feeling grateful

today, i feel grateful.  i couldn't sleep last night and woke up with the sickness. a sickness that hung around all day making me the most dysfunctional human being.

but i'm grateful. 

i'm grateful to have married this man who...
_ made French toasts for me for breakfast.
_ went groceries shopping and took boo with him.
_ took boo to the park after groceries shopping.
_ prepared and gave boo his lunch.
_ took my dirty car out and brought home a clean car.
_ prepared dinner and washed the dishes too.

he said to me after dinner he felt like he didn't stop all day. i told him he's not imagining things. he didn't stop all day. 

harrow?

wow! 1 Jan 2014 was when i wrote my last post.

sorry to those (handful of my friends and family) who’s been dropping by regularly checking in for a new post. i apologise for the lack of post the past 3 weeks. i don’t have a valid reason to my lack of post but i have one word for you – laziness. yes, i’ve been bitten by the lazy bug and haven’t been up to much interesting events that is blogworthy. but don’t worry. i haven’t forgotten about this little corner of mine and i intend to keep it alive for awhile. i foresee some interesting posts coming up from February onwards.

so, a friend of mine shared a link on facebook few days ago and the title to the link caught my eye. It  says “successful parenting without spending money: a mother’s story.” i was intrigued. normally i dont click onto links like that but i had to. i wanna read about it. i clicked on the link and it was about this woman in the UK who started a blog  “free our kids” to document this challenge she set for herself of going a whole year without spending any money on children’s products for her son. she's lived like this for more than one year now and i'm in awe of how she does it because i struggle to go through with my play to "buy nothing for myself for a month" last july. 

after i finished reading the article, i visited her blog to find out how she does it. she writes about her creative ways of homemade toys and toddlers activities and her blog posts are often accompanied by photos of her son enjoying his homemade toys. this kid looks like the happiest child in the world with his homemade toys. sometimes i often forget what our kids really want is is for us to play with them and spend time with them. they really wouldn't know any better if the toy we just brought home for them is one of the latest toy in the market or one that is hand me down from another child. of course this only applies to kids under the age of three but i would take full advantage of this age before they become aware of the world of consumerism and start demanding for the latest toys they see on tv. 

i'm a true believer in hand me downs toys (to a certain degree anyway). as long as the toys is cleanable and disinfectable, hand me downs are perfectly fine. afterall, they will only be played for a very short period of time before they are tossed to the side for another toy. but i do stay away from hand me down soft toys, books or anything that can't be cleaned thoroughly. 

speaking of hand me downs, i'm actually quite chuffed about how useful and how much value i've gotten out of this second hand baby capsule we picked up when we had boo two years ago. boo was the second baby to use it and the capsule has been in storage since he turned four months old. i lend it to Kirsten last June and she's been using it since Liam was born. as soon as the capsule was returned to me two weeks ago, i passed it onto Vivian so she could use it when her baby arrives in March. once she's done with it, maybe we'll get to use it again ourselves? hehe, the greenie in me is quite happy about the amount of use we got out of the capsule and how well i'm extending its life. 

anyway, i think this post is getting too wordy and due to my laziness, i don't have any new photos to share with you. i shall stop here. i will try my best to prepare a more interesting and photo loaded post next time? 

hello 2014

first day of the new year. my first day of the year started at 5:30am when my boo woke me up. i don't know why but this boo has been waking up before 6 the past few days. it's like 5am during non daylight savings time dude. it not cool. try as i may to coax him back to sleep but i failed miserably. instead of going back to sleep, he started telling me who's sleeping. he tells me gung gung sleeping, ma ma sleeping, daddy sleeping. little does he know that mummy wanna sleep too.

so, my first day of the new year didn't start that well but it got better. daddy got up shortly after and gave him breakfast so that i could sleep in. after that, he changed him and took him to the park. not just the local park mind you. a park close to his work in the city. he's been wanting to take boo there. those two had such a great time and even though i wasn't there, i could tell from the photos below that they had a great time. i wish i was there too.   

goodbye 2013

so it's the last day of the year and it deserves a proper blog post recapping the year's happening but this is going to be a really short post because i haven't prepared anything. with less than three hours left, this is the best i could do. you'd think after having five days off over Christmas i'd have time to work on the blog. as much as i really want to,  i couldn't. i've been under the weather so i haven't got up to much except for rest, rest and more rest.

i couldn't let the day past without a short post so let's conclude this year with the photos below. they were taken two weekends ago when Sydney was hit by a heat wave. we couldn't go to the shops because of the last minute Christmas shoppers and we couldn't go to the park because it was just too hot. so we hung out indoor with the ac on full blast, watched episodes after episodes of Peppa Pig and we waited till the heat died down a little before we headed out to play in our own backyard.

in case you can't tell,  we really missed our pool that weekend.

it's been six months since i started this blog and i'm surprise i'm still going. i have really enjoyed keeping a log of all the memorable moments and sharing them with my little handful of 'readers'. hopefully i'll have enough courage and feel more comfortable to share this with more people in 2014.

