A Slice of My Life

Playtime

2012-01-10T11:08:00.002+08:00

Playtime (which is like as long as they're awake) is really messy. I've learned to turn a blind eye on the chaos they create. I'd like them to just enjoy being kids for now. So long as they don't hurt each other.

Playtime used to be just Mia playing with ALL the toys. She refused to share. The only toys she'd let Alan play with are those which are broken, or not so "fun" for her.

Now however, they love to play together! Yes, Mia is also learning to share. Slowly, but surely.

Likes to sleep

2012-01-09T12:52:00.002+08:00

Mia likes to sleep.

I picked her up from school today and her teacher reported that at 10.30am, she just got up and walked over to mattress to sleep. In the middle of class.

We come home, she watches TV and now she's gone to sleep once again.

She does sleep a lot at night too. She usually falls asleep around 8pm and wakes up around 6.30am.

Still, she needs her afternoon nap.

If I can only get them to take afternoon naps at the same time... that would be bliss.

Deleted Posts

2012-01-08T13:44:00.002+08:00

Not a happy Sunday.

Feeling very annoyed/frustrated at some "issues". Plus I accidentally deleted some posts from my blog.

I've been taught that if "you don't have anything nice to say, then its best to keep quiet".

So, enough said.

Curl up like a baby

2012-01-08T07:01:00.002+08:00

Kids love to play. Our baby Alan is no exception. He'll play with anything that he can get his hands on...pieces of clothings, papers, toys, CD/DVD covers etc.

Earlier this week, he was really enjoying himself playing with bits and pieces of all sorts including the ring sling. Next thing we notice, he was all curled up sleeping like a baby.

Taking pictures of him alone is quite challenging because Mia wants herself to be inside in the picture too.

Look at him.... so peaceful!

Durian oh Durian

2012-01-07T15:16:00.005+08:00

One of the many skills I've acquired growing up as a typical kampung girl is the ability to open a durian. Thrilling tu!

Last weekend, my mum bought a big box full of durians for just RM50 in Sipitang. Of the boxful, I got 4 durians.

Here's how much I managed to get out of those 4 durians.

I'm Malaysian through and through. I love durians in cakes, puddings, ice kachang or just eaten fresh.

Our Mia on the other hand:

not so Malaysian! LOL!

Exhausting Day

2012-01-07T08:29:00.004+08:00

Friday 6th January 2012

Mia had Assembly, Activities, Physical Education, 1 hour of Art & Craft, Science & Nature followed by B.M class. She has lunch with her classmates in school.

I picked her up and off we drove to Tuaran to pick up my niece from her school... its no wonder her battery ran out as we drove home.

Zzzzzzzzzzz Mia!

My Kitchen Smells like a Spa

2012-01-07T07:48:00.004+08:00

My late dad planted lemongrass (in Kadazan 'sogumau') around our kampung home. He liked to cook his "signature" dishes with ... all things exotic eg wild boar (in Kadazan 'bakas') and flying fox/bats (in Kadazan 'gavi'). I don't usually eat exotic dishes but it never really bothered me when he asked me to get him a few stalks of lemongrass from the bush he planted. Pulling a stalk of lemongrass from its bush is no easy feat, its tough. And back then I was a skinny kid and it took me quite a while to get back to him with those few stalks. He never complained if I took longer than usual to do the job.

My dad's sogumau bush today... so bushy

On new year's eve, I asked my nephew to get some stalks of lemongrass from my father's lemongrass bush back in the kampung house. I wanted to use it for our new year's eve bbq but never got round to using them because I was late. That's another story.

Anyhow, last Thursday I saw the bunch of lemongrass and decided to use them to make dinner.

While preparing the marinade, the smell from the lemongrass filled our kitchen. For a while the kitchen really smelt like a good Balinese spa in there and I love it.

A relatively easy and quick recipe taken from the Internet resulted in tadaaaaa:

Lemongrass Honey Pork (recipe available here)

This dish is best served hot off the wok. By the time my husband came home for dinner though, the dish was cold already. My food critic of a husband commented:

Its OK
Taste is good
Dry

In my defense, the food was cold by the time he had them. But then again, I can try again next time.

Movie Time

2012-01-06T11:31:00.003+08:00

I love watching movies with the kids. Its a very entertaining experience. Earlier this week we watched "The Smurfs" at home. Its one of the kids' favourite movie to play.

I think it must be because of the cute characters and their catchy tune that attracted the kids to this movie.

But no matter how many times we watch this movie together, Mia would still cover her eyes during the parts that scare her.

She's so scared of:

Gargamel. The baddie.

Even though she's scared of him, she still asks me to play this movie over and over again. Rather cute I think :)

Passport photos

2011-11-20T00:04:00.004+08:00

Our kids both have their passports done some time ago. But I did have to get some new passport photos done of them recently to for membership updates, applications and other stuff.1st the boy, not so easy. He kept on looking all other directions except the camera. This was his best shot.

Then the girl. A nightmare. She wouldn't sit still. She kept on running, climbing, opening drawers etc. This was her best shot.

2nd Giveaway by SJB.

2011-11-17T06:09:00.000+08:00

MY PHOTOPAGE.. (My Personal Blog).: 2nd Giveaway by SJB.
So here I am on a Wednesday evening doing nothing but letting my fingers do the walking on the WWW.

As I was looking through blogs I'm following, hey presto... there's some competitions going on and lovely prizes to be won.

Of course I want to try my luck and win... the G.L.A.M. bag. It would be puuuurfect for me. Its been a while since I got a bag for me (ie one not shared with my little munchkins)

Please... let it be me SJB!

KFC Double Zinger Burger

2011-11-12T20:20:00.005+08:00

I don't cook much.

Dinner on weekends are big cheats. Usually take-outs, rarely eat-ins. Have you met our kids?

Yes, that's why.

I went to KFC just now to 'tapau' our dinner. Ordered a Dinner Plate and Snack Plate combo. Then I decided to try their "new" burger. It looked rather impressive on their posters.

Double layer of the zinger pieces on top of a really nice looking cheese. There's a slice of pineapple, salad, and oozing at the top - barbeque sauce and mayo. All these goodness sandwiched inside a perfect sesame seed bun. It's spicy, it's sweet, it's savoury. Looks yummy.

By the way, KK price is RM9.90 (before tax) for a la carte orders. That's 1Malaysia for you.

This is what it actually looks like:

Doesn't look so promising.

KFC's Double Zinger Burger. Not big. Not epic. Pathetic ain't it?!

I still think Marrybrown's Tower Burger is better, though their service is lousy.

Party Planning Mode to the Max

2011-11-02T03:23:00.004+08:00

It's November and I've got about 3 weeks to prepare for Mia's 2nd birthday party. So much to do for such a little party.

We have decided on the theme and venue, but I'm still negotiating with the venue over the cost and what they're offering. Once this is done, then I can send out the invitations. Not that many, about 40 pax, half are kids/babies.

The theme this time is Mickey Mouse & Friends. Some of the older kids (older than Mia that is) might not be interested so much in Mickey, so I had to throw in Angry Birds as part of Mickey's "friends". Such unlikely combination, but hey, whatever it takes to have all the kids have fun together with the birthday girl.

The first thing I had to make for this party was a pinata. You know the game where the kids get to hit a a papier-mâché or other type of container that is decorated, filled with toys and or candy and then gets hit until smashed and the kids dive in to pick up the toys/candies?

Pinata can take a long time to make especially for someone like me who's never ever made one. That's why I started the pinata project last month. The result:Hmmmm, looks like Mickey went for a sun-tanning session with Tom Jones. I'm so torn now, should I repaint the face?! Honestly, Mickey really looks freaky.

Badu punya pasal (continued)

2011-11-02T02:52:00.005+08:00

Nampak tu. Jadi instructor bah sia. So, the "badu" I got the other day was to be used to teach the ladies of our church how to make.... jeng, je, jeng, jeng.... 'HINAVA'.

It was my turn to host the monthly ladies meeting. Because our kitchen was small, and also because I still don't have the confidence to share any recipes that involve actual cooking, I decided to share a fail proof recipe. Even so, 3 days before the actual event, I asked my mum to teach me. 1 day before the event, I tried it on my own, baru konfiden sikit!

Bonus time. The night before the ladies meeting, our baby gaga did something which I thought was funny but at the same time cute. Mia had her bath, the maid helped her put her pyjamas on. We were watching tv for a bit and when we turned around, this is what we saw:

Alalalala... Mia turned her pyjamas top into a toga top. Fashionista! I think she's been spending way too much time watching the Kadarshians with me. Note Khloe Kadarshian.

Upon closer look, our fashionista had a slight wardrobe malfunction, exposed booby.

I tried to get her to put her sleeve back on, but no. She refused. So, I just let her go to bed with her toga top.

Badu punya pasal

2011-10-21T09:12:00.005+08:00

Bagi sesiapa yg ndak kenal... badu tu biji bambangan kering yg diparut ya.

In preparation for an event tomorrow, I had to go to Donggongon's tamu ground to look for badu.

Not an easy task because firstly, I had to look for a place to park my car. That itself is a challenge on a Friday morning. Mak uiiiiii, susahnya sekali. Finally after surveying the area, I managed to park my car (creatively of course).

Secondly, buying badu mission. Punyalah susah. I nearly gave up because every stall that I asked, semua pun ndak jual badu. Ada pula yang sia offer buah bambangan terus! OMG. Takkan saya mau kupas to bambangan, ambil biji, mau kasih kering lagi, lepas tu mau di parut lagi?!

Thirdly, the language. Berputar-putar lah lidahku conversing in Kadazan:

"Kivaa badu nu?" (Do you have badu?)
"Padagang ko do badu?" (Do you sell badu?)
"Toing, mogium zou do badu bo ti!" (I'm looking for badu)

Ok lah, bolehlah pass nyawa-nyawa ikan.

Finally, I managed to find 1 stall selling badu. Tapi mana tau, itu Inai yg menjual tersangat lah friendly mau bercerita panjang-panjang with me in Kadazan. Aduhai.... berabis mau translate in my head from English to Malay to Kadazan in order to carry on the conversation. She is a really nice old lady and I enjoyed talking to her. But man was it exhausting!

Here's the badu I bought today. A small packet costs RM2.00

Jadi, kalau ada badu tu... mestilah utk mau buat ??????? To be continued!

Feel like cooking something new

2011-10-19T08:57:00.004+08:00

I do have another blog on Sugar & Spice and all things nice ... my cooking corner.

I haven't been updating it for a very long time. Not that I've not been cooking, just that I've been either too busy or lazy to write.

Somehow today I felt like coming out of this rut and decide to blog about what came out of my kitchen.

A simple spicy local dish:

Stir fried Squid in Belacan with Spinach. Click here for the recipe.

Converting on my mind

2011-10-18T11:24:00.008+08:00

It's not what you think!

But I am thinking of converting: from disposable diapers to Cloth Diapers (CDs).

I practiced a bit of cloth diapering with Mia last year. Then, I gave up because it was just too much work. At the time:

I did not have domestic help
my father passed away and much of the days after that was spent between my mum's place and our own home here
I got pregnant again and with no domestic help, a young demanding baby to take care of and 2 homes to upkeep... ai yai yai yai.... disposable diapers was the way to go

Back then, cost wise it did not really hit us. We were buying disposable diapers for just 1 baby.

The environment? I'm not an extreme environmentalist, but I do do my part in other ways Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; NO to plastic bags.

Fast forward a year later and we have 2 kids, both not fully potty trained and hence diapers are a necessity. One word to describe this scenario: EXPENSIVE

We spend around RM80 per week on disposable diapers alone . Why so much? We have "Gunsobuu" and "Guntaiii" ("Pee pee a lot" kid and "Poo poo a lot" kid). And it doesn't help that Mia insists on only wearing her pretty diapers at times.

So here I am, flirting with the idea of converting to CDs.

First order of the day is to add on to our CD collection:I bought 7 new ones yesterday from Nadia @ Babylowe KKshop. They're adorable and affordable. Of course I will need to try out other CDs as well.

Thanks to the Internet, the choices on CDs are just endless to suit to different needs and budget. With so many cute designs out there, decision making is so difficult.

I prefer using bamboo inserts because they're super absorbent and kinder on the baby's tushies. But then again, they are also more expensive.

So far, the kiddos are happy to wear them. In fact, Mia insists on wearing CDs at home. She wears disposables to school. Alan wears them 90% of the time now.

Will keep y'all posted on how we are with the conversion.

7 months old... yesterday!

2011-10-17T09:54:00.007+08:00

Alan turned 7 months yesterday.

Current length: 75 cm

Current weight: 8.6kg

Teeth: ZERO!

While he usually rolls to get to where he wants, Alan is learning to crawl now. How is he progressing?
Well he can lift his bum up high. Then, with his forehead on the ground, he'll push his body forward. Pretty much like a wiggly caterpillar for now.

Like Mia, he loves to watch cartoons. Even though Mia would sometime ask for her choice of DVD to be played, our TV is more or less fixed to Disney Junior channel during their waking hours.

I've pretty much memorised the programmes and songs to the channel. Whenever I try to change channels, the 2 of them will release high pitch squeals. I'm glad that the shows on the Disney Junior channel are pretty much educational.

Cakap Sabahan bah!

2011-10-03T08:51:00.004+08:00

I was surfing the Internet the other day and was pleasantly surprised to find this site: http://kamussabah.com. So maybe you know such site exist. Tau lah, sia ni kadang ada ketinggalan zaman sikit! But for the benefit of those who don't or who wish to know "apa bah diurang cakap ni?!" ... then go and try out the site.

There are lots of words which I used to use a lot way back when and they do bring a lot of humorous memories.

