ANZAC cookies

I guess I'm writing too much on sports these days and less on cooking coz I haven't really done any great recipes lately.
Well, it is almost ANZAC day in Oz which is a very important memorial day here and older son kept pestering me to make ANZAC cookies from a recipe in a kid's mag his friend gave him. So I baked some last weekend with his help. It wasn't that difficult and it is rather nutritious with rolled oats, dessicated coconut and honey. I could bake more cookies if the recipes are not that cumbersome. (you know many cookie recipes need to use cookie cutters and rolling pins etc ).

Cross Country

[ So okayyy.. I missed my weekly update last week. I also missed a very important dinner this week. I might as well inform everyone on the blogosphere as EVERYONE in dh's dept knows that I had toothache due to to wisdom tooth plans to emerge out of my gums. (So who's big idea was it to call it wisdom tooth? I can't find any wisdom in it except intermittent throbbing pain!) ]
Back to the real world. The kids had a lil cross country at their school this week. I missed ds' event as had an appointment with the dentist to reevaluate my wisdom tooth but I came just in time for dd's event. I was quite pleased to see her run, She was about position number 5 or 6 in her age group. When I asked her what position she got , she said third last. I guess there was only 8 girls in her age group. Oh well , I think this was an improvement from 2 years ago, when she got last or second last was it? My friends' daughters , wow.. they were really good getting placing between 1st to 3rd. (Amazing when you see some of them running with gutso in their lil hijabs.)
I like to see schoolchildren enjoying sports and playing in the field at the school every time I pick my kids up. School isn't just about sitting down and looking at the blackboard in the classroom all the time. Fitness and character building is important too.

Blur Week

It has been a bit of a blurry week. My head was spinning from a slight cold coupled with some other factors. My 2 lil heroes weren't well either, with older son receiving the full brunt of it with a nasty cold/cough. (I think it might have something to do with him eating too much ice cream.) The weather had changed decidedly cooler during the evening and early morning. With ds at home most of the week, I couldn't do anything much except care for him and his bro and appease their appetite (or lack of.) Ds even in sickness, couldn't even stay in bed like one would expect a sick child should do. Always out and about!
His sister had to go to a music camp at the high school nearby so sick or not , all 3 of us had to pick her up each day after camp. At the end of the week, we let ds go to school (as school break starts next week and he would be wondering why he hasn't been to school yet). When I went to pick him up, I noticed more kids than usual were riding bikes back to their house. (I like to watch them pedal their lil feet up the hill with zest!) I realised they were doing this as it was bike week and they were encouraged to ride to and fro school. This in turn reminded me that I had a 10km bike ride to do with dd and ds on Sunday. I vaguely remember this due to too much things going on.
Well, the time came this morning. We were late or shall I say very punctual, as we rode to the starting line from the carpark , the wave of riders from the starting line came from the opposite direction! We let them past. Went to the startline. Talked to some marshalls. Decided to follow suit with no numbers stuck on the bike. The boys were a bit behind dd and I, so dh said we could go ahead to catch the masses so we did. I must say it was a bit of an art for me trying to ride slower than dd and some other lil girls. My seat was lowered at first so I could put my legs on the ground if I had to stop suddenly etc and then I brought it up at a higher position half through the course so I could ride better wthout my feet feeling cramp but ehem.., this wasn't a good idea as there was once/twice I stopped some other people on their track behind me. It was such a tight space there next to the cliff and I was trying not to collide with dd in front of me. Oh well!
We came back to start/finish line where dh and boys were waiting - they went back after riding to/fro the goodwill bridge.- only 2km ride while we did about 10km. I think dd did quite well for her first attempt at riding by the masses. Her dad said he'll like to do this again next year after the boys become better at riding (and also wake up earlier in the morning). I was a bit surprise that he wants to enter again as he was all excuses- weather, sickness etc before the event.. while I am not to sure I want to do it again!

Penguin of the Month

Dd has received recognition online as the penguin of the month. She has been a member of an online club for barely a month and she has received the coveted award.( I think it is similar to adults receiving employee of the month for a club/organisation.) She was soo excited to learn she won it. Probably has something to do with spending a LOT of time in front of the PC playing games and meeting her school friends online. I think she spends much more time online than her mom now, lol. But it is not that bad as she also learns to type words quickly and create funny stories about penguins and puffles, and learning to surf! I do wish she would do her homework beforehand though.

Earthhour

Last night we participated in earthhour and switched off the lights from 8 to 9pm. Kids and dh had a steak and chips candlelight dinner during that time. (Usually kids would have their dinner earlier but it was a weekend). It wasn't so bad without the lights. The kids even practiced switching off all the lights the night before. Light is necessary for comfort and safety but do we really many lights in one focal point? Too many lights on can/will create light pollution . (Eg. I could hardly see the stars in the night sky at my home near the centre of KL because of the city's brightness... which is a pity.)

Chocolate eggs anyone?

Dd and ds won 2 baskets of chocolate eggs in their school's lucky draw. Their dad had submitted their tickets on the morning of the draw (in other words last minute!) and then when we picked them up from school , an admin lady was helping carry the baskets to the car. We weren't really expecting them to win anything but both of them got one each! We usually lose/misplaced the tickets somewhere and couldn't give them on time but I insisted dh to give it in this time as the school needs funds ( as they didn't do a fundraising fete last year). It seems there are all sizes of chocolate eggs in the baskets; large, medium and small. Dd who won the 2nd prize basket gave some to her fave neighbour and still there are heaps left. Does anyone want some? (Sorry I can't post them worldwide!) I think I'll give some to the family with the 6 girls whom I consider my extended family here. I sometimes give my kids' things to the family as so much of their stuff accummulates in the rumpus room.

Family Bike Outing

So dh finally bought an MTB (multiterrain bike) for himself and a new bike with gears for dd as she has outgrown her old bike. At first dh was adamant that he would only need a stationary bike for fitness and he won't have time to ride a bike around the neighbourhood but he finally succumbed to pressure to get one as all the other family members had bikes to ride now including me! We decided to venture out to the local park yesterday to see how the older kids coped biking in a group(while toddler had to sit on a mounted child seat on his dad's bike). I plan to enter them in a 10km family bike ride during the bike week if they were okay. I guess they did not too bad for a first outing. It lasted about 2hrs. (1 hr biking + 1 hr at playground for the kids.) We'll probably go for more bike trips on weekends now it is convenient that their mum and dad has one each. Anyway, when we were going out today, I noticed one of our neighbours had got all their old bikes and accessories and were fixing them up on the front porch. They never did this before! I guess our family's bike enthusiasm had caught on to these neighbours of ours!

Fun Run 1

Woohooooo! I completed a 5km fun run. I wasn't really thinking about doing one in March as am still a beginner (and I suffered shin splints ( ie horrible lower leg pains) for a couple of weeks) but what the heck, so I signed up a week ago after finding out about the International Women's Day funrun. I only jogged about 2/3km a couple of times a week for the past weeks and only managed a 5km jog 2 days before the event and the good thing is I finished the funrun 5-6 minutes than my 5km training time! How good is that! There were also hills and bridges to climb in the course when I was really hoping that it was a flat, flat course. The contor of my neighbourhood is a bit undulating (perhaps easier than the old neighbourhood I lived in which was super hilly). Now perhaps I need to fine tune my jog for the next fun run probably in April/May.

Geckobusters!

My kids on their quest to keep something (ie anything that breathes) as pets sometimes like to hunt down and catch house geckoes (or cicak in Malay). Yesterday, a gecko on the sliding door startled me. When I proclaimed it to ds, he totally forgot about his dinner and called dd to help him catch the gecko. They have become pros in catching the geckos and have handled and kept 3 or 4 big & small geckoes before dh and I asked them to let the poor things go eventually. I don't really fancy touching these creatures (ewww!) but my kids have no qualms about it. I think this was since they found a blue tongue lizard in the garage last month and had captured it with their dad and placed it in a plastic box before releasing it back in the backyard (It was as huge as a small monitor lizard but harmless and a slow moving creature obviously.) Thank goodness they decided not to keep that lizard as a pet!

Fitness

I haven't been able to update as frequently as I would like. That's because I'm currently doing more sports and this is taking over the time that I blog. Sometimes, I go to the gym or walk-jog early in the morning ie before dh goes to work. (I tried going to the gym with toddler but he didn't settle well in the creche). Dh is planning to get a treadmill soon inshA. (He already bought a stationary bike for himself.) I think he doesn't really like the idea of making breakfast and preparing lunchboxes for kids and getting them ready in the morning. When I came back this morning , he didn't cook french toast as I requested but just dumped plain sliced bread on the table for them with baked beans. (However, the kids do get ready much quicker for school on days that I go to gym !)
I'm trying to be a lil more proactive so I can improve my overall fitness and also lose all the residual pregnancy weight that hasn't banished from my system yet. I had put on > 20 kg when I was pregnant with my sons. (I had 3 of them.) Although I lose 20kgs , there are some still stuck some where. It is fun to do sports here. I think I'm getting addicted to running, in my case slow jog and am still lousy at it. There are lots of parks and bushland to walk, run or bike. I think I'm going back to my outdoorish self which I got partly due to my dad. (My mum claims she was a sport woman and runner at school but I've never seen her do any sports in my life time! Sorry mum. Well I saw her wearing sports attire once probably for a social badminton game.) My dad , the jack of all trades, is actually very outdoorish. He likes camping and hunting in the jungle and he also used to scuba dive and go abseiling. He brought us along sometimes. In fact, dh got the rockclimbing bug while practicing abseiling near batu caves a few years ago.


