Merry (late) Christmas!

Bit late in posting this, but since I put up my New Years post, I thought I'd do my xmas one whilst I was at it. This year xmas is huge for us. The entire family is back from overseas with the addition of a new family member as well! This is why I went a bit nuts with the shopping this year. We totalled 91 presents beating last years 72 presents!

As as we had a few of the young ones with us this year, I decided to play up the whole Santa thing and went all out. After spending a few days revving the kids up on Santa, I went and printed out some Santa gift wrapping paper and a letter from Santa using Santa's own letter head:

Each present had a personalised letter with comments such as "Do not chuck anymore tantrums otherwise Santa will put you on the BAD LIST next year" to "Sorry I couldn't visit you earlier, but you did not have a chimney in your house".

The presents all wrapped up

The young ones even went and wrapped a present for Santa and made a card for him ontop of laying out the cookies and milk as well as a bowl of cherries.

After the kids all fell asleep, I snuck into the living room (Where all the kids were having a slumber party) and took all the presents, tipped out the milk, took bites out of the cookies and left some cherry seeds behind. Then I left a note from Santa as well as the presents.

7am I was woken by the screams of "SANTA CAME!! SANTA CAME!!!". My niece, came up to me when I walked out and said that I was Santa because the gift wrapping paper was printed out! This is when I play my dumb look and pretend to go back to sleep. Damn that girl is smart!

We had to wait around until about 11am before it was time to open the presents. This took us over 1.5hrs with the amount of presents we had. I basically sat at the tree and randomly picked a present. All the presents were opened one at a time:

Santa's present

Wearing their presents

One of the best presents of the day was actually given from a very close family friend. Her mother passed away a few months ago, and we treated her like our 3rd Grandmother. She treated my father better than her own son and if it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be living in Australia today. She found out my sister in law was pregnant but didn't live to see the baby. The present below was a little gold bangle that belonged to her when she was a baby girl. Instead of passing it to her daughter, she left it for my brother's first child. This brought tears to all of our eyes, in particular my sister in law and mother. I've made it very clear to my brother it is his responsibility to keep it within the family.

The family heirloom

Ashley the lucky girl (in the dress I bought!)

After all the presents were opened, the kids went off to play with their new toys whilst the adults prepared the xmas lunch.

My 4 bean and corn salad

Ham and pineapple skewers

Jellyfish salad

Turkey

Ham and Smoked Salmon cold platter

Verjuice vinaigrette for the smoked salmon

Chinese crunchy noodle salad

Hokkien fried noodles

Gluten and egg free fried rice for Jess (That's duck egg you see)

For everyone else - The orange dots you see is egg roe

BBQ TIME!!

Grilling the Nem Nuong

Table shot

Table shot #2

Baby cakes from Summer hill

http://www.babycakes.com.au/

Jelly Belly for DIY dessert

We also had a sago and taro coconut soup and a watermelon and grass jelly dessert. But by that time I felt more stuffed than a Turkey that I just laid down on the couch and tried to pass out. That is until we turned the karaoke machine on which continued for a good 5 hours!!!

We had so much food left over we ended up eating the same things again for dinner, and again for breakfast. After dinner when the other guests had gone home, we decided to sit around the livingroom playing chinese whispers. This was a complete disaster. Phrases went from "Jonathan has smelly armpits" and came out as "King Oyster". Like WTF?

The problem was my dad's english isn't good. My nephews and neice's chinese is just as bad. Meanwhile, my sister was busy having a laughing fit EVERY TIME it was her turn. Probably why we ended up with a "Uncle's milk smells like a pig". Oh so wrong.......by oh so like my family!!

I don't know when our next all family reunion is going to be, but I hope it'll be soon. We should always cherish occasions like this when we have a chance.

Pancakes on the Rocks

We visit Pancakes on the Rocks every time my sister comes back from Singapore. She absolutely loves the Potato Pancakes whilst I usually go for the beef ribs (Since I dont' have a sweet tooth). However, since I was meeting them during my lunch break, I decided to go for something a bit lighter so I don't fall asleep when I get back to work. When I ordered my salad, I got a disgusted look from my brother in law. Little did he know that my Chicken Caesar Salad probably had more meat than his ribs!

