December 27, 2013

reality at work

so. guess which category i fall in

December 23, 2013

h-o-u-s-e

hi! my name is Dinara.
i like to play flashcards.
whenever Mommy asks me what this is:


i will answer
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TREEHOUSE!!!!!!!!!

mommy: T___________________________T

December 16, 2013

barbie multiplication

remember my last post regarding their little barbie doll collection?

the count sorta increased over the past couple of months. there's another 6 new additions to the family, 4 of which came from London because they were really cheap. i notice these days there are so many different editions of barbies - for example the Disney Princesses - each differentiated by how their facial features are constructed, or by how their outfit is designed, sometimes in the tiniest different detail.


and as usual, about half the dolls were missing shoes. everyone planning to upstage Cinderella, it seems. do people glue the shoes to their feet as a last resort?

the two on the right and the two on the left in the photo are the Disney princesses. the other two Nana bought for the kids while we were away in London. we bought them Merida too but nobody seems to take a liking to her that much (despite watching reruns of Brave nonstop) so she's still stuck in her box, bow and all.

we went to Ikea on Saturday and Daddy bought them a new table with storage drawers for their room. with the number of stuff increasing in the room and the room not getting any larger, most of their toys storage had to be reorganized. they have too many stuffed toys indeed, tapi sayang nak donate for now =P (stuffed toy lover over here).

and on Sunday we had lunch with Significant Other's side of the family.

really wished i'd remembered to bring my camera

December 13, 2013

mugshot #2


remember this? here's another mugshot, second edition. serious this one is. don't play play.

Sophia's seventh month

what i came across on BabyCenter Baby Bulletin. whoops. never intended to increase the odds of having you end up in a class with 3 other Sophia's in the future =P.


Sophia Poppiah

my Sophia turns 7 months today!

she spent the wee hours of the morning keeping me awake with her baby talk.
'ata' 'ata' she'd go.
we think she listens to Dinara's requests of 'nak atas' (nak go upstairs) every time we ground the kids downstairs.
been trying to teach her to say 'mommy!' but to no avail.
you know what she said instead?
'dada'. CHIS.
i lost the mommy/daddy fight with the other two kids, i must not lose with this one =P


she can pull herself up onto her unsteady little feet now.
she expresses her dissatisfaction whenever she's abandoned in her 'cell' with nobody to play with. she has this muka tak puas hati expression she'd pull whenever that happens, LOL.
the chubbiest among the three.
fits her 6-9 months clothing well.
still toothless =P
easily distracted during breastfeeding. has no preference between formula or breast milk. i just hope she doesn't reject me as early as the other two.

=)

this morning's breakfast. yumm.

oh yeah, our shipment from London arrived earlier this week after a 2-month wait, which mainly comprised of the children's clothing and other odds and ends we ended up shipping back because of our luggage weight limit. most of the clothes we bought for the kids were still too big even after buying according to age recommendation. and i finally have my own 'exercise shoe' Significant Other bought for me from a factory outlet there. i had zilch sports shoes ever since the only pair i had died out on me / makan diri lol. on its defense, i've owned that pair of shoes since forever, hee~. imagine, i wore my jelly bunnies to my company's Sports Day last time T___T.

dual fusion. my first ever FINK shoe

also, meet farideh afterglow =D i really wished this was TWILL!



December 12, 2013

doppelganger

on a freezing day such as this one (where the dark clouds unrelentingly releases its downpour onto the earth, causing me to get stuck in yet another painstakingly long journey back home), this is what i do: i search for photos of my doppelgangers. HAHA.

a bunch of people has told me before that i resemble these two people below. recognize them? i Whatsapped the first photo to Significant Other.
i got cricket noises in return -_____-.
yay or nay? you decide. then let me know.
because if i did, i should be able to demand for celebrity status treatment, eh? *insane laugh*

the top photo i took from my friend's fb page (yep that's my friend on the left =D) (um S, if you disapprove let me know k). and yeah i kinda did a bit of a double take myself when i saw the photo. *teratai layu~~~*

the bottom photo i googled and got it from a ground staff's blog. i didn't know that she flew before. heck i never knew she existed until someone told me about her =P. seems like a small bunch of Malaysian celebrities took to the skies briefly before they grounded themselves back on the ground.

ok, sekian untuk hari ini! babai~

doppelganger#1
doppelganger#2

December 9, 2013

handy manuela

manuela is me. handy manny, female version. haha.

