Bread time

Have been looking around for a nice and simple bread stick recipe for a while. I found one which did not require yeast, but I gave up after two attempts. The dough was stuck EVERYWHERE!

Since I was back rather early from work today and needed to de-stress, I decided to give another recipe a try. This was a simple recipe too. And after my experience over the weekend making the pizza base, I learned not to dump everything into the mixing bowl instead slowly adding the water. The dough raised quickly within an hour and after dinner, I shaped the dough by cutting and twisting some then added some flavour and 20 minutes into the oven later.. voila!
You were happy to eat the bread sticks. There was some with garlic, some coated with butter and some with cheese.

I'm so glad that I'd tried this recipe. We can make them next time as appetizers when we have a party.

Playing in the Dark

You've got so many toys to play with I wonder how you decide which toy to play with at any time. For your 4th birthday, Uncle Sin Chuan bought you a "Glow Station" from Crayola.

Recently you decided that you really liked playing with it. It is a canvas which comes with a light wand and some stencils. Here you are waving your light wand all over to create a design:

Here you are waving your magic wand all over to create a design:
And your resulting "artwork": Creating a "design" from what we have.. our hands:

Ta-da:

Luckily daddy reminded me to turn the canvas around otherwise I'd get a fright if I woke up in the middle of the night to see something glowing in the room!

Tonight's Supper

Daddy wanted supper to go with his football match tonight. So on the way home from work, we stopped by Tesco to pick up the ingredients for his supper. As I was looking for the raw ingredients, I overheard a couple saying that the ready made thing was quite good.

So in the end, we bought both the ready made one and the raw ingredients to make our supper. After our shower, so started to prepare supper. You were a great help.. tasting our raw ingredients!!

What is daddy having for supper as he watches his football match? Pizza...

This is the pizza which you and daddy made. The ham which we bought was not the nicest tasting thing (blekk.. tasted like liver!). Otherwise, it sure was yummy.... Aussie Pizza. MMMmmMMMmmmm....

You ate one slice of the ready made pizza which was pepperoni pizza (added more cheese and tomato puree) and ate two slices of the pizza that you made (cheese + ham + eggs).

We've got one more pizza base in the freezer. I'm thinking of a Margherita Pizza.. daddy says he wants to try the Aussie Pizza again. We'll see..

What's in the fridge today?

Actually some of it has been sitting in there for quite a while. I was told that I could only open it when it is my birthday. Okay... but but my birthday is many months away still? But no go, the "artist" told me that I had to wait. Alrighty then.. I'll wait.

You've been bringing back lots of little pieces of artwork from school. I've stuck quite a number on the fridge. I'm running out of magnets!

And some night before going to bed, you'd say that you wanted to draw and not read a story book. So you'd be drawing with a pen on my bed. Otherwise, we've got little pieces of papers stuck all over the house with your artwork. You've been "warned" not to stick on the wall (your artworks are stuck to the furniture using cellophane tape). Here's one of it stuck to the banister:

We need to buy a new drawing block.

Afternoon Naps

For the whole of last week, you've not been taking your afternoon naps. Ah Ma says that you refuse to take a nap. I told myself that I'll have to get you to take your afternoon naps, otherwise you'll have difficulty waking up when school starts on Monday. Of course you keep telling me that you don't want to go to school still.

But never mind, after a little persuasion and some "good" reasons as to why you'll need to go to school, you stopped telling me that you did not want to go to school anymore (for now...). Without your naps, you seemed very tired when evening comes, and you were watching too much TV. And by the time it's dinner time, you were either too groggy or super grouchy (or both!). After dinner and a shower you were recharged (oh no!) and would dance and play and laugh till close to 11pm. Of course that meant you'd not wake up very early the next day.

Although I wanted to put you back on a schedule with an afternoon nap, by the time we got back yesterday it was already 5.30pm but you didn't need much persuasion, you fell asleep in the way home. As for today, we got back from our kai-kai by 2.30pm so we both went up (although you insisted that you were not tired) and by 3pm, you'd dozed off... still sleeping as I type this. Yay!! Success!

Hopefully you'll be able to sleep earlier tonight and wake up on time for school tomorrow. *keeping my fingers crossed*

Daddy's day would not be complete without something handmade by you right? After all today is Father's Day. So here's what you made 2 weeks ago before you started your school holidays. You had wanted to give it to daddy then, but after some explanation and telling you that it was to be a big secret, you finally agreed to let me keep it safely in the drawer first.

The front of the card

And the inside of the card

So when you finally woke up this morning, you were smiling away when I passed you this card to give to daddy. Daddy was so surprised and happy to receive the card (great actor that man.. hehe! He'd already spotted the card a while back when we were searching for our passports high and low).

But hey, it was a lovely card. Very nicely made.

Happy Father's Day, daddy!!!

On the third day of your school holiday..

.. you told me "Mummy, I don't want to go to school anymore..."

WHATT???!!!!!

And this is actually the first day we are at home since your school holidays started. We were away in KL and only got back late yesterday evening.

When I told you that you cannot be a clever boy, you just kept quiet and didn't respond to that. Lately reverse psychology doesn't seem to work on you anymore. Just like "If you don't finish your dinner today, you wont get supper.."

And what's your response to this? Certainly not a "NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!" at the top of your voice. Instead I got an "OK, then I don't want supper tonight". Arghhh.. now how do I get you to do things for me? Like going to school willingly????

Excursion to Penang Butterfly Farm

When I received the letter requesting for consent from school, I had asked you if you wanted to go to the Penang Butterfly Farm. Of course, you wanted to go..

On Thursday evening, you told me that Teacher Sharmine had told you to wake up at 8am the next day. I asked if she said to reach school at 8am or to wake up at 8am (which would make you very late to school). Then you decided that she said to reach school at 8am.

Of course we didn't make it to school by 8am. I tried to wake you up earlier but having napped for 3 hours the day before you only went to sleep at around 11.30pm! After a lot of persuasion and reminder of the excursion, you decided to wake up. Breakfast was milk and poached egg which Ah Ma had prepared for you and off we went.

By the time we arrived in school there were already 2 buses parked outside the school. To my surprise they were not school buses, but express buses. Of course you were very excited when you saw the buses.

We dropped you and went back to work. Since it was your last day of the term, we decided to pick you up. Daddy kept asking me if you'd be late seeing that the journey to and from the Butterfly farm would take at least 1 hour each way. But I told him that they school had not mentioned anything about being late. So we arrived at your school past 12.30pm, but the guard said that you were all not back yet. Oh now.. we waited and waited and finally at 1pm, we saw the first bus arriving.

You got off the bus (a little blur) and started to follow your friends into the school. It was not until we called out to you did you realise that we were standing there.

On the way back, I asked you how the excursion was. What was the response? "On the way there my friend and me slide here and there and here and there". Um.. ok, it more about the bus ride than the Butterfly Farm. You were so excited telling me the ride. When I asked you how many butterflies there was, it was just a "A lot".

It seems like the highlight of the trip was the bus ride just like last year's excursion to the Penang port. Oh yes, and some snack that Teacher Sharmine gave you!