Super Mom Awards

I am so sorry. I should have post this a long time ago, but somehow I didn't. Thank's a million to an amazing SuperMom i.e. Mummy Ica for tagging me with such an amazing award!

We might not know each other in the real world, but thanks to technology and all this cyber mumbo-jumbo it seems like we know each other already. I am so proud on behalf of all the other moms in the blogging world. But most importantly, I am most flatterd and thankful to Mummy Ica for even being in her list! Muahh...muahh... teruja I...thanks again dear.

So being a mum whether it is a full time mum or a working mum, we are all the same. We're still mums to our own kids and we have our own ways in dealing with our little treasures. So, if I could have the 3 super power wishes I would like to have all the Super Powers on Mummy Ica's list. Seriously that's all I need.

My kids are all energetic. They don't sleep during the day. They wake up as early as 7 am in the morning no matter what time they sleep at night and never feel tired. I need that Super Extra time/Super energy power to entertain them while doing all my chores at home. I badly need this super power, as next week my daughter will be starting her long, summer school holidays.

When you are a stay-at-home mom 24 hours a day sometimes most of the time you will need that Super EXTRA Calm power. Really!! You need it!!. Dealing with a teenager-to-be (not really, but girls do grow-up quicker than boys) and two growing boys will make your stress levels go up and up. Even when you've warned them and  punished them, 5 minutes after that, they'll forget about it. You constantly need to remind them up to a stage where you just can't stay calm anymore... Errggghh.... Sabar jeklah.


Super Intelligence : I think kids nowadays are more intelligent than before. They always, always ask lots of questions, different questions, everyday. Sometimes even if its just a general or eye-spy-type question it can be quite tricky. For example, it can be about art e.g. Andy Warhol-type art or about  details of all the planets. I know they're just normal, general knowledge-type questions but when it comes from a 7 and a 3 year old kid, the questioning never stops and will lead on to other questions.

Oh, and I don't think I don't know is a good answer for them. If I say I'll check it out later they will ask even more intelligent questions. How I wish I am a genius who knows everything. Hmmmmm....

Of course I love to have the same dreams as Mummy Ica tthat is to be Super Rich... Yup if I have all the money, I'll hire a lot of other people to do my and daily house work so I can spend all the quality time with my beautiful kids without bothering to think of all the other work to complete everyday. Arghh..... If only.

Zam zam ala Kazammmmmmmmmmmm...... Genie will all my wishes come true????

With all my heart I would like to dedicate this special award back to:

1. Amazing Ica's Tales of Mommyhood for the award and of course for being an amazing mum ( I can feel that we're in the same boat)
2. My friend RinaNar who has done an amazing job with her kids
3. Topsy Turvy Mum an amazing mum with amazing cooking skills (nanti I dtg Ostolia u masak hari2 tuk I, OK?)
4. Lady of Leisure & her favourite things an amazing mum with a amazing intelligence (seriously I nak jadi doktor jugak eh.. jadi pandai cam u pun oklah...xde DR pun xpe!! hehe)
5. Mummy E-na Zarina from her Lovely Kitchen. I like ur food too. Warghhhh.. u xnak pindah Dublin ke?

And, if you have kids, you are a MOM and you deserve this award too.You are all SuperMoms!

Fabulous TTM's Brownies

I'm on a DIET!

What? You must be joking?

Yup, I thought so. Well, at the very least though, I want to reduce my sugar intake. So, for the past few days I haven't bothered to make any dessert for the family. I had succeeded for a while but last night, I was really hungry. Not that I didn't eat a full dinner. It just didn't feel complete without any sweet things to munch on. Fortunately, my husband convinced me that it was OK to do without dessert for the foreseeable future. A small sacrifice for the benefit of us all. It's for our own good anyway.

Yeah right. If anything goes wrong just put the blame on TTM. Ahaks!

To explain, my daily routine consists of my morning chores and between that and getting my boys ready for their short nap in the afternoon, I have my own quality time which is normally spent by reading my favourite blogs such as Topsy Turvy Mum and others (to many to list them) especially where there are pictures of food and recipes included in the posts. Yesterday, TTM made brownies using her new gadget.

