My 5 year old is going through a phase of making up his own jokes.

So while he was holding these ladybugs he found, and I was trying to photograph them…

“Hey Mum! What did the little ladybug say to the big ladybug?”

“I don’t know buddy, what?”

“He said – “Hey, if you’re a boy, and I’m a boy, how come they call us ladybugs?” Hah Hah!”

Not very funny, but definitely a good question.

Anybody know the answer?

With fashion festivals happening all over Australia (it’s Spring here!), it’s nice to look at next season’s designer offerings. But I am itching for some fashion to BUY RIGHT NOW.

And at the moment, I’m looking for little updates to my wardrobe that don’t cost the earth.

A few weeks ago I was invited to join a Sportsgirl Spring/Summer 10/11 Roadshow. It was just for Sportsgirl staff and media, but the atmosphere was quite fun.

Most fashion shows I go to, everyone is so serious and contained. But at this show, everyone was so excited and hyped and hooting and whooping and clapping and smiling and laughing. It felt like a great big family, where everyone were best friends – which I’m sure is all part of the company’s morale boosting corporate strategy.

I was strangely drawn to some of these pieces and looks. They all looked so cute, whimsical and innocent!

Then I realised why – I used to dress like this when I WAS 14 YEARS OLD!

I swear I had THOSE shorts and THOSE clogs. I wish I had kept them.! Everything old is new again!

I don’t think I’d wear all those bits in the same way now. I would definitely wear some of their latest basic wear, silk tops and some accessories though.

And I do really like these shoes!

You can find some of these new pieces on Sportsgirl’s Online Shop.

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Women’s Online Fashion Shopping Guide.

Early this month I flew to Singapore for just 2 days – to attend my cousin’s wedding.

I went with my husband and my 1.5 year old toddler. My other two kids stayed with their cousins.

It was the first time we flew on a plane with a child, and we were both very nervous about it. You see, our toddler hates being confined. So the thought of our free-spirited, young toddler sitting ON MY LAP for 5 hours – made me tense like you wouldn’t believe. What are we going to do in a plane jam packed with people?

On the afternoon of our departure, we sat at the airport gate, ready to board our flight to Singapore. But we heard an announcement that our flight was DELAYED. Bummer! So we let Liam play with stuff on the shelves of the duty-free shops.

And we waited and waited. And then the airline started handing out food vouchers. Not a good sign!

Then we saw the pilots of the plane talking to passengers, and overheard them say “Nobody has ever seen this particular problem before.” Great!

After a total of 8 HOURS of waiting, we were told that our flight had been cancelled due to mechanical difficulties, and that we should come back the next morning to catch our flight. Argh! What a hassle!

The next day, we woke up at 4:30am to catch a taxi to the airport, to find that our flight was DELAYED AGAIN!

The plane eventually left at 9am and we arrived in Singapore at 2pm.

And the wedding was at 5pm!

We ran out of the airport, jumped in and out of a taxi, and wolfed down some hotel food. I sprinted in and out of the shower, threw on some makeup and clothes, tossed some bits and pieces into a handbag, made sure I was wearing matching shoes, changed my toddler into his outfit, made sure my husband (who was wearing a kilt) looked great… and hey presto, we were at a wedding! Crazy!

A few weeks ago I wrote about my crazy plans to buy a special ethnic outfit, called a kebaya, on the AFTERNOON OF THE WEDDING. Well, the delayed flight totally screwed up that idea.

This is me in my back-up dress – the Ultimate Black Dress by Sacha Drake (I did a review on about it here).

It was perfect – no fuss, no ironing, just threw it on and it looked fabulous.

Both our accommodation and the wedding were at the Shangri-La Hotel, which was simply amazing. The hotel lobby and the function rooms were so impressive – oh those chandeliers!

The wedding event was so lovely and so much fun! It was great to be with all my cousins and family members.

My cousin looked stunning. She wore a specially designed (by her), hand-made, scarlet red, lace + sheer kebaya… and looked freaking hot in it!

