December 2010 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Our Boxing Day, A Day Of Fun And Eating

On Boxing Day, we spent the whole afternoon at Mega Kidz @ Mid Valley Megamall to attend my friend’s daughter’s 6th birthday party. After the party, we had lunch at Canton I @ Gardens. We were so full that we only had dinner at about 9:30pm at Wendy’s.

It was a day of bliss and fun for the girls. At about 8pm, daddy brought them down to the pool to swim and to play with water guns.

Alycia & Sherilyn shooting daddy with their water guns, with daddy shielding himself with 2 floats…

After swimming, we had ~~supper~~ dinner at Wendy’s. There were nuggets, baked cheesy potato, Chillies, ice cream float, soft drinks, fries and burgers. Gosh it was a super artery clogging and high carb meal. While daddy had a feast with the girls, I was busy snapping pix and only ate 1 spoonful of Chillies, 1 spoonful of ice cream and a bite each of everything. I can be very determined and can resist the strongest of temptations when it comes to eating after 9pm.

Beef burger and fish burger… very yummy but bear with the consequences if you chomp down the whole burger for supper ya…

The next day, the girls finally cut the Xmas log cake. Daddy had bought it for the Xmas party on 25 Dec but there were too much food so we held back the cake…

We under estimated the cake. We thought it was another run of the mill chocolate sponge cake but we were wrong. The cake was soft, fluffy, moist and very chocolaty and not overly sweet. Daddy bought it from our favorite bakery, RT Pastry House.

Baby giving her thumbs up to the chocolate log cake. She chomped down a few slices of cake.. This girl can really eat like a pig when it comes to cakes and snacks.

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Home Activities During The School Holidays

Some of the activities that I have planned for the girls during the school holidays include :

1) Doing Math exercises every other day. It’s tough to get rascal #2 to complete a unit of Kumon Math equations. Tons of nagging and threats are needed everyday. The moment I’m out of her sight, this fella will be up to mischief!! So my rule is “no TV, no snacks, no play and no dinner if your Math is not finished!”. It works on my hard-headed girl and sometimes tears shedding happens too. Just last night, I didn’t allow her to eat her dinner when she took 3 hours to complete 1 page of Kumon subtraction. She finally finished them all and I allowed her dinner at 8pm. *evil mum but I’m doing her good *

2) Doing other subjects like BM, English and Science for Alycia. I bought some very good worksheets for her from a book store that specializes in primary school worksheets and workbooks in Ipoh.

3) Playing educational games and reading from the laptop that I had newly bought for my 2 older girls

4) Reading a book everyday.

5) Swimming, drawing and even getting them to massage me as I am having aches and pains all over my body as a result of lifting too much weights in the gym haha!

Here’s Alycia reading a BM story book. My mum got her this book from Tesco and it only cost a few ringgit. There is a collection of more than 10 famous fairy tales, translated into BM in this story book.

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Our Xmas Dinner

The Yap’s Xmas dinner is the dinner everyone in my hubby’s family look forward to every year as there will be lots of good food. Every year, here’s what my hubby’s aunt will dish up:

Grilled bacon-sausage rolls, jumbo sausages, roast veggie (zucchini, bell peppers, fresh button mushrooms, carrots, potatoes and pumpkin wedges), stuffing for the roast turkey, roast leg of lamb and a huge chunk of honey pineapple ham…

2 huge turkeys and Xmas pies…

Salad…

Macro shot of the honey ham and roast leg of lamb…

Macro shot of the bacon-sausage rolls and stuffing for the turkey…

There is also a pot of delish homemade pumpkin soup. After dinner, the kids opened their pressies. For desserts, there were homemade tiramisu, homemade cheese cake and homemade Ambrosia. The Xmas dinner was only dismissed after midnight with the girls all going to bed at close to 1am. The next morning, they were up quite early as we had another party to attend. I pulled myself up at 6:40am and dragged myself to the gym. I was feeling lethargic but if I didn’t burn off those calories and add more calories today, I will surely gain another 1kg, that’s for sure. Did half an hour on the air walker and another 15mins pulling weights! Check out where we went to today at my other blog.

How was your Xmas and Boxing day?

