After a week of Chinese New Year break, I’m officially had flew to Bangkok for my new job training on 21st Feb. Yes, after almost 7 years working with the company, I’ve  decided to leave for a better offer and better prospects.

The training was 5 days initially, but then we were requested to stay for another for more practical training, which would be good for us  when we do our job next time, so I’m only flying back on next Friday now. That’s the reason why I have not been able to update this blog for so long…..

Of course it is fun that besides training, I do enjoy shopping, eating and massage in Bangkok, but I really miss Dillon and Kaith a lot, and of course my hubby as well. However for work purpose, I had no choice but to be away from them for 2 weeks, which is by far the longest duration I have to be apart with them, miss them so much…..

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Have you ever organized a house party before? I know, sometimes what makes us back off is the food preparation, and the cleaning afterwards. But to me, I still prefer a party held at home, because it’s more cozy for the guests, more privacy for chatting and especially with kids around, it’s always safer.

I myself had attended a New Year dinner party at my friend’s place last week and the arrangement was good, and easy for everybody. There were 10 of us (excluding the kids) and we had western menu on that night. The host ordered a roast leg of lamb with roast potatoes as main course and did the prawn cocktail, then one of us did the garden green salad, one did egg mayo sandwiches for the kids (but it ended up in 2 man’s stomach), then the rest of the people (including me) chip in to buy a lovely cake for dessert.

The preparation is also simple and hassle-free, the prawn cocktail, salad and sandwiches are just easy to make. For the roast leg of lamb, we ordered it with just a phone call and then it’s delivered to the doorstep! Same goes with the cake, just call to place order and pay online, then it’s delivered to us, it is as simple as A-B-C.

The roast leg of lamb with roast potatoes serve 8 -10 people and it’s really yummy, especially the homemade mint sauce, it’s by far the tastiest I’ve ever had, this cost only RM160.00 including delivery.

For dessert, we ordered Su’s cake and we chose the Chocolate Velvet Cake, not only that it looks attractive, it is really delicious too! The chocolate is so rich but not too sweet, everybody feels so satisfied after having a slice of the cake. This cost RM85.00 with delivery RM10, trust me, it’s really worth the money, and yes, they do cup cakes also.

So next time if you are thinking of organizing a party, try to contact these people, they have a website for you to browse through before placing your order.

Su’s Cake – http://www.cakesforkicks.com/
Roast A Lamb – http://www.roastalamb.com/

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2009 is coming to an end pretty soon, and in the past one year, I have spent much lesser time on my blog so I might have let some of you down as you didn’t see fresh post on my blog as frequent as it used to be (was busy on this blog and this blog too). I have not been constantly reading many of your blogs as well but I hope we could still stay in touch.

I hereby wishing all my friends and blog visitors a happy holiday season and all the best for the coming year.

A Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to all!

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Following “My Beautiful Myanmar” charity project for the Kachin refugee kids that I’ve posted in this blog long time ago, recently a few of the volunteer teachers at the refugee schools have started a non-profit group called HeArt (as in “heart”).

The idea is to produce marketable items using artwork from the refugee students to raise funds for their schools. All proceeds will go towards helping support their education. For these kids education is not a birth right but a privilege and they truly enjoy being able to go to the refugee schools here.

I’m excited to share with you that the first HeArt project with a black and white theme is recently launched. All items are made using original artwork from the students aged between 3-16 years old! I must say that I am touched by the effort and initiatives they have put in to help themselves.

The following items are available for sale:

A) 2010 Year of the Tiger CD Calendars (with Malaysian public & school holidays and inspirational quotes) – RM15 each
B) Angel Christmas Card Pack – Set of 6 designs (Blank 5 x 7 inches with white envelopes)
– RM12 per pack
C) Christmas Gift Wrap & Gift card Set – RM6 per set
D) Small Angel Gift Card (Blank) – RM2 each
E) Handmade Clay Christmas Decoration (only 70 pieces made) – RM15 each (3 designs)
F) Handmade Clay Medallions with photo of artist behind (260 pieces only) – RM20 each
G) Jungle Card Pack – set of 6 designs (Blank 5 x 7 inches with white envelopes) – RM12 per pack

Company logo and details can be printed on back of calendar and cards for an additional RM80 per logo (max. 2 colors). All items come in beautiful handmade packaging.

I personally think they are practical and make great Christmas gifts too. If you think it’s too plain, be creative and put some colour on it to make it more personalized. Do it together with your kids & it will be a meaningful activity for your kids during this school holidays and a good bonding session as well.

If you would like to purchase any of these items to help this meaningful project, please leave your comment and contact here or email me at yiaukaren@gmail.com. Payments can be made to my Maybank or RHB bank account and also PayPal. I will post the items to you by pos laju or registered mail, postage should be borne by you. COD can also be arranged.

I’m also looking for help to sell these items on consignment. Right now the group is marketing them through word of mouth and selling them at various bazaars. Bulk orders from companies or groups would be excellent!

