nina's class the second

31st has always been special... er, due to Baskin Robbins, of course =P *ahem*

anyway, today's the day my parents and sister fly back to Malaysia. since i slept surprisingly early the night before, i was wide awake at 3am (i don't sleep much these days... sleeping schedule has gone out of whack for the past few months @_@). picked up my brother at Bangi at 6am and headed for KLIA. alhamdulillah they arrived back at the airport safe and sound, save for their sore throats and lesser than good health. with three big tongs of air zam zam @_@. it's a miracle everything could fit into my car, haha.

i had another class with Nina today! although, it was supposed to be a bread-making class (i think. or was it donut-making class?). i arrived at 10am (i headed straight for Kajang after dropping off my parents) so by that time, the cinnamon rolls were already baking and the donuts were already frying. the attendance however this time round was full house =D. Sarah pun ado! everyone brought their kids along, the kids had fun making donuts (i think they were supposed to decorate them but i think they enjoyed eating them more, Nina's donuts were fluffy!).

cinnamon rolls pre-oven

meet assistant donut ticer Sarah

we had 2 teachers today, apart from Nina was our very own biker woman Sya, a.k.a. cendawan lady. hahahahah. ok so basically this session was more of a makan-makan session than learning session. we had alot to eat: the donuts, the cinnamon rolls, the cendawan goreng, Sya's oh-so-yummy nasi lemak, and a whole lot of nina's cakes :love:

meet our teachers of the day

donut ticer Nina

mushroom goreng, kena ada skill ok (macam ticer Sya =P)

the end product almost wiped clean

Sya's nasi lemak, best!

in the middle of chaos, sempat lagi my friends buat barter exchange barang pembelian. LOL.

wish my kids were there. the car couldn't fit everyone, so i had to leave them behind =(. also i left the house at 4am... they were all still sound asleep, and so i didn't want to disturb them.

oooh and before heading home, i dropped by to see Reet and her almost 1-month old kid =D.

from reet's collection

jumpsac pandora

free advertising? in no way am i obliged to, but i want to all the same. because i love love love how the end product turned out. LOL.

for those who'd like to buy a wrap but can't afford those crazy overseas prices, or for those who would rather not splurge on their very first wrap (and cry buckets later when they realize that they're actually MT/SSC mamas), well, here's an opportunity to purchase a Malaysian made wrap for a steal (i should know. i own too many wraps and none of them are even close to how much this is retailing for).

JumpSac Woven Wrap available here.

meet Night Berry. there's two wefts to choose from: purple or pink. being greedy i lovee both colors. haha.

i've seen a prototype of her wraps irl before, i can say this wraps resembles closeness to Girasol wraps, they have this blankety feeling to it at first touch, although JumpSac's wrap is a bit more thicker, perhaps because it's brand new and hasn't been fully broken in yet. it didn't seem to have any stretch to it (like how some indios do), did i mention the colors are tdf? especially when wrapped!

the wraps are available for pre-order til 7th April 2012, at 30% off the normal price, so how good is that? *praying for gaji day to come early haha* i think there's a limit to how many wraps in each colorway is produced, so if you love how it looks in pics you'd better put down your order quick, else go find someone who bought it already and place dibs ok. haha.

i need a new squishy. my current squishy now has legs, knows how to talk back at you, and rebel at anything she doesn't like, including tambat-ing her with a piece of cloth.

T_______T.

more action pics on her Facebook page if you're interested. as of 21/3/2012, JumpSac has 10,020 likes, and that's saying something.

eyes for matta

we were supposed to go for a movie last weekend.

'Lorax?' i exclaimed. 'amende tu?'

i googled it up... ooOoOokay, it's a Dr. Seuss thing. (cat in the hat comes to mind) (in fact, Garfield also comes to mind). i was more into Roald Dahl than Dr. Seuss during my time.

so instead of movie night, i decided to teman sil pergi Matta Fair instead. 16-18 March 2012, PWTC. i've never been to any Matta fair before. no money to go anywhere. someday... someday =P.

sil's friend came along too (she wants to go to Casablanca ooh la la), so i dragged along Dayana (because i hate the saying 'three's a crowd'). Saturday morning, we arrived at sil's front door at 10am, and off we went (after stopping by to drop off dobi T__T and picking up her friend in Sunway).

due to the tedious task of looking for parking, we decided to ditch the car at Bank Negara and take the star at Bandaraya instead. i think that this would be Dayana's first lrt ride? i don't remember. she didn't mind having to climb all those stairs. aand her face looked as if she wished the train ride was longer (only 2 stops away to reach PWTC).

