Baked fish With Butter And Mixed Herbs

Ever since I have finally figured out how to operate our new digital oven, my mil and I have been using it to the max. The oven had been left idle for exactly a year and now we are making up for the under utilization. She bakes breads and cakes several times in a week and I bake fish several times in a week, haha!

Here's the fish that I baked yesterday:

Fish with McCormick mixed herbs, some sea salt, chopped garlic and butter, wrapped up in aluminium foil. This is before baking.



This is how it looks like 10 minutes later in the oven. The fish was very juicy and tasty. It's really easy and convenient to cook fish this way. Very minimal washing too as the fish is baked in an aluminium foil.

The next oven baked menu on my list is baked chicken, which is something that I've never tried before on my own.

Payment From Google AdSense

I got my third payment from Google AdSense recently - USD119.61!



After currency conversion, I received RM400++. Though this amount is nothing to shout about, I am still happy coz I didn't have to do much to get this money. I must thank you, my readers for clicking on my Google ads. Please do continue to click on my Google ads hor, you know, the ones on the right side of my side bar and at the end of my blog post. Thank you SO much!!

Used Playpen For Sale

Anyone looking for a used playpen? I have one at home. I bought it for Baby in December last year, so the playpen is around 11 months old now and it still looks new. I thought I could cage Baby up in this playpen until she's at least 2 years old but since last month, she's been climbing out from it like a tiger cub.

This Sweet Cherry playpen was bought at around RM300 and I'm willing to let it go at RM100 (mattress not included). If you are interested, please drop me an email at shireenyong@gmail.com and I will let you have my house address to come and pick up the playpen. Cash on delivery k!







Comes with 2 mozzie nets and a side pocket.

Do let your friends know about this sale too! Thanks, thanks!

Like Father Like Daughter

Monkey see, monkey do....


But baby monkey is smarter - she lay the floor with cushions too :D

Simple And Yummy Lunch For The Kids

Daddy had bought a lot of buns and bread again from our favorite bakery. I had wanted to rehead the frozen bolognaise meat sauce and boil some spaghetti for the kids but mil suggested to finish off the buns first since there were too many. So the kids had buns with bolognaise meat sauce and for dessert, mah mah's home baked egg sponge cake (kai tan koa).


The bolognaise meat sauce.




Butter buns sandwiched with bolognaise meat sauce and home baked egg sponge cake.

Disney Face Mask

My mil bought a few packs of Disney face (made by Kimberly-Clark) mask from Hong Kong recently. They cost HKD15 for a pack of three masks for kids. They look really cute but kind of expensive. How to have the heart to throw it away after a single use?

A Cut On Her Lip

You know why I hardly ever leave Baby with my maid when I need to bathe or do my business? That's because each time I leave Baby with that lady, something shocking is bound to happen. First she gave Baby a pencil, which Baby eventually ate the pencil lead. Then yesterday, I thought I could just leave Baby with her for 5 minutes while I quickly go and relieve myself on the throne. Lo and behold, half way through my business, I heard Baby waaaaaailing painfully outside. Without even finishing what I had to finish, I quickly washed myself up and dashed out, clad in my towel. Baby had climbed up the couch, fell and hit her lips on the shape sorter toy. There was BLOOD and a cut on her lower lip!

That hopeless fler is always like that. I can never ever trust her with anything. I could only guess that she was too absorbed in watching Barney on TV that she did not even realized Baby had climbed up the couch, aargh!!! She always gets very consumed watching TV when she spoon-feeds Baby milk. If she doesn't watch TV, she will doze off while feeding her, sometimes with Baby on her lap.

After applying a piece of ice on Baby's cut lip, I brought her in with me into the bathroom. And there was mayhem in the bathroom again. That's what I get when I pay close to RM1k a month (salary + agency fee + her expenses + miscellaneous fees). Really fuming mad!



Baby's cut lower lip. Now, that part of her lip is bruised and swollen.