Christmas 2013

Christmas dinner at one of Jim's aunty's place has been a tradition for the family for years. this year, they decided to change things up a little bit by having our family dinner on Christmas eve instead. 

everyone dressed in red and green to join in the festivities and we all brought a dish. there was ham, turkey, roast potatoes, two types of salad, cooked prawns, noodles, pavlova and trifle. the adults each got a gift from secret santa while the kids were all spoilt with a present each from the adults. unlike last year, boo is getting the idea of opening presents and he is getting really good at it. i think the practice he had at the beginning of the month helped too. he was overwhelmed by all the new toys. there's a fireman Sam fire engine, Thomas the Tank, more legos and more trucks. he was so overwhelmed, he didn't know which toy to start with. i think his favourite for the night was one of the caterpillar trucks because he abandoned the rest of his toys and pushed this particular truck up and down the hallway. 

the next morning, he was up bright an early (even though he went to bed later than usual). after breakfast, we let him open the rest of his presents. one from his best friend Lachlan, one from us and one from his grandparents. we bought him an inflatable pool which we're hoping we'll get to use this weekend, his grandparents bought him some new DVDs and Lachlan got him a Wiggles big red car. 

we had a little gathering with the Chans and the Chaus this afternoon and this boo received more presents. a pair of sunnies from Aunty Vivian and another Peppa Pig toy from Uncle Dennis. his Christmas haul is not huge but i do think it is more than enough for a two year old and we are very thankful that he is loved by all our family and friends. 

weekend (no) baking \\ xmas fruit cake

i was planning to make some shortbread cookies with boo this weekend. i took the butter out from the fridge yesterday morning and it softened in no time. with the temperature in the high thirties, we had the ac on most of the day so it seemed like a silly idea to have the oven on too. so the butter went back into the fridge. doesn't look like we'll have any shortbread cookies for Xmas this year. sorry boo. 

so instead of baking, i decided to get on with icing this fruit cake i made weeks ago. it will be gifted as a xmas present to Rosie because i know how much she loves xmas fruit cake. the recipe was given to me by Myfanwy years ago and i used to make it and bring it back to Malaysia for dad. he used to tell me if i was to make it and sell it in Malaysia, i'd make a lost with the amount of dried fruit i put into that cake. the original recipe has very simple ingredients but i've made some slight changes making the list of ingredients even shorter. 

cake decorating has become an annual affair for me. boo's birthday is probably the only time of the year where i get to "play" with fondant. whilst i'm getting better at decorating birthday cakes, i haven't decorated a xmas cake since i went to the sugar magic cake decorating class at the community college eight years ago. i have forgotten how much harder and trickier it is to cover a cake with white icing. because with white icing, any flaws become very visible. due to time constraints, i only managed a simple design like this one. i hope Rosie doesn't mind.   

ingredients \\

1kg mixed fruits

250g butter

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup Brandy or Sherry

1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon treacle

5 eggs, lightly beaten

1 3/4 cup plain flour

1/3 cup self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

method \\

line a deep 23 cm round or 20cm square cake tin with 3 thickness of grease proof paper

combine fruit, butter, sugar, Brandy or Sherry and water in a pan. stir over heat until butter has melted and sugar dissolved. bring to the boil. reduce heat and simmer covered for 10 minutes. remove from heat to cool to room temperature. 

once the fruit mixture is cooled, stir in the treacle and eggs, followed by the dry ingredients. stir to mix well and pour mixture into the prepared tin. 

baked in a low oven - 150 degrees for 2 and 2 1/2 hours

once the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and drizzle about 2 tablespoons of Sherry over the top and cover the cake with a few layers of foil. leave the cake to cool completely before removing it from the tin. 

carols in the park

last Sunday, we took boo to his first Carols in the park at our local park. Carols in the park is an annual event that's been going on for years and we've lived in the area for years too but we've never been. not even once. 

now that boo is old enough to stay up a little later past his bedtime, we decided it was time we start this new tradition. the carols were scheduled to start at 7 followed by fireworks around 9. boo has never watched fireworks before so we want to be there long enough to enjoy some xmas carols and to watch the fireworks too. 

we arrived around 7:30 and got ourselves a decent spot. there were face painting stations set up by the local church groups dotted around the park so while the in laws minded our spot and watched the carols, boo got his face painted. he also picked up a purple balloon sword and a glow stick after that and i spend the rest of the time chasing him around the park. 

when it got closer to 9, the crowd started to move towards the oval where the fireworks take place. we moved with the crowd and got ourselves quite a good spot. right in front of the fireworks display. this boo was a little confused when the fireworks first started but he soon caught on and was able the rest of it. i actually spent half the time watching the fireworks and half the time watching the reaction on his face. 

i'm so glad we made it to the park last Sunday. it was the most "convenient" way to watch the fireworks at such close proximity. there was no camping out for hours before the fireworks start to get a decent spot and after it finished, we got home pretty much straight away. whilst the display is not the most extravagant one, it was good enough for us. maybe when this boo is a little bit older, we will consider taking him to the city for carols in the domain.