muka sposen naik STAR

anyhoo, since it was just 11am, the halls weren't packed yet. we paid rm3 for entry and were given a big red reusable bag which proved handy once we were inside the halls. sil and her friend immediately headed over to the international section.

someone came out of nowhere and handed Dayana a balloon. should've asked for one more, balik rumah the kids kept fighting over it -.- kakak kan kemut. semuanya 'THAT'S MINEEEEEEE!'.

one happy camper

i learnt sil's main intention was to collect brochures for selected holiday destinations. chehhhhh... ingatkan nak beli flight ticket @_@. good idea really, what best place to collect information about a certain country if not at this fair? later i jokingly told her that she'd be able to open a tourist information counter in her room what with the many brochures she managed to collect at the fair that day. haha.

auntie Enn mencuri pamphlet

look Aya! india mali!

'exotic' destinations

Gloria Jeans were giving out free ice-blended to visitors. Dayana especially enjoyed it soo much, she ended up smothering herself with chocolate. sigh. especially her WHITE blouse *nangis*.

anyway, anyone interested in flying MAS's A380 to London this July 1st (ke 2nd? balik korek pamphlet)? only 2k+ one way. hehe.

by the time we had gone through all the halls it was almost 2pm, and the whole place was jammed packed with human bodies (am happy we decided to go early, i don't do 'shuffling' with strangers haha).

people go to MATTA fair to:

- buy affordable flight tickets;
- purchase affordable holiday packages;
- collect brochures to whatever holiday destination chosen;

ME?

i buy airplanes.

not kidding. look:

the ATR and the 737-800

pingsan. LOL.

just a bit pissed because Firefly staff buat derq kat i each time i stood in front of their counter. do i look like i couldn't afford anything??? bile org nak beli, takmo layan. chis.

sil's friend brought us to Publika where we had Ben's for lunch. whoopee!!! sil was ecstatic, she was craving for lasagna since last month's pay day. Dayana was with me so i ordered creamy tomato spaghettini to share, which she happened to like (picky eater). i gave all the beef bacon to sil. too masin for my taste =P (read: minah cerewet).

nyum nyum

these days Dayana kalah bulimia. makan muntah. chis. sometimes i think she does it on purpose. kot ye pun nak jadiek model, tak yah la prektis dari skarang ok.

our second half of the day was spent going to Nilai 3 with mil. mil borong carpets. apparently she seems to like going to Nilai 3, everything is interesting to her =D. i remember years ago Nilai 3 used to be so much more happening, these days it just seems to be half empty, i have no idea why. probably people can afford to splurge in the city rather than having to travel all the way here?

one thing i dislike about Nilai 3 is they don't have any ATMs conveniently placed. the only ATMs we did manage to find was Bank Rakyat (at Marrybrown's), AmBank (at 7-E), and Agro Bank.

we headed to Subang Parade after that... sil belanje Sakae Sushi for dinner. found out Dayana likes soba. soba kah? those green noodles. she kept hijacking mil's bowl for more and demanded to see the bowl for herself when mil cakap dah habis T_T (lemme see! lemme see!). i ordered the train kid's meal for the two of them, ok la at least Dayana finished most of what's in there except for the chicken, Dinara pulak preferred to skewer her food pakai chopstick. next time i know what to order for Dayana when we go for Japanese =D.

around midnight i dropped by sil's house to pick up my car... and tumpang tengok Azura which she purchased on Astro First. hahahah. the story started out sweet, but the ending was really cheesy. seriously. macam tak cukup drama or something.

p/s. big F1 fan here (no thanks to Significant Other), am happy McLaren started out with a good placement in Australia *touch wood*. this weekend F1's in Malaysia!!!

draw something

this was Significant Other's attempt to cheer me up at midnight.

yesterday he called me up to get me to install 'Draw Something' on my iPhone. i've already downloaded the app sometime ago since i saw someone's twitter comment on how cool it was but i didn't have a chance to try it. i can't seem to search friends via facebook friends though, the app kept auto-closing each time i tried to. jerghhh...

anyway, he was playing cheating, mostly 'writing' words hinting to the actual word (unfair! boo! =P~~~) whole point was to 'draw', no?

so ok la, you gotta applause at his attempt below. bukan senang melukis dengan jari gemuks. heehee. i had a good laugh.



