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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Cheeky Baby C

My sweetie-pie is becoming more and more like Sherilyn cheh cheh by the days, character-wise. When Sherilyn was Baby C's age, i.e. at 12 months, she would always put her hand into her mouth to make herself puke whenever she wanted to get out from the playpen to play on the floor. Sherilyn knew that if she cried or screamed, we would not bring her out but if she puked or almost wanted to puke, mummy would frantically run to her aid and carry her out of the playpen instantly. It was like a game and she always won! This is happening to Baby C now. Each time she wanted my attention or wanted to get out from her playpen, she would first scream to get my attention, then when my eyes were on her, she would deliberately put her hand into her mouth, make herself choke and puke!! See the striking cunningness!

When Sherilyn was around 12 months up until she was 2+ years old, she could sense it on most mornings when I wanted to leave the room to go jogging. She would then wake up and refuse to go back to bed and would refuse anyone to carry her but me. I would then strap her onto the stroller and brought her along for jogging. The same thing is happening to Baby C now.




I just hope this cute sweetie-pie won't transform into a brat, who drives me up the wall everyday with her whims and fancies, whining and temper tantrums, just like #2.

Mesothelioma Cancer

Have you heard of the disease Mesothelioma? It’s a rare and serious form of cancer in which cancerous cells are found in the mesothelium, a protective sac that covers most of the body's internal organs. The majority of mesothelioma patients have worked on jobs where they had inhaled asbestos particles. If you know of anyone who is suffering from mesothelioma, please let them know that they can get answers pertaining to mesothelioma from the Mesothelioma lawyers and will be guided accordingly.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Flash Cards Session In Pre-School

This is a back-dated post.




Alycia and Sherilyn's pre-school has since January this year rescheduled their school hours, beginning at 8:15am and dismissing at 11:45am. There is now a 15-minute flash cards session everyday. Now, Alycia and Sherilyn can recognize many words and I think this is really a good move by the pre-school. The teacher will motivate the students by putting a cute cartoon stamp/chop behind the card if they can recognize the words or Chinese character.

Monday, April 20, 2009

I Like Alycia Cheh Cheh's Stickers Best


Look meh meh (mummy), I can stand on my own now....




...yayyyyy...., now I'm going to walk round the house and play with Alycia and Sherilyn cheh cheh's toys...




... and I like Alycia's cheh cheh's stickers best....

Purple Cauliflower

When I was shopping for groceries at Jaya Grocer the other day, I saw a lovely head of purple cauliflower. I am one who is easily attracted to veggie that are brightly colored. And since it's quite rare to see purple cauliflower around, I told the lady manning the veggie section that I'd like to buy half the purple cauliflower and asked her to cut the cauliflower into half. I wanted to use the cauliflower to cook Baby C's porridge.

When I came home and unwrapped the plastic cling wrap on the purple cauliflower, I saw black dots all over the head of the cauliflower like this:


The black dots looked like mould and was found on the entire head of the cauliflower.



I Iwanted to throw it away as there's no way I was going to feed my baby with it but my mil said that the black dots can be cut off from the cauliflower.



And so my mil stir-fried the purple cauliflower with some chicken breast.... which tasted good, though the purple cauliflower has a tinge of bitterness in it. We also had red spinach for dinner, which made our dinner quite a colorful one.

Weather Is Freaking Hot

The weather has been freeeeeaking hot for the past 3 days. It's so hot that I am having prickly itch all over my body, especially on my face and head. The skin under my boops is also red and sore, as a result of the friction between my sports bra and skin plus the terrible sweat, after my work-out session in the morning. I tell you my skin would sting when sweat touches it, as if it were grazed by a stone. I'm one who really can't stand the heat and the swealtering weather is making me sweat profusely, so profusely that I showered 4 times yesterday! Today, I've already showered three times.... and I'm feeling the itch all over my body again, aaargh...

Wendy's Fast Food Restaurant @ Jaya 1 PJ

We've been talking about going to Wendy's Fast Food Restaurant for a long time each time we have lunch at Jaya One PJ. Hubby kept telling us that the food at Wendy's is really good. Last night, daddy promised Alycia and Sherilyn that he will bring them to Wendy's for lunch after church today. And so Wendy's it was that we went to today and here's what we had:





1/4 pound double cheese burger. I heard that Wendy's is the only fast-food restaurant that serves square-shaped burgers.

Verdict : very yummy. Love the burger and the bun. The bun is really soft and fluffier than other buns and have something that tasted like toasted corn on top, which added flavor to the bun.


I had a Caesar's garden salad with grilled chicken.

Verdict : Love the grilled chicken. Very juicy, tender and flavorful. The plate of salad was quite large and I couldn't finish it... so we packed it back home.


