Happy 2nd Birthday, Juan Or!

Last night, we had our simple celebration of Juan Or's 2nd birthday. It was 7.40 pm and Mommy had just finished deep-frying some party food when Papa arrived home from his outstation work trip.

Then Mommy got Juan Or to wear his home-made party hat for Papa to see. Ta-dah, this is how the party hat looks on Juan Or!

And here's a closer view of the home-made party hat.

After both Papa and Mommy had taken our baths, we were ready to start our humble dinner 'party'. Mommy deep-fried french fries and Ramly chicken nuggets. It was also Mommy's first solo attempt at deep-frying. Mommy managed to catch Juan Or grinning for the camera as he ate his french fries.

As we were eating the deep-fried items, Mommy steamed some otak-otak and thawed a packet of seasoned baby octopus to supplement the party food. Papa and Mommy offered all the food we had to Juan Or but turned out he only knows how to eat french fries - nothing else!

By 9 pm, we were ready to take out the birthday cake. This time, Mommy decided to try a different cake after Aunty Cynthia turned down Mommy's request to order cake from her (Aunty Cynthia has to stop taking cake orders due to her princess being very clingy). It's a jellycake this time after Mommy saw a blogpost from Aunty Nicole Low. The jellycake that Mommy bought from Jelly Cakehouse was a train design priced at RM55. Orders were made online but Mommy drove over to the headquarter office at Damai Perdana (Cheras) to collect the cake.

After lighting the candles, singing birthday song, photo-taking and blowing the candles, Mommy helped Juan Or to cut the cake (sorry, no photos for Mommy to take on the handphone before the cake was cut because Mommy had to hold Juan Or's hands to prevent him from touching the cake and candles and destroying the cake! ^ ^ But Papa did take them on his SLR camera, only thing is the photos have not yet been copied to Mommy's laptop.)  

What next? It's time to wallop the cake, of course!

As expected, since the jelly was slippery, Juan Or just couldn't scoop the jelly onto his spoon, so he ate with his hands instead and then used his sticky fingers to touch here and there on the furniture. *Faint!*

Turned out, Juan Or doesn't know how to eat the jellycake - probably he just can't appreciate the taste. So in the end, Mommy had to finish it for him! Well, in Mommy's opinion, appearance-wise, the jellycake looks very attractive especially for children. In fact, the jellycake is more of a layered jellycake with the coconut milk jelly alternating with the non-coconut milk jelly layer. Mommy guess probably because of the amount of layering work involved, that's why the cake costs RM55 even though it is mostly made up of agar, coconut milk and water. How about taste-wise? Well, nothing oustanding about the taste because it tastes just like normal jelly. After eating the jellycake, it doesn't give you the satisfying and filling effect unlike the normal cakes you buy from cakehouses. So Mommy decided that after this try, Mommy will go back to buying Secret Recipe cakes for birthdays rather than jellycakes. No more jellycakes ever again! Felt like the RM55 spent is not very worth it after all - only good for the eyes to see but doesn't have the oomph factor for the tongue and stomach!

After the cake session, Juan Or became fretful and pestered Papa to go upstairs, so both of them went upstairs while Mommy remained downstairs to clean the dining table, plates and bowls, and the kitchen mess! Mommy was done with the cleaning and washing by 10.30 pm and then went upstairs to join Papa and Juan Or - only to find them.....

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.........dozed off in the master bedroom!

So, Mommy decided to call it a day and went to sleep as well since Mommy had been working non-stop since 5 am. So that's three's a company in our bed!

The next morning, at 4 am, Juan Or woke up in a fretful state. So Mommy tried distracting him, but to no avail. Suddenly Mommy thought about the birthday presents which Juan Or has yet to open because he went to sleep early last night. Immediately, his crying and fretfulness stopped.

This birthday present is from Juan Or's babysitter. It's a bucket of building blocks. Now Juan Or seems to show progress in stacking the building blocks. Previously, he would try to stack them head-to-head or bottom-to-bottom which never worked, but now looks like he's aware of the direction of the blocks.

Then this one's from Juan Or's Third Uncle and Third Aunty from My Little Sprouts!. The present was beautifully wrapped in a Mickey Mouse design wrapping paper and in it is an indoor game set called Safari Hide & Seek. It's a mind-testing and pattern recognition game meant for 6 year olds and above. So Mommy will let Juan Or touch it first, and then keep the toy till he has more maturity to play the game.

Next one's from Aunty Small Kucing who has taken really a lot of effort to courier the present about 2 weeks before Juan Or's birthday arrived. Here's an older photo of Juan Or when he had just received his couriered birthday present.

Only about 2 weeks later did Mommy allow Juan Or to open the birthday present (*wicked grin*). It's a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse magnetic board book which Mommy had been eyeing for for Juan Or when Aunty Small Kucing first mentioned about Book Xcess opening it's new and bigger outlet. Hehehee....now Mommy knows why Aunty Small Kucing asked Mommy before whether Mommy has already gone to Book Xcess to buy the Mickey Mouse book! ^ ^  By the way, Mickey Mouse is Juan Or's favourite character.

Here is Juan Or hurrying Mommy to quickly tear open the plastic film packaging....

.....and then enjoying the Mickey-and-gang magnets more than the story! ^ ^

Then Mommy noticed Juan Or seems to have the liking to arrange things in an orderly array, like this.....

......which Mommy recalled seeing something similar done to the plates of his sushi playset some time back.

There's also a pop-out birthday card given by Juan Or's paternal grandparents. His grandfather has decided to pass his animal fact files collection set to Juan Or (for him to read when he's much older).

Finally, Mommy wishes to thank all readers who have wished Juan Or happy birthday and especially to the babysitter, Third Uncle and Aunty, Aunty Small Kucing and Juan Or's grandparents for the birthday presents. Special thanks goes to Aunty Small Kucing who has dedicated a birthday blogpost to Juan Or in her blog and even invited her readers to cross-over to this blog to wish Juan Or a happy birthday. Mommy thanked you all from the bottom of Mommy's heart. Muah!