For example:

Sandi

Definisi
Teruk atau parah.

Contoh
Sandi bah c kitut, hilang bibir dia gara-gara eksiden mabuk.

Tag
Sandi

http://kamussabah.com/search.php?keywords=sandi

And something more current:

Gila SHIF

Definisi
Terma ini digunakan oleh kebanyakan pengguna laman sosial seperti facebook,myspace,twitter dan lain-lain.Biasanya untuk nama individu pengguna laman sosial tersebut.

Contoh
Om:yo!apa nama mu di FB aku mau add ini..
Yo:yaii..!!ko taip saja
ShaUnLoVemUsiCcHenTaSaMaKaMoO0sUkaGuLINKguLINKmaKANkuILapISzZ

I had a good laugh on this too.

Bah, cuba la kamu cari, santut/sansut!

Barney goes to school

2011-10-03T08:39:00.003+08:00

A superquick update before Alan wakes up.

Mia loves to go to her nursery and I usually have no problems getting her ready to go.

This morning was not one of those easy days.

She insists on wearing Barney homeslippers to school. So, here we are driving to school. Me singing Barney's "I love you" song, and she laughing and kicking her feet in delight.

2 months to 2 years

2011-09-24T12:43:00.005+08:00

Mia turned 22 months yesterday.

2 months from now she'll be 2 years old. Oh my, how time flies. More and more, she makes it known to me and those who dresses her that she has her own style. It could be tomboy-ish in the morning, girly-girl in the afternoon, and nerdy in between then and evening.

As of now, she doesn't really talk any comprehend-able words. Maybe she'll throw in "kai-kai" from time to time when wanting to go out. No mama, no papa, no mummy, no bye bye, no nenen, no chu-chut, nothing.

Its not that we've not tried, we have and are trying to get her to speak. She does understand when we talk to her and respond accordingly though eg: come here; ok, we're going - bye bye Mia (to which she'll run towards us or the front door), go to school, oh-oi time, sayang-sayang etc.

I am enjoying this time when my kids are just infants. I'm not too worried about her not speaking for now. She'll talk in time, and I'm sure she'll have plenty to say. OMG....the neverending "mama, WHY????, mama, what's that? mama, I waaaaant......"

Meanwhile, I'll keep myself occupied with her birthday party prep. The venue, the cake, the games. Hmmmm.

Yes, we'll have a little party for her ;) Those who were at her party last year are definitely invited again.

Perth & Beyond Vacation: Day 4 (Sun 28th Aug 2011)

2011-09-22T08:35:00.014+08:00

Today we planned to go down to the port city Fremantle to try out the famed fish & chips at the fishing boat harbour.

As I was busy getting Alan and our supplies ready, our girl Mia was busy "dancing" in front of the TV.

We did get caught in nice traffic on our way to Fremantle.

Apparently there was a huge event happening at the beach halfway to Fremantle: "City to Surf" which is an annual marathon event. I enjoyed the view outside - wildflowers, crowds of people, and yes, he was one of the participants and one of the proud winners I believe looking at his medal on his chest there.

Once we arrived at Fremantle, we headed straight to the only multi-level parking in town and walked to the harbour from there.

Along the way, we stopped by at the park. Mia tried out the many slides. She wasn't that impressed with this one.

This one was slightly better. She still wasn't that impressed.

She did enjoy picking wood chips from the ground and putting them in her mouth. I gave up stopping her after a while.

We got hungry soon so we proceeded to the harbour.
Here we are at the famous Cicerello's Seafood Restaurant. Its a really busy restaurant and we were given pagers to hold on to while waiting for our orders to be ready. It was a really long wait.

There are a lot of seagulls waiting for customers to leave food for them. Once you leave your table, the seagulls come flying in to catch some leftovers.

My fish & chips order. Very nice indeed. Yes, they Cicerrello's do offer other dishes as well like pastas and desserts. By the way, ketchup and other sauce are not given out complimentary - you have to purchase them.

Uncle's seafood platter. Yummy!

Then we had coffee and dessert including cannoli

Once the kids started to play up and a bit too much to handle, we left the restaurant. We had to walk through the park again and Mia desperately wanted to play inside the bouncy castle. Unfortunately for her she wasn't allowed. Not even her wailing and pleading in front of the gate guy worked. So a major meltdown moment followed.

We forced her onto her stroller and walked back to town.
We had a look at the market. Hubby tried out some pepperonis and uncle treated us to huge strawberries.

After the market, we decided to continue our drive to another town - Mandurah Bay.

On the way, we noticed a car with eye lashes behind us!

Once we arrived at Mandurah Bay we went to the local park so Mia can play in the playground.

One of the more interesting things at the park - the Liberty Swing. This swing was designed to allow the handicap enjoy a ride on a swing while seated in their wheelchair. The photo I took was corrupted so I googled this image. Thank goodness for Mr Google.

Mia's ultimate favourite: the slide

She keeps on climbing up

Then sliding down. Over and over again.

Mia tried out other stuff. Its hard to get her to smile for the camera these days.

I asked her to smile, an this is what I got.

She climbed into a yellow boat. She liked this too.

While Mia was having fun in the playground, we got to enjoy the beautiful lake.

Before leaving Mandurah Bay for that long drive back to Perth, we drove around to have a look see at the beautiful luxury homes.
How would you like that for a backyard - your very own jetty to dock your boat/s! Wow. This is what I'd call livin' it up in Mandurah Bay.

Perth & Beyond Vacation: Day 3 (Sat 27 Aug 2011)

2011-09-22T00:47:00.013+08:00

Hubby's uncle (as with most Aussies) don't work during the weekends. So, he and his whole family were free to take us around Perth.

Our first stop which is located inside Whiteman Park. This place is only 12km away from hubby's uncle's house. I'd recommend anyone visiting Australia or Perth the first time to make this a must visit place. The park (Whiteman Park) as a whole is huge. The park is named after Lew Whiteman (1903 – 1994) a prominent local figure who donated the land for conservation efforts.

There are just so many things to see and do in Whiteman Park including hiking, train rides, playground, picnic, barbeque. The main attraction I think would be getting up close and personal with the Koalas, Kangaroos, Wombats and other animals inside the Caversham
Wildlife Park.
At 10am, they have the Sheep Shearing Show. They explained the history of sheep shearing and do a live demo as well.

All this wool (in 1 piece mind you) came from shearing just 1 sheep. Such skill!

As part of the show, they get kids to volunteer to participate in the lamb feeding competition. Pity our own kids were too young to join.

After the show, we headed to the kangaroo enclosure. They were so many kangaroos and we are free to touch, feed and take photos of them.

Mia was more interested in the kangaroo feed. No, not to feed the kangaroo but for HERSELF to eat!

Then we went into the koala enclosure to have a look at the koalas. Again, we can touch the koalas and take as many pictures as we like with them. We were advised not to touch the eucalyptus leaves as koalas are really picky. Once the leaves are touched, they wouldn't want to eat them anymore.

We skipped the Wombat Show because Mia can't sit still through any show.
During the Sheep Shearing Show she got restless before the show even took off. Her father had to take her out and let her see other animals in the farm (rabbits, chicken, goat, lamb etc) until the show was over.

We went home for a while to let the kids have their afternoon nap and then we headed out to Chinatown to have dim sum lunch. Sorry, no photos. The photos I took got corrupted!

After lunch, we walked into the main city centre.

We were so lucky to meet the Vegemite bear, took photos and scored ourselves a free jar of vegemite!

Strolling down London Court. This place is really beautiful. There are a lot of souvenir shops along this stretch. We didn't shop here at all. Instead, we enjoyed the beautiful ambiance and architecture of the place.

From the mall, we walked to the Bell Tower. Perth has a very modern bell tower.

Our next stop was at Kings Park which is located adjacent to the Swan River. Kings Park is just like Central Park in New York - natural habitat filled with beautiful flora and fauna. At just over 400 hectares, this park is HUGE!

Our main intention of visiting this park is allow Mia run freely in the hope that she'll get tired. Run she did.

Followed by embarrassing episodes of her "begging" for food and drinks. OMG.

She got herself a sip of coke. Yes, we did stop her but the other park visitors insist on sharing their food and drinks with her. She was like an animal attraction in a park for people to feed. Dangerous.

She got chocolates too.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, there was a gentle breeze, the grass clean. I could just sit there all day looking out onto the Swan River.

Mia was happy with her chocolate.

There were quite a number of newly-weds arriving in limos to take photos inside the park. I enjoyed watching them too.

There's also the State War Memorial inside the park honoring those who served in the war. When I was studying in Brisbane many years ago, we learnt about this phrase "Lest we forget".

"Lest we forget" is the slogan in a campaign to remind us of the prisoners of war or those missing in action. We are reminded to never forget the past and sacrifices made that have brought us here today.

Seeing Mia walking along this slogan made me a bit emotional and I was really glad that this photo wasn't amongst those which were corrupted. Lest we forget.

Moving on to the rest of Kings Park. As we strolled around the park I was struck by the beauty of nature. The chirping of the birds in the trees. The wildflowers sprouting from the ground. The amazing landscape of the park as a whole. I read somewhere that the park gets over 6 million visitors a year and yet it is SO clean.

That tree behind us is called the Gija Jumulu. Its about 750 years old and weighs 36 tonnes. It made headlines around the world a few years back (2008) as it was transported over 3200 km from Warmun in WA's Kimberley region, to Kings Park.

Just behind the Gija Jumulu is the canapy walk. Some parts are made of wood.

Some made of steel. But whatever the make, this is the first time we're on a canopy walk pushing baby strollers.

As we head back to our cars, we stopped by a pond to look at some wild ducks.

We watched the water fountain spurt water high up into the air.

That was fun to watch. We got wet a bit but it's alright. We enjoyed the experience.

Soon it was time to go home, take a bath and freshen up for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant near uncle's house. We had crabs amongst many other foodstuff. And yet again, I got too excited and did not take any other photos.

Perth & Beyond Vacation: Day 2 (Fri 26 August 2011)

2011-09-21T22:24:00.007+08:00

Our 2nd day in Perth was spent really light & easy. We slept in. I woke up at around 8.30am which is by far the latest I've woken up in ever so long.

Hubby together with his uncle, had to go and pick up our car rental (a Skoda Octavia combi - a station wagon). That took quite a while.

Meanwhile at his uncle's gorgeous house, I spent much of the time talking with his aunty and keeping an eye on the kids.

Hubby's aunt is usually busy in the kitchen. Their home had an open kitchen concept - easy to chat. Mia is holding on hubby's cousin's DVD, Ponyo. She saw the DVD and wanted to watch it. Unfortunately none of us knew how to play it on their AV system.

Mia playing with Alan in the main living room. Here she's forcing him to bow down to her. Ishk, ishk, ishk .... as if she's the queen!

The two of them goofing around.

Waiting. She for her movie to be played, we for hubby and uncle to return so we could go out.

Once hubby returned with the car, we headed out to a shopping mall nearby (Morley Galleria). It's a nice mall with ample parking. They even had parking for cars with baby strollers near the entrance. How convenient is that?! Pity I didn't take any photos of the mall.

I managed to Google the pic above on the inside of the mall. Beautiful right?

Before leaving for Perth, I told hubby that one of the things I have to eat while in Perth has got to be pies. So, at Morley Galleria I had my first pie @ Miss Maid. I got shepherd's pie. Nice. And the coffee... served hot and filled to the brim. I heart Miss Maid!

We had homecooked dinner that evening. Everything was delicious. Again, no photos taken. Too excited!
At the end of Day 2, Mia was so happy because she finally got to watch her movie: Ponyo

Going on holiday

2011-09-13T20:57:00.008+08:00

I hate to pack, I hate to unpack. But I sure love to travel. In the past the process of picking out things to pack was really easy because I was packing for only myself. These days I need to do for 4 people and the process takes a whole lot longer. The question of "what if" will always pop up. Whenever the thought comes to mind, I'll just reply to myself "then we'll just buy over there!" and pack as little as possible.

I managed to pack all our basic needs into 1 large suitcase, 1 smaller suitcase and 1 diaper bag the night before our departure. I only brought enough diapers for 1 day because I planned to buy the kids' diaper needs in Perth. However, I had to pack milk powder (3 boxes each for Mia and Alan) because we won't be able to buy them in Perth. Mia drinks EnfaGrow A+ and Alan is on EnfaLac A+. The milk powder would have taken less space if I took them out of their boxes but the Aussie quarantine wouldn't let them into the country unless they're still packed and unopened in their original boxes.

2 strollers and 2 luggage for check-in. Using a large suitcase is convenient but we have to be careful that each checked in luggage (whether big or small) does not exceed 32kg in weight. The airport people will not allow luggage to be checked in if over 32kg because it'll be safety hazard for the baggage people to load into the aircraft.

Mia was on the stroller most of the time when we're out and about during our trip. This way, we can keep her under control. That blue ribbon you see holds our Ipod for her to watch her movies: Toy Story 3, Tangled, TinkerBell 1 and 2.

Though we had 2 strollers with us, I brought along the ring sling as well for times when Alan gets extra cranky and super manja. We only had to "surrender" the strollers on the aerobridge as we stepped into the aircraft. Convenient.

We booked the seats in front so we could have a bassinet for Alan for use during the flight. Oh yes, 2 infants cannot sit in the same row of 3 seats ya. That's because a row of 3 seats is meant for only 4 persons. The row of 3 seats is equipped with 4 gas masks. So if 3 adults plus 2 infants are seated in the 1 row, then there won't be enough gas masks for use in case of emergency.

Mia is still considered an infant as she was not yet 2 years old when we traveled. Lucky for us, the lady who sat in our row agreed to move to another seat so the 4 of us could sit together.

