All KO-ed

That was me the whole afternoon, since I was down with a bout of food poisoning. So who keept you company, on top of cleaning up the mess I made in the car and keeping you away from me while I rested and serenaded the toilet? Why, it's super daddy of course...

I'm all better now, that's why I am able to post about it. And I cannot believe it, it's only 9.30pm and you've already been asleep for 20 minutes! It's an achievement as you last most weekends without a nap and still be able to last up till close to 11pm. Hhmm.. I think I should get daddy to put you to bed in future.. since he's certainly doing a better job than I am.

Weekend baking...

Ok, this was 2 weekends ago. But better late than never...

I love the time we spend baking. Yes, there are times when you drive me up the wall by spilling my flour everywhere or "taxing" from the cookie, but it's all in then fun and spending time together. Here's my little assistant helping me make another batch of those yummy cookies:

Sifting the flour.. and spilling some all over the floor and worktop



Rolling the batter into small balls before baking them (and taxing some of the choc chips too!)

By the time all the cookies were ready, it was just in time for us to head to the club for a swim. We had pizza for supper that day too. So guess who was my little assistant again:

"Food taster" testing our the tomato puree

Our 3-Cheese Pizza

And this is how we have most of our weekends.. Filled with food and fun.

Cars... and something else...

It's interesting how you are still crazy over cars. Of course, you are no longer interested in Myvi's anymore. Instead, you are more interested in the Audi.. specifically the Audi TT! Although there was once when we saw the Audi TT and the Audi R8 in the workshop and you instantly fell in love with the R8.. and abandoned the TT.

But a few days later, you've reverted back to talking about the TT... probably even forgotten that the R8 looks like. Also, your fascination with cars have also included another specification to the car. The more exhaust pipe the car has.. the faster the car is supposed to be. Which is good for you..

As for motorcycles, as long as they make a loud "vrooommm" they are classified as "superbikes" even if it's just a little bigger than the normal motorcycles which we see on the road.

Yesterday, we saw several REAL superbikes, so I wanted to take some pictures of you with them. But when I asked you to put your hand on the motorcycles, you were afraid to do so.. maybe worried that the bike might fall down?

See.. you look so rigid and nervous next to to motorcycles:

In the end, you finally agreed to let me put you on the motorcycles seat. And you were so happy. You even commented that the handles were too far for you! What to do.. short arms...

You are even asking me to buy you a TT. You told me to use all my money to buy a car for you. Yeah.. the only TT you'll ever get from me would be a model Audi TT!! Sorry.. unless I strike lottery tomorrow. And before that happens, I'll need to buy lottery first! Any suggestion for numbers, Evan?

Rain rain go away

It was raining quite heavily this morning. And this was what you were doing while waiting for daddy to come down...
..just looking at the rain falling. Then we had to go off to school/work.

Sunday.. continued

We knew that you'd kick a fuss if you do not get to wash the car as planned. So although Kakak had already washed the car in the morning and you had just fallen asleep, we went ahead as planned. I tried to wake you up (after napping for close to an hour) and after a little convincing you woke up all energized and ready to wash the car.

Took these pictures of you and daddy washing the car from upstairs. Didn't want to get in the way of the hose!

After waiting and waiting for the bread to proof twice, the bread was finally ready at around 8.30pm. The whole house smelled of bread, and daddy said it smelled like a bakery. The dough was split into 3 loafs and this is what we got. 1.5 of the bread was finished within the same day. I think you ate 90% of 1 loaf. Have to remember to write down this recipe. It's nice and fluffy.

Lazy Sunday

Early in the morning you told Ah Kong that you wanted to "take the ship which can carry cars". We scratched out heads wondering what you meant. Finally realised that you wanted to take a ride on the ferry. We tried to convince you to make the trip next week when we go back to BM, but nOooOOooo you had to go on the ferry today.

So after everyone was ready, we all climbed into daddy's car and headed to the Penang Bridge. We went to BM to have the famous yam rice which was really yummy. After lunch, we headed to Butterworth.

