Not Thalassemia

Remember my post on Alycia being anemic and suspected of having Thalassemia? You can read the two posts here and here.

My friend who is a hematologist advised me to put Alycia on Sangobion iron supplement twice a day for 3 months. On top of this, she's increased her intake of red meat and iron-rich foods like eggs and red beans.

Three months have passed and  the latest blood works done on 31 May 2019 showed that her haemoglobin and red blood cells are within the normal range now! Iron Studies test revealed no Thalassemia.  Praise the Lord!

Monday Brunch at Kuchabe, 24 June 2019

The hubs had an hour of free time at 11 a.m. today and after picking up Sherilyn from the tuition centre, we had brunch at a newly opened meat-free restaurant.  Kuchabe serves healthy meat-free dishes.  Eggs are served though.

The dishes are sodium and sugar reduced and contain no MSG. The food tastes very much home-cooked. This is an eatery where the health-savvy, vegetarian, flexitarian and pescatarian would go to.

Kuchabe Salted Tea Rice aka Lui Char. This ensemble tastes very much like it's from grandma's kitchen. Totally not salty or oily.  Even the sick can eat this piece. The flavors come from the blended green vegetables and mint leaves broth/tea, served from the teapot.  Not pitch perfect in taste but perfect for the body as the ingredients are composed of healthy vegetables, ginger and puffed barley.

The Nai Cha Wong (king milk tea) is nicely brewed, has just the right amount of milk and is not overly sweet.  Very nice.




The rice for the Nasi Lemak has nice aroma of coconut milk but somehow, the sambal lacks depth as it's cooked without the unhealthy pungent 'belacan'. It would be perfect for  health freaks and those who cannot tolerate 'belacan'.



The Wantan noodles is served with a huge fried wantan and a non-fried wantan ~ the noodles are sans dark soy sauce and tastes pretty much like the ones that I usually prep for the girls at home, i.e. seasoned with only sesame seed oil and soy sauce.  We were so stuffed that we doggy-bagged the untouched noodles and Cass walloped the entire plate of it with Ba Ku Teh when she came home from school.



Deep fried spring rolls are stuffed with a generous amount of vegetables. Very crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.




Thai Pineapple fried rice is gloriously good and stands out the most among all the items that we ordered. It's fried with brown rice, very flavorful and most importantly to me, it's not overly salty and oily.








Hubs personally preferred a meal with some meat.  But I'm perfectly fine with it. I'll order the pineapple fried rice and milk tea again and try the meat-free curry noodles at our next visit.

The Littlest Brat

The littlest brat is currently into braiding hair. She braids her own hair (only the bangs), she  runs after me to braid my hair (much to my chagrin coz she pulls so much of my precious locks away!) and the latest victim is her grandma - who has super short hair. Of course grandma finds it annoying too and scats the brat away before scramming away herself 😆

When Cass was 4 years old, a good friend of the family gave her a doll head with long hair for her birthday. The toy is just a doll with its head without the lower part of the body. Cass would play hairdresser on the doll's hair and at night, she'd leave the head on the dining table.  Once I got up in the dead of the night to get some water to drink and in my groggy state, stumbled on Annabelle's head, which scared the living daylights out of me.  The same thing happened to the hubs 👻 👽😆  

A couple of months later, we gave Annabelle's head away to another little girl to play hairdresser 😁

What The Celebrities Are Wearing This Summer

This summer not even  Kendall Jenner can resist the lure of the leopard trend. Instead of that one silky midi skirt, though, the gorgeous model who is the half sister of Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian wore the print in a sexy summery square-neck short dress.  The style is called the Rouen, the print the Bengal. The flounce-skirt linen mini, which Jenner paired with is a knee-high black leather boots.  Simple yet elegant.  Love it to the max.  How I love leopard print clothing. I find this print sexy. The Rouen leopard print dress that Kendall Jenner wore is from the celebrity-loved brand Reformation and costs USD178. Yes you read it right!   But if you want to find similar leopard print dresses at prices that you'll love, you can get them from TrendySuper at a fraction of the price.  TrendySuper is the place to get cheap clothes for women.





