Malacca @ 24 to 26 August 2009

As we didn't manage to go to Phuket during the school holiday, we drove to Malacca to utilise our free night stay at Holiday Inn Malacca.

As usual, we left our house early at 8am while the girls are still sleeping. Reached Malacca at around 9.30am and woke the girls for breakfast at McDonalds. McDonalds is right opposite the Malacca Zoo where we wanted to visit. Changed the girls and we had our hot breakfast - hotcakes with butter and maple syrup.

The Malacca Zoo was quite a disappointment this time. We were there 2 years ago and the place is a little run down now. However, it is still slightly better than our National Zoo. The girls didn't really like the place as it was hot and humid and Werney got bored with the same hippo, giraffe and zebra again (it seems like we have been visiting quite a lot of zoos!). It was Anney's first trip to the zoo.

We didn't stayed very long and left after about 1.5 hours. Just managed to catch the bird shows and animals show before leaving.

We reached the hotel, Holiday Inn Malacca at around noon and luckily the room was ready. Holiday Inn Malacca is quite a new hotel, situated in the center of town. Although it was school holiday, the hotel occupancy rate was low and we got upgraded to a Straits View Deluxe Club Room. Maybe people were worried about H1N1 and defer their travelling plans. It was good for us that the hotel was quite empty and Malacca was not crowded. No worry about traffic jam.....

Views from the hotel room

The girls monkeying around the hotel room, playing hide and seek around the curtain

Anney playing peek-a-boo with mom

Swimming pool with palm trees, it was really breezing

Infinity pool at the hotel

Werney posing at hotel lobby

Anney posing at hotel lobby

We didn't do a lot of sightseeing as Werney's ideal holiday is to enjoy the hotel, hotel and hotel. She loves to go for a swim, order room service, play at the kid's area and perfectly okay not to go out from the hotel. This is one of the reason why I would normally booked a 4 or 5 stars hotel as I know I would be spending a lot of time in the hotel room!

Anyway, I "forced" Werney to visit the Eye on Malaysia (yes, it is in Malacca now) coz' I didn't manage to ride it in KL the last time and drove around Jonker Street & the Dutch Square.

Eye on Malaysia (night view)

Eye on Malaysia (day view)

Anney with Daddy

Anney and Werney enjoying the Eye on Malaysia ride

Jonker Street

Werney and Anney with Daddy at The Stadhuys (Dutch Square) & Christ Church

Malacca famous clock tower

Menara Taming Sari (far view)

Menara Taming Sari (view from bottom)

Werney posing with the hop on bus

Overall, it was a good break for everyone.

Healthy organic noodles

Running out of ideas on what to cook for your toddler and kid?

I have recently bought these healthy organic noodles from Country Farm Organic - Beetroot curly noodle and Carrot Hi-Protein Noodle. Didn't know noodles also have so many flavours now.


Anney is already quite tired of porridge and I thought I will cook her some noodle for lunch today. The carrot noodle can be used for frying, dry style or soup. As both my daughters love soupy stuff, I made the carrot noodle with my own soup stock.

First, I boiled the soup stock using sweet corns, carrot, red dates, half a chicken without skin and anchovies for 3 hours. Just dump everything into the pot and set the timer for 3 hours.


To cook the noodle, add the noodle into hot boiling water (with little salt) for 5 minutes. Care should be taken that the noodle is not overcooked. After that, rinse the noodle in cold water to avoid the noodle sticking together.

After that, I took the soup stock that I have made earlier and bring to boil in a small pot. I have also added homemade fish ball, pork fillet, sweet pea and baby corn. Lastly, add in the noodle and serve hot.

Yummy bowl of carrot noodle

Anney enjoying the noodle

Werney sipping the long carrot noodle. Slurrppp....

Mom, I almost finish my noodle

Yummy!

And the above is a result of little Anney ransacking my cabinet again when I was busy cooking in the kitchen

Both Werney and Anney loves the noodle. I think I will cook it again next week.

Another giveaway from A Pregnant Pause...hurry...hurry

Don't we love giveaways?

The good news is KittyCat from A Pregnant Pause is having another giveaway....this time, there are 3 cloth menstrual pads from Fussybutt's Moonbow to be given away to 3 lucky ladies or men (for their lovely wife or girlfriend or daughter) (KittyCat - man can join the giveaway or not?). To find out more on what is a cloth menstrual pad, please refer here. I have just started out on cloth menstrual pad and will blog about my experience in my blog later.

What can you win?

a) A regular sized cloth menstrual pad in tie-dye orange (worth RM43); or
b) A regular sized cloth menstrual pad in bright blue (worth RM43); or
c) A petite sized cloth menstrual pad in pretty pink (worth RM39).

One prize for each winner.

To win the giveaway, it is as easy as ABC. It is open for both blogger or non-blogger. The first step to win this wonderful cloth menstrual pad is of course, to visit A Pregnant Pause's blog.

For 1 ENTRY,

a) visit Fussybutt.com and drool over the colourful collection of cloth menstrual pads, cloth wipes and even nursing pads!
b) choose a favourite item OR an item you’d love to try and
c) state why for item (b) above in the comment box here.

