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??

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...

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...

I can do the hula

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

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!

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...

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.

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!

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 :)