Baked potato with skin. This is something quite unique and something you can't find at other fast-food restaurants. The baked potato comes with 3 different kinds of topping. The one we had was a very cheesy topping which I loved! A very, very fattening dish!

Verdict : Very yummy. I noticed that almost everyone at the restaurant ordered a baked potato dish. Next time, I have to try the one with broccoli and cheese topping.



This is called Chillies. It's made of minced beef with baked beans and kidney beans. Goes very well with my Caesar's Salad.

Verdict : Lip-smacking tasty! Will definitely order this again.



Alycia enjoying her meal of nuggets and french fries. She also chomped down 1 whole fried chicken drumstick, which was supposed to be mine!

Will definitely visit Wendy's again but I told the hubs that next time, we have to take-away. I didn't quite enjoy my meal coz you know how squeezy the space is and how small the tables are at fast-food restaurants.... definitely not baby-friendly. With Sherilyn my Miss Whiny whinning away and Baby C fussing away, I was steeeressssed. It's difficult to enjoy my meal when I have to feed Baby C and eat at the same time, on a small table with flimsy plastic cutlery.... and have Miss Whiny buzzing away like a mozzie next to me lol! Baby C had to be carried by my maid, whilst I fed her.

I also hated the plastic disposable cutlery and there weren't any plates or bowls to eat our food.

Would rate the food 8/10 and price is also very reasonable. Hubby paid RM83+ for 2 pieces of fried chicken, 3 burgers, a salad, 2 kids' meals, 1 cup of Chillies, 1 baked potato, 3 bottles of mineral water and 1 Oreo Twist Ice-cream.

Click here to read my review of Wendy's Oreo Twist Ice-cream.

Lola My Kitchen Helper

For someone who has sensitive skin and eczema, I can never touch dishwashing liquid. That's the reason why I only buy those that are gentle on hands and those that cost a little more. Though I have a maid, I still wash some of the dishes myself... can't leave everything to my maid. Moreover my maid often does slip-shod jobs and I always find food and soap residue on the bowls, plates and cups. Instead of nagging her everyday to wash thoroughly, I wash my kids' eating utensils myself.... with a dishwasher that comes with a handle. The first one that I had was a gift for me from my sil several years ago. She bought it from Europe. It's really handy and my hands don't have to be in contact with dishwashing liquid anymore. Yesterday I bought another one, called Lola :

Lola comes with a soap dispenser on the handle and can sit neatly at the corner of the counter top, above the sink...




You can also get re-fills for the sponge for Lola.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Alycia And Sherilyn's Collection of Stickers

Alycia and Sherilyn have heaps of stickers. They will surely bug daddy to buy them stickers at least once a week. Some were bought from the pasar malam and some from book stores. Apart from daddy, koo mar from Hong Kong always sends them stickers from Disneyland too. Their stickers were collected over a period of 3 years and they are everywhere in the house - their drawers, the floor, in their school bags, under the bed, on my bed, on their clothes, on their face and body, on the house phone, on the TV console and just about everywhere... which makes my eye sore! Though I've been drumming into their heads that they have to keep their stickers in one place, kids being kids, one minute what you tell them goes into their head and the next, it's out their ears again.

The other day an idea struck me. I fished out a brand new clear folder from the cupboard and told Alycia that all her stickers are to be placed inside the plastic sheets of the folder. I told her that this folder will hold her collection of stickers and that she has to take good care of them for a very, very long time... just like mummy who has kept her stickers for more than 2 decades and are still around till today! She was really happy that finally she can have a folder for herself for all her stickers. We spent over an hour inserting her stickers into the plastic sheets of the folder and this is her Sticker Collection Folder:


The cover of the sticker folder...



Some of her collection of stickers...



... more stickers...



... and more stickers....



See how thick the folder is. It's bursting with stickers and very soon, I'll need another folder to keep her stash of stickers.

Another Solution To My Maxed Out Photo Storage In Blogger/Picasa Web Album

This morning as I was jogging, an idea struck me. I was trying hard to find alternative ways of uploading my pix without having to pay companies like Picasa Web Album and Flickr to upgrade my storage space. If you've been following my blog, you would have read that I have already maxed out the free storage space of 1GB allocated to me by Blogger / Picassa Web Album. I then went to Flickr but after happily uploading pix there for just a week, I found out that I am only entitled to 200 pix (I already have 189 pix in that account, which means I only have 11 more to upload) and thereafter, I have to upgrade to Pro account, which means having to dig into my pocket.

So I found a solution. I created another Gmail account and created another blog under Blogspot this morning, in under 15 minutes. This means I now have another 1GB of photo storage space... without having to fork out any money. It took me 2 years to utilize the 1GB of photo storage space allocated to me. Hopefully, this extra 1GB for my new blog can last me another 2 years. Well, if it takes me earlier to exhaust all the space, I will create another Gmail account and another blog under Blogspot! Now, I can save more than USD20 a year on photo storage space, hehe.....

