Our Saturday

Last Saturday was a busy day for us. Hubs had a full day class and since I've got to be the driver, sending him to class and fetching him home, I took advantage and went 'lan kai' with Amber.
Very rare to have a Saturday all to myself and Amber, must take this opportunity to kai kai to the max !

Met up with Annie at Barb's place. We had brunch at the famous kon-lou pan meen near Barb's house. With 4 kids, and loads of shopping from pasar pagi, it's impossible to take a photo of the food, esp when Amber is a fussy eater, playing with the food and not eating. .. . haih..

Then we proceeded to the 100yen shop while Barb looked after the kids at home..**BLISS**
Annie, the bento queen, wanted to add on to her already-mountain-high collection of bento stuff. :D.. and one 100yen is not enough, we went to the Kuchai Lama bento shop and the kids had snacks of snow desert -- the ice kacang like kinda desert and jelly.

We also went to Shireen's house to pick up another loot. I bought a couple of blouses from Shireen's online shop and I also wanted to meet her 3 lovely princess very much. I was her silent reader for some time and I stumbled upon her blog when I searched for "cambodian maid".
She inspired me to start my own blog.

Shireen manages 4 blogs of which 1 is an online shop. I wish her success and with her very reasonable pricing and good customer service, I'd choose to buy from her anytime.

We grouped the kids to take a photo before we left. Not easy task, can't blame the kids cos with 4 cameras clicking, they don't know where to look first.

Here's one reasonable shot of the kids :

Baby Cassandra- who will always be a baby for us who followed her traumatic experiences, Ashley, Amber, Fearles, Cruz, Sherilyn and Alycia.

Saturday was a very fruitful day for me and Amber, we shopped a lot and met up with the lovely mummies - Annie, Barb and Shireen.

I really should send hubs to training more frequent.. .hahahahaha...

Popular Book Fair @ Ikano

We just got back from Popular Book Fair at Ikano (and survived the mad Ikea sale traffic !!!)

Got some great buys and guess what ? ?

No books !

Yes, no books ! Hubs is the one itching to go to Popular Book Fair at Ikano for it's audiophile CD's. Very cheap aitelyu. We usually get a 5% of from CD Rama (Popular's av section) but during the book fair, some quality cd's go down to 20% off and Popular's mark up is not high.

We used to patronize another cd shop for >10 years and it's prices are about 20% higher than Popular. Now, knowing where to get better deals, Popular @ Ikano and Ampang Point is our regular haunt for audiophiles.

This is his loot today :

3cds of HD Mastering and Blue Ray Mastering for only RM100


This is the best deal :

Jazz Audiophile - double cd, Blue Ray for only RM39



but hubs think although this is a Blue Ray recording, the voice is very clear but lacking in hi-fideltity. We thought of changing it but it's only RM38 for 2 cd. Usual price is around RM48-RM50 for 1 cd. Still 'tai'.. maybe we'll just leave it in the car.

and my favourite is Shirley's Voice, an audiophile artiste from China


All my favourite old chinese songs - Unforgettable Love, Shanghai Nights, Look Forward 3 Years and Amber's favourite - The Moon Represents My Heart.. she loves this song to bits and she's attempting to sing this song with her awful hoarse voice.. lol ! Well, we played this song in the car, THRICE !! and she fell asleep, at 8.30pm. Bliss for me and hubs.


Music calms her and I remembered her infant days, we played Il Divo to get her to sleep, she'll knock off at track # 3 or 4, (can't remember exactly track #) to Unchained Melodies and fell asleep and there was those teething nights too, crying all night long and we played Il Divo all night and loud too, our neighbours were probably cursing us .. gosh.. those were the days. Now, she's learning to mimic The Moon Represents My Heart. I very romantic song, since my hubs didn't sing it for me, at least my daughter will.


And we also got a Yasmin Ahmad's movie and we'll watch it in a short while with beer n peanuts, since Amber is asleep already.


I heart Yasmin Ahmad's production very much and I want to watch all of it.


Happy Sunday and happy week ahead !

Handmade Dress by boeyjoey

When I read boeyjoey's post on the little red dress she made for QQ, I liked it so much, it was on my wishlist. I can never find nice cheongsam in the market for kids.

I like this dress for the babydoll cut. Amber's still a kid and looks good with babydoll cutting. I asked Pei Yee (boeyjoey) if she can make one for Amber. I also asked her to take her time, no rush as it's meant for next year's CNY.

