Malaysia has summer all year round.  Hmmm… do I have to tell you that? lol.  Well, I do get question by my 8y/o as why Malaysia has no snow… why we live in Earth and not Planet Mars…. why the sea water is salty… why it rains…  That one I know!  “God up in Heaven is crying when he sees how naughty you are.”  You know, sometime we need to take God as alibi especially when you can tell your 8y/o is lying.  I used to say this, “You better tell the truth cos God up in heaven will know” or “You better not steal cos God up in heaven can see even though Mummy can’t see.”  I’m so sorry God.

Gee…. why am I saying all this. *slap self*  Anyway, I did a little of digital scrapbooking here.  Photographs was taken during one of our weekend outing to the park.  Kids are making themselves comfortable on my yoga mat and at the same time, playing games on my iPhone. Hmm… I’m itch for some picnic again.  Who want to join me?  Wesak Day?  Weekend?  TTDI?  Morib?  Anything la!

My nephew, Jonathan marked his first month of arrival. This day also marks the end of confinement period for the mother as she now is allowed to bath (asif!) and wonder out of the house freely. The feeling is something like getting out of jail after 10 years in prison. Really!

Being an Aunty to Baby Jonathan, I got up early in the morning (asif!) wandering in my garden and neighbourhood picking 7 type of flowers. You will know what is it for later.

The Baby was signed up for a medicure session…

… a pedicure pampering….

… and a new hairdo…

…. and of course the beauty centre which is run by none other than MsJessieling get an angpow. Hopefully she will be as fatt as the figure inside there . The finger nails, toe nails and hair was wrapped individually with a red paper or angpow packet.

Well, the folklore said that the womb is a dirty thing so after being in the womb for the past nine months, the baby is to remove some of the bad luck by shaving or trimming of his hair. But, but, why want to keep bad luck in red paper? *tsk, tsk*

The Baby was then adjourned to the spa for his flower bath.

Placing of mortar pounder will make him as brave as Tarzan and coins is for properity. Well, how about the flower? Errr…. is it so that when Baby Jonathan grew up, he will have a beautiful wife? *tsk, tsk*

Now, he is a clean Baby adorned in his new clothes. We gave the jewelleries a pass since I’m not into the jewellery folklore. All it, a one month old Baby is treated like a King or the Malay saying, “Raja Sehari”.

Moving on to the kitchen, these are the things to be given as gift to relatives & friends announcing the arrival of the new born. The red eggs looked rather spectacular.

The eggs symbolised a new life and red is rather a auspicious colour for chinese.

Ang Koo Kuih or Red Tortoise Cake means longevity and prosperity.

I was told, the tortoise shape (right in the pic) to be given when you had a baby girl. And when you had a baby boy, you have to gave both shapes. In olden days, the round ang ku (left in the pic) is shape into a cylinder.

The typical Foochow family must have Red Wine Mee Suah.

Fyi, this is not cooked by me. I prefered my broth to be rich in red wine and not so dialuted. However, Hokkien family would not miss on the Yellow Festive Rice or Nasi Kunyit which I cooked for the later evening banquet.

That evening, Jonathan was certainly pictured like an “Angel”, very well behaved and only dissapeared twice to his personal bar for feeds.

Looks like everybody get into the “pass-the-baby” game.

This is my blog, ok. So I get to beautify my own picture with The-King-Of-The-Day *ngek.

… with maternal Grandpa

D

… with maternal Grandma

D

… with paternal Grandma

D

… with Da Yi (Eldest Aunty)

D

… with Shan Yi (3rd Aunty)

D

… with maternal Grand Uncle (Angpow. Yay!)

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… with Church friends

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(Look at his eyes. Looks like mother hor. Look at his hair so thick. Aiyah, such a beautiful genes. The Mother must produce more babies) Those are the things I heard that night. Crappy!

Here he is, end of the day after drifting in and out. Dozing peacefully none than wiser, being the King-Of-The-Day!

God did not promise that life would be easy,
and not filled with some sorrow and pain.
God did not promise that our children would be perfect,
and our lives and jobs always fulfilling.
GOD Never Promised Us An Easy Journey In Life,
Only Safe Arrival - Be strong, Jonathan.

