Glad To Be Here

Just wanna share these two before and after pictures of my boys’ sleeping pattern on one of the afternoon.

During the transition, they were still sleep like a log. *grin*

I have to cook everyday over here (Shenzhen, China). It is such a challenge for me to think about what to cook for dinner just to make sure that the boys eat what I cook. I’ve to manage my time well too, for I can’t let them play by their own for too long while I prepare for dinner. So, what I normally do is to cook when hubby is back from work.  Since that would be way past my boy’s dinner time (6 p.m.), what I do is to fully utilise the rice-cooker ‘cos I can’t afford to have burnt dinner just in case they fight while I cook.

How to fully utilise the rice-cooker? Easy! Just use it to steam food! I don’t need to worry that it’ll burn my dinner and at the same time making sure that it is well cook. There are 2 easy dishes that I like to prepare, steam pork ribs and mash potato.

For the steam pork ribs, all I need to do is to marinate the ribs way before hand, normally is during the boy’s nap time.
Just use some ginger, garlic, soy source and cooking wine. Leave it for 2 hours. Then put a steel stand in the rice cooker, enough water, put in the marinated ribs, switch to “rapid rice cook” and cook for 1 hour, wualah! yummy steam pork ribs which is tender enough even for the boys.

Another one is the mash potato. This is even easier, just peel the potato, cut into 1cm thick slices. Just pop them in when I’m cooking my rice.
When the rice is done, the potato would be soft enough to be smash with some butter, milk and salt to taste. Or I can use the powder form of ready made “Gravy Rich Chicken”. Easy huh!? Plus the boys love it!

Later on for dessert, what we had is strawberries! Yes, the local strawberries just cost RMB3.50 (around RM1.75) a packet which contain 15 ripped strawberries around 1 inch in size ! Cheap huh?
Just wash and cut them in half, serve with some sugar ‘cos the local one is not that sweet.

Just look at these two..

You know if Mer wanted to eat anything and if he loves it, you better don’t grab it away from him, else….he’ll scream like he has been starved for days! That’s what happened on Sunday after our stroll in Wal-Mart in Garden City Center, (花园城)Shenzhen.

We went over to the Fruity fruit (水果捞), a nice place with green apples as their wall decoration, apple cushion on their chairs and the waitress got “bite me” behind their apron! Cute huh!?
I’ve ordered a strawberry yogurt drink, hubby ordered mix fruit yogurt ice-cream. When my drink came it, I haven’t got a chance to snap any photo, it has gone! Plus I’ve to be fast in order to have a few sip, else my two boys would have finished it for me. For RMB22 (around RM11) for one serving, it sure is nice.
When the mix fruit yogurt ice-cream came, it was the same situation too.. this time hubby have to compete with 3 others! LOL.

There, Mer grabbing the spoon from Hubby

There, Cal’s turn

There, the yogurt ice-cream just after a few minutes, no chance even to snap it’s original look.

There.. Cal blowing balloon bought from Wal-Mart. Notice those green apple behind?

About the taste of the mix yogurt ice-cream.. sure it is nice.. the ice-cream is soft. They’ve got kiwi and mango inside only, but it is good enough for all of us and it is cheaper than my strawberry yogurt drink, RMB15. (around RM7.5)

In my in-law’s place. Yupe, my holiday house when my hubby is back. Well, not exactly holiday house, ‘cos even if he is back sometimes, that is normally not during my holiday. I can’t say it is a get-away home too, ‘cos I don’t feel that it is a get-away for me here. I feel more at home in my mom’s place. Well.. unless we’ve got ourselves a real house, one that have a family in there, i.e. my family. Not including any side of the family, I mean no in-laws from both side. That would be my heaven on earth.
To my kids, this is probably their kind of get-away ‘cos they just love to be here. Over here, they can sit on the floor anywhere except the kitchen and toilets. Here, they always got new toys from their grandpa. Here they always meet up with their cousin. The cute boy in the block, he got the fairest skin I’ve ever seen, big eyes and just sweet look. I used to call him “leng loi” (=pretty girl). *wink*
<a href=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_temm7nulEQg/R9Z5BqVwrpI/AAAAAAAAATE/CeI9cpCdqQQ/s1600-h/P1120076.JPG”><img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176457891161353874″ style=”FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand” src=”http://bp2.blogger.com/_temm7nulEQg/R9Z5BqVwrpI/AAAAAAAAATE/CeI9cpCdqQQ/s200/P1120076.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”" /></a>Now all 3 of them sitting quietly on the same sofa enjoying their TV show. Wanna see how they look like when camera is on them?
Well, the one on the right was taken quite some times ago.. well.. they are still the same anyway *wink*
<div><span style=”font-size:85%;”>On the right is the “leng loi”, agree?</span></div>
<div><span style=”font-size:85%;”>The one in the middle seems like doing</span></div>
<div><span style=”font-size:85%;”>a commercial for the prune company</span></div>
<div><span style=”font-size:85%;”>*grin*</span></div>

The school holiday is officially started for a week. Like usual, since the boys can’t really stay under one roof and my mom is not able to watch over them all the time, so Mer ends up in the babysitter till eventhough he is not going to school.

As for Cal, poor boy, he is down with fever. I hope he’ll recover soon before the trip to China. Else he might have problem in getting into that country.

Last night was a typical night for all of us, having my sisters and kids around. So the two boys can play with their cousins. There are lots of space in my mom’s place since it is a kampung house with lots of front area. So all of them can ride on their bikes, scooter and rollerblade. Yupe! A gathering for the kids. During dinner time, they would eat more, and that is especially obvioius for Mer and Ru (Cousin). After dinner, they started their activities again. So by the end of the day when comes bed time, they would be exshausted and fall asleep pretty fast.

It happened also yesterday that Cal really get on my nerves. How you may ask. Well.. firstly he didn’t listen and follow instructions, 2ndly, he argue. 3rd, he persisted that he is right. He has quite a character. Then to make it worst, he always grab toys from Mer and he is a sour grape.

After that I found it funny but I’ve already spank him for not listening. Terrible mom? You tell me and please share if you spank your kids.

I love baking actually and I’ve tried it years ago.. ya.. years ago, love baking and yet haven’t been doing it now a days. Well.. mainly because I don’t have the time, and further more, things that are bake are mostly consider “heaty” for us in the Chinese term. So I can’t let the kid eat the end result right away especially when they are still warm. But those that I’ve made are better taste when they are warm. So sad huh..

I’ve actually bake cookies, chocolate cake, sponge cake, muffins/cupcake and cheesecake. Ya, that many different types. I remember when my grandpa was still around, his comment was “100 times you bake, and 100 different flavour you have.” I took that as a compliment, but in fact, what he meant was I wasn’t being consistence in my baking skill.

Last night, Cal was telling me on how to make cup cake! A 5 year old telling me how to bake!?
Well, at least it shows what interest him. When I ask where did he learnt that, he said “TV!”
Ok, alright, if that is where he learns it, I doubt that he’ll know exactly what to do. He was even wanted to bake it this morning. Sounds so easy for him and since the TV doesn’t show the exact time on how long it has been in the oven, Cal won’t know how long that would be from just telling him the time. That’s why he thought he can do it in a nick of time.

After some nagging from him and after all I do want to try how fun it could be to bake with kids, so I promised him that we are going to do that this weekend. Let’s just hope this will let him know exactly how is it to bake things by using the oven. Keep my finger cross that the cake or whatever that I decided to bake will be whatever it should be.