Last night, 35 of my closest friends joined me to celebrate my birthday over a banquet dinner. I had such a wonderful time talking to everyone, laughing, chatting, eating, floating, taking pictures and just being me.

The company of great friends is priceless indeed.

I thought the photo above was just too cute - the lovely Annika and Ian are crouching down, because they’re actually a full head taller than me!

We stretched along one wall of the restaurant, spread over 3 long, narrow tables!

As with most large group dinners with a mixture of friends, everyone didn’t get a chance to mingle very much, so I was toying with the idea of making everyone shuffle along – speed dating style. But the food came out! So everyone was too busy eating.

My outfit for the evening.

Dress: Silk Smock Dress from Obvious
Earrings: From Pinc
Legs: Beige Fishnet Stockings
Shoes: Black pumps

There’s a few more pics at my “Doing The Karen Cheng” Facebook Group.

I was actually planning to wear another dress that I specially bought for the occasion, but I ended up wearing that dress to my other birthday function in Singapore.

I’m also sporting my new birthday present! We decided to invest in a DSLR Nikon D80 with a very yummy 18-135mm lens.

It’s a tad heavier than my little Canon A700, but I’m completely loving it!!

We don’t usually take our kids to the movies!

With my two boys and their insurmountable fountain of energy, going out to the movies is rather unwise. Think about it - jumping on the seats, running down the aisles, crawling under seats, shouting, laughing and carrying on like wet market vendors.

We prefer to have our own movie nights at home, with a rented DVD, homemade tacos, hot popcorn, orange juice and chocolate muffins. Mmmm.

But sometimes, seeing a movie on the big screen, with all the ritual of getting there, does make a nice change. And because it was the school holidays, winter, pouring with rain outside, and well, we were feeling lazy… we thought what the heck. And Sean has never been to the movies.

We watched Kung Fu Panda, and omg, it was so cool. We laughed and laughed. We all enjoyed it so much. And my boys actually stayed in their seats throughout the whole movie!

It was such a nice way to spend the afternoon. I was surprised. My husband and I were trying to teach the boys a bit about animation appreciation – story telling, art direction, animation. But they just wanted to do kung fu kicks.

I give it five stars. I was indeed “blinded by its awesomeness”. Haha.

Back in May, I began to think about my upcoming 30th birthday, and how I would like to celebrate it.

My first thought was – I WANT A BIG PARTY!

I wrote up a list of all the people I would love to celebrate with – family, extended family, close friends, family friends, old high school friends, old colleagues, mother-friends… and my list was a shocking 120 people.

120 people x $50 per head = $6000! Gah! I couldn’t afford that! It was like organising a wedding! So I had to cut down significantly. And I decided to split it up and have two birthday dinners.

One for family members, which will be held at my parent’s house. I love big family dinners! My extended family and my husband’s family comes to a total of 40 people.

And one for my close friends. Total of 50 people.

I picked a gorgeous, stylish Indian restaurant. The food is amazing, the set banquet prices are reasonable, the atmosphere is fantastic, and I get a semi-private dining area. I’ve asked all my friends for No Presents, but if they could so kindly give a gift towards the dinner.

As my husband and I worked out the details of money, I had a really hard time getting over the cultural oddity of this concept – inviting someone to your birthday dinner and asking them to pay for themselves??

The Chinese Daughter in me was spinning tornadoes in my head. If my father heard about this, he would be so offended! What an insult! How dare I discuss such things on an invitation! How dare I treat my friends in this way? What kind of birthday celebration is this?!

Ah, well. The custom is really common here in Australia. My friends are all pretty forward thinking and I’m sure they would all laugh at me if I tried to pay for them! I don’t need presents anyway. I just want to have all my wonderful friends in one place!

So the invites have been designed, printed and sent!!!

It’s all happening!!

I woke to the sound of little feet stampeding down the hallway. My boys ran into the room, jumped onto my bed and shouted HAPPY MOTHER’S DAAAAY, covering me with kisses, giggles and cuddles. It was all very cute.

They told me I was NOT ALLOWED to get out of bed, and that I HAD TO eat breakfast in bed. They were very persuasive about it, especially with their little frowns and waggling fingers. But I hate eating in bed. I convinced them that eating in bed would be a bad idea, because ants will crawl under the covers and bite me – so they let me eat breakfast on the couch instead.

