a weekend to ourselves!

my parents-in-law will be away today till this sunday. hooray!! we can have 4 whole days to ourselves... i'm going to monopolise the kitchen. i have to think think think...what am i goin to cook and bake?
hhmm... beef sandwich? fried chap jae? cookies...what cookies? we'll see.......:)

chilled lemony peach cheesecake - everyone's favourite

i still remember eating this cake when i was in secondary school. one of our relatives is a very good cook / baker. we always order this from her and it was sold at rm90 at that time, about 15 years ago! i never knew it was so easy to make this cake, until i tried it myself. this cake has never failed me.

i've done a 3-layer cheesecake before but this time i did a 2-layer instead coz i was running short of time. i omitted the jelly topping, and just roughly chopped some canned peaches to mix with the cheese filling.

the recipes below is for 3-layer; i hv also modified the measurement a little after a few tries coz i do not like sweet stuffs. if you too prefer not so sweet cakes, this recipes may be just right for you. :)

Ingredients: (9”)

Base:
250g digestive biscuits
120g melted butter + 2 tsp warm water

Filling:
250g cream cheese
60g castor sugar
300ml whipping cream (i used vivo brand-low sugar)
60ml syrup from canned peaches
4 tbsp lemon juice
Grated lemon zest (optional)
2.5 tbsp gelatin dissolved in 100ml hot water

Jelly topping (original version)
Cook 45g jelly powder (any flavour of your choice that you think will go well with the lemon cheesecake) and 8g gelatin powder with 250ml water till jelly dissolved. Set aside to cool.

OR (my own version)
250ml water
70ml syryp from canned peaches
2tbsp lemon juice
Some sugar to yr liking
2.5tbsp gelatin dissolved in 50ml hot water

Method:

1. Mix crushed biscuits and melted butter.

2. Press firmly onto lined cake base. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

3. Whip whipping cream with icing sugar till mousse state.

4. Beat cream cheese with castor sugar till smooth. Stir in the syrup, lemon juice, lemon zest and gelatin solution. Mix well.

5. Stir in whipped cream. Mix well. Pour the mixture into the chilled cake base.

6. Refrigerate for 15 minutes and top with assorted fruits. Put it back in the fridge for another 20 - 30 minutes.

7. Spoon cooled jelly topping solution onto the chilled cheesecake gently.

8. Refrigerate for 2 - 3 hours before serving, or overnight for best results.

crushing the digestive biscuits

mixing melted butter with the crushed biscuits

ta-daaa....

Merry X'mas Everyone!!

Wishing all my friends, family & bloggers a merry merry x'mas! happy holidays!!!


Cheers,
Loh's family

banana cake

banana cake is one of my fav. i tried baking it myself using the recipe i found here. the cake turned out okay, but it was a little too dense. why eh?? could it be because i didn't follow the recipe's exact measurement and pandai pandai added extra milk? i will have to try it again and again till i perfect my baking skills.

Ingredients:

180 gm. Butter

180 gm. Fine sugar

2 nos. Extra large Eggs - beaten lightly (i couldn't find XL eggs, so i used 2 normal large eggs, weighing 130gm)

250 gm. Cake flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. Bicarbonate of Soda

220 gm. Bananas - mashed (i used pisang rastali)

50 gm. Dairy whip cream (i substituted with baby's formula milk)

1/2 tsp. Banana essence (i substituted with vanilla essence)

2 bananas - slice (i omitted this)

Method:

(1) Cream butter and sugar till light and creamy.

(2) Pour in eggs gradually and beat till creamy.

(3) Add in whip cream, mashed bananas and banana essence and mix well.

(4) Add in cake flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and beat for a while only.

(5) Pour into an 8" round tray, and arrange sliced bananas on top.

