Chinese New Year is coming! We, people of chinese heritage love to decorate our home during this festive season with auspicious symbols.
From red and gold banners filled with well wishes to beautiful hanging trinkets and bright lights. We love beautiful plants too and one of the most popular are kumkuat trees and pussy willows.
There is however one plant that is completely under-rated but it’s my favourite…because I can grow it easily and it looks so good!
Drumroll please….the arrowroot plant or better known as “ngahku” in cantonese.
Yes, it’s the very popular arrowroot as it makes one of the best snacks during CNY – the arrowroot crisps. The salty, light and crunchy and oh so moreish “ngahku”.
# – The delicious “ngahku” crisps.
When Chinese New Year is approaching, you can often find arrowroot bulbs being sold in massive piles for really cheap at your neighbourhood supermarkets.
So if you’re making your own “ngahku” crisps, do remember to save a few bulbs for growing.
It takes about 3 weeks for the plan to mature, so plant your bulbs about 3 weeks before Chinese New Year is good.
# – First, get some pebbles and arrange the bulbs in a wide, decorative bowl, like this. With the stem sticking out, fill it up with tap water.
You know what, that’s it! All you need to do now is to change the water every two days and wait :)
# – After about two weeks, the bulbs will grow roots and will start to sprout. You will find these beautiful stems growing upwards and the leaves unfurling.
Just keep on changing the water every 2 days and maybe snip off some browned leaves (it does happen) sometimes.
# – Before you know it (or about 3 weeks later), you will find yourself with a bowl of tall and majestic arrowroot plants. And so it’s time to decorate!
# – I like to cut red papers into strips.
# – And wrap it around each plant. Secure with celophane tape.
# – I also like stacking some decorative gold bullions around the plant.
# – And there, your very own auspicious and tall arrowroot plant for Chinese New Year! Huat ahhhhhhhhhh!
Happy Chinese New Year and hope you’re blessed with great health and prosperity in the year of the monkey!
This is such a long post it took me almost 3 weeks to write. I wanted to publish this on 1st of January lols.
Most of the pictures and recollections are from my Dayre account, which I updated every single day for the whole of 2015. This is also why I hardly blogged here hehe.
I guess it’s a really quiet 2015 as I am no longer working full-time. Just picking up temp jobs here and there (stuff that I could do at home) and blogging of course. I did lunch catering and supplying yummy pork cracklings to a watering hole for a few months due to my sudden existential crisis brought on by full-time motherhood. I really enjoyed it but I have since stopped due to cost factors (GST and rise in tolls are real!!!). So anyway, if you have any writing jobs etc please show them my way, thank you very much!
Sorry I digressed. 2015 was nice year, I really enjoyed watching Liam hit all his milestones and becoming the cutest toddler in the world hehe as you will about to see too.
Again I remind you, this is a lonngggggggggggggggggggggg post so please empty your bladder before reading (I assume all 3 of you are interested in my life!).
January 2015
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It’s been more than half a year after Liam was born. We finally got to have a proper family outing after many months of house arrest due to Liam’s prematurity (his doctor advised us to stay indoors for a whole year but we could only manage 8 months). So what did we do for our first outing? We chose to have tea at Carcosa Sri Negara. It was really nice to dress up a little and hang out with my fambam :)
January is also a month where Liam got a mysterious insect bite under his eye. He looked terrifying lol. I was surprised by how calm we were about it, I guess after going through those weeks in NICU, a little swelling under the eye felt like a breeze haha. We did read up a bit and it’s probably just his young baby skin’s reacting to an ordinary mossie bite as he still had not developed antibodies towards them.
And it’s the month he started to get very amused by ME! :)
February 2015
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A lot of firsts for Liam in this month. I know this post should be mostly about me but really, who are we kidding? His life is my life now hahaha.
February was the month Liam celebrated his first Chinese New Year! Doesn’t he look like a proper chinese person? Heheheh.