Saturday we went to OU with the intention of dropping by Hamley's. and also to utilize my f3 birthday voucher before it expired that weekend.

one of the things we bought was a DOLLHOUSE. the type i've always imagined to get for my kids, and with a reasonable price to boot. you know, those wooden ones with the wooden furniture and all.

and we didn't buy it at Hamley's. X__X

Hamley's, OU

Dayana's Sunday swimming classes were cancelled so she pestered me to assemble the dollhouse for her. 'mommy dollhouse mommy dollhouse' was all that i heard coming out of her mouth T__T.

so on Sunday morning Mommy became Handy Manuela and assembled the dollhouse house piece by piece (and there were a many good screws to screw in ok). thank god for Daddy's thomas & dekker screwdriver, which made my life easier. i tried to get Dayana to help out but in the end it think it was easier if i just did it myself. they were too eager to stuff their dolls inside it and i haven't even finished attaching the roof yet @_@

furniture provided with the dollhouse included a bed, a dresser, a bathtub and toilet seat, a tv, a cabinet and a chair.

my masterpiece! well, technically =P
now that's what i call a dollhouse

it's time to overhaul the layout of their bedroom, that's for sure. they have so many toys that i don't know what to do with half of them - mostly stuffed toys which i love - but that isn't the case with my two hooligans who are only intent on fighting over the first thing either one of them touches, sigh.

we found superglue so i glued Cinderella's head back on - the kids have two Cinderella figurines, and both ended up headless thanks to Dinara -__-. i also came across Aurora's body-less head, complete with hair and all (think Medusa). i vacuumed all of their stuffed toys as well (thank you Rainbow) to eliminate dust. can i stuff them into the washing machine? i read from the label of one toys to surface clean only, but i still feel like stuffing a few into the washer to see how it turns out. yay? nay?

headless Aurora. Cinderella has her head back. and Ariel is missing

anyway, back to Hamley's. nothing beats the one in London though =P but being kids (both the two young ones and the older one, ahem) they seemed to enjoy themselves all the same. while the older kid disappeared among the shelves of toys rediscovering his 5-year old self, D1 and D2 made a beeline for the big barbie dollhouse set up in one corner of the store.

the older kid

in case you get lost at Hamley's

barbie heaven

no, we didn't buy them any Barbies, they had aplenty. i practically had to drag them away to check out the rest of the store. we stopped by the drawing station, where they got preoccupied with coloring. we ended up buying a marker set and a coloring book for those two.

coloring station

Daddy bought himself a Vellfire. HAHA.


the kids were also fascinated with these bath toys, especially the one that looks like a mermaid. he-llo, korang takut masuk swimming pool, ada hati mau beli bath toy??? bath tub pun tak ada O_-

powered by batteries =P

oh and no thanks to someone's instagram post =P i ended up buying a detangler brush that really wasn't cheap. it really does the job though, hahahah.

100 strokes of the brush a day

one of the tops i bought that day:

cheetah print

where was baby? chilling at home, where she likes it best. she can hold the bottle on her own now, but you need to place a bib around her neck else she'd be bathing in milk T_T. i've already replaced her bottle's teat twice already despite not having any teeth yet, yaiks.

chillax sambil tengok tv

i've watched the second installment of the Hunger Games already, nothing can beat the book though. but book #3 will mostly be about the uprising in Panem, i wonder if splitting the book into two movies can create a spark into the storyline.

on a slightly sober note, Paul Walker's gone (apa macam ff7 nanti?) Nelson Mandela's gone, goes to show that death never discriminates.

December 3, 2013

graveyard humor

img source: Pandora's FB page

sorry, i couldn't resist pasting this photo here. i was trawling through the Pandora FB page (there's a whole bunch of nice people there, btw) when i came across the above photo. couldn't help but laugh especially when someone purposely set up a charm sitting smack right among the minions.

it's like:
minion A: look! poop. where it come from?
minion B: not poop. a bomb. KABOOOOM.
minion C: ooh, food!!! *rubs hands together*
minion D: *thinking it might be his poop after all*

(oh i soOoOo fail at caption competitions. sorry for the graveyard humor)
(also if you've heard of Shadows of Darkness you'd understand when i say 'graveyard'. haha. or maybe not.)

my future pilot

while i was away for my company dinner with the eldest, the youngest was busy accompanying the Daddy studying.