Note:Ladies, for those of you who plan to go to umrah or hajj this year (or travelling anywhere else), and if you're not already doing some program, try walking etc a couple of times a week as you have to be fit for the walk from Safa and Marwa hills 7 times totals more than 2km plus tawaf and maybe you're walking 3-5km each time you perform umrah. Interesting that islamic rituals like solah, tawaf and saei etc demands some physical and spiritual interaction.

100th post! (book giveaway)

So okay you guessed it , it is my 100th post on this blog and I thought I'll do a book (or two) give away (so I can have more space on my book shelf). Just register your interest in the comment box by the end of Feb for a chance to receive a copy of an unread book, "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy ( A story about a family set in India which won the booker prize) or "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (a wordy almost long winded yet beautiful transliteration of a Spanish bestseller set in a creepy mysterious setting). I can post worldwide. Regular commenters and blurkers welcomed!

Horizontal Acceleration

[I haven't updated dd's gifted blog much. I'll just copy and paste this later. ]
I've decided to go with horizontal acceleration instead of vertical acceleration for dd like her class teacher suggested to dh last year. That means I'm in view of developing other aspects (beside literacy and numeracy) namely the sports , social and the arts. She excelled in the literacy and numeracy test last year, her results being over and above average than the state level and in the majority of her numeracy subjects, her marks was high off the charts! (I can't figure out what that means?) I don't want to concentrate too much on academic stuff as if/when we go back to KL, it will be all about marks in school as it is highly exam oriented there. (I mean how many exams a year do kids have to do there?) Me being the antithesis of all this, I'm of the opinion that young childrens should enjoy their school years instead of stressing too much about exams. So no extra tuition for her this year even in Maths or English. She'll just do what interest her. That's a lot of stuff that she likes and she can excel in them fairly quickly eg the arts, music, science, foreign language. Dd and her bro sometimes attend the fun activities/workshop organised by the Gifted and Talented Children Assoc too and I think I have more than enough things going on a daily basis.

Heaviest Downpour

We had by far the heaviest downpour yesterday. Cats and dogs I tell ya. It started when we were arriving for my kids swimming lessons at the sports centre and we had to walk a fair bit as it poured. Toddler was all soaking wet even though he wore his bro's big school legionaire hat. We left straight after the class. Good thing we didn't wait as it was flooding in the car park and the water almost reached the car's exhaust!
I think it poured for nearly 3 hours. When it stopped , heard a ding dong bell. Neighbour was concerned a lot of water coming in his backyard. Wondering where it was from? (How about looking up in the sky?) His family's house was sort of down the hill/road so water was gushing down (It's call gravity.) He was concerned that our pool was full to the brim and maybe this might be perilous for his home/backyard.(Believe me the water will trickle in my house first before it does go into his. And I was hoping to do a few cannon balls with kids). I told neighbour that (workaholic) hubby wasn't home yet and I was waiting for dh to do something about it. (Not a good idea if our houses were on the verge of flooding.) I offered to sweep the water puddling in my backyard into the drain a bit, if it helps. He offered to jump over my gate/fence to help open the pool's valve so the water level recedes a bit. Cute. Go on! Jump over the fence! Break a leg!
..............................
Oh, for heaven's sakes! Use the gate. It's not locked!

Lazy week /rainy weather

I had a lazy week last week. I didn't do any sports. The kids also just started schooliing again and was a bit busy. However, I managed a walk-jog on Saturday as I noticed my post-kids flabby tummy bulging more than usual. (*sigh* I wish I had those really post-kids flat tummy genes sometimes). I wanted to do a walk-jog on Sunday morning too but it rained heavily.(Very unusual rain for Oz btw, maybe the effects of Lanina?). By the time the rain stopped, workaholic dh had to dash to work so I had to be content with swimming in the backyard pool. Today I couldn't get to gym either as dh's took my car to work as his need some repairs. He owes me big time!How about he get me a bike so I can ride it to the park/gym?Plus it is more environmentally friendly you know. (Yes, I so want a bike at the moment, teehee. Does anyone know what model of a mountain bike is good for a full figure not very athletic kinda woman?)

End of School hols soon (YaY)

YaY, the kids had their last swimming bootcamp lesson today and they are going back to school next week. Phew!! I am so glad the school hols is almost over. My friend whom we met yesterday and went to park near the river together, was also glad that school is starting soon. (She has 6 kids, mind you). There is absolutely no way I could go to the mall to do grocery shopping and take a leisurely tea break with 3 kids all of whom have vested interest in going to any toy shops and book shops they see.
Anyway, I am very pleased with dd and ds swimming skills as they have improved immensely and their competency level has gone up. I spent more than $300 for 3 weeks for 2 children so I think it was well worth it. Dd is now learning how to do the butterfly stroke and I think she was quite good at it for a beginner. (Hey, I 'm still struggling with this stroke myself.) Ds also has improved and can do freestyle/front crawl and backstroke well. Being nimble, he is also very good at somersaulting and diving in the water too which wasn't even part of his lessons. Maybe I should sign him up in synchronise swimming squad at the aquatic centre if they will have him!!!
Today there was a pirate pantomine at the library so I promised to take the children there. Sadly ds didn't have enough stamps to qualify for a reward in the summer reading program yet so this was a quick way to get a stamp. They had to dress up like a pirate somewhat. Dd brought along her bandana and a plastic sword along. When we arrived at the library , the pantomine had already started and I noticed dd holding an unidentified brown object in her hand. It turned out she was holding her dad's underwear which I have no idea how and where she planned to use it as part of her pirate costume. I confiscated it right away. So there you are , she was holding it from the carpark all the way to the library and I didn't even realise it as I was busy calling out to ds on his scooter and toddler. I hope nobody else realised it either!

Gym & Sing

I'm happy to say that I am no longer saving up for a liposuction as my swimming and walk/jog routine has toned my body like never before. All I have to do now is to keep this up a couple of times a week. However, the only downside to swimming is that my skin has turned a beautiful dark tan like never before. (beautiful ie if you are a proponent that a dark tanned skin is desirable, an unlikely thought if you are M'sian/Asian woman.)
I opted for a gym session yesterday. Gym isn't really my thing honestly as I get kinda dizzy using the treadmill but I managed it for half an hour( I only read the notice that we're only supposed to use it for 20 mins during peak hours afterwards) and a bit of cycling. I think I need to do some upper body exercise too so probably I'll do rowing next time. There were many guys doing weights and stuff in the other room. I tried one for a few seconds which I saw a woman do, where you sit and pull the weights down to your shoulder or something. (I'm clueless about weights. Where is the gym instructor when you need one? )
On another matter, when I picked up my kids at the sports centre's creche, the childmilder exclaimed to me that "your children have such good singing voices!" and she hoped they will be back to entertain the creche again! It turned out they were singing songs from High School Musical 2 which they have watched countless times now. (Countless as I've given up counting how many times I heard the songs from the DVD since last week.) So okayyy, so they are hyperactive talkative kids and they make me a little embarrassed sometimes in public, but admittedly, they do sing quite well!

Ready Set Go!

As I was lying on my back floating on a lap one fine day( they should invent waterproof magazines for this sport), I noticed a girl on the next lane pass me by with her backstrokes. Now, I 'd let all the free stylers and the people with snorkel fins and floaties pass me on my laps and I wouldn't give a hoot. But a backstroker?!! Backstroke was my best stroke when I was a kid and I was at par if not better than the best swimmer at school (who was also extremely envious at me for my dedication in class work that she did some naughty things to me but I digress). Anyway, I couldn't let this backstroker pass me without a bit of friendly competition so I began doing backstrokes to see if I could beat her to the end of the lap. She was probably about 5m ahead of me when I started but I increased my speed and I managed to swim up to her side. So guess who reached the end of the lap first?
*Big grin*

Pool Obsession

I'm obsessed with the Olympic size 50m heated pool at the local sports centre. It is perfect for swimming for rainy, hot or cold weather! (Well, I haven't tried it in winter yet).
My personal best in KL was probably doing 25m x 25 laps. However, last week I managed 50m x 20 laps twice (after the first session, my body ached soo bad) and yesterday I pushed my ability a bit more and tried swimming for perhaps a mile (1.6km). I wanted to do more up to 2km but due to technical problems I had to stop (In other words -I had to answer nature's call). Of course, I did them mainly in breast strokes and back strokes as I am working on my new free style technique. Hopefully when the new DVD/books I ordered arrives, I can do the drills (somewhat). Then... only then, I might be able to do more laps in free style without being out of breath, and I don't have to give way to those power swimmers passing me on my laps too often on early morning laps.
My obsession with swimming pools led me to the city's aquatic centre to check out all the pools there. They have a diving pool 5m deep, 25m , 50m and wading pools under a climate control environment. While my kids and I were there, we had a glimpse of the aussie national team practicing their synchronise swimming routine. Hmmm.. interesting. Ohh.. I also checked out sally's blog on swimming pools she's been to. It is soo good to know that I'm not the only person going googoo gaagaa over pools teehee... Now, did I mention the local Olympic size pool is heeated?

