Sarah's Birthday Pics

It's been really hot this couple of days. Stifling hot. Because of the heat, I don't feel like writing much, anyway as I've been meaning to jot something down about Sarah's recent costume birthday bash, I've opted to post pictures instead. They say a picture says a million words so I'd let the pics do all the talking this time around...and perhaps a little comment for each pictures. :P


Sarah with her cousing Soso (Sarah's pet name for her cousin Soefara) waiting for everyone to gather around her huge Barney cake. (Thank goodness she didn't notice that I swapped her Batman cake for a Barney cake instead :P)


Sarah doing a sort of indian dance...who knows??? She's getting into character perhaps...Lol



Sarah the little red indian, Itaf as Darth Vader (took off his helmet due to the heat) and little Danish as...you guessed it; Fred Flinstone! Hehehe...so adorable kan?



Mika the Tiggeriffic baby with his pal Imran. They were born 19 days apart and since both their mommies have been friends since they were little girls, it is inevitable that these 2 are also destined to be lifelong friends. :)


Sarah going berserk with all her prezzies.


All the kids were so engrossed with the sand art activity, most went home without having a single bite of food! Glad I decided against face painting, the kids had so much more fun with sand art. Lol



The most sought after person during the party...the balloonist! Poor dear, she didn't get to rest a single minute. She was definitely a hit. :)


The loot bag (err...more like mini hampers lol)


A father trying to relive his childhood. Lol.

Can't figure what's going on with Blogger. Probably having a headache or something. Lol. Can't seem to upload anymore pictures. Hmmmm, anybody experiencing that lately?

Anyway, all in all it was a great party. Good food, good friends, good times. The very next day, Sarah asked mommy and daddy if she could have another birthday party. Lol. Maybe next year darling. Hehehe.

My PD Excursion

After my last post, out of the blue hubby announced that the very next day he’ll be taking us for a quick a getaway. I know for a fact that he doesn’t read my blog, in fact he doesn’t read anything, period. So this piece of news was quite a pleasant surprise.

Initially he wanted to take us to some high ground vacation spot, but after being stuck day in day out in our 7th floor condo unit, the last place I wanted to be was some where high. Due to the time constraint, I suggested Port Dickson instead. So off we went to PD yesterday morning. The whole family was in high spirit even little baby Mika. Sarah even went “Yay! Sarah go holiday! Yay” and that was followed by “Apa itu holiday Mommy?” Lol.

Both hubby and I ware happy to note that PD isn’t what it used to be. It’s absolutely clean. Even the public beach is very clean. No litter whatsoever. The sands are actually beginning to turn powdery white again and the sea water isn’t murky anymore and is almost crystal clear. Good job MPPD! :)

At first hubby suggested that we all check into Avillion. But I balked at the idea because my lil’ sis Sherly had told me that the cheapest room was over RM500 a night. Remembering a good friend telling me her good experience at the Corus Hotel, we then decided to spend the night there. It was a good decision after all because for less than RM500, we got ourselves a night in the Junior Suite, room service, a seafood dinner at a nearby beach restaurant, buffet breakfast, McD’s and a load of junk food. Try to beat that Avillion. :P

The room's really nice. It has a king size bed, a gorgeous bathroom, a living room, a small courtyard terrace that exits to the beach & a magnificent view. The next morning, hubby took Sarah for a morning walk and Sarah got really excited when she spotted an owl. She was a tad upset that all the swallows were sort of disturbing the owl & made the owl fly away. Sarah was also delighted when she saw a little puffer fish at the edge of the water. Too bad hubby didn’t have the camera with him.

Throughout our stay, Sarah swam, swam and swam some more. She was very gung-ho about going down the pool slides. Although she bruised her cheek ( to my horror, my clever girl decided to slide down ala superman), that did not deter her from going down the slide again and again. I swear I had a mini heart attack every time she went down the slide. Hubby kept telling me to back off and stop smothering the girl. Makes me wonder, whylah my girl simply refuses to behave like a girl?

