Month: April 2010

BBC Eats With Many Bowls

Does your fruit taste better if you ate it on 6 bowls?  Baby thinks so.  She transferred her papaya from one bowl to another, as if she were playing ‘congkak!’  I just let her be as long as she ate the papaya.  I’ll be even more stressed if she doesn’t eat any fruit as this would worsen her constipation problem. This girl is not a fruit lover and it’s a torture to make her swallow fruits except mangoes!

Go check out Old And New Stuff For Sale for my latest collection. Shipping is still free until further notice.

No. of times viewed = 242

An Afternoon Chilling Out At 100 Yen Shop… And A Hairy Issue

What was the longest time you spent at a 100 Yen Shop? I spent over 2 hours at a 100 Yen Shop at my neighborhood 2 Sundays ago. The hubs had brought Alycia and Sherilyn to the hair saloon, so I brought Baby and my helper to the nearby 100 Yen Shop. When Alycia was done with her hair cut, she joined us at the 100 Yen Shop. Next it was the hubs’ turn for his hair cut. Gosh, I was bored to the core waiting for over 2 hours. I looked at practically every item displayed there, spent unnecessarily on some items, treated the girls to Snow Ice and when Alycia and Sherilyn came over to join us, I bought more stuff for them that I shouldn’t have.


Alycia with her new hair cut and new mechanical pencil bought from the 100 Yen Shop.  I find the Chinese schools’ ruling of making it compulsory to have REALLY short hair for girls ridiculous. It’s either your hair is at ear length or you tie your hair up into a bun. No long fringes and no hair covering the sides of the cheeks. 2 days ago, Alycia’s teacher reminded Alycia to have her hair cut AGAIN!!!   Each hair cut cost a frigging RM38. I better shave her head botak lor liddat!


Miss Clumsy Pot better kick the dilly dally habit off her coz she loves to have her hair long and she better learn how to tie a bun now!  I am going to tai chi to the hubs all my worries on how she will cope waking up at 6am and get ready by 6:40am everyday when she goes to Standard 1.  Coz he is spoiling her rotten.  She has 2 more years to learn how to tie a bun herself and to kick the dilly dally habit off her. 


Baby enjoying a little Snow Ice, which her jie jies shared with her.


Check out Princess Wannabe’s pose, she’s so natural at modelling and dancing, really bergaya, HAHA!

No. of times viewed = 715

Robson Heights Seafood Restaurant

On my birthday recently, we had dinner at Robson Heights Seafood Restaurant. This restaurant has been around for many years and they serve pretty good food, though a tad pricey. Many expats love to dine at this restaurant.

Here’s what we had:


Deep fried prawns with butter milk and curry leaves.


Large prawns, tofu and an assortment of vegetables in hot pot.


My favorite deep fried crispy chicken.


Steamed fish with soy sauce, shredded ginger, Chinese parsley and Chinese cooking wine.


Stir fried baby french beans with garlic.


Braised pork belly with Chinese chestnuts and brocolli.


‘Phai kuat wong’ (deep fried pork ribs) with sweet and sour sauce.


‘Koong poa’ eel.

Steamed crabs with Chinese cooking wine and egg white.


My favorite green tea-red bean cake from RT Pastry House.  The size of the cake was just right for everyone to have a slice and the entire cake was polished off with no surplus. Don’t you hate bringing the surplus bithday cake home where it stays in your fridge for a week before you decide to transfer it into the bin?