At the pool side

Bubbly dad of 2: Doesn't he (toddler) want to go in the pool?
Trying to be bubbly mum of 3: He's not feeling it.
Bubbly dad: (Big ??? on face).
Trying very hard to explain mum of 3: He's not feeeling it.
Bubbly dad: (Big blank face).
Snappy mum of 3: Hedoesntwanttogointhepool.
Bubbly dad: Ooohhh.

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Dd: There are a whole group of grandmas and grandpas over there ! (pointing at deep aqua aerobics class).

Ds: Oh yeah.

Ds: There is a whole meeting of grandmas ! (looking at a group of ladies at the canteen where we are sitting next to AND within hearing distance).

Me: Don't say that! (Embarrassed as usual being a mom of loud mouth kids!)

( Those ladies are young at heart. They are totally fit and can beat me at free style anytime coz my freestyle totally sucks at the moment).

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Dd : Why is he wearing underwear? (pointing at man wearing speedo).

Me: Don't point at people. ( avoiding dd's question).

Dd: Why?

Me: Some people don't like it.

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Me: Ssshhhhh! (before entering changing room with dd).

Dd :(gawking at a bare woman's posterior).

Me: Sssshhh!

Dd :(still gawking quietly).

NZ Geysers (video footage)

Postcards from NZ

Palm Beach, Waiheke Island

Auckland City (taken from ferry to Waiheke Island)

Pohutu and Prince of Wales Geysers

Simmering Mud Pools

Champagne Pool, Wai-tapu Thermal Wonderland/Area

Champagne Pool

Artist's Palette

Devil's Bath

(Special Thanks to dear hubby for taking the marvellous pics)

Back from NZ

My family and I just came back from NZ . It was awesome! My kids loved it. (They were extremely talkative the whole vacation). On the first day, we stayed at Auckland CBD and it was quite depressing there, with glooming, dark and boring looking buildings. However, the next day we managed to venture out to the harbour and caught a ferry to a beautiful island named Waiheke and met a friendly local bus driver who gave us a wonderful private tour of the island's beautiful coastline. It was a public bus btw but we were the only people on the bus at the time. Then, we went to Rotorua to see mudpools, geysers and boiling, steaming rivers and pools.
NZ is a terribly scenic country subhanallah, with rolling hills, cattles and sheep roaming around and green pine forests on top. Dh kept asking me to take moving photos of the scenery while he drove. (He might as well have the digicam continuously on 24 hrs). And there were so many European tourists in Rotorua, I could swear I was in Europe. We plan to go to NZ again sometime to explore more of the country, godwilling ( coz one week isn't enough). Meanwhile, please excuse me while I take to a more important and *glamorous* task of doing the laundry for the one week of soiled clothes...

Ds Gets It

I've always made a point to explain to dd and ds the meaning of Allah and muslim so they won't be confused of their muslim identity. Unlike me when I was a kid, I had little clue what a muslim entails except learning arabic letters and tajwid at M'sian Hall on Sundays. Everytime I went to the brownies weekly meeting with my sister, the head teacher would ask each brownies attendee, one by one, if we went to church with the group last Sunday and if we hadn't, then why not? I had to answer that we're muslim as this was what my mum told me to say. It was quite frightening for me to defend myself (and sis) and answer like this at the time and I wonder why the teacher didn't get what I was saying and why she had to ask the same question the following week.
Whereas Dd has quite a good understanding of her religion and could explain some islamic terms etc, I wasn't expecting my playful dear son(ds) to understand much. However, last week he was watching a cartoon on TV by himself called "Joseph and the multicolor coat" and there was one scene when one prisoner asked Joseph what did he believed in, and Joseph said "I believe in the one true God."Ds quietly said "One True God!" and a lightbulb hit him and he exclaimed to me "Mama, Joseph believed in Allah. Joseph is a muslim!" OMG! Ds gets it!

Swimming & Pools

I've started to send dd and ds to their swimming classes this week. Hopefully I could continue with the weekly program next year. It is quite hard to get a place in the swimming class for ds. Places are quite limited or they go quickly especially during summer. Last year I wanted to enrol him into a learn-to-swim class but there wasn't any places available on a Saturday at the previous sports centre. Dd got a place though but she had already acquired basic swimming skills beforehand in KL with her cousin prior to coming to Oz ( It was paid for by my dad as a birthday gift to them both). Ds didn't get to go to the one in KL either as he was 3 and half yo and the centre only allowed children if they are over 5 yo. Surprisingly in Oz (well, not a surprise really, Oz being quite a sporty and outdoorish nation), there is not much of a age limit anywhere and you can go to the class as early with your say > 3 months old baby.
I am quite impressed to see ds' swimming skills. He seems to be quite advanced than I originally thought. He can swim like a fish underwater only coming up to gasp some air every 2 or 3 seconds. However, I would like him to learn the correct stroke techniques just to be on the safe side. We have a pool in our backyard and before we secured a padlock on the child lock gate, ds was always finding ways to open it. (He could open the gate very easily if he stood on a chair) . I take water safety quite seriously and I should of brought the life buoy to Oz which my dad had originally given me when I was living in a condominium with pools in the complex.
Actually, my mum is more safety conscious than I, or shall I say water phobic? Once, she came over to my lil flat with my sister and nephews and we all went down for a dip in the pool. She was so water phobic that she insisted that all my nephews wear life jackets. So I let them wear my kids' life jacket just to please her. So there we were at the kids' wading pool which was only 2 feet deep, 4 kids under the watchful eyes of my mum (the matriarch), my sister and I , and 3 Indonesian maids!
I can't really blame my mum for being water phobic. We used to live in a house with a pool when we were little, and I think she remembered my dad too often diving in the pool to fish out my siblings (mainly my younger sister) out from the pool to save us from drowning. After which I guess it proved too much for my parents that we subsequently moved to a house without a pool (though this subsequent house did have a pond with tadpoles in it).

Summer kids' activities

The kid's school term will end this week and I have some things up my sleeve to keep them occupied. Next week I'm sending them to a swimming bootcamp. Then we'll go to the library next door. The library has a superb summer reading program for kids and dd already has half the stamps in her passport to qualify for a reward. I think it might take longer for her brother to collect the stamps. I hope he doesn't get too bored this hol. He might want to go swimming or to the playground everyday or even to the icecream parlour/toy shop. Boy, it is going to be a looong hot summer. Any suggestions?

Alfresco dining with a twist..

I 've nothing to blog about this week except dd and ds award ceremony (dd received high achiever award again and certificate for cultural excellence, and ds, a certificate of excellence in (school) citizenship). Only something out of the ordinary happen today. I've abandoned looking for fresh wholesome fish to bake in the oven in favour of alfresco dining at the local mall. I would normally sit outside the cafe but today was scorching hot so I opted to eat in the air-conditioned interior. I ordered fish of the day and some garlic chilli prawns for toddler and I , and while waiting for our order to arrive, started looking outside the cafe (as in people watching) . There was a woman who was walking quite normally in the sun when suddenly she looked dizzily up to the sky and half of her face trembled like she was having a stroke. She then collapsed backwards to the ground. I immediately stood up , about to go to aid the woman but realizing I had toddler to take care of, I only did the second best thing, and alerted diners of the situation. I also went to the counter to ask them to call the ambulance. The waitresses were chatting away not realizing what had happened but one waiter /manager immediately called the mall's security personnel after being informed. Some other lady diners outside had already rushed to help the woman and put some towels from a restaurant for her to lie her head on. The cafe manager then immediately carried a big cafe umbrella to shade the woman from the blazing sun. The mall security and first aid personnel also came over to handle the situation. I later quizzed one of the diners to find out her progress and he said she was going to be fine and it wasn't life threatening. She was probably dizzy, dehydrated and had a fit from walking in the scorching heat. I was quite relieved that she didn't suffer a stroke as I initially thought. At the end of the ordeal , an ambulance came and the woman was seen sitting up for a bit before being whisked away to the hospital.

