HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY !!!

As usual we had a few rounds of celebration for the boys' birthday....i wonder when i will stop torturing myself with these!!

Yesterday (a week day) was their actual big day so last weekend, on SUNDAY we had a pre-birthday party at home only with my immediate family members but that was already enough to caused me into being a "cooking maniac", as i have 5 sisters all together with only the youngest being single. So together with the hubbies, kiddos, my parents, sister MIL, 2 maids, there were at least 19 mouths to feed!

So bear with all my back-dated posts with the amount of tasks that i had to swallow for the past weekend !! Again the photos will do more talking here....

Tesco has these balloons with the age of the birthday, interesting heh!!

The culture continues ....

... The kiddos ...

Great to see ppl enjoying my masterpiece.........hah hah

B'day boy no.1 Sean with cousin


B'day boy no.2 Scot with cousin

Their activities ..... games




Sam yee with Nic & Wyee





So, what did i offered?



*** A BUFFET ala JAPANESE STYLE ***






I had contemplated to do tempura prawn like forever but none was successful, thus far.....sigh!

Anyone can advise how to make the prawn stay straight & DO NOT curl after cooked, chris??

*** SOBA ***

*** SUSHI, INARI ***

*** FRIED STUFFS ***

Apart from the above, I BAKED TOO .....

*** Vanilla sponge cupcakes with FLORA egg whites icing ***

*** Not just baked one type but TWO ***

*** CREAM CHEESE WALNUT BROWNIE ***

I also made 'Serimuka' kuih to ensure the stomachs get FULL coz it's glutinous rice ma...haha

I almost can't believe that i made it thru (it was like a milestone achieved...hehe).

You know what, the fact that my BIL commented that "only the effort put in to do these were already suffice to give a big applause & appreciation with the "TASTE" of the food being secondary already"......how touching!!

p/s: and my "loukung" didn't forget to say "san foo sai" mumy (really hard work of me) that night before we retired, hahaha !!

The boys were not behaving well this time, without even realising, they went & opened the presents!!

PRESENTS

LEGO

(notice the little kiddo disturbing & got sean ko-ko annoyed...so cute)

SAFETY HELMET

finally got them

There were 2 more MIND games that Godpa & 'sam yi' bought but forgotten to snap pic.

On the actual big day, mumy & dady treated the boys to their favourite piece of cakes from Secret recipe!!

These are what we got them....cheaper version of the PDA, somethg the boys had been eyeing for quite a while (despite not exactly knowing how it works). About RM35 each...good gadget!!

And guess what, since the boys will be bidding farewell to their little classmates of 3 years after graduated this year, we planned for a celebration in the kindy this coming Friday in conjunction with Party Day (last day of school)!!

Stay tune for the BIG Surprise for them!!

till then .... continue to be busy folks!

The twins and their weekends.....

My boys had a very weird sleeping habit. Either one of their hands or legs got to be clinging/touching someone (either huby or me). And even if we managed to shoo them away while they were fast asleep, they tend to be easily woken up if their hands & legs aren't touching any human!! Usually huby needs to allow himself to lie down in between d 2 boys when they are ready to retire..... Their queen bed is just next to ours but every night without failing, they will get up punctually & crawl up to our bed so we will end up with 4 fat pigs & piggies squeezing on d king size bed the next morning!! At times, it can be really frustrating coz it kinda limits our movement which also means we hardly have a very flexible & comfortable sleep...... :( sigh!

Despite we renovated their bedroom & tried putting them to sleep in their comfy mattress, they will still get up in d middle of the night & WALK back into our room !!! sei mou.....??

Now i began to wonder if it was due to the "physical CLOSENESS" they had been experiencing ever since in the womb.....being twins....that they are now in dire need of companionship ??!!! Since birth, they had been living & doing things in pair.....doing almost everything under the sun together. But lately, dady & mumy are getting lesser & lesser in tolerance with this habit. We will 'beat' / 'push' their limbs away whenever they tried to sneak under us.....and at times dady even reluctant to entertain their request to sleep in between them!! Dady said: big boy edi.......