Check out similar leopard print short dresses from TrendySuper:










What better way to beat the roasting temperatures of summer than to wear white.  Gigi Hadid proves the value of a sleeveless white dress here on a hot summer day.



And Emily Ratajkowski just proved that white dresses can actually look fresh and modern.



If you, like Gigi and Emily are ready to give in to the white trend for summer 2019, I've got you covered. Shop some of the best white dresses for the season under $50, below, from TrendySuper of course.












Don't we girls just love summer? The choice of clothes to wear in summer is just endless and exciting. You don't have to break the bank to dress like a celeb. TrendySuper has the best summer dresses and sexy dresses for women at prices you won't believe and they ship to anywhere in the world!

Importance Of Fruits And Vegetables

According to an article by CBS News, a new analysis finds that eating more than five servings of fruits and veggies per day can reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, and early death.

The researchers found the greatest benefit came from eating 10 portions of fruits and vegetables a day. They estimated that if everyone ate this amount – equivalent to about 800 grams, or 28 ounces – approximately 7.8 million premature deaths worldwide could be prevented.

To arrive at these figures, scientists from Imperial College London analyzed 95 studies on fruit and vegetable intake. The meta-analysis included 2 million people from populations worldwide and assessed up to 43,000 cases of heart disease, 47,000 cases of stroke, 81,000 cases of cardiovascular disease, 112,000 cancer cases, and 94,000 deaths. The results are published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Eating 10 portions of fruits and vegetables per day was tied to a:

• 24 percent reduced risk of heart disease.
• 33 percent reduced risk of stroke.
• 28 percent reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.
• 13 percent reduced risk of cancer.
• 31 percent reduction in premature death. 

It's an eye-opening analysis. It shows what fruits and vegetables are the best in the prevention of heart disease, stroke, cancer and early death.  The full results can be read here.

And this is why I place great importance in the intake of fruits and vegetables in my household.  Though my girls are old enough to cut and prep fruits on their own, they are sometimes too busy or simply lazy to do it.  That's OK, I will still do it for them for as long as they want me to. That's one of the ways I express my 💓to them. My parents at 76 and 73 years old still cut fruits for me when I am back home 💝

Daily fruit boxes for my girls.

Red dragon fruit, mango, organic kyuri and apple.



Banana, apple, kiwi, mango and organic cherry tomatoes.


Blueberries, banana, orange and mango.

With the vegetables that we eat for lunch and dinner, I think our fruits and vegetables intake make up to 800 gm a day. I spend a minimum of RM800 on fruits and organic vegetables each month and I hope it's a good investment for a life free from major ailments.

Dress Up In Summer Dresses

Summer is here and some of the best things about summer are the warm weather, perfect blue skies,  outdoor activities, trying new sports, beach fun, bikini and donning on sexy women bodycon dresses!  Yes, summer is all about flaunting your curves with a collection of bodycon dresses from dressab.com because before you know it, summer is over and you'll be all wrapped up in thick woollies again.

Whether you wear an S, M, L or 2XL, dressab.com has the perfect bodycon dress for your body.  Rock a bodycon midi dress for a classy look and pair with statement jewellery and a hot red lip.  Or create a luxe look in a silky bodycon dress with layered accessories and a sparkly spherical clutch.









For those of you who prefer not to show off your legs, maxi dresses are your next best choice this summer. This frock exudes charm and makes every woman look elegant and feminine.  Maxi dresses are very versatile and allows you to wear it for just about any occasion ~ party, beach, office, shopping. If you've never tried on a maxi dress, then head over to dressab.com to check out their amazing choice of high quality maxi dresses. You can see some of the maxi dresses below and you'll be spoilt for choices at dressab.com.