Overall, although short, it was great to be able to escape and recharge. Am definitely repeating that experience. Here are some pictures we took.


Wind in my eyes..err..it's more like hairs in my eyes


Seafood galore! I was so excited with the sight of our meal I forgot my initial plan to take a picture before we dug in. I remembered my plan halfway too late.

Who says lying down on isn't fun?


Showing her mummy what a good swimmer she is while hubby keeping an eye on the little show off.


Strike a pose...


Sarah & Mika. Posing everywhere like Japanese tourist.


Mummy, Sarah & Mika doing the dugong pose.

Yadda Yadda Yadda

I feel guilty for neglecting my blog for awhile but between Sarah's coughs, vomiting & diarrhea, other stuff has been creeping up on me lately as well. First, Sarah had a bad case of tummy aches that stretched for a week. Must've been from the playdough she swallowed (damn you play dough!*shaking my fist). Now she's caught some coughing bug from her cousins.

After that, my BIL had to be hospitalized because he found himself unable to move one morning due to some problems with his muscles. Since SIL is due to go into labour any day now, hubby and I had to keep an eye on her while minding her err..very 'challenging' kids. It didn't help the situation with her being so anxious, aggitated and temperemental all the time.

MIL came down from Penang to help out but because she too can't stand Her Royal Grumpiness' temperemental antics for a prolonged period, we've had to 'rescue' the poor old lady once a day to keep her sane. Well, good news is BIL was discharged yesterday, so hopefully, everything can go back to normal such as us not having to deal with Grumps till she gives birth. LOL :P

I still owe the blog a detailed account of Sarah's birthday bash. I'm gonna forget blogging down anything lovey dovey bout hubby for awhile cause the man forgot both our anniversary & my birthday (how could he???). I'm still smarting over the incident. Maybe I'll forgive him when he gets his pay hehehe *evil. According to my rough calculation, he's recieving a few extra 'K's' this month. And I so need a nice holiday ASAP. Oh, that reminds me, must make a mental note, need to do baby's passport for Phuket.

Started potty training Sarah again. I've rolled up all the carpets and from 10AM up to now, she's already had 4 accidents. Seems like it's gonna be a long week ahead. *sigh

With all the halloo balloo happening right now, I'm seriously suffering from a major writer's block. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

World Cup 2006

In spirit of the World Cup, I guess I’m compelled to jot down a few words on my thoughts or rather what I know (which is not much) about football and the World Cup. Before I begin, let me warn you that all this while, my knowledge of football and the World Cup is limited to Posh Spice who happens to be married to David Becham, who is not just a Bryl Cream model but a world renowned footballer as well. And perhaps he landed the Bryl Cream contract because of football. That’s it. Oh! And the fact that his wife Posh, has a to die for sense of style. Yup, that’s about it. Lol.

Ok, I know, I know…such lousy knowledge of football when it is perhaps the most sought after, talked about event this year. Truth is, I’m pretty oblivious of it happening at all. But since I’m obligated to write something, anything about football, I did a little research of my own. In other words, asking an expert (well, in this case hubby because he used to be a reserve player in primary school and in my books that’s expert enough) a few questions regarding football and the World Cup and getting a few grunts for answers. So let me share with you my findings.

1. Maradona is NOT Madonna pronounced in a foreign language. The fact is he’s a GUY who played for the Argentinean team and later got into a drug related problem which subsequently ended his career and is now an overweight, middle age has been. Oh, he had something to do with something called ‘Goal of the Century’ whatever that means.

2. Ronaldinho and Ronaldo are two separate person and Ronaldinho is the uglier of the two. He is actually that guy with the scary looking set of teeth with a bad case of frizzy hair plastered on billboards all around the world. He is currently advertising for Breeze and is also considered the world’s best player. (He doesn’t even qualify as slightly good looking so I can’t figure out why the extreme adulation.)

3. Anyone with enough common sense should root for Brazil and England is just overrated. (Heck, don’t ask me I’m just quoting hubby, I don’t even know what that is suppose to mean.)

