My Big Princess

My princess has turned to a big princess, because she is potty trained now!

The best part is, I didn't plan for it at all, because I am lazy like that, and I am so happy that she wants the diaper out voluntarily.

Honestly I was a bit intimidated because she is already 3yo and most of my friends' kids already diaperless, you know.. peer pressure. Then one of the auntie was so surprised that she is still in diaper that she squeeled "She's 3 and she still not dry?". Hahaha I know rightttt... I wanted to train her, but my plate is full so I just let her stay with the diaper.

Until one day, a few weeks after her 3rd birthday, I just casually said:

"Zahra..zahra tak payah pakai pampers la. Zahra dah big girl. Orang lain tak pakai pampers"

"Mommy, Adam tak pakai pampers!" (referring to one of the kids at babysitter's)

"Aah Adam tak pakai pampers, Zahra clever, tak pakai pampers jugak"

"Zahra tanak pakai pampers la"

"Betul ni? Hari ni tak payah pakai"

"Betul. Tanak pakai lah"

So when she literally agreed, I think ok la, it is ON! I know I can't really believe her, a 3yo word but I took my chances to go diaperless that day and asked her every hour if she wants to go to the toilet.

And guess what? She did it! For real! And just-like-that! She peed in the toilet and diaperless the whole day. I am so proud of my princess!

It's almost 2 months she is diaper-free now, except during the night. I haven't train her that one. And also for big job - berak. She still request to poo in the diaper. I tried to persuade her to poo in the toilet, it works occasionally, depends on the mood I guess. Because if she poo in the diaper, she get to do it while watching playing with the iPad lol.

As for the pee part, it is excellent, but there were few times that she missed, especially during the afternoon nap time where I forgot to put her in the diaper, so it's tolerable.

To celebrate her achievement, I bought her special brief with all the Disney princesses print. Found it at H&M and the pack has 7 cute brief with different patterns and colors. It has Ariel, Jasmine, Snow White & Aurora, Belle, Tiana, Cinderella and Rapunzel. PS: Do you know one of the perk of being a mom with girls, you will somehow remember all the princess name efforlessly! No kidding! I never knew all the Disney princesses before.

She beamed with pride every time I put her this brief (or spentot as she calls it) and I let her choose which character she wants to wear for that day. It's kinda cute you know, "Hari ni Zahra nak....cinderella la!"

But the problem arise when the character is worn yesterday and she request for it again. For example when she is so obsessed with Rapunzel, everyday nak Rapunzel. But I just casually said,

"Rapunzel kotor la, Zahra dah pakai yesterday, busuk, mommy kena wash dulu"
"Oooo busuk ye, mommy wash lah"

The conversation happens like almost every day haha. Funny ok.

Now she used to it and understands better, that she doesn't mind which princess I put on her. She is one truly big princess!

Perfect Homemade PlayDoh

The last time I made homemade playdough for Zahra is in end 2011 and it is like more than a year ago. Zahra is quite small back then where she doesn't really fancy play dough so I stop making new one. Now that she is 3yo, she started to show interest in play dough where she keep on playing the same youtube video (some little kids playing playdough) over and over and occasionally ask me to buy her one, "Mommy..nanti mommy beli playdough macam ni ok?" while pointing to the video. I wanted to make homemade version like I did last time but time goes by and I was very busy, so I bought her a real one, the cupcake maker, like this:-

And she loveessss it so much! She forgets about her iPad for a few days, and busy rolling the dough, which is a good change. 

However, the dough provided is in very small portion and they smell weird. Not that bad smell like plasticine I used to play with in my school days, but not that pleasant too. Dia tak busuk tau, dia wangi, tapi mcm pelik. After a while, the 4 tubs of dough get mixed up and then I dragged myself to make homemade play dough.

This time I tried new recipe which I love to the max! The texture is better and surprisingly is very easy to make, maybe because I'm a year older now and know how to control the pots and pans better, lol.

I let Zahra involved in every process and she enjoyed it very much since she also loves to play kitchen and cooking too. Every time I let her pour the flour/water/oil/etc, she will say

"put one cup of flaaawerrrr, put one cup of waterrr, put one spooon tar-tar"

Just like the cooking show. So stinkin' cute!

