Moments in My Life

A while back Stephanie has asked about how much bread is wasted after cutting it out in the shapes I want. Then recently my sister commented in FB saying it must be wasting a lot of bread when I cut the shapes out. And now the answer - depends on the shapes I am cutting.

The cutter I use is very small - one bite size for toddler. Here below is a piece of bread which I used to cut out some star shapes pieces. I am able to get 16 stars (the most) using 1 piece of bread. Sometimes the shape of the bread will affect the number of pieces I get out of it too.

Here is a piece I cut using the teddy bear shape cutter. I will get 18 pieces out of one piece of bread if I cut it carefully.

I spread the jam/peanut butter after I cut them. The scrap pieces of bread, I usually throw away. Sometimes I will eat those center pieces myself.

12/25/2008 

We slept in and didn’t wake up until past 8am.  Usually, I would have gotten up by 7:30am the latest.  It rained very heavily the night before and the ground was wet.  We have to turn on our heater every morning when we wake up as the temperature inside the house drops down to the 50s.  We warm it till about low 60s and then we turn off. 

Around 10:30am we left home to drop off some gifts for Alan’s cousins.  The first one wasn’t at home so we left the bag near their main door.  Then we went to Torrance to visit his other cousin with two young kids.  One of her son is almost the same age as Brandon.  We were greeted by a lot of toys when we entered their home.  They had been opening the kids’ Christmas gifts.  Brandon enjoy seeing so many toys and playing with some of them.  We left around 12pm to go home to make lunch and stayed home the rest of the afternoon. 

At dinner time, we joined my IL’s for roast beef dinner.  It was very windy and cold outside.  I put on a huge jacket for Brandon with a hood.  After dinner we came home.  I carried two bags while Alan carried Brandon.  I was walking in front opening the door and then placing down the bags in the living room.  Alan followed my back and put Brandon down the floor and turned his back to close the door.  A loud thud was heard then followed by a wailing toddler.  He fell on his face and bit his mouth.  It was bleeding so I quickly took an ice cube to stop his bleeding.  His jackets and socks were stained with blood. It was not good sight. I didn’t know what else to do. I even gave him cold orange juice to drink.  Why he fell? Because he was wearing too many layers and couldn’t freely move about his hands to stop himself from hitting the floor. And his face was half cover by the hood and couldn’t see where he was going.

So that evening, Brandon received another gift for Christmas … a ’sausage’ upper lip!

He was fine the next morning as he woke up and told me his lip is no longer in pain.

Wishing all my readers …

Tuesday 12/2/08

* We woke up at 6:30am to start preparing for our journey back.
* ILs took a bus down to meet us at our hotel.
* When we left Mandalay Bay it was past 8am.
* Stopped at Primm Outlet’s Mac Donald for breakfast.
* Brandon napped about 45 minutes until we arrived at Barstow Tangers Outlet Mall.  Shopped for about an hour.  Bought another Coach item.
* Got back to LA city at 1pm and had dim sum lunch at Monterey Park before heading home.

END OF our 2008 Las Vegas trip.

Monday 12/1/08

* Hotel emergency alarm came on at 6:30am waking all the three of us.
* After 15 mins it turned off after annoucing the problem was a minor incident and we didn’t have to evacuate.
* Left our hotel in the rental minivan to meet up with ILs at their hotel for buffet breakfast. Digital camera out of battery so no pictures for the day.
* Had a short walk to Ceasar Palace Casino & Hotel which is just next to Mirage.
* SIL and FIL went to the casino while the 4 of us including MIL walked around the mall area.
* At 11am we all went to Mirage again to check out.
* Drove to Charleston Premium Outlet Mall and shopped. Got myself another Coach bag. I could see Brandon was tired but he didn’t sleep even I tried pushing in the stroller all the time back and forth while waiting for the others to be done with their shopping.
* Dropped off ILs at Golden Nuggets Hotel in downtown LV and drove back to ours.
* Brandon fell asleep in the car when we were only 5 minutes from our hotel. I came up with an idea to drive around so he could nap longer. Told Hubby to stop at the Belz Outlet which is called Las Vegas Outlet Mall at the south end of Las Vegas Strip. While I went in to check out the Disney Outlet Shop, Hubby went to fill up the minivan.
* Brandon woke up when Hubby was filling up. He probably napped for 15 minutes only.
* Went back to our hotel and I contacted a blogger’s hubby whom happened to be in Las Vegas to pass some bento items to him for his wife. Also to pick up some items from him all the way from Malaysia.
* It was 5pm when I left my hotel room to MGM Signature. It took me 30 minutes to get there by walking/running. I stayed for about 15 minutes to chat a bit then rushed back to my hotel to meet up with my friend for dinner. It was very nice to meet up with another Malaysian abroad.
* Went to Kabuki for dinner. It was past 7pm when we actually started our dinner. Brandon had quite a bit of food since we didn’t really eat lunch. He had some pancakes during our buffet breakfast and then later a baby food in the bottle when we were on the way to the outlet.
* My friend bought Brandon a pair of pants and a bubble bottle from Gymboree. We blew bubbles underneath the gigantic Christmas tree in the plaza.
* By the time we got back to our room, it was close to 9:30pm.