Buruk perangai dari oven terus amik gambar.. psl nak tunjuk tray cam TTM

I wasn't planning to do it in the first place but, while waiting for my hubby to get back from work, as usual, I started browsing around the internet again and coincidentally, there was TTM's brownie entry on my laptop. Arghhh, just couldn't resist it and as the recipe is so simple I thought, why not?

Half an hour before my hubby arrived home, I managed to do it. By the time we finished dinner the brownies had not even cooled down yet but we dug in the not-so-healthy food anyway!

Ok, so I don't have a fancy shmansy tray like TTM. So, cupcake cases will do for the time being. It still turned out quite well, I think.Hehehe. But if  I see it around here, I'll definitely get one for myself. Hehehe....I just love to spend all my money! Or, better still, TTM could always get it for me as a pressie. I terima kasih u in advance TTM. Muahh..muahhh...Hehehe...

So thanks to Topsy Turvy Mummy. Like I always said to her If we're in the same neighbourhood I'll come over to her place every day to say hallo!!! Anyway, this is the recipe I copy-pasted from her blog but for nicer pictures you can just go there... owh it's really simple so, do give it a try.

250g dark chocolate

115g unsalted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup self raising flour

1 tbsp vanilla essence

1 cup walnuts/pecans, toasted and chopped.

Preheat the oven 180c. Melt the chocolate and butter.  Pour the sugar in and stir for 2 minutes. Stir in eggs and vanilla essence. Pour the flour until all the ingredients have combined. Lastly, stir in nuts. Put the mixture in the cases or baking tray. Bake for 20-30 minutes and leave it to cool.

No bekas condo like TTM so, some fancy napkins will have to do

My Water Moments

Owwhhhh.. if I could turn back time and prepare for the worst!!! As in my earlier post, about my son's first birthday party which, I had been planning for ages. The plan was to have a nice summer day, hanging around outdoors in the garden complete with a BBQ party for him. Well actually, for us too!

It was supposed to be a nice day but it turned out, I was wrong. Completely wrong. I suppose, we can always plan...

My oh my, if only I had a water-proof camera like the Sony TX5. Can you imagine how much better my pictures of the day could be? How could I capture the best moments of the very important day when it was raining cats and dogs all day?

The party had to go on anyway, as the rain didn't look like it was going to stop. In the end, this is what happened - all the pictures were taken from afar, in the dry safety of the house.

 What exactly was in the BBQ, nobody really knows

 

The gray rainy day didn't help with the lighting so no beautiful, beautiful pictures ;-(

 

 My poor baby looking SO sad that there's no nice pictures of his day!

How can my old pink camera compete with the Sony TX5? Hmmm.... I can imagine now... With all the cool features, I could've gone out in the rain and capture my better half barbecuing in the rain. It's water-proof after all. Also, with its intelligent features, I could get all the action as one amazing panoramic image.

What else is there? Well, with the CMOS censor and BIONZ image processor, all the pictures would  be better  more vibrant colours and offer images with rich gradation. Not to mention the old reliable Carl Zeizs lense.

That's what I need. Everything could have been better and I could have captured all the memorable moments at my son's first birthday party in style.  And what's more, the TX5 comes in my favourite colour too - PINK!

My photographic dream. Hope it will come true

If only I could turn back time and get this Sony TX5. I would be a lot happier and feel safer thinking that I would be well prepared for my son's next birthday party no matter what happens. Be it rain, snow or shine!


I need to win this, please...

Happy Father's Day & Home Made Strawberry Slush

I woke up in the morning and it was just the 5 of us. Strange, but everything's back to normal. My sister just went home yesterday and it's back to the real world with no extra hands to help me around the house. The kids were still sleeping but straight after they heard my husband and I, they just woke up and Ameera darted down the stairs to take something for her Daddy.

Happy Father's day to Our dearest. We love you so much.