Had CNY dinner with the girls and it’s the first time Liam was properly introduced to them. He was very charming and well-behaved :)
Liam’s first exposure to banana leaf rice! He was such a darling, charming all the waiting staff as usual.
He also took his first shopping trolley ride and loved it.
And I have to include a picture of him having fallen asleep while touching his toe. Too adorable!!!!
March 2015
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In March, I wrote a blog post on the reasons my son cries. Please read it cause it’s funny!
Liam experienced his first baby spa with his buddies. He absolutely enjoyed it, the massage and the swim.
Look at how happy he is getting a butt rub hahaha
His first tooth started to sprout around this time too.
This is also the month where he started “talking”.
He also started to pull himself up to a standing position.
March is also hubs’ birthday month so I took him to a French restaurant to celebrate. Liam was very well-bahaved, I was so proud of him!
We had a family photoshoot with the talented Samantha Yong.
April 2015
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Liam chilling by himself while me and hubs went to play some stupid game at Tesco.
He got very friendly with his own reflection :)
April is also the month we had to lower down his cot cause of this….
One of the hardest things I had to do was throwing away all these frozen milk that I produced. Was too lazy to thaw them for bath etc and I needed space pronto so in the bin they went :(
Someone also started to develop a temper with arching back and all.
Liam finally learnt how to crawl.
And he also knew how to use the walker with some assistance.
But not that great at it….hehehe.
May 2015
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In May, I went for a 2 hour foot massage with a baby strapped to my chest. I was nuts and I will never ever do it again lols
And then got further value with a foot spa at home. Thank you Charlie’s poop.
I celebrated my first Mother’s Day. Hubs took me to Mei by Fat Spoon for a nice lunch.
Hubs also took us to Cherating for a Mother’s Day treat. It’s Liam’s first beach experience :)
We took Liam to swim at a friend’s condo. He got submerged for the first time.
We even got his WTF expression underwater lols.
We brought him to Daddy’s barber. He’s been many times since, hope he gets familiarised and won’t throw a tantrum when the time comes for his first haircut (which is a long time away at this rate hahaha).
June 2015
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I started SnapChat and I still love it now. You can follow me at kimberly.low you will find lotsa videos of me and Liam haha
Baked my first red velvet cake and gave it all to my lunch catering customers.
Certainly a special month as we celebrated Gareth’s first father’s day :) I took him to a nice seafood restaurant and we had a proper feast!
Bub took his first mall ride and loved it!
Liam was beginning to show a good sense of humour. Here he laughs at his own yawn hehe.
Liam started to become more exploratory, which means….more getting stuck lols
Here’s one..
Another one…
And another one…
July 2015
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My favourite month because it’s my birthday month! And also Liam’s. And also my best friend Jayna’s :)
First we celebrated Jayna’s birthday. Jayna is Liam’s godma.
Liam ate strawberry for the first time. He hated it.
We did waterplay at home. I am obviously posting this picture because I will never get to keep these boobs forever.
Got my son his first passport.
Liam learnt to get down from a sofa, finally!
He also ate crackers for the first time.
And he has the perfect tongue dance hahaha.
Hubs got me an Anova precision immersion circulator for my birthday….which means I can sous vide food at home now!!!!
And then he treated me to a fabulous dinner at Dewakan. 13 courses with a baby, we were pretty damn brave and crazy.
Liam also celebrated his first birthday! Here, he’s holding his birthday card from granny Susan.
August 2015
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First we had a party at home to celebrate Liam’s first birthday. His adjusted age was only 10 months but who’s counting? Haha.
Then we flew to Europe for a 3 week holiday! I blogged about Liam’s inaugural flight.
Liam met Aunt Jean for the first time.
Had a picnic with granny Susan by River Severn.
Liam finally learnt how to clap his hands to “If you’re happy and you know it” song.
Of course, there’s no shortage of Liam getting himself stuck…. this time on top of a suitcase lols.
