Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas market

A wooden tower

This is an overdue post due to the laziness in me these past few days.... :p

The Edelweiss Chalet

We went to a Christmas market in Montreux on Sunday. Thinking that it will be packed, we took a bus there to avoid the overcrowded car park. Took us about 15 mins to get there and Owen was enjoying the scenery all the way... It didn't snow or rain so its all good besides the grey-grey skies.



Owen with papa and the reindeers! opps... and mousse also!

Once we hopped off the bus, the whiff of hot wine fills the winter air. Its basically red wine mixed with spices - to "spice up" the winter body I guess. Its delicious when they can get the mixture right, otherwise we'll be all tipsy or worst too much spice! There were stalls selling all kinds of hand-made presents and food/drinks. One I find particularly interesting is a stall selling glass items. The guy who made them even blown/torch glass decorations/jewellery items to order. Then there's one stall selling Christmas tree hanging glass balls (do you call them glass balls or globe?). Now these balls are different coz one could see there's a figurine inside it. Its so cute with Santa and reindeer inside. But since we've got an-ornament-pulling-little-man at home, i don't think I'll get a 15CHF glass thingy! Would want to sneak in some pics but it would be too obvious.

Look at the GIANT WOK!!

Ice skating rink


This year's decoration isn't as nice as last years. May be things are getting more and more expensive? But there's a small nice skating rink right next to a Finland cottage restaurant. OH! And there's also a "traditional" Swiss cottage restaurant as well. All made up just for the market. Went in for a meal of cheese fondue with friends there just 2 weeks ago. Its always crowded.



The rows of stalls

I think Christmas market will be even better of there's snow and lots of decorations. Am crossing my fingers that for next Christmas, we'll try to go to Strasbourg for their market. Heard its one of the best... Or may be even to Lapland (Finland) for its Santa's home?!? hehehehe...

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Owen and Santa! Merry Christmas to you all! :D


Yes its the time of the year... Its Christmas next week! Its been freezing these past three days, with maximum temperatures at 3°C during the day and below 0°C by 5pm... BRRR..... With such freezing weather, its nice to stay in and do some stitching, baking or playing with Owen. hehehehe...

Am completing my ornaments. Yes I know it taking such a long time to finish them since its just small stitching. But when your little one is teething, is just hard to find the time to stitch or even cook! He's got two little bottom front teeth popping up now and it hurts when he bites! Especially when we're still breastfeeding him - OUCH! So now its to the bottle s-l-o-w-l-y....

Surprisingly he doesn't have fever, diarrhea or crying all the time. But he's a bit agitated and cranky and always sticking to his mama! Just the day before yesterday night, he'll only sleep if he's on top of me or right beside me. Its just seems so sweet but boy I didn't get to sleep comfortably! I had to make sure that either I don't roll over or move.

So the next day in order for him to sleep soundly in the evening, I brought him to see Santa! He was so surprise to see an old man with a very long and white beard. He just kept staring with his mouth open! He didn't even cry while taking a picture with Santa. I guess he's still figuring out whats all the fuss about and who's that man in red whom he just sat with!! hehehehehe..... It will be Owen's first Christmas this year. I hope that he won't be pulling any more ornaments down from the tree!

So here's wishing everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A JOLLY NEW YEAR! May all your wishes come true and may you be blessed with good health, lots of joy and love!

Sunday, December 09, 2007

My, My...

It has been raining since Friday evening! Its been grey, windy and down right depressing whenever I look out the window... sigh. No wonder every time when its winter, there's bound to be some people doing crazy things like suicide etc; a mare boy shooting shoppers and killing himself....

Well to me it DOESN'T have to be depressing weather or mood wise. TO PEOPLE HAVING HISTORY OF DEPRESSION: GET HELP ASAP! We've been busy these past few weeks. I for one have been experimenting with recipes from a French baking mag I picked up while we were in France. The result, will never try their recipes any more!! The measurements (not to mention instructions!!) are a bit off and therefore, the sablé (French Butter biscuits) biscuits turn out to be less than OK, although edible... Then the chocolate "tongues" didn't look like any where near a tongue! Looks more like a splat flat porcupine!!! Seriously, its not that I had trouble understanding them. In fact I even had hubs translate them just so that I didn't get them wrong. May be I should try again the next time...

Fruit cakes... Yes it cracked a bit... Must be from the fact I tried to jam in as much dried fruit & nuts!!


There's a taboo from my mum saying that, if your baking didn't turn out well today, don't try to bake again until several days later; otherwise it'll turn out horrible as well! So better be safe than sorry, I made fruit cake the following weekend. You know the ones that has to go through the "aging" process? That's the one. Got the recipe from Joy of Baking site. Been brushing them twice a week and I really hope that it'll turn out well! Hubs: "Well babes, it does smell OK" is the reply I get whenever he wants a taste of it... Sorry babes. Its not old enough to be eaten yet! hahaha...

Our 1st tree ever!


Oh! Did I mentioned that we got a real pine tree? Its our 1st tree after all these years here. And since its impossible to get decorations for Chinese New Year (unless online), we thought why not decorate a Christmas tree instead although we don't celebrate Christmas. Besides, if I were to decorate for CNY, my ang mohs neighbours will be wondering if we opened up a Chinese restaurant instead of celebrating CNY!! LOL! So far, we've put up all trinkets and 1 of my stiched ornaments. I still have 3 more to go... sigh.

Some of the tree deco...

Just hung up 1 of my stitched ornaments...

The charts looks so simple and easy to do, but it took me longer to frog and to redo the whole thing. So for now there's no pictures of them yet. Will do once I finish them and hang them up on our tree. We didn't really managed to find ornaments that we wanted, so will have to make do with whatever I could get my hands on from our nearby super market. Will do better next year with hand made glass ornaments, for the moment its all plastic, clay and natural pine . I was also afraid that Owen will pull, play, bite and or swallow them as he's starting to learn to crawl and is grabbing anything he could get his hands on to "taste" them in his mouth! We're praying that he won't pull the whole tree down!!