Dd's small garden

Dd had asked me to buy some seeds for her to plant and she is now planting some tomatoes, sunflowers etc in little plastic containers. I've yet to figure where she could transfer them when the plants grows bigger but probably her dad would have some idea as he is in charge of the backyard/garden. Some people are natural green fingers like my FIL who has all kinds of fruit and herbs in his garden patches. My mum also likes to garden for its therapeutic qualities. Hers consist mainly of bougainvilleas and other flowers which I don't know their names, and in recent years, orchids. (I gave her orchids in a pot once or twice for her birthday instead of a bouquet of roses and she was hooked).
I'm afraid that I'm not a green finger at all. Once a Spanish friend gave me a flower in a pot during my varsity days and I left it on the window sill of the kitchen and it got eaten by tiny green bugs! She, on the hand, was great with plants. I gave her a fern plant in return and when I visited her at her home , it had flourished amazingly!
Dd's seeds have now grown into little buds. It is amazing to watch them grow. If her projects goes well, I'll ask her to plant some herbs for me in a flower pot so I could use them when I'm cooking.

Cooking away...

[You can see I'm in cooking mode by looking at how many entries I have bout cooking. ]
Mum called earlier this week and she proclaimed happily that my sister had given a glowing report on me, a good cook, doing housework nonstop and looking after the kids. She said I cooked a delicious roast chicken for her. I guess that did the trick. I wonder if my mum will be pleased if I made some cakes, muffins and brownies during sis's stay.
I tried some recipes from Delia's How to Cook Book two and three earlier this week. I tried fast-roast chicken with tarragon and lemons recipe. It was good but didn't turn out as I expected mainly coz dh had decided that day that he will get a fresh chicken weighing 3kg instead of the usual 1kg plus size and I don't think chickens > 2kg are suitable for fast roasting. I also tried her stir fried chicken in lime and coconut but this recipe is a bit too simple for an Asian dish and left much to be desired. Lastly, I tried the old fashion beef stew which required baking in oven for 4 and half hours. It was a bit salty, probably added too much salt but my sons actually love it and probably might do it again minus the salt.
Now my mind is set on cooking fish and hoping I could find some fresh fish at the supermarket. (They actually had a few flounders which I bought during my sister's stay. My sis cooked it immediately that day. She had earlier asked us whether we eat fish/I cook fish here in Oz). For cooking fish , I love Rick Stein's seafood odyssey DVD and book. Apparently , the programme was made earlier this millenium but travel and discovery channel didn't show it in KL. I'd like to bake a whole fish perhaps instead of fish fillet but have no clue where the fish market is here.

In the name of science

Dd had obtained a recipe sheet for igneous rock lollies from her science teacher so she could do it at home with me. I had to buy one of the ingredients so when I was ready one fine morning, I mixed them in a pot to dissolve them and boil. Dd disappeared to her room to watch her fave TV program so I was left to carry on the science experiment on my own. When the mixture was ready , I had to add a bit of baking powder to half of the mix, then pour onto the baking tray. Dd had finished watching Pokemon by now and had come back to the kitchen to resume the science experiment with me. The lolly mixtures supposedly had similarities with real life volcanic lava and pumice... (Gosh, I wished my science classes at my old secondary school were as interesting as dd's).
This morning I thought I'll try some crispy waffles instead. I had bought an electric beater and waffle maker so am experimenting with some recipes all in the name of science (home science that is).. Plus this is the only way to get dd to eat some decent food too.

Roast Chicken

I didn't get to bake any cakes when my sis was staying over. She was in shopping mode and I had to drive her almost everyday to the mall so she could get something on her shopping list. On the weekends , we drove her to the tourist attractions and theme parks, what have you.
I only managed to cook a special roast chicken on the night of her departure. She was commenting on the day that she had gone to SIL mother's house for our niece's b'day party and SIL had made a tasty roast chicken by smothering lee kum kee oyster sauce all over the bird. I had to frown and say "Hey, that's not roast chicken , that's asian chicken". I asked sis if she made roast chicken before and she said she always marinated chicken with all kind of sauces for her bbqs but nope, technically no roast chicken in the very sense of the word. (Incidentally she almost finished my previously unopened and unused lee kum kee oyster sauce during her stay). By golly, we had borrowed cooking books by Delia Smith from the local library, the author of whom, sis claims she had learnt the correct cooking techniques from (ie via Delia's cooking shows when sis was just newly wed and living in London in the late 90's) .
So I volunteered to show her how to cook the real mccoy/original roast chicken to her. It just needs some olive oil , garlic and some herbs and wallah! Roast chicken. (No sauces necessary!). Sis made some crunchy roast potatoes and I added some spinach on the side.
To my pleasant surprise (lol), sis said the roast chicken was the highlight of her stay, apparently beating her photo session with the dashing Robin at Movie World. (Batman gave her a piercing cold look as batmans do). She probably forgotten that we had had lunch with a friend who had cooked an insanely tantalising and heavenly sumptuous Afghan spread for us with pilao rice (divine!) , Afghani bread stuffed with spinach (double divine!), kebab burgers and lamb stew(triple!), a week prior. And what about the talk by Michael Palin, hmm.. I had a lil cold then, otherwise I would have leaped up and queued for his autograph during Q&A sessions like some people did, after which, there was no point in queuing later as it was so dang looong. (*sob*).

I'm off

I'm going to be laying off blogging the next couple of weeks as my sis is coming to stay and I probably won't have the time (or privacy) to blog.
Mental note: HAVE TO MAKE EFFORT TO TIDY HOUSE. Even mop as usual contractor (aka dh) is far too busy at the moment to mop despite frequent reminder. (He says I'm no good at mopping). But yes, I had just mopped the kitchen with a steam mop.
Mum is probably gonna ask my sister casually at some point if I have maintained the house well and kept it tidy. (Mum actually prefers housekeeping to cooking. I'm the opposite).
Oh yes, absolutely no baking of muffins/cakes or anything that has any sugar content either. (Mum absolutely abhors anything with a sugar content even the innocent honey). Well, maybe I'll bake once or twice to show sis what a pro I am at baking now!

Kitchen Gadgets

Dh was outstation for most of this week so I was cooking western to appease my kids appetite. I cooked black pepper steaks and lamb chop with mint sauce . It didn't really turn out as I had hoped. The recipe said fry the steak a few minutes on each side for rare , add a few more minutes for medium and more for well done. It didn't happen like that. I was cooking on my really old tefal pan and I was wondering was it time to buy new pans? My mint sauce didn't happen either as my made in china knife was soo blunt . So I went to the mall to get the knife that you can rock from left to right , right to left to slice up fresh herbs (what's it call? I saw Nigella use it once). I found one in a shop that specialise in kitchenware. It was originally $19.95 but reduced to $11.95. I used the herb slicer yesterday to slice fresh dill and oregano for scallops with dill butter sauce and spaghetti marinara. My kids loved the seafood , I would have to do this more often.
I was also looking out for some new pans. I scouted Myers dept store for Tefal pans but could not find any. Even though they had 30% off kitchen utensils, the branded pans were insanely priced from $119-$199 per item. I didn't know the price of cookware could be so dear!
I was scouting again one day and suddenly by chance I found a Breville cast iron cookware that had red price tags on them. One griddle pan had be reduced from $139 to $83. The color was being discontinued. It was my fave color ie light blue so I thought I would get it. They gave an additional 30% so I only paid $58 which was a bargain I thought for cast iron cookware. So now how and what do I use the pan for?

Zany dd

Me: Who wants noodles for dinner?
Dd: I do.
Older son: I do.
Dd to her brother: We love noodles so much we want to marry it.

10 things about toddler

My baby son has turned two so I can't call him my baby anymore. *sob*
Here are some interesting facts about him.

1. He weighed slightly more than 4.5kg , just an ounce less than 10 lbs at birth.
2. He still needs to breast feed , well at least before he goes for naps.
3. He likes to eat cooked prawns or whatever food is in his siblings' hands.
4. In the morning, whenever everyone is getting ready for work /school , he volunteers to take off his PJs and showers with his siblings.
5. Whenever he sees his dad clutching car keys, he hurries to find his shoes to wear and follow dad (coz mama is so boring doing housework all day). Twice, he had his shoes on and was ready to go, only thing is he was stark naked.
6. He likes cats and almost bashed a black cat blue in kl.
7. He likes to play feline with his brother. Older brother being the cat and he stroking his pretend cat's head.
8. He likes toy cars.
9. He really likes toy cars.
10. He really, really likes toy cars.

Eid Mishaps

I thought I'll blog about some mishaps on Eid for a change.

1. The queue at the women's section for the rice and curry after Eid prayers... what can I say... we queued unsystematically left , right and centre. The plates was placed on the left. We queued on the right. queue on the right.. no plates... people not queuing grabbing plates and cutting the queue. And one poor lil girl got poured with curry on her head! At that point, I left the queue and relied on dh's ability to get us a plate at the men's queue. Incidentally, there was an eid celebration at my kid's school today and I was amazed that the kids can queue in a straight line to get the sweets, cakes and stuff (as compared to us adults).
2. Went to the chemist to get some stuff. A thin young African security guard looked like he was sort of following me. It was probably my fault as I have this bad habit of spending too much time reading the ingredients on the label of the skincare products to see if it is compatible with my sensitive skin, so they probably thought I am a suspect to shoplift. (Actually, I gather, it is okay to touch and read stuff in Oz or KL, but people expect you to grab and go pay in UK). I told dh about the security guard later and he said that the guy might have thought I'm from some African tribe . It was Eid and I had just a tad too many shiny beads on my pashmina and clothes...
3. Asked dh to take some eid photos of me near the swimming pool before I changed into my mundane clothes. Dear 5yo son had just changed into a new spiderman shirt and pants that I bought him for eid when he was walking and... while he was looking at me in my black jilbab with toddler son doing our photo shoot, he tripped and he fell in the pool in his best clothes.......

