Mooncake Festival celebration at school

This is a late entry for Mooncake festival which was celebrated 2 weeks ago at Crystal's school. The programmes for that night among others were performances, Tang Lung competitions. Light dinner and mooncakes were served on that evening too..Each class made their own tang lung as their entries to the contest, here they are:

Teachers and students are getting ready to carry their tang lungs into the performance hall.

Crystal in her class before dinner.

Took the opportunity to show her colouring in school
She got a consolation prize for this piece of Merdeka Day's colouring competition in school.

Caffeine good for Asthma??

Asthma, one of the serious and potentially fatal diseases suffered by many people out there, including my dad. Because of my dad's condition, it leads me wanting to know more about the nutritional blockbusters that fight asthma. The treatment that my dad receives from the hospital are mainly using medications to control the disease rather than on how to protect or make him stronger to fight the disease.

A very useful book entitled "Eat and Heal" by the Editors of FC&A Medical Publishing, that I bought few months back has provided me with the basic nutritional knowledge needed to fight asthma. In summary, the nutritional blockbusters that fight asthma are:

• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin A
• Lycopene (such as tomatoes, pink grapefruit, and watermelon)
• Magnesium and selenium (broccoli, oysters, beans)
• Water (at least 6 glasses a day)

and interestingly surprise that Caffeine is useful to fight asthma as well. Reseach shows that caffeine helps relax bronchial tubes so that airways stay open as such it can help improve the symptoms for up to four hours. Therefore, it would be helpful to start the day with a fragrant cup of coffee. I do not know whether my dad would like to have a try on starting his day with a cup of coffee!!?? I should try to convince him.

A Disturb Mind

Eversince my dad had a stroke in October last year, I'm having the kind of fear of seeing my siblings' phone numbers appear on my cellphone cos I do not want to receive any news of my dad being unwell. I am started to relax myself from that fear after nearly a year of my dad had the stroke, but yesterday, a call from my brothers informing me that my dad has been rushed to the hospital semi unconsciously due to very high blood pressure and breathing difficulty. I broke down immediately in the office. My colleagues gave my dad a quick prayer seeking GOD's helps so that he will be able to get through in what he is sufferring; I rushed to the hospital to be at my dad's side. The doctor managed to bring his BP down and briefed us on his condition. He was admitted again for further review.

I woke up at 4.30am this morning with a very disturb mind and couldn't get myself back to sleep again. At 7am this morning, big sister and myself were at the ward to visit my dad. He looked weak and only willing to drink some of the fruits and vegetable juice that I made for him. My prayers go to my dad for his speedy recovery.

New Member in our Family

This is Baby Chloe, the youngest daugther of two to my big brother Anthony and SIL, Alice.  Finally I got the chance to take photos of her on Moon cake festival when we had family dinner.  She is nearly two months old now.

Pearl, mum, baby Chloe, Albert and Shirly (who due to deliver a baby boy end of October this year).

September Birthday Stars

There are birthday wishes all around in September.

First of all, I would like to wish my old time friends, May and Carol, a very Happy Birthday to both of you, whose birthdays fall on 7th and 15th respectively.  We hardly meet each other though May is in KK while Carol is over in Australia, we usually drop a few lines for each other emails and lately via Facebook.

A surprise party was organised for our Director at the Kampung Nelayan Restaurant on the 8th.  We had a nice dinner that night, I particularly like the fish and the prawns.  Our present to our director was a basket of 2 different species of live orchids. 

KK HQ staff with our directors

Our present : one of the orchid

and another different species of orchid

The following day was our BIL, Nicky's birthday.  SIL, Rosalind bought him a birthday cake, unfortunately she was not feeling well and unable to come for the little celebration, nonetheless, our two princesses are ever eager to help out, from placing the candles, singing the birthday songs and blowing the candles off for their uncle.

Here comes the youngest birthday star.  Pearl turned 3 years old on the 15th (she shares the same birthday with my friend Carol).  We thought of having a small birthday party at the school for Pearl (just as we always do for Crystal) but we did not manage to inform the school as Pearl was sick on Thursday and off from school on Friday and still feeling weak on her birthday, we decided to just have a family dinner for the celebration.  We went to Kenny Rogers for the dinner.

