Simple easy peasy homemade dinner idea, the Ikean way!

If you have not notice already, I have confessed that I'm officially an Ikea freak.


Anyway, we would never pay RM5.90 for an open face shrimp sandwitch again;). It does not look as nice but tastes almost the same. Well I heard the shrimp is from Norway, ours is normally from Selat Melaka, caught by father-in-law.

I also just learned the difference between shrimp and prawn. The size. In that case we call ours, open face prawn sandwitch. And yes, there is half of hard-boiled egg under the mayoinasse.

It's proven...we all love it! 6 pieces gone in a snap. Squeeze the lemon, roll it a bit with your hand, don't bother the knife and fork, perfect for TV dinner.

Finally, the last birthday in the month

After spending almost RM100 for Bea1's cake, and around RM70 for Bea2's, thought I was not going to burn a bigger hole in my wallet. Besides, we kind of tired of Secret Recipe plus I really didn't have time to go elsewhere. Prayed I would find something at the Bangsay Village, where I stopped to do grocery shopping for the weekend. We just love it.

It's a routine, no big party. Just us, girls surrounded the kid table, mama had the camera and papa busy controlling the little one from smashing the cake.

After cut-cutting, finally Bea3 statrted doing what she does best, poking cake with candles;)


I love seeing little kids with cake, they are messy but adorable. As a mom, I would worry about the mess much later;). Anyway, the cake is yummy, a cheesecake but a light one. And it costs RM29.90, I will certainly go back for more.

And this is one of the latest from the birthday girl. She even draw on ballon. All 5 of us in the family and on your left, it's Bea2 walking on the moon. A day before that, Bea2 looked up the moon and said she wanted to go there. I asked how, she said by an aeroplane. Bea1 just potrayed that in her drawing.

Isn't having kids the greatest thing? Please ignore me, I'm just feeling blessed being a mom.

6 weird things about me

I've been tagged by Lillian. I copied the rules from her entry.

"THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog."

I thought I have many, but when I have the time to write, I found myself thinking hard to get all 6. Anyway, here goes...

1. In the U, I joined the Reserve Officers Training Unit (ROTU), a co-corriculum course conducted partly by the Ministry of Defence and at the same time people found me head banging at some underground heavy metal gigs in KL. People thought I was weird.

2. I did a PhD to get a job that I like and because I love doing it, but I confessed to hubby that I was not really an ambitious woman. He thought it was weird, I mean to hear that from someone with a PhD.

3. 99.9% of all the women that I know try to loose weight/talk about losing weigh/complain about how fat they are, I quietly say I want at least 5 kg more. I always can't fit in any woman conversation. Sometimes, I find myself asking "Am I weird?"

4. I love having french fries dipped in ice-cream sundae. People at the McDonalds, where I used to do part time in SS2, PJ and Bristol, UK thought that's weird. Now, Bea1 loves it too;)

5. Sometimes I love when the trafic lights turns red. It is the time that I can grab the lotion from my handbag to apply on my hands, or lip balm on my lips. Some people may think it's weird. And I got to hear more after-school stories from my girls, too;)

6. I always ask for tomato ketchup, instead of chilli sauce. In this part of the world, people really think it's weird!

That's it, now you know more about me. I pass the baton to another mommy bloggerbutterflutter, and I'd love to find out weird things from these babies too, if the moms can find them: supernunu cutie, and any of thecurly boys.

Have a great weekend, everyone! We will start off with a cake for Bea1's birthday, story coming up on Monday.

Another birthday, and a wedding anniversary too...plus HFM

Who really cares about a birthday, and wedding anniversary when one's kids have that dreadful HFM (Hand Foot Mouth) Disease.

Belacan blogged it, and The Star reported a few cases.

It started on Monday night last week. Bea1 complained of painful mouth and refused to eat dinner. Checked and it was ulcers. Thought it was normal ulcers, and just encouraged her to drink a lot.

Instict told me to check her hands the first thing I saw her after school. I was worried sick when I saw the blisters. Didn't know much about HFM, then except it scared the hell out of me when the endemic was at its worst in Sarawak last year.

We brought her to the clinic the next day, after seeing more blisters on her soles.

The doc said it could be HFM, but she didn't get any fever. She asked me to go straight to the hospital if she got any.

And what is heart-breaking to a mom? I'm sure all moms can relate well to this. It is seeing her child holding her favourite tuna bun, and a box of chocolate milk. And she could only do that, staring at them longingly as it was just too painful to eat, even to sip.
And I think all moms would feel like 'luku'ing someone (in this case, the father), who being 'helpful' taught the kid how to eat, by walloping half of the bun in one mouthful....grrrrr!

She even refused porridge.

I informed the school, and tried to separate the girls the best I could. But being sisters and good play buddies, nothing really worked.

By this time, I also received news that 2 kids in the babysitter's neighbourhood (but go to different preschool, nursery), and one at a nearby nursery got it too. And I also did some reading, most cases are just mild.

Just when I thought I can relax a bit, Bea2 complained of painful mouth on Thursday night. And yes, she got it too. Luckily, Bea1 was getting better, after some training (I taught her to avoid chewing near the ulcers) she ate rice well and even annouced she finished two chicken drumstick while I was getting Bea3 to sleep.

