May 2013 – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Weekend Getaway At Westin KL – 26 to 27 May 2013

Our stay at Westin Hotel KL has been a once yearly routine for the past few years as the hubs is entitled to a 1-night free room stay when he renews his membership with the hotel group. This will be our very last time staying at Westin as we have been informed that Westin is discontinuing the hotel membership 🙁 But the hubs is still maintaining his membership with the Hilton Group and our next stay will be at Hilton Sentral 🙂

Our short weekend getaway this time is mainly a shopping spree for me 😀 I went berserk at H&M and grabbed a bag of loot for Alycia. The next day, while everyone else had their swell lunch at one of the restaurants in Fahrenheit, I sacrificed my lunch to have another round of shopping and this time, at Uniqlo, woohoo!! I managed to grabbed all that I wanted for the girls and also grabbed some gorgeous built-in bra tops and built-in bra dresses for myself! I did not mind the least bit skipping a meal as I am now on a diet. I have to melt away the weight I have piled up before our next round of food binging begins this weekend in Ipoh!

Not so healthy deli meat, which I limited the girls to only 1 piece of sausage each. For Cass, it is half a sausage only, as usual with no limit on eggs and fresh juices.

After breakfast, we surveyed the swimming pool before heading back to our room to change into our swimming suits. When Aly agreed for me to have her pic taken, I fumbled with my phone to have this picture taken!

The camera shy girl finally agreed to have her picture taken provided she is covered by Wonder Woman’s body muahahaha! My sweetie pie finally had the chance to flaunt her pink fairy dress which I got for her from my online store.

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Short Getaway at Westin Hotel – 26 to 27 May 2013

We just got back from our short getaway at Westin Hotel, KL. Will do the updates tomorrow and more pix to come. I need time to transfer the pix from my phone to my desktop PC. Right now, I need to settle 3 loads of dirty laundry and reply to a long list of emails from my customers and advertisers.

First picture of our 2D 1N weekend short getaway…

My camera shy Alycia is as usual shunning the camera, sigh…

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I Am Going To Melt!

As I am typing this post, the girls are now at the pool, attending swimming lesson. Today has been an exceptionally hot and humid day. You can see from the picture that the temperature is 35 degrees Celsius. I do not even feel like sitting under the cabana to watch them swim. I am already sweating profusely sitting under the fan and packing my customers’ parcels. If I sit under the cabana in such sweltering weather, I’ll definitely melt like a block of butter! Eeeesh, hate the itchiness all over my body now. I tend to have heat itch whenever the temperature goes up. I think I better come up with a migration plan to migrate to some cold countries!

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Bye Bye School, Welcome Holidays!

Today is Cass’ kindy’s parents-teachers day where the parents will meet the teachers and collect the child’s report card. I wonder how she has fared in her first ever classroom style exam. For BM, she has just started to master suku kata and has just started to get the hang of stringing the suku katas to form a word. For English, her word recognition is still at beginner’s level. Her Math is pretty good but she may have had problems reading the questions during the test. I have been wondering how she coped reading the test papers. Well, even if she gets red eggs for some papers, I ain’t going to scold her. I will continue to read to her as often as I can find the time to. In the meantime, we are going to enjoy our 2 weeks school holidays before the grind begins and school exams put the pressure on us again.

Tomorrow will be the kids’ teacher’s day celebration and class party. And today, I will be a nice mummy as I will be buying JUNK FOOD for their class party tomorrow kekekeke 😀

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Hot Hot Day Again

Today is another skin grilling, super hot, hazy and humid day. A 15-minute laundry hanging at my balcony at 10am, with streaks of burning hot sun rays roasting my skin all over made me perspire as if I had spent half an hour in the sauna, I kid you not. Yesterday I looked at myself in the mirror and realized that I’ve got a tan on my face and arms! In half an hour’s time, I have to pick up Cass from the kindy. I am still thinking if I should sweat it out and brave for a headache after a 5-minute walk to the kindy or just drive there?! Aaargh, I just hate this weather!!

Burning hot at 34 degrees Celsius at 10ish am.. I hope the temperature will not shoot up to 38 degrees again in the afternoon!

