November 2011 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

X’mas Colors Inspired Straws

My baby girl now looks forward to milky time coz she gets to choose her straw. Her daddy, who is an Ikea fan-see bought a few packs of straws with X’mas inspired colors for his catering functions and I hijacked one pack for my straw-craze baby girl, who uses up to 3 straws in a day. I don’t mind as long as I don’t have to spoon feed her milk anymore! And who doesn’t like colorful straws eh? Even I like them, especially fat fat and colorful ones meant for Taiwanese bubble tea, tee hee…

Check out the white container – my Ikea fan-see hubs bought about half a dozen of them from Ikea to store our things. Yup, he is a neat freak who irritates me to my bones whenever he re-arranges my things and keeps them in new boxes and never tells me, aaaaarrgggghhh!!!

And oh yeah, the pink froggy bowl is from Ikea too. It comes with a pink sippy cup and pink froggy bib too. Our house is full of merchandise from Ikea and my hubs can spend a whole day there without any complaint. He will be like a little boy again whenever he is at Ikea.

My cutie pie, deeply engrossed in picking her straw…

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Our Saturday – 26 November 2011

We spent the whole morning and afternoon at Scott Garden today. First to attend a friend’s daughter’s 1st birthday party, then for shopping at TESCO and then for the girls to play at the theme park and have electronic car and bike rides. The moment I stepped into Tom, Dick and Harry restaurant where the birthday party was, I noticed a familiar face. It was Joanne Tan, my Facebook friend and customer, who is a good friend of Sue Low, also my blog friend and customer… and Sue Low was also there. What a coincidence to have chanced upon 2 friends at another friend’s party LOL!

Here are some snap shots taken today.

At the birthday party @ Tom, Dick and Harry’s

My almost 8-YO girl looking so tall and oversized on this electronic motorbike… she told me that the ride was so b-o-r-i-n-g… as she was raring to lay her hands on the Animal Kaiser machines at the theme park *roll eyes and shake head*

Tiny Ms Rempit. Check out her positioning on the bike, really like a pro Mat Rempit eh? Tee hee hee heee….

After a day’s outing, we reached home to be surprised with some nice smelling butter cakes wafting in the air. My mil was as usual baking and cooking in the kitchen. Ah, perfect for tea and we all digged into her hot-from-the-oven butter cake…. and then to a nice pot of homemade delish creamy pumpkin soup (made from 3/4 of a large pumpkin, chicken soup boiled with celery and carrots, ginger and a raw green apple) for dinner, with fried salmon fish and mil’s homecooked food.

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Internet’s Back !

My bad – I under estimated TM’s efficiency. This time, they managed to deliver way ahead of the estimated completion time. Thank you TM and it is hoped that you will continue to keep to your promise and deliver uninterrupted broadband internet at all times. One thing about crisis is that I almost never fail to learn something out of it. When I was told that TM would need at least 72 hours to fix the problem, I was really devastated. I was bugging my hubs to get me a mobile modem to plug into my desktop PC, lappie and iPad but that would mean extra $$ spent every month and I am no big time business woman wor, said he.

Without internet would mean loss of money for me. I was squeezing my brain dry to think how I can send an invoice to my customers with my Blackberry, which has limited functions. I even tried to ‘borrow’ WiFi from residents at my condo but I am no hacker of codes and passwords, so end of story lar. As I was playing with my Blackberry, an idea struck. I decided to take a picture of the invoice with my Blackberry from the PC monitor and send the picture to my customers’ inbox in Facebook, via my handphone and BINGO, I struck the jackpot and was churning out invoices to my customers with my handphone and receiving payments haha!

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No Internet For 3 Days!

And today is only the first day. I just have a hunch that it will drag on even longer as I have totally no confidence in TM after experiencing 8 days of being deprieved of internet, with lots of ‘tai chi’ from their staff and empty promises several years ago.
The problem this time is pretty bad. I was told that the underground cables are damaged.
Waking up in the morning to discover that your internet is disconnected is every blogger’s nightmare, even a bigger nightmare for those who earn money via the internet.
Thank God I have my Blackberry but it is nothing like a real computer as the functions are limited.
This is also the first time in my 4.5 years of blogging that I am making a blog post using the handphone!
Really hopeful that I will get back my internet connection by tomorrow.