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Dinner At Latest Recipe Coffee House@ Le Meridien Hotel KL

I was going through my pictures folder and discovered that I had some unpublished pix taken in November 2010. I better publish them all now before the year comes to an end. Here are some pix taken at Latest Recipe Coffee House @ Le Meridien Hotel KL in November 2010:

Does this hunky guy look familiar?

He’s our long time good pal, actor and model Alan Yun.

Sherilyn goofing around as usual… and Baby was sucking on a wedge of lemon. Monkey see monkey do. She saw me sucking lemon wedges throughout dinner and she too wanted to try and I was surprised that she was so blasé about the sourness and kept sucking like it was a lollipop hah!

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Our Xmas Eve Today

We had Wagyu beef steak for dinner just now. Hubby bought a pack of wagyu beef from Pok Brothers Frozen Meat @ Glenmarie Subang today. Pok Brothers specializes in frozen meal, sold at wholesale. Their warehouse is located at Glenmarie. The pack of wagyu beef that hubs bought cost only RM500. Some of you will say “what? ONLY RM500???” But if you had eaten wagyu beef at restaurants and hotels, you will know that a small slice of wagyu steak costs RM100 and above, depending on the category of quality.

What makes wagyu beef so expensive is that the meat is extremely tender, juicy and flavorful. You don’t need any tenderizer or much sauces to pan fry the steak. It is naturally juicy, tender and tasty. Here’s the wagyu steak that hubs dished out for dinner today:

We also had spaghetti chicken bolognaise and mashed potato…

Stir fried cauliflower, fresh mushrooms, celery with sliced wagyu beef…

The girls enjoying every bite of the wagyu beef….

We spent the whole afternoon at Mid Valley Megamall today. While hubs brought Alycia and Sherilyn to watch Rapunzel at the cinema, I went shopping for Xmas gifts with Baby and my helper.

Here are some of the pix taken:

The toy story inspired Xmas decor at Mid Valley Megamall…

Baby waiting to receive her little gift from a Santa Clause…

And yesterday, we spent the whole afternoon at Pavillion:

Tomorrow will be another day of eating, with lots of meat dishes in the menu. Boy, I must wake up earlier tomorrow to work out in the gym. Today I had to skip gym coz the moment I wanted to leave the house for the gym, Baby woke up, followed by #2 and #1, bummer!

Here’s wishing all my blogging pals and blog readers a very merry Xmas and a wonderful 2011!

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Silence Spells Trouble’s Brewing!

The house is often filled with Baby’s chatter, laughter, cries or screams. When she’s around and there’s silence, I can be rest assured that this fella is up to something that’s a bane in the house, like playing with plasters:

And she sure knows how to choose the Disney tattoo plasters over the plain white or beige colored ones…

But lately she has slowed down in her crime as she knows that removing the plasters from her skin could send her yelping and crying in pain haha!

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Gifts For Senior Women

When it comes to shopping for Christmas gifts, I find that buying gifts for ladies aged 50 years and above quite a tall order. I’m not talking about buying gifts for my mum. It’s for friends and relatives that age. Buy them chic clothing, they will comment that they are too old to don on trendy clothes. Buy them chocolate, they will complain that chocolates are too sweet and unhealthy. Buy them perfume, they will complain of feeling dizzy from inhaling the perfume. But if you buy gold bullion and present it to them, I’ll bet they will be all smiles and have not a word of complaint, agree?

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The Loaf and Citrus @ Bangsar Village, KL

We were all set to have lunch at The Loaf @ Bangsar Village last week but when we were there, there was a private function held at The Loaf. I heard the function was attended by some VVIPs and our Tun Dr M (does he own this bakery too? I know he co-owns the one in Langkawi). Anyway we took away some pastries. The range of pastries and breads all looked SO enticing and appetizing but the price, gosh, very expensive~~

Here’s what we took away. Love their pastries…

Then we headed to Citrus to look for something fast to bite as it was already close to 3pm and everyone was famished! Here’s what we had at Citrus:

Pizza, only satisfactory….

