Got a set of Ladybird’s Baby Touch books from Singapore for Gabriel.

I think he absolutely loves it.

I think the one he’s holding is just the right thing for babies his age — they are made of cloth (and some plastic, I believe). This way, they won’t hurt themselves with the book. But besides that, the plastic makes it noisy and babies just get intrigued by the noise… It’s called the Baby Touch Snuggle book.

Anyway, Gabriel stayed up quite late last night. He just didn’t want to go to sleep and made a lot of noise (not the crying type, but rather it seemed like he was ‘talking’). Mrs Tai said while I was away, he was very quiet. He would go to bed early, etc… But last night when I got home, he just didn’t want to sleep… He’s happy to see me?!? I was jokingly telling Mrs Tai that maybe he’s complaining to me about how bad Mrs Tai had treated him the past week!

…going back home, to Mrs Tai and Gabriel…

Merlion in Singapore

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Well, it’s not really the first since we have moved into this place more than one year now.

What makes this year different is that we decorated the house and try to really make it lively (well, minus the fact that we didn’t actually have time to really clean up the house and that the two Ikea cabinets are still waiting to be assembled).

So, presenting our mini effort…

Mrs Tai had a shock when she saw what I had done! She commented that it looks like a classroom now…

I told here that was the idea. The theme for this year is ‘Back to classroom’… OK, OK… I’ll try and do a better job next time. Oh, ya… That’s the new 14″ super-duper slim, 3D TV on the wall…

Pssst… The decorations were only put up on the evening of the SECOND day of CNY.

One more thing… GONG XI FA CAI!!!

A few months back, our garden looked like this…

Mini jungle!

As you know, a few weeks back, we started work on our garden. Well, we didn’t actually do it ourselves… Instead, we outsourced it to two contractors — one for the wall and one for the grass. Here are some photos showing the work done over the past few weeks…

Piling works for the wall… Bakau piles were used.

No more chain-link fence!

Work in progress…

The front part of the garden…

More work in progress, this time at the car porch

Almost completed…

Want to know how it all turned out — the wall and the grass? Well…
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I have to apologise for not updating my blog (though I prefer to call it my website). I’ve been tied up with a few things and a lot has happened over the past two weeks or so…

On a sad note, a classmate passed away last week. Ya… Someone my age passed away. I would think that many people my age would think of themselves as being invincible — nothing can harm us. This classmate just fainted and then passed away — I don’t have any additional details besides what was told to us by his girlfriend, Yenny.

I suggested to Yenny to write to Facebook so we could have Lawrence’s page memorialised. I think she’s done that already because I noticed the link has changed.

Anyway, his death just jolts a few of us into thinking… Are we ‘prepared’?

At the home front, my garden wall is now complete and work has started on the grass… Photos will come (hopefully) over the weekend.

Gabriel… He is now starting to ‘talk’… OK, not really talk but vocalise (I think that’s the word, if there is such a word). He would happily go about making sounds as though he’s talking. One can tell the mood he’s in by ‘listening’ to him. When he’s happy, it sounds very soft and pleasant. But when he’s upset, it’s curt and loud as though he’s scolding someone! But he absolutely loves to smile! When he sees me walking over to his bed early in the morning (he wakes up before me), he would smile at me. When Mrs Tai picks him up from the babysitter’s place, first thing he would do is smile at Mrs Tai. Even the babysitter’s relatives nicknamed him ‘the baby who just loves to smile”. Mrs Tai and I tease Gabriel by saying he’s very good at sucking up… But seriously, we tell him that it’s a good thing to have — a smile on the face all the time.

Together with a few residents, we also met the developer to discuss some security concerns that we have… That was like yesterday and I’m very pleasantly surprised that changes were already made today itself!

Speaking of today, Gabriel had his 3rd month jab today — he’s a few days shy of being three months old!

Over at the office… We will be going office expansion — yeah, just less than 3 months since moving to the new location and we’re now going to expand and take up the empty office next door.

What else? Chinese New Year is just around the corner! So many things to do — wash curtains, tidy up the house, do up my Ikea cabinets (hmmm… Why does that line sound so familiar… heh heh…)

We had what is possibly our first outing without Gabriel. It’s been a while since both Mrs Tai and I chilled out together for a movie. During pregnancy, so many complications cropped up that Mrs Tai spent most of her pregnancy at home (we did manage to watch Transformers 2 though). My aunt was nice enough to help us look after Gabriel while Mrs Tai and I went out to catch James Cameroon’s Avatar 3D!

The 3D movie experience is definitely a first for both of us… I mean if we don’t count the ones we watched at Hong Kong Disneyland. It’s a fun movie that’s worth watching at least once (this was my second time — first was with a few colleagues a few days earlier but on 2D). But I guess it was not really about the movie. It’s about just chilling out…

We decided to watch the movie only last night… With that decision made, the frantic search for movie tickets started… It was about more than 1 hour later before we found a good time slot (had to also co-ordinate with my aunt, etc). It was not cheap though — we could only find tickets at GSC Signature @ The Gardens. Here’s a bit about GSC Signature from the GSC website:

The Premiere Halls provide plush twin seats with individual tables for your snacks. Generous legroom between the seats not only allows easy access to your seats but offers space and comfort beyond the ordinary cinema experience.

At rm27 per ticket. it is one heck of an experience… But I guess its something we should try at least once! Maybe we might even try the Gold Class next time. There was a family in front of us when we were collecting our tickets. They bought 5 tickets and guess how much they paid — rm300 for the five ticket! Wow…

This arrived today…

It’s a Lerun Solaris mountain bike (MTB). It comes with:
FRAME : Alloy
FRONT FORK : Zoom Suspension fork
HANDLEBAR : Steel Rise bar
HANDLE STEM : Ritchey Aheadset
HEADSET : Oversized Ahead set
DRIVETRAIN : Shimano Altus mix 21-SP
TYRES & TUBE : Deli 26×2.00
RIMS : Alloy Single wall
COLOURS : Silver, Red
HUBS : Formula Alloy w/QR

Honestly… If you ask me, I don’t know what the above specs mean. I got them off the LeRun website. All I know is… I like it! I’ve been wanting to buy a bicycle for quite a while now… Ever since we moved into Setia Alam. But I had always put off the plan as there was just not enough money to spend…

Recently SP Setia added new redemption items and the MTB was one of the items available for redemption. Yup, I got it free though SP Setia’s privilege points redemption program. If you buy a house with them, you get some points. If you refer family and friends (who become purchasers), then you also get points.

Now I can cycle to the shops, absorb the fresh air in Setia Alam, etc…

Oh ya, in case you wanna buy a SP Setia house, do put me as referrer!

Company shutdown starts today. Looks like its going to be an annual thing, but I like it!

Will be on leave till next year!

I went back to the clinic this morning as the eye was still quite red and still a bit swollen, especially the left one. As she had said in my previous visit, if it does not get better, she’ll be referring me to a specialist.

Got the referral letter and off I went to Tun Hussien Onn National Eye Hospital.

As usual, there’s the registration and the waiting… When it came to my turn, I think the specialist took some swab samples from my eyes… Not sure what else he did… It was all like a ‘dream’ and happened so fast… All I know was I was tearing like mad! My eyes wet easily and I guess that’s one reason why I never bothered trying to use contact lens. Probably before I even try putting it into my eye, I’d have already flooded the room!

I kid you not… As I was leaving the specialist’s room, I could see him taking tissue and disinfectant and cleaning up the area where I was resting my head/ chin…

Took some new medications and will need to go back on Monday for a follow up…