Credit: Scrapgoo

My sister’s newborn has arrived last week. We get all excited wanting to carry the little infant in our arm and cleaning up the little bum-bum or changing his nappies bought some nostalgia moment back again. But you know how the little ones can wailed like a coo-coo train; Loud and longggggggggggg. *sigh…

p/s: You don’t have to remind me to go for the 4th one *sticking out tongue*

“Last weekend, I spotted lots of booties and mittens on my neighbour’s laundry line. Ah… looks like she is going to deliver anytime now” - this is how I’ve planned to write on my first paragraph but I hate to be fake!

Ah, well…. my neighbour is my sister and I am helping her to wash all the booties and mittens. So nostalgia, aitelyu! I took my time slowly sorting out all the baby clothings admiring those tiny fabric with cute little teddy bear prints on it.

While I was sorting out the clothes, Baby Princess was holding out the mittens and said to me, “Baby wan”. She is refering the “Baby” to herself. I said, “No, Wu Yi’s (5th Aunt) baby wan”. And she help herself by putting her hands in the mitten. She is so smart. She know the mittens is for hand!

Once I’ve done with the washing, I get the big girl (Eldest Princess) to work. She too was taken aback by the cutie booties and mittens. She was ooing and cooing all the way. Of course she is proud to be part of it. Yea, doing something for Wu Yi’s (5th Aunt) baby.

Looks like Mummy can now work on her evil plan since the big girl is tall enough to reach the laundry line. Insert *evil smile* *rolling eye*, Sheesh………………

Once we found out the baby’s gender, immediately Hubby told me he’s going to name her Jia Xin. In Chinese, ‘Xin’ means a role model or someone who is loved by all. If you were to translate both the name to English, it means…. INCREASE SALARY! Next, come to her name to be spelled out. Her middle name took after one of my niece, Kharlene. And I adore my classmate (who is also my best friend back then) named ‘Syn’. To make it a bit special, I combine them and it became Kharsyn.

When my Gynae told us it’s a boy, you can see us beaming in pride, smiling from ear to ear. Again, I leave the decision to Hubby as I’m not good with Mandarin kind of things. He wanted his boy to be a macho man and not the sissy type so he makes sure the name must be like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I don’t quite like how it sounded in Mandarin - Jia Zhen. “Zhen” is a POLITICIAN or government (zhen fu). And there I fancifully thought of ‘Carl’ as in Carlsberg (*hic) and again I adore the name Eugene. That is how I get Carlgene.

I went thru lots of stress during my 3rd pregnancy. A very uneventful pregnancy. Let’s not touch on that. And I want her to be a ‘kwai ler’ (HAPPY) child. At that time, the name Charlotte (pronounced as Shar-lert) was frequently mentioned in the papers and internet. That is how I get Kharlette (pronounced as Car-lert). At home, we called her ler-ler as in happy-happy. She is indeed a babbly happy child.

The busybody Eastcoastlife tagged me on this. My turn now to be busybody. I shall tag…

1. Sue Yi’s papa
2. Karen & Cayden’s mama
3. My nephew

I have no idea who to tag as most of you has been tagged! Glad to say, the tag ends here.

To complete the answer to my quiz here - this is ME! I know I looks like a boy but when 58% of you guess that is was my Hubby, that makes me wanna cry! Want to know what is the meaning of my name? My last name is “Zhang”. It’s a boy name . I can’t blame my parents as they are longing for a baby boy and hence, decided to gave me a boy’s name in hope their next child will be a boy just to dissapoint them again and again. During my childhood days, I have some chinese educated friends sarcastically telling me my name is meant for boys. Now I can tell them my name is on par with Zhang Ziyi. *ngek, ngek, ngek

So, does any of my children resemble me when I was a baby, jek?

The first correct answer was given by Lilian. Yes, you are right! Well done, Sweetie . Thanks for playing the guessing game folks. xoxo

Can you tell who is who?

Answer will be given tomorrow

Crafting: Easter Eggs

Kids + paint = DISASTER! *sigh…

For the sake of Disaster Easter Day, I let the kids paint the eggs with tight supervision. But gawd knows why i have to keep on running to the kitchen for some towel and more towels. Baby Princess was frustrated with the painting, that’s when she started to paint on the newspaper. Cleber girl .

