Spare the rod.

I'm think sometimes I'm too nice with my kids. They run absolutely wild when with me. With my husband on the other hand..he just needs to talk to them in a stern voice and everything is back in order. Really kids? You're not listening to me?

One time, I was taking my son into the shower.

"Commmmon, let's go. Hurry. Mummy is tired"
"I wannnaaa play Ninjaaaa"
"Okay, pause first. We'll get back to that, I promise!"
"But I dowaaaaannnaaa shower"
"Commoooooooon. Let's goooo"

He started giggling and falling into a heap on the floor. A tug-o-war game. Like, let's see if she can drag me in there.

Suddenly Daddy comes and raises his voice.

"What's the problem?? Get in there now!!"

My son gets up, goes straight into the toilet. Daddy leaves the room. Son starts nagging on the toilet seat but not loud enough for Daddy to hear. Goes on and on about how he'd rather play Ninja.

"Okay, okay that's quite enough. You talk way too much!"
"Hey, I like to talk okaaayyy"

Imagine that.

And let's not even start with my girl! She just turned two and she talks non stop. Once in a while she'll turn to me and ask "You happy?" Lol!

Yesterday, she went to bed at 8 - slightly early than the usual, woke up at 5 for conversations with Mummy.

Where are my pants?
Uh-oh. This is diaper, Mummy!
Are you happy? Are you angwwyyy?
Open your eyes Mummy!
Look at me Mummy!
Mummy, I want hot milk..

Oh boy. It was a whole hour before she went back to bed.

 My son on one of their Daddy-son day out.

My daughter during her 2nd birthday celebration at school.

xoxo

The Luxury of Time

Well, this week is the beginning of downtime at the office. And for the next 6 weeks. I love love the flexibility that comes with this job and amount of time I get to spend with the kids. Planning school birthday parties, bento boxes for breakfast and dinner, being the first one at warehouse sales (!) - I mean which other job offers you flexible hours like these, huh?

Having said that, starting this year Mommy has to wake up way way earlier than her usual 9-10am because we signed up for Agama classes at S's kindy. So the Agama classes would begin at 8.30 and normal kindy hours would resume right after that ends. A bit frantic trying to organize early bed times, meals, sending the kids off earlier so on and so forth. D helps as much as possible but he has to be at work by 9, and he works all the way in Jalan Ampang so no delays starting his journey as driving would get a tad bit nightmarish.

Speaking of jobs, do you know that each time you check someone out on LinkedIn, it notifies the person? Yep, it sure does. And D has told me for the past few month there's this girl from our past who has constantly been checking him out on LinkedIn. I mean, I know she's somewhat a stalker but...? I don't know, we laughed it off and just connected it to the fact that she has always been a 'curious one'. One time she checked on D's LinkedIn and two minutes later Tada! one of her close male friends connected with D on LinkedIn. Probably sitting around over coffee letting curiosity get the best of them..hahaha. 

Anyhoos,

2014 was fabulous, didn't go on holidays as much as I would like due to it being D's first year in the Management team at his new company, and 2015 does not look too good either due to..some other stuff. Moving into banking and finance is hard work but rewarding. I am proud!

But hey, we're getting better financially year by year and here's hoping that we'd be able to have more fun travelling soon.. :)

Little Family Trip

We went on a little trip October 2013. Our little family with my parents and siblings. Landed in UK, where my sister is currently residing and a week later took the Eurotrain to Paris and later to Amsterdam. It was late in the year and it was the end of Autumn and the beginning of Winter. Sejuukkk...!

My kids were absolutely amazingly well-behaved on the flight (13 hours direct flight - no joke) Bundling them up in layers of clothes took a lot of getting used to but we managed fine. It was so worthy - saving up the entire year. We did quite a generous amount of shopping!

Enjoy the pics. They were in a totally different format. Have to reformat so these are whatever I have now. Printed them for Baby A's first birthday party.

Peace & Love.

And then there were four..

I am back at work after my 60 days maternity leave.