Bea2 acted worse. Applying medicine was a struggle, hubby had to pin her down. She just lied down the whole of Friday. And also found out Bea3 had it too.

Knowing that all of them love watermelon, I bought some. I knew they were scared to eat, but that juicy, red melon was just too much to resist. It was funny looking at them, amidst the little whimpers of pain, they forced themselves to eat.

We spend the night rocking both of them to sleep, and cajoling them to eat and drink when it was obvious that they were just too hungry and thirsty. Bea3 developed some blister on hands and feet, but I saw none on Bea2.

Luckily, they were better on Saturday and they fought over some porridge. Bea2 still had trouble to sleep that night. We finally settled for a good night sleep last night. And the kids are much better today. The blisters on Bea1 reduced to dark tiny spots, no more liquid in them.

My plan for hubby's birthday was to get up early, and cook his favorite breakfast before he leaves for work. And for our wedding, again to cook something special for the family. They stay as they are, only plans as we spent every oppurtunity that we got to just doze off.

I'd love to write a post to commemorate our wedding anniversary, but I've already scrapped the idea off. Anyway, this is our 6th (he thought it was 5th, he is helpless with dates) and we're looking forward to our 4th child. Is it fast or what?

Anyway, it's been 6 years that he's been leaving his socks around for someone to pick up. It is obvious that, an evidence was shown in my blog once in this entry.

And another almost made an appearence in a post on
Bea2's birthday
. (He would kill me for putting this up, but I really don't care;)).
That makes me think, we have a healthy husband-wife relationship. And with the way we are handling the current 'crisis', think we are ok though with some little bickerings which I think is normal.

Back to HFM, watch out for any sign if your kids attend preschool/nursery/school. We will wait for a couple of days before we an hit the swimming pool again. From, what I read, it is not water-borne, but I'm just worried, there might be other kids there too...can't wait!

Of the Wedding of the Year, Tsunami and the Flood in Johor

I just need to rant a little bit.

Last semester, I taught a bunch of first year students a basic geological course, of plate tectonics, volcano, earthquake and such. As university students, I reminded them to keep updated on what happens everyday, particularly on major geological events.

It was around July/August last year, and thanks to the Wedding of the Year and the HUGE hooha about it, the students missed the news on the tsunami in Pangandaran, South Jawa altogether, though I could see many of them carrying newpapers around, anyway, they were mostly Cosmo or Kosmo (I'm not sure of the spelling).

A lot of bloggers wrote about it, but I chose the one from rkaru's.
But, they are first year students, so I can accept that, I thought.

And now, I'm teaching a more detail course to a group of second year students. Two days ago, I asked for someone to talk a bit about the event. Apparently, they knew about the event on the Boxing Day, 2004, but NOTHING on Pangandaran....isk!

Yes, the world received a huge shock of the great tsunami, but I expected university geology students to be aware of subsequant events.

Ok lah...they are only university students. Kasi can lagi...

And last night, I was reading to the elder girls when Bea3 accidently hit a button on the remote control, and we suddenly had Aljazeera news. It caught my attention when Johot flood was mentioned, and walau ehhh...first I saw a familiar man handing a pack of rice to an elderly man, then I saw HER....

And this confirmed it.

I like seeing them a lot better at the flood site, doing their bits (which I'm sure would give a big influence to others) than on the first page of Cosmo, the Star, Malay Mail, NST etc a few months ago, talking about "teka-teki" and horse carriage etc...well again, that's not their fault, newspaper figures what really sells.

Let's also see if the new education blueprints works.

And yeah....I read about a lot of dissatisfaction on how the situation is being managed there, and the involvement (or the lack of it) of the politicians.

Let's do our part, ok! I'm happy the university has a place now to collect donations. All stuffs will be brought down to Johor tomorrow.

And hey, this is more than a rambling! Thanks for reading, anyway!

I'm back, but first thing first!

I've been in hiatus, I used the excuse of the recent nationwide slow internet connection due to the quake but in fact I was just too busy that I thought I should not be blogging anymore, but I'm back and I got tagged by Lillian. Tag=love, so I'm back.

But firstly, I must do a little update on the girls, or at least on Bea2's birthday on Saturday.

Hubby worked and only came back at 7 pm. We quickly went out to the nearest Secret Recipe for a cake. I promise to bake when the girls are a bit older;).

As much as I wanted Indulgence, I also wanted one with a white surface, instead of dark brown. So, I decided on Oreo Cheese. I decorated with some not-so-colourful candies that I got from a nearby Watson.

A shy and demure birthday girl with her cake! Papa said we got to hurry up, can you see lightsaber on the TV or not? Star Wars Episode 3 was on. Who cares if we have watched it 10 times...hehe!


Attentive to papa's instruction.

Mama made her wait too long, started to show her antics. And more antics.
Oreo cheesecake finally on the plate...the girls said "Yum, yum..."

As for the parents, nothing beats the combination of cheesecake and Star Wars on Saturday evening, with the gentle sound of drizzle...perfect!

Readers, please ignore any mess that you can see in the background. Thanks for reading, love you!