Last 2 wks, the cheongsam arrived. Amber very kancheong, kept asking whose baju was it and she thought CNY was around the corner.

I made her promise to wait another 6 months before she can wear it for kai-kai but I allowed her put it on to take some photos.

See, nice or not ? The baju, I mean....

Babydoll cuts are roomy and allows flexibility, very suitable for active kids. I like the puffed sleeves and elastic garters at the sleeves

Boeyjoey will be starting her own handmade collection, soon to be available at :

Congrtulations to her, a supermummy turning her hobby into a little business. I believe happiness is doing something we love :D

Her handmade items comes with care instructions too.

And she also made these clips to complement the starking red cheong sam. Lovely !

A close up look at the cheong sam, see the detailed and fine stitching ?

I'm sure boeyjoey will have lots of quality and personalized offerings. She's currently working out her blogshop at www.nivnivhandmade.blogspot.com. Watch this spot :D

I wished there's more hours in a day ~

** purely a post to rant**

I wished there's more hours to the day, really !

If I had my way, I'd stay at home at bake all day long, perfecting recipes, trying new bakes, quiches, torte, pecan pies, so many goodies I wanna bake and I wished I had more time.

Some friends call me crazy but I actually find it very therapeutic to cut pineapples from peeling the skin, to the correct cutting technique without losing too much of the flesh.

Do you know you are supposed the check the pineapple 'eyes', and to which direction is longer, ie from the bottom right to upper left or from bottom left to upper right before deciding which direction to cut the 'eyes' off ? I know it's confusing but if you do follow, peeling the 'eyes' off is easier and the peeled pineapples looks better too. I taught my ex Cambo helper umpteenth times and she always gets it wrong, or maybe she did it on purpose so she doesn't have to peel the pineapple and Ma'am will do it ??

Give me a good knife and I'll carve a good pineapple for you.

I spent last Saturday evening cooking up 8 Josapines ! Peel, shred and slowcook till I get 2 small tubs of golden jam. I am able to do that without disturbance because Amber slept by 9pm. If only I had a couple of hours more, I'll bake the tarts, but I can't.

I need to get the laundry done, clothes ironed and house prepped up because Sunday is another long day out.

I keep my sanity by watching Desperate Housewives. Bree gives me the inspiration I need.

Ironing is not so much of a dreaded chore now like it used to be. Correct techniques saves time.

Oh, I wished the nights are longer. I wished I only need to get by with 3 hours of sleep !

My dinners are getting simpler and I try to do with less washing, or eat from the pot, like laundryamah ! ho ! we, moms are getting more innovative.

On Saturday, I was itching to bake and dished out these scones. It took me less than an hour. I would have wasted more time driving out to get breakfast.

Rushing for time and itching to bake, I dished these out :

Nice ? A bit square hor ? Was too lazy to use an inverted cup to cut it round. Round scones, square scones, it all taste the same.


With butter, any shape is forgiven



Yeah... enjoy ! We whacked 3 each !

ok, enough of ranting.. I'm going to sleep now.

Bao Xiang @ Pavilion

Yesterday, we had to bring my father to town to run some errands and we took him to Pavilion for lunch.

I had in mind to try out Bao Xiang bak kut teh.. upon hearing good reviews about this place and Amber likes bkt, at least her lunch is settled if we go for bkt.

The place is pretty neat and clean. All bkt comes in standard size and you can choose which part of meat, ribs and offals that you want. Being a piggie bkt lover, we each chose one and another 2 to be shared. Between the 4 of us, we chose 6 portions. The price is standard, around RM13-RM14 per portion. Funny tho, when they showed us the menu, the pricing wasn't there. I only got to see the pricing at the cashiers when I paid.

One thing's missing from this place.. yow char kway and tau foo poks. What a waste.



These are some of the bowls of bkt we ordered. Comes with a warmer and soup is kept bubbling hot. Not to my liking and I did burn my tongue a bit. Sheeh...already noon and I'm craving for bkt, the first thing I did was try the soup. Manatau.. so hot.. too hot !


Their rice is flavoured but I'd prefer plain white rice w bak kut teh anytime



and tea is served in tiny teacups.. very much like the Klang style.