(6) Bake at 175C for about 50 to 60 mins. or until cooked.

filling the cake tin with the batter

hot & fresh out from the oven... notice the crack? i used an 8-inch cake tin, the batter was too high, causing the crack. make sure u use a 9-inch cake tin to avoid cracks on top of cake.

ziyi's "drinking" habit

this girl has a weird drinking habit since young. she can never lie still to drink her milkie...that's one of the reasons why she was weaned off my boobs when she at 9mo.

i must always find ways to keep her lie still to drink her milk....either singing to her, showing her flash cards, reading to her, or asking her to point n tell my body/face parts.

here, she's "reading" a book while holding the bottle and i still hv to remind her to suck n drink her milk, otherwise she'll just bite the teats.

besides her usual formula milk and her all time fav H2O, she will not drink any other flavored/sweetened drink (i'm glad). however, after letting her tried vitagen, she loves it so much so that she can gulp the whole bottle at one go.

see mummy, i finished the vitagen...can i have somemore plsss.....

"W" words

last night ziyi was "baby talking" to herself and i heard her saying “duck”. curious as to why she said duck since there wasn't any duck image in the room, i asked her "What?"...
upon hearing what i just said, she imitated too... immediately i taught her a few other "w" words and to my surprise, she can pronounce them quite accurately.

wipe
wet
what
where
why
walk
wait (pronounced most accurately)

she was soo happy when praised her and giggling away when i told her to repeat those words...:)

she wailed when i was trying to capture her photo coz she wanted to view the camera's lcd screen..lol

baked cheesy cheese log

i always browse the internet for recipes when i need more ideas to cook for my baby. 2 weeks ago, i baked “cheesy cheese log” for her. I had no idea what was that but since the recipes looks really easy and simple, i gave it a shot.

i got the recipes from here and the best part is i can freeze them for future use. It only took me about 40mins to prepare, bake and wash up. easy-peasy.

the texture was somewhat like a biscuit, but harder and a tad too dry to my liking. baby doesnt really like it either..but she still eats them since she prefer finger food. to reheat, i steam it to make it slightly softer.

grocery shopping for ziyi

bought these items for ziyi:

organic brown rice vermicelli - i cook her vermicelli soup on weekends
ingredients: brown rice, sago
- no preservatives & coloring
- nutritious & high fiber

heinz muesli & apple - for weekends consumption when i'm too lazy to cook for her. sometimes i will mix the muesli with yogurt for her
- iron-enriched
- good source of iron
- no added colors or flavors
- no preservatives
- egg free

pepperidge farm goldfish - snacks for ziyi
- baked snack crackers
- baked with real cheese
- natural, no artificial preservatives
- 0g trans fat

wall stickers

wall stickers are becoming more and more popular these days. they are affordable, easy, movable and stylish. you can express your creativity to transform any smooth surface into an artistic expression you can call your own. the stickers are self adhesive and applicable on all wall coverings, including ingrain wallpaper, doors, windows, floors, glass, mirrors, furniture, and more. 

i bought 2 different designs and hubs has put 1 for me on top of my bed. it was very easy to apply. i chose a kid's design for my room, coz i like the monkey very much. (",)

my handyman at work

nice?

trimming ziyi's hair

Trimming ziyi’s hair was really a challenge for us. Yesterday I put her seated in the bathroom with her clothes off and quickly trimmed her fringe coz twas poking her eyes but this little girl freaked out when she saw hair on her lap and tummy! She cried but i tried to ignore her and quickly continue trimming it. This time she was sooooooo scared, she shivered when she saw more hair on her lap.... hahahhahaaaaa!

I quickly called hubs to come to her rescue. Daddy carried her and i tried to trim her hair but she refused to lift her head up. So i decided to stop trimming her hair and bathe her but this time she refused to stay in the bathroom either. Haiz..... i let her played with her toys in my room for a while, hoping she will forget the incident. From then onwards, she didn’t allow me to hold her comb nor scissors! LOL.... how to bring her to the hair salon for a nice hair cut, u tell me....

