once upon a norza

I may look skinny but I sure eat a lot. I love cakes, pastries and such. The more chocolatey, the better. Unfortunately I can only drool at those pretty things when I see them in bakeries bcause they are usually not halal. Those halal bakeries sell the usual boring cakes (I may be wrong so pls leave a comment if I am) :D

Recently starhub was kind enuff to air the FoodNetwork for free and we love love love the recipe shows! Even Aisyah was smittened and begged us to subscribe to the channel. But there was a lot of repeated fillers and their website is pretty comprehensive enough (and I wouldn't want Aisyah to watch tv that much) so it's a no-go. I thought that if we can bake together, that would be a better activity for her (and me too).


I started on the looks-easy Nutella Bread Pudding, thx to ovenhaven. Aisyah wanted her pudding to be like mini cupcakes so I used cupcake molds. And she requested to add rainbow sprinkles on them too. The end result is a funny-looking bread pudding with lots of nutella+sprinkles on top. Not too bad-tasting on first try. Everyone likes it so I guess this won't be my first and last baking adventure of the year. :p

Well, the song's not that great but I'm just feeling the urge to yell out "Baby, baby, baby, ooohhhh...". Very annoying. I know I'm definitely too old to drool over some small boy. hehe. the song's 'disappeared' in my head but made a comeback cos Aisyah heard Justin Bieber's Baby over the airwaves at pizzahut this evening and she had been repeateadly singing the "Baby, baby, baby oooohhhhhh..." at home.

I didn't watch any worldcup matches but this Waka Waka song is just too catchy for me to ignore it. Shakira is awesome! :p

Believe it or not, my sis and I never had a doll as a kid. My mum once told me that she even gave my birthday doll away when I got it as a present from an aunt. She just doesnt' want us to grow up too girlish. I grew up being fascinated with remote-controlled cars and Lego bricks instead. My primary school friends were mostly boys who talked about handheld games most of the time. My bestfriend's name in primary school is Jeremy and I like him just because he owned a donkeykong game.


Anyway the girls got their first doll last month and they are now in dolly love. She cries and chuckles after a feed. She even pees and can poop although we haven't really tried that because you got to change her diapers when it's full = more $ to get diapers..*urgh!*. Well, after a few weeks of abandoning it in the shelf, they're now back feeding her and checking her diapers. Quite obviously, she is adored by the girls.

Aisyah had her first zoo trip last month...like finally! We had intended to bring her there when i was pregnant with Sarah but I was either too tired, the hubby was sick and/or both of us were sick and tired.

// I can't resist taking a macro at the zoo...heh.

The funny thing was Aisyah didnt seem to be excited but her Ibu (thats me!) was superduper excited. The last time I visited the zoo was when I was single and that was like 7-8yrs back. At that time, I was into shooting wildlife and the next best thing to do that is at our Singapore Zoo.






More pictures from this set.

Unfortunately i didnt take much pictures this time because I had to concentrate more on the girls lest they might wander off into the gorilla's cage...*gulp!*. And the husband would be complaining if I took too much time taking pictures...hehe. I didn't bring my dslr with my lenses but I brought my trusty gxr although I wish it has a longer zoom. 50mm is just not enuff!

I survived the skool holiday...yeah! I have to put my sanity on the line to look after the girls although I am at home everyday. On skooldays, Aisyah would be too tired to be bored and just laze around and doing small activities after her lunch. It's just me and Sarah in the mornings which is pretty a breeze for me.


But during the skool holidays, the girls would be up from 7am onwards, with 1-2 short naps for Sarah (and just-me-and-Aisyah-time or if she's on the computer, then it's me time). And of course, there are the inevitable "I boring lah, Ibuuuuuuu." and "I don't want to friend you har!". It's as if we, the parents, have an obligation to keep the kids entertained 24/7 which is impossible. Having a daily activity/menu plan helps for me as I'm muddle-headed.


The girls would be showered and fed by 9am. Lunchtime is at about 12pm with a light snack and some homework time before that. A secret to keeping the girls happy is to treat them with lots of snacks...fruit, fairy sandwiches, scoops of Ben&Jerry, etc. It keeps them busy too while I cook and clean everything up. Lunchtime is also tvtime because there's SuperWhy, Hi5, Animal Mechanicals and YoGabbaGabba during that period.


It's activity time after that with just something simple like fingerpainting or blowing bubbles at the corridor. The good thing about having siblings is that they can entertain each other after a certain age (for a while only though before the lil one ventures off to climb somewhere) for me to rush to the loo, perform my solat or have a quick lunch. It is good for them to just have time playing and interacting. I will sprinkle a bit of playground time or bring them out to NTUC for some quick grocery-shopping if the weather is good. Well, such activities did help to minimise any brain damage during a month with the girls and I'm already looking forward for the upcoming skool holiday.