Yes. We had another baby :)

Welcomed our second bundle of joy, a baby girl on on 300113. We planned to deliver her on the 31st but my water broke on the morning of the 30th so we have to deliver her that day itself. Lucky for me D still had not left for work, so he could drive me to the hospital.

Delivery was quick, smooth and a happy affair. :) 

Mom and MIL took turns taking care of me for the first two weeks and then the confinement lady came and it was daily massages, herb baths and hot stone massages. Utter bliss. Yes, the bill for that did come up to a four digit number but totally oh-so-worth it!

As usual, I leave pictures to tell the rest of the story.

 That's S, at the time about to be an older brother in just couple of days.

 Once, the confinement lady left - I was sooo done with ginger and soup. 

So D made fajitas as a treat.Superbly delicious.

 That's our pretty girl. Baby A. Few weeks old. Smiling in her slumber.

 A collage of A's picture in her first few weeks.

 That D and I @ brunch with my favourite Survivor players.

My last confinement meal D made for me. So good. But tak cukup!

Yep, apart from welcoming our girl, the highlight of 2013 so far is definitely meeting those two survivor. I think its a well-known fact that I am a massively die hard survivor super fan. I think you can name about any survivor and I can tell you pretty much what season they were on and mind you, that's 26 seasons with 20 survivors on each! So the story was, I followed her on instagram and am facebook friends with him. So she was putting up all the pictures of her Asia travels and I asked her whether she'll be coming to Malaysia. She said she would and let's meet up and this and that and the rest is history.... Starting with brunch and Chawan Bangsar to dinner and a banana leaf lunch on their last day to getting a manicure and pedicure (his treat!) together with her. It was pretty much awesome hanging out with them. She's on a year's sabbatical, traveling throughout South East Asia - super awesome. Inspired D to pretty much do the same, but obviously not NOW.  

Leave you with a quote - Internet stalkers are two kinds of people (those who really love you and those who reaaaaally hate you)

Don't lie. I know you're the first kind. You're obsessed with me. Or else you would not be here even after I've stopped writing for so long.

November Babies

It's that month of the year again. Pockets get thinner and we grow older. S had his birthday celebration at my Mom's though pretty much nobody was around - only us and Wani. Daddy bought half a dozen Delectable cuppies at RM11 each. Crazy. Not a price that I would ever pay. For cupcakes!! But later on the Friday, we had a party for him at school :) Mommy and Daddy took the day off to pick-up the cake, assemble the goody bag,  cook some stuff for the kids and teachers. It was so so fun save the part where he wailed when we started singing Happy Birthday. Yeah, he did it the previous day too..with his cupcakes. God knows why.

For D - I bought him what he always wanted. I pair of Ici Berlins. Yes, they cost a bomb but no..I dont mind, seeing how he bought me that phone for my bday last year. I love it to bits, so Im hoping he loves my gift too. He want to get me a handbag - but I'm still contemplating which bag. Id love a nice, roomy but full calf leather bag. And I am in no hurry.so that can wait til I find the perfect one. MBMJ come to Mommah!

I had a nice surprise for my bday..D walks in after work carrying a huge basket of roses and lilies! And a beautiful worded card that made me tear up a bit. Awww... mengada.

I leave you with pictures as they speak a thousand words. Cliche. Baby S's birthday, mine, D's bday dinner at Tony Roma's with my family,  our weekend trip to Cherating paid for my the MIL, and just some random stuff over the gorgeous, rainy month of November.

:)

Visuals

Life in pictures. Because I have no space to write. Between work and post-graduate studies, I take it easy and record stuff in pictures.

S, on our weekly Sunday afternoon pool dips.

Throwing a tantrum 0_0

Yellow pool at the new apartment. Not ours.

Reading list for school. Not good progress.

S and Daddy on a shopping spree.

Had an awesome weekend with both Saturday and Sunday lunches at Sushi Zanmai. Yums. Just thinking about it gets me wanting it for the third day in a row. Watami? Whattheheck?

How was yours?

I am happy

I am happy. Just plain happy.