Not only that, she cleaned her stained hand on her shirt! I have to bleached her shirt, clean the chair pad, mop the floor and the wall cos gawd knows why the paint fall from the table and splattered all over! That’s end of the painting for her. The two eldest carry on with their painting with lots of arguing - “That’s my egg!” “Yours is so ugly!” “Boy don’t use Pink, OK?” *shudder*

Mischievious - The Story of the Poor Bin

Trying to act cute?

I don’t find them funny anymore. I had enough of her! I carried her down. She climbed up again. That’s when I used the clothes hanger and piak her butt and dragggggggg her down! She refused, struggled and started yelling and crying. The situation turned so chaotic I can sense the neighbour is going to dial 1-800-CHILD-ABUSE.

Birthday - 7 wonders of the year.

Sometime last week, Princess celebrated her 7th birthday without making a big hoo-haa over it. She wanted a party but Mummy is frighten of the aftermath clean-up. Infact, she was caught in a total suprise when we gave her a surprised birthday cake in Baskin Robbin.

She almost shed tears of joy when the waitress bring over the cake along with us singing to her the international birthday song. As usual la, Mummy is the emotional type. Was singing while choking and holding on to her tears. After all, she’s still my baby, ok! A big and heavy baby.

“But Mummy, my birthday is tomorrow.” Well, this is what we called a ‘Surprised Birthday Celebration’ *ngek.

Talented - The Musician and the Dancer

Princess was practising on her violin while Baby Princess was watching. Out of a sudden, she got up and started dancing.

Swirling and showing off her flare.

Makes me feel like I have a small concert at home. lol

Hero - Is that a bird? Is that an aeroplane? NO, it’s Superman!

Let the picture do the talking….

Who need Daddy when we have a Superhero at home?

Clap hand la, everybody.

I have this philosophy. No matter how naughty is other people’s child, I will just tell them off for their own good and will not touch (cane) them cos that is not my child. Only the child’s parent has the right to cane their own child.

How about, if you are a teacher, would you cane your student for their own good? For example, Princess who is 7 y/o forgot to bring one of her book. She did not do it on purpose. I know that cos she packed all her books and mistakenly placed that book in another bag. Of course she get caned on her palm. Of course she cried. Of course I am so heart sake to see her cry. It’s not a normal crying. I’m her mother I know her best. She is so tramautized by that incident. She cried like I’m the one lying in the coffin! (*touch wood)

Come on! She’s only 7 y/o and this is the first time she forgot to bring her book. Can’t the teacher gave her a second chance? I wonder who gave teachers permission to cane? I consoled daughter and telling her at she’s at fault, “Take this is a lesson lor. Next time remember to bring your books. Cry also no use. Already get caned.” I know “Spare the cane, spoilt the child” but I have to stand on daughter’s side too.

If I don’t confront the teacher, they are taking the answer as “Yes! You can cane my child.” For goodness sake, it is just a book. She’s not stealing or drawing graffiti or doing something bad. The teacher could at least punish her like stand throughout lesson or something like that.

But hor, if I confront the teacher, I’m putting my dauther at risk. Some teacher have this mentality, “Ok, you don’t like how I teach your daughter then from today onwards I’m not going to care what she do.” So you tell me la. What am I going to do? Just sit there like nothing happen? Some people might say, “Cane on the palm only wert. Can die meh?” So you tell me la. Can die or not. Don’t tell me the teacher never forget things? A child is still human wat. A child cannot forget to bring books meh? Don’t tell me the teacher never forget to bring books during her younger days. The more I say, the more I want to **** the teacher.

i heard something in the kitchen…. someone is doing some washing and scrubbing …. sheesh…. everyone tone down will ya….

it might be the rat…. or it might be the BOOGIE MAN…. sheesh!!!! oops. Sorry. it couldn’t be cinderella. hehe…

let’s take a peek….

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who’s that? who’s that?

told you so. it’s the BOOGIE MAN!!!

… sheesh…. tone down will ya. Let’s take a closer look again.

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Ahhh…. it’s the troublemaker. Should I go piak her backside? hmmm…

When I count up to three, we give her a boo ok?

One…..

Two…..

Three!

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boo, BABY!!!

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awww… she’s isn’t the most beautiful of kids. But thank goodness she’s cute! So how to piak her?