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 :)

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...

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...

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?

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!!

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...)