Meddling in the Kitchen

It’s good to be back at our own place!  I can mess up the kitchen for all I care and there will be no one breathing down my neck ha!  Suddenly felt like being a good mother on Sunday so I woke up slightly earlier wanting to make Pancakes for my kids!  I surfed the web before I hopped into bed the previous night and manage to find a simple enough pancake recipe.

TADAHHHHHH!! My equipment and ingredients for making the pancakes.  There are 2 eggs hiding in the mixing bowl.

I was stupid enough to think that I should beat the egg white till stiff manually!!  I was thinking, aiyah just 2 egg white, no need to use the mixer… BIG MISTAKE!  Beating the egg whites nearly killed me….. I was huffing and puffing after the whites looks like it is stiff enough…. effect not perfect but I’m already half dead.. so I made do with what I achieved….  The end product :

First time I am able to achieve fluffy pancakes!! So happy!! It tasted like Mac’s hotcakes albeit a tad dry, wonder is it becos I didn’t handle the egg whites well enough….  I love the recipe! 

 

I spreaded on blueberry jam on one and butter on the other for Dec :

He just got well so I forbidded him to pile Smucker’s Globber Peanut Butter nor Nutella on his pancakes.  Didi went marketing with the dad and ah ma and upon his return, he ate 2 plain ones.

The elder boy wanted to go swimming but weather was bad, thus I had to confine both boys at home.  To help them drive away their boredom, I decided to let them paint in the kitchen.

I can’t let them paint in the living room cos the paint will stained the homo tiles.  The kitchen tiles are hardy so they can mess up the kitchen floor and I got no qualms about it.  It was didi’s first contact with paint brush and colours and he is more interested in tasting the “coloured water”… our heart skipped a few beats when we witnessed him sending the paintbrush to test taste….

In the evening, I decided to mess up the kitchen once again by baking Oatmeal and Raisins Cookies.

Again I got an easy recipe off the net.  I forgot to take pics of the end product though.

I enjoy messing around in the kitchen so far but I hate the washing up……..  I efficiently delegated some of the washing to the dad after I’m done baking :p

I love my new kitchen!!!

Full Time Mum for A Day

I was made an “unwilling” full time mum for a day yesterday…  Usually during my very precious weekday off, I prefer to enjoy some me time…  For the past months.. all my weekday offs are being spent trapped at home, waiting for various contractors to come and do up their businesses…. This week is the last week that I will get a week day off till 2 months later…. AND I still couldn’t get my much anticipated me time!!

Mil wasn’t free to look after Kenji as she had to prepare for prayers… Dec fell ill and thus couldn’t go to school… so I was kept at home with the 2 boys…  The younger one refused to let me sleep in… he practically dug me out of bed at 9am…..  I was hoping that I could snooze till 11am… sigh….

Pacified him and managed to get another 1+hr lazing in bed.  Woke up at 10+ to cook in my brand new kitchen for the very first time!!  Before this, the operating manual was still stuck on my cooker hood lor… Actually I didn’t really cook lah :p  I just made some grilled cheese sandwich over the fire. hahahha  I know that’s cheating :p

Big one for me, the halves for Declan and the bite sizes for Kenji.  I gave the boys strawberry milk to go with breakkie.  These boys really kept me busy throughout their breakfast with spills overall the place… Kenji dripped his milk all over the living and dining room… i didn’t notice till ants started accumulating around the milk spots and i was wondering how come got black polkadots on my floor…. *faint*..  I cleaned the floor at least 4-5 times to clean up their dropped bits and spilled milk… didn’t really enjoy my breakfast…. not with little Kenji trying to fight with me for my much prized 3-in-1 coffee….

After breakkie (which ended near lunch time!!), I let the boys watched Leap Frog VCD and gave them their toys, while I took some “time off” to go online…Shortly.. Kenji came in to act a drama for me :

Not quite sure what he wanted until I detected a pungent smelll accompanying him…. arghhhhh time to clean up poo…. and so I did…  Following the cleaning up I let him watch Thomas the Tank cartoon while kor kor played with his trains… and not long after this happened:

The drama king was knocked out!  yahooooooo finally me time but it’s time to cook lunch for the boys lor… and the naggy Dec is hounding me at my back to take over my computer for his games…….

No choice but to give in to my first born…. while I mess around the kitchen to make lunch…

*Simmer simmer simmer* what’s cooking?  As if I am cooking up a storm but chey! It’s just some simple tasteless macaroni with prawn balls and mixed vege only lah.

Poor thing leh my kids… cos the mummy can’t really cook…. simple food like the above also turn out too bland :p but never mind… I console myself that it is a healtier choice.  Kenji down the whole bowl while Dec only ate the prawn balls… never give me face one….  The rest I settled them myself…

Fortunately after our late lunch (around 3+pm) my sis and bro in law came over to help entertain the kids.  Yippeeeeeeeeeee  time off for me again.  I forget to add that the boys created a war zone in my living room with their toys slew all over the place… I didn’t bother to pick them up….. How did u full time mums survive???  I can hardly live pass a day being a full time mum………  You gals are really good!  Respect!

