Angel Seraphine has finally arrived

Our little angel, Seraphine Suzanne Shi-Yin D'Arcy has finally arrived! She was born on Monday, 21st May, through an emergency "C" section, just under 3 weeks early. She's a real beauty and yes, as her name describes it, an angel (so far)! So far, she's been calm and sleeps a lot (though, she's not as good an eater, we need to wake her up for feeds). She weighed in a hefty 3.9 kgs when she was born, but has lost some weight as she hasn't been eating a lot (though she latches on quite well.... she just keeps drifting off to sleep!) She has a huge shock of light black hair, like her sister, and in many ways, does like like Bibou when she was born. Bibou has been an absoulate delight and loves being with her little baby sister. She was a little bit worried, (my poor baby) when she arrived the first few days at the hospital as I was all 'wired' up (with tubes, drips, etc) and she kept asking why I had so many 'boo-boos'. She's really sweet. As the photos and videos show, she loves to hold, cuddle and kiss 'baby Seraphine'. But that's when the baby was in the hospital. We'll see what happens when we're home for a few more days.

The "C" section was no fun as usual, but I was determined to get right up as soon as possible and made a big effort to do so. Thus, now, just after 3 days, I'm back home. All the nurses etc (who were really nice at the hospital) were patting me on th eback and were quite encouraging. They were all saying that "C" normally go home only after either 5 or 7 days (and the last time, I was in the hospital for 10 days). Of course, it also helps that the hospital now has a new service where the midwives and peds come on the home to check on the mom and baby every day so that they can go home early (generally for 'normal' births). But since I got up, got 'wireless', been walking and taking care of Seraphine all on the second day and generally doing good, they let me home. Yippee!

Here are the first round of pictures and videos. Thanks to all the congrats we've received. We hope you'll be able to meet our little angel very soon.


















Here's another video of Bibou being really sweet with Seraphine

Strike a Pose Bibou!

We were heading out to the Malaysian Club Charity Bazaar this morning (which had WONDERFUL food btw, and we had a great time. We managed to get there before the crowd got there and found some seats. We had a gorgeous time digging into the food, mutarbak, satay, nasi Lemak, curry puffs. Bibou had a good time too, as she had her 'soup' (which is curry... she dipped her roti canal into the curry and had a great time chomping onto them)). Opps yes, I digress, ... yes and so we were getting ready to go out, when little miss princess started posing. Well, great time to pull out the camera I say. She was just hilarious and had us in stitches! As you can probably tell by now, she's was in a great mood today. Daddy was behind me showing her how to 'pose' and she followed them.

She's been a huge chatterbox today too, repeating every thing she hears. On the way to the bazaar, I asked Daddy to wind up the window as it was windy. Well, what do you know, on the way back from the bazaar just now, (a good few hours later), she asked Daddy to 'wind window, please' "cold"! She is quite eager to share her day with you, unfortunately, she's still unable to express herself very well, and so her (one-sided) conversations goes something like this "blah blah blah "Park", blah "watch a show" blah blah "Ta-ta"" etc. She would throw all the vocabulary that she knows (that is relelvant to her day of course) and fill in the blanks with her own language. You have to concentrate, but i's fun!

Anyway, here are some pix we took of her this morning.

How BIG am I?

This BIG! I just woke up, so am sleepy. I'm also swollen everywhere, so ignore the swollen 'look' on my face!

Afternoon with Max, Louis and Ella

Well, here we are, May 17th, just 3 weeks shy of the (French!!) due date, and I'm still pregnant. We really thought she'd be out by now, seeing how Josephine was almost 1 month old by now. It's great news... in that she's gonna be fully developed, but she's really big! She's estimated to be around 4 kg if she goes full term. Yikes! I'm so huge and round, I don't walk, I waddle, and you can just roll me from place to place.

Anyway, we spent a lovely afternoon with Rebecca and her kids and also Ella & her parents who were visiting for the weekend. It was a wet wet day so the kids had to stay inside, but they managed to run around, play, fight, and exert themselves! Louis and Bibou had a particulalry funny time, when they both went into the toy chest! Daddy gave a rousing sing-song session for the kids, which they enjoyed a lot (though Bibou was so hyper, she couldn't sit still!). Rebecca made a quick but yummy dinner for the kids and they all sat down nicely to eat it. Bibou was hilarious though; she'd found a pair of diving goggles and decided to have them on... throughout dinner! Here are some pictures that we managed to take in between chats and a video of the kids singing. Oh and some old pix that we took recently while the weather was still nice outside!

