Mummy is the Name-o

The performance by 4yo during the "Make Muffin with Ummi Day". Actually I was so surprised with this performance because Zahra was very secretive about it. She says not a word about singing or dancing or performing! And being her, I never know she can keep a secret. Normally mesti excited nak cerita things like this or even practice at home. And suddenly here she is doing the moves so well! *tears*

Landed in Kiddy Land

Zahra got a couple of gadgets few months ago (kids nowadays!), given by her auntie. Well, it's supposed to be grand auntie actually because she is actually MrComot's auntie hehehe (but all of his aunties very young at heart!). 

Anywayyyy...it's candy floss and popcorn maker!! Awwwwww who doesn't love that cottony melt in your mouth sugary floss? 

And the best part is, the machine comes in sweet baby pink! Whaaaaat! I want one!

Hands on at auntie lala's cave. She is so excited!

Switch in on. There is a heater underneath to heat the plating where it will melt the sugar

The plate will spin and the sugar melt will fly and you have to catch it with a stick. We used coarse sugar, mix with food coloring.

To get this subtle pink floss. Weeeewoooooo it's flying!

Need a lil bit of practice

In soft green color

And why don't we eat it while we ate it. Yum!

Emir is IN too! Included the iPad. Addicted much.

Testing the popcorn maker after that

Just pop in some corn kernels and voila! Perfect for movie night in. But it will be bland, need to explore on adding the flavors 

The gadget is so so fun! Especially when they are minis. Cuteness overload!! But we don't really have time to explore more after that and both of them stack nicely on my kitchen cabinet . I plan to make a simple video on that stuff if time permits later, insyaAllah!

Happy weekend everyone!!!

Make Muffin with Ummi Day

Another post about the school activity! Sekolah budak2 tu, active betul bab2 involvement parents which is good actually! We are building up that school and parents relationship.

So they threw this Make Muffin with Ummi Day sempena Mom's Day. Basically it's a day where mommy going to spend the day with the child, involve with their activities and make muffin together! I took full day leave on that day, to be...celebrated! 

Cupcakes anyone?

Browniessss

The table setting

Tissue case in cute cupcake shape!

Sprinkles and food coloring

 Talking about the sprinkles, well, making muffin together is not new thing to the kids as we occasionally do this thing at home. So when we reached school that day, Emir saw this table and sprinkles and he screamed excitedly and keep on pointing to the sprinkles and siap ambil nak makan ok! The thing is, that session is for Zahra (they have different session for each age group) and I had to put Emir in the baby's room sebab tanak bagi dia kacau the table setting, apa lagi...menangis meraung la dia wants to be with me. He knows that I'm gonna be at the school and cling to me mcm nak tercabut leher I. Kesian dia *sobs* but kejap je..after a while he do his thing but I still kesian la

Apparatus time. The kids will take whatever apparatus they want one at a time, play with them, pack back and put it to the original place before that another one, and repeat until time's up.

Memory game

Her fav, sewing through the holes using yarn

Ok time for muffin!

Mix flour, egg, milk and oil. Stir them like so...

Some food coloring and lotsa sprinkles

As usual, the pink one will be for her and the blue one for Emir 

The after math

Getting ready for performance. Secret performance it seems! Because Zahra tell me nothing about it. Normally she will go out loud telling stuff espc something like this. I'll post the video later!

Before the performance, we had a storybook session about "I love my mommy". Ughh I forgot the link but it's really sweet and I went awwwwww most of the time and Zahra keep on kissing me and say "I love you mummy!". Melt-my-heart. Must be the ambience and spirit made her all cheesy and mushy. As for me, gotta keep my cool aite? 

Craft with mummy

 I thought we already finished after the show but were led to the craft zone to have the craft time with mommy (my fav!).

Decoupage flower vase

Emir came menyibuk! Haha so comel. He keep on looking for me. As for craft time, the space is enough for him to squeeze in and it won't that messy, so welcome aboard!

The best mommy-day-ever!

Tengok tu, mushy sangattttt 

Her friends. Cuteness overload!!!

Emir picking up the carrots and peas from Zahra's plate. 

The left one is made by Emir, we didn't attend the his mom's day session because we went back to Terengganu that day. Will blog about it later, insyaAllah!

My first mom's day gift *sobs*

I love you too!

Ohh sorry, last picture! Homemade sushi by one of the teachers. So yummy!! I had loads of this!

Oh my...the playschool is so fun! But somehow watching them doing well at school give me another feeling. How I wish I can spend more time with them. And how I wish I can stay at home (still sending them to school though!) but only half a day and pick them up at noon instead of late evening (sometimes night!!). Sigh.

My Wonky Pizza

Ok, actually I regret that this post will be about my rant only, sans picture as a proof. Haha. Not that I want to proof anything, but I regret that I didn't take out my phone and snap my pizza, that is wonky but 1000 times better and yummy because I made it myself!! *pat at the shoulder*

Seriously, that's the yummiest pizza I ever had!!! Dang the picture!

