Goodbye January 2018

Rainbow umbrellas

Today is the last day of January 2018. We have been going on a good track so far this month!

To me, my daily success is having to put them on nap simultaneously on school days beside putting meals on the table and chilling with them while hubby’s at work. I can testify that we have stabilized into our new routine.

Noelle has been doing ‘good’ in school so far – as in we no longer have to ‘pray’ in the morning that she will be in jolly mood while leaving home (that’s a lot of relief on me). She comes home excitedly almost everyday and naturally bring her reading books to revise with me! The teachers did play an important role in setting her mindset – carefully reminding her that Christmas, birthday and New Year is over.

After the last round of reward for not crying/whining in the morning, we could take away the ‘reward’ system altogether. We told Noelle we have bigger goals in the near future that is to go on holiday – so that means we need to stop buying toys in order to save money for holiday. With the goal in mind, Noelle occasionally reminds Nikki that ‘Mei Mei, no more buying toys ok? We need to save money!’ Nevertheless, she still throws a big tantrum on certain little things when she’s around with us (especially when hubby’s around 🙄)

Nikki’s daily mission is to ‘fetch Jeh Jeh’. She even says that when Noelle is next to her! 🤣 Though she can sit along side me while I work, my companion & joker and picking up a lot of things that we taught her, she has been occasionally on her crying spell! 😑

No need to mention about Norrah – she’s the darling of the month! 😝

Hope this marks a good start to 2018!

P/s: The project giveaway and keeping things organised plus optimizing space have kept me going and inspiring myself – despite the ‘mundane’ daily routine! But this week we are taking a break from it!

To clutter, we first need to declutter

This week’s giveaway seems turning ‘barter trading’ – though it was never our intention.

We gave away a ceramic food stacker which was left in the cupboard unused! This was indeed one of the most wanted by the ladies – a lot resisted it as the community’s (Beli Nothing Project) initiative is to declutter rather than collecting more stuff! The lady who took it came with some biscuits and old angpau papers.

In our store room, there were two stacks of chairs and so we decided to giveaway the brown stack. Two young girls came to collect them. They gave us homegrown brinjals and French beans in return.

We have this rattan hamper basket for some years. The hoarder me finally gave it away! I think the taker actually went through my facebook profile – and in return came with some princesses books and puzzle for the girls!

Two other small giveaways which we sent out by snail mail (for free – stamp cost) are a nursing cover and oil control films.

Besides these giveaways, I actually threw away a lot of old stuff. To clutter, we first need to declutter! The store room has more space now! The kitchen much cleaner! And more room at the book shelves to organize the books!

The third week now that I am maintaining my 2018 New Year resolution!

Cornflakes cookies

Ingredients used:

100g all purpose flour

1 cup cornflakes (crushed)

75-80g unsalted butter

1-2 tbsp fresh milk

1 tbsp raw sugar cane

Mix all the ingredients to form a dough (add more butter/milk if it is difficult to form a dough). Shape it and bake under preheated oven of 180 degree celcius for 15-20 minutes.

Cool down before serving. They are crunchy cookies!

Air fried pork rib with Angel Brand’s rib sauce

Recipe: Blanched the pork ribs and then marinate with the rib sauce, some rice flour and some corn flour for at least two hours.

Air fried under 150 degree celcius for 8 min and then flip, air fried for another 8 min.

Making a difference

Today we did something different from our usual schedule (after school). We sent some food items to the charity collection box at Tesco Ara Damansara (I actually spotted the box last week when we were there).

I could actually do it alone with Nikki and Norrah; but I think the ‘activity’ makes more sense to Noelle – as in she will understand the reasons why we were donating these stuff!

I told her that there are plenty of unfortunate people (especially kids) out there that do not have any food to eat and rely on these giving. The main reason is to make her understand that she shouldn’t be wasting food; instead appreciate the food that I cook up for her! (But I still an advocate of understanding on hunger cues rather than forcing the food down.) While the programme suggests ‘buy from Tesco🙄 to donate’, we actually bought elsewhere – telling her we were maximizing our resources , I.e. when we get cheaper goods, we can buy more!

