Bondeng’s Burp…

Baking is my obsession …is like an addiction to me. So today the project will be baking my first Sarawak layered cake. I knew for the fact that I will need to spend hours and hours to get it completed hence the intention to make it has been delayed since a month a go. What a lazy mom :p. Anyway right after lunch today I start to measure all the ingredient. The recipe is pretty simple but the method is very tidiest.

For this recipe, first we need to beat the white egg until fluffy. Next, pour in the sugar, yellow egg (we need 15 eggs for this) and last the butter. I think I made my first mistake here. The egg yolk is not properly being separated from the white egg. I just realize the correct method to separate that when I get to the 5th egg I think…haha. Then next is on the butter. I forgot to take out the butter from the fridge. Usually we need to bring it out the night before so that the butter is soft. But the pandai me actually just put the butter under the sun…but it’s not that soft enough when I put in the mixture. End up I get a gritty batter even after I wait like half an hour to get it dissolved. I just continue as per instruction to make a white and choc batter.

Now is the baking part. The rule to bake the layered cake is using the ‘top fire’ setting on the oven. What I didn’t know is that for the first layer I need to use ‘top and bottom fire’ setting in order to make the layer cooked. I actually did 3 layered until I realized that I’m using the wrong method. After getting it corrected (for the next layer and so on)…I happily baked until the very final layer. This time I actually do a multitasking preparing prawn fritters for afternoon tea. During the last layer I supposed to change the setting for ‘top fire’ to ‘top and bottom’ fire. Instead I just set the minutes to 10 and not changing the setting…soon enough I smell burnt and aiyoh my cake top layer is already starting to burnt. Quickly I stop the oven and adjust the setting. It doesn’t save the first layer tho so my first layered cake is not as what I expected. Again is my first attempt . I shall try it again…overall the cake can be eaten and what I need to do is just remove the top and the bottom layer.

I now have extra of 10 white eggs. So I’m making meringue just for fun. Will update with picture later.

We had a lovely lunch at Elthem today. Watie and co has cooked some Indonesian meal, not sure what they call it for the fish. But it looks like ikan masak singgang to me. Fried chicken, labu masak lemak, mee hoon goreng, prawn fritters and we have our Indonesian friend brought gado2, tempeyek, and plenty other more. Thanks to Watie and family for the wonderful meal. I actually eated almost everything and the kids enjoy it too. Fawwaz is pratically munching the food from the momment we arrive until we leave the house. I am full till now!

Anyway today I feel like writing about my sons. Let’s talk about Aariz first. With him, we need to do a lot of reasoning. He is a talkative young boy. He can chat non stop asking this and that. The poor parents sometime lost word to explain why and what so not. Take for example. When we both were working…. they are times that Aariz don’t feel like going to school. So he will ask why ma…we have to go to school…why you need to work and why we have to wake up early in the morning…and the entire why early in the morning. So to shut him up, I plainly explain to him….you know darling…if you keep on asking why and not quickly get dressed papa will be late and the boss will pull his ears. Then his eyes will roll…..Pull papa ears? Like you pull my ears?..Yeah I said. Then he quietly gets dressed and obediently goes to school. Sometime…after school if any of us gets stuck in the office…one of us will pick them up and bring them to the office. So after the earlier conversation…one day we brought him to the office where they are quite a few people still remain in the office. He sat there quietly, looking around and suddenly the golden question pop out. Mana boss papa? Haha …I was quite surprise with that question cos seems that he remember our conversation a while ago. Luckily my boss is not in the office. So I tell him that …he went back already…He looks pretty disappointed. Then I ask why….you want to see which one boss papa that pulls his ears? Yeah he said… He probably very interested to see which one is the person that has higher authority than his papa. That can pull papa’s ears….haha.

When we give reasoning that teaches him on how to reason too and improve his negotiating skill. He is very expert on this. Like when we are in the pool…and it’s time to go. If i said is enough. Then he will say ….can i play another 2 more time (water slides)..and if i quickly nodes with a smile…he will say…err 3 time please. so ok he get’s 3…then on the way they are another water slide he will say …ma …3 more time…and this time i will say no. please ma…last last …i need it ma…3 more time…please…ok how to say no to this…so i will say yes but only 3 times and we are heading back home after that. no more smiling. then he understood that he has reach the limit. else the 3 time can multiply by 3. They are one time he manage to buy 30 more minutes from me. How cheeky is that?