Home made cards, a home made breakfast and celebrating the day with us was the very best gift especially for you on this very special day!

It was such a nice day today but instead of going out, we just spent some quality time together at home. It was quite nice especially after quite a few hectic days in the past few weeks. To keep the family entertained (and adequately hydrated in the weather that we're enjoying at the moment), I made them a very special treat to enjoy in the sun.

How to make it:

Serves 4

1 cup frozen/fresh strawberries
2 cups of ice cubes
2 cups of orange juice
3 Tbsp sugar
4 extra whole strawberries (for decoration)

Blend all ingredents except for the whole strawberries. Pour in a glass and slit the extra strawberries a bit (cut from the bottom upwards - up to the fruit's halfway point) and put it on the top of each glass for serving. Nyummmm........ A very nice and healthy drink in this kind of weather!

PS: Happy Father's Day to Tok Ki and Tok Daddy too and all the other Daddies around the world!!! Have a good one.

Nana-rella Cheese Cake Pops

Oh yeah, at this recession time of what else can you do to save money and make do with what you have AND at the same time, feel that you have the same things that other people have. Well, this applies to me especially when it comes to fancy shamnsy cakes. If I had the money, I'd just buy them all. Simple and no hassle whatsoever.

But, as I don't have that sort of money (not for fancy cakes and extras anyway), I've decided to go DIY for all the extra bits. The results weren't too bad (I think) as you can see from the spread at Hisham's birthday party.

Ever since I started to blog, I've always been blog-hopping (using Blogger's Next Blog function). Not surprisingly, I tend to come across the Bakerella website very often. I've also definitely seen links from lots of other bloggers about how cute, tempting and yummylicious the sweets things made by Bakerella for all occassions.

Naturally, I've always imagined to have some of these yummylicious stuff at my son's first birthday party. So, with no test attempt or trials confidently, the day before the big day I tried this nice cute Bakerella cake pops myself. I did everythig from scratch, even the cheese frosting. I also got the whole recipe with videos from Martha Stewart's site.

At one stage, I thought I had done something wrong. The frosting wasn't thick enough and the cake crumbs wouldn't make nice, compact round balls. After a few adjustments, I finally managed to get the right shape.

Mummy Nana's tip: If doing from scratch, you might need to put less butter or maybe no butter at all for the frosting. Or to be safe,  I think for the next time I'll just buy the ready made frosting as I think it's cheaper rather than to make it yourself!

You won't believe that these ugly looking balls can turn out to be quite nice!

 

Candy coating - ordered online

Giving my sister a chance to model my stuff here

So, here are the results. TADA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh I am so happy. With no proper tools like flower-shaped cutters and having wasted a few of the wilton red candy coating (because  I wasn't sure on how to melt it properly. NB: Don't over heat it!) I still managed to finished it, eventually. Everybody was so impressed and loved it.

Favourite Q for the day: Eh kat mana beli lolipop kek ni? Kat mana order cheeseball ni?

I just smiled and bangga kejap. Akak buat sendiri dek Nun.... heheheh...

 The last one

Thanks  to Bakerella for the idea.

Happy Birthday Acu!!!

Dah besar dah ADIK POMPUAN ku sorang nie

Happy Birthday to my one and only sister. As this time might be the last time in a long time until she'll be in Ireland again, I fulfilled her wish with my infamous CCO.  It was just a day after my son's first birthday party so, even though I was extremely exhausted at that stage (I just had to mention that), I still baked her dream cake. Hahahah.....

Sorry that there's no present for you but being with your beloved niece and nephews should be the next best thing you could ever get!

Busy week

It's been a while, I know. I had such a busy week starting with preparing for my son's first birthday party, attending other people's birthday party, my own son's birthday party, cleaning up the mess after that, my husband's friend coming over and my sister's hectic last week here.

Pheww.....

A few days before the party, Hisham wasn't feeling so well and the climax was the night before the party itself when I was starting to prepare the ingredients for the food as well as marinating the chicken for BBQing. He just didn't stop crying and wouldn't let me out of his sights.