ok well not really studying, she's at the stage where she'd hang on to something - ANYTHING - and try to pull herself up, including clinging to her sisters' hair. HAHA. the thing is, she'd pull herself up to her knees, and then stay stuck in that position until someone rescues her =P. the thing is, she can't even sit up properly yet T_T. she tried pulling herself up using an unstable box and ended up toppling over once -___-.

see? like this.
sorry, i can't sit upright on my own yet

she has obviously gotten the crawling stage down pat. sometimes she'd just lay on her tummy and lift her arms and legs in the air - imagine a sky diver falling out of the sky, lol (or you could imagine an overturned turtle, whichever works for you). i have no idea why she does that though. stretching perhaps?

did i tell you she makes the perfect zombie extra for the Walking Dead? sometimes when she babbles in her own cheeky language, she'll make the exact growling sound a zombie does when they're after something - blearggggggggghhhh, or something like that. it's also a cross between those purple minions in Despicable Me 2, but she sounds more like a zombie to me. it's too funny i always forget to record her on video. i think someone's been eavesdropping when Daddy watches the Walking Dead. haha.

anyway back to the story, she found a new victim that night, smack right in the middle of the floor - the perfect victim to clamber onto and sabotage. but in the end she became Daddy's study assistant and helped him study his Physics (or was it Air Dynamics? no idea). i think she found the book to be much more interesting than her toys and rattles.

*climb climb climb* oh hey, i know that diagram
like this Daddy, i teach you
my favorite part of the book - all words!
still poring over the book like nobody's business

so. can i label her as future pilot? or perhaps, future wall-climbing pilot? =D oh yeah yesterday she was in a good mood to be back carried. how i love these colors on her. i think green suits her better more than me.

willing wearee!

Significant Other attended a maswings assessment last weekend. that's why Dira volunteered to help Daddy study. i dropped him off at MAS Academy at the wee hours of the morning and i could not believe the number of people attending the assessment. kalah pc fair, he says. about 400+ people were present. and then he started ranting about how the odds aren't in his favor, lol belum cuba sudah admit defeat T___T.

anyway despite being 'older and greyer' than the others he beat the odds and managed to make it to the top 18 to move on to the next stage: the interview. ok hor? =D. goes to show that you really shouldn't shoot yourself down before you try, because you never know... anyway. cross fingers and toes and nose hair that he made an impression to get to the final stage. but that's already an accomplishment on it's own for him, don't you think? =D

November 29, 2013

the trimming continues

didymos still dominates the stash, although indios are down to three (all dyed)

two missing: one's draped at my bed's headboard, the other taking up temporary residence in my car. one in the pic to leave, to be replaced with another.

such a big difference from last time, yea?

the map in the background cost us 4 pounds. a steal if you compare it to prices here.

happy Friday everyone! :)

team NAR 2013

here's my team members. they kinda rock.
missing is Raimen, who's the one taking the photo.
Ben's missing too, i think.
it's an unspoken rule for the boss to take us out for 'stomach building' each time he's in KL.

give a guess as to which one's the boss. haha.

November 26, 2013

princess power


pissed off because my test cases are failing right left and center. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
wish that tiara had a bit of color to it.
i knew i shouldn't have flipped through their catalog.
now i'm obsessed T___T.

toodles. am off to submit another JIRA and i'm outta here.

November 24, 2013

maid passport n permit renewal

in my case, both her permit and passport are expiring. passport must be renewed first before you're able to renew the permit. bear in mind fees might differ if you renew way past the expiry date. what you need to do is to take a day off from work because it's anyone's guess on how long you'd be stuck waiting for everything to be completed.

how to renew your maid's Indonesian passport in the event that it is expiring:

1. bring maid and her passport to the Indonesian Embassy.
2. purchase insurance for the maid - rm95 for 2 years.
3. make sure you have 2 photocopies each of the following:
- employer's IC
- front page of maid's passport
- other relevant pages in the passport you think might be useful (haha)
4. enter the embassy and pick up the form to fill at the main counter - consists of one passport renewal form, and the worker's contract (3 copies) which you need to fill up before taking a number.
5. take a number and head over to the station to take her passport photograph.
6. wait for your number to be called at the first waiting area, then hand in all the documents at the counter and make payment of rm18 for passport renewal.
7. head over to the second waiting area and wait again for your number to be called, to see the officer where your documents will be reviewed etc.
8. once everything is ok, head over to the third waiting area for passport collection (this took the longest, a 45-minute wait for me, luckily the maid made sandwiches).