I still have copies of My Beautiful Myanmar (RM15 each) which make great Christmas gifts too, for those who have missed it the last time I posted about it, or those who wants to purchase again for a good cause, please contact me as well.

Thanks so much for your continued support and please help to spread the word around. (To Bloggers: please help to put a short post & link to this, you may use the entire content in your post if you don’t have time to write, let me know & I’ll email to you.)

Thanks and God bless everyone……

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I have not been able to post in the past one week, there are too many things happening ……

Firstly, my sinus got worst. All this while I was just having nose allergy, not really sinusitis (i.e nose infection) but maybe due to my flu and coughing last 2 weeks, it further developed into sinusitis.

So I have to go to see Dr. Vivian again (the same ENT doctor whom Dillon was seeing) because I have been suffering from bad headache, pain in my ears, nasal passage and cheek bones in the past few days, all these are part of sinusitis. There has been postnasal drip into my throat too (it feels so yucky!) which makes me cough, and I couldn’t sleep well. Now I have to be on antibiotic and nasal drops to control the condition, and I was also given 2 days MC.

However, I didn’t really get to rest as I wished, as another bad incident happened. My husband’s grandma, who has been staying with my in-laws and us all these year was admitted to hospital, so my mother-in-law was busy running in and out the hospital, leaving me to look after the kids, although there’s still a maid to help out a bit but I didn’t really get to rest much.

The only good thing is that, both Dillon and Kaith has fully recovered from coughing and flu.

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I have been very slow in updating new post in my blog recently, it’s not that I do not have anything to blog about, but I just didn’t have the time to do so. I also missed reading many of your blogs nowadays…….

Last week was really restless for me, I have to do some makeover to The Baby Bliss website, upload some new pictures to Pixmoments and went for a photo shooting job on Sunday morning, and coincidently I also received many orders on Bengkung and Biotrim over last week so I have a lot of packing and posting to do as well, it’s basically tired, tired, tired and tired.

At the same time, early last week Kaith was having fever and coughing and then followed by myself having the same sickness, and then the virus spread on to Dillon on Friday. At time I’m writing this, Kaith is recovering form coughing while Dillon is still having fever and I’m still feeling sick, feel like I can cough my lungs out.

I really hope all of us get well soon.

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Leonard Da Vinci was brought into the limelight in recent years thanks to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.

Now all of us will have a chance to witness the best of Leonardo Da Vinci, the Artist, Musician, Anatomist, Inventor, Engineer, Sculptor, Mathematician, Philosopher, Geometer, Painter, Architect in Malaysia!!

The DA VINCI’s exhibition will be held from 1st October 2009 onwards at National Science Center and tickets can be purchased at the entrance of the National Science Centre.

This is really worth visiting so don’t miss it!

Admission Charge
Adult (18 – 55): RM 25
Children (7 – 17): RM 20
Family (2 Adults + 2 Children): RM 70
Senior Citizen (55 & Above): RM 13

Opens daily from 9.00am to 6.00pm

Da Vinci The Genius official site
Map to National Science Center

What’s more? If you are a blogger, find out here on how to claim your free tickets.

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I remembered in the last few months, I bought some face masks from the pharmacy for my family, and I tried to get Dillon to wear it at school but he didn’t want to. No matter how I explained to him, he just refused to wear it and he only gave me one comment. “It looks ugly, not nice”.

Well, if only the face masks were as cute as the ones shown below, I bet he would have been happy to wear it, especially that his favourite character is Mickey Mouse. In fact I’d love to get one for myself too, guess which one I’d pick? hmmmm

Where to buy? They are FREE, when you purchase products worth RM 50.00 and above at The Baby Bliss shop from now till 18th October 2009 and while stock lasts.

Besides face mask, they also have these cute sleep masks to giveaway too.

The Baby Bliss shop is located in Atria Shopping Center, PJ or you may go to their website and shop online.

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Last Saturday, I was invited to attend the Enfa Kid Smart Camp held in Sunway Pyramid New Wing and I have brought Dillon along with me.

We were there around 1.30pm, and the organizer was very thoughtful to have a temperature check for all parents and kids before they enter to the Smart Camp compound.

Dillon was already excited to see a lot of fun quest and he couldn’t wait to explore each of them. Firstly we stopped over to play the computer games and see how focus he was when playing the games. No wonder he could passed the quest  and got the 3 colourful bands.

Then we moved on to the next quest where there was a food conveyor belt with food items where the kids were supposed to pick their favourite food. So what have Dillon picked? There were tomato, egg, corn, potato, chicken, macaroni, lettuce and broccoli.

But according to the nutritionist, most of these food doesn’t contains DHA except for chicken and egg, but it still doesn’t meet the daily DHA requirement for a kid, so this is where milk intake can supplement the shortfall. Now I think I really need to try all methods to make Dillon to drink milk again.