And stop counting the candles! The candles are just a number. I’m still young at heart, in mind and in appearance 😀

Robson Heights Seafood Restaurant is located at
10B Jalan Permai
Off Jalan Syed Putra
50460 Kuala Lumpur
Tel : 03-2274 1633
www.robsonheights.com

No. of times viewed = 340

My Princess Wannabe’s Hair Fetish

My little queen of vain pot has a fetish with her hair. She demands that her hair be tied up nicely before she leaves the house for school every morning, but only in 2 particular styles. This queen of vain pot wants her hair tied up to a certain height on her head with a little hair untied behind. If her request is not met, she will whine, bawl and protest to no end till her request is met. But she makes it hard for us to tie her hair as she would dilly dally and whine for more than half an hour every morning before she is finally dressed up and ready for school. Though she’s threatened everyday that her hair will not be tied up if she dilly dallies, she does not bother as her savior is always there to fix her hair at the eleventh hour. I tell you, daddy is going to spoil her rotten and I’ve been telling him that he better stop spoiling her lest she turns out into a wayward girl with absolutely no discipline in mind. I won’t be a wee bit surprised if she tells me that she wants to go to the world renowned Cosmetology school in Maryland twelve years down the road. I’ll say no but I know her daddy who spoils her rotten will ultimately give in to her request and say “your wish is my command, my Princess!”

 

No. of times viewed = 154

Homemade Pesto Sauce

My mil made some very delish Pesto sauce 2 weeks ago. The Pesto sauce can be used as sauce for spaghetti / pasta or used as bread spread.  I love it eaten as bread spread.

I never knew making homemade Pesto sauce can be so simple. The ingredients used are:

1) Toasted pine nuts
2) Fresh basil leaves (we bought a punnet from Jaya Jusco). You can also plant them in your garden, like my mum.
3) Parmesan cheese
4) A little sea salt
5) A little olive oil
6) Fresh garlic

Just toss everything into the blender to blend them into the desired consistency.

The bottle of fresh-from-the-blender Pesto sauce and fresh-from-the-oven carrot bread.

This is real GOOD stuff – hot Pesto sauce on a slice of hot carrot cake. The kids and I LOVE them. Even Baby loved it but I try not to let her eat too much as it is a tad salty.  You can have a healthier version of the Pesto sauce by omitting the sea salt and reducing the Parmesan cheese.

No. of times viewed = 590

Bestest Jie Jie In The WWW

On weekends when Alycia is around, I actually feel a tad relaxed. This girl can help me babysit her baby sister pretty well and sometimes she helps me feed her too – her milk and her meals! 

Baby doodled the drawers with a red color pencil the other day. No need to guess who came to my aid….

When Alycia saw the doodling on the drawers, without any hesitation she dashed to the bathroom, got hold of the magic ceramic sponge and gladly wiped the mess away… with a smile too!

No. of times viewed = 398

Nyonya Colors @ The Gardens, Mid Valley City

One of our favorite places to indulge in nyonya desserts is at Nyonya Colors located at The Gardens, Mid Valley City. This little eatery is forever packed with customers. They serve one of the tastiest nyonya desserts ranging from kuehs to tong sui and savouries like nasi lemak and assam laksa. Everything served there is just delicious, especially the kuehs. For someone like me who is on a low-carb diet, I will go weak and succumb to the temptation of the range of colorful and flavorful tasty kuehs at Nyonya Colors. The kuehs are preservative-free and just taste heavenly!

Two weeks ago, we stopped by Nyonya Colors @ The Gardens to indulge in our favorite desserts… 2 times in a week!

Here’s what we had:

Assam laksa, which was simply mouth watering. iLove the thick broth with lots of fish and thick prawn paste. Tell me, are you salivating now?  I am!!

Ais kacang…

The range of scrumptious kueh muehs made with fresh santan…

More kueh muehs…

Homemade kaya and Menglembu groundnuts.  The green and white kueh is Puteri Ayu, which is one of my favorite Malay kuehs.

Bubur cha cha. I find the bubur cha cha a tad diluted as we requested for shaved ice to be tossed in. If you want rich ‘santany’ bubur cha cha, order one without ice.

Ayam masak merah to go with our nasi lemak. Very delish too…

Nasi lemak pandan, very fragrant and fluffly rice, simply satisfying!