Whether I have time to maintain my new blog in Blogspot...., now, there's another story. Let me think about what I'm going to write in that new blog when I work-out tomorrow morning. I tell you, I have lots of ideas spewing out from my brain each time I work-out in the morning.... thanks to the feel-good hormones endorphins, hehe....

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Continue Breast-feeding Till 2 Years Old?

When we were at our pediatric nephrologist's clinic today, I asked our doctor if I should wean Baby C off breast milk, to which her reply was that I should NOT. She said that breast milk is still the best for Baby C. Along with other food that's high in protein like chicken, fish, eggs, green veggie, etc., breast milk should preferably be continued until she's 2 years old. If however I'd like to introduce formula, I can still do so but I should have mixed-feeding (breast-feeding + formula) until my sweetie-pie is 2 years old. Our doctor is all for breast-feeding. I'm still not decided if I should really continue breast-feeding Baby C for another year. If I don't fall sick so easily and so frequently, I don't really mind. With my recent frequent bouts of colds, flus and throat infections, I'm really suspecting that Baby C is sucking me dry and withered with very little nutrients left in my body, thus my compromised immune system. I'll see how things are after her impending surgery.

BTW, I'm glad that Baby C's weight has finally breached the 8kg mark, yay!! I now wonder when her weight will ever touch the 10kg mark. With a surgery not far away, I am hoping and praying that her weight won't drop after the surgery.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Alycia And Sherilyn Finally Weaned Off The Milk Bottle



Surprise eh when you read the name Alycia? Drinking milk from a bottle at age 5? I'd tried to wean Alycia off the milk bottle for over a year but she kept telling me that the milk tasted funny whenever she drank it from a cup! It's all in the mind right?

One day last month, I asked her this question : "Alycia, are you still going to drink from the milk bottle next year? Next year you'll be in Standard 1 you know? Your friends will surely laugh at you if they know that you're still drinking from the bottle." Alycia gave me a grin and shook her head to a no. A few days later, when I was going through the kitchen cabinet, I found a new water tumbler that koo mar bought for her from Hong Kong Disneyland last year. An idea struck me. I asked Alycia if she wanted to drink her milk from the new cute Mickey Mouse water tumbler and to my surprise, she said 'YES'. Yes, she has finally agreed to drink from a cup... and she did not tell me that the milk tasted wierd when she drank it from the water tumbler!

Hooray, it's been almost 2 weeks since she and Sherilyn (a copy-cat who follows everything that her cheh cheh does... and also weaned herself from the bottle!) drank from the cup... and I can now say good-bye to their Avent bottles!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Teaching Baby C Colors



That's how I teach my sweetie-pie colors. First I show her the card, for eg. a flash card with the color red, then I show her something from our house that is red in color - her cup. She loves this card-flashing session and it's one way of keeping this restless baby still on her high-chair during meal times. Another very good mode of teaching her colors is through the Baby Bright VCD (It's A Bright First Year, for 3 months - 2 years old). She loves this VCD too. My 2 older gals loved this VCD as well when I bought it for them 3 years ago and they are still loving it now (though they are a little too big for the VCD now).



Saturday, April 11, 2009

Xiao Fei Yang Taiwanese Steamboat

We celebrated Baby C's 1st birthday at Xiao Fei Yang, a restaurant that specializes in Taiwanese steamboat. For someone who loves steamboat, I liked the steamboat very much. What makes this steamboat different from other steamboats are the soups and the dipping sauces. There are many varieties of soup and we chose the clear soup, which had lots of herbs and pips of garlic in it.

Some of the specialities at Xiao Fei Yang are their super thinly sliced lamb and beef as well as the minced meat stuffed meatballs. These 3 were my favorites.



The white long stuff are their special noodles.




Heaps of sumptuous stuff - very thinly sliced beef....


Minced meat stuffed meatballs - very nice, I likey! There were also lots of triangle wedges of yam in the soup, which added flavor and sweetness to the pot of soup.


Will definitely patronize this restaurant again. Price is reasonable, food is good but the only thing which turned me off was the stinky loo, definitely not a baby-friendly place. Thank God my sweetiepie did not poo poo there, else I would have no idea how to clean her up!

