BFF Gathering

My best pals from school met up not-too-recently, 2.5 months back. I know.. late in delivery is better than never. I better note down, some readers already sneezing when they visit this blog now. *dusty*.. 

We met at SL's house at Mutiara Damansara. Took advantage of her new house as an excuse and she has 2 helpers.. so her house is the best place to meet. I practise BYO now, (bring your own food and bring your own maid), I simply cannot cope without a helper,  big gatherings esp with lots of kids at my humble home.

Hui Qian (SL's daughter) came up with menu and activity list for the guests. Too cute !

SL was an excellent host. She got in one of those helium balloon pumps and we had lotsa colorful floating ballons. The kids were ecstatic.

 

It's a rare occasion for us to meet up, with our husbands and kids too. EL is in London and she only comes back every 3 or 4 years. She had a baby girl recently, Adrianna and

Jo, EL, SL and Me... BFFs ! We may not meet very frequent but when we do, it's always just like the good old days..

Going Up Genting Again

We went up to Genting Highlands last Sunday for a day trip.  On Saturday, we celebrated Amity's 1st birthday and BIL's stayed over at our place and the whole troop went up to Genting Highlands early Sunday morning. The family holds a yearly pass to the theme park and this is a good excuse to go up the highlands more frequently to fully utilize our pass.

I dislike food at Genting Highlands and the fast food there is crap. Despite paying premium, we were greeted by very dry fried chicken and ultra mini fries. Tsk .. tsk... I hope they'll buck up, I don't see any reason for chickens to taste less and dry at high altitudes. BIL brought us to a new makan place @ the Mushroom Farm. Food here is very reasonable and delicious. You can even arrange for a pick up from any part of Genting to the restaurant and back. Now, this is service and I'll skip the fast food on my next trip and have our meals at Mushroom Farm instead.

I didn't go for any rides except the 4d Magic Motion. Amber went for the kiddie rides with her cousin sister Yuen Wen. We were there at separate times and Amber wanted to ride The Spinner. I wasn't game for it but she insisted she can manage.

With a heavy heart (and till now, I still don't know why I let her up the ride), we let her go on her own. She lined up, followed the queue and both hubs and I fretted over her like shouting and talking to her outside the ride ring (we really looked like a bunch of nervous cowards, too scared to go up the ride and too scared to allow the little bud up the ride)

On her own. I didn't take any pics during the Spin, my legs were wobbly and heart thumping hard..

I was so afraid something unexpected or bad might happen. What if Amber cried for help? What if she wanted to get out during the Spin, what if the whole Spinner came crashing down.. All kinds of stupid and nerve wrecking thoughts ran through my mind and I prayed for the ride to be over asap.  

She didn't scream, cry or laugh. She looked stoned.

When it finally came to an end, she was helped off her seat and she came running towards us.. stoned.

I asked if she was scared..

'No, just a little bit scared..

.

.

.

FASTER LA.. MY SHEE SHEE LIKE WANT TO COME OUT LAH !

oOOO... Oh ..dear.. we. laughed. so. loud.. she. was. scared. till. she. nearly pee-ed !

Century Egg Jewels

A good friend got these for me :

 

All the way from Hong Kong, the famous Yung Kee century eggs. I've heard so much about it and I love century eggs, yums & slurp.  :D  :D  :D

 Neatly packed, 6 eggs in a box with pickled ginger.

Knock and peel the shell off to unveil the 'black gold'

Ohhh.. yumz.. the yolk is translucent and runny.

I love it so much... and the 6 princely century eggs were slowly devoured by me and hubs.. one by one.. slowly, relishing every bite !

Thanks Jac !

Yeast Free Bread

 Found a pack of Orgran's yeast free bread at Vitacare on offer as it was near to expiry. I was excited to dish out some bread for Amber.

 

Instructions were pretty simple and easy. No kneading needed. The final product looks impressive.

 Looks like bread, smells like bread BUT... it's not bread.

Amber didn't quite like the texture and she pleaded me not to bake anymore again.

Sigh.. I guess she'll have to wait till she outgrows her yeast allergy before indulging in bread with kaya and butter.

Dark Of The Moon

I enrolled Amber to Yamaha JMC and she started her first lesson. Teacher asked the kids. Where do you want to go with a rocket ?

Some said :
I want to go to the space
I want to go to the stars
I want to go to the sky

Amber said :
I want to go to the moon to look for Transformers..



everyone broke out laughing.


This cheeky little girl been playing games with me. I'm not very good at remembering the Transformers characters, I only remember the cute BumbleBee and sexy hoarse voice of Optimus Prime.  In fact I didn't know what Transformers was despite the cartoon been playing on tv over so many years and the unforgettable tune of :

Transformers... more than meets the eye.. Transformers... da..da.. da.. da. daaaa.....

My brother is a fan but I'm not. I only know Transformers are robots but I didn't know they were apparatus transformed to robots until Amber told me : Transformers is car become robot and robot become car..

Banging on my ignorance, she'll tell me :

Amber is BumbleBee
Papa is Optimus Prime
Mama is Megatron !!!

Now that I know Megatrons are bad fellas..  she'll tell me otherwise..  I'm Optimus Prime and Papa is Megatron BUT..... says the opposite to hubs.

So, have you caught Transformers - Dark of The Moon ? Frankly I think the movie is a tad too long. 2.5 hours !!!!

Allergy Attack

Amber had an allergy attack last week. Her eyes were already red  and something happened, she was rude to our guests and hubs punished her later. She cried and I think the outburst and her constant rubbing of eyes with dirty hands triggered an allergic reaction. Her eyes became red and puffed up. I could see a thick layer of gelatinous mucus in her eyes.

