Life updates and Peanut

What? Has it been 2 weeks since my last post? It really seems like just a few days ago. i tell you..time seems to fly at a rapid rate. I wake up early everyday, spend the whole day at the office, pick up my Peanut and will only reach home at around 9pm. Sounds tough eh? But I got used to it. Well, we got used to it haha . Even Peanut, who has to follow us to her Popo's house every morning when the sky is not even bright yet..Well, what can I say, thank God for the weekends :) And i'm not complaining because really, what is this compared to other worse stuff and tragedies that is happening around the world. I'm grateful for a lot of things, no matter how small and inconsequential it is and I do not want to take things for granted.

I have been doing lots of cooking over the weekends. This is quite a surprise even to myself considering that i'm actually enjoying it. My mum will fall over her chair if she knows how much i cook now. And i'm so into it that i even got Jamie Oliver's latest recipe book: Food Revolution. Love it, i plan to go through the book, one recipe at a time.

Peanut, I love her more and more each day. She's truly the joy of our lives. 19 months old, is stubborn as a bull, doesn't have much hair, wants to do everything herself and I mean everything!! But of course, she still can't do it well so i still need to be the Peanut Monitor. She likes to wear her own clothes, but still very salah cos the other night she tried her hardest to put her leg through the t-shirt's neck opening, thinking it's her pants.....She's really curious, as most kids her age are, which means i have to watch her like a hawk. She opens the fridge like a pro even though a child lock has been installed, taking out her own little boxes of milo. Defeats the purpose really, this child lock. I got it from Daiso. Don't buy it from there! You've been warned.


Ah..motherhood. Full of ups and downs :)

Cameron Highlands

Went to Cameron Highlands a week plus ago for a night stay together with the in-laws. It's been 2 years since I've been there and things are still pretty much the same except there seems to be more cars and many people!! It's not even the school holidays so I can't imagine how it's gonna be like during the school holidays / public holiday. Two words: STAY AWAY! Packing to go for a night trip is a nightmare, as usual, as I seems to want to bring everything for "just in case". The packing alone took me around 2 hours, and mostly, it's Peanut's stuff. I have to tihnk of what kind of clothes to bring for her, diapers, snacks, her favorite bolster etc.

We left the house at 8am, but not before going for a bak kut teh breakfast :) The drive up there was smooth except that I got really really dizzy because of the winding roads. I have really bad motion sickness. We had to stop at this shop somewhere so i can buy some sour stuff. And i think Peanut is the same as me..cos she puked *_*. I really didn't see this coming. She was quite fidgety all the while, and suddenly she just went quiet and was very still...and before you know it, out came her porridge from lunch and went all over her cardigan. and me. I was pretty calm though haha I just let her finish puking, took off her cardi and wiped her with wet wipes. She was her usual self after this "incident".

View from our balcony

We stayed at the Cameron Highlands Resort. Nice place. We didn't go to any tea plantations because we went there 2 years ago. All i did was buy strawberries and cherry tomatoes, ate strawberries icecream, and just walk around in the cool air. And my goodness they had everything strawberry related over there. I couldn't resist because it was just too cute. And when you have a daughter...you will buy these:

A strawberry plastic ball, strawberry bedroom slippers, strawberry soft toy, and a strawberry umbrella lol

There were many strawberry umbrellas but I picked this one because of the handle...so cute!

And we had steamboat too, cos it seems to be the thing to do when you go up Cameron Highlands. Which i think was highly overrated cos our steamboat kinda sucked. And there were many steamboat shops around and all of it were super packed. All of it! We managed to squeeze into one, which looks good from the outside. But when we sat down, no one took our order; they just plonked down a steamboat set dinner for us, and the soup was tasteless. Normally when i go for steamboats, i look forward to their condiments because their chilli sauce are usually quite nice. But at this particular steamboat place that we went to , their chilli sauce came from a bottle. Yeah, those kind of chilli sauce that you eat with chicken wings fml.