Nyonya Colors is located at
LG 230A, Lower Ground Floor
The Gardens Shopping Mall
Mid Valley City
Kuala Lumpur

For my readers who reside overseas, sorry, this post is not intended to make you drool and crave for local delights 😀

No. of times viewed = 2424

Cassandra’s 2nd Birthday

Two days before her 2nd birthday, Baby kept asking me this “where’s my birthday cake?” On her birthday yesterday, she woke up in the morning to everyone giving her hugs, kisses and lots of birthday wishes and happy birthday songs. After her shower, she did not even want to wear the clothes she normally wears at home and demanded to wear her kai kai clothes *roll eyeballs*!   She knew it was her special day and she thought we would bring her kai kai the whole day.


For days, Alycia kept telling me that she had to make something for Baby. Alycia and Baby have this very special bond and Alycia really really adores her baby sister. So at the eleventh hour in the evening just before we went to the restaurant for dinner, Alycia locked herself in her room and ransacked her drawer for stuff… stuff to make for Baby and to give Baby as a present. When I opened the brown box (which I have no idea where she found it), I almost fell off my chair bursting out laughing. Inside the box were 2 keychains with a sports car hung on each of the keychain…. HAHAHAHA!! She had no proper paper to make Baby a birthday card, so she made do with whatever bits and pieces of paper she could find in her drawer and wrote Happy Birtday (with the letter h missing LOL!)


Though this is really hilarious, I think it is very, very, very sweet and thoughtful of Alycia to have planned such a present for Baby. When Baby opened the box, the excitement and joy on her face were just PRICELESS. Baby exclaimed “my preshent!” with the proudes and happiest look on her cute little face.


Pic taken at the restaurant. One present was from daddy and one from khai yeh (god father). Both the girls’ god fathers were at the steamboat restaurant.


Daddy searched high and low for a Barney toy or bag for his Barney-crazed little girl and finally got her a small lilac Barney bag…. which Baby had absolutely no interest in 🙁


Instead, she was besotted with this remote controlled car that emits sounds and lights which khai yeh Daryl bought!


Daddy dearest got his angel a Barney And Friends butter cake with marzipan and candies….

Me and my sweetie-pie. 

Thank you everyone for your birthday wishes for Baby. I’d also like to thank PL for the big ang pow for Baby. You’re really one helluva thoughtful friend who never fails to bring cheer to Baby and have touched our life so much.

No. of times viewed = 501

Happy Birthday Sweetie-Pie Cassandra!

My sweetie-pie Baby Cassandra is no longer a baby. She’s now a toddler, a big little girl who speaks like she’s 3yo. Exactly 2 years ago around this time, I was lying on the bed in a 2-bedded room at Sunway Medical Centre, just out from the recovery bay in the OT. I still remember everything that transpired inside the OT, the other patients who went into the OT room and everything that I saw.

Back in the ward, I was really anxious to take a closer look at my 3rd princess… though I remembered only vaguely that she was very fair during the brief 1 minute or so first-time-ever, fresh-from-belly moment in the OT. I was still shivering from the side effects of the spinal cord anesthetic. I could not move, only felt pins and needles on my feet and could only feel partially the lower part of my body.

The year 2008 and 2009 had been very, very eventful, emotional and painful for Baby and me. For those of you who have been following my blogs, you will know that Baby, my tough little cookie had endured a lot during the first 14 months of her life…. 2 major surgeries (not including 1 minor eye surgery 3 weeks ago), countless jabs and IV drips.

Fast forward 2 years on, she’s now healthier, no longer on daily antibiotics and no longer gets monthly UTI attacks which required hospitalization / IV drips.

I thank God for this sweetie-pie that He has sent to me. I pray to God that He will bestow Cassandra with good health, longevity and happiness always.

Happy 2nd Birthday Baby girl. Everyone loves you VERY, VERY much!

No. of times viewed = 357

What Soap Do You Use On Your Kids?

