HEALTH FREAK MOMMY – Page 286 – The joys and throes of motherhood…

Really Funny

Yesterday, I had a real good laugh when I saw Alycia and Sherilyn trying to get inside this toy tunnel with the tunnel in an upright position. The tunnel is meant to be placed on the floor for them to crawl inside but nope, whenever their imagination run wild, they can just think of anything new to experiment with.

What tickled my funny bone was seeing the both of them giggling and squealing away as they tried to scramble into the small opening of the tunnel and as the tunnel sprang up, they tried to balance themselves in order not to fall on the floor. I stopped them from playing further as it was quite dangerous but before I stopped them, I quickly took a pot-shot of them.

No. of times viewed = 194

Blog Marathon, Again

I’m running a blog marathon again today. I’ve just submitted 4 paid posts today and I have another 5 to complete. Reason being I’ll be going back to Ipoh tomorrow to celebrate my dad’s birthday. I’ll be away for 3-4 days, during which time I dont think I’ll have the time to do much blogging. So if you don’t see me visiting your blog today, just be patient, I’ll do so soon.

To Ashley’s mum and the rest of the mommy bloggers, you have a great gathering at Bangsar Village. How I wish I could join you all too as I’d really love to meet all of you.

No. of times viewed = 189

All-In-One Wholesome Dish

This is what we had for lunch yesterday :

A wholesome omelette made with 3 eggs, 1 Japanese sweet potato shredded, some minced chicken meat, chopped spring onions, Bombay onions and a dash of salt and pepper.

You get protein and iron from the eggs, carbohydrate and Vit A from the sweet potato, fibre from the sweet potato, spring onions and Bombay onions. Quite a complete meal for kids.

That’s watercress vegetables (‘sai yeong choy’ in Cantonese) soup with carrots, Chinese almonds, honey dates, red dates and chicken. A very nutritious soup that’s tasty and soothing.

No. of times viewed = 170

Paid Posts

My favorite advertiser finally released some offers for me early this morning. That’s the advantage of rising early in the morning, the early bird definitely gets to catch bountiful amount of worms.

This Tiga P is really driving me nuts. They rejected one of my posts today, citing the reason I used sentences from the web release and advertiser’s site. Oh for pete’s sake, the post is on a product, of course I have to write some stuff from the advertiser’s website, otherwise what else is there to write? They are just nit picking on us posties (prob only m’sians) and making it really hard for us to earn our honest living.

No. of times viewed = 204

Purple Cabbage

I was caught by surprise that not many people have seen a purple cabbage. Each time I have visitors at home and they see me cooking a purple cabbage dish, they would ask what that is. I love cabbages and also vegetables with dark colors. The darker the color of the vege, the more nutrients they contain. There’s also the purple long beans and the purple cauliflower but I’ve not bought the purple cauliflower yet. Will try to get it one day.

Cabbages are rich in Vitamin K and Vitamin C, fibre, manganese, vitamin B6 and folate, thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, potassium, vitamin A, tryptophan, protein and magnesium. I normally shred the cabbage into thin strips and stir-fry them with dried shrimps or miso paste. Also goes well if fried together with noodles.

This is fried mee hoon with purple cabbage. When cooked with noodles, everything turns purple from the noodles to the eggs, garlic, puffed tofu and fish cakes. Alycia and Sherilyn find the purple dish very amusing and they enjoy eating them too.

No. of times viewed = 360

My Gals Are Learning BM Fast

Yes they are. Alycia and Sherilyn can understand Bahasa Melayu (BM) pretty well when my maid speaks to them in BM. They can also speak a smattering of BM :

I tak mau (I don’t want)
Mana (where)
Makan (eat)
Kencing (wee wee)
Berak (poo poo)
Buang (throw)
Simpan (keep)
Minum (drink)
Balik (come home)
Kasut (shoes)
Pergi (go)
Kucing (cat)
Kotor (dirty)
Mau banyak (want a lot)
Duduk sini (sit here)
Kakak you cari for me (kakak you find for me)
Learning to count satu, dua, tiga (one, two, three, etc.)………. in BM
and much more but that’s all I can think of now.