So finally in my whole life, I made pizza from scratch. The base and everything. But we are talking about the base people! The base!

I've been tempted to make it myself because

1) order in general pizza (dominos, pizza hut, canadian pizza) is too junky. I don't like them anymore.. always too salty, too flavourful, too junky as in junk food.
2) higher end pizza (italianies, barbera, etc), is yummy..but lets face it, it's expensive and I can't always have it like all the time, like..oh mann I'm bored for dinner, let's order in Italiannies pizza! Well, it kinda weird and I'm not that rich enough
3) frozen base is....kinda ok, but not that ok and it's priced at around 10ringgit for 2 medium base. Ok lah..but not so worth it (comparing to the taste) and I rather have readymade frozen pizza.

So I was thinking, woman, why don't u make your own pizza base!

The thing is, I'm kinda scared, with the kneading and yeast and whatnot..not the process, honestly if I think carefully now, I'm scared if my pizza is blah! LOL!

Hard to admit it you know.

So last night, I faced my fear and measure some flour, brew some yeast with water and sugar, sprinkle some salt, dash some olive oil, knead knead and knead. let it to rest and rise, then knead again. Made some simple topping which is seasoned shredded chicken with pineapple chunk, and pepperoni laden with cheese.

And mannn...the-most-delicious-pizza-ever!

And guess what, my husband siap cakap tiba-tiba, ok so u decide, to buy actifry/airfryer or breadmaker first? Like seriousssllyyy? Because I've been pestering him to buy me breadmaker since I want to make pizza base and bread (typical spendthrift wife symptom) and he said, noooo I don't see we will make bread that often and we can always buy the base and better buy airfryer and suddenly, he changed his mind? Just because my wonky pizza base? LOL!

Oh yeahh..about that wonky pizza.. typically me, I just don't know how to do it, and I don't know how to roll it, so I just pull the dough outside and somehow it doesn't look round, not even squarish, in fact, I don't know what shape is that!! Gagagaga.

And my husband even said, we need to buy pizza pan for our next pizza! I feel like to do the ROFL literally . Woww..my wonky pizza and the impact.

Since I don't have the picture to feast your eyes, I'll post the before and after of the dough. Apparently that's the only picture I took that day, because I want to see is the dough really rise up.

And oh ya, the motive I didn't snap the pizza photo is because I am too upset with the shape at first that I refused to save the moment, and after we bite it, we were busy eating that yummy thing and our hands kinda messy so I forget the phone 

No recipe! Because I am not sure if I get it right. But basically it's 2cups flour + pinch of salt + 1tsp olive oil, 200ml warm water + 1tsp sugar + 1 1/4 tsp dry yeast (add to the flour mixture after the yeast mixture is alive - it makes few bubbles then arise to the top of the water, in about 15-20mins). The original recipe is from salam2benua.blogspot.com and I lost the direct url but u can google it up :- resepi pizza salam dua benua :P

I keep on adding the flour until my dough feels right (not sticking, like the melting cheese to my fingers). So I don't know how many cups of flour that I used. Really. And it's normal white flour, not bread flour or self raising one.

Wonky pizza aside, I love this instant pizza from Dr Oetker. It doesn't taste that instant and act as a quick fix on our lazy days. I've been stocking it up but I'm not sure on the nutrition though. But my fav is Spinaci and the spinach taste so yummy even Zahra loves it (and she hates all vege except for broccoli).

Water Kids

This is a very old pic. But I haven't share it yet in the blog, so here it is. We bought this pool for the kids last year (Jan 2013) and only use it 2 times hahaha. First because I feel bad with the water usage, the guilty is way before the water crisis ok. I am a green person *no kidding!*. Second because we are too lazy to pump it, then to deflate it back. It takes time because the pool is quite big. So there it is, folded nicely behind the door haha.

But the kids love it nevertheless. Who doesn't right? 

Zahra (3yo) and Emir (1 1/2yo)

The Birthday Walk

It's almost half a year since I converted the kids from babysitter to playschool environment. I've blogged about it once, how they are happy and doing all those artsy fartsy thingy. The thing is, it's not everyday like that. In fact, it has been 6 challenging months to all of us. The morning never been easy where all the cries will suddenly come out about not wanting mommy to go to work, want to be home with mommy, i don't like school, etc. But it's getting better nowadays. I think, after the 6 months, the kids will finally accept the fact that have to get up and do something.

At least for Zahra, thing has been better. She rarely cries (except when I picked her very late due traffic jam and she will have this moment don't like the idea of mommy working, on the next morning) and sometimes excited pulak nak pegi sekolah. She started to have friends and things she likes about school. As for Emir, it's quite unpredictable. He was okay on the early months, then he had this meltdown for about a week, then back to OK and bouncy..then currently, has this separation anxiety, not with me, but with his daddy! He's very attached to MrComot this few days and will wail his heart out when we leave him at school. Pening!

