Reunion Dishes

We had our reunion dinner at Toh Yuen Chinese Restaurant @ PJ Hilton last night. We really had a very enjoyable dinner with no one rushing us to finish our diner and dined comfortably. Last year, we had our reunion dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Ipoh at 5:30pm and felt like we were being hurried off to finish our dinner so that the restaurant could make way for the next batch of diners to eat at 7pm. We were also seated so crammed in a small table for almost 15 people. Alycia had to sit on daddy's lap to eat and Sherilyn was seated on a high chair, away from the dining table.

Yesterday's reunion dinner was really enjoyable though it was a tad pricey (RM400+ for 4 adults and 2 toddlers). Anyway, I guess everywhere would be expensive on CNY's eve and during CNY.



'Zhoong Zhai Chee" (sharksfins with crabmeat)


Stir-fried fresh scallops with celery, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, fresh lily bulb and gingkos. Sherilyn who did not like any of the dishes only ate the fresh scallops as mummy tricked her and told her that the scallops were fishballs!


Stir-fried venison with ginger and spring onions.


This plate of 'Loh Sung' which is the smallest in size available costs a freaking RM50++.


Vegetarian dish.


Deep fried crispy chicken - my all-time favorite dish.

Stay tuned for my next post on the desserts that we had.....

Koong Hei Fatt Choy to everyone. Where to for tonight's dinner? We're off to another hotel for buffet dinner.

New Shoes For The New Year

Last week, we went shopping and bought Alycia and Sherilyn new shoes. Since I love pink, most of my gals' shoes are pink too. It's really difficult to get them pretty and comfy shoes at affordable prices. One brand that the gals have been wearing is Disney. Disney shoes cost between RM50 - RM70 a pair.

These 2 pairs are for Sherilyn - a Pooh Bear sandals for daily wear and a pink shoes for more formal wear.

and this pink Pooh Bear shoes is for Alycia. Wanted to get her another pair of Crocs as I have seen some new designs but when I saw the price, I really think it's not worth it for a pair of plastic shoes that look so casual.

I also got myself 2 pairs of low-heeled sandals as my legs can't stand high heeled sandals
anymore. They are really making the varicose veins on my legs worse.

Drive Safely This Festive Season

Today marks the last day of the Chinese calendar and tomorrow all the Chinese worldwide will usher in the year of the Rat, the first zodiac sign in the Chinese calendar. Many people have traveled back to their hometowns yesterday and some will be traveling today or tomorrow. If I weren’t pregnant, I too would have already traveled back to my hometown yesterday. I hope everyone traveling would drive safely and I hope you have already checked that your auto insurance is still valid and has not expired. That’s really very important coz in the event of any accidents (knock on wood ok!), your insurance company will take care of everything. Have a great reunion dinner tonight!

Koong Hei Fatt Choy

Just want to wish all my readers koong hei fatt choy. May the year of the Rat bring everyone good health, prosperity and happiness. This year, we are not going back to our hometown in Ipoh as I just don't feel like travelling. As with my previous 2 pregnancies, my big belly has been hardening every now and then throughout the day. My gynae said I have an ultra sensitive uterus and if I stress myself too much, could lead to premature labour. Also, I need to pee every hour or so, therefore, travelling is out of the question during this festive season.

For those of you who are driving back to your hometown, drive carefully and come back safely. Go easy on the tempting cookies and mandarin oranges and don't forget to exercise, else you will surely have a hard time shedding off those flab from your belly :)

She's Still Good At Something

My new Cambodian maid is still good at something. I found out that she's really good in Origami. To make friends with Sherilyn, she made a paper fish and crane to fascinate her and she succeeded. Sherilyn was really fascinated with the Origami and kept asking kakak to make more and this is just what she did while feeding Sherilyn breakfast yesterday. So there wasn't any fuss during breakfast as she sat still and watched kakak make the paper animals for her from MacDonalds flyers.

Forgetful Maid

My maid is terribly forgetful and clumsy and she's only 20 years old. I can't trust her to do anything - whether it is to turn off the water faucet, turn off the gas stove, cook or just about anything..... coz she will surely forget. Just now, I was busy teaching her to cook ginger chicken and stir-fried beans. In between teaching her cooking, I was also coaching Alycia in her homework. Suddenly I remembered I don't see her washing the rice grains to cook. When I asked her, she gave me her usual silly smile and said "I thought Mam' don't want? Mam' didn't ask". Alamak, we have rice almost everyday! Since it's too late to cook rice, I told her to boil some rice vermicelli instead. Kaik sei ngor moa lei war?

