Can't get enough of cake decorating

And the craze for decorating went on and on and on and on....... this time attack was on Wak Yah's birthday cake! Found out that her birthday fell on 11 Nov, so complementary cake from Royals with FREE inhouse designer's input!

Even when they were trying to express their creativity, I had to scream and be irritated as i need perfection on the cake... heheheheh i'm so insane, rite? Anyway, they liked the outcome....

Cute and sincere, rite...? Designer cake! Their own input ok... not mine... I only assisted with squeezing Riyan's hand to let the cream flow....

So ok! Which one of my aunts or uncles birthday next??!!

Look what she goooooot...!

Kudos, Nurul! We are so proud of you.... :)

... and so they followed my interests

Both kids expressed so much interest in decorating the cupcakes. They insisted on having their own design. Mak made extra, just in case my order required more. So they had their trial on the extras. Not only they enjoyed the decorating part... they love to eat them after that too! Except for Riyan who only ate the cream!

Setting up their decorating factory at the dining table. Nurul demonstrating to Riyan the correct way to handle the piping bag and Riyan looking on intensely.
It just had to be a picture of a cat!

Sweet smell of success

My friend, Mariel, asked if she could order cupcakes from the shop but i offered to design them for her instead. So here they are... taaa-daaaaaaaaaaa...! Mak baked the cake while I made the butter cream. First trial was with Siti Nadiah... awww man! It was a disaster! too soft.... second try, I modified the butter cream so it'll be stiffer and less sweet.

Success!!

Using mak's trusted kitchen aid... without it i'm ka-put! She was rather worried i guess. She kept telling me "mesin dah panas, dah panas..." (already hot in English) hehehehehe

Believe it or not, I succumbed to the bad virus that has been floating around. I'm now having fever and flu... got a 2-day MC from the doc. Thought i could rest at home but too noisy and Riyan was always asking to do things for and with him....

Any-hoos, let's look on the bright side.... HOLIDAYS! We settled for KL. Yes, again. No comments about it, please.

I had many, many, maaaaaaaaaany headaches and almost crossed my eyes looking back and forth the SQ page to get a good Hong Kong flight. But too late, i guess. All the good and early flights were sold out... for the days we could depart, only available was the afternoon flight, reaching HK at night and the retun flight was in the morning at 10am! No way! Such a waste of money and time... imagine having to reach the airport 3 hours before departure. What about breakfast??? and so... KL it shall be. New pit-stop, it'll be to Sunway this time round.

The bad thing was, again, like any last minute bookings, we had to split our group of 6 adults and 5 kids into 2 buses. Yes, still taking the Soliatire Transtar. And... *boo-hoo* no more Grand Millenium now... had to work around aunt's budget. I booked Dorsett Regency for us. I had a few other choices but i wanted one close to the bus terminal and of course, close to Pavilion... heheheheh. I made sure that the hotel had very good reviews... and it sure does! It's one of the best and value-for-money 4 star hotels in Bukit Bintang area! *phew!* cos if it ain't, knowing myslef, i won't enjoy the trip and Pa wouldn't hear the end of my naggings about the hotel.

OK, so now planning the itenirary! See ya, KL...!

Dec 2010 holidays

I am in need of a vacation. D.E.S.P.E.R.A.T.E.L.Y.

That's been the hot topic of the past few weeks at work... apart from the excitement of Mariel's wedding.

I'm finding it difficult to adjust to taking holidays during the school break. I mean, we used to just take the kids off school for a couple of days or weeks so as not to bump into the holiday crowd overseas. You know what i mean. You want to get to a place where you see few SG peeps and not bump into them even overseas!

Now that Nurul is in Primary 1, oh man! so difficut to take holidays during school term plus airfare during the school breaks are always so expensive since we are pro SQ. hurhurhurhur..! And i always need to mention that some airport taxes cost more than the seat itself... :(
The current weather condition around Asia is not helping much too. Too many unexpected natural disasters happening, Subhanallah! Please protect us from any form of disasters. Amin.

So, what now? I'm not planning for somewhere far. KL? Bintan? Hong Kong may need to be put aside first... everything is so rush. I couldn't take it. I need more time to prepare the itenirary. My brain juice is not flowing nowadays. I kept surfing back to the same site when looking for alternative places to visit. I took 3 months to prepapre for Tokyo previsouly. Plus another 2 months prior to that to purchase the air tickets. It's just me. I need everything to be perfecto! Now I'm scrambling.

IDEAS people, IDEAS!!!!

*SIGH* like what Patrick the starfish would say: I'm going to use...MY BRAIN.

My pride

October 2010, for Art lesson.

Nurul displayed talent in drawing cartoons or animations. She really surprised me once when she got home one day and started drawing the Chippettes after looking at the movie poster just once, when we passed by Century Square. But... her mood would always count when it comes to neat artwork.

Us at Al Mawaddah

October, 2010. The pictures were taken while waiting for Madrasah at Al Mawaddah, to commence.

This photo of Riyan was taken by Nurul using the SLR. Ade tokoh... ade tokoh (got talent!)

National Museum of Singapore

School kids nowadays really have it good. I don't remember the government giving students days off for exam paper marking. I only remembered having to drag my feet to school even after the exam period. Boy, those days were long gone and forgotten by the govt. They pay more attention to the 'needs' of both teachers and students now... so much so that i'm the one having a hard time here trying to apply which day is best to take leave when Nurul is having her school days off. ;p

Nurul had almost 1 week of school break from 19-22 Oct 2010 due to PSLE marking. I took leave on the last day to take the kids out. Planned to take at least 3 but it was so coincidental that i had to attend a course smack in the middle of the week!

Deliberated on a few places to go to. Science Centre was too far and it was too late as we were only able to go out after fetching Riyan from school. I took the corporate pass to get FREE entrance into the National Museum of Singapore, which i think was such a no brainer cos noone checked or enforced the ticketing rule in the museum.

We went in freely except for the Special Exhibition which I had to pay $12 (shucks!) and the rest of them, free, senior citizen and kids. The Speical Exhibition was about Pompeii... it was good...! Very educational.

Act cute!... memang cute...
We got in by the Fort Canning entrance... no one checked = corporate pass useless.

"When I grow up...

... i want to marry Kakak." So innocent and naive kids are.
We explained to Riyan that siblings cannot marry each other and he can only marry friends, girl friends...

"Like...?"
"err... like your school friends... like Tasnym... Loon..."
"I don't want to marry Loon. I want to marry Tasnym!" So happy was he that he bragged to Nurul he'd want to marry Tasnym.

gulp! Mampos aku kalau Tasnym's mom hears this...