My 1.5 year old, who had been up at 4:30am, only managed to sleep 45 minutes in the plane – the only nap he had all day. He was so tired that he passed out in my arms, at 8pm.

Liam was so totally and utterly conked out that we placed him in a pram, wheeled him under a table and didn’t expect to hear a peep from him all night!

But while I was eating my dessert, someone was giving a wedding speech. Then I heard the word “YUM SENG” and my eyes widened with alarm. I reached for the pram, and was about to race Liam out of the ballroom, but it all happened so quickly, and I could hear the words come out of my mouth in slow motion…. NOOOO-OOOOOOOO!

“Yum seng” is a tradition in Chinese celebrations, particularly weddings, where all the guests are invited to make a toast to the bride and groom, by shouting YUM SENG! (which means “drink to victory” or “bottom’s up”). The louder and more drawn out the words are shouted, the more prosperous the blessing.

It goes something like YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNGG! But very, very loud.

So of course, my poor kid woke up in a strange place with a spectacular fright – to the sound of 800 DRUNK SCREAMING ADULTS – and he started wailing in terror. That was when our night ended.

Thankfully I was able to take a picture of me and the CHOCOLATE FONDUE FOUNTAIN before we left! Oh the melted chocolate goodness!

Anyway, by the time we went up to our hotel room, and finally lay our heads on the luxurious buckwheat pillows, it was 12:30am.

So we were awake and about, travelling and merry-making, for 20 HOURS STRAIGHT.

Crazy! But fun.

And even though Liam hardly slept on the flight back to Perth, he didn’t cry at all. Yay! The cabin crew were so grateful that they gave us a bottle of champagne as we left the plane!

A few months ago, online designer discount boutique The OutNet had a special birthday sale with designer products selling for 1 British pound, which is about 2 Australian dollars.

The Outnet is a sister site to Net-A-Porter, and they use the OutNet to sell their unsold stock from last season. And I love buying last season’s stuff for a bargain, because if you choose the right pieces – it doesn’t look like last season.

There was a special RSVP list, a secret start time and when the day finally arrived, there was a whole lot of online drama – crashing servers, grinding load times, error pages and grumpy tweets.

I was one of the lucky few, who happened to be sitting at my desk when the email popped in. I quickly went to the website, picked something in my size, and went straight to the check out. It was really a crazy online lottery.

There was a selection of dresses, skirts, tops, accessories, but I had my heart set on an investment piece, something I would love to have, that I could wear again and again, but wouldn’t actually spend thousands of dollars on.

In this case, a Miu Miu metallic blazer. It was in a classic style, a tailored piece, in a heavy fabric.

It looked awesome in the photo!

It arrived, and it was very lovely indeed.

But, as you can see, it was way too big for me! HUGE! I felt like I was trapped in a parachute!  Or like I was a big, grey, lizard shedding its old skin! I was walking around in a radioactive tent!

I swear it said Italian Size 38 (which is US 2, UK 6, AUS 6) when I clicked to buy it. But I can’t remember now. Mistakes are often made in the excitement of a sale. Oh well. These thing occasionally happen with online shopping.

To solve this problem, I went to my precious seamstress lady and told her the whole story.

“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHAT I BOUGHT!!” I shrieked.

And she was like – “OMG!! A MIU MIU JACKET FOR $2!?”

Anyway, she altered it a bit here and there, and made the jacket the same shape and size as I am, which is of course exactly how your clothes should be. It looks great now! She did a wonderful job!

So, jacket ($2) and shipping ($17) and alterations ($30) = $49! And this jacket was on sale last year for around a thousand dollars. And the thousand dollar version wouldn’t have fitted me this well.

Happy Karen!!

I can’t wait to mix it up with some layers.

( See all my Daily Outfits here )

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Women’s Online Fashion Shopping Guide.

A few months ago, I was very inspired by a friend of mine to try to be more “vegetarian”.

My reasons – for my long term health, for environmental sustainability, and hopefully to look and feel better (skin, body, and energy).

So twice a week I’ve been cooking vegetarian meals.