Feeling Really Tired

I have been feeling really really tired, lethargic and moody these days. Though I get 6-7 hours of sleep every night, I still find it difficult to pull myself out of bed in the morning these days. During the initial stages of my pregnancy, I still have the stamina and enthusiasm to wake up at crazy hours to check for offers. Now, sleep is really important to me. If I don't get enough sleep, I feel as if there is no energy in every part of my body and I feel terribly moody too. I wonder if it's caused by the wacky pregnancy hormones. I just can't wait to pop my baby out and have a look at her.

Snacks That Are Only Available During CNY

My mil went to the market in SS2 last week and bought some CNY snacks - nin koa and unshelled roasted almonds. These are my favorites and I can only eat them once a year. I've been nibbling on these roasted almonds everyday ever since.

I love the nin koa steamed and sprinkled / coated with freshly grated young coconut with a pinch of salt. This morning, I went to the sundry shop to grab a packet of grated coconut to eat with the steamed nin koa. The most I can eat are only a few spoonfuls coz they are really sweet and I will feel really 'zhai' and 'lau' if too much is eaten.

How do you like your nin koa eaten?

Greedy

This morning, I bade for an opportunity advertised by one of the advertisers in the network for quite a good price. I had deliberately set a high price coz the opp is for 300 words and on a subject that is quite hard to write. I thought the advertiser would reject my bid outright but less than an hour after I had bade for the opp, the advertiser accepted my bid. Now, I have 6 days to dish out the post and I know I will have a hard time cracking my head to come up with an interesting post. Serves me right for being greedy. Now I have to put on my thinking cap for days to whip out a real good post.... and I still have 9 more outstanding posts to dish out within this week.

Will I Turn Into A Haggard Ah Soh Soon?

This morning, hubby could not fetch Alycia back from school as he was busy. So I walked to Alycia's pre-school with Sherilyn and my maid in tow. After picking Alycia up, I held Alycia's hand on my right and Sherilyn's hand on my left as we walked slowly by the shoulder of the road. Sherilyn didn't want my maid to hold her hand. As I was walking back to my house panting away, I visualized myself with 3 kids, which will happen in 2 months' time. I visualized myself being a haggard mother of 3 young kids, with messy long hair, sagging big boops as a result of breastfeeding, no make-up on my face and wearing worn out clothes walking Alycia and Sherilyn back from school with my newborn baby clutching on to my breasts as I put her in a sling across my body. Gosh, I could almost see how I would look like in a few months' time. I think I would look like an Ah Soh with 3 kids, a 'wong meen por' and no longer the slim and attractive sweet young thing who doesn't even look like she's got 2 kids. I better make sure this won't happen to me. Being labelled an Ah Soh is the last thing I ever want to hear. I better make sure I can find some time to exercise everyday so that I can still look fit and slim once again.

Scream Free Parenting Book

I've been yelling and screaming a lot at Sherilyn these days. I know it's really bad to be hollering all the time at my kids as they will surely pick up this bad habit too. It’s really hard to control myself when my emotions and tempers flare at the heat of the moment when my kids drive me up the pole. I know I should really keep my temperament in check. It’s better for my unborn baby, for my 2 girls and me. Maybe I should check out some good books on positive parenting and on how to control my temper. One good book is Scream-Free Parenting by Hal Edward Runkel. My friend has read it and has given her thumbs-up on this book. It’s selling at only $17.04 at buy.com and I am thinking of getting a copy. One of my new year resolutions is to minimize my screaming and I hope that with this self-help book, I can keep my temper under control.

Sherilyn Is Beginning To Like Our New Maid

and that's because our new Cambodian maid really took the effort to break the ice by being playful with her. Though our maid is a tad slow in her work and looks clueless and really blur, what I like about her is that she is very patient with the kids..... and the girls have taken advantage of this and are bullying her.

The girls are really taking advantage of the maid's patience and good temperament by making her carry them all the time, like a baby... sometimes asking her to carry them both at the same time and that's something which I forbid coz my maid is stick thin and looks feeble.... and if she falls, all 3 of them will be hurt, especially the girls.

Playing time aside, Sherilyn still refuses the maid to feed her and will turn her head sideways or shut her mouth tightly and refuse any food being put into her mouth. She will also act up and would deliberately do naughty things whenever the maid bathes her, just to avoid the maid touching her.




Alycia and Sherilyn playing 'catching' with their new kakak.