In the end, Mia was the one who slept in the bassinet. I carried Alan in the ring sling on the flight.

Overall the kids behaved well during the take-off, flight and landing. There were no air pressure pain in the ear issue because I made sure that they had something to suck on (milk, water, binky) if they were awake during take off and landing. The only minor setback was Mia didn't like being confined to our seat. She wanted to walk around the aeroplane. Thank goodness that we had the Ipod to keep her entertained.

As for Alan, he cried a bit only because he wanted to sleep and but had trouble falling asleep. After a bit of rocking in the ring sling, he managed to fall asleep.

When we landed in Perth International Airport, Alan was wide awake while Mia was still fast asleep.
Our strollers were not waiting for us on the aerobridge. Apparently, this airport is one of numerous airports where we can only claim our strollers together with the checked in luggage. Instead, we had to use the sad looking airport strollers on loan.

After going through immigration, baggage claim, then off we went to customs & quarantine. It was such a long line at customs & quarantine. The officers had to check every single declared item and scan other bags as well. Yes, the kiddies milk got checked and passed.

Finally, we are able to leave the airport and my husband's uncle was waiting for us with his ever smiling face. Let the holiday begin!

To be continued...

We're Back!

2011-09-07T09:20:00.003+08:00

Yes, we're back! We went away for our annual family vacation. This time it was 10 days in Perth and a roadtrip to the south of Western Australia.

Traveling with 2 little ones has been a challenging but rewarding experience. I'm so glad that we were able to share our trip with Mia and Alan. Its fun to see them having fun.

More on our recent trip soon. As for now, I need to SAVE my lost photos.

5 months old

2011-08-22T11:31:00.002+08:00

Alan turned 5 months last week and I totally forgot about it. Oh my!

He's not that heavy weighing at just 8kg however, carrying him in my arms for most part of the day can be really tiring. Most part of the day? Well, yes especially last week. He was sick (a bit of flu, a bit of cough, and a whole lot of cranky attitude) but thankfully he's OK now.

I haven't started him on solids yet because we'd be going away for vacation. Call me selfish, whatever but I don't want to go through the hassle of making porridge etc for him while on vacation. Anyway, he's only 5 months ba!

I would start introducing him to solids once we're back though.

He can roll with ease now but have not started crawling yet. I'm waiting for him to show the first sign ie lift his bum!

If he wants to get to someplace he wants to be, he would just roll and roll. He'll even roll off the "play mattress" and onto the floor to get closer to Mia's toys.

Let's see if he is able to lift his bum by next month!

Can't Satisfy Everyone

2011-08-22T10:27:00.004+08:00

I was playing with Alan the other day... sat him down in his "inherited from big sister seat", wrapped an elephant neck rest round his neck and took his photos.

Alan was enjoying the whole experience and I was laughing with him.

Seeing the attention was all on Alan, Mia got jealous and tried to pull away the neck rest from Alan.

I stopped her and she got cranky... as expected.

I then asked her sit next to Alan and I took pictures of them together. She still wasn't happy about it.

Suddenly.... NAH! She got up and sat on him. She wanted him out of the way. OMG.

Kesian si kecil. Kena babysit by not-so-big sister pula.

1st Timer @ Blog Hop: My Wedding Dress

2011-08-20T23:11:00.012+08:00

This is a blog hop initiated by Cath-J.

I'm watching TLC's show "Say Yes to the Dress" on Discovery Home & Health as I'm typing this.

I like watching this show because in a weird way, I find it quite entertaining to watch eager brides going through the stress, excitement, anxiety, shedding tears of joy and otherwise. Yes, we once-upon-a-bride have been through all that before.

As for me, there wasn't much drama surrounding my choice of dress. Well, maybe just one - will my dress be ready on time for the wedding?!!! You see, I had my dress custom made.

That's me in my wedding dress leaving my parents home for the very last time as a single woman. Adeh, I flipped my veil to the back because I wanted to be super comfortable walking to the car. Bila mau dekat church sudah, then I flipped it back to cover my face. LOL! Everyone (except for the ringbearer) had their dresses custom made. No rentals.

A married woman. My maid of honor and bridesmaids designed their own dresses. I wanted them to be comfortable in the dress design of their choice. We only decided on their fabric together.

After the church service, we returned to my parents' home for the lunch reception. We got changed into the traditional Kadazan costume and wore it till the reception was over (sampai malam bah ging!). The traditional costumes were "free" ie my old traditional costume, and the one my husband is wearing is on loan from my brother-in-law.

Why custom make? 3 main reasons:

I had a really simple style in mind and I didn't want to be tempted by the fabulous dresses in bridal shops. My dress is really super simple but I loved every inch of it.
Cheaper. All in all, I spent in total around RM2500 (husband paid for all ;) thank you darling). This includes material and labour from flower girls (I had 7 altogether), ring bearer's clothes were bought but included in the budget, maid-of-honor, 2 bridesmaids and even my husband's suit.
We all get to keep what we wore. Maybe one day, I'll wear my wedding dress to a party. LOL!

NEW - dress?

2011-08-09T19:11:00.003+08:00

We were watching TV the other day and out came Jessica Alba looking gorgeous even though she also looks as if she'll be popping her baby out any time on that red carpet.

My husband then commented: "Nice dress kaaaaaaaan?!" ihik, ihik, ihik (laugh). "You want, I buy for you?" he continues.

Well darling, that's a Dolce and Gabbana number she has on. I don't mind you buying it for me. Better still, give me the cash to the value of the dress and I'll get lots and lots of lovely dresses. Ihik, ihik, ihik!!!!

Seriously though, I think that my husband either:

thinks that I'm still fat with leftovers of my preggy belly
suggests that I should be covered up to my toes
wants me to get pregnant again

Its OK...

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

NEW - Playground set!

2011-08-02T19:37:00.007+08:00

Our dear friends Donald & Lucinda have been busy clearing up some stuff in their storeroom to make space for Don's things.

And one of the things that Cinda has to (painfully I'm sure) had to get rid off was a playground set: Hide & Slide Climber by Little Tikes. Of all people she contacted to "handover" this gem of toy to, was me! Yeah!!! Mia has always been a fan of slides and I'm sure she'd love this.

It once belonged to her eldest child, Ashley whose all grown up now (13 years old) and was passed down to her younger brother, Tristan. Apparently the boy's a real little tike on the playground set, which could be dangerous so they had to put it away in the store room.

They didn't dare bring it out for baby no 3.... another boy!
This morning, Don & Cinda came over to set up the playground. Cinda checked somewhere and the setup was suppose to take around 20 minutes. We timed her and she did the setup in 9 minutes! How efficient can you get?!

Don did help doing the heavy punching things into places stuff. Sorry Don, I didn't get to take your picture helping. LOL!

I then picked up Mia from her nursery later this afternoon. When she noticed the playground set she was so surprised. She dropped her towel (she always carries her towel everywhere she goes), stood for a while looking stunned, turned around to look at me and when I gave her the nod of approval she just shrieked like a mad woman and went straight to climber.

I was frantically looking for my handphone to take her picture and by the time I got to take her picture, she had already slid down the slide. Look at that, she just went for the slide while still holding on to her other favourite toy - a mini abacus.

The slide and the ground were still wet when she played on it but she didn't care . She was having a blast.

Even when I begged her to come inside the house she pretended not to hear me. She just sat there pretending to be "busy". I finally did manage to lure her into the house by increasing the volume on the TV!

3 hours later, she's outside again! And she didn't even bother taking her binky off before running outside.

Luckily we have our domestic help to keep an eye on her and play with her outdoors.

She's getting much better with her landing now.

After playing for over an hour, I got Mia to come inside for her bath. She stepped into the living room, she saw the back door was still opened, and she just ran towards it, laughing in glee. Our domestic help was at the back taking the laundry and was fast to catch our girl. So we let her play again for another half hour before she went for her bath.

That's not the end of it. After her bath, she came down to the living room. I had our front door open but the grill locked. Mia was beyond disappointed but still optimistic - she tried to squeeze through the grill! OMG!

Let's see how she is tomorrow.... hmmmmmm....

Movie of the Moment

2011-08-02T09:45:00.003+08:00

The days have been extremely hot of late and we've been spending a lot of time indoors. To keep Mia entertained while I entertain Alan, I allow her to watch DVDs and Astro. I know, its not very healthy but there's not much that I can do with a 20 month old.

Her favorite movie on DVD of the moment is:

The movie is pretty cute and funny I must say. I quite enjoy it too. Our girl loves it and get ever so emotional each time she watches this movie.

Laughing, crying, shrieking, hitting, sobbing, rolling on the floor, hiding during the "scary" parts. Ughhhh, we have an uber emotional girl.

Her favorite character in the movie is Nanette the frog. Mia would laugh out loud whenever she sees Nanette appear. She (Mia) even laughs to bed after watching the movie. We reckon she's recalling Nanette's antics.

Our girl, she's just so funny at times!

Big sister, little brother

2011-07-22T00:55:00.007+08:00

Mia will be turning 20 months tomorrow.

She loves hanging out with Alan a lot more these days. She helps to get fresh diapers for me to change him. She even puts away the wet wipes container into the cabinet once I finished using it.

If Alan is crying in his cot, she would rock the cot and try to sooth him.

They sometimes "talk" to each other in baby talk. Maybe she's telling him to move and make space for her here.

They can watch TV together, without disturbing each other. Well, as long as I'm watching them they don't dare bother each other.

I do hope that they will continue to take care of each other as they grow. I'm sure there will be fights. But that's all part of growing up isn't it?

And I'm pretty sure that they'll be moments when they'll torment each other - more of Mia bullying the brother for now because let's face it, Alan can't move much yet. Let's hope for more care and love between the two of them than tormenting moments.

OK, bonus picture time:
I bought Alan a sweater today. He'll need this when we go away for our family vacation. It's meant to be for a 1 year old but it fits him well. He's such a big boy. His smile.... a friend told me he smiles like Elvis Presley. LOL!

Past, Present, Future

2011-07-21T23:40:00.008+08:00

“Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future.” — William Wordsworth

First, lets look at the past.

Shock, gasp, horror! What was I thinking when I put on my ensemble?! The hair, the masculine jacket, mandarin collar, pink socks, pink shoes.

This is what happens when you let your mummy cut your hair. We all had hairstyles inspired by The Beatles for a long time.

I used to go out late into the night a lot. Clubbing, karaoke-ing, food-tasting, wine tasting events.

I'm not shy when addressing a crowd. I can totally lose myself in the moment. So much so, I also tend to forget how I must have looked. Check out how W I D E apart my legs are in this picture. Not a pretty sight!

And yes, I used to be thin.

Earlier tonight, I met up with some friends and looked through these pictures. We had a blast reminiscing the past. Why did I bring out these old pictures with me? Well, they were props for our photo-shoot. More on the photo shoot in another post. By the way, these last 2 pics were taken from Facebook! The Organising Chairperson took these photos.

Yes, indeed there's a lot that we can learn from the past to profit our present. There's a lot that we can learn from our present to live a better future. Be it in our sense of dressing, the way we carry ourselves, our speech, how we handle situations, our mannerism or even in our thoughts.

Looking back at those pictures tonight made us all laugh.

Of course, there were also moments of tension, anger, frustrations, pain and the like associated to the memories. This occurs more when things are not going our way. I've learnt to just let them go. I now choose my battle. Life is short. You live but once. Let our past make us better, not bitter.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

2011-07-19T18:25:00.009+08:00

Our storeroom was really cluttered. Much of the mess was because of the stacks of old newspapers.

We don't subscribe to any newspapers because I find it quite wasteful really. Sometimes we're away on holidays and I ask the delivery boy not to send papers during those times. Yet, we get charged the same amount for the full month. So by no longer subscribing, this way we get to reduce our waste ie spending unnecessary cash.

My in-laws subscribe to the Daily Express and are normally finished reading the papers come evening time. So, each evening my husband takes the newspaper from his parents home as he drops off their mail. There you go: reuse!

But as time goes by, we accumulate a lot of newspapers in this house. I didn't want to just throw them out. Rather, I felt charitable and drove to our church to drop off the newspapers at their recycling bin. However, when I got there, the church gate was shut!

Then I drove to Asia Paper Recycle in Kg Kibabaig near Donggongon.

I was surprised to see that someone sent their pre-wedding photo album to the recycling plant. Undoubtedly we normally don't look at the pre-wedding photo album much after the wedding but those things are expensive to make!

Which is why during our wedding, my husband and I did not take any packages with the bridal shop. Instead, we invested in a professional photographer to take our pictures on the wedding day itself. We didn't even hire wedding gowns or suits. We had our own gown/suits tailor made. It was what we wanted, was much cheaper and we get to keep them.

Anyway, the workers at the recycling plant were really busy but one staff did come to my aid really fast and started to unload the stacks and stacks of newspapers from the back of my SUV.

After a while, another staff came back to me with .... MONEY!

34kg of old newspapers and I get RM3.40. Huh?! That doesn't even cover the cost of my petrol. Nonetheless, I felt pretty good because at least I help in a little way to reduce unnecessary landfill and save our planet.

Bonus time:

Arriving home, I see Alan busy practicing his flip. Hardworking boy.

For his reward, I let him watch Mia's Elmo DVD and play with her Elmo doll. He's a hugger alright, he just rolled to his side and hugged Elmo as he watched Elmo on TV.

Alan is 4 months old!

2011-07-18T18:02:00.004+08:00

Yes, my little baldy turned 4 months last Saturday (16th July 2011).

Alan now weighs 7.8kg and measures 63cm. I tried to measure him on Friday but I couldn't get his chubby legs straight. This morning while he was sleeping, I managed to relax his legs and measure him better.