I made this curry in 20 minutes, using stuff I already had in the pantry and fridge. And omg it was so yummy, we practically licked our plates and pots clean.

Spinach and Chickpea Curry

Half an onion, chopped finely
2 tablespoons of oil
¼ cup of bottled curry paste
300mL of water
400g can of chickpeas, drained
1 cup of red lentils
400g can of whole tomatoes, juice drained1 big handful of fresh spinach chopped, or a 40g portion of (defrosted) chopped frozen spinach
basmati rice
natural yoghurt to garnish

1. Heat oil in a pan, on slow medium heat cook onions for 5-7 minutes, until very soft and golden.

2. While doing that, boil some water in another pot, and boil lentils for 10 minutes and drain.

3. Stir in curry paste ad cook for 3 minutes.

4. Add drained chickpeas, drained lentils, drained tomatoes and give it a good stir. I like to break up the whole tomatoes too. Add about 300mL of water. Turn up to medium-high heat. Cook for about 10 minutes.

5. Add chopped spinach. Stir for 1 minute.

6. Turn off heat, and serve hot with basmati rice, yoghurt and bright green vegetables.

Notes –

For the curry paste, I used Pataks , which you can buy at any supermarket.

I used tikka masala flavour this time, but you can use ANY BRAND and ANY TYPE of curry paste for this recipe. I like to use balti or rogan josh curry pastes too.

Look what landed in my mailbox last night! A SALE!

Save 15% off the ASOS Collection until 31st August.

Make sure you enter AWSTYLE15 at the checkout.

Argh, I went a little overboard and added a whole heap of stuff to my Shopping Cart.

And this morning I culled it down a little (shown below), and as you can see I’ve kept an eye out to add some “nude/cream” items to my wardrobe.

Sandy coloured mini dresses.

Light cardigans in Autumn colours.

And cream leather to hold my bits and pieces.

Love it all! *Decisions decision*

Happy shopping!

( See all my Daily Outfits here )

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Women’s Online Fashion Shopping Guide.

I admit that I am SO NOT ready to talk to my 7 and 5 year old boys about sex.

*They are too young!*

Right???

I grew up in a very conservative Chinese Christian environment. And my parents certainly never sat me down and explained the birds and the bees to me. I just worked it out from playground gossip, health education lessons at school and girly magazines.

So I guess I’ve grown up believing that, when people get together and talk, you’re not supposed to talk openly about sex!

But my husband was raised very differently. He grew up believing that kids should be very well informed with all the nitty gritty details about sex, drugs and alcohol by their parents. Especially before they are taught these things by their friends, media and other people in their lives.

Which, yes, is my view now.

So since he is more practiced at it, he got the job of talking to the kids about it!

But how much information is too much?

He decided to answer their questions fully, but not to go beyond that.

Walking home from school one day, one my kids said the “F” word, which they had learned from other kids in school, and my husband reminded him that he is not allowed to say it.

This is kind of how the conversation went.

SON: “Sorry Dad.”

HUBBY: “That’s okay… just remember not to say it again, especially not to your teachers, and not to Mum, and ESPECIALLY not to your grandmother!

A long silence.

SON: “Dad, what does “F##K” actually mean anyway?”

HUBBY: “Well, it means the same as sex. It’s a rude word for sex.”

SON: “Oh.”

A long silence.

HUBBY: “Do you know what sex is?”

SON: “Of course!”

A long silence.

HUBBY: “Well, what do you think sex is?”

SON: “It’s what mum looks at on her computer all the time.”

HUBBY: “REALLY?!!”

SON: “Yes, she is always looking a those people with no clothes on, in their underwear. And in those magazines she has.”

HUBBY: “Oh! No, that’s not sex. That’s just fashion.”

SON: “But they haven’t got any clothes on!”

HUBBY: “Um. Um. Er… Um. When you haven’t got many clothes on, that’s not sex, it’s just being naked.”

SON: “So what IS sex?”

A long silence. Dad sighs deeply.

SON: “Well?!”

HUBBY: “Weeeeell… Sex is when two adult people take all their clothes off and have a really close cuddle, and kiss.”