Besides England, we drove to France (Dunkerque), Belgium (Brussels, Westvleteren, Ieper and Antwerp), Holland (Rotterdam and Amsterdam), Germany (Villingen-Schwenningen) and Switzerland (Schaffhausen). We did a lot of driving and Liam was, for most of the journey pretty good.
Here, he moved to the music we were listening to in the car.
And also visited LooLoo, my best friend and maid of honour who now lives in Germany.
Looloo took us to Rhine Falls in Switzerland, what a magnificent sight!
I also joined the Bersih 4.0 in London while babywearing Liam and we took a picture with Clare Rewcastle Brown. Hope 2016 is a better year for our country :(
And we had a family tongue dance in London’s Primark haha.
September 2015
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Liam ate his first chicken nugget OMG!!! It took all my mental strength to not freak out and remove it from his hand haha.
In this month I baked my very first cinnamon rolls. So delicious and easy I should make them often as it’s so much easier with a breadmaker to do all the hard work of kneading and proofing. But I have yet to make more hahah #lazy
Liam got stuck, what’s new?
He’s also taken to giving me heart attacks every now and then. Here he’s climbing up the sofa like a monkey.
And this lucky boy also got to meet the celebrities in the form of Hi-5. He doesn’t know it yet but he will probably be very thrilled with this picture one day :)
October 2015
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This is our wedding anniversary month. We didn’t do much but I felt much loved as the husband bought me the holy trinity of nasi lemak for anniversary breakfast…paru, sotong and seeham :)
Liam also got stuck on top of the footstool. Sometimes he forgets that he knows how to get down.
Doesn’t stop him from getting onto the footstool all the time though….
And boy has he developed a character. He learnt how to say no at mealtime grrrrr
And that’s why he deserved to be bullied by his father hehehehe
November 2015
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November started with Liam getting stuck. Yeap.
I even have a video hahaha. Great parenting eh?
Hubs took me to eat at In-N-Out popup restaurant. We found out about it quite late and made it in the nick of time. In fact we were the last customers before they closed up! Worth the drive.
I sewed a pair of shorts for Liam….it was horrendous. He was horrified as you can see.
This is also the month that Liam had fevers for a few days and eventually admitted to hospital for a night as there was a dengue scare.
Fortunately it wasn’t dengue and he probably was just having a particularly bad teething phase.
We found out that he was suffering from diet related anaemia though as I hadn’t fed him much meat except for fish…I felt quite shitty for being so stupid. Now he gets meat everyday!
Had a babycino after getting better. Not his first but he’s too cute in this picture!
And finally, Liam walked properly for the first time!
December 2015
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Before we knew it, it was December.
I attempted to make pulut panggang. Too much work, haha I will stick to buying them in the future!
Liam went to his first book fair. He had a ball pushing the plastic trolleys all over the hall.
I made mince pies for the first time. The mince was storebought though #cheatbake
Liam and I dressed up as flapper girl and newspaperboy for a prohibition era party :D
Had our annual Xmas party and it was wonderful :)
Liam ate lemon for the first time and he was unperturbed by it haha
He also learnt how to get down from out extra tall bed. It’s quite scary to watch but he does it like a pro now.
Hubs took us for a staycation in KL to usher in new year. We didn’t get to see fireworks though cause they closed the rooftop a few hours before midnight -__- but we had a nice time swimming when it reopened the next day. Don’t ask me where this hotel is cause I will not recommend it haha. I am sure you can find it yourself if you’re resourceful enough.
Me and Liam eating traditional local desserts from a stall in KL. We had so much fun playing tourists in our own city :)
So there…my review of 2015 done. Did you read everything? I think 3 weeks really isn’t so bad for a post this long haha. As promised, it’s really more about Liam than me haha but that’s alright because he is my life <3
I don’t really have resolutions for 2016, I just wish to be a better person, better mother, better friend and a better wife. And sew some stuff my family and I can wear out in public.