From the boys in my life, I received Ugg boots, a bunch of flowers, a sunflower plant, and a photo frame. We went out in the morning, out for lunch, came home for a 2 HOUR nap, then had dinner at my parent’s place. We had a lovely day!

I organised a Girl’s Night Out dinner for all the mum’s at my son’s pre-primary school class.

We had 14 women turn up! It was sooooo much fun! I had such a great time. I can’t believe how lovely everyone is. I’m on this crazy high from being surrounded by so many nice women!

We laughed so much. First everyone rocked up with LOTS OF RED WINE. Then we giggled at each other – because you know, we’ve never seen each other in nice clothes, makeup and high heel shoes. Then we went into hysterics as we swapped stories about how our children insisted on dressing us, choosing our clothes and jewellery.

We were there for almost 4 hours. Talking, laughing, eating, drinking. We were put on a long table, and I made everyone shuffle seats to mingle and chat to others. Most of us ordered the set banquet and we just shared everything. It was great!

Best parts of the evening : The girly and motherly bonding. Strengthening a little community and forming friendships that will last a lifetime. Getting to know the parents of the kids that my kids will hang out with. Making friends with mothers in my area. And the HILARIOUS stories!

I got a few emails from women asking how I organised it, as they were inspired to do the same for the mums in their kid’s class. It was really simple! I completely recommend it!

I chose the time, date, place and format.
I printed out a text-only invite on coloured paper.
I popped them into all the children’s take-home pigeonholes.
I made a booking in a restaurant for 10 people.
The mum’s had to RSVP by the day before.
I would let the restaurant know the final numbers on the afternoon of the dinner.
That was it.

I worked out that the Friday night before Mother’s Day would best result in husband’s agreeing to babysit the kids.

I chose a popular restaurant that was local. It was pretty much 2 minutes drive from everyone’s house. Lots of women car pooled or got dropped off.

I also refrained from making it into a BIG EVENT. A big event with a set programme, door prizes, theme or whatever, usually expects the person to invest a lot of thought into it, they will um and ah about it, and then usually decide that it’s all just too hard.

I just wanted the evening to be A SIMPLE DINNER, COME AS YOU ARE.

Plus it meant, less organising for me!

After our last exceedingly stressful holiday, we decided to take a very, very simple and small trip to Rockingham.

Rockingham has a nice stretch of beach, lots of parks and playgrounds, a strip of cafes, a shopping centre, some nice walking trails, lookouts and lovely coastal views - it’s small and simple, and it’s only 30 minutes out of town.

Our objective for this trip was : hang out at a beach and sit in a cafe.

^ We arrived and ate lunch at a random cafe. As I was taking the photo, I said coolly, “Sean. I’d like you to put down that knife, right now.” Look at that hilarious expression on his face!

^ We took a little drive along the coast. Walked along some bush tracks, found some look outs.

We found a sheltered beach. The water was so still. The kids hopped about in the rock pools. I grimaced at the fact that the boys had no shoes on, but hey I did the same when I was a kid.

^ I sat in the shade and rearranged shells on the beach. Very therapeutic.

^ The boys went for a walk and found ingredients for Poh Poh’s (grandma) Chinese soups.

^ They also found a HUGE bundle of rope, which they dragged back to show me. “We found some treasure!”

^ My husband found a piece of wood, tangled amongst the seaweed. I suggested that he should tie some of the rope on it, and make a wake board thing.

And lo and behold, we all had the most glorious day trip ever!!

What I love about being in a small community, is that it feels like one big family.

You feel like you’re a part of something big. You go about your day and everyone knows who you are, everyone knows a bit about you, everyone looks out for you, and everyone accepts you.

It puts your life into a larger context. It gives you meaning. You forget about yourself. Your silly little problems. Your layers of burdens that revolve around you you you.

It takes us beyond ourselves and out of the present moment.

This year, as my sons begin to grow into little people, I have this burning desire to create a community for them. After all, I grew up in a big family and a strong community too.