4. A small village in Bangladesh broke into a riot because the electricity went out during a game.

5. Ronaldo won a golden shoe in the last world cup.(???) In my opinion, a golden shoe on a man is waaay tacky. Very the pimp-isque

6. The World Cup isn’t actually a cup but a trophy that doesn’t look anything like a cup. ( So why they call it a cup is a mystery to me) Trust a man to not recognize what a cup looks like. To them, cups, mugs, glass are just things to hold water.

Yup, that’s about it. Hubby mostly shooed me away because I was disturbing him watching a game between Argentina against I-can’t-care-less. So that’s that. Now that I’m over and done with that, I can actually move on to things that are more meaningful and not as ridiculous as grown men running, pushing, shoving and chasing a little ball for the sake of a cup. Call me ignorant, call me clueless, I'd like to think myself as blessed. I'm in better shape than all those poor, sleep deprived football die hards who are pushing their body to the limit forcing it to stay awake in order to watch a game...and I have a 3 month old baby!

Today, June 15th, 2006

29 years ago on this day and date, I was brought into the world. I can't believe I'm already 29. Time surely flies. And how am I celebrating my coming of age? By being all alone taking care of a 3 year old with a tummy ache (told her not swallow the play dough) and a 3 month old cranky baby who seems to be fighting sleep. *sigh*. Sort of have a rough idea what the year holds for me. Wonder if hubby would be thoughtful enough to call me just to wish me a Happy Birthday all the way from Rome? That'll surely make my day.


Oh, did I mention that it's also my 5th year anniversary? Whoopee doo! But I'll speak of that later. Need to gather my thoughts so I'd actually write something memorable to commemorate this day. Anyway, it's not like I have anything special install for me, so I'd like to save writing about it as the highlight of my day.

Anyway, many happy return of the day Linda. Hapy 29th Birthday & Happy 5th Anniversary!

Sarah's Birthday Bash!

Am I glad that Sarah's party is over and done with. Now, my life can continue as per normal. I'm happy to say that the party was a success. A few things did go wrong but overall, it was a blast.

One of the things that went wrong was that our camera decided to go kaput the day before the party, and since it was so late, didn't even manage to borrow one. Had to depend on others to take pictures. Once I get them via email, I'll definitely upload it here.

I really have so much to tell about the party, but I'm just too exhausted to write it down. I'll save it for my next post. There's just so much to jot down. But in the meantime, I'd like to thank EDEN catering for the delicious food, I highly recommend them to anyone who plans to cater for any functions. They're really efficient and even went out of their way to help me with the balloon decos. They cleaned up in a jiffy and was courteous, helpful and friendly to all my guests. Not to mention that the food was absolutely delicious.

Ms Yong the balloonist was delightful. Everybody (and I mean every single person there) got a balloon. She was definitely a hit. I'm definitely using her again next time.

I'm glad sis talked me out of the face painting and replace it with sand art instead. The children had so much fun and even some adults went to participate in that activity.

Sarah really did enjoy herself till she forgot to eat! Seing her so happy and really enjoying herself made it all the more meaningful. It was definitely worth it. A greaat party indeed.


Sarah as a little red indian. Manage to persuade her to become a red indian after all and she really loved her costume!


Baby Mika as Tigger.


Sarah & adik Mika posing with their ballons. Sarah has a wrist flower and Mika a gold fish on a rod! How cute is that?

How To Make Chicken Curry Maisoh

I've no clue what to write about. So I've decided to do a how to piece. This is a recipe that I'd consider as one of my specialty. Well, it isn't really my recipe, it belongs to my mom but I still consider it as my specialty. Both hubby & Sarah just can't get enough of this dish. It's called Chicken curry Maisoh.

Since I'm the 'campak-campak' sort of cook, I won't waste time calculating the exact amount for each indgredient because I hentam everytime anyway :P Here are the indgredients needed for this dish.

Anyway, the indgredients are as below:

Chicken parts
Spices
Curry paste
Curry leaves
Finely sliced ginger and onion
Chopped garlic
Tomato sauce
Oyster sauce
Water
Oil
Salt to taste



First you heat some oil in wok.

