February 27, 2014

intelligence sticks


just for fun. anyone interested to get this for their kids? someone is doing a group buy for this.

Intelligence Stick GB
ETA: early April 2014
RM20 inclusive postage to WM
please confirm by 10/3/2014

i've been teaching Dayana how to count (add and subtract for now) using all her crayons in her coloring box to help her visualize the numbers.
i'd usually ask her to draw little sticks on paper and then count them but she'd usually end up miscounting them in the end T___T.
the only drawback i see to buying this is that those little sticks would go missing, since Dinara seems to have been born with Wreck-It-Ralph genes.

the other day, i was looking high and low for this small pool ball that mysteriously disappeared from my room. the culprit would usually be the kids (things don't just grow feet and walk away, tu sabotage namanya) so i asked them if they'd seen the ball anywhere. as usual, no cooperation from them. i had to overhaul the kids' room all by myself to find it. turned out, i found the ball hiding specifically under Dinara's side of the bed. when i asked her about it, she only managed a sheepish smile and a half-hearted 'sorry!'.

*screams silently*

anyway, do PM if you're interested to join.

updated 6/3: yesterday she broke my snow globe!!! even after specifically telling her never to play with it or suffer my wrath!!! *cries buckets*

February 21, 2014

team NAR 2014

my team has expanded. we're this big now. LOL.

superbly (if there is such a word), everyone in the team is present in the photo.
we had a good waiter to help us take it, heehee~
as usual, we pau the boss. the most important question that we would ask him without fail whenever he comes down to KL is, 'boss, when are you gonna treat us for lunch???'

our own form of team building

February 17, 2014

another weekend with the kids

i've been trying to spend more time with the kids over the weekend because i barely have time to hang out with them during the weekdays. i don't want to wake up one day and realize that my eldest is 18 years old. hahahahahah.

Sophia loves pulling herself up at the edge of the kids' bed (or any furniture that she's able to get a hold on). she gets really excited whenever we bring her upstairs and into the kids' room, she assumes she gets to join in on the fun =D (having more than 1 kid is definitely da bomb!). the elder one was only interested in taking a photo, she treats her baby sister like a minion, boleh?

peace be upon you, fellow alien

i finally let them play with the blocks i bought during Dayana's era but didn't want to let them play with it because guess who's gonna end up having to clean up everything every single time (and counting them too to make sure none was missing)?

jambatan pulau pinang?

on Sunday i took the two elder ones for a haircut.

minahs gediks

they were not the only ones who got a hair trim, i ended up having one too =P. this Dinara really doesn't like to pose for the camera unless if it's by her own free will (tengoklah mata dia ntah ke mana T___T). and she still does the loser sign as a substitute for the peace sign. haha.

"loser, uolls"

a quick selfie with the husband while my pretty hair is still pretty.

with my comots

and we had dinner at this nice restaurant in Subang Parade with the in-laws and uncles and aunty (singular, lagi sorang aunty mia). we even brought Little Miss Sunshine along, who behaved really well throughout the dinner. 'behaving well' meaning i'm able to eat my dinner in peace without having to have her sit on my lap while rice falls onto her head =D.

dinner at SP

and who did i meet here but Kak June, who was also having dinner seated in the corner of the restaurant. how i recognized her? by all the bracelets draped around her wrist =P~~~~

cancer information

found this on the internet, and was told to share this with the people i care about.
i have many friends who've lost loved ones to cancer. a little knowledge goes a long way.

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to STARVE the cancer cells by not feeding it with foods it needs to multiple.

What cancer cells feed on:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Note: Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk, cancer cells will starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes t o nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells.

To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water--best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines will become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor.

