Goodbye 2011!

2011 has been a very challenging year for our family.  After a long period of hard work and stress about finance, hubby and I have reached a point where we are physically tired and mentally drained all the time.  He really wants to see result now after all the years of hard work and I, I don't really know what I want anymore.  2011 is also the year where things starts to pick up for hubby's company. He was interviewed by a well established online tech magazine during the summer, and after that the response he got was just overwhelming! Suddenly many other tech magazines started writing about Rotosub even though he only got interviewed by one... =.="  And in autumn, he was invited by a respected expert in ANC (Anti-Noise Control) to present Rotosub technology in the annual ANC convention.  The Swedish embassy also helped Rotosub to set up a few interviews with some large MNCs to explore possible projects together.  This was a great opportunity to help break into the otherwise very difficult Japan market. So now he has a few projects going on and since the company is still small, he has to put in long hours to complete these projects.  Hopefully he can start hiring soon when the money starts coming in on a regular basis.

2011 had also been good because we have finally saved enough money to go back to Singapore! It was a long-awaited trip but unfortunately, Jovan broke his leg about a month before we were supposed to fly,so he didn't get to do much but I think all the good food made up for that! :D

As always, we sent off 2011 at home.  New Year's eve party is not really for our family especially when we have 2 toddlers, so we choose to just take it easy at home.

We had chicken pie with store-bought puff pastry on top and salad for lunch.

Nice to sit down to have lunch together!

Then the bigger kids and I popped some corn and made caramel popcorn with almond! Yum!

For dinner, we planned to have sushi and my marinated chicken wings (yeah, I know it's a weird combo but as long as we like it, why not?).  So the bigger kids and I wrapped some sushi and I threw in the chicken wings into the oven to bake.  

Angel folded the paper napkins into some interesting forms.... a shirt for daddy and Jovan.....

 .... a tie for Chris and a "square-ish" looking flower for Ivan....

.... and a flower (I think) for me and herself!  So creative!

Then dinner was served! Home made maki sushi rolled by Jovan and Angel!

We also made "mock-tail" with orange juice and cranberry juice! Nice!

Cheers! Both Jovan and Angel complained about how the grapes and umbrellas were making them looked strange..... hahahahahahahaha! They did!!! :D

And while most of us were enjoying our mocktails....

 there is one of us who was totally focused on eating the umbrella.... =.="

After dinner, it was snacking time.  So out came the caramel popcorn and some chips and we watched tv and were just having a cozy time in the sofa....

.... forcing the baby to smile for the camera.....

And then we decided to take a family picture using the timer on the camera!  And after about five hundred tries and countless weird picture, we finally got it! ^.^

After the small ones fell asleep, the bigger kids stayed up with us waiting for the countdown and watching fireworks from our living room.  After the countdown, "King Kong" was on tv, Jovan and I watched till 3.10am before we finally went to bed.

Goodbye 2011.  We are thankful for what we received over the past year and the mistakes we made and lessons learnt.  We hope that 2012 will bring us more family and couple time together, more personal growth, well-deserved rewards for our hard work put in, be it in school, at work or our own personal character improvement.  Most of all, we wish that we will all be able to find peace in our hearts despite our hectic lives , don't sweat the small stuff and appreciate the little things in our lives.

Happy New Year!!