DrawSomething... yeah, i'd say that's definitely something. hahahahahaha.

nina's decorating class

decorating cakes that is. most of you peeps tau camne nak makan je kan? =P.

i think i saw her announcement a couple of days on FB before the day of the class, and since i was sorta free that morning (March 3rd) i initially thought of just dropping by to observe the commotion.

miraculously i got lost even after using my GPS that nina had to send her husband to save me haha (it actually did take me to the right location, except it didn't take into account a steep hill that i actually had to go around it to reach nina's house lol) i was already an hour late so imagine my surprise when i walked into the house to see ONLY these two:

check out noli's cake! =P

i absolutely love nina's chocolate cakes. they're moist, they're yummy... well anyway, she gave each of us a nekid cake fresh out of the oven, a turntable, a spatula, and a large bowl filled with ganache (which is really easy to make, after this tak yah la nak spend rm15 for chocolate spread, providing i rajin nak buat sendiri) and then you're on your own *imagining nina laughing evilly in the background*.

if you're a chocolate lover you might be licking the ganache off your fingers while decorating the cake. not me. i like chocolate, but i'm not that big of a fan. call me crazy. my colleague does. haha. nina gave us a little demo on how to slather the cake with ganache (she made it look so easy, nyampah aku) and then it's do or die.

FB was a pro, so was noli (diorg ni rajin bab baking2, nyampah lagi aku haha). biker mommy sya arrived at the hour a half hour later (i still can't believe i actually know a minah rempit irl wahahahahahah). i had fun. nina taught us not to be kedekut with ingredients (heh, we all were ok, it was how we were brought up to be ahahahahah). well, at least i now have an inkling on how to actually decorate a cake (cantik tak cantik is another matter ok).

busy mastering the slathering to perfection

did you know those rippling effects you see on top of cakes also required skills? nina even had this triangle thingy that created the ripples. we first tested it out on a slice of bread though. the three of them had so much fun testing it out (and then later eating the bread T__T). you could also decorate the cake using a fork, which FB did after re-doing her ganache.

my not-so-perfect ripples

FB decided to stick a fork innit hahaha

on the side nina showed us how to make cream cheese and slather it onto a square-ish red velvet cake for a customer (round is actually so much easier than square), how to make ganache from scratch (sya took a video of this), and also how to make those sugar flowers you stick onto cakes to make 'em pretty. i dah lupe what it's made of, buttercream?

and again, teacher nina made it seem flawlessly easy. i have no patience, and cerewet to boot, so i only made one, so here's my masterpiece:

looks like melted vanilla ice cream

aaand here's my final masterpiece. the leaves were a little cacat because the piping went amok on me. and i wanted to just leave it empty because i hate eating icing, but since everyone started writing stuff on their cakes, so i decided to write my children's names on the cake (my friend says his cake-writing is much better than mine, chis).

ta-da! <3

at least... Dayana was so happy to see the cake. LOL.

class went into overtime... as usual haha. noli and FB were in a rush so i didn't have time to snap a pic of theirs cakes...

noli's

mine and sya's cakes

and here's a pic of the students with the ticher:

love u nina!

i think nina might be opening cake decorating classes in the future. you might wanna ask her. glad to be a part of her guinea pig class! LOL

elmo without the L

it's been awhile since i've blogged. the past week has been sort of an emotional roller coaster ride lately. let's just leave it at that.

for one thing, project's started. so we're currently coordinating among ourselves sharing the server, cursing the server and cursing summore each time we calculate the total remaining test cases for us to execute (we were lucky we newbies weren't given WRs yet, just understanding the regression TCs were havoc alone).

i babywear a lot less lately now that si kecik prefers to tag along with her elder sister in lots of things - walking, messing up my room, and being opinionated on everything that it's useless reasoning with her. when i do baby my wraps every once in a while, the kids will start fighting over who gets to be carried first. but that's only like, 5 minutes? buang karan je ku eek out a DH. might be having a stash sale someday after i figure out which ones get legacy status. in the meantime, some are out chilling with friends.

the eldest isn't feeling well, i think it's due to a gassy tummy. she refuses to eat anything, not even her favorite food, and poops cair throughout the day. hope a spot of colimix would work wonders for her. she doesn't put up a fuss when i tell her we're going to the Dr. like last time - i wonder if she'll put up a fuss if i drag her to the dentist *muahahahah*. she hijacked her MyKid from me this morning, so i reallyyyy hope it doesn't end up missing. things simply disappear into thin air whenever my kids get their hands on them. and when you ask them where something is, they'll simply ignore you. chis. even after stressing how important that they remember (lol kids. at their age you thinks they wanna even bother listening to you?).