Yesterday Baby S took his first few steps. I was soo excited. Mind you, he is a baby without any genetically engineered baby formula in his system, so his progress is au naturel according to how nature intended it to be. Formula fed kids grow teeth at 4-5 months, walk at 8 months and have proud parents thinking that their kids are super advanced. Here, I smirk.

D was elated watching Baby S. I believe his exact words were ' OMG this is so beautiful'. I just rolled my eyes at him. How's that for a proud parent. D is really patient with our son, teaching him animal sounds, identifying objects in pictures and they have all these conversation all day long.

Im just the grumpy one who makes his food and milk. -_-

Its cool being parents. Im glad I waited until I was super ready - emotionally and financially.

You want a baby? Hurry, not much time left till you are 35. I believe that's the deadline, no?

Big Bad Wolf

The Big Bad Wolf Warehouse.

Am so going to write about that.

I went there a total of 5 times! Yep, that's the nerd in me.

Till then, I'm hitting the books :)

Occupied

In the midst of training. As usual, you get the guy who talks too much, the ones who falls asleep with their eyes open, the ones who fall asleep with their eyes closed (!) , the one with waay to much questions and other funny characters. Im the one who blogs during training. Ha!

Mum and brother returned from Jeddah and Dubai yesterday. Shopping heaven apparently. Love all the stuff they brought home. Obviously baby s got the most, with mum and brother both buying gifts for him including the cutest kurta and also jubah. Giler cute! Also fresh dates to be blended into his food.

D got a pair of soft leather Bally shoes. Man! I am so jealous..i mean Bally shoes? Geez. He was beyond happy.

Sigh, bila nak lunch break ni. So hungry. Talk talk talk. So hungry. Talk talk. Talk.

Wrap up already.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Training Room

Monday

I don't feel like getting showered and going into the office. It's 10:59.

I think I'll just work from home.

And at the same time try hard to get through buying AirAsia tickets.

Yipeedee--doo-dah!

A loooong week.

Wow. I am beyond exhausted. Tired does not even begin to describe me. And yet i still ended last week with not many things completed.

A broke-down car, three-hour invigilation, my paper being held at night on a friday, script markings, four rounds of laundry, hub's sixteen pieces of unironed shirts in my trunk, a teething baby -seriously where do i even begin?

Monday i had invigilation. Tuesday had scripts to marks, free-lance copy-righting job halfway done. Wednesday invigilation- three hours. Dang! Met my supervisor. And baby s would simply not sleep through the night. Whining at every hour. Man i was just glad the sun was up and i could rest in my room at the office. Thursday invigilation again. Friday had a discussion at 11, Board Meeting at 3, my first ever MPHil class at 3pm. I went to both. No, i really did. Class ended at 6, car broke down at the petrol station, i went in, had a coke while waiting for hubs. Hubs came at 7ish, i took his car while he fixed mine, rushed home showered and got changed to go to my students exams on campus. My literature paper was going on that night. Whew!

Got a few "Miss S why Ms why??" cause the paper was tough - they were creative students anyways - not english major. Oh well.

Went to bed probably sighing.

Today was up early, hubs and me rotating vacuuming and mopping, four loads of laundry, folding and other shit stuff. Went to openhouse one, missed openhouse two and now we are at MIL.

Yes, the maid is currently on sabbatical. Don't ask.

47 scripts await me.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:MIL's Place

Want. This. Bad

I love Roald Dahl. His books for children, adults - love all of them. Have read mostly the books in these titles but would love to have the entire collection. Probably for Baby S? He's past the stage of eating books and moved on to other things such as newspapers and Archie Comics.

I want this bad.

My sister, the blogger

Stalk her now. You know you want to. Freak.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Newlywed's bedroom

Yes, baby!

Ola! Superhappy that i finally manage to post from ipad. Had to install a software first but all is good. :) still waiting for hubs to return - no, more like can't wait for him to come home. Baby s has so much energy it's almost impossible to keep up. Yesterday he started yelling in his sleep. What on earth. Had no idea what was going on there. Told hubs about it he just laughed and said that baby s is mengada - ada as usual.