As for fawwaz…he is now 18 mons…still not many proper word coming out from his mouth yet but lot’s and lot’s of mumbling. I wonder why my boys are very talkative. Aren’t men/boy should be less talking? Anyway… he can utter few words like than you ..nak susu…nak ammy (makan) nak yakkkk..that is his favorite one. We think is not only when he is doing his big job…even when he wee wee he will say nak yak…imagine every few hours he will come to us and say…yak yak yak and showing his pampers. I have been conned few times by him. He said dah yak …and pull me to the toilet..yeah his pretty clever on this. He doesn’t like his nappies become very wet..so each time he feels that it need to be changed he will ask us to go to the toilet with him. So that few times that I have been conned is where I already undress him and when I open his nappy..it still ok. It just that the nappy is sort of like not properly put on haha. The other thing that he loves the most is singing!…He can sing the I love you (barney version), Twinkle2 little star and one new Zealand rugby soundtrack. Sometime he will just walk around the house singing/humming…they are one morning when only hubby and fawwaz are awake, while hubby brushing his teeth or stgh, fawwaz at the other side of the bathroom holding the tips of the towel pretending that is a mic and start singing for good 5 minutes. Yeah he can’t really talk yet ..but he can sing..and they are real words coming out from him. I hope he will not become a rock star.

Yeah that is my two boys…When they wide awake I feel like can u please go to sleep..when the asleep I will gatal2 come and kacau them. Which always irks hubby. For me ..i just love em.

Tomorrow we are going to Elthem…”we” in this case are me and the kids and few indonesian wifey with their kids as well. So much socializing when I am officially becomes a housewife. We have been invited by a Malaysian family to have makan2 before I fly back to Malaysia.

I have heard about them (watie and ridzuan) since last year but only met them last week at Ita’s house (the Indonesian). Ridzuan is a slaughterer and according to them they are many Malaysian stays at that area and most of them work as slaughterer too. Of course in the foreign country we always get excited to met people from our own country. And with our culture, makan2 is something that we can’t get rid off. So tomorrow not sure what the meal are but I am really looking forward ……. to eat decent Malaysian food that is not cook by moi haha. Thanks Watie.

I’ll be making some dessert for tomorrow and I have promised to make brownies and bread pudding. So brownies project started at 10.30 tonite … that has made hubby eyes rolling …me and my pemalas tapi nak buat jugak attitude. Hopefully the brownies turn OK. As for the bread pudding ill probably will do it first thing in the morning.

Ting!!! OK the brownie is ready now….Will see how tomorrow goes.

Being a housewife is not easy as I thought. I do need to wake up early in the morning cos this 2 cheeky monkey will open their wide eyes latest at 7.30 in the morning. And once they open their eyes…they will start jumping and running around the house. If I’m lucky enough, papa will still be around to feed them and bath them (cos they poo early in the morning as well). Else I will need to carry my lazy ass or they will start jumping and screaming on my ears asking me to wakes up.

Once I have feed them, then they will start playing and i will need to prepare lunch. I enroll Aariz for swimming classes and the schedule is at 10 everyday during school holiday. This is his second term. If I get the lunch ready before we went out then I can send hubby lunch box at work and by the time we came back after the swimming class both my kids will be really hungry. Then will start with the laundry and sorting the cloth and cleaning the house and the list will go on and on. Nor that I can get nap during the day…hish!

On aariz swimming class, he can’t really swim by his own yet. He can float, dunk his head in the water and he’s pretty alright in the water. Here in New Zealand, they really encourage people to learn how to swim. At cost of RM65 they will teach one hour lesson a week for 10 weeks. The public pool is very near to the office and during his first term where i actually still working, i went out during lunch time, pick aariz up and send him to the swimming class..wait for one hour then bring him back to his kindy and i went back to the office. Only in New Zealand i can do this

During his first term, they are 4 kids in one session. You can see that all the kids are not really keen to put their heads or ears in the water for the first session. And it’s pretty interesting to see how the instructor try to encourage them to do so….by the third or 4th session the kids already can dunk their head and be in the water for few second. They can now jump to the pool rather than using stairs to get into the pool. Swimming using “boya” is no longer a problem….by the 10th session, 1 of them can do a few strokes…But not aariz hehe. He still phobia with the last 3 sessions. What happened is that the instructor will bring them to the deep pool. Then ask them to jump and obviously they can’t reach the ground. With this exercise, some really can try to do few strokes to get to the instructor which is just a meter away. But aariz haha, he practically touch the ground and by the time the instructor get him, he already panicking….nevermind boy..you’ll get there.