He still can't hold his head steadily. He's wobbly like jelly. Hmmmm.

However, he managed to do his flip this morning! All by himself. Once was not enough, he did it thrice. By then, I think he wore himself out and was crying for help to lay him on his back.

I felt so sorry for my tired (albeit hardworking) little boy so I picked him up. Less than 3 minutes later, he fell asleep. Putingnya pun dihisap miring-miring. Kesian.

Need a BIG break

2011-07-15T23:26:00.006+08:00

What a week. Mia has missed a week from school because she's sick again. It started with eye infection @ crusty eye discharge, "sleepers", taik mata! Then it was her coughing, flu, runny nose, high fever, and chest infection. Since Monday we've been sleeping without the air con on. Read: SUFFERIN' SAUNA SITUATION!

To make matters worse, she refuse to take her medicine. I hid it in yoghurt which worked for a couple of days and then nope, she caught on and refused yoghurt. I hid it in juice, and again, reject. After that, we resorted to using brute force to shove the medicine into her mouth using the syringe and she spits out about 70% of the medicine. Ishk.

She's not 100% well in that she's still coughing a bit and has a little bit of runny nose as well.

But she's well enough for a "footy fight" with her brother today

Still, it worries me if it is wise to take the risk and bring her along to the Sutera Harbour's 7K Run tomorrow. Oh well, we'll see how we go.

Naturally, I left Mia at home most days this week while I go about to run errands. Including yesterday when I took Alan out to get his passport photo done.

Yes, baby Alan has his very own passport done today:

It doesn't take long to get passports done. For infants, we just need:

a photocopy of the baby's birth certificate,
a copy of the parent/guardian making the application for the baby,
2 passport size photo
completed form
RM150 payment for a 5-year passport (RM300 for adults OK)

Once I submitted his application and made the payment, I was told that the passport would be ready in 1 hour. Guess what, I took my chance and checked with the counter 20 minutes after making my payment and his passport was already ready! I was so glad we waited there.

Mia had her passport done when she was around about 5 months to prepare for our trip to Singapore.

And now, Alan has his own and we are a step closer to be all set for our next trip (wink wink!)... a BIG break!

Good time to catch up

2011-07-10T00:28:00.004+08:00

I went out earlier to a friend's house for a pot-luck dinner, I made egg salad.

It was fun catching up with old friends and we talked about all sorts of stuff ranging from the hot news of the time.... the "yellow fever" in Malaysia, to babies, travels, old times and so on.

Evidently, I still have the baby bump left behind by my terrible 2s.

Really fresh orange juice made using a brand new juicer which just arrived from China tonight!

Our JCI Intan's 2011 President Zyee trying to cut the cake

Yummy, I love the choc cake so much that I took the biggest piece and then felt ever so guilty

These shoes are like 40 years old! I love them.... I hope I can save 1 pair of shoes for Mia and Alan each for them to treasure.

The School Uniform

2011-07-10T00:20:00.003+08:00

Tuesday 5 July 2011:

Our girl doesn't wear uniform to school because she's not exactly attending school or pre-school. She's only turning 2 this year and is in the nursery group.

So I was surprised (but a wee delighted) to pick her up from school and saw her wearing the pre-school's uniform. Has she been upgraded?!

Hardly. The nursery's carer (@ teacher) explained to me that our girl pooped, stuck her hands inside her diaper, played with her poop and wiped it all over her top! OMG!

I forgot to put in extra change of clothes in her bag earlier that morning, hence they loaned her pre-school t-shirt.

Fashionistas

2011-07-09T01:57:00.003+08:00

I've always been excited to see what's the new trend coming up on the fashion scene and who the trendsetters are. Its no surprise that most of the time they are celebrities.

Some dress to impress, while others use the "shock" element in a desperate attempt to be memorable.

For example:

The Kardashians embrace their curves and look really good. I'm impressed.

There's Lady Gaga who never fail to shock. I wouldn't say that she's a trendsetter because I don't see people dressing up in bras and granny panties. However,

are we raising a Baby Gaga in this house?! Yes, Mia's back with her diaper as outerwear phase again. What's worse is she also likes to expose her abdomen (as if she has a six-pack). She won't let any of us button her pyjamas top so we have to wait till she falls asleep to button her up.

Sleeping partner/s

2011-07-09T01:40:00.004+08:00

Both my kids need a bit of help to sleep at night. It may be gentle taps on their bum, a tight hug or a bit of rocking.

Sometimes, they can just fall asleep on their own very easily.

Then there are times when they prefer to have the company of their "friends".

In the case of Mia, it'll be Piglet, big Pinky Teddy and (very rarely) Big-eyed Pink Froggy.

For Alan, it has to be Teddy Eddy. He likes to have Teddy Eddy near his face, on his cheeks or the teddy's arms covering his eyes.

The other night however they each went to sleep with a new sleeping partner:

An orange for Mia

And a monkey on top of the head for Alan.

1/2 year has flown by!

2011-06-30T23:56:00.005+08:00

Time flies and in just a couple of minutes we'll be entering the 2nd half of this year.

I think this first half of the year has been very eventful.

I managed to safely give birth to our son and we as a family have adapted into this new (beautiful) chaos.

Mia has started nursery and she seems to quite enjoy it. I hope she's learning to make friends in her "school".

She likes to "read" her Elmo book as we drive to school. She doesn't seem to get tired of it.

I tried to tie her hair up, but failed. She doesn't like it at all and keeps pulling the hairband off. I also learnt from the twins at church that she looks like a pineapple when I tie her hair up like this:

We managed to fit in a family (shopping) holiday to KL during the recent Harvest Festival holidays.

So, what do we expect to accomplish in the 2nd half of 2011? I don't know. We'll tackle it 1 day at a time. I'm looking forward to participating in the Sutera Harbour's 7k Sunset Fun Run (or in our case, catwalk) in a couple of weeks time.

Yes, we've registered. When I say "we", I mean Mama & Mia.

Meanwhile, its good night from us and we'll see you in July 2011! .... and soon it'll be Christmas. Ho ho ho! LOL!

Biopsy... done

2011-06-30T19:02:00.003+08:00

My only photo taken throughout the ordeal: the curtain round my bed!

I've done them: a a colposcopy and biopsy of my cervix due to the abnormal cells found during my last pap smear.

The tests were done by my Dr. He couldn't do the tests in his clinic because they need to be done in a proper Operating Theater. So off I went to Rafflesia Medical Centre. After the check-in procedure, I was shown to the Cashier Counter to pay the deposit: RM855 (actual deposit is RM850, the RM5 is charged because I paid by credit card).

Then I was led to the 1st floor (birth/delivery/labor floor). As the lift opened, there was a couple of ambulance attendants wheeling a stretcher out of the lift. On the lift, a newborn baby. Kesian tu baby - she/he had a tube up her/his nose. Apparently the baby has lung infection and is being rushed to Hospital Likas. The lung infection was due to the baby having pooped and swallowed the poop while inside the mother's womb.

Anyway, after changing into my super sexy see-through gown (you know the type ie nothing but three strings to cover bare behind!), I was wheeled into the Operating Theater where my Dr was waiting for me. My first thought: "So this is what the room looks like if I were to have C-Section!"

The whole process was finished in 10 minutes. It was like giving birth: legs apart, poking actions happening, bleeding, uncomfortable, but a LOT LESS PAINFUL! And another difference, instead of the Dr asking me to push, he asks me to cough as he "pinches" some samples of tissue from my cervix. I had to cough 5 times, so I guess he took 5 samples.

I was asked to rest for about 30 mins before I got discharged. Oh yes, I also had to go back to the Cashier Counter to get my refund. The total amount for the tests were RM700, but again I had to pay another RM5 because I paid via credit card.

I'm glad to be home and be with our baby.

Awwww..... mummy's boy! I miss you too! (I miss Mia too, but she's having a bath now)

How do I feel? I'm OK, no pain at all. Now I just need to get over this bleeding. I'm bleeding as if I just gave birth. A couple of times I've gone to the toilet and released "tofu-size" hard blood. Yucks.

Today's D-Day

2011-06-30T07:57:00.003+08:00

I'll be getting my biopsy done today.

Fingers crossed all goes well.

I suck at bowling

2011-06-26T11:44:00.007+08:00

I've never been good at sports, any sport. Yesterday, our church group went to Sutera Harbour Marina Club and had an afternoon of family fun at the Strikers Bowling Alley.

Yes, I struck out... I really suck at bowling:

See, I'm the worst player. My husband was the best. I also suck at taking photos!

I got beaten by people of all shapes, sizes and age. Granted that at least half of us were on the bumper lane and I was not, but still, I suck!

Most of our time was spent trying to stop Mia from turning herself into either a bowling ball or a pin.

Alan was oblivious to the noise and had a good snooze.

And after all that, we all went to Grace Point for a drink and let the kids have fun in the playground. My husband and I took turns to become the playground supervisor.

Overall, it was a fun outing. I had lots of fun even though I totally suck at bowling!

The Picture Company @ The Gardens

2011-06-26T11:01:00.004+08:00

One of the things that we did during our short shopping spree in KL for the kids, was to visit the Picture Company located on the 2nd floor of The Gardens Mall.

I wanted to have Mia's picture taken here ever since being introduced to it at 1Utama by my husband's colleague last year. But, at that time Mia did not accompany us on that trip. She stayed behind under the good care of my mum and my now late father.

So, it was a pleasant surprise to find that the Picture Company has a branch just literally below our apartment.

Here are just some of the pictures taken:

Mia was being quite a challenge during the photo shoot. We planned to have her pictures taken first, followed by Alan, and then the 2 of them TOGETHER. But Mia being the Diva that she is, had plans of her own and the TOGETHER picture never happened.

Instead, she had an accident while I was busy with Alan for his photo shoot - she climbed onto her stroller, fell off the stroller, hit her cheek on the handle of a rocking horse. She screamed and cried and I knew that was the end of the photo shoots.

See her grazed cheek - right after we walked out of the studio

The bruise was more obvious the next day. [sigh]

CIN1

2011-06-19T11:29:00.004+08:00

[sigh]

I went to my Dr yesterday for OUR appointments:

Hep A vaccination for Mia
3-month vaccination for Alan
Test results for me

Yes, test results. I've been religiously getting my pap smear done since 2003 - once a year, in December. Each time, the test result comes back "Normal" so nothing to worry about.

Then last year I started my vaccinations for cervical cancer. There are suppose to be 3 doses altogether. No 1 and No 2 went OK. Before I manage to go for my 3rd and final dose, I found out I was pregnant and the dose has to be postponed till April this year.

I had my final dose and also did my pap smear as well. I didn't do my pap smear in December last year because I was pregnant. When this pap smear test result came back, it was found that I have abnormal cells in my cervix. It could have just been caused by bacteria/infection which is normal after childbirth. But to double check, my Dr took another sample for another test.

Well, the test results came back and was given to me yesterday. There's a possibility that I have CIN1. Here's what I understand from my Dr.

Pap smear is a screening test for cervical cancer by detecting any abnormal cells in the cervix. It can come back normal ie no abnormal cells, OR abnormal cells present in which case it would classified as:

CIN1 (mild)
CIN2 (moderate)
CIN3 (severe) which MAY lead to cervical cancer

60% of the time, CIN1 would regress and disappear by itself so there's no need for treatment. We just need to go for regular review to make sure it doesn't progress to CIN2 or CIN3.

Should the CIN1 progress to CIN2 of CIN3 then there's need for treatment.

But first and foremost, I have to make sure that I really do have CIN1 and not not anything else (eg anything between just a viral infection to CIN3). So the way to find out is to do a colposcopy and biopsy meaning they need to take a piece of tissue from my cervix.

So, I'm scheduled to go for this minor procedure later this month. Am I scared? No. I've gone through liver biopsy before and that was painful because the Dr had to go through my rib cage to get a sample of my liver. This upcoming biopsy shouldn't be as painful. Childbirth was painful. Oh man, you don't know pain till you go through childbirth!

Am I concerned about having CIN1? Of course I am but I'm not too worried about it. After all, it can disappear and even if it doesn't, there are treatments. I'm lucky to have found out earlier and do what's necessary.

I read somewhere that Cervical cancer is second to breast cancer in causing cancer deaths in women worldwide and is the 2nd most common cancer in Malaysian women. So, if you're aged between 18 - 65 years, you'd better have your pap smear done each year.

First Flights

2011-06-17T21:46:00.006+08:00

My husband and I love to travel and have traveled to many places before we got married and had kids.

Our Mia had her first flight when she was around 5 months old. It was just a short flight from KK to Sandakan to visit my sister and her kids. She was superb. I think she quite enjoyed the experience.

Her next flight (when she was 8 months old) was slightly longer. It was from KK to Singapore and return. Once again, she passed with flying colours.

Alan, had experienced his first flight when he was 2.5 months old. A trip from KK to Kuala Lumpur.
I know, its the same photo as in the other post. But that's the only photo I had of him on board because my camera was inside my bag under the seat and it was so hard to reach it. This photo was taken using our Ipod and really blurry. Sorry Alan. Mummy promise to take better photos next time.

Alan was really good during the flight. He didn't make a fuss at all. He drank his milk, sucked on his binky, slept and played. It was a breeze flying with him.

Of course having my mum travel with us was a bonus. She was a big help with the kids.

Returning back to KK was also good. We got to the KLIA earlier and this gave us ample time to check-in, have play time for Mia (again this was a trick for us to get Mia tired so she'll sleep during the flight. LOL!), and shop for chocolates and magazines.Imagine that one day, when she's a bit older, she would want to go on roller coasters. Hmmmm.