Sinful Indulgence

These have been my latest sinful indulgence:

Royce chocolate wafers which my mil bought from Japan. With Royce, anyone would get hooked on their chocolate.




See's toffee-ettes made in USA which my mil brought back from Hong Kong. This almond coated toffee is just too addictive! But after popping 2 or 3 into my mouth, the guilt is just too corrosive!! I really wish my guilt could corrode away the calories too hahahahahahah!


Munchy's oat krunch with organic hazelnuts. This is a new product from Munchy's. The other flavor is oat with chocolate chips, also very delish and addictive.
With so much sweet temptation at home, there's no way I am going to shed off the stubborn last 2kg gained after Baby C. Even with half an hour of 4km run each day, my weight ain't budging a wee bit, especially my wobbly belly. I guess I have to work a little harder and increase the intensity and duration of my jogging session because I am still not keen to rely on even the best diet pill just yet.

Cute Pau

Hubs bought a pack of these cute cute pau in the shape of animals from the pasar malam the other day:



The paus have kaya and lotus paste fillings. iDont really like the taste, they tasted a tad wierd but Alycia is crazy over them. Alycia does get attracted to food prepared in cute shapes after all... and not only Sherilyn as I'd thought earlier.

She Likes It This Way

That's how Alycia likes to eat her mango - WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get!) - flesh on the seed, uncut. I like it this way too. The syiok feeling you get when you sink your teeth into the soft, sweet flesh with juice splattering out, nice, iLike it! But can be really messy with juice dripping everywhere and the fiber of the mango lodged between the teeth, hah!

Mayhem In The Bathroom

As Baby is getting more and more active these days and now cannot remain in her playpen (not even for a minute for she will climb out in a matter of seconds), I have to bring her along everywhere I go, including to the bathroom every day - twice a day *wipe sweat from forehead*

I tell you, there's mayhem with her in the bathroom. She will touch everything she sees except her toys. So while I am seated on the throne or having my shower, I let her sit on a small stool or bring in some toys for her (which she will only play with them briefly). I also let her wear a pair of slippers so that she will not slip and fall.



Here she is trying to wash the bathroom with the broom. She thinks this is so fun and does that all the time!

See, she is really sticking on to me like a big hungry leech. I can barely breathe! Quickly grow up Baby. And oh yes, she loves to use the hanky that I wipe her mouth and teeth to scrub the bathroom floor too, eeeeekkssss!

Itsy Bitsy Spider Climbing Up The Wall

Baby does not seem to be bothered by spiders. Maybe that's because she loves the song 'Itsy Bitsy Spider Climbing Up The Wall' and loves watching this nursery rhyme played on TV. When she sees a spider, instead of screaming "eeeeeks" and running for her dear life, she will giggle, as if she saw something really funny and will attempt to catch the spider!

And the funny part is she is quite terrified of bubbles! I don't know why but when she sees the bubbles and suds on my bath loofah, she will shriek!

Here, Baby had just pooped on her potty and I was about to shower her when I saw a spider climbing up the wall.


I showed her and she giggled with excitement, then reached out her hand and wanted to touch spidey!
Doesn't my sweetie-pie cute in her red bikini? Cute hor?

The Little Hairdresser Wannabe

Sherilyn is at the stage where she's learning to tie her own hair as well as everyone else's hair, including Dolly and Barbie. Here she is in one of her own creations:

Outrageous and kind of like a sor poh (an unsound mind lady). I will freak out if she wants to go shopping, to school or to the church in this hairstyle. But she thinks it's so pretty hahahahahah!

And she loves to pull her fringe towards the side of her face, in such a way that it covers part of her eye, to get that sexy look *slap forehead*

What A Discovery!

