At the end of the day, albeit being a little overworked and tired out, it was worth it, just to see my son happy and he enjoyed his day tremendously.

With this, Hubby and I would like to say a really BIG THANK YOU to all who came and made Jaden's birthday party a success and for planting that extra mile on his smile for us !! You guys know who you are. 

Jaden is SIX : Part 1 : School celebration

This year is great! This year is awesome! 

I have been waiting for a time like this ... and finally, in 2013, Jaden actually have school friends to celebrate his birthday with him, sing him songs and wish him Happy Birthday.

In fact, they sang in three languages for him. :)

So, lets rewind and get to how the preparation for his 6th Birthday party, shall we?

There were about 40 children in his school, and since its a 'thing' to prepare party packs for children when your kid is celebrating his/her birthday in school, I scratched my head real hard, wondering where can I get 50 party packs since I am on quite a budget?

So as I was walking around Subang Parade one day and I noticed that MPH had a sale going on, I busybodied around and found 29 of what I thought would go with Jaden's birthday theme and I had to get another 11 different thing, but still sticking quite closely to the theme. All capped at RM2 each. 

That was two weeks before his birthday so at least I won't panic last minute and need to go frantically searching. Then, came the birthday cakes headache.

Every year I get a headache, trying to think up of what theme cake to serve my guests, and this year, I needed to think for the children in school!!

In the end, I thought that I would definitely not go wrong with cupcakes as they are just nice and filling enough for each kid. I did not worry much for Jaden as that boy is definitely getting a GFCFEF (gluten/casein/egg free) cake. 

Asked around for some bakers' numbers that I thought could work up to my expectation and true enough, I found one that stays near my housing area and she is wonderful!

So I commisioned her to baked 50 cupcakes for me for Jaden's birthday celebration in school. 

Verdict? 

The children loves it! The cuteness, the cream all over their mouth and them savouring each bite.. 

The happy faces and of course, not forgetting my VIP, he was a happy little boy. 

We hired a photographer to take pictures as we did not want to miss out on one of another of Jaden's firsts. 

:: The end to the School Birthday Celebration @ 27th Sept 2013 ::

Preparing baby essentials .. too early?

I remembered when my pregnant friends/husbands were busy buying baby essentials and getting excited over babystuff sale/ baby expo and exhibitions, I was still being a very laidback woman.

I was in no hurry at all to get for baby no.2 just yet, maybe because I still have Jaden's stuff and since I have yet to make space for baby no.2, I did not want to go out and buy the essentials and leave it to collect dust or worse, I forget about them.

Then, just out of the sudden, I have this feeling that I need to start preparing and getting them and boy, bam bam bam* in less than a week or two, I have got a few of the most expensive stuff for baby no.2.

The first thing I got for baby other than a number of newborn clothes, I signed up for the cord blood and Mesenchymal Stem Cells banking. That is one very important thing that I told myself that I must get it done, as stem cells research could benefit Jaden in the later years as they are studying that for autism and also, for baby no.2's sake as well. All in all, hopefully we won't have to use it for baby no.2 but more for Jaden's benefit. 

Then I went out stroller hunting, comparing prices and designs. I have always either like three wheeler strollers or the umbrella folded ones. 

The brands that I had been eyeing before I fell in love with the one I bought for baby no.2 was Bugaboo, Stokke, Britax, McLaren (BMW ones), Peg Perego, Sweet Cherry and of course, Quinny though I did not know about the Moodd just yet until recently when I spotted it at Mothercare when I was browsing at ELC.

I liked Bugaboo Bee but I wanted the limited edition ones, or the all black collection, just because. BUT limited edition ones were sold out (Andy Warhol's designs and also the special coloured ones) The next option was the all black bugaboo bee but Hubby and I have different colour preference. He prefered the yellow coloured one but at the back of my mind, I just liked the stroller but was not in love with it.

Then there was the Britax that looks really sturdy and not that expensive. Same goes as Peg Perego but I thought although they are a trustable brand for strollers, they can be quite dinosaur and what difference would they be from the one that Jaden already owned?