It was a very lovely morning to start with, father's errands got settled very quickly, we found a good parking at Pavilion and fast too but .. BUT.. the service at Bao Xiang's got me pissed off, thinking back, I wonder how I let her get away. I should have 'saber tongued' her.


Her, is the Captain.. the waitress that wears a bit different from the rest and so that makes her a captain. She took our order of bla bla bla.. asking us to take bla bla bla and so we ordered bla bla bla.


One of the blaass.. the 'fan cheong' or stuffed intestines, wasn't up to our expectations. Hubs thought it was a tad bitter. I found it bitter too. We called another waitress, with a blur expression on her face. She didn't say a thing and took away the 'fan cheong'.. 10 minutes later, another serving of fan cheong came, which they claimed they changed.


... still bitter..


this time, we called for 'Captain thick make-up actsy face' and told her the second bowl of fan cheong was still bitter. She asked us to change for something else, and we chose 'chue tou' ie; pigs maw. I'm sure the whole pot of fan cheong will be bitter anyway. Captain thick make-up actsy face, with hands behind her back, told us..


some pigs are like that.. .. Ohh kay... I can accept. I've tasted bitter fan cheong before and I don't blame the pigs nor the chef

some porks are good, some are not. some comes not good... Ohhh kay.. this blardy place has no quality control, they just take whateva oinks that's dumped to them..

some pigs are smelly, some are not. Ya, ya, I understand and not blaming you,Miss Captain thick make-up actsy face for a bitter bowl of innards but it's such a mockery.. a place named 'bao xiang' isn't that 'guaranteed fragrant' ? and what's this with a smelly porkies in a 'guaranteed fragrant' place. Hello woman.. think before you speak oh-kay ???

just like human, some human smell more than others right ??


WEI !!! what the monkey is she talking about ? I was shocked with her statement but I saw hubs, father, ah yee happily eating, not paying any attention to her, I held back my tongue.
She's just short of me sabering my tongue at her and aitelyu, don't make me do that or she'll regret !


It was such a lovely morning for us and we are not going to let Captain thick make-up actsy face spoil it !


Amber enjoyed her soft bone.. 'yuen kuat' with rice so much and was happy and smiling, she even wanted to take photos with her Kong-kong.

So, remember if you wanna go Bao Xiang, just order ribs, pai kuat and no innards.. or be prepared.. of their smelly porks !


.... and we headed to The Loaf for coffee and snacks.. .much better deal than Bao Xiang !

Reality vs Fantasy

At our last parents-teacher meeting, Amber's principal commented that Amber is very good at her coloring (again, something new to us). She said Amber always gets a prize for coloring and she does a very creative and neat job.


However, she also thinks Amber cannot be getting the prize all the time, schoolwork isn't all about winning. She gave the prize to another kid and explained to Amber that the other boy got the prize because his donkey was the right color, whereas Amber's turned out like :

a multicolored donkey .. muahahahahaha....

That reminded me of Annie's elephant episode with Fearles & Cruz here.

Would you let your kid run wild with imagination and color to their hearts content or teach them to think and color what is right ?

Bits and Pieces of A Football Night

Last Saturday evening, we invited our friends, Thomas, Joanne and Sharon over for dinner followed by Germany vs Argentina. Since RTM1 and Wah Lai Toi was playing the match, we need not park ourselves at Mamaks :D

Timing had to be good. 8.30pm dinner, 9.00pm desert, wash up and get all comfy and ready for the match.. and with beer in hands, of course.

Bits and pieces of the evening. Hubs took some nice pics w his DSLR.


Sharon had a bad cut on her knees, she went running with her daddy and fell on the tar road. She quickly told her parents 'princess' 'princess plaster'..

Those princess plasters do make kids feel less pain.


Amber also flashed out her set of Disney plasters. Kids are always eager to stick a cartoon plaster, don't they ?

Then I fried some chicken wings when my guests arrived. I have a pot of 'lap mei fan' - waxed meat rice ready. It's football night and I don't want to be wasting too much time in the kitchen, planning is important on such an exciting quarterfinal night.



My 'lap mei fan'. After few rounds, I think I've perfected it. The rice grains, some dark, some light, makes the dish very appealing.



Cucumber on the sides.. healthy vege and fiber option. No need to fry any vege. Recently, my veges are all steamed, boiled or raw. I hardly fry any vege now as I don't think there's much nutriotion left in fried veges but we Chinese are so accustomed to 'chau choy' with full 'wok hei'.