I want to help my kids understand that sure, the walls of our immediate family are important, but there is a whole world out there. A world where a whole lot of people need a whole lot of help and love.

These last few days, I’ve been to a camp run by my church.  I got to know a bunch of people, whom I wouldn’t have otherwise met. And hey, they’re actually ok. I played team games with them. I washed dishes and cleaned floors with them. I laughed and cried with them.

They’ve inspired me in more ways than they will know.

The school holidays have arrived, and while I have often dreaded the idea of being stuck in the same house with two bored kids, this time, I’m actually looking forward to it!

For the first week, we’ll be away at a camp for families and young people. We’ll be gone for 5 days and 4 nights. I’ll be sleeping on a mattress, on the floor, in a dormitory, with my two boys.

I’ve volunteered to organise some art and craft sessions for the children’s programme. I’ve been told to expect 20 kids, between the ages of 3 - 10 years old. How fun!

The second week coincides with my husband’s holidays, so we’ll be filling our days with outings, trips to the beach, play dates, picnics and other fun stuff.

I’m sure it’ll be all over in the blink of an eye. And suddenly my kids will be grown up and leaving home.

Savour it while it lasts!

Callum turns 5 today, and as he requested, we had a big party for him and his friends. It was the first time I organised a kid’s birthday party for children only. We had 18 kids turn up.

During our planning, my husband and I decided that we would have the party at our house. Later on I started to have second thoughts and felt a growing panic over the idea of 20 kids in our house.

Why not have it at an indoor playgym? Or a park? What are the kids going to DO? What if they trash the place? What if they roam around and get bored?? We need to have some focus! What about a bouncy castle or something!?

My husband replied, Don’t be silly. The kids will be kids. They’ll just run around and play with each other.

Yet despite what he said, I organised 6 party games, some game helpers, prizes and a pinata. Nothing too complicated. However, I was considerably preoccupied with party preparations for the week leading up to the party.

On the day of the party (today), the kids played ONE GAME - Pass The Parcel. After that, they showed absolutely no interest in any more games… and preferred to just run around and play with each other! Imagine that!

We also had a pinata, which I stuffed full of popcorn bags and chocolate frogs. I made it from an old cardboard box. I cut the sides out and replaced them with thinner cardboard panels, to make it easier for little kids to open. Nothing is worse than bashing a pinata that won’t open!

It was supposed to be a ROBOT pinata, with a head, dangling limbs and colourful buttons. But Callum said it might look too babyish! Hmph. Whatever. So here’s the adequately cool Spiderman piñata I made.

My Spiderman City birthday cake turned out really well! I was so happy with it. You are looking at a 100% free food colouring birthday cake!

I made the grey by mixing crushed blueberries skins and spinach, with a bit of cabbage extract (from organic food colouring that I bought).

Overall the party was really simple and laid-back. But most importantly, my little guy and his friends had an absolute blast!

We spent most of the morning preparing for Sean’s birthday party.

The boys cleaned up the house and backyard. They tidied the patio. Pruned the vines. Swept the paving. Set up chairs in the garden. Blew up balloons. Strung up decorations.

I made food. Lots of it. I made chicken and eggplant curry, roasted turkey, sweet potato salad, an organic bean salad, a garden salad, and sausage cocktails. My dad made fresh satays and homemade peanut sauce, and my mum made an amazing platter of fried noodles.

I love implementing parties. But I’m not too keen on PLANNING them. Pirate theme or jungle theme? What kind of food should we have? What time should we have it? Should we have games? Can the Wong family make it? Maybe we should have it at a park this time? Which park? Will it have a lake? That might be dangerous for the little kids…. it can stress me out big time.

Haha. So in the end, it’s usually the same. Big family bash in the backyard, with lots of food. I don’t know why I bother to stress about it in the first place.

My roasted sweet potato salad with snow peas, sprouts, toasted pine nuts and sun flower seeds, tossed in creamy mild French dressing.

Also. In the afternoon, I brought our boys to another kid’s birthday party. I was considering to skip it, in case the boys got too hyped-up and sugared-up for our own party that evening, but it was for some good friends – and in our household, good friends are treasured.

The kid’s party was held at a warehouse sized, indoor play gym, with lots of screaming kids, party food and face painting.

