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.

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.

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...

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!

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.

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 :(

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

I Love The Smell Of Your Arm

Several nights ago, I was reading some flash cards to Alycia. These are alphabet flash cards with pictures on one side and the description of the object with a list of questions and answers on the flip side. When I came to the letter 'N' for nose, I asked Alycia what are some of the smells she likes and as she buried her little nose onto my arm and hugged it at the same time, she said "uummm..... I like the smell of your arm because it smells nice". My heart melted!

Tag : Tagging Threes

Another fun and not too difficult meme for me from this really hip and cool belly-dancing mummy of 2 beautiful kids.

Three things that scare me
1) Cockroaches 2) News of rape, murder, robberies and crimes 3) Getting inside the lift alone - that's becoz I was trapped alone in a lift for 1/2 hr in pitch black darkness 2 years ago at my office building

Three people who make me laugh
1) Alycia 2) Sherilyn 3) My hubby

Three things I love
1) Blogging 2) Shopping 3) Vacations

Three things I hate
1) Cleaning up vomit 2) My daughters falling ill 3) Quarrels or misunderstandings with my loved ones.

Three things I don’t understand
1) Why some people don't want a religion 2) Why some people would back-stab and go all out doing stupid things just to get what they want 3) Why the rich becomes richer and the poor remains poor, most of the time

Three things on my desk
1) Table clock 2) Dictionary 3) Telephone

Three things I am doing right now
1) Doing this tag 2) Talking and smiling to Sherilyn 3) Thinking of getting something to munch on

Three things I want to do before I die
1) Ensure my 2 gals are well taken care of 2) Travel to my favorite countries 3) Eat all the sinful and fattening food that i love but have always restrained myself from eating them like chocolates, nyonya kuih, nasi lemak, coconut candies, etc.

Three things I can do
1) Type real fast 2) Cook a real good meal if I put my heart into it 3) Take Shorthand real fast

Three things I can’t do
1) Play chess (and would really love to learn it one day) 2) Gamble 3) Smoke or drink

Three things I think you should listen to
1) Parents' advice 2) Your guts feelings / intuition 3) Your children talking to you all the time (hard sometimes but important)

Three things you should never listen to
1) People bragging about how much and what they have, which reflects what you don't have 2) Gossips 3) Hatred words / condemnation from someone on someone else

Three shows I watched as a kid
1) Incredible Hulk 2) America's Greatest Hero 3) MacGuyver

Three people I am tagging :
1) Shern's Mom
2) Lovely Mummy
3) Mummy to Chumsy

Big Mess Caused By Miss Itchy Fingers

Just a moment ago, I left Alycia to decorate the balloons that daddy inflated and shaped them into animals for Alycia and Sherilyn yesterday. I gave her a magic color pencil and taught her to do some drawings on the balloon. As expected, she also decorated all her fingers with the magic color. Whilst I was busy wiping off the stains from her fingers with some wet tissues, Miss Itchy Fingers Sherilyn opened the drawer which I had forgotten to lock when I took out the wet tissue (I keep wet tissues, baby powder and baby lotion in this drawer). She then fished out the bottle of baby powder which she had set her eyes on it for a long long time and itching to play with it each time I opened the drawer.... twisted the cap and began pouring out the powder everywhere.

When I went inside the dining area from the kitchen, I saw the floor, drawer and Sherilyn's arms and clothes covered with baby powder.... Miss Itchy Fingers had poured out almost half the bottle of baby powder and messed up the dining area. Great, it's always like this..... whenever i'm busy with Alycia, Miss Itchy Fingers will surely be up to mischief and give me big surprises. I of course was very mad with Sherilyn but at the same time couldn't help laughing to myself as she looked so comical covered with white powder all over. I should have taken a pic of her powder-covered hands. My lil' brat never fails to amuse me with her antics. Life for me is certainly never a dull moment with my 2 gals.

You're A Crazy Woman and A Fatty Bom Bom

Yesterday was a Friday and being a pasar malam day at our housing estate, hubby bought me my favorite fruit, durian again. Oh how I love durian. I can eat them for a few days straight without getting sick of them, apart from getting a buldge in my tummy. So when he brought home the durians in the evening, I quickly opened the styrofoam lunch boxes and gobbled down a few seeds of durian. When Alycia saw me eating...

Alycia : Mummy, why are you eating durian? It's dinner time already.

I just gave Alycia a smile and continued guzzling my durians.

Alycia : Mummy, it's dinner time already, why are you eating so much durian.......hey, you are a crazy woman, really crazy and a fatty bom bom too.

I was shocked to hear Alycia say that to me. She must have picked this up from me when I said those words in the past.

Moral of the story is watch your words when your kids are around you. They are absorbing everything they hear like a dry thick sponge and will spill out those words at a time when you least expect them to.

Sherilyn's Feeding Problem

I wish I knew what's wrong with Sherilyn. She used to love milk and can down a bottle of 7oz milk in a matter of minutes but for the past few days, she would spend close to an hour to gulp it down. She's not teething or anything coz when i asked her if her teeth or gums hurt, she said no. She would spend around 15 mins just to drink half the amount of milk from the bottle and then spends the next half hour biting the teat or shaking the bottle, messing up herself and the place. Each time, I end up pouring out the milk in a cup for her to drink. I thought she wants to wean herself off the bottle but no, she still insists she wants to drink from the bottle.

Apart from this milk problem, Sherilyn still spits her meat and food during mealtimes. I have to resort to putting the cane on the dining table to threaten her to stop spitting and sadly, it works. Her plate and bib are almost clean at the end of each meal now, thanks to the cane. This fussy pot is driving me bonkers!

Minced Beef

A few days ago, I asked hubby to get me a packet of Jusco selection premium beef burger when he went to Jaya Jusco to shop for his catering stuff. This beef burger produced by Jusco is MSG and preservative free and costs around RM2 per piece. However, hubby didn't want me or the gals to be eating processed meat, so he bought a pack of premium Australian minced beef. Want to know what I did with the minced beef? Wait for the pix ok? Coming soon......

Home-made Chicken Nuggets

After more than 5 failed attempts, I finally succeeded in making my own chicken nuggets. And they taste really good, as good as the ones from MacD or KFC, minus all the food additives and recycled oil.

Here's the recipe that I've created (makes about 20 pieces) :

Chicken breast, blended
1 tbs wholemeal flour
1 tbs corn flour
2 eggs
Dash of pepper and salt

Mixed everything well in a big bowl, scoop out and fry them in a non-stick pan, spoon by spoon.





Even Miss Spity Spat Sherilyn ate the chicken nuggets.

Faster Than CNN

Grabbing paid posts is not easy as most bloggers would somehow know whenever the advertisers release them at different hours of the day. I've sort of made a 'pact' with 2 mommies where we alert each other through SMS whenver we see offers released by any advertisers. Today, I managed to grab one offer, thanks to this mummy who sent me an SMS. She is always so quick to see offers coming and also quick in notifying me like CNN.

Good Night's Sleep

I had a real good night's sleep last night. I hit the sack at 11ish pm, slept through the night and woke up at 6am feeling so fresh and without the 'floating feeling'. This morning, I wasted some time fixing a rejected post by this Tiga P coz they said tag cannot be used as filler post wor, what rubbish and excuse, really double standard. I'm going out to jog now and when I return, I have to start work on my 7 outstanding assignments.

Mom to Chumsy, SR replied my ticket. They said ppl from some countries are unable to gain access to the 2 websites. So i guess i hv to work on whatever info i have and do some google search on this product to complete the review.