Nasi briyani – good…

Mushroom soup – very thick and rich, nice~

Forgot what this is called but it’s the tastiest among all the items that we ordered…

Pasta…

Nasi lemak with beef rendang. Love the beef rendang which was sweet and spicy, iLike, yums~

Spaghetti…

The owners of this restaurant are Sikhs and they are a bunch of very warm and friendly folks.

After lunch, we did some X’mas shopping at Borders.

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Chin Han Guan Biscuit Shop, Ipoh

During our last trip in Ipoh, we brought the girls to the biscuit shop that I used to patronize with my mum decades ago. It’s the first time my girls visited a traditional biscuit specialty shop. I have not seen one in KL before.

My favorite biscuits are these: peanut candies, sesame candies and square shaped love letters and I bought these. My girls wanted the flower biscuits but I didn’t buy them as I find that the colored flowers are horribly sweet. I notice that many pre schools love to provide these biscuits to kids during snack time *shudder*

This is one of the shop’s specialties – biscuits with meat floss and lotus paste stuffing. I find it so-so only as I don’t really fancy sweet stuff. But I saw people flocking to buy these biscuits, which were made at the shop and just out from the oven.

Workers making the meat floss biscuits…

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A Day Spent At Ikea

We spent the whole afternoon at Ikea. We first had lunch at their Cafe as the girls love Ikea’s chicken wings and pasta. When I was away in Ipoh last week, hubs repainted the house and painted the girls’ room pink, which my princess wannabe absolutely lurve! He also removed the old tables, shelf and cupboards which are pretty old. Today we got the girls’ room a new study table, a shelf and 2 pink chairs! Hubs the Handy Manny is now busy assembling the table and chairs. Gawd, if I were him, I would have just paid 5% service charge to Ikea to have the stuff assembled. I would never go through the hassle and sweat unnecessarily doing such a chore. Oh well, I suspect he actually loves doing it, haha!

Baby was so in love with this kids swivel chair in the shape of a cocoon and comes with a hood that can cover the front part so that it looks like a shell 😀 It comes in blue and red. We love the red one. Hmmm, I am hoping that Ikea will slash the price of this cute chair too next year! Itching to buy it for the girls.

And oh yes, I finally got the pink chair for my work area. Thank God we didn’t buy it 2 months ago. The price has now been slashed to almost half, hehehehehehe…

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JJ Cakes & Swissroll, Ipoh

My trip to Penang and Ipoh this time round had been very fruitful. I managed to savor almost everything that was on my ‘to eat’ list, except for the hawkers’ food at Kwong Heng and House of Mirrors @ Ipoh Old Town. This time, we managed to drop by JJ Cakes and Swissroll and grabbed my favorite swissrolls. JJ is well known for their fresh swissrolls. JJ uses only fresh fruits and vegetables for their swissrolls. The maximum shelf life of these swiss rolls is 3 days as preservatives are not added into the cakes. I like the light and fluffy texture and the generous fillings of cream which ain’t too sweet and ‘jelak’.

We bought 2 packs. One pack consists of 4 different flavors in smaller size for kids – spinach, carrot, pumpkin and banana. As you can see here, the cakes have generous amount of veggie in them. The carrot one is very chewy with lots of shredded carrots. The spinach variety tastes ‘green and leafy’ and I am surprised that Baby liked it. The pumpkin one is rather bland and the banana variety has a mild banana taste. No flavoring is used we were told.

Another pack of regular size consisting 2 flavors – durian and cempedak. I like these 2 flavors the best, very aromatic, fluffy and not sweet. iLike, simply lip smacking!

Baby loved the swiss rolls and gobbled down half a slice of spinach swissroll and half a slice of carrot swiss roll. I think this is a great idea of concealing veggie in a delish snack for kids!

Check out JJ Swissroll online here :

http://www.jj-cakes.com/

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We Are Back In KL

We returned to KL yesterday. My dad drove us all home. After being away for more than a week, my work has piled mountain high and I really don’t know where to start! The feeling is all too familiar. Years ago when I was still employed, I used to dread going back to work after a long break. I hated stepping into my room to find a pile of files and papers on my tray.

So this post is going to be a short one since I have lots to do!

