First Christmas! (25 Dec 2008)

Kendrick celebrated his first Christmas this year with our family! I still recall last year I was still pregnant and counting down to delivery day! Anyway, on Christmas eve, we had a simple dinner gathering at my Grandma's place and there Kendrick received his first Christmas gifts from his Great-Grandma, Grandma and Grand-Aunt! Then on Christmas Day itself, we took Kendrick out for a lunch with his Wai Po and Gong Gong. After that was shopping time for Mummy and Daddy before heading back home to rest :P Dinner was with your Ah Ma, Ah Gong and Xiao Gu.

Heading out for lunch

Last chance to take photo with a Christmas Tree...

Kendrick wearing his Christmas bib

Standing on the stage and having fun!

After our dinner and when we were back home, it was time to open all our presents!! But before that, we took some shots for fun :P

Tan Family and our Presents

Kendrick's presents! See how happy he is smiling!

Ok, getting a bit bored now and wondering when the posing will end...hehe

Ta-da! Presents opened and Kendrick stands on his feet without any support. He's been doing this a lot lately and he will show-off by putting his arms out and saying 'Wah' to us! Funny boy

Kendrick says "These are my presents...cannot touch!"

Kendrick at 11 months

Kendrick turned 11 months recently when we were still in KL. Yes, in one more month's time we will be celebrating his 1st year birthday at home. Before that comes, we were wondering when Kendrick would start to walk on his own and these few days, we noticed that he kept standing without holding onto anything for support when he is in the baby cot and also in the play pen. When standing on the floor, he also did the same thing few times. Just earlier this evening while playing with Kendrick, I was somehow able to hold him very little and eventually let go totally to see him walk a few first steps on his own!! So happy to witness that. I quickly told Dear and we managed to get Kendrick to demonstrate it another time!

Anyway, I find that Kendrick seemed to grow up a lot these couple of weeks. In terms of his physical/psycho-motor skills, I'm glad that he has finally learnt how to use his pincer grasp much much better to pick up small bits of food from the table or bowl and put into his mouth. Waving bye bye and 'sayang-ing' us are also actions which he will do if we keep asking him to. Though waving good bye is still subjective to his mood! In terms of his speech/verbal development, he seemed to be developing pretty well too- lately he has been calling 'Ma Ma' more often than 'Pa Pa'. In fact, he seems to know how to call his grandma and also me as 'Ma Ma'. Well, hopefully in more months to come he will say 'Mummy' instead. Haha..

Other than that, Kendrick has been 'talking' a lot by making funny words and sounds as if he was talking like us adults. He loves to point at things too as he 'talks' and we will try to respond to him accordingly. He knows where's the clock in the house and when you ask him 'what time it is' in Mandarin, he would turn to look at the clock! He also knows his toy bear very well, calling it 'Bear' and he will go towards it when we ask him where is Bear Bear. When reading books, he knows he has this Elmo book which he will say 'Mo Mo'. When giving him food, sometimes he will make the sound that sounds very much like 'more more' or perhaps even 'no more' which we keep telling him at times. Talking about food, Kendrick now has 4 teeth - 2 lower and 2 upper. I can see one more upper tooth coming along in time, but generally his teeth growth is not as fast as some babies.

It's been quite a fun stage to play with Kendrick these few months. Though he is very very active and just can't sit still for long, it's good to know that my little baby is becoming a toddler in no time! Can't imagine him running around in maybe a few more months time?? I'm now guessing that he may walk by Chinese New Year. Whatever it is, at his time and pace :)

At Dear's cousin's wedding dinner - Kendrick was really excited about all the new things he saw - the lights, the sound, the activities

I'm going to be 1 soon!

Family shot

KL - Genting Family Trip (5 - 8 Dec 2008)

This will be quite a long entry as I'll be updating about the recent family trip (extended family included) that we had to KL and Genting. Yes, we brought Kendrick along and I'm glad to say that he behaved much better than I expected, especially on the coach journey. I'm also very proud of him as the journey to KL took almost 6hours + plus a very hot half hour taxi ride just to get to our hotel due to the terrible jam in Bukit Bintang area!! Poor Kendrick was sweating like mad by the time we reached the hotel but he did not cry much, just some fretting that was manageable.

