Little Ms Hawaii

We recently attended Stef's kindie concert on 08.11.2009. It was held in the kindie itself and the theme was "Cultural Nite". The weather was not so kind as it rained so heavily at about 7.00pm. Stef's class did a Bollywood dance called "Pretty Woman".

Stephanie ~ in her Bollywood costume

After all the concert performance, the six year old classes had to do a fashion show. Stef dressed up a Hawaiian girl. My mum made the grass skirt and string the fresh flowers. Stef won 3 prize.

Stephanie ~ the little Ms Hawaii

Little Ms Hawaii with Ben 10 behind

The winners with their teacher.

1st prize : Girl in Yellow Ball Gown

2nd prize : Girl in Blue Bollywood Out-fit

3rd prize : My little Ms Hawaii

This is Stef's last year in kindie. She'll be in Standard One in 2010. She'll go to the same school as her brother, SRK Kg Tunku, Petaling Jaya.

Baby Thigh Anyone?

I get a lot of "OOooss", "Ahhhh", "Wow" and "OMG" when I carry Ryan with his thighs exposed!

My neighbour, Ana will say "Geram-nya Che Ana dengan Ryan, tengok-lah peha-nya - macam KFC, Che Ana nak makan-lah"

Then, had one time, we went for a party and I had to change Ryan's diapers, so I took his jeans out which expose his thighs and my two girlfriends screamed "Oh! My God!" and I went like "What??? Why??? What did I do, was I too rough???" It turned out that they were fascinated by the size of his thigh.

Now, you be the judge!

Ryan at 4 months old

Ryan at 1 month old (see the difference)

Ryan's Update - 5 months

Time flies! Our little Ryan is now 5 months old. He's a good baby, sleeping throughout the night and getting up only between 4.30 to 6.30 am for his feed. He's easy going too, goes to anybody who wants to carry him. Another thing about him is that he smiles easily. He gives you this gorgeous smile when he gets up in the morning. He smiles when you call him. And he smiles at EVERYBODY!

A smile that will melt everyone's heart~ especially Mummy's

He's also making funny noises and experimenting with his voice, screaming, blowing spit bubbles. He's also mastered the art of turning from back to stomach and vice versa. Now, he's learning to sit but not quite there yet.

Ryan enjoying his apple puree

When he was about 4.5 months, I've started to feed him solids. I've started with apple puree and baby biscuits. Alternating in between them both. He loves to eat. When we are eating, he looks at our food, looks at us putting food into our mouth and must be wondering why not his!

Anyway, what I do is I shave the skin of an apple and steam it for about 30 minutes. Then I mash the apple through a sieve and feed him the puree. Sometimes, the apple puree can be kept in a freezer for about 2 weeks. As for the baby biscuits, I break the biscuit up using warm water and adding a little bit of milk into it.

I've lost touch with preparing baby food and lucky for the Internet, I manage to find so many websites that teaches you to feed your baby and it comes with lots of recipes too. I am currently referring to this website : http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

It's an exciting period for both Baby and Mother AND Timmy and Stef as they too want to try out the baby food!

Game Over!

I so love this comic and I would like to think that it is made just for me!

So true in my case - it's really GAME OVER!

Correct gender of the kids and in correct sequence too I must add!

Domestic Helper~Part 3

After returning our Indonesian maid to the agent on 04.09.2009, we have decided to take a Cambodian maid from another agent. The agent for our Indonesian maid was kind and nice enough to return us part of our money - YAH! Happiness - all's not lost.

HOWEVER,something very very strange happened! On 20.10.2009, after several postponements, the agent (let's call her TK) and me finally met so that she can return us the money. She gave me a post dated cheque to be banked in only on 23.10.2009. Then on 25.10.2009 at 1.53pm I received a call from a man named Ganesan and here's how the conversation went :-

Me : Hello?
G : Hi, how are you?
Me : Who's this?
G : Ms Connie? How are you?
Me : Fine - who's this?

The line was very bad and thinking that it was a prank call or wrong number, I ended the call.

However, less than one minute later, the same caller called :-

G : Are you Ms Corinee?

Me : Yes?

G : Do you know a TK?

Me : Maid agency is zit?

G : Ah yah ...

Me : Yah, why?

G : Did you make a police report against her?