We had an early X’mas celebration on Friday last week. After dinner at Moven Peak Ipoh, we went home and had a X’mas gift opening session with X’mas songs played in the background 🙂

My mum gave the girls each a blanket… Baby got a pink My Melody, Sherilyn got a green Sponge Bob and Alycia a blue Sponge Bob. And I got a bedsheet from my mum.

Work aside, my next mission is to shed the 1.5kg I gained during this week-long eating holiday. Gosh, I have been eating and had skipped exercise many days. I got a shock when I saw the red needle pointing at 45.5 this morning, sei sei sei!! Must control my snacking for the next couple of weeks until the needle points back to 44 hah!

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Miraku Japanese Restaurant @ G Hotel, Gurney Drive, Penang

On our first night in Penang, we had dinner at Miraku Japanese Restaurant at G Hotel, which was where we stayed at. We had Japs instead of Penang food as the skies looked gloomy and a heavy downpour was looming, so we thought that it would be safer to dine in instead of going out and get caught in the rain with 3 kids. The food was good, no regrets dining there.

Salad…

My 3 girls love cucumber maki and they can polish off a big plate of maki in a jiffy, even Baby. For me, I just don’t fancy eating maki. I find that the combination of rice, seaweed and cucumber very weird 😛

Hubby’s assortment of sushi…

Udon specially for Sherilyn who is a great fan of noodles…

Unagi sushi and tempura…

My unagi set…

After dinner at Miraku, we walked across to Gurney Plaza, did some shopping and then headed to Starbucks to pack some coffee back to our room to savor.

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Accident Prone Cassandra

When Sherilyn was 1-3yo, she was very prone to accidents and gave me umpteen heart-stopping moments. Now, the jinx has moved to Baby, sigh…. and she’s very accident prone too. From the moment she was born up until now, she has given me countless near-faint moments. On the day before our trip to Penang, Baby tripped and knocked her eye on the sharp edge of the drawer in my bedroom in Ipoh. When I saw the dent on her eye lid, I felt like fainting, I kid you not. Her cries and wails were enough to paralyze me with fear. It’s been almost a week and she still has the ‘gray eye shadow’ on the injured eye. Thank God there were no major injuries and she can still see, thank GOD for sending an angel to protect Cassandra again!!

My cheeky Baby at the waiting area outside the surgeon’s office at GMC Penang last Friday…

My Baby never fails to make me laugh with her antics and the things that she says. While waiting for our turn to see the surgeon, she was admiring the colorful mural on the wall. She made all of us burst out LOL when she went to the drawing of the mushrooms, pretended to pluck all the mushrooms and then pretended to stuff them into her mouth…. and then she went to the drawing of the flowers, ‘plucked’ the flowers and pretended to put them into her pretend pocket, muahahahahahaha!

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Guess What I’m Doing?

The girls had a swell time during their recent trip in Penang. On day 1, we checked into G Hotel, a very cool hotel, that’s pretty new and facing the sea along Gurney Drive. G Hotel is situated next to Gurney Plaza and we did shopping at night after dinner at the Japanese restaurant at G Hotel. On day 2, we checked out from G Hotel and checked into Gurney Hotel as G Hotel only had rooms for us for a night. The pool side and activities for kids at Gurney Hotel are awesome.

One of the things that we did at Gurney Hotel was this :

Can anyone guess what I’m doing here? I’m sure you’ll guess it right if you’d tried this before. Sorry, no prize for guessing right ok?

Check out more pix at my other blog…

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Alycia’s 7th Birthday

Yesterday was Alycia’s 7th birthday. We celebrated her birthday in Penang and then had dinner at Secret Recipe Ipoh. Alycia had pestered us to bring her to Moven Peak for buffet steamboat but we were too stuffed with Penang hawker’s food that we had to coax her into going to another restaurant where we could have something light, hence Secret Recipe. We had a binging session in Penang for 2.5 days and till today I still feel very ‘jai’.

I wonder what Alycia’s birthday wish was before she blew the candles on the cakes. Perhaps it was for her 2 front teeth to quickly show their appearance hehe…

Notice Cassandra has some gray eyeshadow on her left eye? I shall blog about this later. She gave my heart another flat line when she tripped and hit her eye on the sharp edge of my drawer *faint*!!

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