Friday, September 21, 2012

Open house 2012

Salam everyone and i know it's a bit late, but I still want to wish everyone Selamat Hari Raya! LOL

We had a glorious Raya break this year mainly because it was a long break as we commuted between Kuching and Bintulu. Since my cousin got married on Independence Day, I had a good excuse to prolong the leave so we could spend extra time with our loved ones at home.

Anyway the festive mood continued and last weekend, being the long weekend we decided to host makan2 event @ open house this year.

Honestly i was expecting massive efforts to be put to prepare the feast. Days before the event, I ambitiously planned to prepare laksa Sarawak, mee kolok and daging masak hitam served with lemang (tak sedar diri tengah pembawakan budak!).

But as the day drew nearer, laziness took over and I had a brilliant idea of getting a caterer to prepare nasi tomato while we only prepared laksa Sarawak and mee kolok.

We managed to get a caterer 2 days before the event at very affordable price (RM5 per pax, complete with serving tray, plates and everything needed for the party).

Then on Saturday, we did some major cleaning before we went out to buy groceries for the feast. We also stopped by Deja Moss' cake shop to buy kek lapis Sarawak to add to my kek lapis cream cheese variety.

Kek Lapis Tulip from Hadeeja

What with grocery shopping, going to Kak Retna's doa selamat event, and cake-hunting, eventually we reached home around 8pm to start the preparation.

I immediately started on the mee kolok recipe for dinner. And that's when I decided to drop it from the menu. My mee kolok was almost inedible! LOL

So, our menu was - laksa Sarawak, nasi tomato, kek lapis Sarawak, and some Raya cookies that I purposely saved in case we decided to go ahead with the event.

Senang kan?

By that night we were already in full mode of the feast preparation that even our little girl decided to chip I'm some help.

She helped me to fill the cookie jars :) aawww...

She also helped to clear up her toys (but always got distracted by the toy she picked up!) and even wiped the polystyrene bowls.

The whole family worked hard that night and only went to bed around 1am.

Penat seyhh...

The next day, I became worried that nobody would turn up to our feast because we only had 5 people who confirmed they would come via FB. And we had prepared a feast for 30 pax!

So apa lagi, sesi calling2 to check whether people were they were invited.

Needless to say, I was worried over nothing because after 2pm, neighbors, friends and colleagues turned up till we had a full house!

Meriah sangat rasanya, sampai tak cukup tangan melayan tetamu ^_^

To my delight, my cream cheese kek lapis was a hit and I had to refill the cake tray several times. Thank God we had the cakes all cut up and stores in the freezer ready to be served.

We were also amused that children found our ice-dispensing fridge fascinating. They kept refilling their cups with crushed ice every time they finished their drinks.

Overall I'm so happy that we managed to host this makan2 event successfully although it was a last-minute decision thing. Our normally peaceful home was also bustling with laughter and crowds.

It was totally worth it to be having people over at our house even though after everything was over, we had another massive clean-ups to do and a really aching feet and back to tend to.

I can't wait to do it again next year, Insya Allah :)

I'm also grateful to those who also brought along some gifts (eh, first time pulak buat open house dapat gift!) because they knew that we just finished our house renovation a few months back. So they came along with some housewarming gift for us. Baik kan?

To these friends and colleagues, we take this opportunity to say thank you for the lovely gifts :) See how Khayla was excited about 'em?

Sunday, July 15, 2012

The third fun weekend - The Lake Garden is bigger than our house and she loves it

The 17mo toddler was restless - she had been cooped up in the house for most of the day and because the house is just a 900sqf box, she couldn't run as much as she wants.

So guess where we brought her for a run? Yup, none other than the lovely Lake Garden :)

Yeay! The field is bigger than my house!

