Alycia's Birthday Lunch at Seoul Korea Korean Restaurant

We had Korean food for lunch on Saturday, 5th December, on the actual day of Alycia's 6th birthday. My parents were in KL too and the following day, they flew to Hainan Island for a holiday. Alycia picked the Korean restaurant herself. What expensive taste she has eh? First she chose Tony Roma, then Korean and for dinner, she chose Japanese. Her future husband better be rich to satiate this foodie's expensive tastebuds! She has definitely inherited daddy's DNA!

Alycia and her best friend. She always says Baby is her best friend, haha...



Alycia giving Baby a peck on the cheek...


The hot stone bowl rice, an authentic Korean specialty. Make sure the raw egg is thoroughly cooked before serving it to young kids...


A table placed with appetizers, which are served FOC (and replenishable too!) if you order a set dish...


I would say this Seoul Korean Korean restaurant is 'peng, leng, cheng' - cheap, pretty and good! It's all our-time favorite Korean restaurant.

Homeschooling

In less than a month’s time, Alycia will be wearing the dark blue and white uniform for primary school students and pushing a trolley bag, ready to start Primary 1. She has just turned 6 years old and I think she will be one of the youngest in her class. I can’t believe how fast time has zoomed past us. Exactly 6 years ago, she was my long-awaited, first bundle of joy and now, she’s so grown up and ready to start primary school. I really don’t know how she will fare in a Chinese public school. Right now, she is already struggling with her written Mandarin. Each time she asks me for help in her written Mandarin, I have no choice but to turn her down and say “sorry, mummy can’t help you”. I feel really bad about this. When she officially starts school, I hope she will eventually catch up and cope well.

If my hubs and I have enough money, we will definitely send our 3 girls to a private school. I have even considered homeschooling my girls but in our country, homeschooling is still not widely practiced and accepted. In Western countries, homeschooling is a very common practise. It is way cheaper than sending your kids to a private school and you can select from a wide range of homeschooling curriculum from such websites as globalstudentnetwork.com. I have visited their website and am impressed with their range of curriculum online. I may want to use their curriculum for comparison with our country’s education curriculum. If you are interested in homeschooling, you may want to check out this website.

Birthday Lunch At Tony Roma's @ Gardens

On Thursday, daddy brought us all to Tony Roma's @ Garden, Mid Valley to celebrate Alycia's 6th birthday in advance. For days prior to her birthday, Alycia had been subtly dropping hints that she wanted to eat at Tony Roma. This girl, she seems to love Tony Roma. Last year, we celebrated her birthday at Tony Roma's @ Garden too. This year, we were seated at the table at the same spot of the restaurant that we sat at last year, what a co-incidence! And how FAST time has zoomed past us!

Here's what we had. If you haven't had your lunch or dinner, you'll surely be salivating, hehehe.....

Spaghetti with generous amount of prawns...


Salad with croutons and parmesan cheese...



The rack of lip-smacking, tender and full of flavor beef ribs....


My baked cod fish coated with black and white sesame, yums! I didn't touch the rice a wee bit and my maid ate it.

The birthday girl enjoying her bowl of mushroom soup...



Sinfully delish ice-creams, on the house from TR for the birthday girl....



I didn't cook any food for Baby, so I bought her some buns from Bread Story - opposite Tony Roma. She also ate some of the cod fish.


On Sunday, 5th December, which was Alycia's actual birthday, we had lunch at our favorite Seoul Korea Korean restaurant and for dinner, we had Japanese at the restaurant at our condo.

BTW, do check out my online fashion store. I've posted pix of tons of new clothes. This time I have XL size clothing, office wear, jackets, Korean fashion accessories and more dresses at low prices!

Goodies From Hong Kong

3 days ago, we received a huge box of goodies from my sil all the way from Hong Kong. She had sent over Alycia's birthday pressie, X'mas pressies and some snacks for us.

The box full of goodies....
Sherilyn is admiring the tin of cookies from HK Disneyland.

Alycia quickly tried on her Minnie Mouse dress which koo mar bought from HK Disneyland...


2 huge loafs of Italian Panettone Christmas bread. One is filled with raisins and dried fruits (which tastes very much like a cross between fruit cake and bread) and another loaf is filled with dried fruits and chocolate.



The chocolate Panettone Christmas bread. Yums, really delish, sinful and fattening! But what the heck, I only get to eat them once a year and it's not widely available here in Malaysia. My aunt told me that she had only seen it at Hock Chun's in Ampang and costs between RM40-RM50 a loaf.