Holiday in KL

2011-06-17T08:37:00.020+08:00

During the recent long holiday weekend (Harvest Festival holiday: 28 - 31 May 2011), our family of four plus my mum hopped on a plane and flew to KL. The trip had been planned for ages.

Initially we wanted to do a road trip driving and exploring the east side of Peninsular Malaysia. Duh. We chickened out - couldn't risk that with a couple of infants traveling with us. Maybe next time when they're older.

Then, we wanted to go to Cameron Highlands. However, since Alan would only be about 2 months and Mia is at the stage where she can't stand being stuck in one place for too long, the 4 hour journey from KL to Cameron Highlands may be too much for us to handle.

Finally, we opted for just KL. Not touring but a relaxed shopping holiday. Relaxed as in take our time to shop.

We stayed at the Gardens Residences while we were in KL.

Picture source here

Our home away from home for 3 nights

It's a full serviced apartment complete with a fully functioning kitchen, a dining room and living room. We took the 2-bedroom apartment. Each bedroom has its own en-suite.

The master bedroom and ensuite. We asked for a baby crib for Alan.

The 2nd bedroom with twin beds. I forgot to take a picture of its ensuite.

Their curtain is the same as ours in our living room at home! The stroller on right is one of the first thing we bought in KL. It's for Alan. This was a planned purchase. I like this stroller a lot because 1) Its super light (4.3kg) 2) Folds easily and 3) can switch from front facing to rear facing. Yes, its the Combi stroller!

First thing I did when we entered the apartment was to take away all breakables eg vase, ceramic bowls/plates, cookware and glass lids. Safety first.

The Gardens Residences is beautiful, convenient and worked well for us for this trip because it was a shopping holiday! The Gardens Mall is downstairs, Midvalley Megamall is linked to the Gardens Mall.

We could easily go to Midvalley Megamall from the Lower Ground, Ground, 1st & 2nd Floor. I've forgotten now whether we could access it from the 3rd floor.

Gardens Mall is on the left, Midvalley Megamall is on the right. This picture was taken on the 1st floor link.

At the time we were there, Midvalley Megamall was having this huge "Pirates of the Caribbean" display, complete with a pirate ship and costumes used for the movie.

If we wanted to go anywhere else, we'll just take a taxi. Which we did. We went to IKEA and bought kids stuff. I wanted to go to IKEA not so much for shopping but more to getting some inspiration for organising and decorating our home. But I'm a sucker for cute kids stuff so there.

Yes, we shopped a fair bit but 90% of the shopping (100% @ IKEA) was for the kids. Isn't that always the case now?!

For a living planet

2011-06-16T21:02:00.004+08:00

My husband received some spinach seeds from WWF recently. He suggested that I try and plant them. I thought, why not? Let's do the Michelle Obama and start an organic garden. For those who have ever visited our home, you'll know that we don't have much of a garden to plant things. The only patch of green that we have has been turned into a Disney-themed zen garden.

But I'm not giving up. Simple solution:

I planted the spinach seeds in a couple of pots! Let's hope they grow and we'll have some homegrown vegetables to enjoy.

I still have to find a spot for my sunflower seeds :/

I've started yet another garden project. I always wanted one of these but never got round to actually buying and growing one. The other day at Kaison, I saw them being sold for RM4.50 a box and it came with that plastic vase thingy too. Its been 4 days and my little lady is growing quite a bit of hair already!

Something totally unrelated to the garden, but growing as well in our home:
Look at her. Macam boss! Reminds me of the inai-inai di tamu yg menjual! She's 50% Kadazan after all.

3 months old today!

2011-06-16T20:21:00.004+08:00

Our baby Alan is 3 months old today.

He weighs around 6.7kg. This past month had been a difficult month for him. He fell sick twice and the second time was worse. He lost his appetite but thankfully has regained it this week.

He coos a lot, really a lot. Most times, I get tired trying to "talk" to him as he coos. He doesn't like it if he's left in his crib, even if we're in the same room as him. He would be much more happier if he were lying down next to his big sister on the little mattress on the floor.

And he still has baby acne! One big spot there on his cheek.

One thing to celebrate was he already experienced his first flight! Yeah! We took a short holiday to KL a couple of weeks ago (a bit risky traveling with 2 recovering infants, but the trip had been planned for a long time already) and he passed with flying colours.
He's a happy traveler. More on the trip in another post....

Different Tastes

2011-06-15T18:08:00.004+08:00

Our church will be celebrating its 10th year anniversary next month.
Amongst the many programs lined up is a 2 hymn presentations by the men's group. My husband is one of the singers. I must say they're really good. I quite enjoyed watching and listening to them during their practice session last weekend.

I'm pretty sure Mia feels the same. She seemed mesmerized as she watched her Papa singing. But, LOL! the twins didn't think so. These 2 little ladies are non-identical twins. When I asked them why they covered their ears, they replied "Ewwwww! We don't like it. The song's silly. The 1st one is OK."

Different people, different taste!

Scam... Ada ada saja

2011-06-14T21:35:00.003+08:00

You'd have to click on the picture above to see it better.

I closed my Maybank account when I was still dating my errr... let me count... 2nd (serious) boyfriend! I've dated a few more other boyfriends, gotten married and had a couple of kids. So imagine how long that must have been already.

And anyway, even if I still had my Maybank account, I wouldn't fall for this scam! So many things in that mail that's pointing out that its a scam. I pity those who can't tell.

Back to the pool

2011-06-14T20:55:00.004+08:00

About a month ago I committed myself to a journey to lose those pesky extra kgs left behind by my 2 kids. I really shouldn't blame them, I know. But, like it or not, they're part of the reasons why I'm overweight.

I was really serious too in my commitment. I went for my power walk at the park and watched what I ate (and not just watched... but also reduced the amount!).

After 2 weeks, I lost a measly 1kg! How sad is that?! Then my exercise routine went hiatus because the kids got sick and I had to be home with them ALL the time for the next 2 weeks. There you go, 1 month gone, and I'm back to my good old 60.9kg.

Since Mia has gone back to school yesterday, I decided to up my fitness/lose weight routine by going to the pool.

I just love going to the swimming pool this time of day - early morning when people are rushing off to work. It's like swimming in my own private pool!

I was so excited and anxious to get to the pool that I clumsily packed my husband's goggles. My husband wears glasses (his degree is somewhere around 500 - 600 I think) and his goggles, well see for yourself. Around that range.

It wasn't so bad in the pool, but once I stepped out of the pool and took the goggles off.... OMG! In the words of Tommy Roe "Dizzy... I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning. Like a whirpool, it never ends...":

So, this morning I was more careful to make sure I got my right goggles packed for the pool!
Let's hope I really start losing weight and reach my target of 55kg by 31st August 2011.

Back to school

2011-06-14T10:59:00.006+08:00

Mia's been away from school for 2.5 weeks (0.5 weeks due to her being sick, followed 2 weeks due to school holidays).

I was so afraid that they'd be a big drama when I drop her off at school - her crying and clinging on to me as the teacher/s takes her away. And once again, Mia threw me a surprise. Not only that she did NOT cry when we got to school, she happily jumped to a teacher (who isn't even her nursery teacher). I didn't even have to take her to her classroom.And today, she was happy to be able to take along her Elmo DVD (present from our dear friend Teresa) to school. Well, in the car anyway. The moment we arrived in school I took it away from her and left it in the car while I took her to her class. Needless to say, Mia wasn't very happy from then on! A mum's got to do what a mum's got to do.

Saturday Nite Flop

2011-06-11T22:45:00.010+08:00

Dinner during the weekends and holidays are usually out at a restaurant or coffeeshop. Tonight was no different.

We went to Nok Thai Restaurant in Damai. I was a bit apprehensive on going there because I was thinking more of Mia not being able to eat much as most Thai food are spicy. Still, we decided to give it a go and order at least 1 non-spicy food for her.

Only after I took the photo did I see a notice on the wall:

NO PHOTO
"MENU"

Oh well, I don't think the picture above counted. You can hardly see the menu!

Yes, baby Alan joined us as well. What choice do we have. We couldn't leave him at home alone could we?!

These are what we ordered:

Pineapple fried rice, green curry, egg beancurd, and clear tom yam soup. Yummy!

No sooner had we started to eat, Mia the Diva threw a tantrum and I had to take her out of the restaurant. While I did that, baby Alan of all times, decided that this was the perfect opportunity for him to start screaming/crying and get some attention!

Once Mia calmed down, I brought her back into the restaurant with the hope that we could make it through this dinner without anymore commotions.

Sorry, no such thing. Alan was crying and so I had to carry him in my arms. Mia started screaming again and so my husband had to take her outside.

Meanwhile the foreign lady at the next table was pretty annoyed. I could feel her angry eyes pierce right through me and I got so embarrassed.

I finished my soup, ate my bit of pineapple rice and asked the waiter to pack the rest of the food to takeaway. I paid the bill and left the restaurant to our car where my husband was waiting with Mia strapped in her car seat. All this while I couldn't bring myself to look at the other patrons in the restaurant.

Going out anywhere (more so in restaurants where "losses" would be more apparent) with young kids is always a huge gamble. You'd either win in which case, kids were well behaved and you return home with a happy feeling. Or kids were chaotic making you feel like you'd want to pull your hair out and you return home feeling crappy.

I don't want to gamble for a while at least where dining is concerned. I need to recover from tonight's huge losses - my dignity and sanity.

Of warmth and happiness, adoration and longevity

2011-06-10T17:06:00.006+08:00

Such is the symbolism of the sunflower.

A dear friend of mine paid me a visit at home and gave me these:Now, I am not one to be known for my "green thumb" because I really don't have it, not even a green pinky. But, I am going to give it a go. I am going to plant these seeds and hopefully I will succeed this time.

Because I REALLY want my own homegrown sunflowers in a vase, on my table (pic source here) . Above all, I want to be able to present the flowers (if I manage to succeed in growing them) to Christine so she can give them to their dear Angel Eve.

Alan & Abel

2011-06-10T00:58:00.004+08:00

"Mummy, kita bawa ni balik!"

Those were his exact words.

Carrying Alan is Abel, my 4 year old nephew who lives in Sandakan. He was really serious about wanting to take Alan back to Sandakan and refused to let go of him. He only allowed me to take Alan back when I told him I'll bring Alan to Sandakan once he's ready. I told him that Alan needs to be changed, and have his things packed and a lot more.

Well, what do you know... my sister told me that all the way back to Sandakan (they traveled by road), he kept a lookout for our car to see whether we were catching up with him. He kept asking my mum and my sister when we'll be arriving in Sandakan. He even told his father to ring me to tell me to hurry up.

Somewhere in Sandakan, there's a 4 year old boy who is sad and really, very angry with me!

Buttons

2011-06-09T23:38:00.003+08:00

Alan is about 2 months and a half now and our Mia looks like she has pretty much accepted his existence. He has been upgraded from being the competition to play friend.

She notices that he is on his back most of the time, so the game that she plays with him is "Buttons" as in belly buttons.

Here is how it goes. First she shrieks in delight when I place him where she can access his top

She slowly pull his top up and looks for his belly button

In goes her finger and Alan gets a shock

Then she pulls up her top and sticks her finger into her belly button

And the whole process starts all over again until she's had her fun, or I put a stop to it in which case she'll pull my top up and stick her finger in my belly button!

New @ the back (cont.)

2011-06-09T23:05:00.003+08:00

Mia wasn't the only one who came home with a plant yesterday. Look at what I chose:

Nice huh?! I don't know what they are called (they look like lavender, but I doubt they are). I think they're so pretty I had to get 3 pots

I just love the purple flowers and the purple stem

... and I can't help myself, another pot of foliage!

She's daddy's little girl

2011-06-09T15:39:00.003+08:00

Like father like daughter. What are they thinking?!

Moments later, this is what I walked into. Yes, she's sleeping and half her body is dangling off the bed. Takako: Just like David!

New @ the back

2011-06-09T15:26:00.003+08:00

I took Mia out shopping for garden stuff yesterday and of all things, she wanted to bring home a HUGE water feature. It costs over RM2,000. She was kicking, crying and screaming as I took her away from it. How do you explain to a 1 and half year old that its not possible to buy such a thing for our garden?

As we approached some flowers, she was attracted to a pot of pink flowers and carried it to me. RM10, I suppose we can afford that. She was so happy she wanted to carry it all the way to the car. No way am I letting her do that. Imagine if she drops it. Bye bye RM10!

Once we're home, we found a place for her pot on our back porch:

Happy bah!

She's so proud to have her own pot of flowers.

She can't seem to get enough of taking pictures with her flower. LOL!

And I'm happy to have something nice to share the table with as I FB and surf the Net.

Stones for Zen

2011-06-09T14:34:00.011+08:00

I got so fed up with our "flower bed". It's such an eyesore. We used to have beautiful flowers growing there but the harsh sun and creeping weeds ruined them.

Solution: Transform the pain into zen.

Its a work-in-progress. I'd like to add more dwarfs/gnomes there. Whoever heard of Snow White and the Two Dwarfs?! But then again, I can only put additions in slowly. Those dwarfs don't come cheap.

A little bit of Disneyland I suppose. Since we won't be able be able to take the kids to Disneyland yet, we'll therefore bring Disneyland to the kids! Mia likes to sit out here and play with the stones.The little Christmas tree is a bonus for the kids. I want to start a tradition for them to decorate their very own REAL tree each Christmas. Mia would be old enough this Christmas to decorate it on her own. Hopefully the tree will grow with them.

Our Disney-themed Zen Garden has been around for nearly a month now, and we still need to pick those pesky grass and weeds out from time to time. At the very least, this part of our yard has become a lot more manageable now.