That night, we brought some snacks out to the balcony and just ate there And to enjoy the cool breeze too.

Eating in the dark

A very tired Peanut after a walk around the morning market

Eating her daily dose of fruits

Breakfast for myself. The poached eggs were really nice.

it was a great trip overall..super relaxing. I think Peanut enjoyed it, with the cool air and all. Except the wind were really strong..whipping my hair around 24./7 wtf.We stopped by in Ipoh for a late lunch for some chicken hor fun. It was around 230pm when we arrived and again, there were so many people. But gosh, it was really yummy. The hor fun was so smooth...*slurps*.

I wish I took more pictures. But when you have a toddler, it's pretty difficult to take a camera out and start snapping photos. And I also want to enjoy the moment with her and DH. I want to "experience" rather than start fretting with the camera and documenting every photo op. So yeah, that's why you don't see much pictures of Cameron Highlands.

Next: Our trip back home to my "kampung" :)

Crushed Peanuts

This is one of my favorite childhood snacks i.e. Kacang Tumbuk. But i have a way of eating it. Others might eat it once they take it out of the plastic packaging, or at least store it into a container so it won't "lao hong".

I prefer it "lao-honged". So i'll open the plastic packaging, make sure all the kacang tumbuk is exposed (without unwrapping it), and let it air for at least a day. After a day, it'll somewhat caramelized, and it'll be very chewy. And that's when it's the best. and it won't be messy too. No messy peanuty crumbs on your clothes or on the floor.

It's really really good. Try it!

18 months

18 months, how time flies.

Parenting is not easy. At times, I'm left exhausted, and just need a time out. But it's so rewarding to see her grow and bloom.

Sometimes she'll drag me and ask me to push her on her tricycle.
Or ask me to open the book and "mummy see book".
Or she'll asked to sit on me when I'm in the midst of doing something.


Many a times, I wanted to tell her "Eva...wait!!!! mummy's busy /tired ". But i managed to catch myself in time, and tell myself i cannot miss this opportunity.


Peanut..

Her favorite pose nowadays when a camera is aimed at her.

My little helper

It's getting more fun as Peanut as gets older. She more or less understands us now so telling her to do stuff, is quite a breeze. Most days.

She's getting cheekier by the day too. Last night I reprimanded her for opening the drawers, so i gave her the "angry mom" stare. Where i tried to make my eyes as big as possible and stared at her. She looked at me and said "eyes big bigggggggg oh". Haha any anger that i have in me dissolved instantly. I'm surprised she could tell the difference though because frankly, my eyes are quite small -_-

Yesterday, she squeezed the empty milo box which was in the trash can. And as expected, there were little drops of milo all over the floor...which exasperated me to no end. So the lil one quickly took a piece of wet wipe and start wiping the floor. Ah..how to be angry at her wey..

While she was wiping the floor, i quickly took the camera to take her pics...

Wonder whether she'll be still smiling so happily when i ask her to sweep the floor in 10 years time. Heh.

Self feed

Peanut has recently started to want to feed herself. One day, she just took the spoon from us, and started shoving food into her mouth. She makes a lot of mess and most of the time the food ends up everywhere but in her mouth, but we're cool with that. After all, it's a stage that they need to go through. And it gives me a breather, asI have more time to shove food into my own mouth instead lol, though the cleaning up after that is a killer.

Totally unglam shots of her eating her spaghetti:

Yellow lights

Long long before when we move into our new place, i told DH that there's one thing that I won't compromise on when we did the renovations. And that is all the rooms in the house need to have yellow / warm lights. No white lights for me! It's a no no ehehe. I cannot live with fluorescent lights because it makes a place seems so sterile, or hospital like. So yes, all our rooms now, including the bathrooms have yellow lights. it just makes the home seems warmer, and everything looks nicer. Even myself, when i look into the mirror lol

Even when we go to mamaks / cafes, i tend to be drawn to those that have warm lighting so yes, to me lighting is very important!