Growing Fun With My 3 Little Angels

I have a problem...... since I now have 4 kids, do I change my nickname to 4lilangels? Will it be too confusing? Will people know who I am? In fact, can I even change the nickname? Hmm......

I'm so GLAD Girlet's exams are finally over. Cos we've not only struggled with Mandarin, there was Malay Language to contend with too. Sigh!

Bento #138 was a quick and simple Good Luck in Exams bento. Just peanut butter, and chocolate sandwich with cheese accents, ham flower and papaya flowers. I forgot about the brocolli that was left in the steamer, otherwise it should go in the empty spot beside the ham. Yup! I was that stressed. Have I mentioned how GLAD I am that the exam's over.
Bento # 139 & #140

I'd admit to being a procrastinator ...... waiting for the very last day to make a Halloween bento. For Girlet, there was a chicken rice (with chicken stuffed in) coffin, with bones on top (from the Scooby Doo pasta), poison beans (edamame), sausage fingers (copied off Kel here) with bloody nails (chinese sausage stuck on with ketchup), quail egg eyeballs (raisin pupils and foodmarkers) and a blood-filled mouth with fangs (the blood being red dragonfruit, and the fangs was a gummy candy).
Boylet's bento had a blood-filled tombstone (strawberry jam sandwich), a sausage finger, an eyeball (made a hole in the egg to stuff the raisin in), Frankenstein (pandan eggsheet, seaweed & cheese eyes), decaying flesh with bone (leftover sausages and pasta) and Jack O'Lantern carrot (using the facial expression multi cutter). The finger at the bottom left was a gummy candy.

I'm slowly unearthing the bentos from the past few months. One of Boylet's fav was this Giraffe themed bento. He only stays back in school once a week, so I try too make something interesting for the picky eater.

The giraffes were made from Butterscotch Bread, so chosen because it looked like the print on giraffe's skin. The tree trunk was half a chocolate Twiggies, and the leaves were from an egg sheet (egg white coloured green by the juice of pandan leaves - smelled yum). The grapes were fruits from the tree - looked like coconut, so that we would just make that a coconut tree *_*. Had some watermelon, so cut out giraffes for snack time, accessorised with a giraffe pick. Of course, mustn't forget the giraffe box, which inspired this theme.

Boylet followed me to the Pearson and Pigeon Books Warehouse Sale, and he grabbed a few books for himself. One of them is Harry and the Robots. This is his first book on Robots and he only chosed it because he's a fan of Harry and the dinosaur books. After reading the book, he was inspired to make his own Robot too. With a toilet roll, some cardboard, chopsticks, cellotape and stickers, he set to work, and here's the result. And the book was only RM4.


Here are the books that we bought.
Ladybird readers & classics at RM4 each (60% off), Magic Puppy and Secret Unicorn books for Girlet at RM10 each (50% off), and Charlie and Lola books for RM12, among others.

I snared some paperbacks for myself at RM10 each, including Twilight and New Moon. *sheepish* I've actually read the whole Twilight series, but those were borrowed books. I like to own books so I can reread them. In my defence, I did pass them up at the MPH sale a few days earlier, when they were going for 30% off, which made them about RM30 each. So this was a real steal!! Hear that, hubby! BTW, the strangest part was the same books were going for RM10 at the teenage section and RM15 at the adult section. So be aware, if there're any RM10 ones left that is.

The sale is up to Oct 11. It's worth a visit.

Remember my niece who was borned prematurely at 24 weeks and 3 days, as posted here? Well, she's now 5 months old (though if she was born full term, she'd only be about 5 weeks old) and really thriving. I couldn't resist copying her photo off SIL's blog. Isn't she adorable? Thanks to all for your good thoughts and prayers.

Since young, I have dreamt of a huge study room with wall-to-wall, ceilling-to-floor shelves all full of books. Yah, yah..... I was a very nerdy kid..... still am, with the exception that I've got rid of the huge glasses. *_*

Fast forward to present, I haven't have the priviledge of owning such a room, even if I'd been investing in books as though I have. Mind you, most of the books I'd bought in the last few years were kids' books. For my reading pleasure, I had to rent the books or else lend my books to my dearest sis, in which case I would get free storage indeterminately (I still reread them when I go over during the hols). Oops.... did I just alert her to that fact? *_*

Anyway, this resulted in overflowing bookshelves, as I'd resorted to double stacking (stacking another bunch of books in front of the books already in the shelves). Like this....... in Girlet's room. And this ....... And this ....... upstairs living room ......... kids' workbooks, activity, colouring, dot-to-dot, mazes, sticker books ....... there are more shelves and more books on the left, but grownup stuff, so didn't take pix.

Enough photos already.... or you all will think I'm living in a pigsty.

So any ideas how to solve my shelving woes? Buying shelves is easy. Problem is there's no space for more shelves! As my upstairs has high ceilings, I was contemplating a loft library like the following (link here).... what d'ya think? Suggestions welcomed, besides donating the books away!

But you can't keep a Bookworm down. Tomorrow I'm going to the Pearson and Penguin Books WAREHOUSE SALE. Yes, my hubby. I know the books I bought last month from the MPH warehouse sale are still in the store room. But, with publishers like Pearson Longman, Penguin, Puffin, Ladybird, DK etc., how can I not go? I'm buying for your kids ok? (can't argue with that, can you?)

For those interested, the details of the warehouse sale is:

Date : Oct 2 - 11

Time : 10 am - 7 pm

Venue : Pearson Msia S/B, Lot 2, Jln 215, Off Jln Templer, PJ

Happy book hunting!

This is my record in lowest blog productivity - 6 weeks with no posts. Been busy with this and that (another post), plus the maid was back home to Indonesia for 1 month, not mentioning the 3 weeks of anxiety when she called to say she's not coming back!! After I bent backwards to help her out too! Well, after much persuasion, she did come back to settle her things and wait for her replacement. At least 'ada hati perut'.

Anyway, as I haven't uploaded any pix from the camera, I'll just make a quick post of this live comedy show I just saw on Sat. Named The 1 Kind Show (after 1Malaysia) by Comedy Court, there were lots of racist and political jokes, but simply hilarious. Their impersonations of the various races were spot on.

The show's on until 9 October. Venue : Wisma Tun Sambanthan, Kampung Attap (next to Bangunan Public Bank). Tickets : RM55 / 75 / 105 - available through Axcess. For more info, check their website here.

You can watch one of their skits 'Who wants to be a Billionaire' on Youtube - only the live show is so much better, so go see already!

The kids are sad that since the Bangsar Shopping Complex closed down their auditorium, there haven't been any puppet shows in KL. Hopefully when Actor's Studio open shop in Lot 10, Gardner & Wife, and Act 3 Intl will bring back kids' shows. Keeping our fingers and toes crossed!