Next, you stir fry the above spices till fragrant. Besides cinnamon and star anise, there's err...I've just realized I haven't the slightest clue what the rest is called in English so I'll use their Malay names instead. Bunga cengkih, buah pelaga, halba campur which contains mostly biji sawi, fenugreek, jintan putih and jintan manis. You could also use just biji sawi instead of halba campur.

Once spices are fragrant, add finely sliced onions.

Put in the curry leaves immediately after the onions and continue stir-frying till fragrant.

Throw in finely sliced ginger and chopped garlic and continue stir-frying till fragrant.

Add meat curry paste and continue stir-frying.

Add in the chicken parts and fry till the meat looks slightly cooked. Add water.

When the water has come to boil, add a little oyster sauce followed by some tomato sauce.

Let it simmer till the gravy slightly thickens then add salt. Continue to let it simmer till gravy thickens and chicken is cooked. How thick the gravy should be is totally up to you. My mom like it almost dry while I like a lot of gravy.

Voila, chicken curry maisoh is done and ready to be served. Yummy yum, yum...dig in.


Sorry, I've only managed to upload only 2 pics. Dunno what's wrong with Blogger.

Nasty Crew

After reading back my last entry, I thought urgh, how depressing. So no more depressing posts from for the time being, I've more exciting things to look forward to like Sarah's costume birthday party. But I'm not going into that today, I'm here to vent out my anger. Sheesh, first self-pity and now anger, hmm, seems like I've got a lot of negativity going around me right now. Must be the stress of planning a party.

Anyway, hubby got back from flight earlier. He came home fuming away. I've already put both kids for their evening naps so had some leisurely time to sprawl on the sofa and lend a listening ear for sweet, ole hubby. He needed to unload too.

So hubby told me that an incident occured on board. He had a big fight with a stewardess during his flight back. This is how it went.

It was time for his rest period and since there were plenty of vacant seats in the first class, hubby decided to head there for a little shut eye. Hubby had gone to the toilet before he went to his seat. When he was seated, the stewardess in-charge of first class came up to him and rudely said," Excuse me, next time please clean up the toilet after using it" and she turned away and headed back to the galley. Hubby was like, "What the???" And his blood began to boil so he walked to the galley to have a word with that nasty woman.

At the galley, hubby asked her, "What did you say to me just now?" She turned to him and rudely repeated what she had said earlier. Hubby then replied, "Cleaning toilets isn't my job, my job is to fly the aircraft. I thought it's your job to clean toilets." Defensively the nasty stewardess replied, "It's not my job either." Huh? Part of a cabin crew's duty is to ensure passengers' comfort and making an effort to keep the toilets clean is one way of ensuring passengers' comfort. Obviously crazy woman here wasn't paying attention when she was in training school.

It was inevitable that her last statement would be followed by an argument. Hubby asked the stewardess, "Why should I clean the toilets?" She replied, "As a common courtesy to us for choosing to rest in first class and I've already had to clean up the toilet 3 times before you went in."

Ok, hubby practically exploded, "Courtesy?!! Do you know I have every right to rest in first class?!! Do you want to know what courtesy is?! It's us allowing him (hubby pointed towards the Senior Chief Steward who was snoring himself deep into La La Land) to sleep in first class!" At that the stewardess just grew frustrated and screamed back, "Oh just shut up! Fine! Do whatever you want! And while you are at that, go flood the toilet will you!"

And at that, hubby turned to the flight steward who was just standing there gaping and said, "Go and call your Chief Stewardess." The steward who seemed intimidated replied, "...but she's resting." "Call her, NOW!" And the steward scurried away.