There were times when I told MrComot "I'm giving them another month. If things are not better, I'm going to send them back to babysitter!". So much pressure.

Thanks God the whines and wails are reducing..because I don't think it's healthy to switch them back to babysitter. I mean..sekejap sekolah sekejap tak sekolah. Confused budak2 tu.

Ok, enough the rambling. About their latest activity at school.

This school has their quarterly event - the birthday walk where all birthdays will be celebrated 4 times a year. Ye lah..kalau buat ikut real birthday, macam hari-hari pulak ada birthday kan because there are lots of kids there hehehe.

So since Zahra is January baby, she is involved in this 1st quarter birthday walk. Parents are encouraged to join but not compulsory but since this is her first, of course la I nak join  

Ok lets the picture do the talking k

My kiddos having morning snack. I don't know why he made the sour face. He is fine though..throughout the event

I love this picture. My hensem boy ni suka makan. But this is the first time I observe him at school. So, the school has 3 different break for the kids, first is baby khalifah (BK) which is Emir's group, then little khalifah (LK) which is Zahra's and the last one is junior khalifah (JK) which is for 5-6 kids. So imagine Emir is taking his own sweet time to eat from baby khalifah until junior's time! He never stop! When I asked him to join the baby's class he will point out to the cereal asking for more! 

Birthday walk ceremony - all the LK and JK. BK is playing in their own classroom.

After a while Emir notice I'm here so he's running to join in the LK and JK

We are celebrating earth day too. I pledge time!

Zahra doing the birthday walk. Since she is 4yo, she has to round the sun while holding the earth 4 times, to indicate how a year goes by, while they sing the months of the year song for each year. I also had to do some slides about her and the teacher will discuss the slides content with the kids. Few...so much work for the parents ok. Not that I'm complaining, it just made me realize, sending children to school is a hard work for parents too! It's not like you can just send them off and ok! See you at 6! You have to get involved, bukan lepas tangan macam tu je*lap peluh*

Early lunch time. Emir is among the first at the table haha

Zahra being independent. She's a total different at home. Kalau kat rumah, susah nak makan and I have to do everything for her, suap dia makan, pick the crumbs, lap hingus, pegang botol susu 

All the Jan-Apr babies at the birthday table

Blowing candles

And cutting cakes

After everybody is full, we were entertained by....

Magic show and clowns! Like seriously? Haha so much fun! The magic show is pretty entertaining, even I had good time watching it. There were few tricks that made the kids go crazy, like the one when he pull out a long long long strip of paper from his mouth. The kids jump off their feet and berebut pegi tarik the thing ok haha. And there was this time he fanned out confetti, all the kids jumping here and there try to catch it, that he had to shout "Sittttt!!! Sitttt!!" LOL.

Chicken dance time! Zahra and Emir love it much that they keep on doing the dance at home. 

The crowd

Queuing for balloons

Art attack time. The got this scratch card and it will reveal the color underneath

Emir with his big balloon

Being laid back and carefree

You see me not

You see me yes

The "I don't care what other's doing, I got my own sword" moment

Frozen moment. They blast Let It Go song this time and everybody is singing it. Wow..Frozen is such a phenomenon. The kids even asked for encore and it is like over than 4 times I guess?

The kids had so much fun that day. I can leave them to sleep at the school and pick them later since they are full-time khalifah, but I have no heart to do so I just bring them back after the event. Suka lah budak2 tu get to stay with their mommy. Tak jadi I nak kemas rumah. Well, house can wait 

We gave the kids and teachers some souvenirs for fun.

The night before, Zahra busy packing the goodie bag. It was a bit last minute so I didn't manage to go to Giant and buy candy/jelly/whatnot. So only toys inside, got fun stack-able pencil, glow in the dark thingy, stickers and the party blower.

Fabric covered button brooches for the teachers.

Also done last minute, helped by my colleague in the office hahaha

Happy birthday Zahra! Even though it's 4 months late. Anyway she still keep on asking me for a real party (we threw a proper birthday bash for her last year and she still remembers it) and I keep on saying when you are 5 sayang!

Berapa banyak party dia nak pun I tak tau. But from her action, I notice that it isn't really about the party, it's about getting presents because she keep on saying "I want to open a lot of presents! Nanti mommy beli baby doll baby alive yang boleh makan tu satu, make up barbie satu, bag trolley barbie yang ada gamba repunzel, aurora and snow white satu...bla bla bla ok?". Panjang betul list dia!

Kids nowadays..it's hard to bring them up without being materialistic. I know I don't spoil her much because I always reason out on buying stuff..but I'm not sure if it's enough. Sigh.