Water Play on National Day

It’s been a long time since we brought the kids out for a proper day of fun.  They used to frequent the beach and the pool.  However due to the prep for our new place, our many weekends were spent hunting for lights, furnitures, curtains and other housing related stuffs.  Poor Kenji, hasn’t really go for a proper day out ever since he can walk.

Now that we have shifted in, albeit still quite some unpacking to do, we finally can afford to revert back to old routine.  We brought the boys out for water play at IMM on national day.

On our way out, we just any how grabbed a pair of sandals for Kenji.  When we finally put him down to walk, then I realised it was Declan’s old pair of squeaky sandals.  Little boy didn’t seems to like walking with squeaks coming from his feet and that’s what he did to show us his displeasure.

He hid behind the pillar, refusing to move.  He is a weird kid, most kids will love the squeaky sound to the horror of the adults.  We had to carry him to the car.

That’s them at the IMM playground :

Declan didn’t need us to urge him to go play with the water, he simply ran into the sprouts. Kenji was a little apprehensive initially.  It’s somewhat his first proper waterplay after he learnt to walk.  Not that we didn’t put on pants for him but with the weight of the water the pants got too heavy and drop off   Both boys have a whale of a time playing.  It was really fun to watch them.

ohhh and may I add since my disappearance act from blogging, my baby boy had learnt how to pose for the camera??  see??

This pose strongly reminded me of someone. Ring any bell???  Don’t you think he pose like ethylyn?? hahahha  so ku niang lah the pose.

The foodie didn’t forget to run over to steal my lunch cum snack while playing :

But I must say, his appetite had not been as good as what it used to be, though he is still eating much more than the brother.

All of us went for a haircut at Ben’s right after that.  We managed to con Kenji to have a little trim.  We started with Declan, snipping off his overgrown hair, while we let him watched.  Then he saw me being shampooed and had my trim followed by the dad and finally we tried coaxing him by placing a pair of scissors near him to test his reaction.  He didn’t cringe, so we quickly asked the hairdresser to snip.  His face was all crumpled when she start snipping.  He just buried his head into my shoulder the whole time and we had to keep patting and praising him… a simple haircut become majiam a very big project….

Last but not least, a poor attempt by taking a family pic… out of the many we tried, only this can see all 4 faces… though the dad appeared dark.. the rest cannot see Kenji.. can only see the top of his head.

other than me, the trio were really patriotic.  It is not by coincidence, the dad purposely dress them in red which I refuse to co-opreate

I miss building sandcastles!!  Must go and dig out the sandcastle set!

New parking place

Apparently my first born possesses better parking skills than the mum.  He found his flight of vehicles a brand new parking spot right below our suspended TV console. He refused to keep them at the toy basket and he spent a long time painstakingly lining them up prior to his bed time.

 

 He also tried his hand in interior designing.  See his decor standing on the console?? *faints*

 Apologies on the long lapse from my last post.  Was busy and tired with the new place…. we finally moved in y’day…

Their Ideal Partnership

During dinner time, it’s a norm to see Didi digging into Korkor’s share of dinner.  When I urged Korkor to quickly finish his dinner, he’ll reply :” Didi will help me finish.”  True enough, Didi is more than eager to help Korkor stomach his dinner.

Recently, Didi’s “effort” in helping KorKor finish his dinner is starting to be reciprocated.  Due to his love for food, by bed time, he won’t be able to finish his milk.  That’s when Korkor will jump in and chide Didi off :” Kenji ah! Don’t waste hor!  Milk is expensive hor! I help you finish.” So he’ll gulp down Didi’s milk. 

The one that loves to eat will help to finish the food while the other who hates to eat but loves to drink will help the former to finish up the milk.  What a great partnership that is!

Declan’s 5th B-day

 Dec turned 5 yesterday!  Wow!  Can’t believe I’ve been a mum for 5 years already.  There’s still so many aspects of parenting that is soo alien to me. 

This year, the boy asked for a Dinosaur cake.  The dad found one for him.  The initial plan was for him to bring the Dino cake to his school to celebrate together with his friends 2 days before his B-day, which is on a Friday.  Unfortunately, during the birthday week, quite a number of kids were out from school due to HFMD, there was a point of time there were only 3 kids left in his class..  So we thought it’ll be a waste to bring a 2kg cake just to have 3 kids to gather for his b-day.  Thus we postponed the delivery of the dino cake to today so that we can get his cousins in to celebrate with him instead.

It was wrong planning on our side.  Near the end of the week, nearly the full class turn up, and Dec requested for the dino cake to be delivered on Friday…  Too late to change, so our contingency plan was to get him a ready made cake from a nearby cake shop.

That’s the last minute cake that we bought :

I thought it looks cool and cute but I guess the boy will be much happier if we manage to bring his dino cake.. but we’ve tried our best.