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My Monday – 20 May 2013

This week is bound to be a nail-bitting 4 days for me from today through Thursday. My 3 daughters will bring home their Mid-Term test papers for me to sign. I think Alycia is going to be A-OK with her overall results. I have no idea how Sherilyn and Cass have fared. While Sherilyn is a pretty street smart girl who always gets what she wants through her own crafty ways, she however tends to have not much priority placed in academics. As for Cass, it is still a little early to tell but I think she is in between her 2 sisters. I know it is pointless to worry now as what’s done is done and there is no turning back. But still, I am ANXIOUS! After the 2 weeks school holiday, which will begin this Friday, it will be the much ~~dreaded~~ anticipated once-yearly report card collection and meet-the-teachers day at Alycia and Sherilyn’s school. I am already getting a headache just by typing this post, pass me the minyak angin someone! 😀

After this 4 jittery days for me, I can get to enjoy the school holidays and catch up on my beauty sleep! We are checking into a 5-star hotel on Sunday to utilize the free hotel room stay that the hubs gets with his membership with the hotel. And next week, we will be heading back to Ipoh to bond with my parents and to ~~binge~~ savor some of the tastiest street food in the world!

Did I tell you that just last week, I turned down an opportunity of a life time from Disney for a FREE 3-day 2-night stay to Hong Kong Disneyland for 2 adults and 3 kiddos in return for some blog posts and postings in my Facebook page? It would be a work cum holiday for me. I am kind of regretting it now but well, if it’s mine, opportunity will still knock again on my door and if Disney is kind enough to accede to my request, I will accept the December free trip, that is IF they knock on my door again.

Happy 520 everyone and I hope you are not as gloomy as the weather is today 😉

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Do you have any incentive scheme for your child to study hard and to score well?

It’s been almost 2 years and Alycia is still not through with her craze over the mouse series, Geronimo Stilton. She also favors Wimpy Kid, Enid Blyton, Famous Five, Ronald Dahl, Helen Moss, James Lee and any type of manga and comics. Well, basically this girl just loves to read books and magazines except her school books alright. She even hijacks my Reader’s Digest. And Geronimo Stilton and Thea Stilton are still her first love. I have been telling Alycia that she has to get over Geronimo Stilton and move on to other authors. She has over 50 titles and still wants to collect more!

Just about a week ago, I was pretty stressed up preparing Alycia, Sherilyn and Cass for their Mid Year exam, which started on Monday and ended today (YAY!!!!!!!). And Alycia was pretty stressed up too, with her throwing tantrums and getting emotional each time I gave her my stack of Math questions, which I set myself and I copied some questions from her school exercise books and work books. I did not want to pressure her too much, lest she goes cuckoo o_O! During one of those early morning exercise sessions, a light bulb moment popped up! I told Alycia that I would ~~bribe~~ reward her with a Geronimo Stilton book for every 90% and above she could score for her test papers. She was totally cranked up when she heard that and I could feel she was already very motivated to study hard *evil smile from Tiger Mum*!

As of today, Alycia has already earned 2 Geronimo Stilton books — 1 for 96% for her Math and 1 for 95% for Chinese paper. I hope she gets to claim more rewards from us next week, even though this would mean a dent in our wallets.

I know some of you may not agree with such incentive to motivate your child to study hard and to score well. For me, if the reward ain’t very expensive and if it works in motivating my girls, I’m fine with it 😉 I believe in spicing up your child’s stressful school life with some ‘sweets’. Even we adults are motivated to work harder when our bosses promises us with good performance bonus and merit increments, right? Just to side track a little, yous truly was a recipient of Merit Award and Merit Increment every year when I was working in a bank 😉 So I strongly believe in some ‘sweets’ for motivation.

Do you have any incentive scheme for your child to study hard and to score well?

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Beet Root Smoothies

Today, I made some healthy smoothies with beet root, the root that is a well-known powerhouse of antioxidants and soluble fiber. With one medium size beet root, I made:

1) beet root + green apple + chia seeds smoothie for myself. I used about 3/4 of the beet root and 1 whole green apple.

2) less than 1/4 beet root + 3 oranges + 6 strawberries + chia seeds to make 3 cups of smoothies for the 3 princesses. I used strawberries to mask the raw taste of beet root and to add flavor to the smoothie. I love adding strawberries to my smoothies to add flavor and sweetness.

Since beet root is high in fiber, I had to add about 3/4 cups of water to blend with the beet root and fruits to dilute the smoothie and to make it smoother and easier to swallow. I was really surprised that my girls had no problem gulping down their cup of healthy tonic. In fact, my most pernickety eater, Alycia is the biggest fan of all, of my healthy smoothies. She likes it as she could drink it chilled and this is also the only time I relax on the ‘no cold drinks and cold food’ restriction on her. This girl of mine has a sensitive throat and gets phlegm pretty easily. Recently it got so bad that each time she drank ice drinks or ate ice cream, the phlegm would gag her throat till she puked after her meals. Ever since I imposed the ‘no cold drinks / cold food’ restriction on her plus removed milk from her cold turkey, her throat has improved remarkably well.