SON: “That’s yuck! Why do they do that??”

HUBBY: “Because it feels nice, it’s exciting, and they want to be really nice to each other.”

SON: “Don’t they get germs?!”

HUBBY: “Yes, you can get germs. So you have to be really careful who you have sex with.”

SON: “I don’t want to do that… it’s disgusting!”

HUBBY: “ Well, yes, it is disgusting, but when you’re an adult, you’ll really want to do it.”

SON: “Why?”

HUBBY: “Let’s see… why… okay. It’s nature’s way of making babies. When a man and a woman have sex, a little bit of the man goes into the woman, and that’s how the baby starts to grow inside the woman. It’s really amazing. But you have to be very careful not to make a baby until you are sure you are ready for it. Babies are a LOT of work.”

Another long silence.

SON: “Do you and mum have sex?”

HUBBY: “Ah..well, yes, yes we… have. That’s how we got three babies. That’s where you came from!”

Another long silence.

SON: “That is soooo disgusting.”

Awkward silence.

HUBBY: “Hey, look at the cool old car!! That’s a 1964 Model S Valiant!”

SON: “Wow, COOL! Can we get one!?!”

And hubby was SO RELIEVED that the son didn’t want to know the EXACT PLUMBING DETAILS OF SEX and exactly how the little bit of the man gets into the woman.  But no doubt, that question will come soon enough.

And when the question comes, I’ll be saying…”GO ASK YOUR DAD!”.

The team at Button N Thread sent over some dresses for me to check out.

This navy cowl-neck, mini dress also comes in black and purple. It’s a great figure hugging dress that is stretchy and comfy. I really like dresses that you can wear as both a dress and a long top. I tried a night time and a day time look.

The second dress was an ivory lace dress, which was a bit more of a challenge.

I’m have an aversion to lace. I like it on my underwear, but not on my outerwear. And especially, not so MUCH OF IT!

The dress looked like an ornamental mat for wooden cupboards for placing glass vases on! And as it hung on my clothes rack, I winced knowing that I would have to put it on.

But I just kept telling myself that there are zillions of women in this world who love wearing lace, and who look fabulous in it.

So I chucked it on, and look at that, it didn’t look so bad after all! It actually felt quite nice.

I even played around with a few other looks – a leather jacket and shiny leggings; and worn as a top with a high waisted skirt.

The Button N Thread Boutique have a nice range of new arrivals – especially dresses – at fab prices, do go check them out. They are based in Australia, but they also provide international shipping.

Happy shopping!

( See all my Daily Outfits here )

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Check out more of my favourite online shops in my Women’s Online Fashion Shopping Guide.

My baby is 1½ years old! And he is definitely the most easy-to-look-after kid I’ve had.

He is at a SUPER CUTE age – constantly exploring the world, happy with the simplest things, full of smiles and giggles, and not old enough to talk back!

I took this photo of Liam in our backyard. We were eating an apple together and I peeled off the “Grown in WA” sticker and stuck it on his nose. He laughed and walked around the garden with it on his scrunched up little nose, snorting like a pig. Too cute.

At this age, people seem to ask me these questions.

Does he say any words?
His latest favourite thing to say is “READY GO!” Tragically, he picked it up from the computer game Super Mario Kart.

He says heaps of other words, I think 24 in total, like – daddy, mama, ball, water, down, book, draw, star, car, ear, pop corn, banana, meow, see ya, bye, poo, wow, more, gor gor (Chinese for big brother), bike ride, shoe, sock, and of course, ready and go.

Lots of people have told me that this is pretty advanced for a 18month old, so please don’t compare if you have a toddler too!

He can also point to his ears, head, mouth, nose, and belly button. And follow lots of verbal instructions.

Does he eat well?
He doesn’t drink any milk at night, formula or cow’s milk.
He can eat like there is no tomorrow, if he likes the food. He is a little fussy. He loves pasta, rice, broccoli, cauliflower, peas and corn, carrots, noddles, toast, sausages.

How many teeth does he have?
He has 16 teeth. 8 top, 8 bottom.

