Happy 2011

Happy New Year everybody. Certainly the new year is the time to start everything afresh while formulating your fantasy about what you want to achieve in the coming year. For me, I wish for good health, better people to run my beloved Malaysia and of course, better public toilet.

For the first day of the year, we decided to make an early start so as not to get caught in the expected heavy traffic jam around Lembah Kelang. We set out for breakfast at The Curve as Anita wanted to do some shopping for our newly renovated bedroom. While she was doing that, I took Idlan and Irfan to the playground. The seemed to be having a blast.

They have another couple of days if holidays before going back to school. The seven weeks really flew by. Idlan however is looking forward to enter Year One in school, although he will be missing some of his good friends who have left to a different school. At least they will still meet up during Sekolah Agama.

Here is to a great 2011. Happy new year every one!

Gingerbread Man part II

Waiting for the bake.... continued from yesterday .....

While waiting for it to be baked - took about half an hour - the children were given crayons and papers to draw with. Anita and I went for more food. When the biscuit were ready, it was time for the icing. It started again with explanation from the teacher, what to do, how to apply the icing. But by the time the children got hold of the icing, all those lessons went out of the window. I didn’t remember any instructions about putting icing on faces or other part of the body.

Out of the ovenAnd the real art begunAfter the icing were done, it was time to pack up. All together, it took two hours from the beginning to the end. Therefore, long concentration span was essential. None of the children in the class threw a tantrum however as everybody had fun pretending the dough to be like plasticine. My boys certainly did. How did their baking tasted? A bit too cinnamony if you understood what I meant.

Irfan preferred white. Splat!Mum also joined inAll spentIrfan especially enjoyed his experience even though he was rather apprehensive in the beginning. They both looked cute in their aprons and hats - unfortunately they did not get to keep the apron. Come to think of it, such baking activity made for a great birthday party. As Irfan’s was due in six weeks, we might actually plan to have it here. Maybe with a bit of baking activities thrown in. So watch this space.

Gingerbread Man part I

The boys with the original gingerbread man .... Daddy!During the school holidays, Marche has always been good at organising fun cooking classes for young children. Last year, Idlan enjoyed his pizza-making outing. This year, we signed both Idlan and Irfan up for gingerbread man making class. The class was available through-out the whole weekdays, but since I was only free yesterday afternoon, we signed them up to do it then. And oh boy, they had great fun.

Getting psyched .... Irfan warning his palmsGetting into gearIrfan preferred the sailor's lookThere were about 30 children who participated - a full house. We arrived early to have lunch - ironically, the boys had pizza. After the crowd gathered, the class started with explanation from the resident chef - the teacher. He explained all the ingredients, how they were mixed and took through the dough preparation. It was basically butter, self-rising flour and wheat flour, plus eggs. But the thing that made it brown was not exactly ginger, it was cinnamon. There was so much flour that Idlan started sneezing. Luckily, it was not into the mixing bowl - it might have tasted better then. The ingredients were mixed and it was passed around for everyone to stir, including Irfan. And stir he did.

Listening to the teacherShall I just eat it whole?... and the pounding begins ...... tong tang tong tang!And a bit of elbow greaseOnce that was done, the students were separated into their own little stations and given some pre-prepared dough and some flour for them to start flattening and banging. After the dough was flat, out came the shapes. Most of them made stars, snowman, and of course the gingerbread man shape. Irfan managed to squeezed out 10 pieces of biscuits from his little dough. Once those were ready, they were put onto baking trays, and were taken off into the over.

More squeezingIt was finally taking shapeInto the oven they went ......Due to the exceedingly cute photos, I had to split the entry into two parts …… to be continued …..

Playground

I had some extra teaching session this afternoon after I was finished in Kelang. As soon as I reached home, Puan Anita asked me to take her out for some groceries. The boys wanted to go to IKANO to play at the indoor playground and have dinner there. Since Idlan had hardly had any lunch, we decided to do dinner first. So we went to Italiannes at The Curve.

I blogged about the Xmas decor at The Curve before, so there were nothing new to report. Dinner was nice, until I realised that Italiannes is more adept at starters and small snacks rather than main courses. The pizza and bruchetta were glorious, but alas, the main - I ordered salmon with pasta and Anita had some seafood pasta aglio olio. Forgettable.

The front door of ItalianniesThe starter - deliciousThe main course - not soAfter dinner, we went across to IKANO. Anita did her shopping while I took the kids to the playground. It was located on the top - second - floor, right next to the pet store. Over the years, the place have evolved. It used to only have a single inflatable giant slide. It has a couple now and it has been changed, so the boys won't get bored. There were also Playstation console is you feel like it. It wasn't that full late in the evening, so the boys got the place to themselves.

All spent after half an hour in the playgroundLooking forward to more activities this weekend, though I will be occupied with a few lectures and essays to do. I'll also likely to be busy updating the hematologiPPUM.com site. I might take them out on one of the afternoons as well but not sure where to yet.

Xmas at The Curve

 I spent most of the day today in bed. Since yesterday evening I had been troubled by sore throat, I knew something was brewing. I went to bed pretty early but was woken up by cough and shivering. Paracetamol helped but the sore throat continued until the morning. By breakfast I was not able to swallow anything, so I was not able to go to Kelang today. Instead I spent the whole day doing some slides, getting through some paperwork, and generally just taking it easy.

Complete with carol By the afternoon the fever subsided. I was able to walk around a bit. The boys has been rather restless today, and by early evening they insisted on me taking them out for a drive. Since I hardly have eaten anything, Anita was keen to take me out for dinner. I wanted to have some soup and finally relented. We headed out to The Curve. For the boys, The Curve equals Marche.

 For the Christmas period, the main foyer of the curve has been transformed into a winter wonderland. The transformation was pretty drastic to be quite honest. There was  Christmas Carol singing as well as the oblogatory Santa’s Grotto. Unfortunately there were no Santarina. They were stalls selling ornaments and cookies. After a few snaps, we decided to head for dinner. I wasn’t in much of a mood to walk around anyway. I had some pizza and mushroom soup. The Swiss mocha was nice and it did wonders for my palate. The boys enjoyed the time there especially with the very nice indoor decor and lighting they had in the restaurant. I felt a bit better after dinner, so we decided to have a nice evening walk. Few more snaps, and I felt that I needed more paracetamol. Time to head home.

A more subdued IKANO Power CenterTopped off by Puan Anita buying a couple of umbrellas  

I wish that I had a bit more time to walk around enjoying the decorations. Unfortunately with the flu and sore throat that was just not possible. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it that much. Anyway as you can see I managed to get a few nice photographs to share and I bet it was going to be jam-packed during the weekend with all the Christmas shoppers showing up. While at Marche, we also booked them up for a gingerbread-making session some time during the last week before Christmas. I think this session will be on a Wednesday afternoon and we booked both Idlan and Irfan to join up. Something to look forward to.