I was expecting the season finale for Heroes last night but ended up with more excitement.  The season has not ended yet.  Heroes Volume 3 ‘Fugitives’ will continue on NBC Feb 9th, the week after Superbowl weekend.  This time, the Heroes will be hunted by the government agency.  From the short preview I saw last night, Nathan has sorted the helped from the President to hunt and lock those Heroes away.  Will be interesting to see how the story will develop in the second part of Volume 3.  By the way, the first part of Heroes Volume 3 was titled ‘Villains’. 

Sunday 11/30/08

* Brandon woke up with a runny nose.
* Left home around 8am on a rental Dodge minivan.
* Alan drove the minivan all the way.
* He was in the driver seat, SIL in the passenger seat next to him, Brandon and I in the captain seats (2nd row) while FIL and MIL in the back row.
* First stop at a Walmart in Rancho Cucamonga for restroom.
* Brandon napped for 45 minutes before we arrived at Primm Factory Outlet at around 11:15am.
* I shopped at Coach and bought a handbag which later exchanged (on 12/2) for another style.
* Left the outlet at 12pm something. All were hungry.
* Arrived at Mandalay Bay ~12:30pm and had their champagne lunch buffet for $24.99 per person. I think the price is slightly too high for the selection we had. Brandon didn’t eat much and was giving us (me) a hard time to enjoy the buffet.
* Alan went check in after he was done with the buffet. We went up to our room 11212 after we finished our lunch. Only FIL and SIL stayed in the casino area for play. Brandon was happy when we were in the hotel room. He kept himself entertained by moving around the room and checking out the stuff including the bathroom too.
* SIL won some money (~$700) at the jackpot (but later lost all at another casino).
* We drove the ILs to their hotel (Mirage) to check in. The hotel room looks OK as they are just refurbished and it has the flat screen TV on the wall now. But the bathroom is small (compared to Mandalay Bay’s) as it only has a small tub, toilet and one sink.

* SIL’s room package came with 2 free tickets to The Secret Garden of Siegfried & Roy. Since she was more keen to stay in the casino and the garden closed at 5pm, she gave us the tickets. We arrived at 4pm. The sky was already gray. They had a small dolphin show which Brandon really enjoyed. The garden is not big. It has two pools for dolphins and an enclosed area for cages with white tigers. We left around 4:45pm.

* I called my friend (Gregg) to meet up at our hotel. On the way back to our room, we bought a dinner meatballs spaghetti from Red White and Blue restaurant at Mandalay Bay. This spaghetti cost us $18! But it was good and the little boy ate quite a lot of it (he skipped lunch), so I was happy even if it was for $18, it was well spent as the three of us shared the meal and we were all satisfied.

* Gregg came and we chatted in our room. Brandon was playing with uncle Gregg and he left around 9pm, time for Brandon to go to bed. Alan wasn’t feeling 100% well as he was having a small cold and he was tired too.
* After I came out from my shower, Alan went down to the casino to try his luck. He returned in less than 30 minutes and Brandon was about to fall asleep but woke up when he saw his daddy. This time we actually booked the room with 2 queen size beds so I could share one with Brandon while Alan took the other one by himself. Brandon was having a hard time to fall asleep because his nose was stuff up. Alan went down to get some cold/cough strips from the nearby Pharmacy which took him about 30mins round trip. I carried Brandon until he fell asleep and then I placed him on to the pillows. Luckily we got the strips as Brandon woke up in the middle of the night coughing, so I gave him the medicine and he went back to sleep until the next morning.

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This is one of my son’s favorite mall because there is a fountain in the concourse area. There are two baby stores which we like to shop that only available at this mall - BabyStyle and Pottery Barn for Kids. There is only one anchor store - Macy’s. There are many restaurant around the mall including Chilis, Olive Gardens, Corner Bakery, Islands, California Pizza Kitchen and more.

Last Sunday after I dropped off my friend’s car at LAX for her to drive back to Corona, we went to this mall. Here are some of the Christmas decorations in the mall.

We arrived at 10:15am and most of the stores were still closed. Only Macy’s was opened. So what we did was to walk from one end of the mall to the concourse area so my son could enjoy the fountain while I snapped snapped some pictures and then we walked back to our car and left the mall. Although it was early, there was still a small crowd walking around inside.

Manhattan Village
3200 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

We bought our Pre Lit Christmas Tree from Lowe’s on Saturday evening. Then on Sunday afternoon, we put it up near the dining/kitchen area and decorated it. Why didn’t we put it in our living room since?  Because we don’t spend as much time over there as we do in the dining/kitchen area. I am glad we put it where we did and now we see it all the time.

Brandon has been enjoying our Christmas tree a lot. In the morning when he wakes up, he wants the see the Christmas tree lighted and I turn it on for him everyday since the tree had LED light bulbs, it won’t be using too much energy. I remember reading the box saying it cost approximately $1 to light the tree for the whole season.

Now that we have our tree up, we need to decorate other part of the house too. I am planning to buy a pot of Poinsettia for the living room and slightly dress it up a little bit with some Christmas items to be inviting to guests. I might be planning a small mommy and me gathering for some friends we met at the parenting class from Torrance Adult School next week. It will be a pot-luck style gathering. I might bake some cupcakes if I have the time. I love the smell of fresh bake cake/cookies in the house.