Merdeka Holiday

YES! This will be the last public holiday of the month and we will have to wait till December (me think) for more holidays. I can't wait for our long awaited trip this weekend, departing tonight by car. When was my last holiday trip? Hmm, can't really recall. 

Shall update on our trip after we are back and keeping my fingers crossed that the lil monster won't give us a hard time. Phobia :(

Happy holiday & Happy Independence Day to all.

Shoes for problematic feet

We were at Clarks shoe store yesterday and I tried on a few pairs of their closed toes shoes. To my surprise, they were incredibly comfy. But I did not buy any yesterday, as I was still skeptical given the fact that I was born with a bunion on both side of my feet. I have always had problem getting myself a pair of comfy closed toe shoes. I even bought myself a pair of Ferragamo court shoes years ago and it went into the bin after wearing it less than 3 times! There goes my few hundred bucks. 

I knew I definitely need to get at least a pair of shoes else how am I going to survive the cold with strappy sandals/heels when we move to Oz next year? I wonder how comfy Clarks shoes are or if there are other brands around that cater for bunions feet? I need one that has enough rooms for my wide feet but at the same time it has to look at least fashionably enough for me :)

Long Raya Break 2012

Our 4 days holiday break came to an end, now back to work. blehhhh!!

Anyway, a quick update of what we did during the 4 days break:

Saturday: 

Went for late breakkie around the neighbourhood and just hang around Carrefour for the lil one to have some fun playing at the kiddie arcade. Dinner at home as usual, with the rest of the Loh's family.

Sunday:

I cooked pasta with bacon and carrots + lettuces for lunch. I'm a green freak. Must have loads of vegetables in my meal, especially if it's home cooked meals. 

Went out to 1 Utama, reached there around 3pm, carpark and mall was super crowded! I thought most people would have gone out of town, looked like I was so wrong. We passed by Sticky the customised candy shop and showed Ziyi how they make their candies. I was surprised to find out they give out samplings pretty generously, they just left a square bowl on the counter and let you take as many as you want. We like it, because the candy was not too sweet and there were quite a lot of flavors to choose from. 

Then we dropped by Candylicious, another pretty candy store. Needless to say, Ziyi bugged us to buy her lollipops! I was not keen to get her those artificially colored lolly at all. We tried persuading her to go for Gelato instead but she refused. In the end I managed to convinced her to go for a Chocolate lolly, which cost us RM9! But I didn't mind because I think chocs are much better those colored lolly. I made her promised me to not ask for any lollipops or chocs or ice-cream anymore, but do you a 4 year old can keep her promise? Of course not! She went crazy when she saw another ice-cream kiosk later. I was very firmed with her this time, it took us a while to distract her and brought her to Toys 'r us and took her some time to finally "forget" about the ice-cream. We went to Uptown for the famous hokkien mee and roast duck. Ziyi had a small plate of mee + some duck meat and we headed home after that. 

The expensive lolly

Monday:

Left home in the morning to Morib for a short day trip. The sun was hot, we came back with a burnt back. They played kite and sand at the beach. when it was low tide. Headed to Tanjung Sepat for seafood, at the Ocean Seafood restaurant. Gosh, the crowd and traffic was crazy. Reached the restaurant at about 3pm and only managed to have our meal at 5pm. The kids were hungry. The food was not fantastic and price was not attractive either. Don't think we will be back. 

The famous Lover's Bridge

Reached home at almost 8pm, bathed and the kids continued playing at home when the "men" went out drinking, I had to babysit 3 kids and Ziyi was the happiest kid, having company to play with her. She knocked out at almost 12am. 

Tuesday:

Ziyi must be extremely tired from yesterday, she woke up at 9+ am, and this rarely happened as she is an early person. While she was still sleeping, I prepared the ingredients for making beef stew. My first attempt at beef, besides minced beef. Dumped everything into the slow cooker. Easy peasy. Will post the recipe later. 

Hubs and I went out for a movie while Ziyi was out with her grandparents. We went for lunch, a quick shopping and we watched The Expandables 2. Great movie and it was only RM8 per tix for Citibank card holder.

That was it, our long (or short?) holiday break. Time past so fast and before I knew it, I'm now back at work...yawwnn :O

Mandarin tuition classes

Ziyi is finally enrolled in a Mandarin class tuition early this August. We were contemplating between home tuition vs tuition centers and we ended up with the latter. I was not able to send her to the center on her 1st day, in fact I won't be sending her but can only pick her up when it's over, she was behaving extremely well! Surprisingly, no crying or looking for mama when there were no familiar faces at the center at all. Everything went well for the 1.5 hours class and she did not mind going again, so yesterday was her 3rd class. She attends the class twice a week, 1.5 hours each time.

Her books ain't easy man...I can't read most of the words myself. She was reading the words to me last night, though with wrong intonation but later I realised she could read because she was reading the Hanyu PinYin and not because she can recognize the Chinese words!

I wonder if it's good to teach them with PinYin for a start. I can't wait for the day she can converse with us in Mandarin as she still doesn't allow us speaking to her in Chinese.

My child is sucking me dry :O

I cannot imagine how other families manage it financially when they have 2 or more children, especially for those middle to lower income group earners. 

Ziyi likes to eat her honey neat, so I've been giving her Manuka honey with UMF28+ when she was down with fever. Now she's all healthy and active, she wants her honey every night too. It's going to be very costly if she were to take UMF28+ Manuka every night! So today I went to buy a jar of 500gm UMF 15+ for her (for general maintenance purpose) which cost me RM118 + a tube of PawPaw ointment (for standby) at RM22.90. Geez, things are getting really expensive nowadays. 

I will have to enroll her for Chinese tuition class this evening and that will cost us another RM530 + RM180 every month in addition to her monthly daycare fees. This Saturday is her 2nd appointment with the ENT Specialist, which will easily cost us RM180 + a scooter as a pressie for rewarding her if she lets the ENT clean her right ear, estimated to be around RM130. I'm going to be very broke this week!

Goods & services are so expensive in Malaysia! How to afford a 2nd or even a 3rd child??!! Unless we need to change our spending habit and change our lifestyle too, and I am not sure if I'm ready for that. And not to mention sacrificing holidays abroad too :(