I was spoon-feeding Baby her milk in the living room one night and my 2 older girls were in my bedroom. They were very sleepy as they had refused to nap in the afternoon. When I was done feeding Baby, she was walking round the house to look for her 2 cheh chehs and kept saying "cheh cheh, cheh cheh?" while signaling the 'where' with both her palms up. When she entered my room, she saw this:


... and then she lifted the blanky and saw this:



BOOOOOOO.... both her cheh chehs had slept in her playpen like Goldilocks muahahahaha!

Attacked By Virus

My PC has been attacked by some malicious worms. Since yesterday, I have been unable to access any of my documents saved in Word and Excel. The IT guy who came to fix my PC the other day did not inform me that my anti-virus has an expiry date and the anti-virus software free-trial run had expired recently. Bummer, I have asked him to come and rectify this problem today. Lesson learnt for me – always back up my documents in a flash drive or an external hard disk. I must go and hunt for some Best Buy flash drives and an external hard disk now.

Hairdresser Wannabe

Rascal #2 always tells me that she wants to be a hairdresser when she grows up. Whenever my hair is untied, her hands will twitch with itch and she will start to practise her hairstyling prowess on my hair. Poor me, I don't have thick luscious hair in the first place and with all the rough pulling and tugging from her, my precious locks are shedding even more. After being kicked away by mummy, she would target Baby who would after some time get agitated by all the rough handling too. Sometimes she attacks Alycia and on one night, she targeted Dolly the singing doll :

She spent a good half an hour tying Dolly's hair. Once, she experimented her hairstyling skill on Barbie but got reprimanded by me when she pulled out almost half of Barbie's long locks, which flew everywhere in the house!

Get Pretty Backgrounds And Headers For Your Blogspot Blog For Free

I was at this mummy's blog and noticed that she had added a very pretty backdrop and header to her blog. I had long wanted to accessories my blogspot blog with a pretty backdrop and quickly asked her where she got the codes for the backdrop from. She got it from Simply Blog It Backgrounds. There are tons of beautiful backgrounds to choose from and it is SO, SO easy to add the codes in as the owner of the blog had given very easy step-by-step instructions. Initially, I wanted a pink background as pink is my favorite color but after trying a few pink backgrounds, I found that the pink color was dwarfing and drowning the words and pictures in my blog. I figured that a white background is still more pleasant and not so strenuous on the eyes.

If a HTML idiot and IT-challenged mum like me can add the codes to the template, so can you. If you've always wanted to accessories your plain blog, check out Simply Blog It Backgrounds. It's so easy you can have a new header and background everyday!

First Project With Our Oven

After almost one long year, we finally used our new digital oven (which we bought in November last year) last Saturday. What made my mil and I procrastinate using the oven is that we didn't know how to use the android oven, even up to now. Plus, I was too caught up with Baby's health issues the past 1 year that I simply had no time to go through the manual. I hate reading manuals. After getting the technician over and studying the manual, we finally heated up the oven and our first project was a real simple one....




... roasting cashew nuts, muahahahahaha......
The cashew nuts tasted really crunchy and tasty.

The second project was to reheat some curry puffs - just to get a hang of using the oven. The third project, I think my mil would be baking some cup cakes. I am thinking of roasting a chicken and baking lasagne in that oven but I'll have to familiarise myself more with the oven with smaller projects before undertaking bigger projects :D

Lunch At PappaRich

We had lunch at PappaRich last Sunday. PappaRich has a few outlets in the Klang Valley (similar concept with Ipoh Old Kopitiam) and they serve a wide variety of hawker's food. Here's what we had:

Ipoh kai see hor fun - good



My soy bean milk cendol with red beans - refreshing and not too sweet.


Char koay teow - good.


White toast with butter and kaya - run-of-the-mill, nothing spectacular. I prefer my own wholemeal toasts with kaya and cheese spread.


Baby had almost one half-boiled kampung chicken (free-range chicken) egg.


Kon loh kai see hor fun with prawns - good.
The bill came up to RM56.

