Table Manners

Since last winter we had a habit of eating in our bedroom to save on heating and electricity bills. I think it developed into a bad habit and we were not teaching Nabila any table manners. We already bought a high chair for Nabila but it was too big and hard to clean so we sold it and continued our eating habits on the floor in the bedroom. We knew that it had to stop and continue eating at the dining table as children do pick up a lot from informal learning and we needed to teach Nabila table manners and how to feed herself properly. We bought the Ikea high chair without the tray and it fit just nicely with our table. Nabila's plate was stuck to the suction plate stay or whatever you call it so she could not lift it up and throw everything on the floor.

Day 1- A lot of rice ended up on the floor, Nabila used her left hand a lot, bit on cucumber slices and threw it to the floor

Day 2- A lot of rice ended up on the floor, Nabila used her left hand a lot but liked crunching and sucking on the broccoli

Day 3-Substantially less rice on the floor, Nabila used her right hand, used a spoon, held the spoon properly and fed herself, minimal rice on the floor and table and more in her mouth. Yippee!

Nabila being cheeky

Happy Birthday to me!

I'm 29 this year. Another year left to complete the 'things I wanna achieve before 30. Thanks everyone for all the wishes. Thank you my darling Mken and my darling Nabila for the lovely Hugo Boss loafers, the dinner we're gonna have this Friday so I don't have to cook, the early morning wish and xoxo, thank you Ayah n Mama for the virtual birthday cake in geni, thank you Na, Ni, Jie, Abg Syahril, Arin. Thank you Aisha, Sarah n Firdaus for the lovely and noisy birthday song. Thank you Abah n Mama, Along, Didi, Yana,Ash,Helmi. Thanks Nazrin n gang for the easter birthday chochies. Thank you all friends who wished in FB. ♥♥♥ to all

Dry Skin?

Winter and the oh-so blistering cold is over but why am I getting a sort of dry-skin-rash on my face now? Aaargh! Imran blames it on the hot water but I've been taking hot showers since forever. It could be that I'm allergic to something but I can't think of anything weird that I ate for the last 2 weeks. I've started a natural remedy regime today and we'll see how it goes. Today I wore a yoghurt and honey mask wiped it off after 10 minutes and applied a thin layer of olive oil. I'm also determined to drink that 2 litre plain water we're supposed to drink. Been going to the loo every 10 minutes. I know that I have to keep this up everyday and at least wait for a week to see any changes at all but I can't seem to stop checking myself (my skin) out when I look at the mirror. I hope my skin will get back to normal or even better soon.

Banoffee Pie

I wanted to make this since back in Malaysia but I just couldn't make the whipped cream. I googled whipped cream and realised I had to add sugar or icing sugar in the double cream so I was again excited to try and make Banofee Pie! I googled several recipes and realized making the toffee was going to take too much time until I found instant toffee at ASDA (my favourite grocery store in Glasgow). I wanted to make it since last week but Imran told me to wait until the Banana was ripe as it was still partly green-ish. I finally made it yesterday not following any specific recipe as I scanned through how it was made I kinda got the important part and created my own.

Ingredients:

4 oatmeal cookies

6 digestive cookies

about 2 tbsp of butter

instant toffee

1 small container of whipped cream + (1 or 2 tbsp) icing sugar

2 bananas

1. Melt butter, crush oatmeal and digestive cookies in melted butter and press on baking tray/tin foil.

2. Spread/squeeze toffee on top of base.

3. Lay cut bananas on toffee

4. Whisk whipped cream with icing sugar until it forms peaks. Spread on top of banana.

5. Decorate with melted chocolate or more toffee

INSPIRATIONS FOR THE HOME MAKEOVER

This is a major project. I've been working on it since being here in Glasgow. Okay, let me just give an overview. Our house is a bit aged. A lot has to be done to it to make it perfect. A lot as in a lot of time and money which we don't have at the moment. So I came up with two options.

Option 1~ Get a loan and renovate the house silly! Oooh how I love this option but of course would cost a bomb. The re-wiring and re-plumbing alone would cost a bomb and I haven't even started with the good stuff yet. Although option one realistically won't start in the first couple of years, I've already got the whole house's new look and plan mapped in my mind. I also did a few sketches of it. It will get better in time. By the time I'm done with it the renovation would have to go smoothly.

Inspiration for Nabila's room: Pink and ...