You’d think that after an afternoon of running, jumping, swinging, climbing and sliding, that my boys would be tired? Not a chance.

My 5yo got his face painted like Spiderman. It COMPLETELY made his day.

I was slightly worried that he would look at himself in the mirror and freak out. But thankfully he loved it.

Then I got very worried that he would come home and throw himself face-first onto the couch and leave face-prints on the carpets. So the moment we got home, I made him wash it off. He looked as if he had a bad face rash for the rest of the day.

We made the kids take a short nap. Then the guests arrived.

We played an egg and spoon race - with these adorable plastic eggs and bean bag egg yolks. Sooo cute.

And we had bean bag races (Sean cheated).

And last of all, I made a pirate ship birthday cake!

It was actually supposed to be a TREASURE CHEST birthday cake. Bursting with gold coins, necklaces and yellow snakes. That’s what I planned anyway.

But as I pulled it out of the oven, I realised my mistake. Damn! I used the wrong cake tin! The cake turned out wide and flat, rather than slim and tall. It was 10pm at night. And after exhausting every possible solution to fix it – I decided to bake ANOTHER cake. But I looked at my egg carton. No more eggs. Damn! I can’t make another cake! Argh!
So the pirate ship was a last minute improvisation. I’m so pleased with it! No food colouring! And I even found a little toy pirate guy in the kid’s toy box.

Sean was very, very happy.

To my dearest little Sean.

Three years ago our little family was going through a rough patch. Dad was pretty sick. Things weren’t looking good. We didn’t even know if we could have you.

But you were our little miracle. You gave us hope in a time of darkness. I would lie in bed wishing the world would swallow me up, and suddenly you’d kick and dance across the walls of my tummy – making me chuckle with delight.

When you were born, my hormones weren’t right. I looked at you bundled up in my arms and instead of buzzing with joy and happiness, I was tired, sad and I cried a lot. It wasn’t you, it was me.

But now I can’t imagine life without you. You are the blazing rock and roll on our otherwise quiet stereo. You are the spicy chilli in our tandoori. You are the sirens, the fireworks, the drums, the sparkle. You bring so much joy and laughter to our lives. I hope you know that.

In you, I’ve discovered a child’s love that is so tender, so sensitive, so sweet and so whole-heartedly absolute. When you say you love me, I don’t have to search deep in your eyes to see if you mean it, because it’s splashed across your face – you really do love me.

When I say goodnight to you each evening, you take my face in your hands and you plant little tiny kisses on my nose, cheeks and eye lids. And you’ll look up at me with a sparkle in your eyes, like I’m the most wonderful person in the whole world.

I just love it when you smile. I love the way your face and nose wrinkles up. You look so cheeky and happy. It’s adorable, infectious and it makes my heart crumble into a thousand happy pieces.

This new year has seen lots of new changes in your life.

You love school. Starting Pre-Kindy this year has been amazing for you. You have your very own a teacher, classroom and bag hook. As I suspected, you thrived on the kindergarten’s structured activities, routine and rules. You’ve blossomed into a smart, sociable, confident little boy.

You love learning. It boggles me to discover how much you pick up, understand, and repeat. You ask me questions about bugs, trees, water, birds, trucks, elevators – how they all work, what they are for, what can go wrong, what to do when something goes wrong. You listen carefully to everything I say, and will repeat it back as if it’s your own.

You speak so well. I really am so proud of you. Your pronunciations, your sentence structure, and your expressions are all amazing for a kid your age. Some of the clever, random things you say makes me laugh and laugh.

When someone meets you for the first time, the first thing they comment on is your voice. You don’t squeak in a high-pitched, baby voice. Your voice is low and strong. You always sound so serious and authoritative, like a little man – but once you smile, you turn into a giggly little boy again.

Then there’s your eye lashes. And your puppy dog eyes. You make me writhe with jealousy.

You’ve got a big personality, a strong spirit and a whole lot of big ideas. You’re a wonderful and charming little person with a great big heart. I love you Sean, Happy 3rd Birthday.

My husband loves to hike. Whether it’s a forest jungle, mountain, volcano, or glacier – he’s done it. He’s got this hiking bug that I lovingly refer to as : The Madness.

