Simple Christmas

Not too late to post about how I spent my Christmas, afterall we have 12 days of Christmas :)

Ok, this was how I spent my simple Christmas. We went to Midvalley for some shopping, and then brunch. We decided to eat at Manhattan Fish Market, since it's located at ground floor and we didn't need to carry the stroller up and down the escalator or waiting for the lift.

Usually I would order their clam chowder but that day, I decided to try their beetroot soup. We had the fried stuffs platter, complete with fish, shrimp, scallops, squid and fries. We also ordered the mac & cheese and cheesy fries for the boys.

Some wefie with the boys.

Weekends? Same boring stuff. Made breakfast for the boys, cereals and raisins.

Also made some steamed condensed milk cakes. 

Lunch? Same old thing - yee mein with ABC soup and hotdogs, heh!

Ok, bye!

Monday

This is the first time I blog about Monday at work. But before that, let me show you some of G's picture, before he had his haircut.

I have always wanted to cut his hair but I don't know how. So it's best to bring him to the barber to cut his hair. RM5 only per cut, so why not?

Ok, botak-ed !!

Nice?

Anyway, it was Dong Zhi yesterday, so we had some fun in the office by making "tang yuan" together, and boil them in ginger+pandan leave+sugar syrup.

I know, one day late, but my blog, my sukak, my like! 

Happy Dong Zhi everyone !

Lunch With The Sweet Girl

Yep, I had lunch with the sweetest girl on earth - Sheta! (Ok, actually we always have lunch like twice a month, in fact, we only had lunch about a week ago) but this time it's special coz she gave me my Christmas pressies! 

I felt so paiseh because I only gave her some (cute) "nonsense" when we met up last week (Hello Kitty bracelet, stickers and some cute soaps), but today, she gave me her hand-made card and a box of chocolates. Paiseh paiseh. Anyway, I want to say, thank you girl.

Ok, some wefie photos before lunch.

Thank you for the chocolates. 

P/S: Please ignore my plate of nasi kandar in front of me (we had a plate of nasi kandar with fried chicken each, and then, we shared another plate of mee goreng).

Here's the card.

Oh wait, there's my name written in front of the envelope.

Her precious hand-made bookmark and card.

And lastly, my chocolates! Am gonna gain 2kgs after today. 

I love you Sheta :)

Mummy Must Be Crazy

"You must be crazy", said my colleague when he saw this:

Yep, I bought this tea-party set, for fun, for the boys. Errr, maybe for myself more, teehee.

Back home that evening, I took out the set and gave it to G, he was excited (of course) and tried to take out the fruit in the package.

G was having fun with the play set and I think he loves the kettle the most. I kept singing "I'm a little teapot short & stout"...

He kept playing...

and playing...

Ok, time to pack and tidy up the toys. Bedtime!

Goodnight, bye!

Psstt, mummy must be crazy!

Steamed Chocolate Banana Cupcake

The day began with breakfast for the fussy-eater big boss of course. There's this strawberry cream bun coated with chocolate called Squiggles by Gardenia, RM1. Bought it to try for Kz's breakfast. Taste nice. But if you have (mild) OCD like me, don't give this bun to kids and then, let them walk around in your house. You'll cry.

I used one banana for Kz's breakfast platter. I have about 3 bananas left from the bunch. I was thinking of banana cake already - without the oven. Steamed? Ok, jom, let's start!

Ingredients: 1 mashed banana (could use 2 actually), 3 heaping tablespoon flour, 1 heaping tablespoon cocoa powder, 2 heaping tablespoon sugar, 2 tablespoon condensed milk, 3 tablespoon cooking oil, 1 egg and 1 teaspoon baking powder.

I added cocoa powder because I love the name - chocolate banana cake.

It tasted so so so very good. I strongly urge everyone to try this. You don't even need an oven nowadays to make cakes.

Forget the electric mixer. Stir everything together in a bowl using fork (that was what I did) and steam for 20 minutes under high heat.

Results? Very very very soft and moist fudgy chocolate banana cake lah, what else!

Nothing to do with the title but this is them, after lunch - noodles with my ABC soup (hah, again? Yeah, they never haven't got bored of it yet) and some chocolate banana cake. Burrrppp!

Ok bye!

Random Post

Hi guys,

This is a very random post - all in a weekend. Just a short post, don't worry. Here was what I did.

Boiled soup on Friday night, after work - Fish+pork+carrot+tomato+wolfberries.

Prepared a not-so-healthy breakfast for Kz on Saturday morning. Every mommy needs some sanity (I'm talking about me), and kids not eating healthily once a while is alright, I reckon.

After the kids nap, I steamed some dark chocolate cupcakes. I don't know if it was uncooked or what, but it has "lava" coming out in the middle, it didn't taste "raw" and it was so nice, and I finished all 3! None for the boys.

Went to the mini petting zoo on Sunday. The kids had fun with the ducks, fishes, rabbits.

G is turning 2 in April. Means I'm getting older. No more looking like an "under-aged" mum, like Claire used to say, teehee.

Ok, bye!

Class Party

Just a short post to tell you that Kz had his year end class party last Friday, and I made potato and egg salad with cherry tomatoes. I know (most) kids don't like tomatoes, but I thought a little red would look really nice on top of the plain salad.

I also prepared some goodies for the teachers. I packed a lolli-towel and heart-shaped soaps with a small sweet note inside. The lolli-towels are actually face towel wrapped in the shape of a lollipop. I bought them at a (wedding) favour shop.