Eid Gathering

I cooked for a lil Eid gathering on Sunday. Dh's M'sian friends and their family wanted to come over for the obligatory ziarah/visiting. So lazy me had to cook some food for them. It was all a last minute affair. Dh had to go out in the morning as I've decided to make barbecue seafood as we could not get any meat from the muslim butchers as they weren't open on Eid weekend. Dh took the whole morning getting the stuff so when he came back , we had only a couple of hours to stick the seafood on the skewers . Initially , I wanted to marinade the prawns but dh bought cooked prawns instead of uncooked , as per my instruction. So I made a last ditch attempt dill sauce (which didn't have any dill in it) and a sweet chilli sauce to go with the bbq . I also made some prawn salad and salad nicoise to accompany it. Plus there was some beef rendang which I made a day earlier (it took 4 hours to make) and ketupat nasi and lemang courtesy of Nona/flora food co.
The guests came at the alloted time and were ready to eat while we were still figuring out where to put the electric bbq thingy. They soon ate to their hearts content and were really bowled over with the bbq seafood and beef rendang. One lady guest actually came over to me when I was busy in the kitchen to extract the dill sauce recipe from me. She took me by surprise and I only repeated the general ingredients of the sauce that I could retrieve from my memory. There was about 90% butter in the sauce so I think it is more appropriate to call it butter sauce and I used coriander leaves instead of dill.
My friends ie the postgrad and her single housemates also came by later and they also liked the spread (or what was left of it). They also wanted the recipe for the dill /butter sauce which I gave willingly from a cookbook, and the beef rendang recipe. I can't really remember recipe for the latter as it sort of evaporated like the coconut milk (which is one of the main ingredient required), just as soon as I finished cooking it. Each year I have to phone my mum to jog my memory a bit of the specialised Eid cuisine and some of the ingredients are not easily obtainable like fresh galangal and tumeric leaves so I have to improvise the recipe according to what is available.
All in all, the gathering was sort of a success . Dh was very pleased that his friends went back home contented. I'm sorry I can't cook for his friends more often though. I'm naturally born lazy lol.

The Art of Baking

These past weeks , I've been attempting to bake cakes. I have this recipe book I bought from Angus and Robertson bookstore called "Cooking, A Commonsense Guide" which is quite good for newbies at baking like me. Baking cakes isn't really my family's tradition. I never can recall my mum baking a cake for us! So naturally, I never felt the urge for baking. We were very much a savoury sort of family anyhow, so the main course was more important for us. Fresh fruits like slices of mangoes and oranges would do fine for dessert. To my mum's credit though, she is a great cook when she cooks for us and dh thinks she is the best cook in the world.
Mum used to make the most outstanding traditional Malay kuih (sweet cakes/desserts/snacks) like kuih talam, seri muka, apam, lompang, currypuff (the pusing/circle type), rosles & kuih cara etc when we were little in London. I 've never tasted anyone's who could make kuih as good as hers from any traders, except from La Cucur where you have to pay a premium price. Unfortunately , mum didn't make much kuih when we came back to KL. I don't think she likes cooking desserts much. She later told us that she had to make the kuih in London for the M'sian VVIP /head of state's and their entourage who came to visit London (probably more so for the LIP( lesser important people) in the entourage).
I digress. Coming back to my baking attempts, I felt compelled to bake something for dd. She sometimes bake cookies etc at her school and she would often inquire or ask me if I could bake her something. I started out baking muffins for her as they were the easiest to make whereas most cookies and cakes I assume would require electric mixers. Yes, I don't own a electric mixer as yet!
Last week , I thought it was high time I tried to bake a chocolate cake. There was a recipe for a chocolate mud cake in the book and it didn't require an electric beater. I had all the ingredients in the pantry so I mixed them up accordingly and pop the cake mix in the oven. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out well. It was on the dry side coz the oven temperature was too high. I had earlier baked a tea cake and 12 mini pizzas at 220 degrees, hence, the oven did not cool down to the required 160 degrees. (So I guess I better made sure I do not bake any pizzas in the oven beforehand next time hmm).
My second attempt yesterday was okay and actually looked and taste fine despite that I put extra chocolate in the mix as half the bar had melt in the midday heat so I could not estimate properly, lol. I am feeling confident that perhaps I could maybe bake a cake for my MIL family when we are back in KL. ( Just perhaps)
My in law's family are totally the opposite of mine. Whereas mum would order tasty kuih raya (eid cookies) from a relative or someone else, MIL and her four daughters used to put in a lot of effort baking for eid celebration and make heaps of cookies and fry heaps of kerepek, (traditional malay flour based crisps equivalent to junk food ) weeks prior. My SILs often attempt to bake different type of cakes which sometimes turn out great or not so great depending on the season, lol. Not only do they make cookies and all, they actually enjoy finishing them off as I noticed that there wasn't any left when I visited them 1 and 2 weeks after Eid, whereas at my mum's place would still have plenty of leftover cookies that could be carried forward to Eid ul Adha.
My friend's used to send me Eid cards and the usual question would be "Dah buat kuih raya?" ("Have you made any Eid cookies yet?) and then the question would later evolve into "Dah beli kuih raya?" ("Have you bought any Eid cookies yet?) or to that effect. Whatever it is, bought or baked, I hope you have a Happy Eid everyone!

Langkawi Trip

[I really don't have much time to do this since kid's holidays coincide with Ramadan. I'm afraid they spend quite a lot of time in front of PC (more than me) now while I still have to churn out more food and food for their tummies.]
So I think I'll do it point form. Check out links below for more info.

• Day 1 :Arrived at Langkawi Airport. Before landing saw a mountain peak that looked like a man's face from the side view. Found out later it was Gunung Machinchang. Rented a car at airport and headed to Hotel.Check in hotel and dh and kids went straight to frolic on the beach. In the evening, ordered expensive room service food as everyone was too tired to go out. Holiday Villa
• Day 2: Had a quick breakfast at the buffet . Left dh and ds to have an extended breakfast while dd and I and toddler got ready to jump in the pool. The hotel had a ladies only indoor pool but we opted for the outside pool so that I could swim backstrokes while looking at the clouds above which was awesome. Then we got ready to go out. Specifically , to visit Underwater World. The first part of the exhibit , a lush tropical jungle room was the only thing I liked there. The seals in their tanks looked bored and sad. One was spinning continuously in the water. I exited while dh brought 2 older kids to the 2D show. Toddler and I waited at the cafe at the exit for them but they took ages and toddler accidently fell asleep on the table after his meal. I didn't eat anything there. It was oily and unappetising. I was surprise it was managed by the same restaurant famous for great seafood and steaks.
• Went back to Hotel to freshen up and had a quick lunch at a surprisingly tasty place called Restoran Haji Ramli. Barbecue fish and cockle salads were great. It would be added bonus if the staff could smile a little for their customer even though it was a hot and humid day.
• Went on a cable car ride at Gunung Machinchang. The view was awesome. Dh discovered that the mountain was the 3rd mountain created 500 million years on earth after the tectonic plates shift. I'm afraid I can't elaborate more as I left my book detailing the thingy in KL. (Dh inquired about this from a vendor selling drinks at the top of the mountain). The mountain is now a UNESCO heritage site since June 2007. Perhaps they could have written it down on a poster and stuck it somewhere for visitors to read. Langkawi Geo Park
• Went back to the Hotel after take away KFC for dinner . Dh commented that the KFC restaurant had the best harbour view in the world.
• Dh and kids went swimming at the hotel.
• Day 3: Went on a wild goose chase looking for batik sarong for MIL. Finally, found a place where they print exclusive batiks at 4 times the price of batik indon. Bought some in case can't find any cheap ones for MIL.
• Went to Mahsuri 's grave/tomb site or commercially known as Kota Mahsuri. Dh wanted to teach some history lessons to our kids. Learning the sad story of Mahsuri from their dad , our kids were a bit scared to go as they were afraid that the villain in the story, an evil prince would still be there. Learnt from the old lady who is the maintenance worker/keeper of the toilets, that Mahsuri's grave was moved from it's original grave site to the current so that they could develop the site further into a little complex. (The pretty Mahsuri house wasn't really her original house too).
• Went to Pekan Kuah for lunch and bought the elusive batik sarong for MIL.
• Headed to Sungai Kilim for the highlight of the vacation. A boat trip on the river to see Gua Kelewar (Bat Cave), Gua Buaya (Crocodile Cavern) , Floating Seafood Restaurant and fishfarm and also, possibly see eagles feeding on the river.
• Had dinner with our boatman cum tourist guide at the floating restaurant. Nice guy and the lad was quite well informed of his stuff. Hole in the wall Restaurant
• I would advise people if they were to take a boat ride on the river to wear the life jackets even it is not compulsory. Our boat hit a jutting stone cliff as our boatman was sms-ing somebody at the crucial time. Dh had to tell him at the last seconds before it hit. He stopped the engine so the impact was lesser than it could have been. Otherwise , it would have made greater damage to the boat .
• Dear son was afraid to go into the Bat Cave initially,however he braved it in the end. There were many bats inside and they were all sleeping fortunately.
• In the Crocodile Cave, the boatman was really enthusiastic telling dh that one of the stones looked like a crocodile ,that everyone was leaning on the port side of the boat. I had to tell them that the boat was almost tipping before they realised it.
• We watched Brahminy eagles/kites feeding on chicken skin floating in the water. All in all , it was an awesome spectacle. There were 40 or more of them . The boatman said if we went in the morning , there were more eagles around, possibly in 100s.
• Day 4: Caught our flight back to KL. It was delayed for more than an hour as torrential rain fell. Dh managed to capture images of Ajaz Ahmed, one of the tallest men in the world as he arrived at Langkawi airport.
• Arrived back in KL.