My sil also got me some Crabtree & Evelyn hand lotion and shower gel. Thank you very much for all the goodies tai kar cheh. You're the best, as always!

The Best Way

... to get Baby to eat her fruits is to give the fruit to her jie jies. Baby does not fancy eating fruits much. The only fruit that she truly likes is durian! No coaxing and no forcing her to swallow the king of fruits. In order to get her to eat and swallow the fruit (she has a habit of spitting out the fruit after chewing it), I don't offer her the fruit BUT offer her 2 jie jies. Whenever she sees her jie jies eating anything that is NOT offered to her, she will surely scream "I wan, I wan, I wan.....!" See how effective reverse psychology is on kids!

Here Baby is munching on a small slice of apple. When she saw her 2 jie jies munching on an apple, she too wanted to eat.
See what my 2 older monkeys did to the gym mats? They are bored to the core during the school hols and have been up to silly tricks and ideas.

Here rascal #2 is munching on some cut guavas. Initially, she did not want to eat them. She's another one who doesn't really fancy eating fruits. But after tasting just 1 slice and seeing how sweet and crunchy it was, she polished off the entire container of guavas, in front of the tellie! Better than polishing off a box of popcorns or chips right?



When Baby saw her 2 jie jies munching on the guavas, she too went "I wan, I wan, I wan...."! But she didn't swallow it though. She spat the guava out after chewing it and swallowing the juice. This brat still prefers munching on celeries, capsicums and leek flowers! Wierdo toddler hor?

Alycia Is 6 Today

We celebrated Alycia's 6th birthday at our favorite Seoul Korea Korean restaurant this afternoon with my mil and parents. My parents had just arrived in KL from Ipoh today and will be flying off to Hainan Island tomorrow for a vacation. Tonight, we will be having dinner at the Japanese restaurant at our condo. Alycia shares the same birthday with the owner of the restaurant! Let's hope she will give us a small treat, hehe! Shall post pix soon.

I've been busy with my new online store for the past 1 week. It's really difficult to juggle my time having to manage 3 kids, my 4 blogs, my hubby's catering blog , my new online store and a few personal matters that need urgent attention. Plus, with a handful of orders from my first few clients and having to deal with my suppliers and courier company, my head is spinning lol! To all my clients, thanks so much for your support. Sorry if I've been a tad slow in responding to your emails and SMSes. I am very confident that in days to come, everything will run more smoothly and you can all get quicker replies and receive better customer service from me.

Homemade White Sauce Pasta With Fish

I whipped up yet another very tasty and wholesome dish for Baby the other day. She loved it very much. It's so simple and quick to cook too. You can volume cook this dish and deep freeze into small batches for future quickie meals.

You'll need some fresh mushrooms, any variety will do but I prefer white button mushrooms and shitake.
Chop up the mushrooms and some french beans. Marinate a few slices of fish with some McCormick mixed herbs and sea salt.

Then cook some Heinz iron-enriched ABC-123s pasta al dente. At the same time, using another pot in another stove, pour in some mixed milk formula and butter. Then boil the french beans first for about 5-10 minutes. I boiled for 10 minutes as I want the beans softer coz Baby only has 6 teeth. Next, dump in the pasta, mushrooms and the fish and cook for another 5 minutes. Lastly, toss in 1-2 slices of processed cheddar cheese. I only use a slice as I didn't want Baby to eat too much salty cheese.



After the pasta has cooled down, immediately transfer them into small containers and deep freeze them. They are REALLY handy on busy days when you don't have the time to cook.

My New Online Store, Finally!

With my extremely limited time, money and resources, I have finally created my very own online store. Well, it's not exactly a professionally created online store with shopping cart, one that accepts credit card et al but a pretty simple blog that showcases my range of products. Here, you will find new clothing as well as second hand clothing, second hand baby essentials and second hand kids' stuff for sale at a song.

I welcome you to hop over to Old & New Stuff For Sale and I hope you'll find an item or two or three or four (LOL!) that you'll like. All the products are sold at prices that you'll love!

Creative Girls

Both my older girls love art and craft and I must say they are pretty good in their drawing. They definitely have daddy’s genes as he has talent in his art and has quite a creative mind too. Decades ago, he almost enrolled himself in a designing course but as fate had it, he ventured into something completely different. I wouldn’t be surprise at all if Alycia and Sherilyn become a designer one day – where they design furniture, design clothes or design houses.

It Ain't A Flying Saucer Sweetie!

