The Ones That I Love

I haven't written much about these lot lately.

Really am not sure why. Maybe I was busy with work. Maybe the new baking career was taking too much of my time.

Sut since I've moved here for good, I think it's high time, I get back to my main reason why I blog. My children. Aliya, Ayisha, Adani & Ariz.

Aliya's in Standard 4 now. She's really slender and tall with shoe size the same as me. Today she asked me what's lesb1an and why are people gay. *pops eyes*. Kids learn too fast too much these days.

Ayisha is pretty much ironed out these days. She doesn't throw THAT much drama anymore. Maybe like once a week. Yikes.

Adani is reading now. She'll be 5 in October. An avid reader. An eager reader. Constantly asking me to read her anything and everything at all times. A pain she can be sometimes, but it sure is encouraging.

Ariz is a real B-O-Y! I never knew the real meaning of the word boisterous until Ariz turned 3. He's a handful. At this moment, he's screaming his head off and chasing over his sisters. Ayisha has cried once. Adani twice, just tonight. He throws stuff at the girls. He pulls their hair. He grabs their stuff and he does everything that he does will irk the sisters tremendously.

He also is a chatty little boy these days. He's still crazy on Ben10, wearing cheap Ben10 t-shirts day in and day out, wearing the Omnitrix on his arms all the time. He watched the Ben10 episodes on TV very obsessedly and he's plays the Ben10 game on his PSP very well too. MrGart is only too happy to help him. Boys and gadgets!

Oh and he says the darnest things too. Favourite unlikely phrases from his moyth these days are "Yam tul"! for "geram betul!" and "So?" to which I feel like melepuk this little kiddo.

But at bedtimes, he gets really soppy and sweet and repeatedly telling me "I love you Mummy", he just melts me. Then he asks to nurse. Arghhh!!

Here In My Home

I'm calling this home from today onwards.

Had a noisy, scream-y, very-melancholic and great lunch with MoshJantan, Lollies and MissKLSentral today and Mosh lamented that no one updates their blogs anymore.

I think this is either people have moved or people have just given up on efx2blogs. Some have packed up their bags and set up homes elsewhere under new names. Some have returned to their previous homes. But it's kinda had to get back to such feelings of being a family again.

I miss the contant banter of comments from Rotidua, elisa, lollies, mamarawlks, mommyalif, diah, bear, butterflutter, lazydaisy, olab, ondeonde, screw, futuredoc, checombi and many others who have enlightened my life with their insights. I miss them.

Here, my comments remained in single digits. Maybe people don't know I'm here. Maybe they've stopped looking.

I hope I find them soon. I miss you all.

Welcome to my new home. This is where I think I'll be from now on. Especially with this new layout.

I feel so womanly.

I feel so motherly.

I feel so lover-ly.

I feel me.

I think this is my place.

Kewl New Template ..

Yay !

Cool eh?

Just having a new template makes me wanna blog more often.

I think I just will.

Pierced and Filled

Weekend was very hectic for us.

Saturday morning saw me blitzing to complete the cuppies and by mid afternoon, I felt very content. Was supposed to meet up with MissKLSentral and Lollies for a chat at MissKLSentral's house and then sit by the pool watching the kids splash about. But filial duty beckons.

Mak Ndak's doing a kenduri doa selamat for Azimah's going off to Medan for her medicine study, Pak Ndak's well after the 8 stitches upon hitting a glass door and Azfar's wedding two weeks ago. It was more party makan-makan to me. Had Nobita's Imran & Annissa with us cos Nobita coulnd't make it. Noisy car with 6 kids.

Anyway. We ate laksa, soto, pulut kuning and about bucketful of durians. APparently Pak Teh bought them at RM1 each. Dang! Tis the season alright.

Sunday.

Insisted that MrGart accompany me to the Pasar Tani since I got sick of making excuses why my lazy hubby never accompanies me to the market whenever I meet friends and neigbours there ,which is like every few steps.

But instead of MrGart, all 3 girls were up too and off we all went. Minus Ariz.

Coming home, by noon, we're off to the friendly neighbourhood dentist. Aliya has 3 loose tooth that bugged her bad enough that she offered to go see the dentist. She needed to have 2 pf teh teeth pulled out, one of them molar but after the first extraction, she got cold feet and made a promise to come back next week for the other one. Hmms!

Adani has a small caries on the molar which needed a filling and the dentist recommended a jab to numb the drilling trauma. I said yes and once it was all done, Adani was smiling away. With a "gemuk pipi", she said. That was so brave of her.

Ayisha for once, has no problems with her teeth. It's just the in the next few weeks, she needs to have her temporary pink-filling replaced with prolly a coloured filling permanently. Hmms! Yay!

Treats time.