Xiao Fei Yang Restaurant is located at:
No. 18 Lorong Thambi Dua
Off Jalan Pudu
55100 Kuala Lumpur

Tel : 03-2142 6789

Business hours : 11am - 3pm and 6pm - 10:30pm

Friday, April 10, 2009

Happy Good Friday & Easter Everyone

Today's Good Friday and this Sunday will be Easter Sunday. Koo mar bought the gals a pack of Easter bunnies chocolate from Marks and Spencer when they were in Hong Kong recently. We couldn't wait until Easter Day to eat the bunnies and have already devoured on 2 delicious bunnies. The bunnies are not compact and they are hollow inside, making it easy for me to break them up for the 3 of us to share. Yup, whatever junk food and snacks that my gals eat, I'm sure to have a share too. Haiz... that's why my weight just ain't going down at all with all the snacking and munching on junkies. And the sad thing is I love devouring on junkies too... *shake head*.... my gals just take after me, so can't blame them for loving junkies hehehe....


Thursday, April 9, 2009

Cool Bathroom Accessories

One of the things that I like about the rooms at Hilton Sentral Hotel, KL is their bathrooms. Check out their cool rainwater-like shower:


For those who prefer to sit during their shower can do so as there is an attached seat on the wall. The very first time I stepped into this bathroom, I was lost, like a frog who lives under a coconut shell, as I could not figure out how to switch the faucet from the rainwater-shower to the hand-held shower. I was also wet all over hahaha.... really like an ah soh from kampung! Also, the design of the rooms is really unique. From the bedroom, there is a sliding door directly next to the long bath and you can even watch TV and sip champagne while you soak in the long bath! Just perfect for love birds hehehe....


I also love their canggih-manggih gym, my kids are absolutely crazy over the lovely uniquely-designed pool and the food is simply sumptuous too. You should check out their Japanese restaurant. The interior and landscaping there are superb too. Oooh, just can't wait for our next stay there!

I am wishing the Management from Hilton Sentral reads this post so that I get a free night stay there with my hubs and kids!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

More Bibs

I've bought 2 more bibs to add to my sweetiepie's collection, or should I say to my own collection? Hehe....

I was at Babyland last Sunday to get myself a pack of organic Milkmaid tea. As usual, I always ended up straying off my original intention and bought more than I should have. How could I resist when I saw a galore of cute bibs there?

As my sweetiepie now knows how to pull off her Mothercare bibs with velcro behind her neck, I bought her bibs which she will surely be unable to pull like these:




My sweetiepie is now wearing this green bib with buttons behind her neck. She has been wearing this for 4 days and so far, she has not tried to pull the bib. I think the plastic Mothercare bib was a tad hot on her body in this current hot and humid weather. This green bib fits her just perfectly well and not too hot for her as well.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Homecooked Dishes

My mil cooked these 2 dishes, which happen to be my favorite the other day :



Braised chicken with lemon grass and big onions.
This is a pretty healthy and simple to cook dish. All you need are chicken, a few stalks of lemon grass, a few big onions and soy sauce.


Mui Choy pork. This mui choy is supposedly organic and bought from Hong Kong. This dish simply whets anyone's appetite and goes well with rice as it's a tad salty but I ate it without the rice.

These 2 dishes were my hot orders from the confinement lady during my 3 confinements.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Creative Mind

Alycia is pretty creative in her art, just like daddy. Daddy is one very creative guy who has very good drawing skills. Tssk, tssk.... this is one of his qualities that I was attracted to 19 years ago.... hehe... Anyway, here's what Alycia created with her hairclips and a piece of paper whilst I was tying her hair into a bun on Saturday for her mock-up ballet exam:



After creating this, Alycia said "mummy, look, this is a bunny" and I went "wow, this really looks like a bunny!"





She's creative, isn't she?

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Our Sunday

After church today, we went to Jaya 33, PJ for lunch. We wanted to have dim sum at the Oriental Chinese Restaurant but the queue was horrendously long! Talk about economic downturn and recession but many people are still eating at nice restaurants! We didn't want to wait, so we went downstairs to Nagomi Shabu-Shabu Japanese restaurant. This is what we ate:



Shabu-Shabu (Japanese steamboat). We ordered 2 sets of shabu-shabu - 1 chicken and 1 beef.
This restaurant claims that the broth and dipping sauces for the shabu-shabu are free from additives, flavorings and artificial coloring.

Alycia shared her chicken terriyaki bento with kakak. Check out the steam from the hot pot of shabu-shabu!

Chinese cabbage, tofu, fresh oyster mushrooms, radish and carrots for the pot of shabu-shabu.
Hubby also ordered a sushi set, maki and California rolls.


Raw chicken balls and super thinly sliced chicken meat with egg yolk.

My bowl of shabu-shabu with fresh oyster mushrooms, lots of Chinese cabbage, chicken balls, very thinly sliced chicken and beef. I love the broth and the tasty dipping sauces.

Verdict : price reasonable, very clean and comfortable restaurant, tasty food, will definitely patronize again.