Day 1 - Setting off to KL / Free & Easy in KL
We set off around 7 plus in the morning to the pick up point of the coach. Dear and I got ourselves ready before waking Kendrick to get him dressed. He was quite good mood despite being woken early by us.

Morning look before we set off...we both look like we just woke up..hehee

This was Kendrick's seat in the coach. There was enough leg room for us to put his stroller on board, so that's where Kendrick slept. When he was awake, he would sit there sometimes or want us to carry him. We even managed to feed him cereal on board.

Finally after a tiring 6 hour journey + taxi ride to our hotel, we arrived at our hotel. As it was already 3plus in the afternoon, it was Kendrick's milk time. After that, you could tell that he was really excited and happy. Perhaps he could sense this was a different place from home, or he was just being playful anyway. Once we all washed up a little, it was time to head out for a walk and look for a very late lunch. We thus ended up walking all the way to Pavillion with my entire extended family. Kendrick was happy to see Christmas trees during the entire trip.

We had our first meal in KL at Madam Kwan's restaurant.

Kendrick thinking about what to eat

Kendrick's turn to order

While shopping around, Kendrick fell asleep with his 'chou chou'. This became such a critical thing to have for the trip. His favourite smelly bolster for sleeping...

The day ended quite late since we had our lunch late which also meant that dinner was late. Amazingly, Kendrick was able to stay up late into the night, thanks to the afternoon nap he had. In the end, we all went to bed only at 12am...including Kendrick who refused to sleep and kept wanting to play on the hotel bed.

Day 2 - Genting Highlands

My family managed to hire a mini-bus for a day trip up to Genting Highlands. So we prepared ourselves after breakfast and left at around 10am.

Getting Kendrick ready for the Genting trip... Kendrick trying to catch Daddy here...

On board the mini-bus on route to Genting Highlands

Kendrick being 'passed around' to be entertained


Kendrick's first carousel ride in First World Indoor Theme Park. He seemed pretty happy as he was always smiling!

Queuing to take the indoor ferris wheel ride

Up and away!

After those rides, we take a walk towards 'higher ground'...Genting Highlands Hotel


Preparing Kendrick for his first sub-20 outdoor experience! The clothes and hat Dear and I bought from US came in handy at this point

Here we are outside!

Some lovely shots of Kendrick - Daddy loves the sparkle in your eyes in these 2 photos...

We ended our day at Genting at around 6pm. The mini-bus then took us for dinner at a place we arranged for. Some nice zi-char food and then we finally head back to KL.

Day 3 - KL Free and Easy
Everyone was pretty much on their own today. So my parents and us went shopping together. We mostly shopped in the shopping centres along Bukit Bintang, breaking for lunch in between. We also headed to Berjaya Times Square which was quite near our hotel as well.

Kendrick playing happily with Pooh Bear in a department store

Unfortunately, Dear fell sick by the time we got back to our hotel around 4 plus in the afternoon. It seemed like a case of food poisoning as Dear vomitted and ran a slight fever later in the evening. Fortunately, with medicine and rest, he was much better by late at night. Because of that, Dear did not get to enjoy our last group dinner at Jalan Alor. The zi-char was quite nice and cheap and not forgetting the juicy and delicious bbq chicken wings!!

Day 4 - Back to Singapore

Our departure time was at 2pm, so we had some time in the morning after breakfast to do some last minute shopping. It was our plan to bring Kendrick swimming in the morning. Unfortunately, it rained all morning even till afternoon. So we had to forgo our swimming plans. Instead, we just hung around in our hotel rooms till it was time to go. My aunt and mum went for some last minute shopping though.

My cousins who helped entertain Kendrick

Smiling happily - why because going home is it??!

Group shot before leaving our hotel

We finally reached home at around 8 plus at night. Thank God there was not too much of a bad jam on the way back. Lots of stuff to do once we were home. Though tired out, we were glad that the trip turned out quite well after all. Kendrick had lots of cute and funny behaviour throughout the trip, but I'm most thankful that he was safe and sound throughout the entire trip :)