And the unhealthy but most yummylicious part of dinner :

Har Cheong Kai Yik - Fried Shrimp Paste Chicken Wings


And the best side dish for lap mei fan - Fried Salted Fish. I got these pre-cut salted fish from Tanjung Sepat. Very convenient and clean.


And.. no dinner is complete without desert. My very first cheesecake recipe, walnut cheesecake !

This is my second attempt, first attempt failed badly. I realise never to trust recipe books 100%, use instincts and common sense. I mean.. how different is baking for 30 mins and 60 mins ? You tell me la.. I won't name the cookbook but it's by a famous local baker who runs a famous cafe/deli in PJ. You guess la..

The walnut cheesecake tastes as good as it looks :


Firm and cheesy, just the way I like it. I don't fancy those cotton soft cheesecakes. I prefer real cheesecakes, just as I don't like sponge cakes, gimme a real buttercake anytime.



The cheesecake was perfect with blueberries that Joanne brought.

Good food, good friends but alas.. bad game.. Argentina lost to German 0-4. I mean it was a good game but I think it was humiliating for Argentina to lose in such manner, not a single goal against the Germans.

Luckily, we also had good food to remember the night by. :D

How She Does Her Homework

Most of the time, she can't sit still. She'll wriggle about, climb over, up and about her chair, go under the dining table and wriggle everywhere.

Hubs the ''teacher with ruler in hand" was in charge of making sure she finishes her homework.

I caught Amber in this position and I had to snap a picture.

Squatting on the chair with toes tip-toed while she did her abacus calculations.

That's my ever restless Amber !

How Come Her Schoolwork is Better ?

Her kindie will return to us the books that they have studied for each term for parents to know their kids progress (or evidence of what they have learned.. hehehe)

I do have lots of other workbooks for Amber at home. She always asks for books to 'chor koong ker' at the childminders or sometimes when I'm busy, she'll find some stuff to do in her study room.

I've asked her to brush up on her numbers, she needs to know digits to follow up on her mental arithmetic class. When I checked her work, I had a little shock :

This is what she did in school, aligned, follow the dot writing.



and this is what she does when left alone to complete her activity books :

conteng ! conteng ! conteng !

Amber ! oh Amber ! Will you only listen to teacher and not Mama ?

I really should spend more time with her to do 'activity books' but .. but...

I'm just too lazy and have too much other stuff to do !

Tarts for the Fart

Tarts for fart... somehow it rhymes and since I have some pictures to show, I might as well post this up.

My friend Liz ordered some pineapple tarts from me. She wanted 2 tins and some durian cakes but I could only manage one tin for her coz my family members wanted the tarts too and I could only peel, shred and cook 4 pineapples.

Amber likes pineapple tarts and since I had premium margarine in hand, I baked some tarts for the fart.

The homecooked, slowcooked pineapple jam.



Ingredients for pastry. Amber's is allergy free version, I omitted the eggs and egg wash.




She waited with glee... yumm.. mummy, I want to eat !

yellow, custard looking tarts...

tarts that melt in the mouth..

tarts for the fart.

With some give and take , here and there, I can still churn out some of her favourite cookies.

Tarts for fart.. tarts for fart...

It rhymes and I like it !

Parents Teacher Meeting - Term 2

The kindie had a parents teacher meeting last Saturday. I came to know that it's a term thingy and parents will meet teacher end of each term, 4 terms in total. Not bad eh.. I don't remember having my parents meet my kindie teacher during my time.

I am excited and kept reminding Amber that we'll be meeting her teacher and teacher will report all of her behaviour, good and bad to us, so be good !

Last term, we had a lot to hear of Amber from the principal and teacher. She refused to co-operate and sit down and was sent to the principals's room, many times :(
The principal, Teacher Jo, a very nice but firm lady, can handle Amber better than her own class teacher, so on difficult situations, she's sent to THE ROOM, instead of holding the class back.

Her class teacher, Teacher Mila is not around for the meeting. She's from Uzbekistan and went back for a months holiday and was supposed to report for work in July but no news of her. Teacher Jo told us she may be stuck and not be able to get back so soon, due to some unrest going on there. I pray and wish her family is fine and be back soon. Amber miss her very much.