Option 2~ Deal with whatever you have and still make it beautiful, cosy and liveable.

For example:

Nabila's room. Empty, white walls, 80's arched windows with hideous brown shade, black grilles, brown skirting, parquet flooring, some even came off. Solution: paint pastel colours for the walls, I haven't decided the best colour to go with pink. White bed, pink, sweet bedding with matching cushions and flower cushions and mis matching frames with letters spelling nabila's name and triangle cloths for decorating the walls, small table and chair for tea time, carpet or rug for the floor, bed side table with cute lamp shade.

Another example. The masterbedroom toilet. It's huge, the bath tub was already removed, mis matched pink tiles and the 80's pink bathroom. PVC plumbing sticking out of the walls. Solution: Vinyls sheets flooring, crystal chandelier, paint window frames and door white, add frames/images, bathroom cabinet, shelves with candles and toiletries. Do you get the picture? There still will be some time and money spent on option 2 but a lot lesser than option 1 + my creative juices in charge. It's more challenging to achive all the decor solutions with the most teeny weeny budget. Here are some compiled inspirations.

Inspiration for the Master Bedroom: Brown and Duck Egg Blue

Inspiration for our living room: Greige and hints of Red

Health Visitor

We had an appointment for Nabila to meet the Health Visitor today. The health visitor (Linda) just asked a few questions about Nabila, what is she eating, what time does she sleep, do we brush her teeth and so on. Linda adviced us to stop the 1+ formula milk we were giving Nabila and start on with giving normal fresh cow's milk in a beaker. I totally forgot to tell her that Nabila was also still breastfeeding. I'll tell her during the next meeting. She also helped us register Nabila with a dentist and told us we could register normal ailments with the local pharmacy and get free medicine for Nabila. We got freebies from the Bookstart programme which contained story books, information for parents, children's library registration form (which we already did register for Nabila) and free toddlers tooth brush, tooth paste and tommy tippee beaker. Very useful! If only we got it earlier when we didn't already buy all of the above! Anyway, Nabila has her first dentist appointment next week. Isn't that cute? Oh, and I started giving her fresh milk in the beaker, she only took a few sips and opened the beaker and threw all the milk on the bed and on mummy and daddy... sigh, I knew it even when Linda was suggesting it that this would be a hard task since I already tried the beaker with Nabila a lot of times only to end up having water/juice and milk everywhere. The only thing that works for her is the pop-up straw bottle which we already have one for water. Would have to go and get another one for fresh milk.

Nabila enjoying her freebies

Holland

Day 1-Leiden

We took KLM this time around. We checked in a bag not really because we had to but more because we wanted to. We took Ryan Air to Milan and they charge checking in baggage. so we more or less felt like checking in was an opportunity. We arrived at Schipol Airport on time. We went for nappy change first. Nabila was at her usual 'I-don't-like-nappy-change' tantrum. The interrogation at the customs also took quite a while. They asked to see our return flight ticket, where we were going to stay, our friends invitation letter if we had them with us. after nappy chang + tantrum and customs interrogation we went to get our bag. To our dismay, our 1 piece, only 9kg checked in bag was not at the bag belt. We asked the KLM counter, they told us to give it a couple of minutes. We waited for half an hour at the belt. Nabila wanted to run about but Mummy and Daddy were tired and anxious. When our bag still didn't appear, we lodged a report. They said that if our bag is still missing within 24 hours, we could claim 100 Euros but we weren't excited, a set each of our spectacles, Imran's Jeans, Nabila's ear thermometer..... sigh... A missing bag was a first experience for both of us and it's not a pleasant feeling. We headed to Kak Asima's house, bought the train ticket at the counter, the machines were mostly for debit cards/credit cards and some accepted coins. The excitement of finally reaching Holland was a bit diffused by the missing bag incident. Our ticket from Schipol to Leiden central costs 11 Euros for 2 adults. We reached Leiden Central where we were greeted by kak Asima. Since we didn't have our luggage on tow, Kak Asima brought us to look around Leiden town and bought some necessities we needed. Leiden is beautiful. We didn't know what Amsterdam looked like yet at the time but we were liking the head start Leiden was giving us. It was serene, not much cars, quirky bicycles, canals through the town, windmill. The buildings were a mixture of old and new but the old were very much quintessential. The modern buildings also had a statement. Then we headed back to Kak Asima's home, about 20 minutes walking but we didn't feel a thing as there were so much so see. As we reached the house we were greeted by Kak Asima's three lovely daughters. They were excited having Nabila around. Nabila, of course was ecstatic.