For 3 ENTRIES,
a) Subscribe to A Pregnant Pause's e-mail updates here; and
b) Blog about the giveaway or why you’re going for cloth and leave a link in her blog entry; or
c) Shout out (non-bloggers) why you think all girls / women should go for cloth! (short and sweet one, please!).

Good luck everyone. I'm already drooling over the rainbow colour cloth menstrual pads in Fussybutt.com. Don't you agree they are so sweet and nice?

Little ransacker

Little ransacker....that is the current title for my missy Anney.

As you would have probably know, this little missy is super duper active, can't sit still and now, can even open all the cabinets and drawers in my kitchen. Well, surprisingly, she is quite good at closing these drawers by just pushing the front panel and have never hurt her little fingers.

Whenever I am busy in the kitchen either fixing meals for my 2 missies or doing some laundry or house chores, this is what would happen to all my tupperwares, containers, plates and whatever my little missy could fished out from the cabinets.

I am just worried that she would also explores the detergent and soap cabinet. Maybe need to get DH to fix the child-proof cabinet/drawer lock? But I have got so many cabinets....how many locks do I needs?






I wondered what are so special about all these cups and containers? Put these in the toy box and nobody would touch at all. Have these in the cabinets and it became their toys!!!! Haiz.........

Sweetest tutu ever

It's every girl dream to be a princess and Werney's wishes has came true with this wonderful tutu from Tutu Workshop.

When I told Werney that I have won a tutu skirt for her in the recent MOBS-Tutu Workshop contest, she was so so happy! Yes, this lil' girl of mine is quite a vain pot. The prize for the contest is:


2nd Prize
A Basic Classic Tutu + magic wand (worth RM100)

The chosen slogan was:

My princess will look great in a tutu because delicately crafted with love, simply pretty and alluring with the power of transporting the girls to the fairyland!


I e-mailed the Tutu Workshop owner, Joanne and she gladly replied that she could make me a customised tutu....I get to choose the colour and size of the tutu! And of course, the colour is pink - Werney's favourite colour.

We have just received the custom made tutu on Sunday. Joanne personally delivered the tutu to us. The tutu is nicely handmade by Joanne herself, such a talented lady. The tutu is indeed very lovely and beautiful. Thanks very much!

Werney has been asking me when she could wears this tutu for our outings. In the meantime, these are some of the shots I took at home.


And of course, lil' Anney wanted to try out the tutu skirt too.....

Who is your child's favourite character?

Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco, Sies, Siete, Ocho, Nueve, Diez.....

That's counting from 1 to 10 in Spanish. Both Werney and Anney love this character - Dora, the explorer and that's how my 2 little girls have picked up their Spanish.

If you are wondering who is Dora the explorer....here is Dora and her friend, Boots the Monkey. Named as Boots coz' this funny monkey wears a pair of red boot!

Dora the explorer and her friends enthrall all young children with their adventures and problem solving skills. Quite a entertaining and educational program!

When Werney was younger, her favourite character is Barney, the purple dinosaur. She loves all the Barney's songs and learn her ABCs from Barney too! After she turns 2, I started to introduce her to Dora the explorer and she loves it. And from then on, it has always been Dora VCDs or Channel 613 Playhouse Disney. Maybe that's the reason why Anney is addicted to Dora show too!

Some Spanish for you to learn today....

Uno (One)
Dos (Two)
Tres (Three)
Cuatro (Four)
Cinco (Five)
Sies (Six)
Siete (Seven)
Ocho (Eight)
Nueve (Nine)
Diez (Ten)
Abre (Open)
Gracias (Thank you)
Si (Yes)
iHola (Hello)
iVamonos (Let's go)
cuidado (Watch out)
Estrella (Star)
Abuela (Grandma)
lo hicimos (We did it)

Werney's latest craze is this Special Agent Oso and also the Disney princesses. Do you know you can sms Special Agent Oso and he will returns call via a recorded message? Cool right?

Who is your child's favourite character?

Astro Ready to Fly Show

Are you Ready to Fly? What am I talking about? It is the game show in Astro Channel 311.

DH got a call from Astro to inform him that he has been shortlisted to participate in the new season of Astro Ready To Fly show. Well....Sis#2, who is a contest crazy girl, registered herself & DH for the show. She also wanted to register me but since I can't read mandarin or converse well in mandarin, I have promptly declined her offer. Didn't want to malu myself on stage la, just in case I got selected to participate.

My BIL (Sis#2's hub) also participated in the same show last year...not sure which season or episod as I have never watch this show before coz' we never subscribe to Astro Wah Lai Toi Channel 311. Apparently Astro received thousands of entries and DH and Sis#2 are the lucky fews who got selected to participate.

The show is hosted by Hui Min and participants will need to earn mileage (point) to win the trip to their favourite destinations. The briefing and audition is this Sunday and hopefully DH and Sis#2 will be lucky enough to win some travel packages or goodies!

I saw in the Facebook Astro Ready to Fly fan page that past participants have traveled to Japan, Paris, Bangkok etc....wow...isn't that great?