Anger, unforgiving and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

February 13, 2014

oreo cheesecake

i made this while hubs was sleeping on Saturday evening. i had the mood to throw everything into a bowl, so this was what i came up with last Saturday.

thing is, i print screened the recipe on my phone and i didn't manage to capture the name of what i was trying to bake. smart eh? but no worries, the ingredients the recipe called for were readily available, i didn't have to struggle to prep anything, just throw everything into a bowl and shove it into the oven to bake. HAHA.

the base of the cake required crushed oreo cookies so i chucked a whole bunch into a ziplock bag and asked the kids to squash them into tiny pieces (come to think of it, i should've just blended them but where's the fun in that? lol). i lined the crushed oreo in an oven dish and chilled it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. i'm not really sure whether the recipe was correct in stating only 2 spoonfuls of butter to mix with the oreo, because the base kept crumbling to smithereens post-bake (2 spoonfuls barely made a difference).

and the rest of the steps? dump everything into a big bowl - cream cheese, yogurt - sugar, flour, eggs - and blend away until it turns into cream. i got a little worried because the mixture never became thick even after mixing awhile with my hand blender (the last time i blended butter + eggs the mixture started resembling scrambled eggs). oh well, too late to be doing anything to save it, haha.

the mixture is then poured onto the oreo base and into the oven it goes for 40 minutes or so. it came out really weird looking as expected. being the impatient person that i am, i cut out a piece while it was still piping hot. it tasted weird too. HAHA.

refrigeration did the trick

i only realized later that the cake was supposed to be chilled before serving... to become oreo cheesecake! =D only then did it actually taste better than that first cut. the taste? not up to par with Secret Recipe lar. resipi cincai maa, what do you expect? =P~

Dinara loved it (she calls them cupcake), the maid cut it up into little pieces for Dinara to snack on whenever she felt hungry (which is all the time). Dayana only ate the top part of the cake, and left the bottom T___T.

cheesecake anatomy

soOooOo... until i decide to experiment again, toodles~!

February 11, 2014

weekend kiddie activities

so Saturday the kids were invited to a small birthday party. it was really simple pimple, they had food, they had a cake, they had a clown, they had balloons.

double celebration: Snow White and Mickey Mouse

the birthday girl was so adorable, all decked out in a Snow White outfit, complete with a Snow White birthday cake. then the clown came, so balloons for everyone. this was followed by kid activities with Mr. Clown. they did the chicken dance, they played some games, they got toys, they got party favors. Dinara sat everything out because she was afraid of the clown.

um, you can't really tell who's the birthday baby and birthday girl from this photo -__-
her attempt at making the peace sign right - failed

the whole time, i was busy stuffing my face with food.

one of the games the kids played was 'mummify your kid'. i was at the table when Dayana came over and dragged me to the games area. they handed each of the adults a tissue paper roll each and we were required to wrap our kid in tissue paper. this is one game i've never participated in before, so the idea of wrapping Dayana in tissue paper really tickled my fancy =P~. she was such a willing mummy, as i wrapped her up in tissue paper from bottom up. she didn't even move a muscle the whole time. i left an opening for her to be able to see out =D.

mamamia-ninja!

and yes, i cracked up by the time i was done with her, ponytail wrapped with tissue and all.

i literally cracked up at this sight

and guess what, Dayana won a prize for it. ahahahahahha.

we took a few more post-birthday party pics with their small haul.

party loot
Dayana's prize from the mummy contest
this little one got left behind as usual

the next day i decided to let the kids play a simple form of gooey sensory activity - cornstarch + water. last weekend i came across this fun blog which has some - ok, a LOT of - great ideas for children activities at home. this was the easiest activity for the kids that i came across that didn't have me hunting for items needed (i wanted them to do feet painting but i didn't have canvas paper large enough to spread on the floor for them to step on). the blog i referred to kept going on and on about Colorations Liquid Watercolors - anyone knows where i can get something similar? oooh and where can i get tempera paint as well? i'm dying to try out an activity Aida carried out with her kids that involved tempera paint.