When the Chief Stewardess arrived and asked hubby what was the matter, hubby told her. "Your stewardess here interupted my rest period and is being extremely rude. She's being insubordinate." The Chief quickly tried to calm hubby down and told him to continue his rest since he is operating as Team A and must be really tired. Hubby just glared at the defiant stewardess, who by the way glared back. She had the cheek to mutter, " You weren't resting, I saw you playing a game on your PDA." Hubby just continued walking back to the cockpit. In the cockpit, he related this incident to the Captain. The other operating co-pilot got pissed off as well and went down to first class to tell the stewardess off. But when he came back, he said the stewardess has been sent off to work in economy istead. The stewardess never did appologize.

During my days, we had a fair share of rude stewardesses but never a case of insubordination especially when it concerns the technical crews. We've always stuck to the chain of command rule and according to that rule, hubby was second in command.

If I was there, I would have given that stewardess one, tight slap. Not only for the lack of respect she displayed but also for having the cheek to tell hubby to clean toilets. No one tells my man to clean toilets but me. Grr...

I'm Doing My Best!

I was on the phone with my sister just now. Felt the need to whine to someone about what a handful Sarah is becoming and since hubby’s in London, thought sis would be the next best person to pour out my frustrations.

I told her how I blew my lid off last night after managing to keep my cool and putting up with Sarah’s tantrum for 2 whole weeks. Sarah as usual was working up a fit refusing to bath, I had to carry her kicking and screaming into the bathroom to bath her. After I was done, she starting working up a fit refusing to leave the bathroom and put on her clothes. The baby was in the background screaming his lungs out. I kept insisting her over and over again to come out and get dressed. She repeatedly screamed back “No!” What really ticked me off was when I saw her putting the hand bidet into her mouth and drinking the tap water. Countless of times I’ve told her, scolded her, reasoned with her to not do that. This was one too many times that she had disregarded my instructions, so what did I do? I switched off the lights of the bathroom and shut the door.

Sarah then screamed in fright and started banging on the bathroom door pleading to be let out. I stood outside the door quietly for 2 whole minutes before switching on the bathroom lights and letting her out. Somehow or rather, that made her come to her senses and she behaved her all the way to bedtime. When I told her it was time for her bedtime, she obediently complied without putting up a fight like she does every other night.

Anyway, told my sis about last night’s entire episode. I was taken aback when my sister exclaimed that what I did was the meanest thing she’s ever heard off. Sister made me feel guilty and ashamed for what I’ve done. To add insult to injury, she insinuated that Sarah is spoiled. I’ve let her get away with stuff countless of times and this is the result of my doing. Then she brought up the incident when Sarah was younger and played with her documents and stuff and wasn’t reprimanded for her actions. Heck, she was only 2!

I’m a strong believer in encouraging a child to be positive. I try not to say ‘No’ to her all the time. Like when Sarah played with her daddy’s work manuals, hubby freaked out. Although I told Sarah what she did was wrong, I didn’t see the necessity to punish her for it. It’s not like she can read and at her age, a piece of paper is just a piece of paper. I told hubby, if he wanted to blame someone, blame himself for leaving important stuff strewn about.

Little sis then proceeded to say “Don’t you wonder how so and so does it? Her eldest boy is just perfect.” Hey…what’s that suppose to mean? I’m a terrible mother? The truth is, I too think so and so is an excellent mother. But it’s easy to be a superb mom when you don’t have to worry about cleaning up the mess, doing the laundry and cooking. Your youngest child can already talk and walk and on top of it all, have TWO excellent maids to call and depend upon.

I was pissed with lil sis. Humph…what does she know about being a mother, she isn’t even married. I ended THAT phone call abruptly. Perhaps I am being defensive, insecure and emotional but I’m doing the best I can. I admit I’m not the most excellent mother around and wouldn’t even stand a chance if this was a competition but it is all I know how to be.

Despites my whines and complaints, I know that no one will be able to love my children the way I do. No one will know my children the way I do. No one will be able to care and nurture my children the way I do. I may be a terrible mother, but I’ll be the only mother that Sarah would ever know of. At the end of the day, it’s what she thinks that really matters. I hope she knows that I’m doing my best.

Sarah was born on May 15th, 2003 at 12.o5pm. Someone once told me children born during midday will be of the stubborn variety. Hmmm….