Dad's 60th Birthday

Dad, mine and my niece's birthdays all fall in the month of July. 

Today's the 17th and it's my niece's birthday! That little girl has grown up so much already and is demanding for an iPad as her birthday present! Kids these days....

Doesn't even know how to type and spell, yet demanding for an iPad.

So anyway, 12 July was my dad's birthday and since my brother's family will not be coming back to our house as it is the fasting month, the hubs and I decided to bring my father for a dinner to celebrate his big 60th. 

My mum used to tell me... that when you're 59, it's a "dangerous" age to be in. You either make it to your 60th or you'll die when you're 59 (not sure where she heard this from). This saying was actually quite scary because earlier this year, my father had a cancer scare and I thought this saying was coming true. But I'm glad it's all over and whether the saying was true or not, my father did make it and we would be celebrating his 60th! :) 

Hmmm.... yea, I'm still at the #wefie stage. 

I was makeup-less, and had only applied lipstick ! See how amazing my camera is, and how important a lipstick is to brighten and lit up your entire face!

So this year, we brought them to Thai Village for his birthday celebration. Initially, he had not want to go to this restaurant, because it is pretty expensive, but my mum persuaded him to go. 

Some pictures while we were waiting for our food. Must make use of my new camera!

And the dishes that we had ordered.

Shark fins soup to share. 

I know there are tons of  people out there who are anti-sharkfin cuisine, but I really love my sharkfins soup. I'm sorry. 

Crab beehoon. The hubs think that there is a smell to it, I guess he was referring to the ginger taste, but I love it. The only time I can have my seafood is when I'm with  my own family because the hubs does not like seafood. He does not know what he is missing out in life. 

Some salted chicken or something. Totally didn't look like the picture in the menu, and I regretted ordering this, because it was so so salty! No, I don't like this dish!

Fried beancurd, which is tasteless on its own, but delicious when dipped in the sauce that they gave. Crispy on the outside, and soft in the inside!

This dish needs no further introduction. Broccoli with scallops. Too little scallops I think. I only got to eat one, unless the hubs had taken more than (teehee)! 

Seafood fried rice! This dish was the last dish (I've no idea why), and by the time it came my stomach was almost filled to the brim already. But I still tried squeezing it in! Love it still. 

And finally a family photo! 

The bill came up to almost $300. It would have been much lesser if we had not ordered the shark fin's soup, but I thought the money was well spent! $300 for the smile on dad's face. Priceless. 

And an #ootd #wiwt shot by the mum! Not bad I must say. 

Weekend Brunch: Food For Thought

I am extremely upset because this is the second time I'm typing this entry. I have no idea why blogger didn't auto save my entry and I was so shocked when I saw that this entry had only pictures and no words when I published it :( :(

As you can see, I haven't gotten over my new selfie camera and still take loads of #selfies or #wefies as some might call it. Totally in love with the beauty mode function because it gives me such flawless skin!

But I guess, camera makers might want to consider adding a second function to the camera, and that is to have an automatic slimming function to faces/bodies. V-shaped faces are all in the rage now and I think many girls are going under the knives to achieve that Vshaped face. So for gutless people like me, the auto-slimming function mode in the camera will suffice for now!

So these are our #wefies before we left for our weekend brunch at Food For Thought!

I have known about Food For Thought for a few years now, because they are employers for my clients at my workplace. I have always known them as a social enterprise with big heart. I've never tried their food because I was wary of meeting my clients when I dined there. But I decided to give it a try as I have always heard good feedbacks about the restaurant. 

We went to the Botanical Garden's branch because reviews said that food at this branch was slightly cheaper than the other 2 branches and there's no service charge or GST which is excellent for people who are in a saving mode like us! 

Look at the crowd on a Sunday late morning/early afternoon! It was bustling with people! It was such a good place to be at on a Sunday morning, because you can hear laughters, and see friends gathering around to have a good time together. 

Though it was crowded, it was not difficult to find a seat (probably because there's only 2 of us) because the place is pretty big. 

There's also a playground outside the eating area, to occupy those hyperactive kids, while the parents enjoy their Sunday brunch with each other :) 

And here are more pictures of us while waiting for the food. 

We had ordered 2 sets of the customised which meant that we could choose what exactly we wanted on our  plate. This set cost us about $15 which is pretty affordable. And the serving is really huge as well. Both of us couldn't really finish the food.

