Too fast.

I can't believe she is going to be 2 this year! Where did the time go? I feel like I just gave birth yesterday. Well if i look at my body, I would still think that I am still pregnant. Haha.

She is one funny kid. I guess she inherits it from my dad. She amuses us every single day with her wits. I would say my life is complete now having a great loving hubby and a sweet cheeky caca around.

I do get questions about the second *cough baby. The 'when' question. Hubby did say that one is enough.  My family too. An Indian nurse asked me whether I will try for a second one. She was attending me when I was warded in ICU last month. I said maybe just this one and told her abt my conditions. Her immediate response, " Tapi kalau Tuhan nak bagi, ambil ajer.." That is so true. So I am letting Him to decide.

Marissa's nursery!

Hi! I just realized that I haven't talk about Marissa's nursery.  It has only been about 2 months but she is adapting well there.  She used to cry whenever I sent her off or fetch her from the nursery. Now she won't look back to wave good bye! I get irritated at times.haha.

We noticed that she has improved in a lot of things too. She has no interest in mobile phones anymore; she behaves well; understands instructions and speaks better too. even the principal said caca is adapting very well too.

They do provide daily report to the parents. In it they will write down the time caca is being fed; shower and poo. They will also write what caca eats for lunch and the activites done on that day.at least 
I can plan which activity that i would like to do in the weekend.

They alternate the food every week and I am very happy that they serve healthy food to the kids. I am very particular about Marissa's food. She is almost 2 but I have never given her any type of sweets, milo, cereals or any other processed food except biscuits and breads.  I just started introducing cake to Marissa but I would carefully select it first. Her diet is usually any type of finger food that i made like pancakes, french toast, homemade nuggets, but her favourite would be soup with all sorts of vegetables and protein.

Some of the menu that I see are soft tofu and fuchuk porridge; pasta served with carrots, potatoes, minced meat and dried basil soup; salmon,carrot &potato porridge and chicken and broccoli porridge. She refused to eat nursery's food for the first 2 weeks but now the teacher said she can finish up 2 bowls of porridge sometimes.

Activity wise, they do focus on motor skills, cognitive development and social development.
Some activities might be very light in adult's eyes but very crucial in developing certain sets of skills. There will be at least 2 skills or role play that they do every day. Enough to keep Marissa occupied and gets her to sleep early every single night!

The teachers are super nice too. I have not seen any of them raising their voice to the kids. Ration teachers to kids are 1: 2 or 3 depending on the age group.  The are great with the kids and Marissa loves them so much.

Fees wise; yes it is pricier than any other nursery out there but it is not easy to find a place that we love. Some of my friends are quite shocked with the fees but both hubby and I are very fussy. Some even question our decision but we said why not? If you can splurge on unnecessary stuffs, buying expensive clothes for yourself, branded items etc, why complain about paying a bit more for your kid's well being? Anak tu amanah Allah. So to us, providing the best for her is number 1.

We look into a lot of things in looking for a place for Caca and this nursery suits every criteria we look for. I have no complain about the fees since the teachers are all certified with either in nursing or in early childhood.

Status changed

I have changed my status from a stay-at-home mom to a career mom recently. 2 weeks to be exact. I've decided to choose  the job that is nearer to my house eventhough I got a better offer from my previous company.

Alhamdulillah it is the best decision so far because I get to be home before the sunset! 

Workwise; I am still in training and will be in training for the next 2 months! It is a loooonggg training but it is essential to all of us.

I do miss being a SAHM. I am still adjusting between the job and chores. Am still failing miserably in it even after 2 weeks. I missed seeing the house in a superclean state! Luckily there is no complaint received.hehe.

How's Marissa?I'll update about it in the next post.

Aquatic Aquarium

This is hubby's current project; Aquatic aquarium. He has been studying and planning it for a couple of months. We customized the aquarium since we couldn't find the right size for our wall.

At first he planted the plants using dry method which is supposed to be easier than planting it straight in the water. That is because you need to get the CO2 first if you want to plant it straight in the water. However most of the plants died due to the heat. So we decided to get all the water filter and CO2 installed first before putting up the plants.  The plants grew quite fast after that!

He added the fish later in stage and we bought some shrimps today! Here are some of the pictures of the fish. We have a few more types that is not in the picture.

Bread Baking class

We went back to Perlis for a few days. I had a baking class and kak rani's place again and this time I learned how to make breads and buns!

The class was conducted by Mamazieza from penang.. There were about 10 of us and boy oh boy it was fun. The class started around 9am and finished around 6pm! I was already missing Marissa by 4pm. Lol.

Mamazieza uses pure butter in her recipe which I like! Of course any recipe that uses pure butter tastes a lot better.she also gave tons of tips such as how to get the dough to be elastic, how to roll the dough and how much dough needed for each type of bread.

It took a long time to get all the dough rise though. It has been windy in Perlis and Kedah so the yeast is not working that well. Howevwr, despite having to wait for quite sometime for the dough to arise,  the end result was sooooooo good! Every bread is so soft, buttery, fluffy and taste sooo good!

This is indeed a class that I will always treasure. We took all the bread home and my mom said everything was delicious.

Check out the pictures I took:

The starting of 2014

Wow..it's already the 12th of January 2014. Time sure flies so fast. What is your resolution?

I don't have a specific resolution but I have started looking for a job. I have a few offers in my hand which needs to be considered.

I still remember Chef Marina asking me whether it is hard to find a job after leaving the career world for awhile. Alhamdulillah, rezeki tu datang sesungguhnya dari Allah. I have been getting job offers which is better than what I had done previously. I thought people would be prejudice about women who have left work for more than a year. I guess I am wrong.

I have yet to decide which company to go but I do have one more interview tomorrow with my previous company. It is for a position I haved dreamed about. However,  it comes with a bigger responsbility which I need to think through.

I would like to start travelling again this year. Marissa is bigger now so I guess maybe we can start going for a long trip. That would depends on how demanding my job is. Other people might want to spend their money branded stuffs or big cars and houses, but I rather spend it seeing the world.

I have started taking orders for swissrolls for the last 2 weeks and boy oh boy; it has been overwhelming. Alhamdulillah rezeki Marissa..order datang bertalu-talu. I still want to continue this eventhough I have started working. My other resolution is to attend more baking classes this year. Ilmu itu satu jihad jugak kan.

Despite of all this, I am experiencing separation anxiety with Marissa. I will need to start looking for a nursery for her. Living in damansara is definitely not a good choice for a budgeting parent. A full day daycare can cost to almost rm1000 a month. I wonder if she can cope not having me around. I know I can't!

Pink Lilies

My house smells so good at this moment. The pink lilies that hubby gave on our anniversary are blooming with joy! Hehe.

The lilies he got this time are huge. Bigger than my hand. I put them in 2 vases; one in our bedroom and the one in the living room.

This is way better than store bought perfume!