More info on Langkawi places of attraction , go to Langkawi Geo Park

Recondition

I just came back from KL and am reconditioning myself back to living as a nucleus family in Oz. I hardly did any cooking in KL. Someone else did it at my mum's or we can go out and get some cheap and delicious food. Now I have to cook for the family again.
Did you know dd actually ate rice and chicken at her granny's house. I ask her why she ate rice in KL and not in Oz. She said that she was spoonfed by the maid. Do I have to really spoon feed her here to make her eat rice? Hmmm.. maybe I 'll try to sometime.
We went for a wonderful trip to Langkawi and enjoyed it's natural beauty. I'm glad it still retained some of its natural allure . The beach was still looking pristine since I last remember visiting it which was while I was a kid accompanying my mum to visit one of her aunts. That was waayy before the tourism boom. Now I think there are more footprints showing on the sandy shores.
I''ll write more concisely about Langkawi in my next entry and what we did there, insha Allah.

Carrots & Zikr

I dare say I can look at a carrot the same again. I had sent a bundle of my kids' clothes that no longer fit them to a friend's house , ie the Afghan family with 6 girls. The mom was peeling and slicing carrots at that time. She invited me in. I said I had to run errands at the post office and also had to make it in time to attend my son's special hat event that afternoon. However, I went in just the same after she insisted a couple of time. Besides, drinking tea without sugar and munching almonds wasn't going do much harm.
After she brought out some tea, raisins, almonds and sweets for me on a tray, she continued to peel carrots and slice them up julienne style, sometimes chewing raw carrots in her own mouth, sometimes handing them out to her youngest, a one year baby and my toddler, while her second youngest , a 2 year old toddler was sound asleep under a blanket. She said she was going to cook the carrots with some rice for her family. I think she was preparing a bag of them , about 10 or more carrots for dinner that day. I've never seen anyone peel that much carrots for an entire hour with such zest. In fact I've never seen anyone peel carrots before except myself . But I will only chop up one carrot (or two) in under a minute to cook them for my toddler who seems to be the only member in my household who likes to eat them. While this family in front of me took to carrot like fish to water. I watched her concentrating on the carrots , shifting through the sliced up carrots in the colander to see if everything is sliced up and slicing any remainder left that hasn't been, while we conversed in rudimentary English about daily matters on the floor of her living room. Her patience undertaking this kitchen chore on the sprawling Persian carpet, amazes me. I could only liken it to seeing the serenity of one making zikr with his/her tasbih/prayer beads on a sejadah, completely oblivious of his/her surroundings.

Continued..

Dd had her numeracy test yesterday and she told us her mind was thinking about the story book in her desk that the teacher said she could read after she finished her test.... Hmmm.. Hope she did okay though.
Her school and another school won for best project and presentation. Dh told me their booths were really informative and very well presented. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that they share the same science teachers who teach at both the schools. Anyway, I am pleased that they beat another school nearby with the much larger pupil population and great amenities ( including a swimming pool). Wicked huh!

Dd's Test Preparation

Dd will have a big test next week. I keep asking her to practice and do some mock tests at home which has fallen on deaf ear. She keeps reading books. Story books. My fault. I kept on buying her story books by Roald Dahl and Andy Griffith for the past weeks.
May I add that she also has a science presentation on the night of the test. The teacher says she will be fine. (I hope so).
Oh well she 's only 8. Who cares about test at that age!

In Search of Good Books

As I darted my eyes across the shelves laden with books , I came across "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho on one of them. I bought it along with some other books for dd. I haven't read a fiction for ages but gave it a go before bed, reading about 40+ pages. And the next morning , finished the 170+ pages in between making breakfast for the family. It was a breeze reading the book, quite effortless, fluid.. The words flowing easily as they were simple and manageable. The backdrop was also one of my fave places; The Sahara Desert.
I checked the library catalogue if any of Paulo Coelho books were available to borrow. Unfortunately not. So I went to the bookstores to find some more books to read. I chose "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and "The Kite Runner" both by Khaled Hosseini, "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne and "Like a Flowing River" by Paulo Coelho which I read of his thoughts and reflection. I tried reading a few pages of The Kite Runner at the same time. It was descriptive and I found it initially difficult and not as fluid to read as Coelho's books. However, Afghanistan history/culture intrigues me. I had watched the DVD of "In Search of an Afghan Girl" the previous week about the refugee girl with the haunting sea green eyes on the cover of National Geographic in 1985. (I used to collect Nat Geo magazines monthly issues since I read an article of Ibnu Battuta in 1991. I still kept some of them}.
Once more , I gave "The Kite Runner" another try and finished it in one day. Then I gave "A Thousand Splendid Suns" a try and finished it in a day today. Compelling stories. How could people endure them?....

Dd's Birthday Bash

[It has been almost a month since we moved in our new residence. I have been busy the first few weeks unpacking and tidying stuff . Dh had packed all my kitchen stuff, cutlery and crockery into bubble wrappers and then into boxes (thanks dear if you happen to read this) but for the most part I had to do the unpacking myself since it is the co FYE and his mind set is at work mode this month. We still got boxes of books and kid's stuff to unpack and organise. I'm waiting for dh to sort that out and get some extra shelves for the rumpus room downstairs. ]
I managed to organise a lil birthday bash for dd and her friends at a bowling centre last week. At first I planned for dd to go to the movie with some of her pals. I asked her the names of her pals and she came up with names that sounded that they were boys. That wasn't going to do so I thought I'd plan a bowling theme party instead with some families with kids from her school.
It has been quite a while since I organised a party at an outside venue for her since her third birthday at McD in KL. It was a relatively last minute plan but Alhamdulilah for the most part, all went relatively smooth and dd and her friends seemed that they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I'd say as smooth as a party with 15 active children can be! A party host was allocated for the kids but at some point or another, dh and I had to take care of a couple of boisterous toddlers while the mums nipped out to the shops. (I realised later they went out to get some last minute gift shopping).
The kids had to play bowling for the first hour and some of the younger kids were already feeling peckish and complained to me. I could understand their feeling as we went to a a kid's high voltage gymnastic theme birthday last year and we were wondering when it was all gonna end and when it was time to eat. I had to give them some potato crisps for them to satisfy their hungry pangs. Dh also bought extra chips and calamari to fuel them to play til finish. However, when it was time to eat the party food , I was wandering why some of the kids had not entered the room where it was held. It turned out that they were playing at the game arcade as dh had bought tokens and distributed it to them. Games certainly distracted the kids from their hunger pangs!When they all came in to eat , dh said it suddenly turned quiet as everyone was soo hungry and happily tucking into their meal. After the ice cream birthday cake came and disappeared into every one's mouth and they received the party bags dd made for them , the kids left the rooms again to finish their last token in the game arcade. They seemed very eager to accumulate tickets and win some small prizes there.

We're moving..

to another house this weekend insha Allah. Still haven't finished packing our stuff in the boxes/bags. Kids are at home for their school break so doubly busy. Probably won't be updating blog next week til dh change our acc details.

Ds can ride a bike?

