Doing his Big Brother's Duty

Last Saturday, Jack said he wants to feed his little brother milk. Yes, I know his little brother is no longer little, but they have fun. Sometime, it is good to see them being nice to each other!

Cornflake and Raisin Cookies

Children love them. Again, this is the recipe from AnncooJournal
Ingredients:
250g Butter
175g Icing sugar
1 Egg
1tsp Vanilla powder
350g Plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder
160g Cornflakes (crushed)
50g Black currant


Method:

• Combine plain flour, baking powder and vanilla powder together with the crushed cornflakes and black currant, set aside.
• Cream butter, egg and icing sugar together till white.
• Pour in all the plain flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well.
• Use spoon to scoop the mixture on to the baking tray.
• Bake at 180C for about 15 mins.
  
  

Roast Pork (Siew Yok)

Yummy yummy, gone in minutes! I followed the recipe from AnncooJournal


The receipe :-
1kg Pork belly (best with a little more fats) ~ clean, dry & cut into half

1/2 tbsp Coarse sea salt

1/2 tbsp Sugar

1/2 tbsp Five spice powder

1 tbsp Rice wine (Shaoxing or White rice wine)

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl until well combined

Method:

• Score the flesh part (not the skin) of the pork belly lightly in diagonal lines and rub in the marinade well.
• Place the marinated side down on a container so it can sit and absorb the flavors.
• Use a skewer or satay stick to poke repeatedly on the skin, then rub more salt on the skin only.
• Marinate the pork belly uncovered for several hours or overnight in the fridge so that the skin will dry completely.
• When ready to cook, pat dry if there is any moisture left on the skin and place pork in the middle of the oven. Remember to place a foil and pan underneath to enable fat to drip into the pan.
• Bake in the preheated oven at 180C for 45 mins then switch temperature to 200C for another 20 mins.
• The skin will get slightly burnt and charred.
• Once cooked, remove pork from oven, scrape off any burnt parts with  knife ( and leave to rest for 10 mins before chopping

Cooking

I am never a very adventurous cook. Most meals are simple and easy to prepare type of cooking. Our Filipino maids, they are not really good cook. When I discussed with my friends about the maids' cooking, they asked me whether I noticed or not, there are hardly any Filipino restaurants around. Yeah! that's explained whey their cooking are not the best. 

I usually prepared western meal for dinner includes chops, steaks, pasta, fish and occasionally 1 night with fried noddles or tom yam noddles. I cook rice and dishes mostly on Saturday and Sunday. The children's meals are mainly cook by the maids. They usually have rice or porridge with some meat, vegetables or soup and sometimes some simple western food like nuggets, fish and chips or sausages.

I started to be more adventurous when Jack started asking about making cupcakes and bring to school for his friends. I started with cupcakes, then muffin, then cookies, jelly, pudding, then finally ventured into other Western, Chinese dishes or anything that interest me, or the cooking method is not so complicated or the ingredients are not too difficult to find. I started this most probably 2 months ago. I started to have interest in recipe posted on blogs or website. 

I have previously done some other cooking but have forgotten to take some photos of them. However, last Sunday, I tried the roast pork (siew yok), so easy to make and also, a successful one! Then, I decided to make the cornflakes, raisin cookies, too! All Successful! Children loved them, maids and husband approved the roast pork. What can I say more! A very satisfied mother and wife!

So, I am going to share some of these recipes, which I have tried ( approved it) in separate posting. Hopefully, some mothers out there could have a go and enjoy the compliment from your children or family when it is a success case! Also, enjoy the moment to be able to do things with the children like making cupcakes or decorating the cakes!

Should you keep secret about your IVF treatment?

I have kept my IVF treatment as a secret for quite some years. I only revealed this to a few family members and close friends, and to people who read my blog. I do not know why I do that, most probably with the perception that people will react by saying"oh, no wonder! so long got no children". I guess people may have figured out why I got the twins but some people will still asked me "do you have any 'twins' history in yours or husband's family?"

A few months back, Dr. Prashant's office contacted me to seek my permission to use my children and family's photos for their website. I struggled with that idea, to reveal or not to reveal? 

I spoken to one of my friend and he thinks that is nothing wrong or illegal for what I have done. Infertility is a very common problem and when my children grown up and able to understand, then, I should explain to them that mummy and daddy got some problem and have seek medical help and this is how, they come to the world and join the family. That conversation has actually changed my mindset and after speaking to my husband, we consented the clinic to use the children photos but not the one with us.

Our beautiful daughter's photo is on their homepage http://www.klfertility.com/ and the rest of the gang can be found here http://www.klfertility.com/fertility-treatment/frozen-embryos/

Actually, I felt honour to be able to be selected by Dr. Prashant, out of his thousands and thousands of success cases. Two months back, the clinic called to seek permission again to use my children's photos for their brochure. We consented that without any hesitance.

From now onwards, I am not going to shy away from people's question whether or not I seek IVF treatment and feel great with my blog followers, who, some of them, become my friends, visited my home and children and some, who seek advice and successfully got pregnant. This is great thing, I am able to share my journey and help others with theirs, too!

They want to be Super Heroes

The children decided they wanted to be superheroes for a day.

K, to the rescue

The Big Bad Wolf Book Fair

Jack and I went to the Big Bad Wolf Book Fair last Saturday. It was an adventurous trip for Jack as we need to park our car at the open car park and being picked up by a Tram. He was so excited about it.

The book fair is from 7th-16th October 2011 and they claimed it is the biggest sale in the world. Here are some of my purchases. It is a real deal, I could only say" wow, cheap, cheap, cheap!"

Cook books RM25 (other range from RM8 onwards)

Children Books - RM5-RM10

Children Disney Books - RM5-RM8

Non Fiction - RM8-RM10

Children Books - RM3-RM8

I went again yesterday with my neighbours but stocks are getting lesser but still managed to get hold a bundle of books.

My Blog Follower Gave Me A Fridge

Can you believe this? I actually got a fridge from one of my blog follower/reader.

Thank you PJ once again. PJ is pregnant and due in November. She needed a bigger fridge to accommodate the extended family, the maid and the little baby. We chatted a few times about pregnancy, maid's issues and become friends. She asked me would I like to have her old fridge. It is not old at all, it looks brand new, actually. 

I am struggling  to fit all stuff in my fridge too, so I thought why not! She has wrapped it up properly and it got deliver to my house!

Now, the children claim that this is their fridge and they like to store their drinks and junks in it.