She thinks she's a cat

2011-06-08T03:27:00.004+08:00

I was watching TV and in one scene there was this cat that jumped on top of a sofa, then went to sleep there.

Our domestic help who was picking up Mia's toys suddenly burst out laughing. I turned around and saw the reason why:Mia tried to mimic the cat. Because she's so big and can't really curl up like the cat on top of our armchair, she therefore improvised!

A little better now

2011-06-08T03:07:00.004+08:00

I had planned to take Alan back to his paed and into the Nebulizer Room at around 10am-ish. Well, it was pouring rain outside and our auto-gate was stuck (AGAIN).

By the time the I finally left the house it was 3.00pm. By then, Alan's cough was getting scary once more.

There was another child in the Nebulizer Room also getting the same treatment as Alan. She must be around 2-3years old. She was sitting on her grandmother's lap. The child's mum was on the floor holding an Ipad for her to watch a movie!

Before you yell out, "WHAT?!" I personally think this is where gadgets are useful to distract little kiddies. Being "gassed" in the Nebulizer Room can be pretty scary for a young child:

See the gas? That's Alan. Luckily he was asleep. He did wake up and tried to push the mask away, but mummy's stronger!

After around 10 mins, the machine will stop emitting gas and I just press the "OFF" button on the machine before leaving the room with Alan.

Alan is better now. The scary coughing seems to have stopped. This is how he's sleeping tonight - with a towel dabbed with a bit of eucalyptus oil and placed near his nose, for his blocked nose. He and I are sleeping in the computer room tonight (2nd night now) because we can't have him in an air-conditioned room yet until he has fully recovered. Husband and Mia prefers to sleep in air-conditioned room.

Big Sister Little Brother

2011-06-07T07:27:00.003+08:00

They like to watch TV together.

It's currently "Ponyo" season. Mia ONLY wants to watch this Japanese animation these days and can watch it over and over again... like 4 times a day!

Reunited

2011-06-07T07:05:00.004+08:00

We've been looking for and wondering about one of our favorite food haunt... Archie D Corner for about a couple of months now.

For those of you who are not familiar, Archie serves one of the best (and largest serving of) western food spread in KK by coffeeshop standard. His place is always packed full of customers devouring his lamb chop, steak, chicken chop and fish & chips. I pity anyone else sharing a stall at the coffeeshop where he operates from because 99% of the time, patrons would be ordering from Archie.

Yes, his food is superb but the drag is that he's like a rolling stone - always moves and when he moves, he doesn't inform his customers where he'd be moving.Like a groupie to a rock band, we searched and searched and asked around until finally we found him. Apparently he moved to the other corner coffeeshop: "Kedai Kopi LY" @ Taman Cantik along the Lintas Bypass in Lido (same block as an Orange outlet). It's the one facing the furniture shop.

We ordered our food and waited patiently to once again devour the sweet and succulent chicken chop and Fish & Chips.

Ahhhhh. Yes, we've re-united with Archie!

Sick again ;(

2011-06-07T06:34:00.006+08:00

Alan was sick (flu, cough, feverish) for quite some time. He was doing OK last week but come weekend, he got sick again.

His nose was blocked making it difficult for him to breathe. Then Sunday nite, he was coughing like an old man trying to cough out thick mucus from his chest. It was pretty scary and at times it seemed like he was struggling to breathe.

Yesterday morning I took him to his paed and got him checked out. The Dr said he has infection in his lungs and has thick mucus stuck in his chest.

So off to the Nebulizer Room we went:

to pump gas into his chest to break the mucus.

I had to take him to the nebulizer again in the evening. Poor boy had to be gassed for 10 minutes each session.

Last nite was better but he still coughed like an old man to get that stubborn mucus out. Not as many times as the previous nite but still, it is scary to watch him cough.

So, I need to bring him to the nebulizer again this morning and I hope that this 3rd session would finally break that mucus and he can get it out of his chest.

Meanwhile, we have to cough out RM25 for each visit to the nebulizer... that's RM2.50 for each minute of the gas! And this is not inclusive of the consultation and other medicines given by the Dr. Yesterday's grand total was RM126.

In all seriousness though, I don't care how much it cost. I really hope he gets well soon. He's lost his appetite and I miss my bubbly chubby baby boy who brings a smile to my face even when he is just sleeping.

Sickies

2011-05-30T06:07:00.004+08:00

This past couple of weeks have been difficult.

It may have been because of the weather, it could also have been because of Mia mixing with kids (one or more may have been sick) @ her Daycare and she later passed to Alan.

Yes, we've a couple of sick kids in the house followed by one couple getting sick ... me & the hubs.

Poor Alan has to lie with his head raised on a big pillow so he can breathe easier while he sleeps.

And he becomes super-manja during the daytime too because he wasn't feeling too grand.

Unstucking Myself

2011-05-19T00:54:00.005+08:00

It is one thing to admit that I've got extra weight to shed. Its another when that extra weight is "mentioned" by a complete stranger.

Case in point:
I was at my Dr's clinic for Alan's 2-month vaccination. As we were waiting for our turn, an elderly lady asked me how old is Alan. With a silly smile on my face I proudly replied, "2 months today." Then she said, "Waaaah! So big o for 2 months. Never mind big like mummy, nice oso!" Hello?!

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't so offended as much as I was motivated. It spurred me to get started on my own "Biggest Loser" challenge, pronto....

So then I can slide (not squeeze) into my jeans once again. By the way, thanks for the picture Mr Google!

The lightest I was during the BC (before children) era was 48kg. I don't intend to go back to my 40's. I looked pretty haggered. On my wedding day, I was 52kg. Not bad.

Then along came Mia and the lightest I got before finding out I was preggars again was 58kg.

Today, it's:

Yikes. The 60's.

My goal is 55kg by 31st August 2011. Let the challenge begin.

Sunset Walk

2011-05-18T09:47:00.004+08:00

It was such a nice weather yesterday, a tad bit hot in the afternoon but cooler in the evening. My husband wasn't working (hooray for public holiday) and he suggested we take the kids out the park for a bit of fun.

We got to Taman Rimba at about 6pm. There were lots of people there and looking for parking was a near nightmare. We managed to park the car (finally) and we hurried to find a spot for me to feed Alan. He was getting mighty grumpy because it was his feeding time already.

So while I fed Alan, my husband and Mia disappeared amongst the crowd in the playground area.

I took Alan for a stroll around the park after feeding him.
The sun was about to set to make way for the night. We saw a group of elders doing taichi with the sunset as their backdrop. It was magical. I love watching sunsets like this so much so, my sun looks like the sunset now - so red! LOL!
As I turned to my right, I saw the Sabah State Library building. It looks beautiful. I never knew that the building work has completed.
Here's a closer look of the Sabah State Library building. Its nice I must say. The Louvre looking glass pyramid thing looks interesting too. I have to visit the library one of these days.

That wall thing is not for rock climbing yo! I admit that when they were constructing this monument, I was hoping it would be a rock climbing facility. However, it is the known as Tugu Pahlawan-pahlawan (Warriors' Monument) to commemorate the sacrifices made by warriors of Sabah.

It was a good stroll around the park. It may not be as clean or as stroller friendly as Taman Perdana but we had a good time nonetheless.

It was getting really dark and mosquitoes were really getting on my nerves. To me, this was the sign for me to look for Mia and her father so we could go home.

Alan @ 2 months

2011-05-18T06:42:00.007+08:00

Alan turned 2 months on Monday (16th May).
He now weighs 6kg. He drinks 4oz of milk every 3 hours and screams out loud if I'm a little slow in making his milk. And yes, he had his 2-month vaccination done. See his thigh?!

From the time he was a week old, Alan has had neonatal acne (baby acne), pretty much like pimples on a teenager going through puberty. It was really bad during his first month but is getting better now.

Am I worried? At this point, not very. Just annoyed and a little impatient. Babies are suppose to have smooth skin! I just wish that those darn pimples would go away super fast.

Here's a little something something about neonatal acne extracted from the Women's Healthcare Topics website

Normal baby acne typically follows a pattern:

Traditionally sets in at 3 weeks of age, though may be present from the time of delivery

Male babies are more often affected than female babies

The most frequent types of acne in infants are papules and pustules. Papules are small solid rounded red bumps rising from the skin similar to a red pimple. Pustules or whiteheads are a small bump in the skin that has a collection of pus.

Most babies develop acne in and around the face, including the cheeks and sometimes on the scalp. Most lesions that develop will spontaneously resolve themselves within a four-month time frame, thus most newborn babies will not need treatment to clear up their acne. In many cases, baby acne disappears within several weeks.

Infant Acne Prevention and Baby Acne Treatment
While there is nothing you can do to prevent baby acne, it can help to gently cleanse the face at least once a day with water and mild baby soap. Afterwards, you should pat your baby's skin dry. It's important that you do not pinch or scrub the baby acne. This is not an effective baby acne treatment. Instead, it may make your baby's acne worse. In addition, you may aggravate the condition with the use of oils or lotions. Oils and lotions that are so-called "treatments for baby acne" just do not help. Remember baby acne will disappear spontaneously in a few weeks.

So, I just have to be patient for now, and hopefully Alan's baby acne will disappear soon.

Titot & Alan

2011-05-18T05:36:00.003+08:00

About a month ago, a very dear friend of mine (Christine) visited us at home. She brought along her son, Nathan Emmanuel @ Titot.

Christine and I were suppose to be deliver around the same day but she delivered her baby much earlier and as luck would have it, I was OVER due. So our sons are about 1 month apart. Which is quite a coincidence because there is a 13 day difference between my birthday and Christine's! Same year, same month.... just different date.

We transformed into a couple of mamarazzi when the boys were lying next to each other. Here are just some of the pictures of their visit.

First "hellos"

They both are very Chinese-lookin' boys!

Here's Mia wondering how come there are suddenly 2 babies now

Of course, she didn't want to miss out on photo ops. She went to sit next to Alan herself and see her left foot and where its heading? Ayoyoyoooooo! Like a big brother, Nathan seems to be keeping an eye out for Alan.

Nah. Bonus picture! The mom's got curious (and competitive)... wanted to check something. LOL!

Daycare

2011-05-07T05:50:00.006+08:00

Our girl Mia has a bit of a social challenge - she doesn't entertain kids her own age. She will not play with other kids and is showing signs of, well there's no nicer way to put this, being rather selfish! She won't share. She likes it when she's in charge ie she runs around the room and other kids follow her from behind. She gets annoyed if she's not the centre of attention. In short - she's becoming a DIVA.

Aside from that, she is at the stage where she loves to climb on furniture. She climbs up the TV cabinet and tries to push the TV, she has climbed into her brother's crib and even climbs to the top of the sofa in the living room.

At 17 1/2 months, she doesn't say a single word - just babbles. This is worrying. I talk to her everyday and try to get her to repeat. But no, she'll just babble. Only when she's REALLY angry, the word "mama" comes out. This happened only twice so far. Otherwise its just:

haaaaaaaaaaaah
tiah tiah tiah tiah tiah

Just last night, she was babbling in her sleep. Cute.

So, we decided to put her into daycare for half the day. A place where she can learn to interact with other kids, get discipline a bit (I hope), and for me, some time for myself to get the house organised aside from take care of Alan without having to keep an eye out for Mia climbing on furniture.

We are trying out a daycare where they speak to the kids in Chinese and English because we want Mia to pick up the Chinese language. After all, she is 50% Chinese.

First, there was the orientation day for her:

She seems to be quite at home here - rearranging furniture already.

Inspecting her new place

Washing her hands because she went to touch a potty

Here are a few pictures of her first official couple of days to Daycare:

Not an early riser!

While still sleepy, she reaches for her schoolbag

Must bring along her towel ("security blanket") and binky

She cried a bit when we left. But other than that she was OK.

Day 2: I drove her to Daycare myself. She held my hand all the way to school.

Once we arrived, she didn't cry at all. In fact she was smiling all the way to her class. She checked out the play area, ran back to me and gave me a big hug, then went to another teacher sitting at the "feeding area", pulled out a chair and starts climbing onto the table. Alamak. Well, at least she's settled in and so I quickly and quietly slipped away.

Let's hope she likes daycare.

Undomestic Goddess

2011-05-06T09:05:00.006+08:00

When we found out I was pregnant, we were happy but at the same time a lot of questions came to mind.

How are we to handle 2 kids under the age of 2? Even though I'm a SAHM, it'll be scary. No maid. My life was already chaotic even with 1 baby... what with the housework to be done, and me taking care of the very needy Mia at the same time.

Let me paint a picture of just how bad it was.

Here's how I decide when to do laundry. I look into the closet and see if my husband still has shirts to wear to work. If it’s down to 1... time to do laundry and ironing! Yes, only when he is left with 1 shirt! Even when I've done the laundry, most times they don't get folded/ironed for many many days, unless of course we have to wear the clothes.

Dinner = tapau (take away). I rarely cooked. Most days, my husband goes to eat at his parents place which always makes me feel bad because I feel that this gives the impression to his family that I fail as a wife, ie can't even cook dinner for the husband.

So a Domestic Goddess I was NOT! But on most days I did manage to keep the house clean on the surface, just not so organised. I managed to keep Mia entertained even though she drives me up the wall.

1 kid, yes, maybe I could survive. 2 kids and housework, NO WAY! I needed help and we finally managed to get a full-time domestic help in mid-February this year. Young she may be but she's a really big help with the housework and the kids.

Nonetheless, I still have a lot to do first like, organising things in the manner I like and then she can just maintain it as such. I wasn't able to do this earlier because of my big belly situation late in my pregnancy, and then came the confinement.