well anyway, last weekend i spent my days in Langkawi. this time round my stay was slightly pleasurable than usual, Significant Other decided to give Sheraton Langkawi a run for his points and boy was i blown away by how gorgeous everything is. of course, you can't beat Andaman's beaches, but i've been to Langkawi so many times already to know that i'm not much of a beach fan - too hot. this time around, despite being school holidays, there didn't seem to be many people lulling about. did everyone suddenly decide to go for holidays overseas?

from endless

the actual thang

i'm absolutely loving my Fossil tote bag i got from endless. beats the price at the boutique, price difference exceeds rm400 no kidding. and you know how difficult it is for me to get attached to bags because they don't meet certain requirements. to commemorate how i love my bag, last Sunday i managed to empty out a 400ml bottle of water into the bag.

T__T (stupid bottle. yeaaa when in mad, blame the bottle).

i was lucky all electronic equipments were in bag's side pockets. however 3/4 of everything was dampened, nothing spared. my cards n bank books n tissues n recipts were literally soaked. Significant Other had to turn on the car heater to full blast just to dry it out because mister sun chose the exact moment to give way to mister rain, sigh (he also managed to melt my chocolate bar in the process hahahah).

i got a haircut in Langkawi. someone told me i didn't seem to look any different, but i can 'feel' the difference - i lose hair weight!

before i forget, MarryBrown ain't bad at all. lol. definitely beats Popeye.

oh and one other pleasant surprise i got while boarding the plane back to KL. this time around the plane back to KL was one of the older ones - so no cool in-flight entertainment system =P. i was also one of the last to board the plane (that's so like me, always waiting til the last minute, and then running like hell to reach the gates in time). it's kind of fun traveling alone, btw. you don't have to worry about anyone but yourself and you have the chance to actually see and observe others who are boarding the plane with you.

but that's not my point of the story. since i was late, the cabin was already in chaos with people shoving their luggage into the overhead compartments, people still trying to get to their seats, cabin crew jostling around the aisles trying to get everyone seated before the plane took off. while i was rushing to get to my seat, who did i come face to face with but one of my bil's good friend, Nadya =P. in my haste i didn't bother focusing on her face until she started giving me this blank stare you get when you're trying to figure out if you find someone familiar and trying to find out whether you actually know the person or not. hahahah.

someone had already hijacked my seat so Nadya offered me another row in which i could still claim a window seat - on a Monday night, the flight wasn't full. i haven't seen Nadya in years, not since my bil left Segi to pursue his degree overseas and that was over 2 years ago. she's one of Dayana's biggest fans =D. she used to seem like one of the guys. look how far she's gone now =P.

oh btw, thanks for the urm, 'souvenirs'! my Dad was specially pleased (he got hungry waiting for me in the car). and so was Significant Other. he kept pestering me to ask for more nuts, so imagine my surprise at the quantity that seriously surpassed Significant Other's expectations hahahahah. too bad i didn't take a photo.

ok i'm off now. taa~

here we go again

this time, i wish the kids were here.


A737-800, new aircraft. equipped with individual inflight entertainment system.

*jakun mode seperti biasa*

swimming at Rustica

morning:
me *in front of PC*
Dayana: 'mommy, are you done yet?'

tgh hari:
me *reading a book*
Dayana: 'mommy, are you done yet?'

petang:
Dayana awaking from a quick snooze.
Dayana: 'mommy, are you done yettttttt??'
*promptly goes back to sleep*
(mimpi hokeh)

ok ok she wants to go jalan. so we invited ourselves (dengan muka tak malu hahah) to my friend's place at BSD on Sunday. i wud've monyok in the room the whole day if i hadn't gone out, been trying to catch up with sleep that has seem to evade me completely but failing miserably (Dinara kept bodyslamming on my head T__T and Dayana kept mommy, this! or mommy, that! @_@)

oooh the kids were excited to see each other, right up to the point that Dinara could see her elder sister had a new friend and had forgotten all about herself, ahah.

budak2 jakun dalam air

si penakut

Dinara was terrified of the water at first (errrr it's like a bathtub, but bigger, no?) then she eventually got excited with all the splashing. but! she stayed clear of the Uncle and made sure her kakak stayed close and didn't abandon her. lol.

and then Mommy forgot to bring a spare change of undies. LOL.

thanks for dinner, babe. love u lots <3