the immigration officer at the Indonesian Embassy tells me that both the insurance policy and the worker's contract (which is valid for one year) are required in the event that maid wants to go back to Indonesia for holiday. they're issued a sort of card by the Indonesian government which is needed when they want to return back to Malaysia. or something like that. they have so many rules, i'm confused myself.

the whole process at the Embassy (in KL!!!) took me 3 hours. didn't help that it took me 1.5hours to get there on a friday morning @_@.

renewing her permit was the simpler bit, provided you didn't go to the Malaysian Immigration during their friday lunch hour break (sigh, unlucky me) to renew the permit:

if your maid has been working for more than 3 years (meaning permit renewal for the 4th year onwards), you don't need to bring her for fomema. you can just head over to the immigration, take a number and renew her passport for rm495. the maid doesn't need to be present for this.

easy peasy, right? if you have all the time and patience in the world, that is.

November 22, 2013

the gift

when the clock strikes midnight,
i'd be accustomed to the usual 'by the way...' wish.
but the next thing that came after... was a total surprise. the kind that makes you want to break down and cry because you never expected it.

*happyhappyhappy*


updated 16/11: i won this voucher during a Pandora roadshow at the Curve a couple of weeks ago
(thanks again to Significant Other ;D).
since it expires at the end of the month (ok sudah rambang mata),
this was what i redeemed:

that owl charm sold out already :|
tiara to represent my three princesses

November 21, 2013

a take on us

so school holidays are here again.

a quick update on the kids:

Dira:


- she's happily taking in her baby cereal but she doesn't take too kindly to other foods, such as the banana. i mean really, who hates bananas??? Dinara ended up eating all the bananas i bought for the baby. belum lagi peas and spinach. kekeke
- bought her apple juice formulated for her age and rejected that as well, she made that trademark face of hers whenever she tries something new and her taste buds doesn't seem to like it.
- she blows raspberries a lot these days, sometimes even when she's about to fall asleep.
- her hair makes everyone think that she's a boy T__T
- got her 6-month old jab last weekend. i think she's quietly holding a grudge against the Dr. and she's not telling me anything.
- fascinated by plastic bags. or anything that makes sounds like plastic does when scrunched.

Dayana:


- she's on her school holidays now. fun eh?
- as expected, on her second day of swim class she practically didn't want to get into the water as they were held at the deep end of the pool. she practically strangled the teacher clinging onto his back, haha. she didn't trust the floats the teacher told her to hold onto X_X
- she's progressed to book 4a of Peter & Jane.
- am thinking of enrolling her for mandarin classes perhaps.
- she had her booster as well. she whimpered a bit but she was such a big sport for not kicking up a fuss. she's such a big girl now.

Dinara:


- eats and eats and eats.
- practically cried when i dragged her home after registering her for kindy at Dayana's school. seems she wants to stay because her big sister was there. let's hope the feeling's mutual when she actually starts kindy next year.
- a couple of times a week i send Dayana for mengaji at my friend's house, and Dinara would usually tag along. on good moods she'd mengaji along with her sister if she's in the mood. haha.

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have you you heard of MomentCam? you take a photo of yourself and you upload it into any sketch template that you like. for those who doesn't know about this app, they'd go all 'oh wow cantiknya! sapa lukis niiiii???' haha

this was me 100 years ago =P
and this is Significant Other trying to be younger than he actually is

on another note, anyone interested in a ring sling?

natural silk mille ring sling with silver rings, S size. 
shoulder done by Jan of SBP.
asking rm355.


and lampone has finally sold, getting the love it deserves.
i'm left with rosie, my only indio (after my dyed silk and natural linen).
and to think that i used to own so many indios, what me being an indio lover. haha
(trust me, indios are soo worth it).

lampone linen

sekian my rambling for today. i took leave for tomorrow, i need to run errands at the Indonesian Embassy and i really really hope it won't take all day.

November 13, 2013

set in stone


almost completed as per her wishes.
throughout my journey i'll share some insights here
regarding the one topic not many people seem to take seriously
until it's too late.
the big C.

Sophia Eats

yep, time flies *cries*
my little boo is 6 months young!!!

Mommy had to go to work so baby kene paksa makan for the first time pagi2 buta before Mommy rushes off to work. hee~

notice the 'surprised' expression. tee hee~


it seems like she was more excited to grab the spoon rather than having her first taste of solids.


let's see if Mommy has the semangat to blend stuff for you after this, ok?
the last time i fed your older sister Dayana peas and avocado (and Mommy hates peas. HAHAHAHA).