Guess what, Pearl was so grumpy and restless in the restaurant that the daddy have to bring her out.  She got herself some candies and biscuits from the shops outside, came back a little cheerful, but refused to eat the meals that we ordered;  She only ate or rather played with those candies and cookies on her plate.  Probably because she just had her bottle of milk earlier.

A delicious Kenny Rogers meal which Pearl refused to eat unlike Crystal, she still feeling hungry after finished our servings of maccaroni and cheese that we have to order another serving for her.

This birthday girl was so restless that the daddy have to bring her out for the second time.  This time the daddy bought her a birthday balloon.  More cheerful as you can see.  We have to buy another one for Crystal as she was nagging to have one too.   After meal, we walked around Centre Point, thinking of buying a pair of shoes for her birthday.  The girls nearly turned the shoes shops around; they tried shoes one after another, picking all those bigger sizes ones and those with heels ones too which are highly unsuitable for their age.  We quickly leave the shop before get out of control.  We ended up at Ngiu Ngee for another search for the shoes but stuck at the toys section. 

Pearl finally picked this as her birthday present but refused to even let Crystal touch it.  Obviously showed on her face.  Both of them ended up in tears after much negotiations failed, ha ha.. The daddy came to handle the situation, Crystal got very upset and tearfully went to play her computer game and..

Pearl played her tea set alone.  Lonely and no fun playing alone eh..I can sense it :)  Not long after that, she took the tea sets and placed at the table near where Crystal was.  A sign of letting the sister play her toys in a way.  Later in the evening they were playing together joyfully. 

Pearl is cutting her cake, she loves the chocolate chips.  This cake was specially baked by SIL, Rosalind.  Very thoughtful of her, thanks a lot.

Papaya Soup

While shopping for food and groceries at the supermarket on last Saturday, I saw papayas at the fruits section, all of them are still raw; I said to myself, why not try papaya soup today so I bought two raw papayas, one for soup and one for dessert when it's ripened.  Here's my papaya soup with pork and red dates.  The last time I had papaya soup was during my confinement after giving birth to Pearl, to induce more breast milk, however, this formular did not work on me.  Many people have been telling me that papaya soup is also good for health that would be good for the kids too. 

I marinated the remaining papaya using apple cider vinegar, salt and sugar.  Very appetising and it is ideal for cooking of sweet and sour dishes or eat on its own.  I feel like having some before my dinner though.

helping out??

Look like the girls are busy helping out on vacuuming the floor, right? Usually they will run away when they see me carrying my old Singer vaccum cleaner, the noise is loud enough to scare them off; but not this time, mainly because this is a different vacuum cleaner that SIL brought back for testing, it's a RM2000 plus Electrolux vaccum cleaner, much quieter, more powerful and is also friendlier to kids, in terms of sound. They were having fun experiencing vacuuming the floor for a while. We did not get one because it too expensive and the old one still working okay although it is noiser and lesser power.

Happy Mooncake Festival

It's Mooncake Festival today. It's the 15th day of August in the Chinese Lunar calendar.

HAPPY MOONCAKE FESTIVAL TO ALL MY BLOGGER FRIENDS!!

A wrapped mooncake just took out from the fridge, very misty.

This is a sugar free, low calorie, suitable for diabetic multiseed spirulina mooncake, one of the moon cakes given free by the company that I work for (in appreciation of my effort of selling mooncakes). Nowadays many of us are very cautious about our health but cannot resist the temptations of tasting the delicious mooncakes. Right? Me too.

It's great that having been given free ones, we did not have to buy any this year. The pricing of moon cakes are ever increasing, you could find a mooncake priced at RM40.00 per piece apparently made in Hong Kong. Incredibly delicious I assumed !?

Yummy Fish & Chips

I love to eat (unfortunately nice and delicious food are mostly not as healthy). I would like to share my fish & Chips (sorry picture only) that we "tapau/take away" few days ago. It was simply yummy, a big serving of fish, some fries, baked beans, pineapple, with some mayonnaise. To compensate what is missing in this meal, I added some tomatoes and organic lettuce. Next time we will add on dinner buns and butter to go with it and of course with plenty of salad.