So few nights ago, while dady was busying with his laptop in d room, i caught them hugging each other (seeking companionship) like d below, ...... LOL !!!

Awwww.....no matter how much they fought.......

Saturday was another busy day for us. First half of the day was gone with the boys attending their abacus arithmetic lesson. Both huby & I actually wasted 2 hours hanging around waiting for the boys to finish the class which can be tiring too. Turning back home was a tad far in distance....:(P.......By the time we were done, we had about an hour of rest in the afternoon before i started my cooking for that night.

Another pot luck session at my elder sister house which is just across our housing area, hers is the new phase!! Sister invited mom & dad over for dinner so since we were so near, it would be more merrier to have us around.

We reached her place earlier as the boys had been very whinny for another cycling session on the road!! Right opposite sis's house has a quite steepy road which the kids deemed very fun for their cycling stunts but huby mentioned that he was so worried seeing the boys speeding down with the bicycle!! Just a rock, they would have trip & fall rolling......... The sad thing was, the boys were not keen to put on the safety gears (ankle & knee pads) we bought them last week!! Apparently, they claimed that the pads made them uncomfortable with their movements!! And we've yet to find a good helmet.... Guess, we gotta be more strict in enforcing the safety gears ruling on the boys the next time around, or else they would risk not having another cycling session!

My 'fatty' Sean showed a 'nasty' face coz he was forced to stop by his mumy for a photoshot....hahaha

The ever smiley Scot........

Since it was pot luck, i'm sure you wana know what was my 'showcase' for the night.......rite??

Here you go :

Grilled Teriyaki Chicken satay/skewers with carrot, pumpkin & cucumber !!

Steam minced chicken meat on japanese tofu. Top with finely grated carrot & cucumber!

.... GOOD AHH ....???

NEXT are my sister's offerings :

She's a big fan of soup, without one in a meal would die type!

So here is her " hak yi kai "/ black chicken herbal soup

Others were steam fish, minced meat with tofu (yes again....) & veggies....

Our dinner ended around 9:30 pm.....obviously continued with the chinese tea session over the dining table 'gossiping'....

OOh ya, btw i ventured a little further last weekend with baking some simple cookies, the recipe of which i adopted from the blogsphere....

As it was a virgin attempt, i expected some kind of failure but was indeed surprised that it turned out very 'ok' !!!

Before decor......

After decor......

My almond & orange cookies

The following day (a sunday), i had agreed with my mag (4th sis) to bake some cupcakes for her colleagues, a little treat that she wanted to give her colleagues as she bids farewell to that department!! alamak........ u say i pressure or not....?? next post ya.....

btw, i forced mag to take a box of my cookies for her colleagues too, where she had initially hesitated. Then her sister win over the persuasion, so off she brought the cookies along to work on Monday!! This evening (Monday), she SMSed me saying :

eh, your cookies very 'laku' la, before lunch time oredi finished.......can make bis!! ngek...ngek...ngek !!! thou i can confidently said that the cookies are edible, of course i knew that my lil sister was actually teasing me!! aiya, for m'sian.... free 'makan' sure can finish wan.....rite??

The monday blues had already over......hope u will have a good week ahead !!

Bento week # 14

Well....am glad that i'm starting to almost..... regularise my bentos posting, it can be quite stressful with lots of back logs!! Partly also bcoz I'd finally got a multi flash cards reader so am no longer restricting the upload job at home anymore !!!

Start of with the boys' bento:

Monday

Left to right :

fruit jelly (which i made additional during the mid autumn festival);

Nectarine & strawberry on picks;

1 rice ball & fish fillet cube on picks.

During weekend, i bought some fish paste from the wet market as i wanted to fry some fish fillet as stash, at least it's not the frozen type thou the fish paste was not home-made still..... sigh! So knowing that there is a possibility that the boys might be lazy to chew on the fillet, i got to cut them into little cube of mouthful size!! The trick worked....