So basically this is how you do it:

 Mix everything in a pot and stir. In my case, I let her do all the hardwork ;)

 Continue to stir on a very small fire. The tips here is, very-very-very-small fire. It will help you to cook and control the dough better.

 Until it becomes a dough like or so.

Then knead it to smooth. The dough is hot at this point, so you have to do it, unless your kids are pain tolerate. 

 Ta-dah! We made 3 vibrant colors and Zahra happily declared the pink one is hers, the blue one is Emir's and yellow one is daddy's ;)

It's so easy and the most important thing is 100% non-toxic. It's so safe that to a point I don't mind they licking it, which she did, when she made an icecream and said "mommmy! Icecream ni masin!". Of course it's salty, it has 1/4cup of salt! Haha 

We tested with original parts of Playdoh and it works swiftly. In fact I love this homemade version more because it's smoother (due to the oil). It's oilier than the original playdoh but I'm fine with it.

Here is the recipe:

1 cup of flour
1/4 cup of salt
2 tsp of cream of tartar
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup of water
A few dash of food coloring 

Stir everything well, cook under very small fire, knead to dough, and enjoy!

I had this expired virgin coconut oil and decided to use that instead of normal vegetable oil and it smells heavenly that I feel like eating my dough. Yum!

Try it out with your kids! It's really easy and fun.

La Bodega's Sauteed Mushroom

Just want to share this one simple recipe. I'm not even sure if it's correct, but it tastes the same, so that will do for now :)

We went to La Bodega's about a couple of weeks ago for some heart birthday luncheon with my friends. It was my idea to go there since none of us ever taste Spanish food or go to La Bodega, and reading some raves on the internet, well, we decided to give a try.

Being a first timer, we chose the menu carefully, basically the typical food like sauteed mushroom in butter (their tapas selection). It is served with a basket of bread and the mushroom is a dip.

And oh boyyyy..it's so yummy! Well, anything mushroomy always yummy :D

Anyway, I checked out the menu's description and it's written, mushroom sauteed with butter, garlic and parsley. The simple ingredient really amuses me, I mean, how come only 3 ingredients can give the bursting flavor. I suspect they cheat the menu and put some cream or milk.

Then, I bought a packet of white button mushroom and tried it at home, just for the sake of curiosity  and tell you what, it's real! I mean, only with the 4 ingredients. Amazeballs.

La Bodega's sauteed mushroom. 

My mushroom. Look the same right? Taste the same too!

Ok, I know this is ridiculously easy, but I'm gonna write it here, well, for fun, because it is easy to type too hehehe.

Ingredients:
1 packet of fresh white button mushroom (250g)
Quarter of butter (I just used buttercup)
Chopped parsley (I used dried parsley flakes)
4 cloves of garlic - sliced

How To:

Dump the butter together with the garlic under medium fire
Wait till it sizzles a bit (to get the garlic infused butter flavour)
Then dump the sliced button mushroom
Stir stir stir
Basically the mushroom will be soaked in the butter.
Dump the parsley.
Stir stir stri
The mushroom will be soaked even more, due to the water excess from the mushroom
Sprinkle some salt and maybe flour to thicken it up. But it's nice at it is..depends on your consistency preference.

Done! 

Serve it hot and dip it right away!

We had chicken porridge that night, so dengan chicken porridge pun jadi. But sangat pelik la the combo hahaha.

Anywayyyyyy..after finishing the whole bowl buttery stuff without hesitation *cough* *cough* something strucked me, ooohhh myyy Goddd, what have I done to my artery!

Haha not that dramatic actually, considering I've gobbled a slab of 250g whole butter that is turned to choc-chip cookies. So a quarter is nothing right?

But you can't see that slab of butter in your cookies. On the other hand, it's really a show-off with your sauteed mushroom, so it kinda scares me. So I think I should substitute half of the butter with EVOO in the future. Maybe it won't taste the same, but something worthy to try.


Ok, enough about the mushroom, lets back to the La Bodega's, I was feeling fancy and decided to order the seafood paella

And guess what, rasa macam nasi goreng tomyam je! Not that it wasn't not nice, in fact it was delish but RM70 for "nasi goreng tomyam"? Ughhh.. I know cooking paella is not the same as we cook our fried rice, but oh well, it doesn't matter to me. Haha..I guess, that's why I wasn't born as a Spaniards.