From Terrible Twos To Terrorizing Threes

Sherilyn is gradually graduating from her terrible twos phase to 'terrorizing threes' phase. Over the past 2 weeks, she is terribly rebellious, disobedient, bossy, whiny and plain uncooperative with me and our new temp Cambodian maid. I wonder if she's having withdrawal symptoms coz she started behaving like this ever since her beloved kakak Su returned to Indonesia.

Sherilyn is really getting on my nerves and my pregnancy hormones are not helping me to be patient either. She can really irritate me to the core. Talking to her in a nice tone does not help for she doesn't seem to be listening when mummy is talking nicely to her. She seems to fall on deaf ears each time I asked her to do something - washing hands, stop climbing, stop hitting, come here, take your bath, etc. She even deliberately does things that she knows I hate just to irritate me. Even yelling at her does not help. It seems her brain is only wired to obey when she hears the dreaded words "cane is coming" from my mouth. At times, she does not even fear the sight of cane and it's only when the cane lands on her hand that she will listen. Today I got so irritated with her disobedience that I just blurted out "you are so naughty. I am going to give you away to the garbage man". That managed to scare her a tad bit. I know it's just so wrong to say such negative things to a 3 yo toddler but I just can't help it coz she just won't listen and she's really irritating me to the core and driving me insane.

Donate A Car For A Cause

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Do you have an old car that you rarely use and find that it’s taking up too much space in your garage? If you have, have you ever thought about donating it to charity and make a difference in someone’s life? You can donate your car to Car Angel, a Christian based charity organization that channels the proceeds from the car donation to designated charities worldwide helping single mothers to the homeless, teen and adult rehab, food distribution and orphans. Car Angel also uses the proceeds of the sale from the car donations to help the less fortunate and at-risk kids by creating various uplifting children’s DVDs to give away free to kids and teens. Some of the DVDs include the latest anti-drug film and the award-winning Donkey Ollie 1, Donkey Ollie 2 and Donkey Ollie 3. You can view the snippets of the Donkey Ollie video here.

Gurney Drive Food Court @ Gardens

We had lunch at Gurney Drive Foodcourt (the foodcourt looks more like a restaurant) at Gardens on Monday. We were all very satisfied with the food that we ordered. There were much more choices than Little Penang Cafe at Mid Valley.

We ordered :

Hokkien sytle prawn vermicelli (tasty)

Fried kuay teow (tasty)

Asam laksa (tasty)



Ice-kacang (I prefer the one at Little Penang Cafe where the ice-kacang has Sarsi syrup and freshly cut bananas)


Fried omelette with fresh oysters (nothing special)


Nasi kandar - this is really very tasty. There are 2 types of nasi kandar - seafood set and chicken with fish set. We ordered the seafood set. I will definitely order this when we go to this food court/restaurant again.

Alycia and Sherilyn had fried rice which was also very tasty. We also ordered a rojak which I found to be too sweet and a mamak mee for our maid (tasty). The 'sar lei' fruit (is it called umbra? Sar Lei is a green color fruit grown locally and is very sour) juice was also very refreshing.

We will definitely patronize Penang Gurney Drive Foodcourt/Restaurant again to try other food and will surely order the nasi kandar again.

My Maid Cooked Fried Rice

This is the first dish that my temp. Cambodian maid cooked that is near perfect, i.e. not burnt and looked presentable too.... and that's because I stood next to her guiding her and telling her what to do. I will let her take charge of the cooking if she passes a few more dishes. I can't afford to be standing next to her all the time when she cooks as someone needs to watch over the 2 brats, else they will surely be up to mischief.

BTW, this fried rice has lap cheong (chinese pork sausage), yuon cheong (chinese liver sausage), bok choy, 3 eggs, tofu pok, sliced pork and some red and yellow bell pepper. Very tasty!

Blogger Is Finally Back To Normal

Yay.... today I've not encountered any problems with my blogspot blog anymore. I could also access other blogspot blogs without any problem. I really panicked yesterday when I could not access my blogspot blog and had problems creating posts, uploading pix or editing posts. I had more than 10 assignments with deadlines expiring today. I guess the problem must be with the Blogger server.

With Beloved Mah Mah

The gals with their beloved mah mah when she was back from Hong Kong recently. Mah mah went back to Hong Kong yesterday and will only be back in a month's time. When mah mah was here, the gals stuck to her like glue coz they know that soon, mah mah will be away again. Too bad mah mah has a frozen shoulder and could not play with them much. Nevertheless, the gals enjoyed her company very much. Mah mah doesn't want her pix to be on the internet, that's why I chosed one with her face hidden!

HK Actress Choi Siu Fun's Wedding

My cousin emailed me pix of Hong Kong actress's Choi Siu Fun's recent wedding. Do you know who her hubby is? I guess he must be a HK actor too.