I used to buy Johnson & Johnson, Anakku and Pureen’s range of body shampoo for my kids. Ever since my 2 older girls are capable of bathing themselves without any adult supervision, they have been using a LOT of body shampoo. They can even finish a bottle of 750ml body shampoo in less than 2 weeks, which is really a lot. Kids being kids, they would use the body shampoo to make bubbles (sometimes so much that the entire bathroom floor would be covered with suds after their bath!), wash and scrub the bathroom tiles and floor and Lord knows what else they did with the body shampoo. I’ve been telling hubby that perhaps the girls are eating the body shampoo as some of the shampoos are fruit and yoghurt flavored! I also find that some of the body shampoos are drying their skin very much. Another reason that’s making me feel very uncomfortable is that most of these body shampoos have SLS (sodium laureth sulfate) in them.

Sodium laureth sulfate, or sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES), is a detergent and surfactant found in many personal care products (soaps, shampoos, toothpaste etc.). It is an inexpensive and very effective foaming agent. Although SLES is considered safe at the concentrations used in cosmetic products, it is an irritant similar to other detergents, with the irritation increasing with concentration.

Recently, I banned my 2 older girls from using liquid body shampoo and replaced it with Johnson & Johnson’s bar soap. From my own survey, most bar soaps do not contain SLS, thus you will notice that there ain’t much suds when in contact with water. SLS aside, I find that using bar soaps much, much more economical.

What type of soap do you bathe your kids with?

The different types of soaps my kids and I are using now. 

Do zoom over to Old And New Stuff For Sale to view my new collection. Shipping is still FREE!

No. of times viewed = 15374

Dancing Girls

2 Sundays ago, Sherilyn went for her mock ballet exam. On that Sunday, we were earlier invited by Jasmine to attend Shan Rae’s 2nd birthday party.  Too bad we could not attend. Shan Rae and Baby C share the same birthdate, i.e. 9 April 2008! It’s quite rare to find someone who shares the same birthday as you eh?

Here’s my Princess Wannabe in her ballet costume, with her hair tied up in a bun. The first time I tied a bun was exactly a year ago… for Alycia who had to sit for her mock ballet exam. After the exam, she quit ballet. Her interest in ballet waned a few months into ballet class.

Instead, Alycia prefers hip hop dance and can move and gyrate her body pretty well too 😀

Both Alycia and Sherilyn can do ballroom dancing pretty well too…. the cincai, free-style ballroom dance that is 😀

Very soon, Baby will join her jie jies in the dance….

No. of times viewed = 222

Juggler Of Tasks

On a school-going day, this is a typical scene in the afternoon:


I will be spoon-feeding Baby formula milk at the couch with the TV switched on. Unfortunately, I can only get Baby to sit still and drink her milk when the TV is switched on with either Barney or High 5 played.

Sometimes, Alycia will be asking me questions from her school homework. If it’s Math, BM or English, I will be able to guide her and she has to come to me and sit next to me to complete the homework while I attend to Baby.  If it’s anything to do with Mandarin, my mil will guide her.  Most times, Sherilyn would also want a piece of my attention and she would also bring out a book to read and would ask me tons of questions!

No. of times viewed = 233

Wear Mask Mummy

Sherilyn and Baby are down with a cold. Yesterday over dinnner I reminded my helper to pop Vitamin C so that she does not get bitten by the bug too. I said this to my helper “Dyah, makan Vitamin C, I macam nak kena running nose, nanti you kena pun”. I then told Baby “mummy has running nose now”… to which Baby replied “wear mask mummy”… and pointed to the cabinet where we keep the face masks.

Each time I wear a face mask, memories of my 3-week stay in the hospital with Baby after her 2 surgeries in May last year would dance in my mind. The days in May 2009 would perhaps be one of the toughest and darkest days in my life. Baby was operated on the 5th of May last year. On the 4th of May, my hubby himself was hospitalized in the same hospital with high fever and suspected H1N1. On Baby’s surgery day, I was down with high fever, throat infection and a bad bout of flu…. I was another suspected H1N1 candidate. I still remember very vividly how terrible and sick I felt outside the OT… waiting for the surgeon to come out to tell me how the surgery went. I was shivering and trembling with fear and from my high fever. Though I felt like I was left naked in the Antarctic, my body was burning with heat. The 5 hours of wait outside the OT felt like forever. I am so sure the other people waiting outside the OT saw me shivering and praying fervently.  Though I felt so weak and felt like doing nothing but to sleep, sleep was the last thing I could do.  Baby had tubes all over her body and she was spewing out green stuff from her mouth and nose for 2 weeks.

