Saturday, October 31, 2009

Attack of the mini ghosts and goblins...



Last night, a band of mini ghosts and ghouls of all sorts descended upon us! They were accompanied by an assortment of fairies and princesses!

We were at the Sarawak Club's children Halloween party :P



Solomon wore the cute hand-me-down bee suit which was missing an antenna. I spent ages making the girls' witch costumes. Annie made the hats (or rather conned her aunty and my staff into making them...)! We made papier mache pumpkin goodie baskets with black ribbon handles. I bought cheap black cloth and cut a slit in the middle to put their heads through, then tied a ribbon at the waist.



For the brooms, I had to pick up dried palm leaves from the outside of someone else's house! Then I tied them to broomsticks. The hair is made of orange wool and taped to the inside of the hats. The toe socks I found were wonderfully cheap, RM4.50 a pair. I was worried that they were too big for Claire and Eva, but it turned out to be for the better, they now had oversized striped feet! How cute!

Anyway, it was worth it when Annie won second place for the best costume. Claire however, refused to wear her hat, or carry the broom and basket during the parade. Eva was excited and paraded all by herself and even joined the screaming competition! Only her scream was just a fraction of what she is usually capable of at home!



Hubby ran away to the swimming pool because all the screaming was giving him a headache! He asked me how I could stand all the noise and I told him I do it everyday!!!

There were also other games like the keropok-eating, mummy-wrapping and also hair-tying which Annie and her friend Samantha won.

The kids had a blast and I presume they'll want to attend again next year! Fine by me, but I'm worn out from costume-making, so it'll just be white bedsheets with 2 holes each!

The night's loot! 'The Diet' was put on hold for awhile...


Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Goodness gracious, Great balls of fibre...



I have renewed my resolution to get the kids to eat healthier. I've been slacking lately and cookies, chips and buns have been stealthily replacing fruits and vegetables. The closest thing to vegetables that Kid no.3 eats now is tomato sauce!

I'm hoping that there's at least some traces of lycopene left in tomato sauce... It should count as one serving of veg, don't you think? Maybe someone should invent broccoli sauce while we're at it! :)




Anyway, I tried to think of a way to make eating fruits fun, so I got a melon baller and bought some honeydew and watermelon. Then I let the kids make their own melon balls to bring to school. They had fun making them and decided that they were yummy too! It didn't matter that most of the melon 'balls' weren't exactly round...




I'm so glad this worked out. I can still remember way back when I was on another one of my 'fruits and veg' campaigns; Kid no.2 cried in the car on the way to school when she opened up her container for routine inspection and found... papaya!

*sigh* I don't blame her, I think I might have done the same had I been in her shoes!

So anyway, now I have to think of ways to make vegetables fun.

Vegetables... fun?

A definite oxymoron if ever I saw one. Cucumber balls anyone??

Monday, October 26, 2009

Kayak fun!



On Saturday Hubby and I went kayaking! It was a first for us and was loads of fun!




We took a cramped school bus up to a kampung (village) called Kpg. Bengoh and rowed our way down to Kpg. Semadang. It takes about 4-5hrs to complete the route at a leisurely pace. It was an awesome way of enjoying the breath-taking mountain and river scenery.




The crazy company we kept made it all the more fun! There were a lot of 'extra activities' like ambushing and capsizing people's kayaks, as well as forced stripping and mooning for the camera!? I shall spare you the details...

Anyway, here are the pics from this great day outdoors:


We had to tie our water bottles to the kayak so it wouldn't float away in case we capsized (be it accidentally or purposely)!


Fooling around after lunch. (You can get really hungry from kayaking)


Trying to outsmart the sandflies (to no avail)!


Great weather! Hot day with a slight drizzle towards the end of the route.


We went home itchy, sun-burnt and sore, but happy nonetheless...



Here's a cute mountain...

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs


On Sunday, Hubby and I brought kids no. 1 and 2 to the new MBO cinema at The Spring to watch 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' in 3D. Don't bother asking the kids what they watched, the title is just too long! I don't think you'd get an answer from Hubby even! :)

Anyway we kind of bribed kid no.3 into staying home with Grandma, because she doesn't have a long enough attention span just yet, and wouldn't have appreciated the movie anyway. For her, the popcorn and fizzy drinks hold more excitement than the movie! It's a good thing that she loves spending time with Grandma, and a little ice-cream bribe thrown in helped ease the decision making process! ;)

We chose to watch the 3D version and it was a bit pricey; RM20 per adult and RM15 for children. They handed out grimy, plastic 3D goggles at the door which you have to return at the end. The 3D effects weren't all that great. Some bits where it looked like burgers were falling on you were quite interesting, but otherwise it wasn't anything remarkable. I guess we expected too much, after experiencing the 3D movie at Hong Kong Disneyland. Now that was really cool.

