faizis

father’s day potluck

i havent been updating the blog partly because i had earlier misplaced the connecting cable to download the photos from the camera.

two weekends ago, we spent some family bonding time.

we made chilli crab for the extended family who came over for the family potluck. bought 5kg of crabs from tekka!

we find it more lumayan and cheaper if we cook it ourselves..but you have to be crazy about food and crab to go through the hassle. the husband is i guess..

so he has always been co-conspirator for our endeavours..

second time we do tis for the family. pic above taken at the inlaws, the last time we did a crab cookathon.

the husband always does the dirty work of cleaning and cutting the crabs. i do the cooking.

we watched the wedding video of the latest addition to the family..

not the baby, but the newlyweds..

we had a nice spread as it was also a potluck dinner! and note at the lower right hand corner there..i, the thoughtful host, offered cholestrol reducing supplements (with extracts of oat bran, garlic etc)…coz guess, what…

have you ever had chilli crab and sinful calorific durian at one sitting? some of us that night, did!

it was a nice wrap up to the holidays and to celebrate father’s day. till the next long stretch of lazy decadent days!

arshad & three lil rigs

arshad has always been sleeping on his mattress on the floor in our room..but since two nights ago, he had woken with frightful cries to sleep with his grandma in my brother’s room. his grandmother of course doesnt sleep in my brother’s room. my brother’s room happen to have a two tier bed (the type where the lower mattress can be pulled out) and the nenek most often put him to sleep there if she puts him to sleep.

i think it all started after i borrowed a few books from the library and we read him the books, and he fell asleep there with his nenek to comfort him. i am not sure if there is any association or any correlation, but my son was just so scared by the story and the visuals of this book.

it’s the story of three little rigs who set out to build their own homes but had one evil wrecking ball who was set to destroy their homes. adaptation of the story of the three little pigs.

”
“Little rig, little rig, let me come in ”
“Not by the chrome on my chinny chin chin.”

When the three little rigs set out to build their own garages, each one thinks that his is going to be the strongest. But then the big bad wrecking ball comes to call and threatens to smash their new homes to smithereens.”

such a cheerful and innocent cover. but the pages inside with the wrecking ball wrecking out the houses are actually ver dark visually!

he so vehemently hated the wrecking ball that after i first read it to him after we got back from the library, he wanted to beat the ball in the book. i must have been a good narrator to pour in all the evilness into that character.

the story stayed on in his mind, coz when i showered him after that, he kept talking about the ball. repeatedly saying “ball naughty, break house”.

and then later in the night, when i passed the books to his grandma to go through with him again, arshad specifically took out the book and said no! we thought it was amusing and took it up, but he grabbed hold of the book, made a dash to the kitchen, and threw it on the floor! such violent reaction!

the adults thought it was funny. managed to calm him down but not sure what happen after that, coz we (the parents) went out to watch transformers at night. and when i got back, he was already asleep with the books at the foot of the bed. i assumed they re-read the books to him. then later that night, he ngigau.

just am amused by his reaction but at the same time surprised. i just think this boy is rather a sensitive boy in the sense that he doesnt like anything bad or violent (so i have been thinking if we should watch more fight fight bang bang type of shows at home coz we rarely do). he doesnt even want to watch nemo after the part when nemo and dory kena chased by the lightbulb fish in deep ocean!? what do you think we should do? get him desensitized to mindless violence? or will his system slowly adapt to the big bad world naturally later on? and there i was thinking, if i should bring him along to watch the revenge of the fallen.

nor do we know what triggered his desire to sleep in the other room. let’s see how long it last. i already miss conveniently going to my toddler for a snuggle before sleep and in the early morning.

fund raising match with malaysia cup veterans

i have a few things i wanted to blog and post here but have been too busy and lazy..
but i shall have this here first, since the match is this sunday.

it is one thing to be a mommy..and to hear about a lil kid suffering. there is a lil girl called charmaine who is fighting 4th stage cancer neuroblastoma and requires $500000 for treatment. my heart goes to her and her parents.

there has been a few fund raising efforts, and if you would like to help and have a great evening out as well, you may be interested in this

article in TNP

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Watch for just $10

MALAYSIA CUP VETERANS

Fandi Ahmad, Rafi Ali, Malek Awab, Abbas Saad, Jang Jung, V Sundramoorthy, David Lee, Nazri Nasir, Syed Faruk, Samawira Basri, TRamoo, Aide Iskandar, Steven Tan, Lim Tong Hai and Shari Rahim

CELEBRITY TEAM (tentative line-up)

Sheikh Haikel, Glenn Ong, Oli Pettigrew, Raj Kumar, Zainudin Nordin, Slobodan Pavkovic, Andy Penders, PJ Roberts and Mark Richmond (Team not finalised)