Now that my confinement period is over, it is still a bit of a challenge because Mia likes to climb on furniture, take things out of the closet and throw them everywhere. I can't leave her alone because she pose a threat to herself and her little brother. Who knows, she might go poke his eyes, or worse still, sit on him!

I really need at least a couple of hours a day to be able to get started on organising the house and myself. The solution.... Daycare.

Royal Wedding Get-together

2011-05-05T10:13:00.005+08:00

Unless you're living under a huge rock for the past 5 - 6 months, I'm sure you would have known of the recent Royal "I Do's".

Since the announcement of their engagement back in November last year, the media, as with many of the people around the world, has been abuzz with "ooooohhhhhh..... when is the wedding, what's her dress going to be like, will we be able to catch the live telecast?!" I must admit, I was one of the 'many people'.

Last Friday, I gathered some of my best ladies in front of our telly for some foodies and bubblies to watch the Royal Wedding live.

It was so much fun catching up with the girls after so long. Everyone had stories, jokes, opinions and dreams to share. We were so loud, I was amazed that my 2 babies were able to stay asleep. Here are just some pictures of the evening:

We had chicken wings and sandwiches. See those mini Brit crocs... they're keychains I got from our honeymoon in England two years ago.

Of course there was wine and sparkling juice to toast to the royal newlyweds. There were also lots of Donashi for dessert. Thanks Rosie & Flo for the Swiss roll. That was great with coffee the next morning.

I also asked our maid to join the fun

Alan was sure glad Aunty Flo is around to play with him

My, what huge arms I have. It sort of jiggles now. That's just part of the baby weight I have to get rid of. My thighs are so huge now that they rub against each other when I walk. I'm afraid that if I don't do anything about it, one day smoke may appear from all that rubbin' with the thighs.

The Royal Wedding was really fun to watch together. If it were planned better, I would have gotten some Will & Kate masks prepared or fancy hats for us to wear! But then again, this was all last minute arrangement and we still had a great time.

One down, much more to go!

2011-05-05T10:08:00.003+08:00

Yes, I've sorted out our closet. Gotten rid of some clothes which I'm glad I did. I was never going to fit into them again anyway. And, I'm left with these. Hmmmmm, the bottom right looks so bare now. Time to get some new stuff. Oh yeah! Dream on woman. Until I shed some baby weight, I'm going to let the purse have some well deserved rest.

It might have taken me a while, but I managed to do it. I feel so relieved. Now I can focus on other things to do.

Unstuck Myself

2011-04-22T15:42:00.008+08:00

I've been stuck in a rut... for 2 L O N G years and its about time I climb out of it. I am so demotivated to do anything because everything is a mess around me.

I'm going to begin with:

The disorganised closet.

That's just part of our closet, a really messy closet and accumulated over the 2 years with things that don't belong there. It makes me look like a hoarder.

I've decided to:

donate clothing that I hardly wear/don't fit me anymore. I have to be strong and ignore those "hold sentimental values" excuses
throw out miserable looking clothing
put away items where they really belong... like Mia's shoes. How did that get in there?!
arranging the clothes into categories

My husband might be laughing in reading this because "being more organised" has been my New Year's resolution every year for "I lost count of the years."

And all these has to be done by this weekend so then I can move on to the next step in climbing out of my rut.

Good luck to me.

Thursday Thought: 1Malaysia, Malaysia Boleh?

2011-04-21T01:32:00.008+08:00

Click here for full report

"Especially in Kuala Lumpur?"

I guess the author did not include Sabah and Sarawak in his survey. A simple example of the situation in Sabah, in plain black and white (or in this case, PINK):
When I bought this magazine at the bookstore it was wrapped in plastic and the price tag stuck to that was RM10.20 - WTF?! I just bought it at the time because to go to another bookstore to buy the magazine would be more costly for me... petrol, parking, etc, etc.

With all the hu-ha on 1Malaysia, equality for all bla bla bla bla bla... will there be a 1Price policy nationwide. Other countries, much bigger than Malaysia pay the same price for things like magazines and other stuff no matter which town/city they are sold.

Hello Malaysia Boleh -kah?

And peace is established

2011-04-21T00:53:00.004+08:00

Everyday there's morning madness in our home.

Mia usually wakes up the earliest and find all sorts of ways to entertain herself in our bedroom. Once she's bored she gets restless, and she'll turn into a menace then tries to drag me downstairs.

It'll be milk and breakfast time for Alan and her followed by bath-time. As I try to get Alan back to sleep Mia would be climbing the table, the tv cabinet, the couch, taking things out of the cabinet and drawers, taking her toys out of the basket, taking her DVDs out of their cover, climbing into cabinets and drawers, hiding things under the sofa, etc. And all this time I find myself repeating "NO Mia, not allowed" which doesn't stop her from doing them.

Alan would be crying because of all the chaos, Mia would come to me begging to be carried. Before you know it, it's lunch time for her. Then it's milk time again, followed by Mia make some more mess time.

If I'm lucky, I can get both her and Alan to take their afternoon nap together. If I'm lucky. That is when...

... peace can finally be established in our home.

I can then put things back to their places so that for one moment in a day, I can walk around in the living room without being afraid of stepping on things.

Checking One Another

2011-04-21T00:52:00.003+08:00

Chubby buddies

Birthday Present(s)?

2011-04-20T23:49:00.007+08:00

I wanted to leave the kids with my husband last Saturday so I could go out shopping for my birthday present (seeing that the husband DID NOT get me anything for my birthday). Seeing my husband's response to this implied that he was sort of freaking out ... at the idea of being left alone with the kids, not me shopping. So I thought.

Then he said, "Let's make it a family day. We'll take both the kids with us to buy your present." "Yahoo" went my little heart.

Of to 1Borneo we went. We started by window shopping since I don't really know what I wanted.

"A Rolex?!" I jokingly asked my husband as we stood outside the Rolex store. He replied by saying he's going to get me the cheap-lak version yg banyak ampai-ampai di Petaling St tu. Ishk.

Then he dragged me to Parkson. Fine, maybe he's going to get me a nice piece of costume jewelry. We didn't find anything there so we moved up to the next floor.

Again, he dragged me to Parkson and with his eyes gleaming with delight, as if he's hit the jackpot, he tells me that he knows what to get me for my birthday.

A couple of freakin' pots!

Expensive they may be, but I'm no Nigella Lawson or anywhere near a kitchen goddess. Cooking pots?! Oh well. Not to sound ungrateful but... darling, you're better than this. I know so.

Happy Day?

2011-04-13T17:24:00.008+08:00

TO ME!

Is it a happy one? Let me count my blessings ....... lost count.

37 years young today, and its also the last day of my confinement after giving birth to Alan.

I can now freely wash my hair to my heart's content. Scrub my scalp with my fruity tutti smelling shampoo. Bathe at anytime of the day, more importantly, soak in the bathtub for as long as I like. Eat what I like, when I like, how much I like. Drink icy cold drinks... oh yeah.

More than celebrating my birthday, I want to celebrate my FREEDOM!

Yes indeed. A happy birthday to me. But I still want my present!

The West Wing.

2011-04-12T12:34:00.004+08:00

When we were doing renovations to our house before moving in, I suggested to my husband that we break the wall between our room and the study so that we can have a bigger master bedroom. Well, he didn't take on the suggestion and instead we agreed that a smaller room would be less chances for me to clutter and easier to manage.

Fast forward 3 years later and we've got a problem. Our once "fit nicely for us" and matchy-matchy master bedroom has been invaded by little creatures forcing us to make some additions.We have a West Wing now... in addition to the East Wing and the South Wing in the one room. The west wing is where Alan sleeps, the east - where Mia sleeps most of the time. I say most of the time because she now has the tendency to trespass to our bed. The south wing - well, we had to put a mattress there just in case Mia falls onto the floor while she plays on our bed.

Now our room feels as tiny as a shoebox with new burst of colours.

I am just so tempted to break that wall. Either that, or move the kiddies out one by one. But when will we be ready for that?

Little Helper

2011-04-12T11:57:00.004+08:00

Taking on Cinda's advice, (thanks Cin), we distracted our Mia with little chores to get her closer to Alan. At first I tried to get her put his diapers in the basket where we keep his diapers. That failed. She prefers to see diapers, and everything else, scattered all over the floor.

Then, we got her to keep Alan company while he's sleeping. She stared at him. Watching his every move,if any.

Mia likes to play with the baby cot, many times climbing into it when Alan's not inside. So the other day we let her rock Alan while he was lying in it. Well, we made progress. She likes doing this and is now coping with Alan a lot better.

But she still wants to dress like Superman!

What?!

2011-04-09T04:38:00.008+08:00

Another hilarious piece of news.

Reminds of a time when a certain female minister of ours suggested that wives wear sexy lingerie so that husbands won't stray.

Like HELLO. If men (or women for that matter) want to stray, they'll stray. No amount (or lack of) of Victoria's Secrets will stop them.

Should I be a wife who finds out her husband went to "private places to satisfy his urges" and he then puts the blame on me for it... Well, I'm gonna cut his private to satisfy my urges. There.

MP: M'sian men have affairs as wives 'neglect' duty

Malaysian men have extramarital sex because of 'wives who neglect their responsibilities' to their husbands, a Malaysian lawmaker told Parliament on Thursday, reports AFP.

"Husbands driving home after work see things that are sexually arousing and go to their wives to ease their urges," said independent lawmaker Ibrahim Ali, as quoted by online portal Malaysiakini.

"But when they come home to their wives, they will say, 'wait, I'm cooking,' or 'wait, I'm getting ready to visit relatives'," Ali said.

"In Islam, wives are supposed to stop everything to fulfill their husband's demands."

Ali heads Perkasa, a right-wing Malay nationalist group seeking to protect ethnic Malay dominance in politics.

His strident comments came as he asked about plans by the government's religious development department to educate wives on their responsibilities.

Wives failing in their duties pushed men to go to "private places to satisfy their urges", he said.

Source: The Straits Times/ANN
Published April 7 2011

Miserable, no more I'll try.

2011-04-08T18:15:00.008+08:00

Of late, I've been quite miserable... having to deal with "unsolicited advises", confinement taboos/rituals and what nots, a super-jealous toddler, a newborn, sleep deprivation and the list goes on and on.

I've survived mini-meltdowns one of which had me hiding and sobbing in our locked bedroom during the afternoons under the pretense of "taking an afternoon nap". When I thought that my super-jealous toddler was asleep, she got up and handed me her favourite towel to wipe my tears, which led me to cry even more.

But today, out of the blue... I received a call from an old friend and I felt more relieved and uplifted.

You know who you are. Thank you for listening without me having to say much. Thank you for acknowledging that I'm not an annoying nag. Thank you for the solicited advice given.

Pic thru Mr Google with thanks

Thursday Thought

2011-04-07T13:34:00.007+08:00

I read somewhere that Malaysia is ranked number 9 in English Proficiency Index by Education First (EF). According to their website, EF was founded in 1965, and is "today the world’s largest privately held education company that specializes in language training, educational travel, academic degrees, and cultural exchange".

FYI, the Top Ten in the report are:

Norway
Netherlands
Denmark
Sweden
Finland
Austria
Belgium
Germany
Malaysia
Poland

Wow! Malaysia is No 9!

Which then makes me wonder about the blunders made below. The first 3 pictures were taken at the recent BIMP-EAGA Expo held at the Sabah Trade Centre. The other 3 photos were taken in my room at SMC while waiting to be discharged after delivering Alan.

If thousands (or in the case of SMC, millions) of ringgit can be spent on organising the event/purchasing the equipments, why can't they invest a little bit of money and time to make sure that correct spelling were used on the signboards/labels. At the very least, I'm sure that there is at least someone in their team who can help proofread (for free) before printing.

Just a thought.

Just because she wants to stand out

2011-04-06T16:45:00.003+08:00

Having a new baby in the house has caused our Mia to display all sorts of weird behaviour. I know, she craves for even more attention than before but some things are just plain outrageous... yet funny. One of which:

Sudden weird fashion sense. She wants to wear her diaper outside... like Superman! Don't worry, she's wearing a diaper underneath too.

The single "aunties"

2011-04-05T16:39:00.002+08:00

Thank you Flo & Rosie for visiting us last week! Its always great to hear of your tales and adventures.

To Rosie... hope you're having a blast on your trip. And woman, please update your blog!

Jealousy in the house

2011-04-05T16:08:00.004+08:00

From the moment I found out that I was pregnant, I've been anticipating that Mia would become jealous of the little one. But I did not anticipate HOW jealous she'd get.

Up until recently, Mia was OK with having her brother around. Up until he moved into our bedroom that is. For the first 2 weeks, Alan was being fully cared for by the confinement lady and now that the confinement lady only comes over 6.30am - 7pm daily means that he would be sleeping with us in our room. This arrangement was my decision because I wanted Mia to slowly get used to the fact that there are 4 of us in the family now.

The first signs of Mia's jealousy and anger was the moment our domestic help and confinement lady moved his crib into our bedroom. Mia tried to push the crib out!

Then the following happened:

I carried Alan in the living room. Mia starts crying and tried to push Alan away from my arms.
Mia cried and pulled me to our domestic help. Mia then gestured that I hand Alan over to the domestic help.
Seeing Mia so depressed, I handed Alan to the domestic help, then Mia pulled my hand so that I'd be far from Alan.
Later I took both Mia and Alan to our room, laid Alan in his crib to sleep and let Mia watch her movie on the Ipod. She was ok and soon fell asleep.
When she woke up and saw me cradling Alan, she gave us the EVIL look. OMG! Then she started to cry again. By this time my husband was home already.
Then, she vomited on our bed. Luckily, my husband managed to grab a towel in time to "catch" the vomit before it hit the bed.
When I felt her forehead, she was really warm.
Jealousy fever in the house:

Another reason why this blog has been idle of late.