The butter toast was also very delicious! 

The whole point of this picture is to show my sharp chin! (hehe, shameless creature here), but I have been diligently using my Clarins Lifting serum that was just launched in May 2014 and I really hope to get rid of the water/salt/fats/sugar retention in those bubbly cheeks! And it really seems to be working, doesn't it? 

Food for Thought did not disappoint and we agreed that we would definitely drop by again one of these days! 

And finally our #ootd #wiwt for our branch. Since I got the camera as my present, I have been training the husband to take nice #ootds for me. He's a really hard one to train (totally no photography talent!) but, I will persevere! 

Alrights, that's all for our lunch date and till the next! :) 

27th Birthday Dinner

The husband had also made reservations at a Japanese Teppanyaki restaurant and kept it as a surprise. 

It was indeed a pleasant surprise because I was never a fan of Japanese cuisine nor Teppanyaki. I was expecting that we were going to have dinner at western restaurant since it was normally the case. So when he brought me to the door of the restaurant I still thought he was kidding until he told the waiter that he had made a reservation. 

When we reached, the restaurant was rather empty and we were the first customer at the Teppanyaki bar. 

We were given the menu but the husband refused to let me take a look at menu. He said that he had already decided what to order for me. He had refused to let me look at the menu because he knew I would choose the cheapest meal and would also nag at him for bringing me to such an expensive restaurant. ( I'm usually very willing to spend on food, but we are currently on a 'saving mode' due to the wedding). 

But anyways, he still made the decision for me and ordered a lobster meal for me because he knew I'm a huge fan of seafood! He ordered a beef set for himself. 

This mister here is our Teppanyaki chef. A really very friendly, nice and excellent chef. 

I must say, it was pretty difficult to take pictures of the food because as with teppanyaki, they don't serve all the food together. And each time, the servings were pretty small. I tried to take pictures of the food, but they don't look really appetizing. 

Here's the pictures of the food and look at our creative chef! He made the fried rice into a heart shape!

He had also make the fried rice 'alive' by making it pump using his ladle. And the fried rice was extremely delicious!

See, I told you it was really hard to take pictures of the food. The picture on the bottom right corner was mayonnaise lobster and was really good as well, the pictures really did not do justice to the food. 

And here's not forgetting our #wefie using my brand new camera!! 😄

And finally ending off with my birthday #ootd. It was initially a very tough decision of what to wear for. Y birthday #ootd. Was contemplating between this and a dress, but I felt that since I was always in a dress no matter what occasions, I decided to wear jumpsuit for a change and I'm really glad I did. 

Jumpsuit - mdscollections | necklace - New Look | bag - Chanel Wallet on Chain | shoes - prettyFit 

"Age is irrelevant:

You can be ravishingly beautiful at twenty, charming at forty,

And irresistible for the rest of your life. "

And I'm ready for 27! Bring it on! 

Twenty-Seven!

My favourite months of the year has got to be July and December. July because it's my birthday month! And I get to recieve presents, have free meal treats and so much love from close friends! Most importantly, I get to openly declare that I'm a princess and nobody will say anything to put me down! (Heh heh heh) 

December because it's the month with so many festive holidays (and public holidays) and also the month when there's least work cos everyone else feels demotivated to work in December! 

So after months and months of waiting, it's finally JULY and it's finally my BIRTHDAY!! 

An hour before the clock struck 12am, the husband told me that he had a stomach upset and was going to the toilet. 

Yes, in case you were wondering, we do report to each other on the mundane stuff that we do..... 

Half an hour later, he told me again that he had another bout of stomach upset and needed to use the toilet again, and then said he needed to focus on his big business in the toilet and hence couldn't msg me further.. Little did I know, that that sneaky fella was actually on his way to my place to give me surprise! 

He wanted to be the first to wish me happy birthday and wanted to deliver the chocolate cake that I so desperately wanted him to get for me. 

The hubby lighted up the candles and we sang a birthday song for me.. Aww.. So much ❤️

And of course, we needed to take picture   Together! 

This is what happens when you get a noob mum who is totally not tech-savvy and probably still living in the 80s to take a picture for you. 

And then we tried to take one ourselves! Quite cute I say! 

Pardon the white stuff on my face. I was already ready to go to bed, therefore the pimple cream, the makeup-less face, the PJs. 

If he told me that he was coming, I would definitely don on the prettiest looking dress I could find! 