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Scorching Hot Weather

The weather for the past few days has been killing! A 5-minute stroll in the open air during the day when the sun is scorching hot can literally grill your skin till it browns with sweat sizzling out from every single pore on your body. It is so hot that I have to shower 3-4 times a day. My poor rascal is down with a fever yesterday. It was the first day of her exam yesterday. She came home yesterday looking like a zombie and complained of headache and feeling hot. And she told me that she thinks she will fail in her BM test as she was feeling dizzy the whole day in school.

Yesterday’s temperature was 36 degrees Celsius. Everyone at home had flush cheeks, sweaty heads and sticky bodies. According to the Meteorological Department, this super hot and humid weather will continue until end of May! I think by then, I would have succumbed to the heat wave and fallen ill as well.

Dear God, please help Sherilyn to be fit and well today to sit for her Science in Chinese and English test papers today. Please help her to answer the test papers intelligently and well, amen!

The sick cat only had appetite to eat bread with avocado and cool cucumbers for dinner. I was amazed that this rascal found this sandwich combo appealing! I’m glad that she has the health freak genes and taste bud in her too 😀

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Exam Season Yet Again

It’s the most dreaded time of the year again. This time, I have 3 times the amount of stress as Cass is in her 2nd last year of kindy and has to sit for the twice-yearly exam as well. Today, I spent my morning doing revision with Cass. It is a kindy holiday for Cass as Saturday was their sports day, thus they get today off.

Fortunately, it ain’t that stressful revising with her. I remember those hair-pulling moments spent with Aly and Sherilyn each time I did revision with them in Math. Cass is pretty good with her Math and numbers. After this stressful week, I can’t wait for the school holidays to start so that I can get away from this exam pressure and enjoy our 2-week holiday, yipeeeee!!

Testing Cass on smallest number, biggest number, ascending, descending, money, time, etc.! Thank God, she has no problems mastering them. These days, a 5-year old kid has to know all these and even more!

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Happy Mother’s Day!

I received a big surprise in the post box on Friday. It was a handmade Mother’s Day card from one of my blog readers!! This is the same lady who made me a Mother’s Day card last year! Last year, the card was pink and the hand-sewn alphabet on the card was the letter ‘S’. This year, the card is cream in color and the letter (hand sewn cross stitch work) is ‘H’. I was wondering why she chose the letter ‘H’. I thought H meant HAPPY, as in a mother is happy or Happy Mother’s Day. But my guesses were wrong. H signifies the second letter in my name SHIREEN!! And she told me that next year I will be receiving the next alphabet in my name for Mother’s Day! I am intensely moved by your thoughtful gesture, ST. Your card makes me feel that all that I have been doing as a mother and blogger has been appreciated by someone not related to me. Thank you very much for the lovely card 🙂

This morning, I received a surprise the moment I stepped into the house after my return from the gym at 8am. Rascal #2 had prepared this Mother’s Day set, comprising of a Mother’s Day’ painting that she did herself and the type of food that I would normally eat for breakfast, which are oranges (she cut the orange up herself and thank God she did not cut her finger again!), a mug of green tea and granola with milk and….. CUCUMBERS! Gawd, how could she have added cucumbers into the bowl of granola with milk? She even added chia seeds and nestum into the bowl of granola and she told me to eat that bowl of stuff! How can I stomach up that bowl of health freak stuff? I’m fine with granola with nestum, milk and chia seeds but with cool cucumbers in it, gosh, sorry sweetie, mummy just could not stomach up that bowl of stuff 🙁 But I was overwhelmed with love and thoughtfulness from that rascal. Of the 3 girls, she’s the only one who wished me Happy Mother’s Day first thing in the morning and gave me a surprise 🙂

And this is the Mother’s Day cake that the hubs bought from our favorite bakery – RT Pastry House. It’s a very fresh and sumptuous black sesame macaron cake, which is the newest flavor to their line of tasteful cakes. This cake was a surprise too as he had told me in the morning that there would not be any cake this year. This man of mine gets so high pulling my leg and seeing me in disappointment and then gives me a surprise!! I was fine without a cake as I was too busy doing revision with Aly and Sher (their Mid-Term exam starts from tomorrow) and was not really in a mood to let my hand down to enjoy my day. So when he came back with this cake, I was pleasantly surprised too 😀

Here’s wishing all you supermoms out there a very happy Mother’s Day and I hope you’ve all enjoyed your special day 🙂

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Ice Blended Strawberry Organic Soy Bean Milk Smoothie

This is my ice-blended organic soy bean milk smoothie with strawberries and strawberry flavored yoghurt for Cass and Sherilyn…

Ingredients :
1/2 sachet Super organic soy bean powder. Dissolve the soy bean milk powder in 1 cup of water first. You can use the whole sachet if you want it creamier.
8 strawberries
1 cup of Calci Yum strawberry yoghurt
1/2 teaspoon of chia seeds
3-4 pieces of ice cubes. You can put more ice cubes if you want it to be cooler but I do not encourage my kids to eat very cold food/drinks.