Cetrizine and her regular eye drops didn't work. She was kicking a fuss and I wanted to teach her a lesson not to scratch her eyes with dirty hands. I told her the doctor have to cut open her eyes to remove the gelatinous layer. I regretted my words, as she was crying and wailing all the way to the doctors, 'Please don't cut my eyes.. please don't cut my eyes ...uwaaauwaaa  .. . terrible me !!!!  

Doctor prescribed her cortisteroid eyedrops and another steroid based allergy medicine. 

By morning, the swelling subsided 80%

 

I hope this serves as a lesson to her to always keep her hands clean and never never touch anything and everything in sight. I shall show her these photos to remind her.

Over the Weekend

Another uneventful but busy weekend has passed. Uneventful is good. I prefer to stay home coz if I don't the housework piles up.

Saturday was spent finishing up part of her abacus homework. 4 pages this week. Lately, I'm not happy with her progress in school. Our arrangement with the teacher was a 1 to 1 coaching for Amber and we did pay her slightly extra for the arrangement of 1 to 1, 1.5 hours per week (group lessons are 2 hours) but lately her hours at the center is getting lesser. Last week, she completed a page of calculations in 15 minutes and that's all.. For a whole 1.5 hours in the center, she could do more but Ms P, her teacher, takes in other students for abacus and school level homework and I don't see how she can manage so many kids, all with different subjects to coach too. Hubs and I think we are getting a raw deal from her, we really should start looking somewhere.

I looked up another school on Sunday, a renowned mental arithmetic center and they did an evaluation on Amber. We found out, not all mental arithmetic are taught the same way. Amber's current method is different from what's taught the the renowned mental arithmetic center. Amber needs at least 2-3 months to 'undo' what's been taught, to 'cut old, copy and paste new method' to her memory. We've decided the change is good for her and the plus point is having a dedicated teacher who's willing to spend some time to 'undo the done' in her.

So, it'll be new class at a new center for her. She likes the place very much, more conducive and comfortable with air-conditioning. :D

I cooked simple meals for lunch and dinner. Too darn lazy for fancy schmancy cooking, simple and homecooked is good. I also steamed and freezed some lor mai kai for Amber's supper.  Her appetite improved lately and I must always have something in handy when little missy is hungry otherwise she'll be having cornflakes and soy milk every night for supper and cornflakes again in the morning.

The sharp tongued Amber said something that irked me. I was busy mopping the floor and pushing her to do her homework. I said.. everyone has their own homework to do. Daddy's is to feed the fish, her's is to complete her school work and Mommy's is to keep the house clean by sweeping, mopping and basically, just keeping things clean.

Her sharp tongue speaks faster than she can think, she said "Yours so easy only, just push the mop front and back only mah, so easy also !"

Grrrr..... she really talks too much for her age.

We've been maidless for 1.5 years, coping but at the expense of not giving her enough attention and not being patient with her. We are in the midst of hiring a helper and I pray hard to choose one who's trustworthy and would not run away ! *sigh*

Controlling FB privacy

Today, my friend got very annoyed when someone from her hometown added her as a friend in Facebook. Thinking she might know her or she could be a long lost friend from her hometown in East Malaysia, she added her. Soon, the 'friend' started promoting some slimming stuff and added people from her friend list. She was, angry.  I would too.

I taught her to change some simple settings to protect your friends privacy. I do think some people take advantage of strings of contacts available on Facebook, friends of friends and friends or friends' friends.. whatever.. the chain never ends.

If you'd like to block people from checking your friends list, follow the simple steps :

Simple steps :

How do I change who can see my friends?

You can change who can see your friends from the "Connecting on Facebook" section of your Privacy Settings page. To get there:

1. Choose the "Privacy Settings" option in the Account drop-down menu at the top of any Facebook page.
2. Select "View settings" in the "Connecting on Facebook" section.
3. Change the setting for "See your friend list."

Cheers and Happy FB-ing ...

Chatime Craze

The hubs and I love bubble tea. There's something about biting into the dense and chewy pearls. It's addictive. Our usual haunt was Little Taiwan until Chatime opened it's new outlet at Gardens. Most bubble tea kiosk concocts their drinks with all powder and flavouring but Chatime uses as much natural ingredient as possible and that's what gives them an edge above others in the bubble tea mix.

I love their latte for very simple reason - freshly brewed coffee (read - not instant coffee) and fresh milk (read - not creamer). 

I've tried the Pearl Milk Tea, Caramel Milk Tea, Grapefruit Pearl Tea and Iced Latte Pearl. I'd say all are nice but if you need a the chilled caffeine kick, go for Iced Latte. Only RM5.90 with pearls and slight sugar.

Be forewarned though, the wait time for Chatime is very long. I was at the Pavilion outlet last Friday at 2pm. Was told to wait for 20 minutes for my drinks. I shopped around and came back after 25 minutes and my drink was still not ready. I had to wait for almost an hour for my drink. Crazeee !!!  Next time, I'll preorder my drinks first.  ;)

Local Avocados

The local avocados are back in season.  I was back to the in laws last weekend and I was in luck. Her friend, with the avocado tree, shared some of her bounty harvest with MIL. No one likes the fruit at home except MIL and me. She gave me a few fruits and I've been gorging on avocados. 

I had a fruit this morning, spread on crackers and with coffee.

 

 Rich and ripe avocado

 I scooped out some flesh

 Smashed it up, add instant coffee, evaporated milk and little sugar

 Avocado Coffee !!! It'll be nicer if I added ice cubes.

I ate the balance with crackers. Yummy !