Ta-daa, the goody bags for teachers.

Ok, bye!

Munch Munch Munch

What food/snacks you keep in your workstation? Here are mine (from left):

1) Usana meal replacement dutch chocolate formula

2) Tiger chocolate squares and round milk biscuits

3) Corn flakes

4) Toffee candies

5) Goreng-goreng snack (fried crabsticks)

I actually don't like to munch while I'm at work, it makes me fatter. Really.

But the problem with me is, when I see know there are food/snacks (right underneath my drawers), I must faster finish them. So you may say, the best is I don't buy any and refill the jars once I've finished them, BUT (but but but) I still buy and stock them up because it makes me feel "more secured" when I'm at work. 

Laugh all you want, yes, I feel "more secured" when I have food inside my drawer. Anyone here same with me ahh?

Our Sunday

Report duty! Just to report to you my once-in-a-blue-moon Sunday. We brought the boys to the mall last Sunday for some fun, play and walk. We don't usually go out on weekends because hubby sometimes needs to go to the site to check on his work. So when he said we would go out that day, I jumped up and down like a jakun mad woman and felt so excited, more excited than the boys!

Call me cheapo but I don't think the boys are ready for big playlands like the Mega Kids or Kidzania, so we brought them to the (economical) mini playland located just outside Aeon Big (previously known as Carrefour) at Mid Valley mall. First 20 minutes is RM5 only per kid. So why not? Two boys cost only RM10 for about 20-30 minutes.

Let's take a selfie first, sorry for the blurry picture.

The boys were shy and quiet initially, and stuck to one corner only reading books and playing masak-masak (What? Masak-masak? What the....), but thank God after a while, they warmed up and started to be more adventurous. Forgive me, but I'm a kiasu mum, if they just read books or play balls or masak-masak, then my money's not gonna worth it. 

I have mild OCD, but I felt ok when Kz did this. At least my money's worth it.

Ok, 20 minute's up! Time to go. More than that, there's additional charges (told you I'm a cheapo mum). 

We went to Chilis for brunch - my favourite place ever since I have kids because kids eat free there (accompanied by adult meals of course). I ordered fried chicken tenders (with fries) and cheesy quesadillas for the boys.

We ordered creamy chicken and mushroom soup, eggrolls for starter, beef fajitas and I had old-timer cheese burger with beef chilli and mashed potatoes. The burger is missing from the picture, but the mash is there - I pounced on the burger like a hungry lion when it arrived. 

Left the mall at 12.15pm. Yep, really. Reached at 10.30am and left at 12.15pm. With kids, everything has to be well planned and FAST - before they get restless and show tantrums (it happens EACH time). In this case, we've planned (in the car) to head straight to the play land first, for the kids to play (for a while) and then have a nice brunch at Chilis, then go home! 

Bitten

Bitten. Sounds like a dracula/vampire post. 

Nah, it's about Kz. No, he wasn't bitten by anyting (or anyone), but his classmate was bitten by HIM the other day! 

The teacher whatsapp-ed me and told me Kz bit his classmate on his shoulder. Goodness, of all places, the shoulders? Now, that really looks like a vampire bite mark.

That night, we talked to Kz and told him it wasn't right biting others and stuffs like that. We sent him to sit at one corner, to think about what he has done. Seems to work a little, he was quiet the whole night, and he had that I-am-sorry-I didn't-mean-it look.

But yesterday, when I picked him up from the school, the teacher told me that Kz tried to bite his classmate again. Oh dear :(

You know, I use the cane too, but not all the time. For this case, this time, the cane doesn't work. 

Butterless Chocolate Chip Cookies

Long time no baking post already, yes? So here's one.

Oh, before that, I'm not a good baker, but I do know how to bake a little. I started baking about a year ago, since I found out I have a secret admirer and he said he admired me because I look like the perfect girl who is fast+efficient+effective in her work, knows how to cook, bake, yada yada.

Sorry, I've digressed.

So yes, I baked some chocolate chip cookies (without butter) last weekend. I have everything, except butter, and I didn't bother getting a block of butter from the nearest mini-mart, so I had to make do without the butter.

Ingredients: 1.5 cup self-raising flour (I only have self-raising flour at home), 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup cooking oil, pinch of salt and 1 egg. Supposed to add some vanilla essence but I didn't have any.

I mixed everything using my hands, yep, my hands. No spoon, no fork, no whisk. Just my hands.

Added a cup of semi-sweet (Hershey's) chocolate chips. 

Here's what I discovered. I don't like working WITHOUT butter. It makes the dough firm and sticky. Very sticky. It was very hard trying to roll them into balls using my palm. As you can see, the first row, yep, I rolled with my hands. But after that, errr, I just scooped with the spoon. Even with the spoon, it wasn't easy.

Anyway, here's the end result after about 10 minutes resting outside the oven.

I tasted a piece. It was good. Crispy, crunchy and a little chewy at the center. One word - Gooooooooooooooood!

These were made without butter but there were LOTS of chocolate chips inside the cookie, so I'm not complaining. No doubt, it would be more fragrant with butter. But without the butter, it's STILL very very good. Really.

G had a piece. He kept tailing me from the moment I made the dough until I got the cookies out from the oven. I gave him the one with the least chocolate chips. Heaty for babies.

Oh yes, G is wearing a pink romper. Mum says I treat him like a girl.

My two batches of chocolate chip cookies. Half gone on the same day. Another half, I think you'd be able to guess it. Yep, for that secret admirer :)

Ok, bye!