Doesn't she look stunning in her wedding gown?

I really love her wedding gown!

Pix of Choi Siu Fun's guests, mostly HK celebrities :

Jessica Hsuen, one of my favorite actresses. I think she's really cool and smart... and she speaks perfect English too.




Charmaine Sheh, former Miss Hong Kong. I think she's got bad taste in her dressing.

This actress is also a former Miss Hong Kong. I think she's a tad too casual in this outfit which also made her look a tad frumpy.

Mother's Love

My friend sent me this very touching and heart-warming email that will move many mothers to tears....

Doctors gave my 20 oz baby up for dead ... but I saved her life with this cuddle
It was to be the one and only cuddle Carolyn Isbister would have with her tiny, premature daughter.

Rachael had been born minutes before - weighing a mere 20oz - and had only minutes to live. Her heart was beating once every ten seconds and she was not breathing.
As doctors gave up, Miss Isbister lifted her baby out of her hospital blanket and placed her on her chest.



Life-saver: The mother's hug that kickstarted Rachael's heart


She said: "I didn't want her to die being cold. So I lifted her out of her blanket and put her against my skin to warm her up. Her feet were so cold.
"It was the only cuddle I was going to have with her, so I wanted to remember the moment." Then something remarkable happened. The warmth of her mother's skin kickstarted Rachael's heart into beating properly, which allowed her to take little breaths of her own.

Miss Isbister said: "We couldn't believe it - and neither could the doctors. She let out a tiny cry.

"The doctors came in and said there was still no hope - but I wasn't letting go of her. We had her blessed by the hospital chaplain, and waited for her to slip away.

"But she still hung on. And then amazingly the pink colour began to return to her cheeks.

"She literally was turning from grey to pink before our eyes, and she began to warm up too."

Four months later, Rachael was allowed home weighing 8lb - the same as a newborn baby - and she has a healthy appetite.

Miss Isbister, a 36-year- old chemist from West Lothian, said: "Rachael has been such a little fighter - it is a miracle that she is here at all. When she was born the doctors told us that she would die within 20 minutes. But that one precious cuddle saved her life. I'll never forget it."

Miss Isbister and her partner David Elliott, 35, an electronics engineer, were thrilled when she became pregnant.

At the 20-week scan at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, doctors told them she was carrying a girl and they decided to name her Rachael.

But at 24 weeks a womb infection led to premature labour.

Miss Isbister, who also has two children Samuel, 10, and Kirsten, eight, from a previous marriage, said: "We were terrified we were going to lose her. I had suffered three miscarriages before, so we didn't think there was much hope." When Rachael was born she was grey and lifeless.

"The doctor just took one look at her and said no," said Miss Isbister.

"They didn't even try to help her with her breathing as they said it would just prolong her dying. Everyone just gave up on her."

Ian Laing, a consultant neonatologist at the hospital, said: "All the signs were that the little one was not going to make it and we took the decision to let mum have a cuddle as it was all we could do.

"Two hours later the wee thing was crying. This is indeed a miracle baby and I have seen nothing like it in my 27 years of practice. I have not the slightest doubt that mother's love saved her daughter."

Rachael was moved on to a ventilator where she continued to make steady progress.

Miss Isbister said: "The doctors said that she had proved she was a fighter and that she now deserved some intensive care as there was some hope.

"She had done it all on her own - without any medical intervention or drugs.

"She had clung on to life - and it was all because of that cuddle. It had warmed up her body enough for her to start fighting." Because Rachel had suffered from a lack of oxygen doctors said there was a high risk of damage to her brain. But a scan showed no evidence of any problems.

As the days passed, Rachael began to gain in strength and put on weight. She had laser treatment to save her sight because the blood vessels had not had a chance to develop properly in the womb. And she also had six blood transfusions.

"We couldn't believe that she was doing so well," her mother said.

"Her heart rate and breathing would suddenly sometimes drop without warning, but she just got stronger and stronger."

After five weeks she was taken off a ventilator and Miss Isbister was able to breastfeed her.

Then, after four months, the couple were allowed to take her home - a day they thought they would never see.

Miss Isbister said: "She is doing so well. When we finally brought her home, the doctors told us that she was a remarkable little girl.

"And most of all, she just loves her cuddles. She will sleep for hours, just curled into my chest.

"It was that first cuddle which saved her life - and I'm just so glad I trusted my instinct and picked her up when I did.

"Otherwise she wouldn't be here today."



Doing well: Carolyn Isbister at home with Rachael