Sometimes I wonder whether I was in the right frame of mind when I decided to go ahead with the MBA when I knew I was pregnant - if I could go back, I would tell my child-less self that I would suck as a mother. Good mothers bring their children for swimming, shopping, playing at the playground, not cooped up at home finishing homework and assignments, and dragging their toddler to group assignment meetings. I may excel with flying colors in studies, but I fail miserably at being a mom :(

This semester break? I made it up, and score countless brownie points in Khayla's book. We brought her to the Aquaria a couple of weeks ago, then last week we brought her to play at the indoor play area at Paradigm Mall and watch her first movie (Ice Age 4, and 10 minutes later she dozed off because the cinema was dark and cold).

How little Khayla must have enjoyed her weekends because she always wakes up earlier than usual.

So back to Lake Garden story. We were fortunate to find a parking space to park our not so compact car anymore. The moment Khayla got off the car, she was already heading towards the playground and pointing at the swings! Oooh... how she loves the baby swing!

Giggling excitedly, she rocked back and forth as we pushed the swing higher and higher. Her eyes lit up with happiness - watching her adoring her swing moments made me feel, 'That ugly scar from the C-sec, sore nipples, and 10kg gain from the pregnancy? Oh yeah, totally worth it!'

We also took her to play the baby slides, and she was an expert at pushing herself down the slide, then scrambling up to climb the slide again.

Tired of the playground, we wandered off to the park and the baby-Daddy team started to run down the jogging track while I pushed the stroller. This girl puzzled me. She ate maybe 2 spoonfuls of rice, which she ate one grain at a time but heck, the way she sprinted off like an Energizer bunny, where did that extra energy came from???

I think we must have walked for a half a kilometer, before both Daddy and baby plonked themselves on the curb for a short while - then she spotted the fountain. Shrieking excitedly, she was up and running towards the fountain! Another baby copied her action - wow, babies must have love fountains.

We reached an open field, and since the day was nice and not too hot, we decided to bring along a mat which we spread on the ground under a tree. Then I went off to buy some ice creams, snacks and a drink for both of us while Khayla was already sipping on her Dutch Lady chocolate drink.

It was a joy sitting there having our tea while watching other families playing soccer, badminton and frisbee. After a while, Khayla decided to explore the field and the two love of my life went to explore the bridge across the field.

We spent about an hour at the field, and Khayla had fun wandering the field and even playing a balloon which a kind lady had given to her. At one time, she was picking up the balloon when she fell on it belly down and for one second, I was filled with horror that the balloon will explode. Instead, she rolled off the balloon onto the ground on her back - looking stunned, like, 'What just happened?!'

But eventually she did burst the balloon and then the picnic was over.

I am looking forward to plan the next weekend. Btw, Khayla added more to her nonsense vocab this week - and she was endlessly babbling in her own language.

It goes like this - AMIAMIAMICHIWOWO!CHIWOWO!AMIAMIIIIII! So Internet, AMIAMIAMI! (I sure hope she doesn't mean she wants to go to Miami).

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Cloth Diaper Story

Khayla is now 18 months old. She drinks a lot of milk. She pees a lot. Suddenly, I find that the cloth diaper is leaking!

o_O

But I like being the super Earth-friendly mommy! I don't mind washing her cloth diapers, because it just needs rinsing and then thrown into the washing machine for the rest. And we save 2 diapers (disposable ones) a day, minimum.

Plus, she doesn't have red rashes on her private area due to prolonged exposure to her urine whenever she wears the cloth diaper.

So for a few months my not-so-Earth-friendly hubby refused to put on cloth diapers on Khayla. Instead, it's only reserved for swimming activity. But for wearing in the house, especially at the prospect of accidents as Khayla likes to sit in his lap, he's not so keen on that.

So I look and look for the solution.

And I found it.

Turns out I just need to put an extra insert in the diaper. Wearing two inserts means she can play, run, waddle, climb and sit in our lap without the danger of leaking cloth diaper.

\O/

Success!

So for the second baby, I am aiming to have at least 20 cloth diapers and 10 extra inserts so we can save a lot on disposable diapers not just for the second one, but also for Khayla.

Last week, I tried out their online store to order two CDs and biodegradable diaper liner (because a newborn does not wet the diaper that much, but they pee and poo frequently). The service is quite fast. Within 2 days, I received my order.