Of course you can wear a maxi dress during fall and winter months as well. Summer maxi gown styles are mostly strapless, sleeveless, sheer, made of thin fabric while maxis made of thicker fabric and long sleeves are for chilly weather.  Maxi dresses are pretty forgiving. Even if you are on the larger side, you can still look stunning in a maxi. I recommend that you choose floaty and lightweight fabrics, so your bulges don’t appear too obvious. Better go for dark colored dresses, as they have the ability to camouflage unwanted parts and make you look slender.

Specially for Health Freak Mommy blog readers!
Get a USD8 discount off USD100 when you shop at dressab.com
Just key in discount code BLOG8 during checkout.

Whatever the occasion and season, if you're a dress lover, www.dressab.com is the place to shop for them.👗
Happy shopping!  😉

Monday Lunch, 17 June 2019

After half a day of cafe-hopping and trying out new eateries at The Sphere @ Bangsar South on Sunday, Monday is a day of home-cooked meals.

For lunch, we had organic quinoa, millet and white rice porridge cooked with roast pork ribs with a side of chilled ice plant.


Fried vermicelli with bitter gourd, roast pork slices, bean sprouts, fish cake and curry leaves. We had this for lunch and dinner.


If you've run out of creative ideas on how best to cook bitter gourd to make it more palatable,  try frying it with noodles.  The noodles, sauces and other ingredients are sure to mask the  bitterness of this superfood known to have several impressive health benefits.

Oppo F11 Pro Review

So I finally got a new mobile phone last Saturday!  That's after my 3-year old Huawei repeatedly died on me whenever I needed it the most.  I was initially undecided on which brand of phone to get as I was very comfortable with my Huawei and didn't want to get any other brands.  In view of the current trade war that China and USA are trading, I do not want to take any chances in getting a new Huawei phone.  I had in mind to get Samsung again (I used to own one) but gosh, Samsung android phones are super expensive ~ ranges between RM2,500 - RM4,000!

Having used the Oppo F11 Pro for exactly 7 days as of today, it has become increasingly difficult to find any reasonable flaw that might deflect people from buying this device.  It's incredibly user-friendly, produces equally good photo quality as my Huawei Mate 10 and has been serving my needs very well.

The truth is that for a price of RM1,300, the F11 Pro is a device that looks and feels way more expensive. The price is almost half of what hubs paid for my old Huawei Mate 10 three years ago and its performance is pretty much the same. Well, at least that's how I feel for the past seven days.

The internals may be lacking a little in comparison to the phone’s exterior, but this is not a device that has marketed itself as a performance beast. I don't need a high performance phone anyway.  It is, as most of Oppo’s phones are, a camera-first device, and a very good example of one.  A good camera phone is what a blogger mommy's top priority is 😁

Released in March 2019, the F11 has a triple-shaded gradient at the back panel.  There is a dual-camera setup that's aligned centrally with the flash on the phone’s backside, and so is the pop-up camera on the top of the phone for purpose of selfie and wefie (I don't do selfie and wefie often though). The polished edges do not cut into my palm and also give a grippy feel.

Love the fingerprint reader feature (one of my requirements as I have to prevent the littlest brat from hijacking my phone all the time!) and this time, I scanned both my pointer fingers for ease of access.  Being a busy mom, my hands are either wet or dirty most of the time. If one hand is not accessible, I can access the phone with the other hand.

The display auto dims in the dark to not hurt my eyes. Oppo also provided a blue light filter for night-time phone browsing. Overall, this China-made device is totally up to my satisfaction.  Let's see how long it can serve me. This time, I have banned the littlest brat from downloading Roblox and Clash Royale into my phone as these two games use up quite a bit of memory.







Photos credit: gsmarena.com



My first food snapshot taken with my new Oppo F11 Pro ~ dad's homemade pandan kaya on a slice of sourdough jalapeno cheese toast.



My first outdoor view taken with the F11.

