Kiddy Ride

Like other children, Audrey loves to take a 'ride' on those kiddy ride machine located in shopping mall especially the one inside Jusco. Her ride was actually very cost saving as she doesn't allow us to put money into the machine. She just like some 'standstill' ride instead of having fun from the machine movement. I told hubby, "see how this little gal save your wallet". Since it was a free ride, we don't mind letting her to ride as many times as she likes.

Kiddy ride can be costly if you have few children who will take turn to have the fun. Sometimes I feel it was just a waste of money as we could easily spend few ringgit just for few minutes ride. Hubby always exclaimed that this was one of the easier way to earn income.

Oh... I'm on the "tut tut" train now, where are we going?

This is my sesame car

Ops.... am I suppose to turn left or right?

Handcraft

To turn Audrey in silent mode, I know that I must find some work to keep her busy. Even it's only for a short hour job, I would be pretty happy to have some peaceful moment especially after work. So to fully occupy an hour of her night time, I'll let her do some hand craft. I'm not preparing hand craft for her but just let her do some "sticking" work from an exercise book.

I got those hand craft book from bookstore like Popular with a reasonable price. She enjoys doing it as she got the chance to play with glue. Children always like something new or something they only got chance to play with once a while. I'm released when she concentrates on her craft work.

However, it's time again for me to replenish stock for her craft book. She had completed her craft book and I need to find some new hand craft work for her now.

My New Camera

Finally without making any further comparison in term of pricing with other shops as well as in term of functionally with other model, we decided to go for this!

Canon IXUS 80 IS.
- 8 mega pixels

- 3 optical zoom
- 4 MB SD card
- Tripod (to be collected later)

We pay half of our old unit price and we are able to have this model of camera. We chosen pink casing as we find it so sweet, cool and Audrey loves this colour very much. I tried it out immediately and find the photos are in superb good quality. Proof as below.

As I expected, my hubby will spend at least half a day to read through the manual booklet of the camera. He just likes to get used to the function of the camera that we might missed out without reading the manual. True enough, he keeps on reporting to me any new features or function that our formal unit doesn’t have. The most creative function he loves most is the “Color Swap” and “Color Accent” function that the new camera has. Please see below for more understanding.

Sample photo of color swap. The potty and small pail are originally red in color. We have chosen to swap from red to yellow. You won't know unless I tell. So with this special function, it gives you free hand to change the object color according to your preferences. You may choose to swap to any color you like before you capture the photo.

Whereas for color accent, it allows you to focus and snap only your choice of color from your object and make the rest colorless. Referring to the sample photos taken, focus was given to green (on the top) and blue (on the bottom) only. Amazing right!

Go get one if you think this unit is impressive.

Sourcing For New Camera

I noticed my Canon digital camera went missing only when I was looking for it to snap some photos of our ransacked house due to the recent break in.

Camera becomes important especially for blogger like us. Most of the times, photo can express better than any other words. We are too attached to camera nowadays. We snap every memorable moments of our life so that we are able to recall those memories one day with our next generations.

I still remember we bought this camera simply for a reason like other new parents have. We need a camera to snap our first lovely daughter, Audrey. So we got a Canon digital camera IXUS 40 when she was 3 months old. We used that camera to snap nearly four thousands photos. Even our young photographer also used it to capture some special angle that we didn’t pay attention to.

So, without any hesitation, we know we must buy a new one to replace the lost unit. Otherwise, we will not be able to snap my 2 little princesses. Question, which model and brand to be considered? There are too many models in the market with different resolution, functionality, price and promotion going on now? But in our mind, our first priority is still Canon brand. Reason being, our former unit was the same brand and we find it durable and easy to handle (in term of functionality). Secondly, we still keep the brand new battery we bought last few months.

I believe the price of digital camera now is much cheaper as compared to those days when we bought ours. With a lower price, we are able to get a higher mega pixels camera besides some new fantastic functions. Will let you know if we manage to grab any these few days.

What an Unlucky Day!

Tuesday 17/3, was an unlucky day for us ever since we moved into our condo 5 years ago. I often heard from our neighbours about incidents happened around us but never realize that it could happen to us as well.

Our house was being broken into on that day! It happened after we were out for work.

As usual I went back home around 7.00pm together with Audrey. We met our neighbour, Mr & Mrs. Soo at the car park and took the same lift to our units on level 5.

The moment we reached our unit, I noticed the padlock was opened. I was a little confused as I thought the key could only be taken out if the pad lock is locked. So, I'm sure I locked the door this morning otherwise I couldn't be holding the keys. But being too optimistic (should I say stupid indeed), I thought the pad lock mechanism has malfunctioned therefore opened by itself.

While figuring out why this could happened, I opened the front door grill and then I noticed something was amiss. I saw there was some sign of forced entry on the wooden door just beside the lock. Immediately I called my neighbours who was still opening their door. They quickly ran over and asked what happened.

I told them that the door looked like it has been broken into. Mr. Soo took a look and tried to forced open the door. OMG, we saw a door lock on the floor and my tv cabinet drawers were left opened. I ran into our master bed room and found some books lying on the floor. My wardrobe drawer was placed on my bed and its contents ransacked. All my valuable stuff had gone. Cash, some forex (balance left from travelling) and jewelleries.

After checking all other rooms, I was relieved that they were no sign of being ransacked. Then I went to the kitchen and saw a box of chicken essence on the floor. I stared at the rack for a while, wondering what went missing. To my surprise, 4 boxes (half dozen per box) of Brand's chicken essence had gone missing. Sounds funny right?

I quickly informed my hubby about the incident so that he could come back immediately. All the door locks were spoilt and I can't even lock my door at that moment. Mr.Soo was so kind to let me use his extra lock temporarily until hubby was back. Later that night, my brother in law came to help fix a new internal lock, otherwise it would be a sleepless night for us.