Me : Police report ? No! I didn't

G : She's now under arrest at Immigration and she said you made a police report against her. if you made the police report she wants you to come bail her out and settle this amicably

Me : No, I didn't, who is this?

G : Ganesan from Narcotics Dept

Me : How did you get my number?

G : TK gave it to me because she said you made a police report against her. Are you sure you did not make a police report against her? Coz you know if this goes to court, you will have to be called up to testify and all

Me : (Feeling irritated already) I am quite sure I didn't make a police report against her

G : How do you know her? You tell me your story? Come clean and be honest ah!

Me : She's my maid agent, I got a maid from her but was not happy with the maid so I sent her back to TK

G : You also a maid agent?

Me : Eh! I am not an agent lah (raising my voice) I am working for people lah

G : You are not her business partner or her employee?

Me : No, no, I am working for someone else

G : You are not lying ah?

Me : Eh! (voice raised again) No-lah!, she supplied me a maid

G : So you are sure you didn't make the police report - if your conscious is right than ok lah

Me : No, No, I did not make a police report against her

G : Ok-lah then ... (and we hung up)

After that I called my father to tell him what had happen and he said to just leave it as it is. And if the guy calls back again, get his full name, badge number and branch and say that I've made a police report AGAINST him for calling me.

I then tried to call TK but could not get through her mobile. I was doubtful then that the cheque I banked in would clear. However, surprisingly, it DID clear.

It only occurred to me now that I should have asked him :-

1. What was the reason for TK to be arrested and what police report I've made against her?

2. What has Narcotics Dept got to do with Immigration Dept?

The mystery now remains ~ is TK really under arrest and if yes what for? Did TK and this Ganesan guy team up to scare me? But if they did, how come the cheque cleared? ~ SO STRANGE!

Longan Cocktail Dessert

I bought a pack of Kiwi fruit the other day thinking that it was rich in Vitamin C and it would be good for the children. However, they didn't like it because it was sour. So in order not to let it go to waste, I tried to make a dessert with the canned longan. Here were the ingredients I used :-

The Longan Cocktail Dessert

~ INGREDIENTS ~
1 canned longan
2 kiwi fruit - diced
2 handful of pumpkin - diced
1 thumb piece of ginger
5 pandan leaves
2 tablespoon of sugar
1/2 a packet of agar-agar

~ METHOD ~
1. Prepare the agar-agar as instructed with coloring as an option. After it has been refrigerated, dice the agar-agar.

2. Boil the pumpkin with ginger, sugar and pandan leaves. For some people, pumpkin contains a lot of 'angin' so the ginger is to balance it off.

3. Let the pumpkin mixture cool, discard the ginger and pandan leaves.

4. Mix all the other ingredients together and chill before serving.

5. Best served in a clear glass cup or bowl as it will be very colorful.

Steamed Pandan Sponge Cake

We had a long weekend for the first two weeks of September 2009, being Merdeka Day and Nuzul Quran. This allowed me to spend time with the kids at home and also bake. As most of you know, I LOVE to bake. I didn't want to spend so much time in the kitchen but still wanted to bake, you know, I wanted to EAT but didn't want to take the trouble of taking the cake mixer down, wanted to BAKE but didn't want to do the wash up after that.

Anyway, I found a very easy recipie on this blog called Little Corner of Mine (http://belachan2.blogspot.com). By the way, this blog has many recipies that you can try. It's amazing how some people are so generous to share their recipies and for this I thank them!

Okay, so back to this baking story. The fun part about this Steamed Pandan Sponge Cake was that no baking is required! All you had to do was to steam them. And since I had pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) in my garden, I pounded them to get the juice and flavour.

The Steamed Pandan Sponge Cake in a steamer

Because the batter is light, the kaya sinks to the bottom

So here is what you need :

~ INGREDIENTS ~ 4 eggs 2/3 cup of sugar 1 cup of flour 50ml 7-UP 5 dark green pandan leaves kaya (optional)

~ METHOD ~ Beat eggs and sugar until the batter becomes very light with a cake mixer add in 2 tablespoon of the pandan leaf juice fold in the flour manually in batches add in the 7-UP spoon the batter into plastic cupcake holders lined with cupcake papers add 1/2 teaspoon of kaya into the batter and steam for about 15 minutes best eaten warm on the same day with a nice cup of coffee by the side!