Everytime Mia sees me carrying Alan, she'd cry. Feeding time (for both both her and Alan) is a nightmare. She cries when I feed him. And when its time for her feeding, she insists that I carry her in my arms and hold her bottle for her. And get this, she wants be to "burp" her after feeding, just like I do to Alan!

Now I'm having a headache and heartache thinking how can we go about this.

Genesis 3:16

2011-03-23T21:36:00.015+08:00

The stork was a bit late in delivery...
Nonetheless, here he is:

Say "Hi" to Alan. Our newest member of our family. Alan arrived PAST the Due Date (like Mia), at 40 weeks and 4 days. I thought I was going to be pregnant forever. Honestly, I was getting embarrassed whenever friends saw me STILL pregnant. I was even embarrassed when meeting my Dr.

My pregnancy may have been even longer if it weren't for my Dr who advised me to be induced on 16th March. Yes, that's Alan's birthday, just 1 day earlier than his Kung Kung (grandpa... different year of course).

And he looks like Mia when she was born:

See?!

So how was Alan's delivery you might ask? I'll tell you but I'm not going to sugar coat it. So if you're not into knowing the gory details, stop right here and tune in on another post. Just not this one.

In the Bible, in Genesis 3:16, it says: To the woman he said,

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

God wasn't joking.

For those of you who never experienced childbirth and labor pains, imagine you need to make a humongous, gigantic poop.... a poop so big that when it finally pops out it cause your arse to tear. Well, that's what its like. Just replace the poop with a baby, and the arse with the va-jay-jay.

I went into induced labor (Dr forced my water to break) a little after 10am, and I had to wait for my contractions to begin. At the time, I already dilated 3 - 4 cm. Well, my contractions did begin shortly after that but they were bearable. By around 1pm, the contractions were getting stronger (but still bearable) so I was wheeled to the Delivery Room 6.

At 2.30pm, it was starting to become unbearable so I called the the nurse. Guess what, I only dilated to like 5 - 6cm. WTF?!!!! I asked for painkillers. Let me tell you. Painkillers DO NOT make the pain go away. It makes you drowsy after like 20 minutes. But as soon as the contractions come, your eyes pop wide open again. My contractions were 3 minutes apart lasting anywhere between 30 seconds to 40 seconds.

But the good thing using the so called painkillers was that it somehow helped to make me dilate faster. Within the hour, I dilated to 8-9cm and the Dr rushed to the delivery room.

The nurse kept on asking me "Do you have the urge to push? Like you need to poo?" I kept waiting for that feeling to poo, but I was waiting on the wrong end. It's suppose to be the urge to push from the front! Yikes, and I thought its from behind, like really poo! And I'm going through this the second time now? Some people never learn.

Well, when the urge to push came, I pushed. And in 3 pushes, at exactly 4.00pm, hello baby number 2! Bye bye painful labor.

Lets not get into the 2nd part of Genesis 3:16 just yet cos there are uses of pretty strong words in there that I'd need clarification.

Due Date

2011-03-02T08:38:00.004+08:00

Oh dear. It has been a while that I've "abandoned" my blog. So much for exceeding the blog entries made last year!

As the due date of our bouncing baby boy draws near, husband and I watched "Due Date" very late DVD last night. Why late? Our Mia has control of the TV during her waking hours, and last night it was till 10.30pm or so. This week, its Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 week. I still can't understand how she still has that enthusiasm, excitement and joy watching the movies over and over again. The song "You've got a friend in me" remains stuck in my head. Its driving me up the wall.

Anyway, back to Due Date. Its about a highly stressed out father-to-be Peter Highman played by Robert Downey Jr who is forced to hitch a ride with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay played by Zach Galifianakis on a road trip in order to make it to his first child's birth on time. Annoying, yes. Sick, at times. Leave you in stitches, depends on your sense of humour! But I loved it. I needed this comedy break. If you wanna watch it.... DVD is here at home. Please drop by and collect... LOL!

And my Due Date: supposed to be 12 March. But we'll see!

NEW Pet

2011-01-28T10:21:00.007+08:00

Some friends of a friend from Japan will be coming over for a holiday in Sabah next week and are eager to learn our Malay language. Our friend asked us to assist in looking for a book for them to refer to and they'll be meeting up with us during their very brief stopover in KK.

Seeing that our girl is recovering from her bout of flu, fever and cough I decided to bring her along to shop for the book at Popular Bookstore, City Mall.

We were lucky to get the best parking spot.... right next to the entrance into the mall at the basement car park. I put her in her stroller and off we went!

I managed to find a great set for Conversational Malay which includes a CD, phrase book (with English and Chinese translation) and a pocket dictionary. This should be handy for them since Japanese do know Chinese scripts. And then I noticed something... the set is in pink colour! Takako would have loved this.

Anyway, I took our girl for a stroll around City Mall in her stroller and soon it was time to go home.

As expected, she was not happy. She was crying (with mucus flowing out of her nose and into her mouth!) and trying hard to "talk" to me (as if I could understand what she was saying). I had to pee so I took her out of her seat and went back into the mall to use their washroom.

After the washroom, I let our girl walk around the podium area and like a woman on a mission, she headed straight to a stall selling dog balloon thingy.

So this was what she wanted. She must have eyed that dog when I was pushing her around in her stroller earlier. Look at that, as if she's taking a real dog out for a walk. The other patrons around the podium area were just smiling and making way for her!

Walking back to our car is another thing. Me holding her hand, she pulling her "NEW pet" on a leash. I wonder if anyone saw and laughed at us.

And once we're home:

She was so eager to show her dog its new home.

First, need to check on the leash (she learnt this from Elmo!)

OK doggie, let's go!

Trying to teach her dog to stand on its hind legs?!

We have 1 happy child.

She woke up really early this morning and cried, wanting to go down to play with her pet. It was still dark and I wanted to sleep. Oh well.

Errr... Roll over doggie?!

Been busy with our NEW baby

2011-01-25T17:18:00.008+08:00

Hold on to your panties... I havent' given birth yet! But we do have a NEW baby..

tadaaaaa... A Panasonic Lumix-FZ100.

We got this camera mainly because of its SUPERZOOM and Full HD Video features... super handy for our holidays! Its not quite a compact camera, neither is it a DSLR. Its an in-between I'd say. And the size is not so intimidating... it can easily fit into my bag. We got it at a really special price, thanks to my husband's brother who is a Panasonic authorised dealer ;)

My husband brought it home late one evening and by the time the battery got charged for the camera's maiden shooting session, the main model and photographer fell asleep!

Photo taken by the husband!

Anyway, I've been busy trying out the camera this past couple of weeks. Here are just some of the pictures taken (untouched) using the iA (Intelligent Auto mode):

She was so happy that I put on her Elmo DVD on.

An afternoon walk outdoors.

It's a jungle out there. Hmmmm, need to tend to the garden

This past week has been horrible. Our little model has been battling with constipation. That's her trying hard to poo poo.

Then, she was (and still is) down with flu, fever and cough.

Yummmmy.... banana cake topped with peanut butter

A Happy NEW Year

2011-01-02T12:57:00.004+08:00

Our new year started off with some minor bumps...

Mia woke up minutes before the stroke of midnight of the new year and did not go back to sleep until around 5am in the morning. No, she wasn't celebrating, she was restless because of her blocked nose. I had to stay up with her watching DVDs... Toy Story, Tinker Bell, Winnie the Pooh.

We wanted to attend my cousin's wedding reception later in the afternoon, but husband and Mia are still not 100% fit, and so we decided we'd better not go. :(

But I'm so excited anticipating this what's going to happen this NEW year.

I have a NEW buddy to enjoy Japanese food. Just look at how fast she gobbles up a spoonful of food! And she won't let go off the spoon.

Her favourite for now is Unagi with rice and chawan mushi. Unagi has lots of little bones and I only give her bits of the flesh but she LOVES the sauce on rice.

There will be lots of NEW things to come, NEW places to visit but the biggest NEW for us us would be......

Our NEW baby boy!!!! Yes, we're expecting this bundle of joy (hopefully with a bit more hair!) this March. Mia's gonna be a big sister soon.

Gotta start shopping for our boy's NEW things soon. You see, my husband would not allow me to let him wear any pink things of Mia's.

Ushering in 2011

2010-12-31T23:09:00.002+08:00

Today the last day of 2010. And what a year it has been. I feel like I've been on an emotional roller coaster with moments of excitement, anxiety, anger, sadness, relief, and happiness.

In the past I used to usher in the new year with my family and friends. At the stroke of midnight, my late father used to take out his gun and fire into the sky to "announce" the arrival of the new year while my brothers, cousins and friends would splash each other with water with whatever means they can - water hose, pail, bottles. I guess this wouldn't be happening this year. My dad passed away in May this year and this has been a big cloud over my head and in my heart, and it's not going away.

I hope I don't get any midnight calls to wish "Happy New Year" because it gives me the creeps. I got a late night call from my brother moments before my father passed away and to me, out of hours calls are a no no now.... unless of course its an emergency or work related. I think its just part of phone etiquette.

When I entered my 30's, my new year celebrations were celebrated with my best friend Janet... clubbing... and then with her family as her brothers would always have superb fireworks action to welcome the new year. It's hilarious watching her dogs getting scared of the noise and of course her nephew would hide! I won't be there tonight. Janet is married now and this year (as in last year) she is celebrating her new year in Canada with her husband Magdy. I'm sure they'll be having great time together there.

But wherever I've been during those hours or minutes before the coming of the new year... be it in the night clubs, at home with my family, or with Janet and her family.... one thing is for sure - there's always bbq-ed chicken wings to enjoy.

There's no loud music, relatives or hoards of strangers around us hugging and wishing everyone happy new year, water fiesta, fireworks or even a bbq for us at home tonight. But guess what, there is (or shall I say "was" now) chicken wings!

Husband and I went to "tapau" bbq chicken wings from a stall near our home. We gobbled each of these flap-flaps just now!

So to all of you out there, I hope you are having a wonderful time ushering the new year... however and whatever way you choose to celebrate.

Yes, mine is gonna be quiet but that's the way I wanted it to be this year. I wish for all of us good health and greater successes in 2011.

My camera vibrates!

2010-12-26T09:14:00.004+08:00

For nearly 3 years, my camera has been my loyal companion. It was a gift from my husband as I lost the camera I had before. Just a couple of days before Christmas, my camera showed off its new found feature.... vibration mode! It does this every time I slide the lens cover down. How is that possible? Did my snappy happy fingers exhaust the camera so much that its acting like a little old lady with wobbly hands and knees?

As such, I haven't been able to take much pictures over this Christmas. At my grandma's traditional family Christmas eve re-union dinner, I didn't bother take the camera out at all because I'd have to wait for the camera to stop vibrating then I can take pictures. Imagine me asking the family all ready for group photos... "Wait..... My camera has to stop vibrating 1st!" And I also just left the camera at home while we attended our church's Christmas service/lunch reception.

I love this camera not only because of its sentimental value, but also because it's compact and is able to take pretty good pictures. After all, I'm no pro and I certainly don't have space in my bag for those huge DSLR cameras. I don't want to carry an extra bag just for a camera... My back may give way! Although I must say I love the picture quality and features of a DSLR camera. If only there are compact DSLR cameras.... or are there?

I'm going to hold on to my CyberShot DSC-T50 for as long as I can but in the meantime, I'll have to do research on our next camera purchase. We don't want to miss capturing precious moments after all!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2010-12-24T18:20:00.003+08:00

Truly simple decorating this year. I'm simply not up to it! Hopefully next year I'll be motivated (and energised) to do a little more.

Our Christmas tree nearly got covered by all the presents. If I put ALL the presents here, we wouldn't be able to see the tree. LOL! Husband sent out nearly half the presents earlier this month. Most of the presents here belong to Mia, lucky girl.

Her photos got "framed" for the season

My quiet, coffee sipping area out on the porch has a centrepiece

Mr & Mr Claus and reindeer lights for our dining table

My nephew says my angel looks like a drag queen! LOL!

We must remember, Jesus is the reason for the season.

Sometimes Mia is good and is friends with Santa

Other times she's cheeky and never ever want to wear her Santa hat. So, I put her nappy on top of her head.

Merry Christmas!

Liew Family Getaway 2010

2010-12-14T11:53:00.006+08:00

Now this is a first.... The Liew Family Getaway.

The Liew family went away for just 1 night to let the cousins have their fun and stay in a hotel together.

This is where we went: Shangri-La's Rasa Ria Resort. (Photo taken from their official site!)

Someone is really "Rasa Ria" (feeling joyful)!

Not a very good picture... some are not facing the camera, but it'll do! That's the family there sans 1 person this time round.

This is where we had our buffet dinner and breakfast the next morning... The Coffee Terrace. (Photo from the hotel's official site)

Just some of the food I had from the buffet spread. The buffet costs RM110 per person. Children under 12 years of age eat for free. Pricey but then again, it is at a resort.

A favourite among the kids... chocolate fountain. That's Jake up there... one of the cousins.

One of my favourites... the bread section. Yum!

One of my husband's favourite... Blue cheese.

While we were enjoying our coffee, bread and cheese... these 2 went for a stroll outside!

All the Liew grandkids with their grandparents

After breakfast the next morning, Mia decided to crawl onto the stage to play with some traditional musical instruments

"I'm taking you home with me!" LOL!

Joyce (Jake's sister) with the gorgeous flower display in the hotel lobby

One final photo before going into the car for home sweet home

Bye bye now!

No accident

2010-12-13T15:13:00.004+08:00

Santa got knocked off his "throne" by an angry elf and all because I wouldn't let her take a present from under the Christmas tree.