The PappaRich that we went to is located at :
Unit 20 & 21 (GF)
3rd Mile Square
No. 151 Old Klang Road, 3 1/2 Mile
58100 KL

Tel : 03-7987 1128

No Urgency And Cool As Cucumber

When it comes to doing her homework, rascal #2 has totally no urgency. She is always so cool and even with threats and intimidation from me, she appears nonchalent. She is the polar opposite of Alycia, who is always very kan cheong and eager to complete her homework.

This pic was taken on one Saturday night. Rascal #2 only did her homework which her teacher gave her on Friday. She dilly-dallied the entire Friday and Saturday. On Saturday night, we had gone out for dinner. When we reached home, she took her bath and just when I thought she was retiring for bed (coz she didn't want to take her afternoon nap and I thought she would be sleepy), she coolly took out her homework and kuai kuai sat at the dining table to complete her homework!


Check out the time on the clock! She managed to complete her homework before it turned midnight. Cinderella quickly finished her homework coz the following day, we had to go to church, then lunch at a hotel, which means another day would have been wasted.


I was really amazed that she could write really fast and well at that hour of the night! I think she's the type who would only have the urgency to do her revision for exams at the 11th hour.

Alycia's First Dictation

Alycia had her first dictation 2 weeks ago and her second dictation last week. There were around 40 words in each of the dictation. She fared quite well in both the dictations and had several careless mistakes. She has to learn not to be so excited and jump the gun and learn to think before she writes or do anything. That's how her careless mistakes always happen.




Do you think this dictation is too difficult for 5 and 6 year olds?

Cool Website For Parents

I have long been wondering if it is necessary to feed my 3 girls with supplements and vitamins. So I did a google search today, got my answer and also stumbled upon this website by Neslac EXCELLA Gold. This website by Neslac is called Excellence Begins Young (EBY) and is a very useful site for mothers with young kids. One of the sections that I find very useful is the expert’s corner, a place where mums can get answers with regard to their child’s nutrition, development and everyday growing up activities. Another section that mummies would love is the flash cards section. Here, there are colorful flash cards of simple words that come with audio in 2 languages – English and Mandarin in easy to digest and fun method for mums to teach their babies simple categories like shapes, colors, fruits, etc. I tried it on Baby C and she loved them.




For first time mums especially, they will find the Child Development Tracker at the EBY site very useful. This section allows you to see your child’s milestones at the different stages of their growing life. There are also useful tips on how to help nurture your child’s milestone, eg. activate your baby’s mind with nursery rhymes and much more.

For Facebook fans (which I am beginning to get hooked on!), there will be a link for users to go to Excellence Begins Young Facebook Page. Here, there is an application for them to create Fun Photos for their kids. The first 1,000 to create the photo for their child will get the photo printed, framed and delivered to them. I’ve just created Baby C’s photo and will accessories it soon! Wait there’s more. Another interesting Facebook application is a fun quiz called “Is My Child An Abraham Lincoln Or Gandhi?” I tried the quiz on Sherilyn and the results showed that she is emotionally adventurous like Christopher Columbus and an intellectually decisive leader like Abraham Lincoln, LOL!

Other interesting sections at EBY include a section on informative articles (nutrition, child development, etc) and a recipe section with healthy recipes for toddlers. Go check out this website and bookmark it. It’s free to use this site!

Fun Ways Of Learning To Tell The Time From The Internet

Alycia is still not very good in telling the time, especially when the long hand points to other numbers other than 12 and six. It's partly my fault. I haven't been teaching her how to. I have been too Baby C-centered for the past 18 months.

Anyway, I did a google search on websites that provide games to teach kids how to tell the time and found a few websites with very interesting ways of teaching time-telling:

http://www.teachingtime.co.uk/clock/clockres.html

http://www.teachingtime.co.uk/draggames/sthec1.html


http://www.apples4theteacher.com/clocks.html








But Alycia wasn't very interested in this game. She prefers other educational games from Starfall.