anyhoo. i made them play outside on the patio so that i could just sweep away the mess once it's dried. i added a bit of food coloring just to make things abit interesting. don't ask me why i chose green. just look at them. you could just swear i'm using them as child labor to paint my house walls, bahahahhaha.

my new house painters

what you need: cornstarch and water.
just dump the cornstarch into a bowl, slowly add water and stir until you reach the consistency that you desire.
and if you're a noob like me, most people would tell you that cornstarch = cornflour.
the texture is just too far out. it's solid when it's stationary, but when you tip the bowl over, it'll drip out like liquid. you gotta experiment with the cornstarch and water ratio. not too much water, or else it'll be too liquidy.
it's fun! and really messy.

the kids weren't sure what it was at first (everyone thought i was gonna make a cake T_T), but they really had a fun time splashing and covering themselves innit. heck i got the youngest to play too =D. she sure didn't know what was going on, but her older sisters had fun covering her feet and hair with cornstarch. i'd take more photos, but cornstarch was everywhere.

Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C

i like this last photo of Sophia. it's like she's saying, 'ok mommy haha you had your laugh. now come on and clean me up'.

'i ain't amused'.

after a good bath, everything was squeaky clean again. LOL. just chuck the clothes into the wash and they'll be as good as new.
the one thing i forgot to do is store the excess into an airtight container T___T if you plan to reuse it again.

February 5, 2014

of kids and food

happy Chinese New Year! here's how Dinara decided to usher in the Year of the Horse:

rainbow ponies!

notable Horsies: my sister Ashu =D

on the first day of Chinese New Year, we spent the morning at home, because nobody invited us anywhere HAHA. semua orang balik kampung agaknya. we spent the evening at Pak Long's house for abit.

i got to test hani's turkish towel wrap, which i really like because it wraps solid, despite not fancying stripey colors (it's red/fuchsia weft i think?). and because it wraps solid, i think i prefer it as a ruck wrap. Sophia seems to like being rucked with it too, she started cooing once she was up.

sleepy bunny at the back

the other two goons, found the princess costumes their Nana bought for them and despite almost outgrowing them, they decided to parade in them all around the house. the following photo is their attempt to pose for the camera. the younger one has yet to perfect the art of 'peace'; the fingers she holds out each time for the camera would end up depicting the 'loser' sign if anything. or better yet, it's like she's doing the peace sign rewritten: you better be peace, or suffer the wrath of my hand gun. bahahahahah.

reruns of Sophia the First in the background

i downloaded Frozen recently, and now all Dinara asks for is 'nak Elsa!' sometimes the kids fight about who gets to be Elsa. everybody wants to be Elsa, nobody wants to be Anna T__T. they can even sing along with the songs in the movie already.

if you look closely at the photo below, you'd see that her face has magic marker all over it. this one ah, not only does she color her coloring book, but also her fingers, her clothes, her face, and sometimes the occasional furniture T___T.

pink marker on her cheeks and face. igt blusher kah?

and the youngest? busy eating poop.


ok just kidding. she has a thing for diapers; give her a clean diaper and that'll keep her entertained for awhile. no need to buy expensive toys, good eh? the other thing she likes doing is flipping through books. not the board-like books, but the normal ones that are so freaking easy to tear into pieces with little grubby hands like hers. she doesn't seem interested in any of the board books i give her, except for the touchy feely ones. she enjoys tearing tissue paper into little pieces too. she loves putting her fingers into her mouth. that brings the word 'finger food' to a whole new level.

the other day at Pak Long's house she was so bored she ended up reading the paper. talk about bo-ring.

what happens when you visit a house w no toys available

no matter. at least she still eats her carrots to compensate for swallowing too much tissue paper. the eldest loves Sophia, despite being smacked at a couple of times each time she tries to shove her face in front of Sophia's line of vision.

i wuv my sister

that night while i left the two kids at Tok Ami's house while me and the husband got lost looking for Nilai Sports Centre, Dayana asked her grandma a curious question.