The F11 Pro has a 48 MP main camera and a 5 MP depth sensor, in which the latter is used only for background blurring to give DSLR-like pictures.  In this aspect, I prefer my Huawei Mate 10 camera as it has a button that I can touch on screen that gives an instant DSLR-blurring effect.  F11 Pro lacks this feature.  By default, the F11 Pro uses a technique called pixel binning to produce relatively sharp, detailed 12 MP images from that 48 MP sensor. You can change camera settings to shoot at 48 MP if you prefer.

According to the seller, F11 has superb battery life that can last for 48 hours.  I haven't tried it yet as I charge my phone every night.

Thanks to my darling for this belated birthday and mother's day gift 😍

Bridesmaid Dresses 101

When I got hitched 19 years ago, I didn't get my bridesmaids proper bridesmaid dresses.  I had a fairly simple wedding and my bridesmaids wore simple yet elegant dresses of their own. There was no theme for my wedding either. Generation X weddings were pretty simple back then.  Fast forward many years later to weddings of the millenials and we welcome an exciting era of themed bridesmaid dresses, personalized wedding favors, chi chi wedding themes and venues, wedding planners, extreme wedding shoots and all the bells and whistles to make a wedding feel like a wedding made in heaven 😅

There are many things to consider when choosing your bridesmaid’s dresses. You need to consider the most flattering shapes, the color scheme, the theme. the venue and whether there is one style fits all solution. It can be a challenge appeasing all your bridesmaids but it's not that difficult if you know where to shop for bridesmaid dresses.

If you’re a bride on a budget, check out BM Bridal for the perfect bridesmaid dresses. With hundreds of fashion essentials and unique fashion insight, this site is the best place to find trend-led bridesmaid dresses at affordable prices.  There's no need to worry about the sizing of the dresses as there is a Custom Measurements feature at the site where you can key in your specific measurements and the dress will be customized to your measurements.  Isn't this just awesome?

Navy doesn’t just have to be for winter, this one-shoulder piece in flair long skirt from BM Bridal is light and breezy and your bridesmaids will be able to move it and shake it all night long! I so love this dress!



I can’t promise you won’t get jealous of your bridesmaids in this gorgeous cold shoulder Maxi Dress in burgundy from BM Bridal. The glittery straps and waist are wedding perfection.



I also couldn’t resist this simple yet elegant flounce sleeves maxi dress in sunny yellow from BM Bridal for all the same reasons…



Choosing a look for your best pals on your big day is equal parts fun, funny and stressful.  In 2019, it's all about bold colors and statement detailing, so prepare to gasp when you see some of these looks at BMbridal.com 😊

Ipoh Trip (Monday, 3 June 2019)

We were supposed to return to KL on Monday but the boss gave us one more day in Ipoh. The girls and I were elated! 😁 One more day in Ipoh meant more time to spend with my parents, more Ipoh food for us to tuck into and more time to relax in my hometown.  We would have to wait for another 5-6 months before our next trip back to Ipoh. The second half of the year is always the toughest for the girls and especially me.  I wanted a longer break to fully rest my mind, body and soul before I head back to battle zone KL.  I don't need expensive overseas holidays. A simple few days in Ipoh with my parents, tucking into all my favorite Ipoh food and just slothing around doing bugger all is sufficient to make me a very happy girl. I am pretty low maintenance 😉

Since we have one more glorious day in Ipoh, the boss announced his plan for Monday on Sunday night, which is to have dim sum breakfast at 9 a.m. and the girls and I went "WHAT?  SO EARLY ON A HOLIDAY? EEEEEYERRRR!!!!"  Since the boss said so, we all dutifully dragged our butts out of bed by 8 a.m to get ready to head over to Ipoh's Dim Sum Street with high hopes of getting a table for 11 pax at Ming Court Hong Kong Dim Sum.  No such luck for us as the restaurant was filled to the brim, so we ambled a few steps away to Yoke Fook Moon Dim Sum.








Check out how humongous the 'tai pau' is juxtaposed with the normal size paus.



Love this stir-fried fish noodles with bean sprouts, carrot strips and eggs.