While aariz attended his swimming class for the second term, I will personally train fawwaz in the other pool hehe. Not that his mum can really swim but I just get him into the circle “boya” and let him walk around the pool. Sometimes he will just float using his ”boya”. And when I dunk his head in the water…he didn’t cry. Instead give me a look like “do you want to kill me?” And he loves the water slide as well. Tak padan dengan kecik.

For sure I would like to continue this when I’m back in my hometown. I will bug my parents to bring them to the pool every week so that they will not lose whatever that we have started here. It just to find what is the nearest pool as where we staying are really in the middle of nowhere.

God knows how many drafts I have made and none of them I publish it here. It’s all unfinished and we hardly have time to really do stuff for ourselves. It makes me lazy as well and at the end, rather than updating my blog…. I spend time reading other people blog.

It’s nearly the end of our life in kiwi land. 14 months to be exact and it’s not that long actually. But we can’t wait to get our butt off this country. No it’s not that I don’t love the people and the place. Living as contractor where you don’t really have control in your life and not knowing when the client will ditch us …all the uncertainty. I think it’s enough. I resign!!! Haha. I am now officially unemployed, stay at home mom but wait…don’t be too excited *wink wink*. It’s only for one month as I will start my new job soon.

OK so what happened during the silence? September is Fawwaz’s birthday. So he had his birthday bash at school where I made a medium size banana muffin for him to share with his friends and teacher. And also hubby birthday…he got me a spanking new camera for his birthday….errr who’s birthday again????

October… I don’t really remember what happened …oh is it Ramadhan or stgh? We celebrate ramadhan for the first time far far away from pasar ramadhan hehe. It’s pretty interesting fasting during winter cos we break fast around 5 stgh and sahur around 3pm…..

Oh and we flew back to Malaysia for Hari Raya…not really on the first day of raya but second week of hari raya. It’s a short trip but we enjoy it. Hubby needs to fly back to NZ first…and I have to fly to Perth for the implementation. I drag my lil brother to NZ as I need an extra hand to help with 2 kiddos during the flight. That is around November.

December…it’s my birthday and guess what…what do we do? I don’t remember…Nearly go live for the project implementation and sure is we are busy like a bee…

January onwards is where we went live. Life pretty much revolves on the routine and works. Kids are getting better in their English. I will update more about them later.

As of now, I will enjoy my new role as full time house wife. And probably if I rajin enough…I’ll start to write on our 2 weeks trips of South Island.

Busy busy busy day!!! There’s nothing more than busy bee that i can only update i guess. And what make things worst we took shift to take care of the kids after work so that either him or me can work late at work. We took SHIFT!!. Supposed that i have a not so stress type of work now what happend (

We went to a stress management class last monday. After all our project doesn’t want their project team to get really stressed and we need to manage the stress. Stress management session that took half day for three weeks in a row ??? We get even really stress!!! But the positives sides of it…i have started to look at the greener side of our life here rather than rambling bout works or how sucks life can be …..I hope.

Let see what happend in my life lately. Wakes up around 630 or 700 to be exact. Hubbs will actually wakes up as early as 530 to attend Fawwaz. Myself ..i can’t really open my eyes. Then first things ill do in the morning is cook!. This is our routine. I will prepare breakfast and lunch boxes for all of us. Most of the time i need to prepare three types of food as i want something spicy, aariz wants stgh not too spicy but adult food while fawwaz he still a baby. So ill prepare porridge or pasta with chesse for him. And i have picky hubby and kids when it comes to food and i need to be variety. Hubbs on the other hand, will be very busy bathing the kids one by one and get himself ready and feed the kids. Once we settle off we go to send them to the nursery.

Next is all work until 330 or 400 (i supposed to be off from work by 300). So i rushed back home and think hard to cook for dinner. It took me one hour now to prepare meal for the whole family as i need to go and pick up the kids at 5 together with hubby. Once we reached home, hubby will start the fire, get the kids to bath while i prepare the dinner. Usually by 6 all of us will settle for dinner. The only things now, the battle to feed the kids… Aariz somehow get very fussy during dinner. He only wants rice with no veggie or meat. And i will insist him to have some. Be it pasta, mee or bread…he doesnt want to eat meat or veggie. Just cheese and eggs…and yogurt. Convert mat saleh anak aku. Dah la makan tak nak pakai tangan. Nak pakai sudu. Fawwaz he wants attention. We need to only feed him and look at him if not he will scream out loud. No peacefull dinner time. But we do get entertained by them after all. After cleaning up the dishes….i will settle with the kids while hubbs go back to the office. And be back by 930 or 11 pm. And the clock start again.