Day 2- Zaan Schans and Leiden

It was a Sunday, the kids didn't have to go to school so Kak Asima and 2 of her daughters followed us to Zaan Schans or err, we followed Kak Asima? Hehehe. We took the bus to Leiden central this time around, because it was raining. The ticket costs 1.20 euros for 2 adults, 2 bus stops away. We took the train to Zaandam for 20 euros. Got 40% discount as Kak Asima has a discount card. Was supposed to catch a bus to Zaan Schans but we missed the 'hourly bus' as it was Sunday, lesser bus frequency. We took the cab that costs 12.80 euros. It was raining but not the heavily drenched rain KL always had so it was still okay. We took pictures of windmills and those very Dutch quintessential houses. We went to the cheese factory and did some cheese tasting. Had lunch (break to be exact) at the museums cafe. Imran an I shared a cup of hot chocolate and 2 cheese puffs (2 euros per cheese puff), the cheese puffs were superb. Maybe it used fresh cheese from the cheese factory? Continued to the clogs factory and diamond shop. Headed to the bus stop only to find out that we were quite near to another train station, walked a bit and it was Zaandjik station which was walking distance to Zaan Schans, if only we knew earlier, could've saved us 13 euros cab fair. Stopped by Leiden again for another stroll and bought Nabila Chuppa Chups lollipops and chocomel (Dutch's famous chocolate drink). At night Imade karipap pusing with kak Asima's mum. I told her what I tried cooking back in Glasgow and she seemed excited that I offered to make it that night. It was nothing compared to the hospitality they offered us.

Day 3-Roermond and Amsterdam

We took a 2 and a half hour train journey to Roermond, border to Germany. The town did look like it had German influence to it, not that I've been to Germany though. The town was beautiful, not crowded at all. We walked a bit and reached Roermond Outlet. Surveyed the shops there, at first we were kinda dissapointed of not finding anything for us. We had lunch then shopped again. Gucci was reasonable just like the outlet we went in Mendrisio, Italy-Swiss border. Hugo Boss was also reasonable. Damage done: a Gucci bag my sister asked to buy, an early birthday present- Hugo Boss loafers and Imran got a Prada driving shoe. Bought Belgium Waffles on teh way back...yummy! Anotehr 2 hours and a half and we reached Amsterdam Centraal. Went for a nights stroll in Amsterdam then headed back home.

Day 4- Amsterdam

Said our good-byes. Hope they'll come visit us in summer. We kept our bag at the locker in Amsterdam Centraal and finally saw Amsterdam in all its glory. We switched day 3 and day 4 itinerary at the very last minute and luckily we did. Imagine rushing from Roermond which was 2 and a half hours away back to Schipol. It was a nice day for Amsterdam. The day was all sunshine. Nice, nice weather for an end of February-early March weather. It was a rainy season so we were in luck. Anyway, we took the 1 hour Canal Cruise. Nabila loved it! Beautiful scenery, different set backs at different stops. Ducks were swimming along the canal, birds flying around. breathtaking! After the cruise we had lunch then headed for Hard rock Amsterdam to get our souvenirs. Got all of us t-shirts. Along the way we passed Dam Square, Leidesplein and people playing huge life-size chess and bicycles everywhere.We wanted to rent the tandem bike but everyone was cycling fast and we imagine we would be just kinda getting the hang of it so we skipped the idea. We headed to Rijksmuseum and the big I amsterdam lettering. Spent time there quite a while as the square was less busy, had a lot of birds, a perfect place for Nabila to practise her walking while chasing after the birds. On the way back we couldn't go back not even passing the red light district now could we? We finally arrived when we saw the actual 'window displays'. There were all kinds mind you! All kinds, looks and sizes. It was kinda surreal, listening to everyone talk or joke about it.... but it had to be the last window before we got back to make us remember! An image of a 'Queen Latifah' wearing next to nothing shaking he booty with a nonchalant facial expression... then we headed back to the station, and on the way we passed the sex museum which was actually quite near to the central station. It just didn't show in the maps...We got our bag and headed to Schipol.

All in all... fun..fun..fun!