No. of times viewed = 217

Free Cooking Demo by Ikea!

Listen up cooking buffs and for those of you who are learning to cook! Ikea @ Damansara is now running a cooking demo from 12 November through 1 January 2012.

The cooking demo will be held every Saturday and Sunday from 5 to 6pm by the kitchen co-workers at the Kitchen Showroom of Ikea, Damansara.

From 10 through 18 December 2011, the cooking demo will be by Fagor, also at the Kitchen Showroom of Ikea, Damansara. The cooking demos are also held every Saturday and Sunday from 5 to 6pm. You can head over there to watch the demo and then to the Ikea cafe for a dinner of Svedish meatballs and chicken chop!

Who knows, maybe you will be taught how to make the famous Ikea meatballs at the cooking demo! By the way, did you know that Ikea sells close to 600,000 Svedish meatballs per month? I was informed by the Store Manager of Ikea during the Bloggers’ Ikea Tour last week.

No. of times viewed = 209

Happy Sunday!

I had a very satisfied Sunday today! First we had brunch at Han Room @ Gardens, Mid Valley. While the hubs, his 2 older angels, his mum and some friends had coffee and cakes at Alexis Bistro, I zoomed off for some retail therapy with Baby and the helper. I bought myself a belt, a white handbag for X’mas and a pair of earrings. Baby is so so happy that I had bought her a pair of sandals with LED lights that would blink with each step that she takes. Then we headed off to Jaya Jusco for grocery shopping. My mil and my hubs’ aunt are now making fish balls and our helper is frying fish. Later my mil will steam crabs for dinner. That’s one of the advantage of living with a mil who loves cooking and baking 😀

Happy Sunday and great week ahead peeps!

Snap shot of us at Jusco @ Mid Valley Megamall today.

No. of times viewed = 392

Self Learning From The iPad2

My little cili padi learns the ABCs and 123s from the iPad2 regularly. Before she is allowed to play other games, she knows she has to first go through her ‘online learning’. Take your love of working with children to a career in early childhood development with www.onlineclasses.net.

Yesterday she went an extra mile. At one of the letter and number tracing learning apps, she did 1 more step by writing out the letter and number on her doodle after tracing them with her fingers on the iPad and that’s without me telling or showing her how to do it. She spent over half an hour self learning to read and write. Way to go baby girl, I hope you will continue to discover new methods to learn as you grow and will sail through school and uni in future, tee hee 😀

Baby at 3years 7 months.
Can recognize and write almost all the letters in the alphabet and numbers 1-10.

No. of times viewed = 463

Some Updates

I better update my blog before my readers think that something had happened to me or that I have abandoned this blog for good LOL! As usual, life has been on the fast lane for me at gear 5. My hands are really full with my online store and 3 rascals. I shudder to think how the house will be like with 3 restless rascals beginning this Saturday, which is the start of the long school holidays. Today, I spent the entire evening at Ikea. Nope, not for shopping but for a meeting with the Ikea team and advertising agents. I had a great time meeting with the friendly Ikea team members, advertising agents and 9 other bloggers. 10 bloggers, including moi have been appointed to write for Ikea in our blogs for their year-long project. We were taken for a tour of Ikea before being treated for a dinner at Ikea’s cafe. Shall blog about this in my next few posts. For the next 12 months, you will be able to read more about my involvement with Ikea and on Ikea’s innovative and ergonomical products. I am really honored and happy to be selected by Ikea in this fun project. It was great meeting with other bloggers from all walks of life, including a DJ from RED F.M. I have taken loads of pix too. But I really have to hit the sack now. It’s almost 1am now and my eyes are struggling to stay opened. Good nite peeps… I mean good morning!