Yesterday was the fourth day of fasting. Cooked a meal of sup ikan kurau ( suddenly imagined my confinement dish mummy cooked - super yummy) loaded it with black pepper and ginger. Lol! Then made prawn sambal - my all time favourite and puyuh goreng. Yums. Afterwards me and sister03 got a sweet craving so we hopped over to TGIF. Sadly they pulled out the amazing mocha mudpie from the menu. But i had an eton mess which was a fabulous meringue with frsh cream dessert. And raspberry coulis drizzled. Oh yums. Sister03 had the caramel ice cream..equally sinful.

Taking about food, i'm gonna do an honest review of the few places we visited during ramadhan last month. Some were fabulously good and others were just baaaadd! Not that we went to many places, maybe only about three or four but totally blogworthy mentioning. Im trying to get the pictures of dessert yesterday and flaunt but gotta figure out how that's gonna work first.

Okay. Baby s is climbing all over me tugging on my hair. Every grammar and spelling error here i will blame it on him. :)



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Newly-weds bedroom!

Cheeky :)

What a busybusy weekend we had. Started on Friday where Hubs wanted to treat me to iftar at Seoul Garden. Big mistake risking the Friday evening traffic. Left home at 6ish reached there at 9! Dang. But we had tonnes of fun. Sister03 joined us and Baby S was content feeding from the fruit bar. Oh what a mess he created.

Saturday, went to Open house and Aqiqah of one of my parent's neighbor. Aqiqah of their 2 year old daughter(!). Lamb was superb had a great lunch. One Aunt tried to feed my son chocolate, Daddy freaked out. Was funny watching. Baby S is still on a strict non-sugar, non-salt, non-processed food diet. Which also means everything I feed him is home cooked and not from one of those can cereal thing. Yes, it's a chore but at least I know what goes into him. I haven't even fed him bread. Nope. Nothing processed, but bread has a wee bit of salt which I am avoiding. Daddy (D) is great at helping, me and Baby S were too tired, he took over preparing baby food. Bless you munchkin :)

Usually his food would be

Half a cup of brown rice
A slice of Salmon or King fish
A handful of carrots
A handful of broccoli
A handful of spinach
A handful of colored capsicum
A handful of French beans

Yes, a healthy diet has to be a multi colored diet. Read up people.

Anywaaaaays..(am getting sidetracked here)
After the openhouse, the original plan was to go to the Putrajaya Parliamentary Member's openhouse but me and D were too stuffed and too sleepy, so we took a nap while my parents went. Later that evening we went to Grandma's at KJ to meet up with everyone since we missed Raya with them this year. Baby S's duit raya for this year is a lot~ more than I ever got in a year. (I didn't know the starting rate is RM10...no longer RM5 eh?)

Sunday, D had invitation from his clients for an openhouse at Hotel Istana. Off we went. So much food! Everything under the sun. Again Baby S was happy with salad bar. Munching away carrots and cucumber and beans. We managed to find a highchair in the hotel ballroom. Imagine that! Sunday nights as usual was spent with Baby S's paternal grandparents and cousin Zara in Shah Alam. Left around 10 ish, went home - cooked some baby food then went to my parents house to sleep over since D left for outstation to meet his client.

Today is fasting day 4/6. Hope all goes well.

Snob

My Dad is an academic snob. That's why when I wanted to pursue my post-graduate studies he insisted that I did an MPhil instead of MA. And I did. Sigh.

Tuesday I went for my registration. Met with my supervisor. Paid my fees (thank you husband!) Much has changed, notably the presence of quite a number of international studies, terutama dari negara yang satu itu - yang saya tidak begitu gemar. Where we use to park has now become exclusively for staff and there's also the bar that goes up and down. wow.

Met one colleague about to complete her course and an ex-classmate from my undergraduate years. Am still amazed that lecturers still know my name. Well, some of them anyways. As usual registration on campus is very systematic, better than some other unis i know.

I met an old old classmate. I saw her first, wanted to avoid her but didn't think I could - she was coming straight at me. I had no choice I looked at her and managed a feeble smile. She was all like 'S!!! OMG..yadda yadda yadda bla bla bla..!!"