Eventually, around midnight he finally settled down and I got the chance to re-start all the work. Luckily, I had my three Santa's little helpers to help me around the kitchen, decorating the house and cleaning-up stuff. A big relief and millions of thanks to them.

Adik-adik ku Nanie, Janna and Atiqah jasa mu dikenang hingga ke akhir hayat!

Lelong-lelong: Adik-adik manis untuk dijual! Tenkiu for your help!!!

 My Hero

It was supposed to be a nice summer day that bank holiday weekend. To tell you the truth, since both my kids were born in winter I've always longed for a nice summer garden birthday party. So, when I realised that my third child's EDD will be around the summer, I was so delighted and had told everyone that I was definitely going to have a nice BBQ for the yet to be born child's first birthday party.

Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side. We'd waited until the afternoon hoping that the rain would stop but there was just no sign that the rain would go away. My husband was still determined to go ahead with it, under a big umbrella in the rain. Well, two thumbs up for my better half. You did a great job. Our neighbours might think that we're lunatics to do that but in the end I could see that everyone enjoyed every bit of it. Well worth it.

Some of the guests

Cakes, goodie bags & decorations

Home-made

As Hisham did not have enough sleep the night before, on the day itself he slept most of the time. At around 4.30 he woke up and we had the cake-cutting session and an incident happened - the ceiling lamp fell off just as we were about to sing the Birthday Song!

Happening sangat, sampai runtuh rumah.

My, oh my. What a day. Whatever it is, I can safely say that it was really a success despite lots of unplanned things happening. To all that came to the party, thank you for coming that day and thank you all for the lovely gifts. Sorry for the delay or anything that was uncomfortable during the day.

Birthday boy the morning after

As the birthday boy was so tired that day, we only managed to open all the pressies first thing the next morning. He was so delighted and happy with all the gifts he received as I can surely say this is the first time that he's received real toys for himself. Thanks again!

PS: It's been almost a week after all that but there's still loads of cleaning up to do. Arghhhh...!!!

My Baby Hisham's Progress

Did I tell you I baked a cake for my little one for his first birthday last week? I'm not a professional nor am I naturally talented. I don't even have any decent experience in cooking. But, as I live far, far away from my own country, and as an independent woman, I've been used to cooking my own food. To top it off, my husband doesn't really like to dine out (very unlike me).

However, I do consider myself very fortunate as in my childhood days, my mother used to force me to be in the kitchen everytime she cooked siap gaduh-gaduh tak nak masuk dapur. So, whether I liked it or not, it turns out, I can cook. Thank you Mama! I suppose mothers do know best.

I use all the rela-paksa experience I have and the good sense of flavours (that I get from my Dad), added with my husband's preference to eat at home, I basically cook every single day to this day. OK told you a little lie. Of course, when we're invited to parties or we have to eat outside (for a good reason) I'm off duty and I'd be so happy about it hehehe.

Honestly, I have no problem with cooking. I'm happy to do it  but I love to go out too!

Anyway, when our birthdays come around, my kids will ask me to make a cake and will literally, order me to do this and that even though I haven't a clue on how to do it. So, with bags of ideas from my kids and my so-so cooking skills, I made this for Hisham.

 As he turned one over a week ago, I'd like to give an update on his progress as well.

• He is bigger now (this is a big thing as he hasn't been growing for a while)
• He still has no teeth. Not even one. I can see some white just under his gums but nope, still no teeth!
• He has yet to walk but if you let him go, he thinks that he can and will have a go at it anyway.
• He loves to clap his hands especially when you sing the Tepuk Amai-Amai song
• He can say lots of words. He can't really speak but you can clearly hear what he's saying especially when he imitates other people talking.
• He still refuses to eat a lot even though I force him to and so, is still pretty much 100% on breast milk.
• He loves to dance. Memang pantang Tok Nenek dengar music terus berjoget.
• He is so happy every time we open the front door or the garden door because he loves to go out.
• And when he hears the front door creak, he'll shout out Dada! Obviously, delighted to see his Daddy come home from work and welcome him home.