Now her fringe is not nice and not straight! Looks like kena bitten by rats!

action rhymes

Lately i bought ziyi a nursery rhymes book at Pearson’s warehouse sales. I like reading Pat-a-cake rhymes to her, and performing the actions according to the guide from the book and she has started to imitate my actions too. Now i will do the reading and she will do the actions all by herself.

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake

Bakers man

Bake me a cake as fast as you can

Roll it and pat it and mark it with “B”

And put it in the oven for baby and me

Speech development @ 16mo

These are the words my little girl can say at this age (which i can think of):


Ma-ma
Daddy
Ta-ta
Ah neh
Gu-gu
Apple
Ao-pa (aeroplane)
Ah-ney (honey)
Ay (hay)
Ball
Bult (belt)
Bar (bra)
Bah (bear)
Ba-bay (bye-bye)
Bop (baby bop)
Chick
Elmo
Book
Dog
Duck
Car
Cat
Cup
Frog
Oold (hold)
Ahhg (hug)
Up
Down
Knock
Na-na (banana)
Nen-nen (milk)
No
Pah (scared in chinese)
Pak (open in chinese)
Star
tsss (please)
Thans (thanks)
Take (her all-time favorite word)

And some of her own language which none of us can understand – nyo nyo nyo & klik klok klik klok! Lol...

mum's birthday

*this is a back-dated post*

mum’s birthday fell on a weekday, so we had an early celebration for her on a Saturday. It was just a simple dinner with family friends & relatives. we drove back to seremban on Saturday afternoon and went off to tampin in the evening to meet my uncle’s family for dinner.

we had dinner at Kam Yin Poh restaurant in Taman Indah, Tampin. the food was good and the bill only came up to rm140+ for 11 adults! pretty cheap eh...

i wanna go out ma-ma!

dad-dy start the car, lets go!

i'm sooo hungry i can eat the table cloth

then came the cake cutting celebration! I made this cake myself; it was a non-baked chilled lemon cheesecake. tadaa....

Warning: the cake may look ugly, but it tasted very good!

Happy birthday to you again, mum!

clumsy ziyi

at 16mo, ziyi is still very clumsy although she started walking unaided when she was 12mo. she always likes to “run” and bang onto everything, knocking everywhere and always fall and hit her head on the cold hard tiled floor.

lately, she has learned to say the word “knock” and i like her slang :) she will touch her body part which got knocked, and tell everyone at home “knock, knock” to make sure someone would attend to her. She just want to manja eventhough she hit the table/wall slightly. cheeky little girl.

baby noah by baby einstein

i have to coax ziyi into eating her porridge/meals everyday. i discovered a way of doing that few weeks back, which is to let her watch her cartoons. ziyi likes to watch baby macdonalds by baby einstein, she used to be very afraid of the animals especially the rooster. but after watching the vcd for months, she started to like it now. she can even say some of them like chick, horse, moo-moo, pig, hay, apple, milk, and egg.

thinking she likes animals so much, i bought her a new baby einstein vcd last friday, baby noah. mana tau...she freaks out when she heard the animal sounds! muahahahaaa.... these are like wild animals on the savannah, etc, unlike baby macdonalds (animals on the farm). she won't watch the show alone, one of us has to be sitting next to her and she will kept telling us she's scared "paaah"... i guess it will take her months before she get used to it again.

playgroup at kizsports & gym 1utama

we signed ziyi up for a free trial at kizsports & gym 1utama last sunday. it was a program called LittleWalker (LW), lasted 1 hour. it was recommended for kids from 13 months to 24months old. there were around 6-8 kids in our class and all of them were girls, except for 1 boy!

the program consists of warm up activities, sing-along session (more of act along), obstacle-course and free-play to raise a child's self-awareness and develop co-ordinated body movements. after the warming up there was sing-along session, but my sweetiepie wasn't interested at all, she was so attracted to the "equipments" in the class, couldn't wait to run and climb everywhere!