Let's backtrack. I'm not a fan of hers because the last time I talked to her she called me stupid. Yes, stupid. It went something like this:

"Eh aku dengar best friend ko dulu kawen dgn ******. Ko tak mintak die belanja ke bende best2. Bodoh la engkau ni. Takkan tu pun aku nak ajar."

..the fuck?

She went on and on about how great it was to see me and stuff while I smiled coolly at her. Then,

'Lepas ni ko buat ape?'
'Pergi taklimat.'
'Yelah! Lepas tu..??'
'Hmm. tak sure.'

Sensing that I was not mirroring her enthusiasm for a little reunion, she recoiled and said oh,okay bye. Duh.

I'm not nasty, just ...selective.

Blogspot FTW

im here blogging again from blogspot after i moved to wordpress. wp is so anal, huge fonts the images come out horribly and i just dont feel...the chemistry (?) blogging with wp.

ive decided to actively blog again bcos my dear sister has departed to the UK to pursue her studies as well as live with her husband. hmm. according to her she does not want to miss any of the good stuff happening here back home nor does she want to miss out on baby S growing years and milestone. god forbid this turns into a parenting blog. hmm, no.

let's see. ramadhan this year was a fantastic run. i managed to avoid the evil Pasar Ramadhan (overpriced expensive food, no?) managed to fast with only 1 day miss and terawikh the best i could depending on Baby S's mood swings. We ate out only 4 times i think. aren't we fantastic? most of the time i cooked, or we ate at Mummy's.

i only love this picture cos it reflected the superb job
i did mopping the floor -_-

Baby S in his baju raya. Actually it was recycled from
Aunty G's wedding do family theme. Was a bit big, now it fits perfect.
The songkok is new, outgrew the old one.

Took him for an evening stroll back on the last day of Ramadhan in JB.
It was drizzling and we put the rain cover on, he seemed to think it was hilarious.

This was taken quite a while back during Aunty G's reception in Kelantan.
Think it was his nap time. He was nearing 6 months and was still in breastmilk diet only.

Okay. will try to blog again. Have to be somewhere at 11 and I'm still here. Toodles.

Packed up and moved!

HERE.

if i can procrastinate, i will.

am delaying work. woke up all gung ho about finishing all my paperwork by today and all that change when i found out the deadline is end of this week. oh, well see i haven't changed have i?

late start today. woke up at 10. D the same. Showered and left for work. now i'm done. could stay til 5 or leave and work from home. i think i will do the latter.

as usual had an awesome weekend. karoke-ing with the family and najmi. despite what they say, i gobbled down half a dozen of oysters. totally orgasmic! most of the weekend was spent with the family or either just the two of us in bed. ;)

had sister02's majlis merisik last weekend which was a great success and fun. no formal stiff ceremony at all. first time witnessing the man himself speak out his intentions instead of the parents speaking out for him. i think i kinda like it that way. ko nak kawin, ko la bercakap. wish i had pictures of the weekend to share, maybe later?

helped mummy prepare a feast of steamed siakap, masak lemak tiger prawns sambal sotong and my salad with my own made from scratch dressing. and mummy made her awesome toblerone cheesecake, choco banana cheesecake and fruit custard pudding.

the highlight has gotta be buying the twenties girl brand new paperback at only 19.90. am deliriously happy. it sells at seventy bucks or something at other bookstores.

Worrier

It's kinda strange how I always make it a point to say to D and the rest of my family, 'bawak keta elok2 tau!' and actually mean it instead of just something I say while parting. Since when did i become such a worrier?

It's barely 10.30 Tuesday morning and I'm already feeling tired. Picked D up from KL Sentral at a little after 10 yesterday. Two bikes, two overnight bags - him and friend. D had a nice tan and even nicer legs. Very lean. He got me three kaftans from KB. I'm not bias but they really were the nicest ones I've ever seen by far. As nice as kaftans get.

Was a bit sad to come home after that long slumber party at Mummy's place. Had fun with the kids and team cooking with Mummy. Back to the quiet home and private lives of me and D. Glad he liked the gift I got him. :)

Fell asleep with D's hand stroking my belly.