DETAILS

When: Sunday, 28 Jun. Kick-off at 5pm

Where: Tampines Stadium

How much: $10 per ticket

HOW TO HELP CHARMAINE

All proceeds from the match will be used to pay for Charmaine Lim’s medical bills. You can also send an email to contact@ourfeistyprincess.com if you would like to donate, or visit www.ourfeistyprincess.com

malacca & kl revisited

we just returned from another short trip. this time with arshad and my family.

this is classic arshad.
taken at the museum in the shape of the ship. we wouldnt have gone to the museum if we have gone to melaka on our own. but for the novelty and the kid’s sake, we went up, and it was pretty interesting.

i actually think malacca is a rather family friendly and nice place for a holiday with the family. it’s small and easy to navigate and there are a few places of interest for kids. arshad finally took a ride on the beca! gives a meaning when he sings his beca song.

he looks so serious doesnt he on the beca?

after malacca, we went to kl. we spent most of the time at the malls and at jln masjid india (a makcik paradise!) doing some shopping. arshad was crankier in kl. he basically dislikes going shopping, especially to shops that i would like to go, but has a good eye in spotting shops which he would like to go, setting up the stage for potential toddler tantrum…and as a result, we didnt take that much photos in kl.

* and oh yes, this is the ’second’ time that arshad goes to malacca. first time was in utero, while i was pregnant, we took a trip to malacca.

48hr yogja part 2

yogjakarta is known to be the cultural center of java reknowned for javanese fine arts, batik and of course its sultanate. it has a very rich history and here too lies the evidence of early javanese civilisations. yes, we are talking about the world heritage sites that can be found around yogjakarta-borobudur and prambanan.

we spent the first night at magelang (saraswati hotel-very lovely place with really helpful and warm staff) so that we can go for a sunrise tour. the hotel is just 5 mins away from the site, so that allowed us to easily go up borobudur to catch the sunrise.
we took off at 5 plus in the morning (subuh here is really early at 4.30am!), and found out that we were not the only tourists who had got out of bed that early to climb an ancient monument!

but can i say that it was soo worth it?!

magelang is a really nice place. as mentioned in the earlier post, we enjoyed ourselves going round the village. years ago when i visited this place, i remember there were a lot of touts and beggars who pulled us for attention just as we got off the tour bus. but they were virtually non existent this time, and the villagers (the kids there too!) looked well fed and healthy. in fact i carried a 3 year old toddler in the village, and she seemed as heavy if not heavier than my son! i can only think that the tourist money do get to trickle down and benefit the community here. which is a great thing isnt it?

anyway, the other heritage site that we visited was prambanan..twice. had only planned to watch the ballet (didnt tell the husband about this) which is specially shown at an outdoor stage at the prambanan site during summer nights. it’s a classical javanese ballet of the ramayana..yeah..second time this year i dragged the poor husband to a dance performance. he’s not really into dance..so we are hoping we will be blessed with a daughter so i can bring her to such performances in his place!

lovely performance with prambanan temples as backdrop. i really wanted to catch this ballet at the outdoor stage, so i arranged our flights according to the scheduled performance.

i have to say, i think the husband did enjoy the show coz he was pretty excited to have a photo with the hanuman character after the show!

the very last stop of our visit was also prambanan, during the early morning. the prambanan day trip was unplanned, but it was on the way to the airport, so we dropped by.

parts of the temple were destroyed during the 2006 yogja earthquake.

we only had about 48hrs in central java..and part of me wish we can afford more time. there’s so much more to see in java, and i cant wait to bring the family (when shad is bigger) here. around yogja alone, you can go to merapi, dieng plateau and the ambarawa loccomotive station (i am waiting to bring shad here for a choo choo train ride!)…and i want to go hiking (with my son!) up bromo one day too.

* airasia flies direct from singapore to yogjakarta. if you can plan and book ahead, airasia offers really attractively priced deals! alternatively you may fly to solo city by silkair. solo city is about 1 1/2 hr drive to yogjakarta.

* yogjakarta city has many hotels ranging from the budget ones to the hotel chains. we stayed at phonenix hotel, which i think is mid range. it was comfortable and very nicely decorated with a mix of art noveau, dutch, chinese and javanese influences. they have a gorgeous pool, worth bringing your swimsuit along.

* magelang has some budget hotels. if you want to stay within the borobudur monument park, you may want to book at manohara hotel (book it early coz it was full when we wanted to book a stay there). we stayed at saraswati boutique hotel. there is also the ultra luxurious aman resort and the very nice and romantic losari.

* for convenience sake (since it was only a 48hr trip and we needed to go to a few places, each at some distance from the other), we decided to have a travel company help us with the logistics. we planned the itinerary ourselves and decided on the hotels we wanted to stay in. except for the magelang village tour (which we decided on the last min - the night before the tour itself), we had a driver guide with us from a travel company. they were reliable, professional and friendly.*http://pusaka-indonesia.com/*