Quest no. 3 is called Spell it Big! and Dillon enjoyed playing with the word puzzles, especially after he has watched the Word World series, spelling was just so much fun for him. 

Following is the music quest called Beat It and Dillon got to play the “drum”. They were actually made up of pails and containers where you and I can find at home, same goes to rattle and shake where kids can make sounds and musics with things they found at surroundings.

Finally, the last quest we went through was golfing, which Dillon has been long waited for. This is a quest that requires patience, focus and accuracy from the kids and I must say that the organizer has made the mini golf course look fascinating, there were Big Ben, Twin Towers and Pyramid.

Look at Dillon and see how he played, does he look like having the potential to become a future golfer?

Last but not least, when I passed by the moms-to-be section, I was given an introduction and briefing too. After answering the quizzes, I actually got a mystery gifts which includes a pregnant mommy tee and some useful information booklet.

No No No, in case you are already suspecting, I’m not pregnant and I’m not planning in the near future also. I’m just keeping it for my cousin who is planning for a baby.

This is the first time we attended the Enfa Kid Smart Camp and overall, I think it was brilliant and nicely done. Dillon had so much fun that day and guess what, we are already looking forward to the next event and Dillon said he would want to bring his sister Kaith to attend together next time.

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When Dillon is at school, he used to eat by himself and he can finish quite fast. But when he is at home, he is so lazy to eat on his own and would always demand us to feed him.

Even then, he will take his own sweet time keeping the food inside his mouth without chewing and swallowing it, until you remind him, or scold him. So normally he will take more than half hour to finish his food, with a lot of screaming and scolding from either myself or my mother-in-law, it doesn’t matter if he is watching TV or not, situation is the same.

I’m not sure if this is a phase he needs to go through, or he is just simply not interested in his daily food (I swear that we have made our effort to serve different food every day at different meal time).

Although he still finish his food eventually, but I’m just hoping to improve the situation, I don’t want myself or my mother-in-law to be scolding him every meal time, it’s kind of frustrating for us and Dillon as well.

I’m thinking to start doing those cute bento, like what many other creative mommies have been doing for a long while, this could be a way to attract Dillon to eat his food by himself, I’m not sure if it’ll work but I just have to try and see.

The thing is that, I’m not very good in making these bento. I know from which mommies’ blogs I can find some ideas and recipes, but I just think it’s gonna be a challenge to my not so artistic and hands. How I wish that one day, I could do something like below:

But well, These seem too advanced for me right now, I’d better get some tools and start making some basic bento first. I hope I can have some decent bento pictures to share with you very soon……. (if you don’t see any follow up post after this, you know what it means.. *sob sob*)

Any mommy has any idea or advise , please share with me too.

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I have attended a meaningful event last Saturday, organized by Anggugu – a chinese breastfeeding forum. I’m one of the member and Mr. Yiau was also helping out on photography on that day.

There are booths like Fabulous Mom, The Baby Bliss, Bibi Palace, MumnBaby, Uniq Fullmoon and many more selling kids & mommy’s stuff.

The most meaningful moment was during the “Group Breastfeeding for 1 Minute” event, in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week. There are so many great mommies who keep up to breastfeed their kids even up till 2 – 3 years old and they are not shy or afraid to breastfeed even in the public, the determination and courage are really touching….. How I wish I coul be part of this but too bad have stopped breastfeeding for too long.

Thanks to Anggugu’s team who have work hard together to make this event a success, there are still a lot of things to improve on but I’m sure they can do a lot better next year. Having said that, I’m already looking forward to next year’s event .

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As mentioned in my previous post, tomorrow 8th August 2009 (Saturday) will be the Anggugu forum 2nd Anniversary Event in conjunction with World Breastfeeding Week.

Apart from the “Group Breastfeeding for 1 Minute” event at 11am, there will be forum at 11.30am and also seminar by Dr. Koe at 3pm. Of course there are booths selling baby and kids wear, nursing wear, toys, books and etc. For mommy’s convenience, there’s a baby room for the babies and reading corner for the kids to keep them occupied as well.

If you happen to be in the area, or have no plans for the weekend, do drop by Global Business Park, Jupiter Hall (level 4) between 10am – 5pm to attend this event and visit me…..hehehe and oh by the way, parking is free!!

Map is attached below. Click to enlarge

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to read the wordings, click on the image to enlarge

We are not too old to forget all these, it’s still in our mind, in our heart. It’s just that there are too many variables in life and seductions, lust and greed is everywhere so we just feel lost sometimes. Or maybe we are just too lazy and taking granted that we do not have do all these after married.

It is easy to tie the knot, it is also easy to get divorced, the toughest part is to maintain a contented and lasting marriage and it needs both husband and wife to put in the effort together.

Go home and do these tonight, if you are not doing it already:
-say “I love you”, “thank you dear”
-give a goodnight kiss and hug your spouse

It’s Friday already, have a happy weekend!!

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