We had to wait for 1 ferry before it was our turn to go into the ferry. As you were still recovering from the tummy virus, you kept feeling lethargic on and off. But the moment we got into the ferry, you were all energetic again. It was a nice ride as today's weather is not too warm (and still not rainy)

When we arrived on the island, it was still rather early, and despite you feeling tired again, you said that you did not want to go home yet. And since you've been a good boy, and did not take any sweet things since Friday as Dr Mary had advised, we headed to Queensbay Mall as we wanted to buy your yogurt drink.

Ah Ma offered to buy the drinks while we headed to J.Co for the yogurt. Did a little shopping and headed home. Here's some picture of you at J. Co. You made silly faces the moment I wanted to take a picture of you!

You kept saying that you felt tired (just so daddy would carry you??), but insisted that you did not want to nap. Ok then. You're watching tv since Ah Kong and daddy are busy and I'm waiting for the bread to proof. Hopefully it'll turn out all right.

Going to the Beach

We had nothing much to do over the weekend. So we decided to take the long way back home.. yup, around the island after lunch. We stopped a while at the Teluk Bahang dam and continued on our way.

We were on the lookout for the "Bao Sheng" durian farm. We finally found it, but when we drove in, there were too many people for us to find out where exactly we were supposed to buy the durians from. Worst still, there were so many cars, daddy had to make many tries before he could turn the car around and go back up the steep slope.

We hopped back into the car and continued our drive. After a while you were very quiet. I asked you what was the matter but you did not answer me. We continued to drive as daddy wanted to search for the beach in Balik Pulau. after a very long drive we finally found it. If not for the directions from his friend, I don't think we'd have taken that route.

Anyhow, it was very hot as it was around 2p.m.. There were quite a number of people having a picnic there. After daddy had parked the car, he brought you to go nearer to the beach. He put you in the sea water but after a while you did not want to go near anymore.

So we headed back to the car. When we got into the car, you finally voiced your concern "Mummy, how are we going to go home?" Ahh.. you were worried that we could not go home. No wonder you kept so quiet during the drive. I told you that this round will bring us back home. We'll just need to follow the road. You weren't too convinced, but you did not ask the question anymore. I think you were relieved when we finally got home.

Later on, you told me that you wanted to go for a picnic by the seaside. So looks like I have to ask for directions on how to get to the Teluk Kumbar beach.

Shhh... no talking

Daddy, Ah Kong and Ah Ma were just about to start watching "Angels & Demons" on Blu Ray and you seemed keen on watching the movie too. So as you settled in between Ah Kong and Ah Ma, we told you that you were not allowed to talk, as this is our "home cinema" just like when we went to the cinema last week.

So what did you say when anyone spoke? (Even before the movie started...). "SSSHHHHH NO TALKING in the cinema". Hehe..

But even before the movie actually started, you said that you wanted to go upstairs. Sigh.. so here I am posting about it while everyone else is enjoying the movie. As for you.. you are also enjoying a movie.. your Tom and Jerry cartoon to be precise. I don't get how you can watch the same DVD over and over again!

Tea Time Cookies

I wanted to bake something but since there was only around half a piece of butter left, I decided to bake the chocolate chip cookies by following the recipe from one of Ah Ma's cookbooks. The other option was to bake banana cupcakes, but I'll usually double the portion so that we have enough cupcakes to go around. So the banana cupcakes plan was scrapped.

You'd usually help me by sifting the flour or manning the mixer, but today just as I was about to start baking you saw that Tom and Jerry was about to start. So you said that you didn't want to help me :(

Anyhow, since my mixer is a bit cacat, it took longer than usual for me to mix up everything. By the time everything was mixed, you were done with the show. So you decided to help me roll the batter.

... and of course tax my chocolate chip!

The recipe was supposed yield 30 cookies, but I recalled from previous experience (very long time ago) that the cookies would expand quite a bit. So in the end, we had close to 100 pieces and at a good size. In fact, I still underestimated the expansion of the cookies as some expanded an got stuck together.

The moment the first batch was out, you taxed quite a number of cookies. I took out daddy's camera and tried taking some pictures and this one which were nicely propped was satisfactory to me *grin*

What do you think? Does the picture do any justice to the taste??

Yummy day

We had a lazy day today. By the time we left the house for lunch, it was already past noon. Don't know what to eat, so in the end we headed to Carnavon Street for Kuey Tiau Th'ng. As we were near Sim's we stopped by to pick up some baking ingredients.