I'd say this little cili padi is pretty imaginative. Not only does she double up cups and containers as roller skates, she also imagines her plate is a flying saucer lol!



Her 2 jie jies have never done this before (lest they get whacked by me), so where'd did this little cili padi learn this from?


Sitting on her imaginative flying saucer to fly to Barney Land perhaps, this fler is just too cute!

Practising Math And Time Telling the eWay

I recently found a very good website for kids to practise solving Math questions. KidsNumbers.com is a free math resource designed by teachers, specifically for students and children of all ages. It's a place where students can practice all aspects of math, including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, in a fun and stress free way. Both Alycia and Sherilyn love solving Math equations at this website and can sit in front of the PC for at least an hour solving Math questions. I can even use their free Worksheet Generator to create customized worksheets.




Alycia having fun solving Math questions and brushing up her time-telling / clock reading skill which she is still not perfect yet at KidsNumbers.com.

Pee Accident

Rascal #2 has been off diapers at night for almost 2 weeks and so far, she has had 2 pee accidents in the middle of the night. 2 nights ago, she had a major pee accident where she peed big time in her pants. Her clothes, bed sheet and blanket were all soaked in smelly pee. I only realized she had peed in her pants when I went into her bedroom at 6am to turn off the fan and smelled the familiar stench. It was really messy and everything on the bed had to be washed. Thankfully I had placed a plastic mat under her mattress and the mattress was protected from the stinky pee. My mistake, I shouldn’t have given her water to drink at 10pm when she kept telling me that she was thirsty. No more drinks for her after 9pm from now onwards, until she has a better control of her bladder just like Alycia.

Bonding With Granny And Koong Koong

My girls seldom see their granny and koong koong and when they do, they only get to enjoy each other's company for several days. That's because we can't stay too long in Ipoh and my parents can't be too long in KL either. Whenever my parents get the opportunity to be with their only 3 grand children, they enjoy every moment bonding with them.

Here they are sharing a light moment together, playing tic-tac-toe...









"Koong koong beat you this time, hahahaha...."

The gals bidding good-bye, I love you and take care to granny....


I can't wait to bring the gals back to Ipoh again in 2 weeks' time before we all head to Penang for another family vacation.

Random Pix

Mah Mah's 3 earnest helpers helping her to grind coffee beans into coffee powder each morning. Each time Alycia and Sherilyn see mah mah grinding coffee beans, they will surely run to her and volunteer to help. Now, mah mah has one extra helper. Whenever Baby sees her 2 jie jies running to the kitchen and attacking the coffee bean grinder, she will scream "I wan, I wan, I waaaaaan......"



Breakfast With Mah Mah. With 3 brats swarming around her when she eats, she has to sacrifice a portion of her breakfast to feed 3 greedy little mouths. But it's good isn't it? Eat less and gain less, the more the merrier!

A Dinner For The Chan Kar

When my parents were here last weekend, my mil cooked up a storm to serve her chan kar. These are the dishes that she cooked:


Clockwise from top : Stir-fried hairy gourd with ear fungus and pork slices, mixed veggie with fresh mushrooms, stir-fried stinky bean (petai) with shrimps and pork slices, steamed woo sow kai (bearded chicken), special sauce for the steamed chicken (fried garlic, chillies, oyster sauce, a little soy sauce and freshly chopped basil leaves), stewed Hakka pork with wood fungus and dried oyster, Ipoh yim kook kai (salt baked chicken) and a pot of healthy Japanese kelp soup with lean pork.


Macro shot of the stewed Hakka pork with wood fungus and oyster. iLike it! Everyone in the family loves this dish. This is an authentic Hakka dish made by a Hakka. Everyone in our family is Hakka but I speak very little Hakka though.


Macro shot of the stir-fried stinky beans...


... and the antidote for the stinky beans - steamed brinjals with soy sauce, garlic oil and toasted sesame seeds. People believe that if you eat brinjals together with petai, the brinjals will negate the bad odor of the petai. You think it's true? I think not that true coz my breath was still stinky after eating the stinky beans... and I hate the aftermath in all the loos in the morning the following day, eeeeeks!! I hate it even more when I have to wash my gals' bump and flush the toilet after their poopie biz! I have to hold my breath to do the chore LOL!