Put everything into the Shimono cup cum jug and whirl-pulse for about 10 seconds. Yup, this cup of smoothie takes less than a minute to whip up! And you can drink straight from the cup too, so there is very little washing to do.

Verdict : very creamy and delish! Full of goodness — good for your bones, teeth and health! This concoction can also be poured into ice-lolly moulds and frozen to become healthy ice-cream for your kids! To make ice cream, you can cut up some strawberries into bite size pieces and add them into the mould 🙂

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Little Helper

She may be a rascal giving me plenty of hair-pulling moments everyday but when she is good, she can be such a saint who tugs at my heartstrings. Her latest new found skill since last Friday is choosing fruits and veggies. At the night market last Friday, she did a very good job helping me to choose oranges, kiwi, apples and mangoes. The next day at the mini mart, she helped me to choose tomatoes while I chose cucumbers. If only she can be good and obedient all the time, my hair will shed lesser and I can have more peaceful and restful moments having her around 🙂

Angel at work…

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4th Anniversary of Cassandra’s Uretheral Reimplantation Surgery

Today marks an important day in the history of Malaysia. It is our country’s 13th General Election, a day where many people cast their votes. I am not going to talk about politics here. I’ve had enough of stuffing myself sick with news on politics for the past one month. Today is the 4th anniversary of my baby girl’s life changing surgery. I will never forget 5 May 2009, the longest and most anxious day of my life.

Those who have been reading my blogs since 2007 will know the history of my baby girl and why she had to go through a Uretheral Reimplantation surgery at GMC, Penang, carried out by Dr N, a pediatric nephrologist.

This is Cass, after her 2nd surgery, which took place 2 weeks after the first surgery, resulting from a complication of the surgery which caused a kink in her guts. When there is a knot in your guts, every drop of water that you drink will be thrown out from your mouth and nose.

Can you see that she’s truly a tough cookie? Though her 2 hands and feet were bound on top of being swaddled with a cloth to prevent her from moving her hands, and she was prodded and poked on all her limbs, she could still act gungho by doing a half split stunt and pointed to the food on the table when asked to! Though she could not talk nor move freely, she was very alert and could react to me whenever I said “Cassandra, show us your funny face”— to which she will purse her lips to an ‘O’ — super cute!! She could not muster a smile for over 3 weeks but when she finally did, that was one of the sweetest moment in my life! And her first fart after the 2nd surgery was the sweetest sound to me. A fart meant that her guts were functioning well again – no blockage anymore!

This picture shows Cass a few days after the first surgery… with the help of the caring nurses, we washed her hair, which was really dirty — stained with blood, sweat and vomit. She was still running a high fever and kept vomiting green stuff – a sign that something ain’t right.

The 3 weeks I spent with my baby girl was the most heart wrenching days in my life. I thank God that she is now free from Kidney Reflux and UTI. Now, only time will heal and strengthen her bladder.

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Hooked On Making Homemade Smoothies With My New Shimono!

I admit I am a sucker for healthy food and health products. If you repeatedly show me how awesome a blender, juicer, air fryer or a food detoxifier is, that’s it, I will go weak and will eventually succumb to temptation!

My friends in Facebook have been posting pictures on homemade smoothies made using the Korean made Shimono food processor since last year. I had wanted to purchase it since last year but never really got to it as I was not 100% convinced that the Shimono could make a really smooth cup of smoothie without having to sieve the fiber and pulp.

2 weeks ago, a friend posted pictures on her amazing smoothies and what she could whip up with the Shimono. I grilled her with my long list of questions. She was too patient to answer all my queries and I then made up my mind to get it under a GB (Group Buy) for SAHMs from Facebook @ only RM200 a set. Regular price is RM299 a set. I immediately paid for it online and on Sunday, got the hubs to bring me to One Utama Shopping Centre to pick up my baby! And there has been no regrets for this purchase. I have been making smoothies for everyone at home since then and thankfully my kids gave me their wholehearted thumbs up and said that my smoothies taste like those from Boost Juice wahahahaha!

This is my maiden smoothie made using my Shimono, using all the fruits that I could find in my fridge…

My smoothies in the fridge, placed in party cups with colorful caps (part of the Shimono set). The smoothies composed of oranges, apples, pears, strawberries, purple grapes and chia seeds for the extra boost of calcium, Omega 3 and protein. I observed that strawberries and purple grapes give a very beautiful pink and purple hue to the smoothie.

My baby girl enjoying her healthy smoothie!

Today, I will be making red dragon fruit, strawberry and chia seeds smoothie for the kids and coffee ice blended for the hubs!

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