His sleep patterns?
He still sleeps from 6:30pm at night to 6:30am in the morning. He likes to have at least 1 hour nap sometime during the day, but he’s not too fussed WHEN he has it.

Is he active?
Hell yes.

Does he get along with his older brothers?
Yes! The other two kids are really, really good with him. They know all the rules and how to look after him. They are pretty helpful with keeping an eye on him.

Have you begun toilet training?
HA! No! But he does walk over to tell me when he’s done a poo. (He looks at me with a worried expression and pats his tummy.) It’s rather convenient.

I didn’t teach him that at all. He just does it.

Photo: We were going to a wedding and I bought Liam a special little outfit. Shirt $2 and pants for $3 from an op shop. And just as predicted, he smeared tomato sauce over the shirt.

At this age, kids also start to pick up “weird little habits”, and they just keep doing them no matter what. It’s actually quite cute, but weird and annoying.

Weird habit #1
When he wants to eat a banana, he screams NANA-NANA-NANA!
If I peel a banana for him, he throws it on the floor, and keeps screaming NANA-NANA-NANA!
So I give him another UNPEELED banana – and he’ll sit there happily eating the banana, peel and all – starting from the middle, and tearing it open with his teeth like a monkey.

Weird Habit #2
He likes to be bare foot on his right foot. EVERY SINGLE TIME I put shoes on him, he’ll take off his right shoe and sock. He then hides the shoe and sock somewhere. So it’s impossible for me to find it, and I get so frustrated, that I just leave him with one bare foot.

And sometimes when I’m in a rush trying to head out the door, I can’t find ANY matching pairs of shoes or socks, so I feel like a dumbass dressing my son in mis-matching shoes. And he’ll still take off the right shoe + sock.

People will come up to me in the shops, and say “Are you aware your son has lost one shoe?”

(He’s happy to wear sandals on both feet though.)

Weird Habit #3
He loves drawing and shouting DRAW DRAW DRAW!
But when I give him a pencil and he munches the lead bit off. To him, pencils are a kind of fibrous snack.

Weird Habit #4
He likes to put stickers on his face. I wonder where he learned that from?

Weird Habit #5
Maybe not a “weird” habit – he sucks his thumb! We really didn’t mind it when he was little, and he only did it for a few minutes before he went to sleep.

But now he does it all the time, and it’s just a comfort and boredom thing. He sucks it so often that a few months ago, the skin on his thumb became soft (read: digested), gross red, and badly infected, and he had to be on antibiotics.

Since then, we’ve had to sew up the hands of his bed clothes, so he can’t get to it at night.

(click here to view larger version)

A few weeks ago I was featured in The West Australian Newspaper, in a beauty feature about winter skin care, along with 2 other Perth personalities, Carly Paiker (jewellery designer) and Jessica Gomes (model).

This is what my bit says:

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Karen Cheng, Award-winning blogger of Snippets of Life at www.karencheng.com.au. Cheng writes about lifestyle and fashion while juggling family commitments.

It’s important to protect your skin from UV rays, even in the winter and I like Mecca To save Face SPF30+; it’s weightless, non-greasy and feels great on my skin.

For my hands I use L’Occitane Shea Butter Hand Cream. I love the smell and the moisture boost.

Jurlique Purely Age-Defying Eye Cream is wonderful. It reduces puffiness around the eye and smells lovely.

If my skin is in need of a boost, I put a few drops of Trilogy Certified Organic Rosehip Oil on my face at night. I love the feeling of my skin the next morning.

SK-II Facial Treatment Essence and SK-II Skin Signature Moisturising Cream are also great for perking up your skin. After a few days my skin always feels smooth and radiant.

Before going out I use Napoleon Perdis Auto Pilot Pre-Foundation Skin Primer – it makes my foundation sit and look amazing.

I also love Burt’s Bees Lip Balm – makes my lips soft and kissable – and Bobbi Brown SPF15 Tinted Moisturiser.

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Big thanks for Maya for writing it up, and Pia for scanning the article!