And here is the present that the hubs gave me this year. 

A hand written card.

A self-recorded birthday song on his phone. 

A samsung nx mini selfie camera! #selfiesFTW! 

I have already tried using the camera, and the pictures are so so pretty and the colours are so bright! And it's so easy to transfer the pictures from the camera to my phone and Instagram immediately! 

Love love my presents! 

Thank you hubby again, for the wonderful surprise and I hope we will always be able to celebrate each other's birthday till we get old and wrinkly! 

Wedding Talk: Pre-wedding photoshoot by Chris Ling Photography

I'm back with more wedding talk! 

Approximately 4 more months to the wedding and the preparations are starting to get more intense! My hope is to be able to do a detailed blog post about the wedding preparations and the vendors that we have used after the actual wedding, so that other brides-to-be (btb) who happen to chance upon this humble blog will be able to use the information from this blog to help her with her own wedding research.

The bridal that I went to was z'wedding. They had a collaboration with Chris Ling Photography and hence naturally my pre-wed photoshoot would be done by Chris Ling Photography. 

On hindsight, this was probably the Biggest, Worst (and whatever negative adjectives that you deem appropriate) decision I've made in my whole entire wedding planning. I DID NOT have a pleasant experience with them and that whole experience and interaction with them almost, almost ruined my mood in the entire wedding planning. But I'm so glad I had decided to terminate our working relationship earlier even though that meant we have to source for another bridal and fork out even more money. As our money which we had earlier paid could not be refunded, we had converted our bridal package to solely a pre-wed photography package and the excess money was used to purchase more pictures from the shoot.

But more on the whole unpleasant experience in other later posts....

We went to choose my gowns for the pre-wed photoshoot in mid-June, and that was when my initial reservations about signing up with z'wedding were confirmed and the decision to not use their gowns for actual day became stronger. (Ok, I digressed...) and we took our studio photoshoot in end June.

The first gown. This was the gown I fell in love with many years ago when I first saw it in a wedding magazine, and I was sure that I wanted to wear this for my photoshoot.

It is a timeless off shoulder ballgown with beautiful diamantes and crystals lining the neckline. I love love this piece even though it was a really simple piece.

And this was the hair that my hairstylist gave me on the day of the photoshoot to match this ballgown. 

Now that I look at it, it looked kinda old isn't it?

It looked like a hairstyle that an 'ah ma' in a market would sport, but I was too excited about the whole photoshoot that I didn't pay much attention to the hairstyle I was given (there was no hair trial for me...just a 'discussion', didn't know hairstyles could be just 'discussed'. Ok, I digressed again) 

The thing I was most unhappy about was my fringe. But I don't blame the hairstylist. That was because, my fringe was in a really awkward length, it was neither here nor there and I guessed it made styling a little difficult. I should have requested for the fringe to be pulled up.

Hence, here comes Tip #1 for all BTB: keep your hair long and make sure you give ample time (at least 6 months) for your hair to grow out.

So anyways, this was Look 1 for me, along with my done makeup and hair. Will talk about my fantastic MUA later in the post. 

And this was my second gown. This was also my second favorite, because it was in pink which was my favorite colour, and this gown looked really Princessy! All brides should feel like princesses when they are in their wedding gowns! Even my MUA liked this gown too. But not my SIL and MIL as they felt that the bodice of the gown was in a similar colour as my skin tone and it made me look like I wasn't wearing anything at all! Makes sense, but I still Iike this!

And this was the hair I was given. I liked this hair and it's accompanying hair accessory very much because the entire look made me very demure looking, very sweet and it totally increased the entire princess factor! Haha.

I wasn't wearing a tiara, but a pearl hairband ( picture below ). And how do you like my makeup?

I love it! 

And the overall look my outfit!

My third gown, which was also everyone's favorite.

But I wore it without the sash though.

It was a gown that I did not want to choose, because I felt that the design was too simple, too common, and maybe too old-fashioned. My main concern was that the design was too common. I didn't pay so much for z'wedding just to get a gown I can easily get off any bridal shops. But the husband was rooting fervently for me to get this gown so I relented, just to make him happy. Anyway, I wanted him to think that I looked beautiful in my wedding gown, so I chose this as well. But it was meh to me.

The hair that I was given, a sexy messy touseled side swept hair. 

And I was so thankful that the hair and the makeup complemented the gown so well, that it actually brought out the beauty in this seemingly common dress. 