I'm also wearing Lunatots Suri Pantyliner, which is their cloth pantyliners during my pregnancy due to leukorrhea. Not only it makes me more comfortable, I don't have to worry about running out of stock of pantyliners as I did last time. And it dries fast! :) I have four of them yet I don't run out of it even though I wear it daily.

Two thumbs up to Lunatots!

Not in the best of health...

*snott... snooottttt*

*cough cough*

*SNOOTTTTTTTTTTT....*

My body is under invasion. This sly creature called virus have sneakily entered my body and take over my immune system. All my white cells have abandoned their posts and rush to the most important part of my body - my baby. So, that leaves me all alone - vulnerable to the ambush attack launched by the virus.

*more groans and coughing*

So off I went to a clinic after work. I almost peed coughing while waiting for my turn to see the doctor.

The result - 2 days sick leave!

Have been spending the two days at home recuperating (sleeping). And since I felt bored yesterday, I requested that Khayla spent her time today at home with me.

Excuse me, time for our afternoon nap.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

Almost 4 months later and I'm BACK!

First of all, I didn't mean to abandon my blog for so long. I have several good reasons, see. In no particular order at all:

1. I'm busy with work-study-family. When I'm not attending evening classes, I'm looking after my little tot who is growing more and more precocious by the day.

2. I'm hit by writer's block - my writing skill has been reduced to 'BORING' that in the midst of writing a sentence, I yawned and then immediately clicked 'Save draft', and never opened it again.

3. My Samsung netbook monitor went kaput when it tumbled along the very rough terrain of a remote area in Sarawak while I was on a working trip there. The only way I could use the netbook is to hook it up to the big monitor in the study room. So it's not mobile anymore which then cramped my writing mood even more.

4. I got pregnant again.

Eh? You must be wondering. Why I always use same excuse 'I'm pregnant'? First of all. That part about being pregnant is 100% true, Alhamdulillah. It happened almost 4 months ago, which coincides with the last entry I posted on this blog.

In between March and July, I was so crazy sick with nausea and non-stop vomiting that I could not even get up, let alone think of what to write on my blog. It was a miracle that I managed to finish my semester and scored an A- in one of my paper.

Ahem. Enough excuses. Let's now move forward.

We are currently enjoying our semester break - hubby has dropped his intention to take the short semester because the subject he wanted to take turned out to be boring and full of assignments. So suddenly we found ourselves with a lot of time to occupy during the weekends (yes!).

This weekend kicked off with swimming activity in the morning. You see, my boss' daughter-in-law recently gave birth and her labour was really fast and easy. My boss told us that she was an avid swimmer during her pregnancy. That made me thought, why don't I start now as well so that I could also have an easy birth experience?

So off we went for an enjoyable session of playing in the pool (since nobody swim in the morning because the water is cold). I managed to complete 3 laps, much to my satisfaction. Our precious tot has learnt to float on her own but when she realized that, she became panicky and started to gasp for air and thrash about in the water. Still, it was a very good accomplishment for her :)

The thing I like about swimming is how it made my body feels light and more energetic. Also, when I float on my back, listening to my own breathing and the far away sound of my heartbeats, I feel totally relaxed. I imagine that is how my little baby hear and feel in my womb.

In the evening, we went out for jalan-jalan. I wanted to watch movie - Madagascar 3. Sadly, there were only front seats left when we tried online booking so we abandoned the idea. Hubby suggested that we bring Khayla to the Aquaria because she loves to watch fishes swimming in aquarium.

What can I say more, we had a lovely time of course. Khayla ran about laughing and pointing at those huge catfishes and waving bye-bye to the swimming sharks, turtles, stingrays and various ocean creatures swimming above us. It was an endearing sight to see her having so much fun.

Later we had dinner in KLCC and then had a bit of a shopping *wink* Can't tell what it is, but it made me very very happy that I finally can lay my hands on one!

All in all, this was the best weekend we had in weeks, where we don't have to worry about assignment discussions, beating the deadline, attending replacement classes or doing exam revisions.

Hope you guys also have a great weekend. Toodles!