During Daddy-time, he takes the boys out on mini hikes around Perth. I suspect that he’s actually training them up to do The Kokoda Trail or something. And I just laugh as I imagine them sometime in the future, all with their backpacks and canteens of water, kissing me goodbye, “We’ll be back in 3 days. Don’t wait up!”

The kids are young, but they love these mini hikes. They come back with stories about broken trees, bee hives, low tide puddles and birds of prey. They make up names for beaches and secret locations. They collect beautiful, natural treasures. And no doubt they too have caught some kind of hiking bug.

I’ve never been to these places before. I love looking at their photos. I love hearing the boys re-tell their adventures in their own words, finding out what kind of things make an impression on them.
Past of me wishes I could join them, but the other part knows that they should have some special experience just with dad.

My husband’s passion has rubbed off on me a bit. I really enjoyed hiking with him through Scotland (in 2001) and New Zealand (in 2000)!

So I’m also keen to try out parts of the Bibbulmun Track one day – apparently one of the world’s great long distance walk trails, stretching nearly 1000kms through the heart of the scenic South West of Western Australia.

I also want to climb Mount Kinabalu (Malaysia) and Mount Fuji (Japan) before I die.

Today is the Chinese New Year, year of the Golden Rat. Yesterday we had our traditional family reunion dinner at my mother’s house.

The aunties spent the whole day preparing for the banquet dinner and making delicious Chinese New Year cookies and treats. The house was filled with the smell of grilled pork, chicken soup and roasted peanut pastries – it was sensational!

The kids and I decorated the house with red paper lanterns and other Chinese New year ornaments.

We played on the water slide. We swam in the pool. We munched on prawn crackers. We wrestled on the living room floor. The kids wore their slippery satin Chinese pyjamas and slid off the black leather couches with glee.

As always, we started dinner with lo hei – which is a celebration where everyone gathers around a special raw fish salad called yusheng. Everyone uses their chopsticks to help toss the salad, lifting up the ingredients as high as possible, as a symbol of great prosperity in the new year.

Just like Christmas, we ate until out bellies hurt. And it was good.

This weekend, we went to the wedding of some really close friends. It was all so lovely and touching. I don’t know what it is, but lately I’ve been getting so emotional at weddings. Maybe because all my good friends are getting married, and it’s just another sign that we’re all growing up.

I kept having these flashbacks of when we used to make enormous whirlpools in my parent’s pool, go on bike rides around the neighbourhood, play crazy beach soccer, make ourselves puke from the roller coaster ride at Adventure World. Ah the good old days.

I was invited to join a small group of friends to sing a special wedding song for the couple. I haven’t been in a choir in years. I was embarrassingly rusty, but I think I did ok. It was a really nice wedding song, so I enjoyed myself.

The “choir” also had a dress code: pastel pink, apricot or yellow. I seriously had nothing in that colour range. So I had to open some old boxes, and dug out a really, really old dress (when I was going through an Alannah Hill phase) and freaked out most of my friends – I wore pink!

The reception was held at the Esplanade Hotel Fremantle. We had such a good time! The music playing that night was the funniest collection of old school 80s and 90s stuff – so fun to dance to!

A very amusing thing happens when we go to wedding dinners - my husband and I always end up on the “miscellaneous guests” table. Haha we don’t mind, it’s always good fun. We think it’s probably due to the fact that we like talking to complete strangers and we like to switch seats with people throughout the night!

So we chatted to heaps of interesting people, danced, took silly photos and enjoyed ourselves immensely!

My husband and I are not a Present Giving Couple.

When people ask me, “What did you get your husband for Christmas? Or what did your husband get you?” I say with a cunning and mischievous smile “Trust me, you don’t want to know…”

Truth is, we didn’t buy each other anything! We are not really into dropping hints. Or secret shopping and planning surprises.

I don’t ask my husband to buy me anything – because, if I wanted something, I’d just go out and buy it myself!

In fact, if my husband felt the need to surprise me, and bought me the designer handbag which he had noticed I swooned over while reading a magazine, I’d be SO ANGRY WITH HIM because I’d rather have a new digital camera.

And if he had bought me the digital camera, I believe our money would have been better spent buying a new couch.