poor ziyi, she fell and hit the metal part while daddy was jumping with her on the trampoline :( the back of her head was swollen but lucky it subsided few hours later.

ziyi was super tired after that, she konked out in the car and continued sleeping when we reached home. good exercise for her!

pneumoccocal jab part 2

i brought my baby to the paedic this morning for her pneumoccocal jab. she was afraid to enter the doc's room and cried a little. when her doc jabbed her on her thigh, she wailed! poor baby, it must be very painful. she couldn't wait for me to carry her out of the doc's room, she said "bai" (bye) to everyone (doc and nurses) when i told the doc "thankyou", which was unexpected :)

her weight is 9.5kg and height is 79.5cm, which is slightly below average. it could be genetic since hubby and i are not big size.

pneumoccocal jab

we brought ziyi to the clinic yesterday evening for her 2nd dose pneumoccocal jab. unfortunately, when her paedic checked her temperature, it was 37.4c and so ziyi escaped getting her jab. sigh.... i have to bring her there again and this time it will be in the morning. i wonder why her temperature will rise in the evening, especially after her evening bath.

the jab ain't cheap, it costs us RM300.00 when she had her 1st dose when she turned 1. and oh, baby's weight is still hovering at 9.5kg (at 16mo), haiz........

Laptop & handphone

i need a new laptop and a new handphone desperately!! the laptop i'm using currently belongs to my mom and it only has a memory of 256mb! can u imagine how slow it takes to load a window?? the message "Virtual Memory Is Low" always pop up at my desktop. it's either i upgrade the memory or get a new one.

next in my list would be my handphone, been using this pda phone for quite some time, around 2+ yrs i think. i've no complaints about my handphone, except for its talktime and standby time. it can only last me for 15mins of talktime with a fully charged battery! i'm now scouting for a new handphone and probably not a pda phone this time, and it shouldn't cost more than rm1000. i hv to make sure it's a handphone with long talktime and standby time. any suggestions what phone i should get?

baby / nursing room

these pictures have been sitting in my laptop for quite some time and i've decided to post them now. when i was still breastfeeding baby, i had to go places where there are nursing rooms available. whenever i go to Subang Parade, i will use the baby room inside Parkson. about a month ago, i was at Subang Parade again to meet a client and i came across their baby room located at a corner of nowhere. to my surprise, the baby room here is spacious and clean. 

i'm sorry for the small pics here, it took so long to upload these photos!! as you can see, the baby room looks fresh and clean, but i find it too secluded and quiet, without any female security guard manning the place (unlike the baby room at the curve). 

anyhow, i still prefer the one inside parkson for safety reason. :)

baby ziyi at 10.5 months old

at 10.5 months, my baby's development milestone is quite on track. she can:

say ma ma, pa pa, ta ta, da da, deh deh, mum mum, neh neh and.... her own name (ashley)... she sounded like "ash-ee"

stand unaided for 5 secs

walk few steps (aided)

give us things when we asked for it

has 2 teeth

good at chewing her food

refused to eat soft mushy food like porridge and cereal

imitate coughing, laughing and crying when we asked her to do it

there are many more, but so far these are what i can recall for now.

homemade nugget

i read from this mummy's blog on how to make healthy homemade nugget for baby ziyi. it's also a great way to hide all the veggies your little ones refused to eat. i used broccoli, red capsicum and minced chicken thigh.

the nugget taste so good even without any seasoning. baby ziyi loves them too..yummy..

toothbrush for little ones

baby ziyi is definitely a late teether. at 10 1/2mths old she only has 1/4 tooth out. i bought her toothbrush from Pigeon. it comes in a pack of 3, meant for different stages. i've not started brushing her tiny tooth yet, coz i'm still using gauze to clean her mouth. once her tooth is fully out, i will have to start brushing it for her, hmm, wonder if i need to use toothpaste too??