The boy blowing out the candles after the classmates sang for him b-day song

Didi went along to Korkor’s school as well

Dec and his teachers

Can you guys spot the “new student” among the lot?

Didi felt quite at ease with korkor’s classmates.  He sat down with them to enjoy his share of the cake.  Prior to that he was roaming freely and playing along with the Playgroup students.  Good start!  If we can’t get him into the 2 hours daily Apple Tree Playgroup, he’ll end up in korkor’s school as well.

On Saturday (1 day before his actual b-day), the dad brought the boys to East Coast Park.  Ever since our reno started, it’s been a long long time since we last visted ECP.  Dec missed playing with the sand badly. 

This time, finally didi is sturdy enough to to sit in the baby chair fixed on the bicycle.  That will also mean, he dad had to pillion both boys while I ride on my own leisurely.  He just could not trust me to pillion any of his boys…

Didi got a little too comfy on the return trip and fell asleep on his chair.

You can see that as the time passed, he stoop lower as he fell into deeper sleep.

We returned the bike and let Dec have some sand play.  Didi was all knocked out, so I just laid him in my lap and let him continue snoozing while Dec and the Dad played with sand and watched scenery by the coastline.

I took these pics from afar, thus it’s blurry but I like the cosy feel of these set of pics.

On the actual day of his b-day (yesterday), he finally saw his dinosaurs cake.

I must thanks all his cousins for making the effort to come and sing b-day song for him.  We changed the cake cutting time from afternoon to evening, and all were sweet to stay behind.  The 2 elder ones even went off for tuition and came back in the evening.

In between the wait, we all scooted to Vivo to get pressies for the boy.  Dec got a Transformer toy and a play tent, while didi got a toy piano/phone and a pair of shoes. 

Next year will be his last year to celebrate his b-day in his first school, I think I should put in more effort to make his next b-day celebration a more memorable one for him.

I am 33

I’m older, yet again, but hmmm have I grown wiser??  I turned 33 last Friday.  This year’s birthday was much more pleasant then the past few.  I’m not sure why but that’s how I felt.

My day started with a peanut butter waffle and kopi-o breakfast, which Kiat bought.  Colleagues gave me a b-day cake surprise.  I took half a day to go straighten my hair and my hairdresser pampered me with a free hair treatment.

Throughout the day, smses from Kiat kept coming in with the below photos attached :

Though this is already a “recycled” trick (he did this few years back too) but I really liked it.  The pics of the kids really made me smile the whole day.

My very sweet financial adviser sent a cake to my house.  The cake was yummy! From Cake Avenue.

We went Sentosa Sand Bar at around 9+pm for a chillout session with the boys.  The boys enjoyed the trip.  It was pretty relaxing to just sit by the beach, eat, listen to music, enjoy the sea breeze and watch the boys play.

Our Food

Our Drinks

My boys trying to groom me

Can’t you tell I really appeciate their effort.  I do! I swear!

The 3 happy men

My B-day Kisses

Lastly, my cool kids who really knows how to enjoy themselves.  The both of them were actually dancing to the music from the pub lor!! SEE?? started clubbing at such a young age!!

The whole thing wasn’t extravagant, wasn’t dramatic but I was really really happy that day and I truely enjoyed myself  :)

Happy 33 to me!! May I stay as happy for the rest of the year till my next b-day!!

Declan at Yamaha

He looks so attentive right?  骗人的!!!  This boy can hardly keeps his butt on the chair nor his fingers on the keyboard.  Or should I say his hands will be on the keyboard at the wrong time… 

He tends to get over excited and wave his hands all around and by the time the fingers are back at the keyboard and hit the key, he would have miss the beat already…  Then he either played the key too short or too long…….

This Yamaha Junior programme includes singing.  The teacher wanted the little kids to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb in a skippy manner.  Each word and note should be kept light and short.  When it comes to individual singing, my boy was doing:”mar..y… has.. a little lamb~~~~~”  he  drag his lamb super long and do it super slowly and the teacher said :” oh Declan, your lamb so fat, you need to make it slimmer.” hahahaha can die.

Overall I think the boy enjoy the lessons.  It’s only 1hour per week.  We are still at first semester.  Shall see whether his interest will persist or he will opt to drop out after awhile.

DIY ID

No budget to engage interior designer, so how?  DIY lor.  I struggled to doodle out what I had in mind for some of my carpentry works, hopefully these diagrams will be able to facilitate my discussion with the carpenters next week.  Otherwise I can talk until I die I still can’t be sure they knows what I want…

The only thing that I didn’t manage to draw out is my alter..  I got the idea… just dunno how to put it down…  will struggle again tonight..

有这么惨吗??

So drama lah this boy.. all because we deny him his biscuit treat…  For those who still thinks that he is the little docile baby with no temper… it’s time to change your perception. 

As he grew, his temper grew too.  When he wants something and don’t get it, the above drama scene will happen.  However, I find it amusing rather than annoying.  Somehow he looks comical when he is throwing tanrum.