So my husband and I made a sacred pact. No presents. Unless specifically requested.

This is what I received for Christmas. I consider them, with much amusement, to be a rather telling indication of my miscellaneous personality.

Pearl earrings

Environmentally friendly laundry care pack

Battlestar Galactica DVD series 3

We had Christmas Eve dinner at our place for my side of the family. A few of my family members were out of town, so it was a dinner party of 5 adults and 2 kids. It was small, sweet and oh so simple.

Weeks prior to the evening, my father said, “I want to cook the turkey!” and my mother said, “Let me cook the ham!” So I feigned disappointment and said, “Oh well. I guess I’ll just make a salad… and buy some bread?”

Heh. So it must be said that our Christmas was very cruisey. No madness or stress to be had! I was so thankful!

The kids helped me set the table, tie ribbons on the glasses, light the candles and make name cards.

I had a giggling episode in the kitchen as my mother unwrapped the Christmas ham. It looked exactly like it did in the magazine!

After dinner we gathered around the Christmas tree. We all swapped presents, opened them together and gleefully ooh and aahed over gifts and dessert.

It was definitely an evening of family – simply being together and having a lovely time with the people we love most.

My grandma is such an adorable and lovely old lady.

She’s got such a happy spirit – happy to be surrounded by her huge family (she had 10 children); so happy to be up and about, cooking, celebrating, eating cake; and particularly happy for all her GREAT-grandchildren to blow out the candles for her!

She’s been without her husband for more than 10 years now, yet she still radiates strength and smiles.

In the midst of her humble wealth – good health, surrounded by a loving family and a beautiful garden – I find myself aspiring to be just like her when I’m that age.

Growing up as an Asian person in a Western society, I am the first to admit that I have very little understanding about Chinese traditions.

The mid-autumn festival is the one that boggles me the most.

Apparently our Chinese ancestors gathered family and friends together and celebrated the plentiful summer’s harvest by eating lots of food, eating mooncakes, and carrying lanterns.

For me, it’s just a nice way to theme a dinner party - a few families, a potluck dinner, glowing paper lanterns in the backyard, mooncakes for dessert, then a video for the kids, while the adults chat.

This weekend my boys were baptised during my church’s anniversary celebrations.

We sat on the front pew. Sang some hymns. The boys were pretty fidgety. I could tell they wanted to join in with the singing, but they didn’t know the words.

The baptism started. They were called up one by one. They looked so big and brave on the stage. Yet so small. A bit of water was sprinkled onto their heads. A prayer was said. It was very beautiful and touching. They were so well behaved.

The baptism bit ended. More hymns. And we quickly dragged the boys out to the Kid’s Room before they broke out into a joint rendition of Elton John and AC/DC.

After living in wild and feral abandonment for 2 days, the NO SHOWER THING bothered me the most. Ok, we bathed in the ocean. But the salt water didn’t seem to penetrate through the built up layers of sun cream, moisturiser, dirt, grime, sweat and salt. It was……. SO GROSS!

The next day we arrived at Coral Bay. It was quite a shock to our system. We came away from the coastal wilderness to a holiday theme park. There were hundreds of caravans lined up, bumper to bumper, as far as the eye could see. Everything was manicured and immaculate. It was all strangely perfect.

The beach was amazing. It was PERFECT for small children. The boys had such a good time – paddling, splashing, building sand castles, digging rivers and just lying on the sand.

Later we waded out through the warm, knee-deep water of the bay. We saw schools of little colourful fish and huge dinner-plate sized fish, all swimming happily between our legs.

We took the glass bottom boat tour and cruised around the bay, over the Ningaloo Reef. Being a scuba diver, I’ve already seen coral, but it was really nice to share it with the kids. It was cool to hear my 4 year old say stuff like, “Hey that coral looks like lettuce!”

That evening, we returned to the beach. We skipped over rock pools and rolled down the sand dunes as we watched the sun go down over the sparkling waters.

A part of me has accepted that my kids will probably never remember all these holiday moments. That their memories will only exist as photographs in dust covered albums or some silly snaps stuck on the fridge. I guess you need a certain kind of faith as a parent – to believe that what you’re doing now will bear some fruit in the future.