Well, we just wanted the kids to experience the novelty of it, but I don't think we'll go for the 3D versions again. Claire even took the goggles off after a while and just refused to put them back on.



As for the movie, I thought it was pretty cool. The ice-cream snow was my favourite! What child never imagined ice-cream or candy raining from the sky eh?

(Hmmm... It wasn't just me, was it?)




The kids absolutely loved the part where the mutant pancakes and syrup flattened the school! "Hooray! No school! No school!"
(They obviously can relate to those kids jumping up and down with glee!)


As for Hubby... I'm sure he would have preferred less Jell-O and more Bruce Lee, but he didn't complain. He's glad to spend some Happy Time with the kids before he flies off to Papua New Guinea on Monday.

So, I guess I would rate 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' 3 out of 5 stars. If only we had ice-cream snow... the world would be a much happier place I should think...

Monday, October 19, 2009

I can do the hula

Solomon found his own way to go round and round with a hula hoop, just like his big sister!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Crashed the Batmobile...


Supermum crashed the Batmobile.

What? Wrong superhero? Whatever...

Anyway, yesterday I rammed a car while trying to turn out onto the bigger road at a T-junction! I totally didn't see it coming. So here are my excuses:

1. Kids no.2 and 3 were fighting in the car over some mango pudding I made the day before.

2. Some @#*% had parked his big fat car on the side of the main road, blocking part of my view of oncoming cars!

Yes, it's all their fault, not mine, no, not with my terrific driving skills!
(Just don't ask me to parallel park!)


3. We all have a blind spot on our retina! Scientific fact okay? So there!



Well anyway, the poor guy was happily driving down the straight road when this crazy lady rammed the side of his car! *sigh*

I bashed the corner of my car and dented both his doors! So I had to go to the police station to make a report and get fined RM300! All the hassle, and now I have to deal with insurance companies. When it comes to getting money out of insurance companies, you'll have more luck getting a constipated geriatric patient to pass motion (excuse the metaphor, can't think of a nice one for insurance companies)!

I felt like a criminal giving a confession at the police station; Yes it was me, I did it! It was all me, nobody else! I'm the evil, crazy woman! Lock me up and throw away the key! *sob, sob*

I guess the important thing is we were all okay. Kids no. 2, 3 and 4 were in the car with me, so I'm glad it was nothing too serious.

You can bet I super-nagged the kids about 'sitting down and keeping quiet in the car'! They didn't seem too repentant though, Claire was so excited to ask my shop staff, "Do you see anything different with my mum's car?" (yeah, you mean, like that big huge hole?)

So, it was a pretty crummy day, but the day was not over! No Siree! It turned to downright bizarre that night.

I was halfway to Dreamland at around 11pm last night, when I heard scratching and squeaking noises coming from the corner of my room, under a small table. Crap, the condo had rat infestation problems?

Great.

I was now stranded on my bed. I wanted to switch on the light so that maybe the rat would get scared and run away? But knowing these horrible creepy crawly creatures, it would most probably run up my leg instead!

So I waited, maybe the rat would just run off on its own. It wasn't like rats to stay in the open for so long. So I waited... more scratching... and waited... more squeaking...

This was getting strange. The rat was still there. I caught a glimpse of something black scrambling about. It still wasn't going anywhere. What could I do? Solomon was sleeping on the floor of my room. I couldn't just let a cocky rat roam about my room.

Just then, the 'rat' flew out of my room into the dining room! It was a BAT!!! Jeez... talk about creepy! I was half-expecting it to turn into Count Dracula and wish me Happy Halloween!

The little guy was disorientated and scrambling about on the floor. So, SUPERMUM came to save the day by yelling at her bedroom door for Sidekick! hehehe...

Sidekick was creeped out as well, but at least she wasn't frozen by the bedroom door. She covered the bat with the dustbin lid and just to be sure, covered that with a rug. Hooray for Sidekick!

Super Grandpa got rid of the bat this morning. Thank goodness.

Talk about a weird day. If this is what "adventure" entails, count me out. I'd much prefer my old boring, predictable life back, thankyouverymuch!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Flower arrangement


So last night we had a "flower arrangement workshop" of sorts. Look at the mess we made! The bouquet of roses hubby gave me were swathed in layer upon layer of paper and plastic. So last night we dissected the bouquet and removed all the unnecessary fluff. Then we arranged the roses and fillers into 3 glass jars.We recycled the sheets of paper by using them to decorate the jars.