A Nissan Cra2y weekend

We participated in the I'M Nissan Cra2y motor treasure hunt over the weekend. The hunt was flagged off from Tan Chong Motors service centre at PJ and ended at Swiss Garden Resort Kuantan.

Our car - Nissan Grand Livina

The team members consisted of 4 of us - DH, Sis #2, BIL and yours truly. DH was the driver and me, the navigator. We woke up at 5am on Saturday to get ready and also to send the girls to my mom's house. We couldn't bring the girls along as the treasure hunt journey was 8 hours in total.

The Nissan treasure hunt is a yearly event organised by Tan Chong Motors to value their customer since 1998. This is our 2nd time participating in the Nissan treasure hunt. It was really a fun event and all 50 cars walked off with prizes!!!! We got the 7th placing this year, a slight improvement from last year at 9th placing.

The questions were much tougher than last year and they even included a Sudoku puzzle that we needed to solve as part of the treasure hunt questions. Both hubby and myself are clueless about Sudoku and Sis #2 and BIL volunteered to complete the Sudoku! However, both got car sick and couldn't complete the twin Sudoku in a moving car!

The event ended with a prize presentation dinner with the theme I'M Nissan Cra2y. Our team was also awarded the Best Dressed Team....being the Nissan craziest team!!! See the pictures and you can judge it yourself! Besides that we also won an early bird prize and a lucky draw prize. There were really lots of prizes given out by the Tan Chong Motors people.

In fact, one of the family got involved in an accident during the hunt and the car was quite badly damaged (almost total lost) but everyone in the car walked away okay. The MD of Tan Chong Motors promised the owner that Tan Chong Motors will replace the car. Wow...that was really the most generous car distributor around.

The resort we stayed, Swiss Garden Kuantan is a beautiful resort with nice sandy beach. If you are thinking about bringing your kids for a beach holiday, I would recommend Swiss Garden Kuantan. The beach is at least 10 times nicer than Batu Ferrighi Penang!

Swiss Garden Resort Kuantan

Beach at Swiss Garden Resort Kuantan

The Nissan Cra2y Girls

The Nissan Cra2y team

The Best Dressed Team for the night

Our prizes

It was a tiring and cra2y weekend but we had so much fun! Hope to be able to participate in the hunt again next year.

It's official, our Phuket trip is cancelled

With the death toll for H1N1 victims climbing steadily (last count today is 51 in Malaysia!) and probably faster than the FTSE Bursa Malaysia Index, we have finally decided to cancel our forthcoming Phuket trip. Yes, it is a hole in the pocket but definitely not taking any chance especially with my 2 girls below 5. I read that children below 5 years old are considered to be in the high risk group, mainly due to the low immunity system.

I have also called up AirAsia to enquire whether we could postponed our trip (but to when right?). Though AirAsia allowed us to postpone our travel date, we will have to pay additional RM80/way for each passenger as administration fee and on top of that, we also have to top up the price difference between the old fares and the new ones! Well, after some calculation, it is just not worth it and I might as well book a new set of tickets. Furthermore, I wonder how long will this H1N1 last? The vaccine is expected to reach our Malaysian shore only by end of this year and by then, how many more deaths will occur?

Werney is upset of course. I am disappointed too....have been looking forward to the white sandy beach and blue blue sea. Oh, not forgetting the spa too! Will task DH to look for a local trip, that don't require us to travel in flight to compensate for the cancelled trip.

Ring sling

At 17 months now, Anney is as clingy as a koala bear...or sometimes, I think she is like a velcro tape.....sticking to me everywhere I go and wanted to be carried all the times. During day time, when I was away at work, she would also stick to my mom like that too! Why is my baby like that?

Mind you, this little baby is already 11kgs and it can be quite challenging carrying her around! Luckily, I have my faithful ring sling and Anney loves to be in the sling too. At times, when I refused to carry her as I was busy washing and cleaning up etc, she would brings the sling and asks me to carry her in the sling. Smart baby, right?

The sling that I have is from The Baby Loft. The material used is really luscious and soft as it is made from silk and I really love the olive colour. This colour has been discontinued now. However, I find the nylon ring used in The Baby Loft's ring sling doesn't hold the silk material very well and it can be quite slippery with a heavier baby. Besides, the sling is a little too long for me as I normally used my sling for hip carry. A longer sling would be useful for piggy-back carry style or for discreet breastfeeding, which I no longer need now.

I read from some of the babywearing websites and forums that aluminium ring in smaller size would be perfect for silk material. Not wanting to spend more money to invest into another ring sling (as I was thinking of getting a 2 shoulders carrier like a Mei-Tai or a Soft Structured Carrier later), I found this talented mommy who could helps me to "modify" my ring sling.

Before

After

* Picture courtesy of Snuggbaby.com

Liza of Snuggbaby helped to change the nylon ring to medium size aluminium ring, shorten the length of the sling by removing the zipper pocket and added a designer fabric as open pocket. I really love the new look of my sling! Thanks very much Liza!

Well, the new aluminium ring does hold the silk material better! Love it! Love it!