As we walked out of Ming Court Dim Sum, we chanced upon a rare sighting ~ of a ting-ting candy man in action!




Ting-ting sweets are traditionally made from white sugar, maple syrup, honey and glutinous rice. The Chinese call it Gui Fei sweets (concubine sweets) because only the emperor’s concubines consumed these delicacies back in the dynasty days. It gives you a sugar high, but what harm is an occasional candy, eh? But I didn't get any ting-ting candy for the girls as they are not fans of sweets and candies.

After breakfast, it was free and easy afternoon for everyone. Hubs had a gathering with his ertswhile school mates while I went retail therapy with the girls for over 4 hours -- we shopped at our own pace at every store that enticed us, sat down to sip and savor every drop of our Tealive milk tea (this time I didn't choke on the grass jelly!), and had a leisurely lunch. This is something that we could hardly indulge in back at our battle field.  It's always a mad rush from one activity to another back in KL and shopping can only be done within 2 hours on a weekday morning before abruptly leaving the mall to drop off Sherilyn in school.


Despite a heavy dim sum breakfast, the 3 piranhas with bottomless pits could still scarf down Korean food for lunch! And then had boba tea!

After dinner at Sun Marpoh Restaurant, we had Haagen Dazs ice-cream to celebrate Father's Day in advance.


Me with the two fathers in my life and my gorgeous 73-year old mum.

Traipsing Around Ipoh And Tucking Into Good Food (Sunday, 2 June 2019)

Our road trip back to Ipoh during the school cum pre-Hari Raya holidays was surprisingly smooth. The KL-Ipoh trip was delayed by about 20 minutes by the bottleneck at Slim River. Other than that, traffic was pretty smooth. Weather was chilly and we were freezing in the car.

Breathtaking foggy hills scenery towards Ipoh...


Our trip back to KL on the eve of Hari Raya was super smooth all the way and we reached KL in under 2 hours. Thank God!

Our lunch on Sunday was at Thean Chun kopitiam, one of the most popular kopitiams in Ipoh located at the hottest tourist spot in Ipoh. Again, we were lucky as we got a table in under 10 minutes despite the crazy crowd.   A visit to Ipoh will not be complete without tucking into a bowl or two of Ipoh 'kai si hor fun' at Thean Chun or Kong Heng kopitiam. These two kopitiams are located alongside one another. Across the road is the famed Concubine Lane.







After our satisfying lunch, we segued into Concubine Lane.  The girls love walking down this lane, checking out queer knick-knacks, costume jewelry, snacks, rainbow toasts, colorful ice-balls, trinkets and much more.



Then we had white coffee and milk tea at Lim's Delights White Coffee, located just next to Concubine Lane.




You'll be greeted by impressive wall murals when you walk along the roads of Ipoh Old Town. This time we noticed a new wall mural, painted by Ernest Zacharevic, the Lithuanian artist in Penang who has made quite a name for himself from his interesting wall murals in Penang.  OldTown White Coffee recently unveiled a series of murals painted by renowned artist Ernest Zacharevic in conjunction with the Art of Old Town project.



This above mural can be found on Jalan Market off Jalan Bijih Timah.



Around the same location, we spotted this beautiful wall mural on local fruits.





Then the hubs brought us on a joyride around Ipoh old town and new town, revisiting all our childhood places, including his old alma mater and mine.

Above: St Michael's Institution. Hubs spent his primary and secondary school years with my older brother in this school.

Next stop was at the pomelo stall at Tambun to get some pomelos.



On our way home in the car, I casually mentioned to the hubs that the entrance fee to the Movie Animation Park Studios (MAPS) in Meru is now FREE and guess what? We made an unplanned visit to MAPS and all of us were totally not prepared for the half day visit to the theme park!  Cass only had flip flops and an old faded tee on. Fortunately I had a pair of super comfy Hush Puppies sandals and walked the entire theme park without an ache on my feet 😁