Fever fever go away

I received a call from the school at around 4pm yesterday and was informed by the teacher that Pearl is having high fever. I quickly called Clet up and get him to attend to Pearl as I was unable to come out from the office that time. Clet decided to buy fever medication for Pearl on the way to the school so she won't have to wait till home to be given medication. We only let her brought along cough mixture to school without expecting her to get fever too. The daddy must have spread the viruses to her, my poor little Pearl. She stayed with her baby sitter today since the school does not encourage student with fever to be sent to school fearing that the sickness would spread to other kids, which is fair. She is now down to flu, cough and with mild fever hanging there. Hope she will get better soon.

Wordless Wednesday - Simple Meal

This is what we had (Clet & I) for dinner tonite. Garlic fried rice with bull eye's egg, tomatos and organic lettuce. Simple.

It's Saturday

I allowed myself to get up a bit late on Saturday after a brain draining Thursday and Friday. Clet was up earlier for his appointments; before attending to his next appointment he brought home some breakfast, curry laksa meehoon for me and fish balls meehoon soup for the girls.

The girls would normally watch their favourite VCDs, one after another when they are at home, if not, they will be drawings or surfing the net on princesses, Mickey Mouse Club House, Barbie dress up or stuff like that; but lately we found Crystal is playing some modelling clay discreetly scare that we would scold her. It was all because I stopped her from playing modelling clay I think two years ago, it happened when she put a big piece of clay on her head thought it was some kind of fun decoration for her hair, and the clay sticked to her hair, it took us quite a while to take it all off , she was crying worryingly that it will not come off. She still remembers this incident till now. We asked about the clay that she is having she said she got it from her classmate. Guess she must be very much wanting to have some clay to play with and I thought since she is bigger girl now and look like Pearl is capable of handling the clay, I proposed to let them have some of the clay that I have been keeping if they help to fold the laundry, they did not mind at all.

Pearl would like to help but said she doesn't know how to. Crystal was trying to show her and Pearl looked on seriously.

Look like Pearl is a fast learner, folding a handkerchief by herself already and showing it to me proudly, "mummy, mummy, you see".

The girls' assignment was done waiting for me to put them away.
Pearl took the opportunity to play with the empty laundry basket.a piece of modelling clay for the girls as promised
Happily playing with the clay together and singing along too..
These are sea shells according to them.

On Chinese Translation Task

It was a busy and brain draining working week for me despite having had a Monday public holiday. I was given a task to translate two articles from English to simplified Chinese on Thursday and my boss needed them on Saturday morning. Gosh..the articles were about the benefits and the types of Coenzyme Q10(CoQ10) available in the market place today. I spent the whole two days translating and doing the corrections after my boss had proofed read them. Great that I managed to do it with the help of online translation website and NJStar Chinese WP, they have indeed make translation works so much easier. The only set back I faced was that I am not so familiar with the Han Yi Ping Ying thingy as I had never learnt that during my school time, furthermore I have also forgotten how to write many of the Chinese wordings since I seldom use them nowadays.

I was unable to finish all the corrections that I needed to do during the office hours that I have to continue at home, after my dinner, spending another 2 hours or so trying to search for the right words using Han Yi Ping Ying at NJStar, finally I got everything done and emailed to my boss at 10.40pm. Tasks accomplished but exhausting; I got the opportunity to refresh my mind on the benefits of Co Q10 by doing this tasks, I took Co Q10 supplements months ago but stopped taking it after my supplies have exhausted, and knowing what the benefits that this supplement can do to our bodies, I should make an effort to resume having it as part of my supplements.

Eating out

This is so called our once a month eating out affair.  Crystal has been asking to dine at Pizza Hut few weeks back and even so after hearing Edson and Kathleen were baking their own pizza at home on last Saturday.  For our dinner at Pizza Hut on Tuesday, we ordered the Ramadan Combo 1 and add one Lasagne for our meal which is more than enough for 4 of us as Clet is watching his diet.

Our meal is served

The cheesy Lasagne

Something new - The Strawberry Napoleon

Crystal trying to serve

She got it right with daddy assistance

The bottle of cheese would be gone if we were to stay longer, the girls love it.

Wordless Wednesday - At the Beach

One of those many days at the beach. The girls are allowed to take off their shoes for the first time.