Stokke was nice, really felt sturdy but it was really really big too and the parts, you need to pay separately for almost everything so that didn't really cut into the budget.

Then... I chanced upon Moodd all black in Mothercare and just could not take my eyes off it. I marveled it for quite some time and it was still in my head when I went home. A few days later, while walking around in One Utama by myself after dropping Jaden at school, I walked past Mamours and saw that they carried Moodd as well and.. ooh lala, even better, the limited edition Moodd by Britto. I was definitely in love. I was already initially in love with the stroller design, and with this colourful edition, I was sold! 

It turned out that by signing up with Cryocord for the premium package, I would also be getting RM1899 voucher that I can redeem at Mamours. Now, don't you call that a coincidence? I showed Hubby the designs online and went on and on just praising how it functions. 

Truth be told, its rather a big and heavy stroller, not as big and heavy like Stokke but they are about priced the same, only that this one provides free car seat adapters for maxi cosi baby carrier. 

I definitely need to get a baby carrier as baby will mostly be out with me when I ferry Jaden here and there for his classes and Jaden already has his designated seat as my co-pilot. Baby no.2 would just have to learn that his place in the car would be next to daddy, at the back seat. 

Off I went to Mamour's hq to redeem my Quinny stroller. If I didn't opt for the Moodd, the voucher would have been a free Quinny Zapp Xtra but sadly, I really didn't fancy the design. Other than the stroller, I bought Maxi Cosi Pebble from them too. At first, my friends and the lady at Mamours were saying Red Pebble would be good but I don't know what is wrong with me, I wanted the black but Black Pebble would not be in till later in the evening, so I asked if I could take the red back first and show Hubby and if we didn't like the colour, we will go back and change. They said ok, and thats what I did.. and who knew, Hubby said one smart thing which I never even thought of and in the end, we changed it to a totally different colour.

We changed it to Walnut Brown. Why? So the car seat would go well with our car seat colour. :) And it fits just nice, the colour pairing. Why did I not think of that before? *sigh* Pregnant brain!

Now, the next thing on the list that I really really want to get for baby no.2 is Nuna Leaf.

:)

It is another baby product that I fell in love with. Yes, Jaden already has his bouncer, the traditional one but this is more of a swinging product compared to a bouncing one.

Best thing, it can take the weight up to about 60kg, so that means, Jaden can also sit in it.

Milk bottles, sterilizers, bottle and food warmer and breast pump, I am getting them from Avent. We have a mutual friend's sibling working for Avent and they could get us the stuff at a much more better discount, so decided to buy from them, rather than buying during sales at retail outlets. So there, that is one thing we definitely saved on.. and I actually opt for manual breast pump instead of single electric/double electric although I kinda fancy Medela after hearing good reviews bout them, I am just afraid that baby no.2 might just be like his brother, who prefers direct latch on compared to bottles. Then, I will have to admit that I have just officially wasted money.

Oh boy, I am sure splurging a lot on baby gadgets for baby no.2, but that is mostly what he will be getting. Toys? Puzzles? Learning stuff? All that, he would just have to have the hand-me-downs from Jaden as Jaden really has got lots of all those things unless baby no.2 plays with other toys that Jaden don't play with. 

School? Well, *touch wood* if everything turns out differently from Jaden, baby no.2 would have to settle for local kindergarten and gov school. Well, who knows though, that is still years ahead..

Bedcots? None in mine yet though I am targeting my friend's baby cot which seems smaller.. OR I shall just get the playpen style sleeping cot. I have been eyeing this one newborn pillow at Mothercare. It retails for about RM50++, 10% if we use the Mothercare card.. and that is all I have been targeting. Bathtub, I might just settle for those plastic RM10 ones  you can get from pasar malam.. LOL 

For now, I just have one wish for baby no.2 that is, to grow healthily inside me and when he pops out of me, he will continue to grow healthy and happy and a promise I shall make to him is that he will be getting equal love as how I love Jaden, that is how he will be loved too. No biasness between them boys.