The entire look was probably my most favorite look of all. 

And my finally gown which was the meh-est of all. Z'wedding had so many restrictions, cannot choose new seasons under our package, certain gowns are for actual wedding amongst other reasons.

It was really hard to choose a decent gown to my liking but at this point, I was feeling too frustrated and helpless that I was like 'heck la, just take any that she gives to me'. And the thing is, it felt like there weren't many gowns to choose from. I was only able to see like 2 racks of gowns (ball gowns and evening gowns) on the second floor (which were the changing rooms as well)  and the consultant would just disappear somewhere and take a gown that SHE thought I might like to show it to me and try. But it wasn't like I was able to look around the whole entire collections that were available and choose for myself what I would like to try. 

This gown was actually meant for outdoor shoot, but since the package that we had converted to didn't include outdoor, I wore this too, for our indoor shoot. 

Now that I look at this gown, it is still meh to me. I probably could have gotten a better looking gown off taobao & dhgate. 

And this was my hair and makeup for this gown.

I didn't like this hair at all, because the shape of my face is not suited for a half-tie. It makes my face look bigger than it already is. 

I probably won't choose photos from this look but I love the studio scenes that I had shot in, in this gown. Major sigh.

Anyway, the woman in the above picture that you see, is actually my talented MUA @dblchin/Clara Song. She was the makeup artist who actually helped me with my makeup for my causal engagement photoshoot a few weeks ago. She had also told me after my makeup session with her previously that she was not planning to take on any new assignments after me, because she wanted to prepare for her delivery (she was by now about 7 months pregnant).

1-2 weeks before my Chris Ling photoshoot, I went down to z'wedding for a trial makeup, and boy was I glad that I had insisted on the trial makeup because it turned out horrendous! I hated the makeup that my original MUA (from z'wedding) had given me. I believed MUA are supposed to cover the flaws and make you beautiful and not emphasize on the flaws, and unfortunately, that was what the MUA gave me. My makeup looked dry, and powdery and thick. Dark circles were not concealed, nose bridge not highlighted and looked too white. Totally not flattering at all. Worst, the MUA had practised poor hygiene and I was so worried that the makeup would cause my sensitive skin to breakout. I am not sure if it was only a trial, that's why the sloppiness and sub-standard. The trial was quickly over in about 15, at most 20 minutes. 

So Tip #2 for BTB: Insist on having a trial makeup because you wouldn't know if you will like the makeup that your MUA will be giving you on that day, or you wouldn't know if the products they used will be suitable for your face. That would give you more time to source out for other MUA if you don't like your bridal's MUA.

I kept explaining to her the look I was going for, but she wasn't able to understand so I gave up. Can you imagine, by then, how helpless I was and I really wanted to break down there and then because I did not want to look ugly in my makeup. I was already going to be donning mediocre gowns, I didn't want bad makeup to make me look worse. 

Inside me, I was screaming for help, crying out of frustration. I then decided that, I was not going to settle for this MUA and needed to look for someone better, someone I could trust to do my makeup for. And Clara popped into my head. I was so pleased with her makeup for the engagment shoot and I thought that no one else could be a better candidate than her. But I also knew, she was not going to take in anymore new assignments.

But I had to try! And I did. 

I contacted her immediately and told her how desperate I was and without second words, Clara checked her schedule and told me that she would take up the assignment and do my makeup for me! 

I was so so so relieved! 

On the day of the shoot, Clara stayed with me throughout from 10am-3pm, constantly touching up for me, changing my looks and ensuring I looked my best. I did not have to worry a single bit about what look she was going to give me and whether the fake eyelashes will overwhelm my eyes etc. I trusted her 100%, every time she took up her makeup tool to change my look. Was really very touched that she was so patient to sit through the whole shoot with me, and everytime I came back from the shoot, she will be there, showing me her widest grin and ever ready to change my looks. Am so so grateful to her. What made her better, was that her rates were pocket friendly and was relatively cheaper as compared to the market rate outside! 

Will definitely recommend Clara to any of my friends if they need a MUA for any events!

** at this point, I'm contemplating if I should talk about the whole photoshoot experience... Hmm....

I guess I'm getting too lengthy and wordy in this post and so I shall stop here! Hopefully I can get some sneak peaks and post some of them here and then talk about my experience in Chris Ling studios. 

But, till then!