We went to Tesco and the PohKong and got all three girls' ear lobes pierced. But just 5 lobes instead of 6 cos Aliya's left lobe is already pierced. For the record, we've been here 3 times.

FIrst, when Aliya was 7. Cold feet and tears. Out we went.

Second try. Aliya was 8 and Asha was 6. All went well except that they wore a cheap earring one day and all 4 ear lobes flared up and pus-ed out and closed out. In fact, we had one incident when Asha's ballooning with pus earlobe in a clinic, screaming bloody murder when we had that cleaned out. Sheesh! Some girls never learn!

Third try. I thught Aliya & Asha learnt a hard lesson. Except that this time around, Adani was doing the push-overs. All because a certain Arania friend has hers pierced. Peer pressure. Since they were really good at the dentist, I thought, hmm bagi je la.

So, there. All girls are now eyeing fancy earrings and every now and then flips back their hair to admire themselves. GIRLS !!!

Busy As A Bee, Though The Size of An Elephant

I've been terribly, terribly busy with work, baking and more work lately.

I haven't been able to blog as frequently as I wish to.

Aliya & Asha have started to work feverishly at night time. With a lot of ...

"Are you working in your room?"
"Asha .. where are you?"
"Aliya .. stay in your seat and finish that sheet!"
"Ariz .. stay out of that room"
"Adani .. stop pinching off Asha's eraser"


He he he .. Imagine saying all those with a voice about 20 notches higher in decibels. Ha ha ha. I am mean.

Anyway, work-wise. I've now eh, on August 1st onwards will now report to a new boss in a new unit, albeit in the same department. It's called Scheduling Operations i.e. lots of scheduling and lots of operations and plenty of simulations in between. I do none of the above. I'm officially the fuel girl. Anything, everything that is flammable but only those which is good to generate power comes under me. Ha ha ha! I'd better fix my fuse and and not short it that often, lest I'd explode! Bad joke, I know. *sulk*

It's different. There are different people. They are uhmm very straight people in my new unit. It's almost a culture shock to me. I'd like to think of myself as street-smart. I'd like to think of myself as as well-rounded (not girth!) , current and aware person. I'd also love to think myself highly intellectual, but at the same time, hip enough and mostly an awesome colourful person.

Well, if I think I'm all those, the new unit sure thinks I'm just a person. I think I'll start my coloring soon enough.

Anyway, I'm glad to have moved on. I'm actually very grateful for the direction of my career. Alhamdulillah. Allah is great and He gives so much to me. ALhamdulillah. I've achieved what I wanted to achieve, never money-wise, but satisfaction. I've never been happier than this at work. Poeple see me running around the place, sometimes frantically, sometimes lersurely, sometimes I'm skipping with joy and sometimes swearing and cussing but do not be alarmed. I am content. I am happy. I just am expressive.

Ah well. Work beckons. Tara ..

Devil's Food Cupcakes

Happy Birthday Azen! I won't try to count what's your age now, for fear of panic attacks and migrain attacks too. But I sure hope you had a great one.

I should've blogged about it on the 18th July, but a lot of things happened. Anyways.

I've experimented with a few chocolate cupcake recipes. The one by Anna Olson featured on Sugar were really nice too. But these ones have got to be the BEST!

Got this from ZoeBakes and it's just the best! The cuppies were really moist and remained soft even the day after.

I chose to make the Cream Cheese topping to contrast the dark dark cupcakes and also I thought the tang of the cream cheese would blend with the smoothness and chocolatey-ness of the cupcakes. I was not dissapointed.

Anyhow.

Azen was in Tokyo when I called to arrange for a send-off. He apparently had a jolly time in a lounge in Tokyo airport, something to do with automated toilet. Go figure! So, the gals in the office had the pleasure of more cupcakes.

Ciao!

Wedding Cookies for RotiNina

Heat sealed and bagged with twirly pink ribbons for effect.

Dots and Pink Ribbons Wedding Dress

Monogram Hearts. It's A & F. I did the & for half and then ditched it as I think A F looks just nice.

Wedding Dress - The Swirl Design.

Rotinina requested that I make wedding cookies for her sister's wedding this Sunday. I was initially apprehensive since wedding are elaborate affairs and I kinda hate to mess things up. But today, looking at them. I think they're alright. In fact, I'm so proud of my myself. Come on people. Clap ! Clap! Clap!

Roti wanted wedding dresses, panties, bras and tiered cakes. Maybe hearts too, though she felt hearts were corny and tacky.

Obviously, for Malay weddings, the panties and bras were quickly chucked out. Just the tiered cakes, dresses and hearts. Monogram, I told her.

