Suzette's Parenting and Breastfeeding Blog

This is my first baking in 2009… a bit too sweet to my liking, but still edible. LOL!

It is very simple with recipe below, but I would suggest to reduce sugar by half if you don’t like it very sweet…

4 ripe bananas
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup sugar (reduce if you don’t like it too sweet)
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup choc chips (or chopped walnuts, or both!)

• Mash bananas. Add oil and sugar. Mix well.
• Add flour, salt, and baking powder together and add to the banana mixture. Mix until the flour is blended (do not beat).
• Pour into muffin pans and bake at 180°C for 20-25 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 1 Dozen Muffins
[Source: Veg Cooking]

First of all - HAPPY NEW YEAR to all! Hope everyone have a good holiday and celebration.

After having my own kids, this was my first new year countdown. We went to the Desa Parkcity’s new year countdown celebration. We guessed most of the participants are non-residents in DPC, coz there aren’t any parking lots around 10pm. People parked on the roadside, and it was so crowded! I don’t believe all of them are residents there.

The best thing about the carnival here is that, everything is free. I think Digi sponsored this, coz every booth and freebies given, are printed with Digi logo.

We didn’t know what was happening in each booth, but we just queued up and joined the crowed. LOL! We played almost every games, but too lazy to squeeze to the front area for whatever clown or magic shows. Ian and Isabel each won something from the games. DH’s cousins squeezed to the front area and queued for the free popcorns. Not sure if it is due to late night and a lil hungry, it was so so so tasty! LOL!

These help a lot to wait till the countdown. My children were so tired but they insisted to wait till th firework.

And the wait was so so so worthy! I have never been so closed to any fireworks before. This one is so long, so colourful, and so CLOSED! It feels like the explosion is coming to us. Up to one point, Ian got scared and hide behind me. LOL!

In the past, we lived in an apartment facing KL center, and we could see so many fireworks until we lost the appreciation of them. But the feeling is different - it was from afar, and this one was so closed. I am glad that we brought our children there and that I didn’t miss this one. Hahahaha!

This comes in later than previous years… Too occupied with other things - things that are more fun than blogging. LOL! Yes, lots of them, I will share later…

These were my 2008 new year resolution:

Let’s see what’s the achievements…

Visit dentist twice - FAILED. Only visited once and finished using my 2008 budget… that is because I went to do whitening. LOLO! Never mind, this year should be okay gua?

Brush Ian’s teeth twice a day - CHECKED. After moving to the new house, this is even easier to achieve!

Cook more often - CHECKED. This year, less travel budgt, more working from home, I managed to cook more, but not regularlly. After moving to the new house, I started to cook ‘normal meals’, like rice and soup, etc. Hehehe, so far, so good.

Work out with kids during weekends - Okay…. Not so much, until we moved in. Hope this is not hangat-hangat tahi ayam. I brought them to pool once a while and then cycling too.

Read (and clear!) at least 15 books I’ve bought - CHECKED. Well, I don’t keep track, so just checked from this blog, and I counted 13 English books, and I remember reading a few Chinese junk books at my mom’s place. Hehehe, ngam-ngam passed!

Teach Ian read time - FAILED. Sigh! Is my problem, I have been lazy. :p

Keep spending within 90% of what is budgetted - FAILED. LOL! I failed this one miserably. I did NOT even have a budget. :p

Get a copy of Women & Money - FAILED. Intentionally. After checking out the detail, decided not to buy it.

That gives me total score of 4 out of 8, worse than last year.

As for 2009, what’s my resolution? I am too lazy to think of, but it is after all a good thing to do, and to do a review every eyar…

Ya, I know buying 1 clothes a month sounds ridiculous. But seriously, I have no clothes to wear. Not the usual one where you think “all women complaint about no clothes but they have lots of pieces in their wardrobe”. In my case, almost everyone noticed that I have no nice clothes. It looks really bad on me, when there is function, or even in the office. I have decided that I need to invest in grooming this year - can you believe that my cosmetics are more than 4 years old? I just threw them away, and have nothing to put on my face if there is a function. LOL! I actually borrowed cosmetics from my young cousin for the last Christmas party! :p

Anyway, a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all who visit my blog. May you have a prosperous and great year ahead!

This year’s X’mas party’s theme was “Bling-Bling”…

As usual, I tried to put effort to dress in theme. Not trying to win anything, but to support the organizer. I did this every year and won a couple of best dressed according to theme.

Last year’s “Seductive Christmas Party” was a disaster for me, coz they ended up very cheapskate doing those sexy pole dance thingy, which I refused and walked out of it.

Unlike previous years, beginning last year the organizers would select a few nominees and then insult these people on stage, before awarding the best dressed award. Last year, I accepted the outcome as the theme was “seductive” and I wasn’t seductive (if the definition is to be able to make sexy seductive pole dance or revealing more ‘meat’).

But this year, it was completely a turn off. I actually have a workshop that day and went straight to the party after the workshop. I thought this is an easy theme and everyone would be wearing their bling-bling stuff, but turned out I think I was the most bling-bling girl in the party.

But as it turned out… I was quite disappointed. Again they nominated 3 persons, and yours trully was one of them. The other 2 nominees has NOTHING bling-bling on them. They gave us some time to ‘upgrade’ ourselves with more blings. At the end, they still had no bling-blings.

Then, the MC asked all of us to make seductive dance, posing the most sexy and seductive pose that we have ever made in our life.

I can’t believe they turned this into the same stuff - SEDUCTIVE/SEXY again?! Same thing, I refused, but just did a normal cat walk.

The result was - they gave the award to the same ’seductive woman’ last year, as she was so gungho hugging dancing with the guys on the dance floor.

This party is just so cheapskate. But I hate myself too. I should have just left the party the moment I hear them nominating 3 persons. Previous years, they just announced who is the winner, without having to insult anynoe on the stage/floor.

Since this is my final X’mas party in this company, I just keep my mouth shut. I can’t say “I’m not going to dress up any more” kind of quotes. LOL!

Seriously, why would these people insult people who put effort to dress up? In my previous companies, they did a ‘turkey award’ to people who don’t dress up, instead of the other way round. Anyway, it is none of my business any more.

I tend to give my children breads in the morning, and never give that for other meals. Our sandwich is always the boring ones - 2 pcs of bread with different fillings. Breads - either toasted or not. Fillings - cheddar cheese or jam.

Yesterday I went to Tesco and saw some pita breads. I decided to give my kids a change of taste.

This afternoon’s lunch was Pita Sandwich.

I let them choose whether to have Tuna or Mayo Egg as fillings. Both chosed Tuna. I didn’t expect them to like this thing, but it turned out with very good response. Very simple and yummy. They ate this within the shortest time, breaking the records. I didn’t have to remind them to chew and swallow. LOL! I think they just like to see some food that looks like ‘pockets’.