I sent ds and dd to my friend's house for an hour of play last week. When I picked them up , ds said his friend (who is the same age as him) taught him to ride a bike. I didn't really think much of it as he doesn't have a bike at home and his older sister is possessive of her small bike with the training wheels. On Saturday, he was pestering his dad for a big bike without any training wheels and his dad caved in to the pressure and bought him a bike much bigger than dd's. They had to assemble it first which took a while and his dad had to go out and buy a specific tool. Then I didn't get to see him in action outside as I went upstairs. Well, today the dad and kids team were all geared up with their bikes to go to the park while I went to a local store hoping to buy some halal meat. However, it turned out that my fave store with the friendly family staff had closed down. :( So I went back to the park to see dh and the kids in action. I asked dh if ds could really ride a bike and he said yes. It was funny to see ds riding a bike which was a lil big for him. His legs were too short to push start it so we had to help push it before he could ride it. Dd on the other hand, was riding a bike which was meant for her when she was around her brother's age. I am amazed that they could do it at their age and especially ds to learn how to ride a bike from his 5yo friend who I think just got the hang of it recently (but whose siblings seem to be quite proficient bike riders as I sometime see them either walking or riding a bike to and fro school.)

Coldest Days

The days were very cold this week.. I think during mid week, the wind was so blustery .. I could hear the wind howling outside the window ..It reminded me of my years in England.. The news confirmed that it was indeed the coldest day in 18 years in Queensland. (Darwin also suffered miserably at 23 degrees, Poor Darwin).
I went out to buy some winter clothings for my kids especially my toddler who has outgrown his jacket which I bought for him a few months ago. He is growing up so fast. He is on the chubby side so I usually have to get 1 or 2 size larger than his age group.
Despite the cold mornings, dd refuses to wear her jacket and would only carry in her arms. I asked her dad to ask them to wear their sweaters. They usually obey their dad for some unbeknown reason. Yesterday, I wanted her to wear her school jacket before I drove them to school and I explained the word hypothermia to her and the implications. She relented but when I picked her up at school , the weather had turned slightly warmer again and she had stuffed it in her backpack.

All Geared Up

Dh is car shopping for me. Insha Allah, he is getting me a car so that I can send the kids to school if we move to a house a little further than where they are currently schooling. He is asking me what type of car I like??! Actually , I have no clue what car I like.. really.. As long as it's engine is fine, it can move from one place to another and the most crucial criteria .. it is easier to park than his ford falcon, I don't think I mind what type it is.... Car shopping . Dh is all geared up but this is one shopping trip I'd prefer not to go to really. (yawn).

Cooking for the fussy eater

My dear daughter is a fussy eater. She does not like to see any onion in her food. Nor does she like chilli ridden food. In short , she barely eats Asian inspired food whereas her dad likes hotter and chilli based food. Her brothers Ds looooves fried chicken wing or anything chicken related and toddler son loves prawns, carrots and cheese sticks. Sometimes I cook a myriad of dishes for dinner just to meet all their preferences. (Gone are the simple meals of yesteryears where everyone eats whatever mom cooks or else!) Sometimes I'm press for time and only cook rice, chicken and sambal dishes for dinner catered for dh and the boys. They are willing candidates to finish the food but dd barely touches her food. She will opt for bread, fruits and cereal instead.
I have to be really innovative to make her eat more. Thankfully, she eats a hearty breakfast every morning so I don't have to worry about her energy level during the day. Lately, I tried some new things . Things that she would like usually made from flour or bake or grill. I made bread and butter pudding two or three times. The pitiful first version was a cross between b&b pudding and the Malay bengkang. Surprisingly, her dad came back and tried it and actually thought I bought it from the shop. I made another one and followed a recipe somewhat. They gobbled it all up with ice cream/custard. I made cekodok ie fried banana batter/fritters. I made some mini muffins from scratch and dd and ds loved them. I also made a simple roast chicken last night (one of my specialty). Dd and the boys love roast chicken and ate it all up. Tonight I made burgers from scratch. I asked dh to get some mince meat and breadcrumbs so that I could make homemade burger patties. It turned out well and they ate it happily. Hey, I'm happy when they're happy, full and contented. Teehee.

Awfully Busy!

I 've been awfully busy these days organising kid's school stuff and househunting.
Ds 's classmate loved her visit to play with ds/dd that she begged her mum to allow her to come over for 3 consecutive schooldays. She told ds that she wanted to come over like everyday but it actually rained a couple days after that so dh picked up the kids from school. Dh has a bad flu/sore throat this week. Being a workaholic as he is, he still went to work daily but had to come back home when he lost his voice...

Sociable Ds

After school Ds is always looking out for some friends to recruit and bring home with him to play. So far , it hasn't been successful as although his friends wants to come along , their parents hasn't been informed properly and I really don't want them to be wondering where their kids are.
That is until today.. He managed to convinced one of his classmate friend to come home with us and she has permission from her mum.... I just hope the word doesn't go round thereafter as am hoping that his friends won't invade our lil townhouse and paint it red....

Cuties

I was going down the hill to pick up my older kids yesterday as a school girl who lives across the road from us came up to me on her way back home with her friends and said "I know you. You live across the street from me.You are ds and dd's mum". I said "Yes". "Ohhh, they are sooo cuuute" she added. I noticed that she has a liking to ds and dd and is always waving at dd or chatting to ds. My only concern is that she didn't notice the cutest members of the family ie the mum and the toddler. lol ... (Okay, I'm too old to be cute ).

A Jog in the Park

On Saturday, I told dh that if I wanted to jog on Sunday morning , could he make breakfast for our kids etc. He said I always say the if word and that I wanna jog but never follow through. So this Sunday was the day that I had to prove to dh I indeed mean business. I left him to look after our toddler and he cooked 2 versions of fried rice, 1 not spicy for kids and 1 spicy for us while watching his fave Mawi concert DVD. I was sure glad to get out of the house when he turned on the volume at full blast.
Kiddies decided to follow me for a jog too after their brekkie. Ds rode his scooter and dd jogged with me to the park down the road. This park was bigger than the usual park we frequent to and had heaps of things for kids to do including a skate park for ds to scooter around. It just happened that some of their schoolmates had made and decorated blocks of concrete with lovely fish patterns and these pillars were positioned at the park. They were very colourful and eye catching but too bad I didn't have my digicam with me to take pics. I think we stayed at the park for almost an hour before we headed back home following a different route. I also taught them about looking for landmarks to identify where we are and make it easier to make our way home.
When we came back home , my toddler son was asleep and I asked dh how it felt like to be a stay at home dad and if he would not mind to do it again next weekend so I could jog again. He said Boleehhh and continued relaxing and watching his golf cd...

4 Lasagna and a Wedding

I was so totally immersed in other things for the past weeks/weekends that I forgot to fill up dear son's homework file and PASS IT UP Last Friday. Dh being the playdad that he is didn't remember either. A week ago, I was helping a friend shop for her wedding gifts and we also ended up celebrating her birthday on 3 consecutive days, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. On Saturday I bought a cake and halal pizza for her so that she (and dear son and dd) could blow candles. On Sunday, her housemates made a lil party for her. And on Monday, I returned her lasagna bake for dd with a full fledged nasi lemak, sambal sotong and sambal udang (coconut flavoured rice and sambal).
Yesterday, she offered to cook lasagna again for dd. At first I had declined to pick up the lasagna as dh and kids had plans but we decided to go to her flat in the evening to give her a lil wedding presie, ie a 40 piece set of corelle tableware that she always talked about getting but hadn't. We ended up eating lasagna again as she had baked like 4 trays of lasagna last night for some friends. It was like a kenduri of sorts prelude to her departure back to M'sia this week for her upcoming wedding. Dd and I will sorely miss her lasagna.. I mean her .. but Dh I think will secretly be rejoicing so that he doesn't have to ferry us to and fro to my friend's house in the next coming weeks!

Southbank 2

I went to Southbank again for a pre mother's day lunch at my fave restaurant (coz everyday is mother's day). OMG, the handmade turkish ice cream are soo yummy.. very flavoursome and not too sweet as the mass produced ones. They had blackmulberry, pistachio, apricot flavour icecreams plus the usual fare of strawberry and chocolate.
After lunch , kiddies had a swim at the artificial beach. There was also a newly built pool section with an interesting mechanism pouring water on the ground .. I can't quite describe it ... Perhaps, I'll take a pic of it next time.
I also went to the market and bought a multipurpose face/hand/feet polish from www.houseofoils.com.au made of sugar from sugarcane sourced locally. I tried it at home and asked dh if my hands felt softer. He said yes that they were while eyes transfixed to the tv screen but noted that my hands has always been that way. Anyway, the lemon ironbark polish/exfoliant smelt divine and I tried it on my feet and they felt great too.

My personal remote control

I have a unique lil remote control that understands my commands. When I say "switch on, switch on", he switches on the TV in my room and when I say "switch off/tutup" , he switches off the TV for me. Okay, he has a mind of his own and switches the TV on and off whenever he likes too. lol.

Regurgitation

I sent an email recently to the registrar of a potential school for my kids in M'sia to find out whether it is suitable for them . I asked her about next year 's intake. She gave me the A to Z for this year's intake. All in all she answered my straightforward informal questions with a formal letter cum email type piece. In other words she didn't answer my questions. This led me to a dejavu situation of my past school days to when exams question ask you one thing and students lacking the means and understanding regurgitate whatever they read in the text books remotely related to the subject. Can this regurgitation process really be passed on into the life after school days? Eww .