But, my tiered cake cookie cutter acted up and I ended up making 28 pieces of the wedding dresses in 2 different designs. First the swirl and the second the dots. Then I made 23 of the monogram hearts. Then I ran our of fondant. Sheesh!

My first time using fondant on cookies. They look clean, exquisite and just divine. Royal icing kinda suck or I'm juts lousy at it. I can never thin it enough or too much and it takes foever to dry up. Hmm. I think I may stick to this.

I really hope Roti likes it.

Ciao!

Birthday At Bandung

efx2 is probably dead.

It's alright really cos after Elisa migrated back to blogspot, I had hunches that I should do too.

Anyway.

I turned ehem .. 35 on Monday, 14th July 2008. France's independence day and mine too. We i.e. me and MrGart, uncharacteristically hopped on a plane to Bandung, leaving the kids with my mom and the care of Andes, the helper. Never have we done this before, but we figured, Ariz is almost 4 and surely this will not damage him.

So, we arrived to smoky and cool Bandung. Shopped till I dropped. Spent many millions. Rupiahs, mind you! And ate not great food there. A great cuddling trip since full-fledged honeymoon was marred by a red flag which ain't receding. He he he!

So, I am 35. Feel no different whatsoever. Tell me, why do I feel like I was 6, 10, 12, 15, 21, 25, 29 and 34 when I'm supposed to feel 35?

Selamat Pengantin Baru, Azfar & Liza

Last weekend, I wrote about the bride's side berinai, akad nikah and the real kenduri. And Saturday, it was the bridegroom's turn. We are a big family. My mother is the eldest and has 8 other brothers and sisters who among themselves have many sons and daughters. The 4th generation (cucu to my Tok) aged between 10 and 30 days old and there are alone, 17 in number I cannot remember the exact count of US all, but I think 63 about sums up us.

Anyways.

Weddings have always been a family affair to us. We have many, many meetings prior to any weddings and it is a real fun to have, with minutes, mind you! We have t-shirts printed out for the wedding and vests too. We are a closeknit family. So, I arrived very early on Saturday to a buzzing house at Taman Rashidah Utama, Seremban. The 8 large tents were all set up. The caterers' busy cooking. The aunts and uncles were making special gulai daging with batang pisang and gulai kuning daging salai. The kids were running around the pond in the huge yard. Breakfast was served in the side of the house.

The house was recently renovated and it's mega big now. There are 5 fans alone in the kitchen! Aku sungguh jeles dengan rumah ini. Tasks : Me - VVIP usherette and get lollipops for kid's gifts. MrGart - VVIP usherer Aliya - bunga manggar carrier (the other one was carried by Nor, her same-age cousin) Ayisha & Adani - official flower girls. There were 6, but 1 refused to wear the dress and the other one was Nobita's 1 yo Arissa. Ariz - stay of out mischief, ALL mishief thinkable. Rehearsals were carried out to the delight of the aunts and uncles for the flowergirls.

They were all decked out in burnished brown, gold dresses (thanks to me!) with ribbon-y headbands, crafted by my cousin Anis. My Mak Tam took the trouble to out make-up on these girls, a bit too red and tacky. So, after the girls ate their lunch, dengan mulut yang termuncung-muncung, I wiped the merah kampung lipstick off and put on pink lipgoss instead. Now, they look girl-ish pretty.

So, when the guests started arriving, things fell into place. I ushered the Datuks and Datins to the VVIP's area and at the beck and call of my Mak Ndak, the hostess. Tiring! Very very tiring. The flowergirls did great, even if they had to berarak jauh la jugak. They smiled and sat prettily next to the pengantins on the dais. The silat was uhmm rather ganas. Apparently, they were real SEA Games athletes, my MSN uncle had engaged. Foooohh! It's almost demonstrative, but they sure tumbled and kicked ferociously to the delight of the VERY interested little boys, already imagining their ultraman and ben10 fights with aliens!

Anyways.

Ramainya la manusia. By 4pm, when it was all over, all of us, the younger ones were sitting at one table, lollipop tasting session when suddenly, a man walked up to us with a salam. Hmm he looked familiar. Yikes! The MB of NS was there himself. Cit! Terkulat-kulat we all, even with lollipops in our mouths. Earlier we had the was-tobe-MB-Kelantan-but-denied puffing cerut in front of my wheelchair-ridden grandma, nonchalantly. And we had an ADUN from a alternative party there too with some political reports thrown in for good measure. Aku dengar je la.

Ah well. All in well, it went well.

We went home around 11pm with heavyy eyes, full stomachs and great great day. Selamat Pengantin Baru, Azfar.

p/s sorry no piccies, I din't have my camera on me. Ye la, sebuk dok suruh tuan/puan, datuk/datan, pakcik/makcik masuk makan. Once I get some from my cousins, I'll try to post them here.