My mil recently bought Alycia and Sherilyn each a very nice watch from Hong Kong. I think the watch would be a good motivation for them to learn how to tell the time. I'll just have to make them go to these interactive time-telling websites more often to get themselves familiarize with the clock. Learn to tell the time or no Starfall for them both!

Pediasure Liquid

This nice mummy sent me 2 bottles of strawberry-flavored Pediasure liquid which she bought when she was in Singapore recently. She said it was for Baby to try since Baby is currently drinking Pediasure powder. This is currently not available in Malaysia.





I gave some to Baby to try and diluted it with some water as it was a little too sweet but she hated it! It was torturous both for her and me during feeding time. My maid and I had to crack our heads to find things to amuse and distract her while we shoved the spoonfuls of milk into her mouth.

When nothing worked, we brought Alycia's scooter into the house and let her ride on it. That was the best 'distracter' and she finished all her strawberry flavored Pediasure, which was only 2 ounces... and it took us almost an hour to spoon-feed her, looooooooooong sigh!








After that, I didn't want to put Baby and I through another torture chamber session. I gave Alycia the remaining milk, which I had mixed with some chilled Marigold HL fresh milk.

Once again Rachel, thanks very much for the 2 bottles of milk. That was so thoughtful of you to send the milk to Baby C.

Gosh, it's terribly stressful to feed Baby formula each day - 3 times a day. I can't wait for her to grow up so that I can be relieved from this torturous back-breaking, hair-tearing, nerve wrecking, skin-pulling chore!!

Animal-Shaped French Toast

Feeling lost on lunch ideas, I made french toasts for the girls with wholemeal walnut bread and eggs. Then cut them up into bear shape with my cookie cutters.



That's how Sherilyn ate them - with kaya slathered on the toasts, topped with cheese.
She loved them.


Baby didn't quite like the french toasts and would only swallow them when fed together with soup. She prefered to eat the carrots from the soup.

Random Pix

Baby's first party at Sunday School. She gobbled down a serving of cheese sandwich on her own and wanted to eat the junk food that her jie jies were eating but of course junk food would have to wait. She has years ahead of her to feast on junk food!



Alycia helping me distract Baby by reading to her while I hurriedly shoved the spoonfuls of Pediasure milk into her mouth.

I freaked out when Baby squashed the flash cards!

Everybody Loves Apam

.... including Baby!

Baby's appetite has not been very good lately. I think her body has been trying hard to fight off some pesky bugs - bugs that had bitten everyone in the family and made everyone cough with phlegm. She did cough a little but isn't really bad... like a few coughs in a day without any phlegm.

When hubs bought some apam from the pasar malam, I let Baby try a small pinch of the apam. To my surprise, she loved it. She kept screeeeeeeaming for more. But of course I did not accede to her demand. If I would allow it, I think she could have chomped down 1 or 2 whole apams!




Did you know that any unfinished apam bought from the pasar malam can be kept in the fridge and the following day, reheated in the toaster oven? They would taste as good as fresh! I tried that for the first time and the apam tasted really good and really crispy too. They didn't turn squishy or mouldy. I'm going to do that again.

Lunch At Decanter

We had lunch at Decanter after church 2 Sundays ago as hubs had a craving for American breakfast. Here's what we had:

Pan-fried mackerel fish for me...


Spaghetti Carbonara for Alycia and kakak...


Fried Hokkien Vermicelli for Sherilyn, the mai fun lover.... (shared with kakak)


Decanter breakfast set for hubs (which everyone had a share too)...


Another Decanter breakfast set for hubs (which everyone had a share too)...



Citrus cheese cake with passion fruit seeds and strawberry.


That was our second time to Decanter. The food there is good and priced reasonably too.

For 3 adults and 2 kids, the bill came up to RM92.70.

Decanter is located at :
67M Jalan Setiabakti
Bukit Damansara
50490 KL
Tel : 03-20950 3919