When our new maid arrives in December, hopefully the gals will be able to converse with her in simple BM whilst I teach the new maid some simple English.

No. of times viewed = 154

Mooncakes

Mooncake festival is around the corner again. Though the festival only falls next month, restaurants and shops are capitalizing on the situation and most have already started selling mooncakes and lanterns aplenty since last month. I am not a great fan of mooncakes coz I find most of them sweet and of course they are fattening. Hubby loves mooncakes and several days ago, he bought a box of mooncakes from Shangri-La Hotel and i tell you, they are so expensive. Since he loves salted eggs, he bought all of them with double egg yolks…. tasty but fattening and high in cholestrol. The ones with double egg yolks cost the most, at around RM19 each. For me, I will never spend this much money on a small mooncake. I’d rather spend the money on healthier alternatives.

I quite like the ‘ping pei’ or crystal jade pandan flavored skin mooncake with red beans, minus the egg yolk.

We had dinner at Overseas Restaurant, Armada PJ last night and daddy bought the gals a plastic basket lantern with mooncake, costing RM4.80 each.

The mooncakes from Shangri-La Hotel, all with double egg yolks…. which make them double fattening!

Alycia enjoying her sunflower seeds mooncake (with no paste inside) for breakfast this morning. The mooncake came together with the plastic basket lantern. I like this type of mooncakes best coz they have no paste inside, not so sweet and have lots of sunflower seeds.
I also love the ‘jee jai yuet peng’ or piglet mooncakes, the ones in the tiny plastic ‘pig cages’ with a plastic string. I will try to get some of these for the gals later…. and also for myself. I used to love them when I was little.

No. of times viewed = 216

Issues With Tiga P Lagi

Tiga P is clamping down on bloggers lately. The latest I heard is that they are freezing accounts of bloggers to conduct investigation on their blogs. I know of several bloggers who just had their accounts suspended. Tiga P is really strict now but I feel they are still practising double standards. While some unlucky bloggers are ‘nabbed’, others who flout the T&C manage to get away. That’s why I have a few friends who had long fired this ‘lcly’ Tiga P. Tiga P….. when you don’t get offers from them, you feel one kind, like withdrawal symptoms but when you get them, you get all stressed up…

No. of times viewed = 233

What A Pose

Several days ago, hubby bought an Evan Almighty DVD for the gals. I normally won’t allow the gals to watch long movies but since this movie is a rendition of the modern Noah’s Ark, I’d allowed the gals to watch. One of Alycia’s favorite stories is also Noah’s Ark.

The gals were hooked to Evan Almighty. They loved watching the scores of animals lined up in twos clambering up the ark and the great flood coming. This picture was taken when Alycia watched Evan Almighty…. she was all wrapped up with the movie and was obviously oblivious that mummy had taken a pot shot of her… what a pose!

No. of times viewed = 255

Crazy Over Their New Shoes

2 weeks ago, daddy had bought Alycia and Sherilyn each a pair of white shoes from Tree House at 1Utama. The girls still haven’t got a chance to wear the new shoes to go out so each day whilst I am busy at work on my computer, they would bring the shoes out from the shoe cabinet, put them on themselves and wear them round the house.

This one’s for Sherilyn.

And this one’s for Alycia

Sher’s always with her BJ backpack, day and night….. and what do you think is inside? Her toys, books and some discarded tissue box and discarded Enfagrow box. I hope she won’t grow up to be a pack-rat.

No. of times viewed = 197

Another Dead Nemo

Less than 1 month after hubby had bought some additional fish for our pond, most of the new nemo did not survive at their new home. Yesterday, another nemo died. Now, there are only about 7-8 surviving nemos in the pond, from 20 over of them.

Poor nemo floating in the water on the left 🙁

No. of times viewed = 194

Top 5 ‘Bribe’ Items For My 2 Toddlers

I always have the following top 5 ‘bribe’ items at home to avert a meltdown from my 2 gals :

1) Slice cheese or Laughing Cow cheese (all time favorite)
2) Pine nuts
3) Yoghurt
4) Biscuits or crackers
5) Barney DVDs, High 5 DVDs and karaoke nursery rhymes DVDs.