As Baby was just out from a surgery with a weak body and immune system, my helper and I were advised by Baby’s surgeon to don on a face mask 24/7 for fear that Baby would catch the bug too.    I tell yer, it ain’t a fun thing to wear a face mask even when you sleep…. breathing in your own CO2!  Sleep? I did not get to sleep at all for the first 2 weeks after Baby’s surgeries. She puked every hour or so for 2 weeks and the surgeon only found out 2 weeks later (after the 1st surgery) that one of her guts was kinked, a result of a complication of the first surgery. Those days will forever be etched in my memory. Not a single goes by without me reminiscing about the cold, frightful, worrisome days in the hospital. And the sight of a face mask will forever remind me of the days where my helper and I had to wear face mask 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. The only time we were mask-free was during our meal times and bath times.

Baby, you better be real good to mummy when you grow up!

No. of times viewed = 190

New Clothes Anyone?

I finally had the time to be a model today and donned on some of the clothes from my online store . My 2 older girls had followed daddy and mah mah back to Ipoh yesterday while Baby, my helper and I stayed behind.

Code – ID3223 (premium clothes)

Code – ID2017 (premium clothes)

G1003-D002 – Sweet Lotus Leaf Round Neck Dress

F1002-D010 – Dress – for medium size ladies


Y1004-T032RR – Top (Rose Red) – for medium size ladies.  Baby wouldn’t let me off the hook and insisted that I held her hand when my helper snapped my pix.

WTSDC1072: Jersey Short Sleeve T

Baby who saw me trying on the clothes followed suit but she shrieked when her body got stuck muahahahaha!!

For those of you who are willing to pay a little more, you can now get premium clothes (imported from Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan) between RM60 – RM75.  Just hop over to Old And New Stuff For Sale and click on the ‘Premium Clothes’ category under the ‘Search By Category’ tab on the right side bar.

No. of times viewed = 287

Bestest Jie Jie In The WWW

A very busy mum with many kids moulds a child into a very independent child. This is so true. My 2 older girls are very independent, especially Alycia. She’s one very caring jie jie too. The other night I was very busy and could not help Sherilyn blow dry her hair after her bath.  I delegated the task to Alycia and she gladly helped her sister blow her hair.  I think she will grow up into a very caring, responsible and independent girl.

No. of times viewed = 139

Simple Homecooked Food

Whenever my mil wants to clear off all the perishables in our 2 huge refrigerators, we will have like 5-6 dishes for dinner.

We had 6 dishes and 1 soup of the day for dinner several nights ago:

Clockwise : pork ribs from the pot of watercrest soup (to dip with premium soy sauce), braised duck with ginger, tau cheong and spring onions (she actually bought the duck b4 CNY but did not have the chance to cook it during CNY), braised fish dish (left over from the previous day’s lunch at Restoran Wai Kei), stir-fried lotus root with lean pork, steamed organic Japanese pumpkin and braised tofu with minced pork and tau cheong.

Here’s the macro shot of the braised duck with ginger, spring onions and fermented bean paste:

Out of the 6 dishes, my 3 fussy eaters only attacked the lotus root (Baby inclusive) and the soft pork ribs from the soup. They hate pumpkin 🙁  I don’t really fancy duck, so my mil polished off the entire duck herself and ate it for several days. I polished off the fish dish, pumpkin and tofu.  What a very ‘brown meal’, so devoid of green leafy veggie hor?  These days, I prefer to stuff myself with veggie and fish and have been staving off red meat.

How many dishes do you normally cook for dinner?

No. of times viewed = 283

HEALTH FREAK MOMMY