No. of times viewed = 205

Reading Frenzy

My soon-to-be 8YO girl has been in a reading frenzy for the past few months. As a reward to her for doing well in her recent final exam, we brought her to MPH to shop for some books last night. That was a promise from me to her before the exam. And a promise is a promise – I told her that I would get her the hard cover Geronimo Stilton book that she wanted that costs RM39.90 if her position remains the top 5 in class. So we executed our promise yesterday and brought her for dinner at Mid Valley Megamall and then to MPH to do her book shopping.

This is her reward:

The Geronimo Stilton hard cover book that she has been eyeing on for months and a book on jokes. I didn’t know that my daughter is a joker and likes reading jokes LOL! Anyway, I’m glad that she likes jokes and not just books on ghosts, fantasies and adventures.

Lately, this girl has been spending like an hour on the throne everyday… poring over her books and mine! This morning while I was on the throne I decided to give one of her Geronimo Stilton books a read and I tell ye, I am beginning to get hook too on these books on mouse and rats who live their lives like humans LOL! Good way to de-stress and transport myself back to kiddy land.

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Of School Exams and Placement In Class

My almost 8-year old came home from school today and gladly announced that her position is the 5th in class. To add icing to the cake, she also told me that she, together with a few of her classmates will be going to the top class next year! When I heard that, I had mixed feelings. While I am happy that she is selected as the cream of the crop, I am starting to get worried and stressed up. When we met up with her teacher to collect her report card in June this year, her teacher had told us that Alycia can make it to the top class if she works harder. But in my heart, I was actually praying and hoping that she will not be placed in the top class. How will my baby be able to compete with the rest of the smarties? I do not want her as well as myself to get stressed up all the time because of fierce competition. I do not want to get disappointed if her class position drops. That will also make her very upset if her class position deteriorates as she will be in a race with stronger competitors. I want her to enjoy her childhood. I want her childhood to be filled with many happy memories and not one that is filled with stress, disappointments, competitions, tuitions and extra curricular classes that she does not enjoy but joins them due to peer pressure.

My precious baby will be eight in less than a month’s time. I still remember very vividly that the hubs and I were even contemplating low cost IVF when we had several failed attempts in fertility treatments and one which ended in a painful miscarriage. Alycia will always be my precious baby (a term by doctors on hard-to-get babies) and will always have a special place in my heart.

No. of times viewed = 300

A Bento Set A Day

Here’s yet another bento set lunch for my girls prepared this week, something that’s quick to prepare and does not need elaborate preparation and cooking. For busy working mums like me, you can cook a big portion and deep freeze in smaller portions for future consumption. The Terriyaki chicken strips go well along with rice and noodles.

De-boned chicken drumsticks cooked with Terriyaki sauce, garlic and organic cabbage, Japanese style – on top of a slice of low-sugar wholemeal walnut bread spread with Tesco’s mayonaise made with free-range chicken eggs, mango as starter and chocolate cake for dessert, washed down with a mug of chilled Ribena with Refresh.

I had several tries cooking this Terriyaki chicken recently but the texture of the chicken in the earlier rounds were a pretty dry. This time, I cut the chicken drumstick meat into smaller and thinner strips and marinated them with a little corn flour along with Terriyaki sauce, pepper and a dash of Lea & Perrin sauce. And voila, the chicken meat turned out juicy and very flavourful. Another lesson learned – use chicken drumstick to cook instead of chicken breast. My 2 older fussy pots had no complaints this time 😀

No. of times viewed = 245

Love Letter From An 8-Year Old Boy

I got a major shock of my life today when I read a note, written in brown magic color ink which I had snatched away from my almost 8-YO girl today. It was a love note written by one Danny from her class, which goes:

Dear Sweetie Pie
I love you. When I grow up I want to marry you and have a baby with you. Will you marry me?
Love, Danny.

Can you beat it that an 8-YO boy can write such mushy stuff? Even my hubs (boyfriend then) did not write such a line to me to sweep me off my feet 20 years ago. Or maybe he did and I had forgotten? Nah, I don’t think he would write such stuff.