Chicken Caesar Salad

BBQ Beef Ribs served with salad and wedges

Hot'N'Troppo

Grilled banana and walnuts with two buttermilk pancakes, cream, chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce.

Potato Au Gratin

Potato and onion pancakes topped with a tasty cheese melt. Served with grilled banana, grilled pineapple, topped with homemade hollandaise sauce and sour cream.

Buttermilk Pancakes with syrup

I can't remember the last time I had pancakes, but I wished I had them more often! These pancakes were beautiful and fluffy. I helped my nephew finish his pancakes and with just a drizzle of syrup, it was a perfect finish to the meal.

My sister loved her potato pancake once again and will definately be going back the next time she's here. Whilst the ribs, well, all that was left at the end of the meal was the bone!!

Pancakes on the Rocks
4 HICKSON ROAD, The Rocks
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Open 24/7
Phone: 02 9247 6371

http://www.pancakesontherocks.com.au

Ashley arrives!!

I've been MIA a lot for the past month, not just because my sister and the kids were visiting, but my brother eventually managed to drag his ass back to Sydney with my new born niece Ashley!! So whilst my dad was at the airport picking them up, I decided to give the little one a mohawk which led to everyone wanting a mohawk for the welcoming committee!

"Aren't I cute??"

"Dang, my hair is too short for a mohawk!"

As sad as this may sound, I ended up queer eye-ing my 2 oldest nephews. Particularly the oldest one who is very metrosexual. He's never been able to style his hair properly. This is partly due to the fact that he's still young and therefore his hair follicles couldn't handle the products, and secondly, the products he used wasn't designed to style his hair the way he wanted. I had to teach him how to use hair wax and best way to apply it aka Queer eye for the straight guy style. He actually walked home with my jar of hair wax cos he loved it so much! hehehehe

Gosh he looks so manly in this photo!

And when Ashley finally arrived?

Isn't she just adorable?? Look at those cheeks!!! I couldn't stop smooching her cheeks!! hehehee

There was a lot of chaos, a lot of elbowing and rank pulling to see who got to carry the baby first. Atleast she knows shes welcome in the family!!

Yum Cha and cookies!

Yum Cha in Singapore is really expensive compared to Australia. The food isn't as good, and alot of them don't have the trolleys they push around filled with steamers full of food. *SHOCK* *HORROR* That's the whole fun of yum cha! Every trolley comes bearing steamers full of suprises. Its kind of a lotto draw most of the time as to what you get in each cart, the only difference is you'll win alot more in yum cha than you will in lotto! With that in mind, we decided to have a big family yum cha session to satisfy my sister's yum cha cravings.

It was off to the local Crystal Seafood Restaurant in Strathfield with the kids:

BBQ Pork in short crusty pastry

Black bean steamed pork ribs

Har Gow / Prawn dumplings

All was going well until the little one had another tanty! *Turns camera off to tend to crying child*

After yum cha it was time to bake some cookies for xmas. I went with shortbread this year and pulled out my new set of cookie cutters.

To those who missed out on the cookies, I might make another batch soon! So find any excuse to see me! :P


I also grabbed a packet of Cake Mate icing used to decorate cookies and cakes that come in an easy to squeeze tube. Perfect for the kids:

I also made a special Gluten/Egg/Dairy free batch of shortbread for my niece. I wasn't even sure it would work and I warned her it might not even be edible! But being the optimistic and happy go lucky girl that she is, her first comment after biting into the cookies I made her were "MMMMmmm.....Crunchy!!". They weren't meant to be crunchy......oh wells! Atleast she liked it! Me on the other hand......well.....lets just say that I never want to eat them again!! So being the kind sister that I was, I helped my niece decorate a gluten free cookie so she can give it to her mum and to make sure she eats the ENTIRE cookie infront of her!! MAUahAUha

The "ME" was supposed to be "MERRY XMAS".....I had to convince her to write something else cos it wasn't going to fit!!