"tok Ami, why is your hair white?"
my mom simply answered that her hair was white because she wore the tudung.
she later told me that "tok Ami's hair is white because dia pakai tudung".
HAHA. then i asked her why Dayana's hair wasn't white because she wore the tudung to school.
she answered that she wasn't wearing the tudung all the time, so that's why her hair hadn't turned white yet.
bahahahhahahaha.

FOOD SECTION!

have you noticed that at some point in time, your timeline would be bombarded with a gazillion photos of phood food? mine was. first it was kangkung, then poppiah, and then sambal. LOL.

i was lucky to have won a random giveaway by #nomnompopiah, i got to choose the flavor (she offers 4 different types of flavors, i took cheese for f-a-t). you could bake it for a healthy kick or fry it (like i did). next time boleh order lagi yah. btw, thanks sanaa =).

so fine, no creativity in serving, janji masuk tummy suka hati

the ones below i got from Siti. she completed someone's order and had extras. her apams are the best. and Dinara's a cupcake monster, so i got the chocolate ones for her. yumm.


the last food i'm gonna crap about today (just in case you're wondering when my rambling would end) is the #samballetop, which doesn't move me in the least simply because i don't eat spicy to begin with but thought it would be a kick to get a jar for Significant Other to taste because he eats chilli padi like he's eating carrots (which is why his taste buds have gone immune already =P). i've seen dozens of photos people post online on ways they dine with the addition of this condiment, so i guess it must really be something in terms of adding flavor to your existing dish. i just got a jar today, so i'll let you know what he thinks of it. the smell is really nice though. i had one heck of a time trying to arrange a COD with this person hahah.

*update: Significant Other loves it. now putting fault on this sambal for overeating.

hijau benor

tenant wanted: saujana residency, subang jaya

tenant wanted. unit available after 8 March 2014. details as below:
*rented as of 15th March 2014*

Contact Details for Information and Viewing Appointment:
Akbar 0123752869

Saujana Residency, Jalan SS16/1, Subang Jaya

Property Information

Build Up: 883 sf
Layout: 2 Bedrooms, 2 Bathroom, 1 Storage Room
1 Covered Parking Bay
Unit Facing: KTM (East)
Fully Furnished

Facilities Include: Olympic size Pool, Jacuzzi Pool, Sauna Room, Gymnasium, BBQ Area, Covered Children’s Playground, Multipurpose Function Room, 24 Hour Security with card access, CCTV.

Easy Access to: Persekutuan Highway, NPE (New Pantai Expressway) Highway, LDP (Lebuhraya Puchong Damansara) Highway, North Klang Valley Expressway (NKVE) and Jalan Lapangan Terbang

Adjacent to: Subang Parade Mall, Subang Empire Mall, KTM Station, Subang Avenue Condominium, and Carrefour Subang Jaya

Located Nearby (Health Care): Sunway Hospital, Subang Jaya Medical Centre

Located Nearby (Education): Taylors University, Sunway University, Inti University, Monash University

Metres away from LRT Station and upcoming RapidKL LRT Station right next to the LRT Station

Rental Price: RM 3,400

For Serious Renters Only!






February 4, 2014

clearing out the closet

cleaning out my closet time to let go those i rarely use or reach for.
please feel free to msg me if you're interested, thanks.

1. top CD: Thirsties duo wrap diaper cover size 1 - rarely used.
asking rm35 free postage.

2. bottom CD: Blueberry One Size Deluxe Pocket Diapers with Blueberry One Size Hemp/Microfiber Insert - rarely worn.
asking rm50 free postage.

3. microfibre insert, rm5

baby stuff - cloth diapering

4. Sugarscarf Alisa, with thai silk awning - rarely worn. color is true to life.
asking rm35 free postage. *donated*

headscarves i rarely use

5. Qaira Hijab soft awning (as in photo) - available colors are red and brown (both not in photo). gently loved.
asking rm30 each inclusive postage. *donated*