Where to next? Since it was still early, we headed to the nearest mall.. Gurney Plaza.. again.. *grin*. We walked around when daddy decided to buy the griddle which he had been eying for a while as there was a discount on it. Headed back to Cold Storage and after a call to Ah Kong to confirm if they wanted to have dinner at home, we picked up all the things we needed to prepare dinner.

Headed home and again, you KO-ed on the way back. So since you were asleep, I decided to prepare the pizza base to keep so that we can have pizza when we wanted to. Arranged the sliced potatoes which kakak had already cut put everything in and into the oven it went.

Ah Kong and Ah Ma's flight was delayed again and again (oh no..) so dinner was delayed. Kakak boiled some elbow macaroni and I added cheese and the potato au gratin which was already cooked and that was what you had for dinner. Maybe next time you'll be able to join us for steak.

By the time they finally got back and daddy finished frying the steaks, it was already 9.30pm! You had some more potato au gratin while we had our steaks (with broccoli, mushroom and potato au gratin). Don't you think it looks yummy?

As I'm typing this post, you are still awake and it's already 11.30pm! I hope this little energizer bunny will be sleeping soon because I need MY sleep.

What did we do today?

The moment you opened your eyes (and rather quickly as compared to other days...) you yelled "Yay! We're going to the cinema today!!!" Yup, it's your first time going and I have been telling you about it for a while. Need to make sure that you'll not decide to go home halfway through the show.

So we got ready and headed to school. After working for half a day we headed to school to pick you up. The moment you saw our car, you got all excited. It seems that you had told everyone in school that we were going to the movies. Wow! You sure were excited.

Headed home to change and freshen out before we headed out for lunch. We could not decide on where to go for the show. In the end we headed towards town as we wanted to have lunch in Poly Cafe (as planned the day before). You got all worried when we wanted to have lunch. You wanted to go straight to Gurney Plaza for the movie. After some convincing, you agreed to have lunch.

After lunch, we headed quickly to Gurney Plaza. We still have time but to our surprise there was quite a queue to buy tickets. We bought 2 tickets (for you and daddy) and I got a free ticket. We bought drinks and popcorn and headed to the cinema. Oh yes.. what did we watch?

Source

We were rather early but soon the cinema filled up and the movie started. But before that you were already stuffing yourself with popcorn!

You seemed ok with the loud sounds from the movie. And since we told you that you were not allowed to talk loudly throughout the movie, you occasionally whispered to me. On top of that, you drove daddy a little nuts as you lost concentration some parts of the movie and decided that you were more interested in you seat than the movie!

I think the one thing which caught your attention was the incinerator scene. That was the only part of the show which you kept bringing up after the movie.

Oh well, it went well for our first time. Dinner that evening was a simple "chu char". We drove all the way to Batu Maung as there was heavy traffic everywhere and you had insisted that you wanted to eat "normal rice".

With such a busy, long day, you (and I) KO-ed early.

While they are away...

Ah Kong and Ah Ma are away in Singapore for an art exhibition. So we're all alone at home. We took the afternoon half off today to spend time with you. Right after we left the house to have lunch, it decided to rain! We hoped that the rain would not be too heavy in Pulau Tikus where we planned to have lunch. But as we approached Pulau Tikus, it was still raining and I suggested that we had McDonald's for lunch. Oops.. the rain slowed to a drizzle, but too late, you decided on McDonald's so we had to head to Gurney Plaza instead. One would have thought they were giving out free food with the number of people in the restaurant and the length of the queue!

By the time I was served and finally given our order, it was already 2pm and I had to queue for almost 20 minutes! Luckily you were ok... only thing is daddy was going nuts keeping you entertained while I queued for lunch.

After lunch, we walked and shopped a little before heading to Cold Storage. Beef stew was on the menu for the night, so we bought all the things we needed and headed home.

Just as we were reaching home, you fell asleep. We relaxed a little before it was time for Chef Daddy to prepare dinner for us. Dinner was ready in a jiffy as daddy seared the beef then put everything in the pressure cooker to cook.

Yummy...

Before bed, you called Ah Kong to say goodnight to him. You seemed to miss them already...

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!