This is what Teacher Jo, the principal and replacement teacher, had to say about Amber :

~ She likes to 'manja' Teacher Mila and insists that Teacher Mila seats next to her all the time. Teacher Mila, just to get the class going, always gives in to Amber. In her absence, Amber has no one to 'manja' and she's behaving well, paying attention and following instructions. (... I only know Teacher Mila is very firm and quite fierce, I didn't know Amber yearns for her attention)

~ Amber is always complaining of 'tired'. I'm very tired.. I'm so tired.. (...I admit, partly our fault for not getting her to sleep earlier)

~ Amber colors very well and always gets prize for coloring (... and I never knew that)

~ Amber learned syllables and sukukata, she can slowly read 3 alphabet words by recognizing the sound of each alphabets (... I never knew that too)

Teacher Jo asked her to read for us :






Overall, she's progressing fine in school and I can't wait for her to read soon.

I've gotta thank Patsy for the cd, A is the sound of ahhh... B is the sound of behh. Can't wait for her to read and indulge in books ;)

The Mamak Queen

I know it's unhealthy but lately Amber's hooked on roti canai. Now, she knows the difference between roti canai, roti tisu, teh tarik, teh panas and capati. She knows Mama likes paper tosai and teh panas and Papa like teh ais kosong limau, kulit dibuang !

Yesterday, we stopped by the video shop, Amber saw the mamak stall and wanted a roti tisu with dhal and sugar. Hubs obliged to his princess request.

Amber knows how to order... she'll tell the guy.. ahhhh Loti tisu.. i want sugar and dhal ha ? 3 things, roti tisu, sugar and dhal .. so cute.. the little fart ordering her own makan.

And so, we waited for her to finish her roti tisu and watched a replay of the World Cup goal shots !

Her favourite.. roti tisu and sugar. Truly Malaysian

And she eats with style too, with leg crossed !






Do you feed your children mamak food ? Desperate parents like us will feed her anything which is allergy free and calorie laden. She's below the average weight for kids her age !

Football at Mamaks !

I can't believe myself for being such a sport. I actually looked forward to watching the World Cup at the Mamaks. Hubs said it's alright if I don't go, he'll go alone. I asked him to bring Amber along and then he pleaded with me to go along *snigger*.. hehehee..

It's fun aitelyu, the whole place vibrates to shouts of GO GO GO GO GOOOOAALLLLL !!!!!!!! and you can hear the tempo change when the goal was not.

On Friday night, watching Brazil lose to Holland :

The guy in green shirt,, a Holland supported,, jumped with joy with the first score of goal and then later the frustrated Brazilian fans seated at the back, shouts loud in disappointment, I can see the guy in green quiet down during Holland's second goal. Such is the football frenzy at mamaks !


The kids went along.. not recommended to bring kids, they're easily and extremely bored with nothing to do..and they'll start jumping around, running around.. and we have to chase them around the Mamaks, being mindful not to block anyone's view.


And to keep them quiet, I got them lollypops, but this trick only last no more than 5 minutes, then Amber will start rolling lollypop over Sharon's hair and sticking the lollies on her own hair.. haish... Amber !

Too bad all hubs favourite team is out of the game. That makes the final not-so exciting anymore, we're almost sure Germany will win the World Cup this time !

The Ben10 cake that was not.

We celebrated Yuen Wen Cheh-Cheh's birthday at Madam Kwan, Mid Valley. She had a Ben10 cheesecake from Secret Recipes:

Tell me, which part looks like Ben10 ?? Kinda feel cheated coz when we ordered, the pic shown on the catalog was the Ben 10 boy, the one with black hair and wearing the watch. Outcome above is not according to specs.. and Amber's Ben 10 cake was the same too, the sugar paper was not according to the brochures.

Anyway, kids gets so excited with birthday cakes, they forgot all about the actual Ben 10 picture.

Amber and her cheh cheh.. anybody and everybody's birthday is a reason to celebrate coz she wants to blow the candles !!!



Ben 10 or not, her only share of the cake is the sugar paper, with the creams and white chocolate icing underneath scraped off.


Luckily, she liked Madam Kwan's fried chicken leg..

1 year more Amber.. 1 year and you can have your real cake.

and again.. Happy Birthday to cheh-cheh.

Talking about cheesecakes.. I think Secret Recipe's cake have shrunk in size, has anyone noticed ?