The Perfect Family Vacation

I met blogger Tasmiya and her family on Sunday. She is such a sweetie and her sons are too cute! She was telling me about her vacation with her extended family of sixteen to Malaysia. I was like in awe that they could actually work out an itinerary that suited everyone's taste buds.
For my family , I mean for my dad , the perfect vacation would be going to the jungle, camping out and hunting deers whereas dh will be contented to bask in the sun at the beach all day. However, dh is rather an obliging person, the perfect son in law and my dad somehow convinced us to go to Taman Negara/The National Park a few years ago. So we went in 2 cars, my dad's 4wd rangerover and our beaten up proton. It was 4 hours drive from KL to Taman Negara. Phew.
The resort at the national park was almost fully booked and there was only 1 chalet available. My dad did not want this to spoil his vacation so we all stayed in one big spacious chalet, my mum, dad , me , dh , and 2 small kids under 4. Luckily, my dad brought a tent along so dh camped outside in the verandah so there was somehow enough beds for us inside. Poor dh! He said he could hear all kinds of sounds coming from the jungle at night but I think he rather likes camping as he camped out in our aussie backyard once or twice with our 2 older kids.
We had to wake up real early, ie before dawn the next day so that we could watch the deers from the lookout hut near the saltlake in the jungle nearby. My mum babysitted the kids who were asleep while dh, dad and I went out. My dad was sure to give us a pet talk us before hand on how to walk in the jungle as not to startle any wild animals/tigers if we met any. Easy for him to say. Thankfully, we didn't meet any wild animals but we did see some deers at the lookout with the aid of flashlights. Their eyes reflected the light and looked somewhat red. Since it was the national park , hunting was prohibited so those lucky deers were not afraid of hunters hunting them down. Even when the sound of the azan broke out via the loud speakers from a mosque nearby, they were unperturbed. This was one of the highlights of the vacation.
We also took a boat trip up the river. I brought a life jacket for dd to wear and dh held baby son on his lap. (They just provided life jackets for adults). We saw some Malaysian tourists having fun in the river floating on rubber tyres downstream. There were also many Western tourists out and about. There were restaurants afloat on the river and also orang asli settlements. My dad said he could smell a tiger in the jungle nearby when we passed a certain section of the river. I hope he was kidding. Thankfully, we did not see a glimpse of any! They are really quite elusive animals .
All in all, it was a great family holiday and something new to experience !

Local Park

Some pics of the local park with glimpse of the local library. There were plenty of birds in the trees judging from the birdcalls I heard but I could not get a glimpse of them as they were well hidden in the foliage except for one who got a share of my nachos.

Magpies Pics

Some pics of the birds. They are not as photogenic as the rainbow lorikeets but wow.. they have such a superb singing voice. Second only to the Pied Butcherbird. I wanted to photograph a whole flock of birds but my toddler frustrated my efforts so these are the remnants.

Homework Reinterpreted

I 've getting more offers lately from dd and ds to tidy up their room. They even want to wash the dishes and help me cook! This is largely due to the reinterpretation of their homework sheet the past week. I have to sign on their homework sheet every time they help with the housework. I wish they had redefined homework a year ago so that I don't have to tidy up after my kids all the time.
Physical activities such as jogging, walking , and swimming are also part of homework so that they are encouraged to spend less time in front of TV etc. Another reason for this is to reduce childhood obesity which is becoming more prevalent in society. The school always encourage parents to fill the kids lunchboxes with healthy food like fruit and yoghurt instead of sugary stuff like chocolate and sweets. My kids don't really have a problem with their weight (although my sons have good appetites ), as they do a lot of outside activities such as rollerblading and rockclimbing with their dad during the weekends. We're also encourage to read books together. All in all, homework is aimed at bonding the family and is not supposed to be stressful for either child or parent.

Magpies in Backyard

Dd keeps feeding magpies in the backyard despite her mum asking her not to. (Okay her mum feeds them too). So there are always magpies roaming around. When we came back this afternoon , there was a whole troop of >10 magpies in the backyard as I had left pieces of bread. I went to get my digicam upstairs and when I came down , my toddler had chased them all away. (And he was afraid of the birds in the beginning of his life). Man! it is hard to take pics of wildlife.

Intruder Alert!

Dd installed an alarm on her bedroom door. I feel like a burglar breaking an entry every time I go to her room to clean up. How come I can't install one on my master bedroom door. That's because it is a silly slide door with no knob.

The Fire Talk

We went to the local library today as they had publicised that there was going to be a talk conducted by a person/s from the fire brigade. Goodness, there was a relatively huge crowd that congregated, mainly babies, toddlers, preschoolers and their parents/carers. It was half hour past the time and still no firemen. The librarians did all sorts of things to keep the little ones amused like singing songs and storytelling. In the end , my kids and I left as we had to get some panadol syrup at the pharmacy for dd who was not feeling well( but who insisted on going to the talk). When we were on our way back, I asked one of the mums if the firemen did indeed come and she said they came (late obviously) , stayed for 5 mins and had to leave again and she said she could even smell smoke in the air?! I wonder what an excuse firemen have for running late. "Sorry we're late, we had to extinguish a fire before we could come over. For heaven sakes, saving lives and property is far more important than giving talks, dang it!"

A Break or not

We just came back from a break in Gold Coast (GC just coz hotels in Sunshine Coast were overbooked this easter). Loads of washing to do plus the switch to the ceramic stove and oven is not working or something. Fortunately , we have an electric hotplate that dh has taken out from our store so guess I have to do most of the cooking on that and the deep fryer. This is one of those days that I wish Oz was like M'sia and have the abundance of street food. I miss my fave street stalls that sell crunchy tasty goreng pisang (banana fritters) and laksa just for RM1.50 per pack (dh's fave). *sigh* The kids will be at home for a week. Looks like I have my work cut out for me.

Baby In Arms

I went to see Mr Bean's Holiday with my toddler today. I couldn't watch it last Saturday with my older kids as I was helping a friend shopping for some stuff for her big day. The cinema has special sessions for parents with babies. Dear son was well behaved and was happy just sitting and watching the movie with a bag of popcorn and water bottle. I wish they have special sessions like this in KL.
Babes in Arms

Barter Trade

Sometimes I invite my friends' children to my house after school to get some quick snacks on their way back to their home. Today, I gave away ice blocks to 4 siblings. I also wanted to pay $ for some fresh honey their mum sells. They said they wanna give it to me for free. Kids! So there you are, I barter traded 4 ice blocks for 1 container of sweet and delicious 100% pure honey which will be delivered tomorrow morning at my door step insha Allah. A bargain. lol.

Awesome Turkish Restaurant

Last night , dh and I had dinner at an awesome Turkish restaurant in Southbank with some of his officemates. The CFO wanted to treat the dept after finishing something I'm still vague about so she asked dh to recommend a halal restaurant to dine at. Realising dh would probably recommend an Indian restaurant cum takeaway (again) , I thought of a name of a Turkish restaurant that had previously advertised in a local muslim newsletter during Ramadan. They followed up with my recommendation much to my delight as I haven't eaten at a lovely turkish restaurant for ages. So the dinner was marvellous and we were really pleased with the food served. So appetising and yummy! The restaurant had a very rich red turkish interior with a cozy and well lit ambience enticing people to come and dine in . However, we were sitted outside which was equally nice as it was breezy and tranquil under the starry, starry night... Just beautiful!
Check out their website www.mado.com.au

Neglect

Sorry to neglect you, dear blog but I'm having techie problems right now and can't find anyone who would supply me a new AC adaptor for my modem. Where is after sales service when you need it?
*Update* Okay , so I managed to solve this techie challenge with the ac adaptor I bought from Tandy a few weeks ago after I could not get hold of the service provider on the phone (they are all automated now to save on high labour cost and they don't want to entertain cranky callers with minor probs) plus an electrical superstore asked us to deal with the supplier directly so what's the point . I just had to adjust the volt setting, as the 9 volt on the adaptor was not high enough for the modem to work.
I promise to update this blog soon and upload some great pics (insha Allah). How about that? (chuckle).

6 weird things

I've been tagged by Ms Blabs to write 6 weird things about myself.
1. I'm a travel junkie and at the moment I wanna travel the Sahara and meet the Tuareg and Berbers. If God gave me the choice of who I wanna be , I 'd say Michael Palin or Ibnu Battuta.
2. Dh thinks this is weird. I have sliced/ parts of cucumber in the fridge that I use to sooth my eyes and reduce puffiness.
3. I like to take a siesta during lunch hour. I thought this was weird til I visited South of Spain and realised they all have siesta in the afternoon from 2-5pm. The shops close during this time.
4. I like to buy hand creams even though I may not need them and the sales assistants keep telling me that my hands are soft even before I try them on.
5. I chatter more to taxi drivers/strangers than to my friends.
6. I'm telepathic and can read and send messages to my friends without the need to email, write letters , phone etc.
So 6 friends, you know who you are. You've been tagged. Lol.