Annie enjoyed creating her own arrangement of white mini daisies (or whatever you call them). Claire and Eva were happy just cutting up whatever was in sight!



I just love flowers...


and more flowers.

Meet Cinderella... her evil parents make her sweep the whole house with this wee, tiny broom every morning at 4 am! *sigh* Life's not fair...



At least we provide her with a support crew! :)



Sis no.3 bought me a super yummy white chocolate macadamia nut cake from Secret Recipe! Mum-in-law also got me a yummy chocolate cake but I forgot to take a pic...

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Early birthday


Hubby just made my day! He really knows the way to my heart! He won't be able to come back from Bintulu for my birthday tomorrow, so he sent 2 dozen roses instead! I would have preferred it if he came back, because we all miss him, but I don't mind the roses either, if you know what I mean :)




Hubby knows I love flowers and I will find any excuse to buy fresh flowers. These red roses are just gorgeous! It's such a humungous bouquet, I don't know where to put it! I might dismantle it and put them in a few vases at home. We'll see...

Thanks for the roses darling!

As an early birthday treat to myself, I came to work at 2pm today! I thought ,"Sod the shop (for half a day at least)"! The kids are spending the day at Grandad's, so I decided to stay home to bake and get the baking bug out of me.

I made roll-out cookies and now I remember why I don't make these often; they're so much tedious work! Remind me this the next time I start dreaming about baking cookies okay? Well, at least I got it out of my system and although I only ended up with 10 pieces of completely decorated cookies, they were quite pretty. Not worth all the work though, I think. Cupcakes are much easier.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Mid-autumn festival



We celebrated Mooncake Festival on Saturday night under the light of a beautiful, perfectly full moon. (Are we Chinese good at this lunar calendar thing or what?)




We had dinner at Sis no.2's house and also celebrated the birthday of 5 October babies! Me and Sis no.2 included. Everyone brought lots of yummy food and the star of the show was Sis no.2's roasted curry lamb leg with potatoes! She also bought a chocolate mousse cake for us to share... Yummm... I wouldn't even call it a cake, it was all mousse except for a thin layer of sponge at the bottom. Not that I'm complaining! It was like eating super soft, melt-in-your-mouth milk chocolate!

Okay, okay, where were we... yes; Mooncake Festival.




So the adults stuffed their faces while the kids enjoyed playing and burning lanterns! Though most of them were unfortunately more interested in the Nintendo DS games rather than the old-fashioned paper lanterns. Maybe they would show more enthusiam if it were a digital lantern game where you can light, play and burn virtual lanterns?! Hmm... I should pitch this idea to the game-makers!


Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Dream a little dream...


I think I am having baking withdrawal symptoms; I smell vanilla extract in my car. Now, with 4 kids, my car smells far from sweet and more like an aromatic bouquet of pee, puke and rotting junk food...

It's a sign. I need to bake. Soon.

I was initially thinking along the lines of Christmassy stuff, even though it's October... Then it struck me... Halloween! Then I remembered I purchased the Wilton 101 cookie cutters ages ago and I haven't even used a single one!! Tsk, tsk, tsk...

I did a quick check online and yes, there are Halloweeny cutters in them, like bats and ghosts! Whoo hoo!

I've decided to declare Sundays 'Baking Day', as the shop is not open on Sundays. And... and... I send lunch to school for Annie on Mondays (as bribery for continuing Tae Kwon Do classes) so I can dispose of my 'projects' there!

Am I brilliant or what? I'm sure out of the few hundred children there, some brave ones will eat my scarily sweet concoctions...

Home-made lanterns



On Saturday we were invited to Sis no.2's place for dinner and to play lanterns. We were a bit short on lanterns, so I decide to go to the stationery shop next door to see what I could get. Not only did they not have lanterns, they didn't even have lantern paper or wire.




Since I was too lazy to drive around in search for lanterns, I rummaged about and decided to buy those prettily coloured transparency sheets which they use as the front or back cover in book binding.




With a pair of scissors, a pen-knife, a tulip-shaped puncher and a stapler, my lanterns turned out pretty nice, if I should say so myself :)

Monday, October 5, 2009

Morning sickness?

Mummy and 3/4 of the kids are down with the stomach flu. Feels like morning sickness all over again! The nausea and gas, right down to the bitter taste in the mouth!

*yech...*


Don't know how I ever survived morning sickness (mostly lying on the sofa at the back of the shop)! That's the part I hate most about pregnancies.

Poor sidekick has been mopping up endless pools of vomit the whole day yesterday. Kids are better today, mummy still a bit green-like...

Will write more when the walls stop moving...

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Latest loot

Wheee! My latest loot arrived by mail!! Happy happy!