Shopping At Mid Valley And Gardens

We brought the gals to Mid Valley and Gardens on Friday. First we had a very scrumptious lunch at our favorite Taiwanese Restaurant, Fong Lye located at Gardens. After lunch, I bought Baby a pair of new shoes and Alycia her first pair of white rubber shoes (for Primary 1 next year) whilst my mil shopped for some kitchen ware at Pavillion at Gardens. Then we spent our time snapping pix of the gals admiring the X'mas decor at Gardens before we headed to MPH to shop for books. Daddy said there is a RM800 rebate from Income Tax for purchase of books, so he spent close to RM500 on books!

Baby was really fascinated with the X'mas trees decor. It was her very first experience with X'mas trees decor at a shopping mall. Last year around this time, our time with her was spent in and out of hospitals :(

Alycia spending a light moment with Baby.

Bumps And Bruises All Over

Who? Rascal #3 of course and all her falls from chairs, couch and the bed are not deterring her a wee bit from climbing and diving. She's still as samseng, agile and boisterous as ever. She doesn't seem to get tired too. She sleeps as late as 11pm and wakes up as early as 6ish am almost everyday, doesn't nap for long during the day and is bursting with energy. She had just done several rounds of forward rolls on the bed just a moment ago when I was in the bathroom. At one point, she was just an inch away from rolling down onto the hard floor. I could only watch in horror from the bathroom and screeeeeam like a mad woman and then threaten her by yelling "I AM GOING TO CAAAANE YOOOOOOU!" repeatedly before she stopped briefly and then continued to roll and dive from the bed to the mattress on the floor nonchalantly.


Yesterday while my maid and I were helping my little vain pot choose her dress in the bedroom, this cili padi was weaving in and out under us and before we knew it, there was a loud bang and she bumped her forehead on the wall. There was a blue-black bruise on the forehead instantly and moments later, a 'bungalow' appeared.



I quickly took out an ice cube from the freezer and wrapped it with a hanky and applied it on her forehead. But this rascal snatched the hanky away and put it into her mouth and sucked on the ice!
This cili padi, she is really 'hmm keng sei' (fearless), just like rascal #2.

Another Barney Lover

What's it with the old purple dinosaur with a husky voice of an old man that almost every kid love eh? Alycia and Sherilyn love watching Barney and now Baby is hooked on it too. Almost every kid whom I know of loves Barney too. I wonder why. I asked Alycia why she loves Barney and she told me that's because Barney always makes all the kids in the show happy!

Baby is watching Barney here and hugging a BJ bolster that Daddy bought for Sherilyn 3 years ago.


The only way I can make Baby sit still while I spoon-feed her formula milk three times a day is to turn on the idiot box and put Barney or Hi-5 on. Baby's favorite character in Barney is Baby Bop. Each time I ask her "what do you want to watch Baby?", she will answer me "Bop, Bop!"


I hope Baby will not turn into a TV-addict just like her 2 jie jies when she grows up.

Lip Smacking, Bone Licking Fried Fish

What can really light up Alycia and Sherilyn's face is when they see a plate piled up with fried fish on the dining table. Alycia used to love eating chicken and pork when she was younger but lately, she has fallen out of love with the bird and hog. Instead, she loves fish now, especially fried fish or steamed cod fish, salmon or seabass fish. When there's fried fish for dinner, there will surely be shouts of "hooray and yummy" from my 2 brats. They've got expensive taste too, prefering to eat only expensive steamed fish... but of course, they don't get to eat salmon, cod fish and seabass everyweek. Daddy and mummy will go pokai lidat!

Here's how Alycia prefers to eat her fish - WYSIWYG, that is the whole fish, complete with the bones. And she can debone the fish pretty neatly too, eating only the meat.
With her fingers, she dug out every bit of meat from the fish bones....



... and licked the plate used to place the fish clean too, so clean that I don't even need to wash it haha!

Red Wine Infused Cranberries And Walnut Rye Bread

My mil baked 3 loafs of red wine infused cranberries and walnut rye bread last week. It was one of the tastiest breads I had tasted. But the process of baking the bread is rather tedious and long. The day before, she made the first batch of dough and let it prove/ferment in the fridge for 17 hours. The following day, which was 17 hours later, she made another batch of dough and mixed it to the first batch and let them prove for another 45 minutes before putting the dough into the oven for baking. She also boiled the cranberries in a pot of red wine on a stove before adding the cranberries into the dough.

The final dough fermenting....

The delish bread, fresh from the oven. The aroma of hot bread fresh from the oven can really make your tummy rumble!



Bursting with red wine infused cranberries and walnuts. It's so tasty that we don't even have to put any jam or bread spread on the bread. Yesterday, she baked carrot bread with sunflower seeds. I hope she will bake this cranberry-walnut bread again this week!