The moment when I had forcefully snatched the note away from my almost 8-yo girl (which tore into 2 pieces… and which had me frantically joining back the note to inspect each and every word there was in it), I was beginning to wonder what would happen to my girls a few years down the road. After much interrogation, she finally told me that the note was from Danny to Sherilyn. And no, Sherilyn and Daddy do not know each other. Apparently, Danny gave Alycia an Animal Kaiser card, to which Alycia gave it to Sherilyn… which made her so happy that she said “I love Danny”... to which Alycia conveyed the message to Danny the next day… which got this 8-YO boy head over heels upon hearing the words… which got him to write the mushy love note, LOL!!! And Alycia was so worried that she begged me not to tell this to her daddy. Kids oh kids, they are really funny and naive.

No. of times viewed = 402

Munching My Blues and Stress Away

Nothing melts away the blues and stress more effectively than munching on some chips, ice cream and chocolates. When I’m under stress, both from the rascals and work, I munch the blues away. There are some more stashed in the freezer and fridge muahahahaha!!

Here’s a drawer filled with my favorite not-so-unhealthy snacks ( I try to get MSG-free and low sodium ones)

They are the quickest and the cheapest way to beat the stress and blues. Next is retail therapy. And oh yes, blogging. I feel very happy whenever I update my blogs and visit my friends’ blogs 🙂

Happy holiday peeps! And have a great week ahead.

No. of times viewed = 226

Bye Bye Angry Birds, Welcome Smurfs and Animal Kaiser!

I think I can say good bye to Angry Birds and start to welcome yet another craze in my home. Just like any other kids, my girls are riding in the Smurfs band wagon now but their obsession is not as bad as Angry Birds. Good ol’ sporting granny has bought them each a nice Smurfs tee when she came to visit us last week.

The Smurfs heat ain’t that hot anyway. I can feel that it is slowly waning too. Alycia’s biggest obsession now is Animal Kaiser cards as most of her school classmates and tuition class mates are hardcore fans of Animal Kaiser. Her obsession is driving me nuts as I don’t like to see my almost 8-year old daughter drawing ugly creatures during her free time. She told me yesterday that one of her good friend from school (a boy) wants to visit her to exchange Animal Kaiser cards *rolling eyeballs*!

Do you have a kid who is also an Animal Kaiser fanatic too?

No. of times viewed = 313

Durian King

It’s all in the genes. This little rascal loves durian to bits and so do her 2 che ches. No one in the family dislikes durian. Whenever it’s the durian season, there will surely be boxes of durians stashed in the fridge. That will be my breakfast everyday until the supply of durian in the fridge is depleted. Sometimes before the supply is finished, the hubs will buy more when he has a supper of durians with his durian kaki friends. I have just had 2 weeks straight of binging on durians and have stopped for a week. I wonder if it is still in season coz I am yet again craving for durians tee hee hee…

My little durian king savoring her seed of musang king for breakfast.

No. of times viewed = 200

Learning A New Word Everyday

She learned yet another new word yesterday, which is ‘anti-dote’. During the day when I am busy at work, my baby girl will draw, write, learn from the iPad2 and laptop and watch TV. For the past few days, she is hooked on Barbie. She watches the Barbie DVDs over and over again but it ain’t that bad as Barbie and her friends speak immaculate English. Even I like to watch Barbie and like the way these beauties speak and carry themselves, tee hee hee…. While showering her yesterday….

Baby – mummy, what’s anti-dote?

Me – where did you hear that word from?

Baby – from Barbie…

Me – anti-dote is something like a cure, a medicine to cure you when you are sick or unwell…

Baby – what’s inside anti-dote?

…. to which I was again trying to search in vain for an appropriate answer to give my ever inquisitive 3.5yo toddler.

Now again, watching TV ain’t that bad after all if you do not overdo it. My gals are learning new words from the TV everyday. Just make sure that the above-18 channels and rowdy ones are out of their view and monitor what they watch and I think it’s all A-OK!

My little model from Old and New Stuff For Sale.

No. of times viewed = 150