i got bitten by the flu bug

it just came all of a sudden few days ago. My nose is runny, I keep sneezing all day and i've been coughing every night. i've taken some meds yet I am still feeling under the weather. today i've boiled some chinese herbs meant for treating cough and pleghm. i hope my cough will be better after drinking it. with this hot weather, we must drink more fluids and i've been downing lots of herbal tea and barley water to cool my body.

baby ziyi weaned off mommy's boops

i started supplementing baby ziyi with formula milk after breastfeeding her exclusively until she was 8.5 months. she refused drinking her formula using Avent bottles and so i gave Dr. Brown's bottle a try after a friend told me about it. i find Dr. Brown's teats are softer compared to Avent's. finally, after trying for 2 days, baby ziyi was sucking the teats and drinking her formula from Dr. Brown's bottles! 

when she was about 9 months, i managed to reduce my breastmilk supply (by not expressing my breastmilk so often) and nursed her only twice a day (before and after work). by now (she's almost 10 months), i've stopped nursing her completely. she was ready to wean off my boops and so was i. 

there was no struggle, no unhappy moments in the process of weaning off..both mommy and baby are happy about it.

but mommy is sad about 1 thing... my boops seems to have shrunk!! :(

new toys for baby ziyi

i bought few new toys for baby ziyi at mattel warehouse sales last month. the warehouse sales was at Wisma Atria, Damansara Jaya. i reached there at 10.10am on the first day of the sales and oh boy, the place was so crowded that i had to squeeze my way through. 

with the help of my friends, we managed to grab a few nice toys and they are mostly fisher-price's toys. 

i bought a total of 9 items and they cost me less than rm400, which i think is really cheap for toys of this brand. otherwise it'd have cost me almost double if purchased without any discounts/sales period. 

babies get bored with their toys real fast, so i'm not going to give her all the toys at one go. maybe 1 toy each month, and this will save me from buying her toys for the next 9 months..lol

so angry with my mil

i came home early from work today and saw my mil scooping baby ziyi's porridge from the slow cooker. and i saw her rinsing her bowl with tap water ONLY. i was so mad and asked why didn't she rinse it with hot water?? and u know what her reply was? 

"aiya, sometimes i'll forget wan. she's been doing okay what...so nothing la"

i was FUMING MAD! then i started my lecture... "u know ar.. tap water is contaminated with dunno-what bacteria, germs..blah..blah..blah..".....which lasted for about few minutes.

of course, her face turned black immediately but i didn't give a damn coz this concern my daughter! that surely affected my mood. i didn't even smile to my cutie-pie while feeding her her porridge. yes, i took over the spoon from my mil. aaargghhh!!!

is it really okay to NOT sterilise or at least rinse baby utensils with hot water?? 

meal time = battle time

baby ziyi has been refusing to eat her normal food for the past few days. it was so stressful. i had to try many many ways to coax her into eating her food. she'd shake her head and fuss everytime the spoon touches her lips. she'll end up drinking her formula as her meal replacement, lucky she still willing to drink her formula. i did not bring her to her paedic yet, my instinct told me that this might just be due to her teething discomfort. mother's instinct is usually right, hor??

so far i've been able to feed her tiny amount of bread with cheese/unsalted butter and her biscuits which she loves so much. today, i've decided to make her scrambled egg yolk and she loves it. it's super easy to cook and i will do it again for her.

scrambled egg for baby/toddler

ingredients:

1 egg (use only yolk for infants below 12months old)

finely chop onions

finely chop veggies (any veggies that your baby likes)

shredded cheese (i used cheddar)

unsalted butter

full cream milk

method:

mix egg yolk and a little milk in a bowl.

heat the wok and put in a dollop of unsalted butter

saute onions and veggies till fragrant

pour the egg mixture and stir fry gently till it's fully cooked

p/s: sorry, there's no photos to show here coz i've again forgotten to recharge my camera's battery.