Many of you might be questioning what were the guards been doing that this can allowed to happened? I was also asking the same question. Many assumptions and suspicions popped up in my mind. Was any of the guard collaborated with the thiefs? Or the guard was the one who broke-in my house? The thief must be one of the resident here, most likely?

After fixing a new door with more locks the next day, we are now considering whether to install an alarm system. The alarm system must be wireless type, easy to manage and must be durable for effectiveness. Really hope that our life and belongings will be safer after taking these preventive measures.

Ferrari Road Show by Shell

Shell was having a promotional road show on their latest Ferrari car models One Utama shopping mall last weekend. There were 2 famous cars being displayed during the road show. Ferrari sports car and Formula 1 car. The attraction was great. Many people crowded the area to view the world no.1 car. But quite disappointing there were no pretty girl models to pose beside the car. I thought usually there will be pretty and sexy lady posing beside the car to attract more people.

So Audrey and Shannen were given the privilege, instead. Sexy? Hehehe...

Happy Birthday to You, Shannen!

Today is the actual birth day for Shannen. Mummy would like to wish you good health and a very happy birthday. No special present for you today, you may claim "double" next year. He he.....

Shopping Fever

What will you and your family be doing during weekend? For us, usually we will plan for shopping. Otherwise we will just stay home enjoying our "home theater" movie. So last 2 weeks we were reviewing our usual plan and found what we have done for the past were not really healthy.

Window shopping was not an ideal things to do when you are free. The only benefit from shopping that I could see is updating ourselves with the latest products in the market. Other than that, I don't see any good reason for doing so. Oh....one more one more, we got free air-cond hence can save our electricity at home. No joke, during hot day, you will see more people mingle around in the shopping mall.

Disadvantages of loafing at shopping mall:

a. not only torturing ourselves but our kids as well. Can't sleep well therefore feel tiring for kids.

b. bad air ventilation

c. dry skin if you stay in air-cond room for long hours.

d. no chance to have outdoor activities

e. therefore less opportunity to engage with natural things like tree, leaves, birds, sky, etc

f. tendency to spend more

To be frank, I'm addicted to shopping ever since I developed my own buying power. However I admitted that I'm also good in controlling my self when comes to decision making for a deal. I'm kind of a person who will worry from A or Z whether I've made a wrong choice. I feel so sorry to spend on unnecessary stuff which at the end will took up my storage space and worst still, need to throw them away after years of keeping. I rather spend those money on something in need. Am I stingy or in better word wise consumer? Who cares ..... as long as I'm happy spending my hard earned money on what I like, right?

P/S : We went for window shopping again yesterday...... Huh, hubby la, kept on teasing me to go for shopping, all his fault. Luckily I didn't spend a single penny.

Careless Me

I lost one of my diamond earring which I have been wearing since married. This pair of diamond earring was a wedding gift from my mum. Now only left single pair. When I told my mum, she said it's all faith and god already hints you before that. Actually just before this incident, not knowing the reason, out of sudden my left ear was having some infection causing pus. Therefore I've not been wearing it for some days and just leave it inside my wardrobe. However I just find it strange as I thought my ears only can't stand with bad quality like those fake materials of earrings.

So the moment I noticed my earring went missing, I find all possible places that I might misplace it. However no miracle. I even dug my vacuum bag out as I suspected it was being vacuum in but found nothing. Oug.....where are you my diamond earring....???

Shannen Already 'Dui Shui' - Night Part

We don't have big celebration for her first birthday. Like what we have done for Audrey during her first birthday celebration, we just follow the same way as we don't want to have double standard for our lovely gals. We bought a Secret Recipe cake (Audrey first cake was only a normal type and smaller in size..... he he, don't let her know), I chosen tiramisu flavor for Shannen because mummy wants to try the taste from secret recipe. Em.... so so only. The cake was without cartoon decoration as I know she won't care how the cake looks like, as long as she got 'mum mum' later on, she will be happy. Next year la....will request something you like on your birthday cake.

Em.... yummy!

But Shannen, your che che blown the candle on your cake right after birthday song being sang without asking your permission wor...... No doubt she requested to perform this important task when I bought the cake back but I told her only if mei mei doesn't know how to blow.

I must admit that this che che likes to celebrate birthday very much because she likes to blow candles. In fact, for her birthday party at My Montessori, she blown the candles the moment she heard the final lyric of '....to you'. All of us laugh for her 'kiasu' reaction.

Shannen Already 'Dui Shui' - Morning Part

Traditionally, we will have celebration for baby going to be one year old, I mean not only cake cutting nor birthday party but some prayer needs to be organized to express thanks to our god and to pray for the toddler as well. We call the celebration as 'dui shui' in Mandarin. The celebration was actually to officially announced that a baby now become toddler, I think so.

I'm not sure how other dialect celebrates dui shui but since I used to see how my mum celebrate it for my nieces and nephews, and my MIL got no idea how it should be organized, I'll just follow the custom for Hokkien. I won't be following all but just make it simple as we, modern parents, try not to ignore traditional way of celebrating first birthday but at the same time not to follow strictly all the rules and regulation as we also not very sure about all the rules. Most important we don't wish to screw up any good things and turn the other way round.

Yesterday, we have make simple preparation to celebrate Shannen's dui shui. After shower Shannen, put her on new dress and new shoes (gifts from Ah Ma - my mum), we started our prayer.

Daddy was helping her to wear new shoes.

Finally fully dress up. Em.... let me try new shoes.

Prayer preparation : Ang Ku, Fruits, Red Egg & Mee Shua

"Cheng Cheng" - prayed by Shannen