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lo, biscuits, instant noodles (that was on their list🙄), coffee and sauces (some sauces are those I got sponsored for from Bidor Kwong – I checked they have not expired)!

We may not be able to do big things but we hope our small way will make a difference!

On another note, going to a supermarket after school hours is not a good idea at all – they especially Noelle ran like crazy! 🤦🏻‍♀️ and Nikki followed – she tumbled on the floor at one point and they stopped running after that. We actually get in just to get yogurts and mushroom🙄!

Basic matching numbers

24m25d

Homemade pop corns

Number 1 wanted to make pop corns! And so we did! Just three ingredients: unsalted butter, dried corns and honey!

Measure about one cup dried corns and one slap of unsalted butter.

Heat up butter and add in dried corns. (She was kind of timid with handling fire)

Wait for them to pop!

Popping!

Add honey!

Mix them up before serving!

Tested on her memory after it was done – ingredients and steps! She got it right! I also told her why homemade pop corns are healthier as we used honey instead of sugar!

Our selective giveaways this week

1. Cookie Monster – this was a ‘hand me down’ toy which unfortunately our girls don’t enjoy Sesame Street; so we decided to pass it on! And to my surprise, there are really many Cookie Monster’s fans – this was reserved and taken away within 2 hours of my posting (on a weekday)!

2. We also gave away two porcelain dolls to a lady collector! These dolls hailed from France – I think; really unfortunate that we don’t know how to appreciate them! The lady collected from us this morning. We actually went down our condo to pass it to her – and Noelle passed it to the lady saying ‘these are for you!’

3. Panasonic wireless phone – I think we got this years back from subscription to unifi! We don’t use a landline at home. The lady who collected it from us (She says that she is replacing her malfunctioned phone with this) actually gave us oranges in return! 😊😊 We certainly didn’t expect this!

4. I gave away one good quality maternity panty to an expecting friend. We had it posted via snail mail yesterday!

Love grows by giving. Our girls are really learning to give without expecting! I remember those days when Noelle was so ‘protective’ of our things that she will say ‘no’ to our ‘giving away’ to anyone. Today Noelle and Nikki are cool about giving away! At times, they will ask ‘who’s this for?’; ‘where’s the people?’ (When I tell them the person that collected the giveaways left); ‘are you giving away this to Aunty?’ and even ‘what’s her name?’ (Referring to the person who came).

And we don’t really bother about how these ‘strangers’ will make use of our giveaways. Even if they cash out, it is their choice – making use of the resources available to them. Again, we have a choice to preloved them – but it might be too tedious for me to handle at this moment. I love being stress free from handling other things (I have enough stress from my three girls! 🙄)

Our first visit to Muzium Negara

We initially thought of taking the MRT to the museum but aborted the ‘plan’ – Papa malas🙄🙄! So we drove there!

We just went into the main museum which has four sections. The exhibitions may look small but it is good enough for the kids! Noelle was pretty excited about it while Nikki was timid (because it was dark and unfamiliar to her).

We only paid RM4 for two adults (Malaysian). Kids are free!

Declutter ing continues….

Noelle alone has ALOT of soft toys – first child ma! 😂 But since she was being diagnosed with allergy to dust mites and the skin specialist recommended that we only give her selected few soft toys – we actually packed most of her soft toys to the store room! There were a total of at least 4 big bags of soft toys! These minus the ones she has in the living room and bedroom – she has indeed ALOT! 🙄🙄

So, this week I told her that we are giving away some of her soft toys to/for charity! I told her to select those that she really wants to keep and those that she is willing to part with! She didn’t really make a big fuss about it! In fact, I felt that I had harder time to part away with my soft toys – the mini tweety birds!😝 (at the end, they were still in the store room!🙄🙄😂😂)

Together with a box of random books and clothes, we sent the soft toys to the recycle bin for charity in Tesco Ara Damansara! We actually did this before and she knew what to expect. She wanted to carry one of the bags to the bin herself; and she even waved goodbye to her toys! We did explain to her that these will be given to or cash out for the unfortunate kids/people!