Recipe requests - Pavalova and Chili

Despite the down turn in the weather in May (as compared to the fabulous fabulous weather we had in April), we've continued to host BBQs in our backyard, just simply because we can! When it does rain (though it has only been once), we just bring it in the house! One very new and very popular item now is Chili Dogs! Yum Yum

Anyway, today, we had a bunch of my favoriate colleagues over for lunch today. We were really lucky with the weather. The sun even peeked out a little, and made it all very lovely. And now, due to popular demand (they've threatened to come here for lunch every day if I don't put the recipes up here....) here are the recipes for Pavalova and Chili.... my version.

Pavalova

Ingredients

• 6 egg whites
• 330 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 1 teaspoon of vinegar
• 2 teaspoons of cornflour
• Cream and fresh fruits

Method

• Pre heat oven to 165 0C
• Whisks egg whites until stiff enough to form peaks
• Add half of the sugar and beat until mixture is shiny
• Fold the remaining sguar with a metal spoon
• Fold in the vanilla, vinegar and cornflour
• Pour onto greaseproof paper placed on a cookie sheet
• Bake for about 40 -45 minutes
• Turn off the oven but leave it to cool in the oven.
• When ready to serve, whip the creme to whiped cream and cover the cake with it all over and then decorate with sliced fresh fruits.

Chili

Ingredients

• About 1.5 - 2 kg of ground beef
• 2-3 onions
• 10 cloves of garlic
• 1-2 red pepper (finely chopped)
• mushrooms (finely chopped)
• 1 can of tomato paste
• salt, sugar and tobasco sauce to taste
• 2 cans of beer

Paste ingredients (mix all into a paste with some of the beer)

• 1/2 tablespoon of oregano
• 1 tablespoon of paprika
• 4-5 tablespoons of chilli powder
• 2 tablespoons of cumin
• 2 beef bouillon cubes (crushed)

Method

• In a large pot, fry onion and garlic until fragrant.
• Add the paste and fry for a while
• Add all the beef and fry for a while
• Add the rest of the beer
• Simmer for about 2 hours - stiring occasionally
• Add the red peppers and mushrooms, and the tomato paste. Simmer for another 1 hour or so.
• If at any time the mixture becomes too dry, add a little bit more beer. and always remember to stir.
• Add sugar (if it is too spicy for you) or salt or tobasco sauce to your taste
• You may also add kidney beans if you like.

Enjoy!!

"Happy Anniversary"!!

Can you believe it, it has been 1 year since I first launch the first Bibou's blog to share Bibou's adventures with everyone! THe time sure passes by sooo quickly. One year and almost 100 posts later, Bibou is still as mischevious as ever. A lot still the same, but yet so much is different. Our blog has evolved too! From photographs to videos! What a great way to see how our little girl grows up. But most importantly, what will change very soon will be our new little addition to our family. Boy will we have more adventures then.

Today we had some lovely company... from Kirsty and two of her kids, Lily and Tom. It was another gorgeous day (though that meant hayfever attacks!) and we had the BBQ out, with the pool and all the backyard toys for the kids. Bibou woke up in a GREAT mood today. No whinging and moaning at all. We had such a lovely day with her today. If only she could be like day most or even some days (asking for everyday would be impossible of course). But anyway, we made the most of it certainly. While waiting for our guests to arrive, we spent some time in the garden with Bibou. We had a most hilarious time with her, she was sooo chatty and of course loving every minute of the attention that we shower on her. As the videos will show below, she has a laugh riot and a half!


Special treat today...chips and a bit of coke zero (oh don't shoot me....)






And even though she loves chips (and doesn't normally like to share), she will share her favorite food. She loves offering them to other people and feeding them :) :






Bibou learnt a new word today : Cheers! Of course Daddy taught her that word lol!






Here's a video of Bibou singing 'Wheels on the Bus" with Daddy this afternoon :