I got me some food markers! Yay, yay... now my fondant model faces won't look so 'cacat'.

Then we have Wilton colours which are so concentrated they don't thin your icing (no, unfortunately I'm not getting paid to endorse Wilton products.... darn).

And finally, a 9" angled spatula. I could only find giant ones at the bakery goods shops here and those are really not suited to decorating teensy wincy cuppie cakes!

*bliss*

Next, I'm looking forward to getting my book, 'A Diver's Guide to Reef Life' from Amazon.com. I hope this is not turning into some kind of addiction. I'll worry about that tomorrow. Right now, let me enjoy my high...

Drug pusher

It is 8:30am and I am already at the shop as we are short-staffed today.

*sigh*


All the kids went for a lantern party last night and daddy also finally came home from Bintulu. Therefore, everyone went to bed rather late.

About last night:
Kid no.1 had a nose bleed.
Kid no.2 wet her bed.
Kid no.3 ran a mild fever.
Kid no.4 woke up for milk 3 times (as usual) and then decided he had had enough sleep at 5:30am!

I am therefore present with bloodshot eyes and must warn you that I get wonky when I go without my minimum requirement of 8 hours sleep.

Now, this is not a very good situation in my line of work.



Let's imagine I'm pushing a packet of pills towards a customer:

Me: Take these... These are gooooood...
*nods earnestly with bloodshot eyes and slightly-crazed grin*

Customer: Uh huh... erm... okay...
*nervous chuckle*

You know what? I think I'm actually feeling better already. So, uh, maybe I'll just, uh, mosey on home and take some vitamin C? Yeah, thanks anyway. Bye.
*quickly shuffles out the door*



Yup, not good for business at all...

Friday, October 2, 2009

Black eyed peas

My eight year old daughter is singing "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eyed Peas.

Should I be worried?

Hmmmm...




Well I guess they're not too bad. Could be much worse... like:




...this 'guy'! Ugh...
*shivers*

I guess compared to weirdo here, Black Eyed Peas are like Sunday school teachers! But I'ld still prefer it if she kept to Miley Cyrus for the meantime.

Even Eva, who's only 3 years, old keeps asking for the "Good night song"! It seems BEP's songs are so catchy, they appeal to all ages! So, anyone out there have a grandma who's into the Black Eyed Peas?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

First child syndrome



The other day, a friend of mine was chiding herself for being a bad mum on her FB status. One of her friends suggested that she have herself another kid, then she wouldn't have the time to bother about being the perfect mum!

I was pondering on this statement, and as a mother of 4, I shall attest to the truth in it!

Have you ever noticed that first born children are usually a little bit more 'straight' than their later born siblings? This is because first born children have First Time Parents (FTPs).

Now, FTPs are new to the scene and are super idealistic. They want to be perfect parents and are eager to create the perfect child prodigy. They will turn their worlds upside down to ensure Junior has the best nurturing, the best milk powder, the best pre-preschool, the best toys, heck, even the best nappies and potties to poop in! FTPs harbour secret dreams of Junior becoming the next Yo-Yo Ma, Einstein or Ian Thorpe, or even better, all three rolled into one! (Yes, we were all there before.. don't deny it...)

I of course was an FTP myself. Way back then, when my No.1 did something wrong, I sat down with her patiently and we discussed what she did wrong. Then I would explain to her why she should not do it again and maybe even tell her an Aesop's Fable or two. Then I would hug and kiss the remorse away from her poor little sad face... sweet...




Then I had kid No.2 and things went more or less like this:

Kid No.1: Mum!! Claire hit me!!

Mum: Claire, you cannot hit jiejie. That is wrong. God teach us to love one another. Do you love your sister?

Claire: *sniff sniff* *nods*

Mum: Promise not to hit your sister again okay?

Claire: *sniff sniff* *nods*

Mum: Good girl. *hug*




Then along came kid No.3:

Kid No.2: Mummy!! Eva bite my stomach!!

Mum: Eva, cannot do that. Say sorry to jiejie.

Eva: Sorry Claire Ng Bum Bum *skips away happily*

Kid No.2: Mummy!! Eva call me Claire Ng Bum Bum!!
Bold
Mum: *pretends not to hear*




And then I had 4 kids:

Altogether now (kids 1 to 3): Mummy!! Solomon snatch my doll!! Mummy!! Solomon pull my hair!! Mummy!! Solomon bite my foot!!

Mum: Solomon! Naughty boy!

*gives compulsory stern look*

Now you all go away, mummy got a lot of work to do...

*continues playing Pet Society*




(Boy am I glad I'm no.5 in my family! heheheh...)
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