Tuesday

Got to be light and the bento can even be missed (if mumy is lazy).....coz the kindy serve noodle on this day. But since there were still lots of bread around & the 'potato maid' already started to show the 'jelak' face eating bread.....hahaha, i thought why not just make some cute little toast!

cut into star shaped, applied some olive butter & toast to crisp;

even added a marsh mallow & gummy heart candy

Wednesday

Was late home as huby has happy hour session from 5 to 7pm & i was 'kept' in the office waiting.... So bento got to sacrifice for simple & quick one!

Mom bought some sweet pineapples & Sean ate a lot at mom's place. Since there were still left over, i grabbed home for the boys' tomorrow bento!

On picks were pineapple, nectarine & strawberry;

3 pieces of snow skin moon cake (d boys had a taste similar to mine);

1 piece of fish fillet & a cheese cube.

Guess what?????

Later in the night only i realised Wed was a public holiday for Selangor!!

...... DANG ......

So there i ate the fruits, kept the moon cake back into the fridge for the next day & i got to finish off the fillet in office.

Thursday

Another simple bento required as kindy serve them porridge!! I wanted to try the animal pasta bought recently from marks & spencer so i purposely dugged out a few pieces.......yeah, only 5 freaking small pieces of pasta....silly hor!!

Was a tad bit dissapointed with the shape as i can't seemed to figure what animal they were besides the fish..........hahaha

In the aluminium case was pieces of animal pasta thaw with butter & garlic powder & carrot slices. more snowskin mooncakes, sausages & cheese cube !!

Friday

This was an exceptionally favourite creation for me.....so far!! No, i don't have such creative mind, i got the inspiration from kitchen snippers and modified with whatever final batch of left overs in my fridge! Thought i should share the steps here....btw, it was a trial & error session!!

Fried a thin layer of eggs.

it was such a big task...i tell u....coz after frying one side of d egg, i don't know how to turn it over without folding or breaking it!! i tried & tried, finally got to call out to lou-kung & he quickly came to my rescue! but he also got no idea how to do it so he was holding the pan away from the stove (scared that d egg would burnt)....trying to figure! Finally, he got me to get him a flat big plate for him to transfer the egg on then can turn the other side back on the pan........hahaha.....4 hands to get this done !!!

Let the egg cool a bit, lay a sheet of seaweed on top of the egg.....

i had earlier on thaw my left over rice on the pan with some oyster sauce, pepper & chopped crab sticks, which i then placed thinly on top of the seaweed sheet.

next, sprinkle some chicken floss.....

some more added some mayo.........aiyo !!

Then, can start to roll it up before cutting them into sushi size...like below!!

*** Tadda ***

The down side of it was since i wasn't using the sushi rice, it wasn't sticky as sushi & i need to fasten it up with a food pick, else it might unroll !!

But taste wise, no doubt la....without trying also i knew it suits our taste very much bcoz all ingredients (eggs, fried rice, chic floss & mayo) are the boys & our favourites!!

Huby acknowledged the good taste this time........hahaha (by saying: "emm, yau chun pou" / improving)

Above was for my bento, the head & tail of the egg roll go to me. 2 pcs of nuggets with chillie sauce in lilo container. 2 pack of gummy sweet to fill the gap!!

***********************************************************

Next is another bento of mine.........

I still had some veggies in the fridge on its' way going rotten soon. Besides that, there were also stash rice, sausages & crab sticks waiting to be cleared..... so obviously & unfortunately it was the mummy that always need to clear them.........sigh !!! Gone are the days where dady was the 'bandaraya' / rubbish bin clearing left overs......

Left : my favourite steam lettuce with fried garlic & oyster sauce.

Right top : 3 pcs of sausages with shaped carrot slices on top.

Right bottom left : 2 tiny ball rice (hem...hem...so little hor but i was actually punishing myself for 2 meals of nasi lemak the day before.....hehehe)
Right bottom right : fried sliced crab sticks

Have a great weekend !!