In between we also need to manage laundry, house cleaning and other domestic works. It’s pretty tiring lately. Stime i do have telecon at odd hours, where that is when hubby need to go home and take care the kids while im in the meeting. Weird working hours for me as NZ timezone is different from other country.

So what is the connection with what im saying to look at the greener side of my life. Prob ill blog about it later. As of now i need to take a bath and help hubby do some cleaning.

It’s 1030 pm now. Later

The tornado that we had a couple of days ago, apparently is the worst in damage amount in the history of New Zealand. We got hit by the tornado for the 2nd time and a town about 15 km from here was badly damaged. The civil defense declared our area a state of emergency and about 50 people were left homeless.

The picture here is actually end of the road of where we’re currently staying. Come to think of it, the tornado misses our house just by a a few hundred meters.

Placemakers

Our colleague from office had his roof blown away. Luckily, a lot of people in NZ have house insurance and even after these tragedies, they still can manage to smile and come to office!

We hope the weather’s gonna be fine for a while.

We are very2 busy. The project has started to heat up. There’s a lot’s of things to do but we don’t have the luxury of time to stay back at the office. For the past few days, the kids are not helping to especially Aariz. Screaming like mad asking for this and that ….still wanting his nenek especially when he didn’t get what he wants. And it’s really testing our patient. As of today…hubby has to go back to the office to clear up some stuff after dinner. I had to take care the kids and get them to sleep. But they are being wonderful today…..as the little one come and hug and snug me…while the big one being nice and at least listen to my instruction. I guess the “grandparents syndrom” is over hehe.

We had a tornado yesterday….it’s a baby tornado but they are still damage around our area. I’m quite shock when i get to know that there are tornado here…not to mention earthquake that hubby experienced last month. I think hubby will blog about it later.

Hurm what else to write. I have no idea…too tired.

It has been a while myself and hubby did not post anything here. Back from Perth I was busy catching up with the kids. My son Fawwaz is having high fever. This little guys just cant be far from any of us. I think from myself to be specific as i remembered when hubby went to China, he just being fine. When i first fly to NP during the workshop for 2 weeks, Fawwaz having the same high fever while i’m away. That force me to cut my trip from 3 weeks to 2 weeks.

Let me jot down something about Fawwaz for me to remember when i’m old later. He’s one cranky little boy. He hardly sleep through out a nite till today. He make an angry sounds like ‘hurmmmm’ ‘hurmmmm’ when we are late feeding him. When he cry, he likes to open his mouth wide open until his pacifier almost slip thru his mouth haha….When he faught with his big brother, he will make a sound like the world will end and always make like his brother has done a terrible thing to him …..But despite all that.. he’s so manja and bubbly little boy.

He likes to lay his head to our shoulder when we carry him. He will climb at our leg and make a cute face so that we pick him up. He will make bubbles with his mouth and his brother will laugh out loud …he will make more bubbles for his brother then. His brother will run around the house pulling his toy and he will crawl around the house try to catch his brother. When any of us sits in front of the tv, he will come and sleeps on our lap. This little boy can be annoying at one momment and can be very at the same time.

When my parents are here, they sleeps at the kids room. They put the matress down so that both of them can sleep with my eldest son Aariz. We brought Fawwaz’s cot to our room. As he still unsettled little boy. While we both are away, my parents bring in Fawwaz’s matress only to the room and they are gaps in between. So my dear big boys has stuffed some blanket and pillows in between. He say’s “nanti fawwaz jatuh….”. Sweet isn’t.

Having these two little kiddos has really lighten up my life. Back from Perth i had a week off, taking care of the kids and entertaining my parents as this is their final week. They just fly back this morning. And we are back to old normal routine. 3 weeks they are quite a damage has been done to the kids haha. So it’s time to fix it. It’s 8.30 pm now. Fawwaz has just fall asleep. Aariz still jumping around the house..ops not the house…on top of dining table …hurm! Later for more update.

IMG_2198.JPG

Originally uploaded by Kartini Karim.

Now it’s winter over in New Zealand…and here’s a picture of our lovely fireplace in our lovely home.

For your information, this is a modern fireplace with feature to control the air intake. This enables firewood to burn much slower and give much more heat at the same time.

However our house does have a problem: It’s not insulated well enough Means, it feels colder because heat can escape quite easily through the floor and ceiling.

We can’t wait for summer to arrive again… 3 months to go.