excuses, excuses, and more excuses...

i know i've not been updating my blog for some time now... you know, i've been bz with work, juggling between my baby and work life, handling all the stress at work, blah...blah...blah...

okay, okay, i promise to update it more often okay??!!

well, i'll get back to you this weekend...LOL...

have a great weekend!

is this a good time?

hubby told me he has made up his mind to come back for good in june 09. i'm thrilled of course! but then again, i asked myself is this a good time?

with the current economic turmoil everyone is worried they will get laid off and try very hard to hold on to their jobs. yet hubby is going to tender his resignation?? should i still be thrilled???

hmm... i asked myself again, if this is not the time, when is a good time? after all he has been working in viet for 2.5 years and by june it will hit 3 years. it's long enough to be separated from his loved ones (me, of course and now ziyi, our new addition!) for 3 years!!

this is so exciting!! im going to have my hubby back! yay.....

seafood dinner

we went for a seafood dinner last night at telok gong. i've been there once, few years back. it wasn't hard to find the place at all. the journey took us probably half hour to reach our destination. we saw 2 restaurants - kedai makanan laut telok gong & coconut flower restaurant. and we ended up in telok gong restaurant.

we had salted egg crabs (my fav!!), kam heong clams, kung po mantis prawn, fried calamari and a stir fry brussels sprouts. the food wasn't too bad, however i still prefer the seafood restaurant at kayu ara :)

it was a treat by my sis in law. all of us enjoyed the food and ziyi was enjoying herself in her carrier too...hehe...

the restaurant we went to

ziyi in the carrier

poor baby ziyi, she's constipated

it's been a week since ziyi last poop-ed. she has been trying hard to poo yesterday but to no avail. i've to stop giving her rice cereal and feed her with just sweet potato, pumpkin and papaya for few days. since it was her first try on papaya puree, she was not accepting the taste well. in fact, i find it yucky too when i blended the fruit.. hehe .... these are her reactions...

luckily, when i fed her the papaya puree today (her 2nd try) she starts to like it.
i did some research on the internet and found tht there are a few home remedies for constipated babies:

1. avoid BRAT - Banana, Rice, Apple, Toast

2. increase water intake, preferably warm water or feed them with diluted prune or apple juice (1 part juice, 1 part water)

3. bicycle excercise - with baby lying on their back, lift their legs with knees bent and make a cycling motion in the air

4. massage their tummy in a clockwise direction

i've done all the above mentioned methods today, i even fed ziyi with barley water. i hope to see improvements very very soon.

she has a new highchair - part 2

ziyi had a little cereal mixed with few spoons of sweet potato puree and she loves it... i pureed the yellow version of sweet potato for her, somehow the puree turned out to be a little darker than its original color, and that reminds me of Durian... hmm, yum yum... i've not been eating durian since i was pregnant!

erm...this pic is a little off topic here..heheehe..

but looking at this pic is enough to make me drool

well today is the 2nd day im feeding her sweet potato, 3 more days to go and i can proceed with another new food for her. okay, here are the photos i captured when she was seated comfortably in her highchair...

she has a new highchair

finally...i bought ziyi a new highchair from jusco. it was michelle and vincent who helped me get and fixed it today. i wanted the beige color one but unfortunately it's out of stock and i'm left with only 1 option, which is the blue ones. it looks boyish, but wht the heck...it's just a highchair.

ziyi will get to sit on her brand new chair for dinner tonight..

so what's for her dinner tonight? hmm.... it's going to be sweet potato puree...again... but this time i'm going to mix it into her rice cereal. this is going to be a new taste for her, wonder if she will like it.

will update on her reaction later, with some pics hopefully.

my first attempt

it took me quite some time to decide to create a blog and i finally did, on the very 1st day of 2009! well, this is going to be a test page. will post more once i get familiarized with it. :)

happy new year everyone!!