The trick is I cannot give these items to the gals sparingly. They have to earn their reward by behaving well and most times, I succeed in thwarting those dreaded meltdowns.

No. of times viewed = 194

What’s Wrong With The Offers From Tiga P?

There were so many offers from Tiga P a moment ago, most of which I was qualified for them but when I clicked on the opp title, there was a message in bold red stating “The opportunity was not approved or did not exist”. I notice this message appearing in many of the opps for the past few days. Really anti-climax leh, one minute you see so many offers highlighted in green or white up for grabs but only ‘see but can’t eat’. What a bummer.

No. of times viewed = 184

Maid Issues… Again

One of my dreaded worries finally came true a couple of days ago. My maid told us that she doesn’t want to renew her contract to continue working for us when her contract expires in December. She said she wants to start a small business back home. This means that hubby has to spend a few thousand ringgit on the agency fee to hire a new maid. I called up the maid agency yesterday and was told that the total amount for hiring a new maid will be a whopping RM6,200 upfront! Breakdown – agency fee around RM3,500 and 5 months advance salary @ RM450 per month. Wow, that’s a lot of money and hubby would have to pay thru his nose like that man. Also, the thought of getting a new maid and training her from scratch makes me shudder and gives me sleepless nights.

I’ve had pretty bad experiences with my previous 3 maids – the 1st maid poured urine and charm water into my drinking water, which I drank. The 2nd and 3rd maids (I had 2 maids when i was still working) brought their boyfriends back to my house in the wee hours of the morning and stole my sil’s and hubby’s handphone. My current maid is by far the best. She is very smart, educated and picks things up very fast. When she goes back to Indon, I will have to start all over again to train the new maid by waking up at 5:30am to show her how to do the household chores and teach her the basics of cooking, caring for toddlers, showing her the dos and don’t’s etc. That’s really very time consuming coz for the first few days, I actually have to do the chores myself and cook myself to show her. I don’t think I’ll even have time to blog then. I’m praying that my upcoming maid will have good attitude and easily trainable, else I’m really going to be really stressed up again.

No. of times viewed = 280

Home-made Beef Burger

This is what I did with the minced beef that hubby bought from Jusco several days ago. After my huge success with chicken nuggets, I decided to make beef burger and the result was very GOOD! This was also after countless number of failed attempts in making my own beef burger. Each time, they were either too rough or turned out to have lots of veins, thus making it hard for us to chew and swallow.

The type of beef used to make the burger plays an important role too. Hubby had bought good quality Australian beef and the texture of the beef burger this time was very smooth and very tasty. The recipe is exactly the same as the recipe for chicken nuggets.

The darker colour ones are beef burgers and the ones inside are chicken nuggets. Yes, I made a batch of beef burger and another batch of chicken nuggets and everyone loved them, especially Sherilyn, my herbivore. Even my fussy food critic hubby did not complain!

No. of times viewed = 241

Balloons, Party Whistles and Confetti

I’ve mentioned before that my hubby will do anything or buy anything that his 2 princesses command for. Several days ago as hubby was about to leave the house for his office in the morning, the gals wanted his attention and started to act up. So daddy promised them that he would buy them balloons (the long ones like sausages as the gals specifically ordered). Later in the evening, I thought the gals would forget about daddy’s promise, afterall it was just another empty promise to subdue them but boy was I wrong. The gals kept mentioning about it the whole day. Daddy kept his promise. Not only did he buy sausage-shaped balloons, he also bought a packet of party whistles and a can of party strings/confetti. To me, they are a waste of money but to daddy, it’s his way of showing his love to his 2 princesses.

Daddy inflating the balloons with a pump.

Daddy even mastered the skill of shaping and twisting the balloons into animals from the clowns at the hotels that we normally patronize.

The gals happily blowing the party whistles whilst daddy was trying to amuse them with the can of confetti.

No. of times viewed = 194