I’m pretty sure that I had mentioned in one of my previous post (or was it on FB) that I was having issues trying to get Arianna to have her bath everyday. In fact there were many times, not just once that I was so tempted to just list her on an online auction site just to be rid of her but of course, I would never do it – never ever!! Just the feeling…the thought, you know? At first I thought it was just a fluke thing that she refused until it became a daily (painful) task trying to get her to have her bath. Everyday we would have a major drama happening with me screaming my head off and close to having a brain aneurism from all the stress I had to keep in until one day, my Mum the genius came up with this brilliant idea!

Get the kids to sit in their chair and have their bath!! Sounds so simple, I still kick myself for not thinking of this or more so, for thinking outside the box with it comes to kids. All this time, I had them standing up and I would shower them down. KR was more than happy to have her bath any way but Arianna was a whole different story. She’s like a mixed bag of pre-packed beans – you don’t know when you’d get a rotten bean!

KR having her shower in a chair – her BLUE chair.

Arianna’s turn….note that she’s in a RED chair – must not make the mistake of sitting if someone else’s chair ok?

A nice, clean bundle of joy! ^_^

It didn’t take much after that to get Arianna to bathe coz she was excited about the whole idea having seen KR bath that way and me….not only I was less stressed, I avoided that backache I was experiencing when I was bending over showering them down. Thanks Mum, you are indeed a genius!!

Instead of our annual family getaway to Parkroyal Penang, we decided to take our (complete) family in KL. Actually this was a 2-in-1 plan as I had to go to KL anyway to sort out my Visa since I renewed my passport and in order to avoid any complications at Gold Coast airport upon arrival back in Australia, I had to have my passport revalidated and updated in the system. So a visit to Australian High Commission was the main agenda for the trip. We took MAS on the way there but Air Asia on the way back, and lets just say that although everyone CAN now fly AA, most of us prefer not to (and you’ll know why in Part 3).

Waiting for the plane in Penang Airport

Thankfully there was no delay at the airport and Arianna was pretty good as well. I was stressing out thinking back to how bad it was when we first came over. How my sis and I suffered!! Thank goodness my tummy was still small at that time and I could still carry Arianna, if not…Lord knows how things would have been. She was a pretty good traveler and didn’t cause much trouble at all. By the time we got to the hotel, we stayed at KLCC Impiana, it was way passed their bedtime and they were hungry. So we quickyl gave them their bottle and they had a quick nap.

Cheeky poser pulling the same pose as Arianna did once upon a time in Parkroyal, Penang.

Checking out the bed

The room itself was alright but I wasn’t too happy when told that they didn’t have 2 baby cots as requested many months ago when I first booked the room – there was only one. This meant that Arianna would be in bed with us, between us. :/ I was more afraid that she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep but apparently this was no problem at all. The only thing was that when it was bedtime/naptime, she wanted us BOTH in bed with her. So we’d both go to bed with her and pretend to be asleep. The problem with this was that more often then not, Ted would really fall asleep!! lol BUT the worst news was when reception called again and told us that there were NO cots at all and that they only had a matress for KR and I was like, WHAT??? But what can you do? If I had paid full price for the room, I would have kicked up a HUGE fuss seeing that I booked in a long time ago, BUT since we were there on a special rate, I didn’t want to pull my weight and just stressed out about it, internally. But surprisingly and praise God, there was one cot in the room after we got back from some shopping. Phew! So KR could at least sleep at the same level as we were.

We spent the first day just taking it slow and it was then that I realised that I had forgotten to bring their milk with me! >.< Imagine my shock, my horror....a quick, short walk to KLCC Suria solved that problem since we had to go get some other stuff as well.

Here’s proof they were at KLCC, at least they can say, I was there!

After our shopping, it time for bed and just before that, I bravely decided to let the girls have their bath together. This was the first time in a long time since they had shared a bath and I was a little worried that Arianna might try and drown poor KR. But surprisingly, the girls enjoyed their bath together!! The first time I put them in together back in Sydney was a major disaster! Arianna was totally upset about it and was close to shoving KR out of the bath. Poor thing didn’t know what was happening…

Needless to say that everyone was in bed by 9pm under protest nonetheless…but it had to be done. Although it was suppose to be pretend sleep, there was nothing to watch on TV plus switching it on would disturb the girls so, everyone turned in early. Plus the next day was going to be a busy one.

We let Arianna watch her first ever DVD at the age of 8mths. Even then, it was merely some 5-10 minutes and any longer than that, she loses interest. But the one thing that we did notice was that she was very into advertisements. I reckon it’s the colors and the music that comes with it. But these days, She is an aboslute tv monster! Literally. Switch the TV on and you have a very well behanved, quiet child…minding her own business until she gets bored of what she was watching and then she turns her attention to KR.

By which time, she would have irritated KR and they would both be screaming at each other, trying to kill the other. Scratching and hair pulling have somewhat become a norm and surprisingly it’s not Arianna who is doing these deeds – it’s KR! I reckon it’s just her way of defending herself and standing up for her self as well. While I do not condone it, I also do not just close an eye over it. I end up being the referee most of the time!

Here are some shots of my to-be tv addicts *shakes head again* :

So into the show that they are sharing!

Another sharing moment *pricele

This one looks like she’s had a rough day at work. *lol*

And all this watching and concentration is from watching the shows n our old but moderately sized tv. Nothing close to the Samsung HDTV that we recently saw and wished we could own! But I reckon that if we did own a really huge TV then we’d only be encouraging her to watch more tv.

Woot!!!! Just 1 more sleep and Ted flys out tomorrow arvo. ^.^ While everyone’s (the girls & I) really excited at seeing him after missing him for 2.5 months….it has been slightly tainted with the fact that Ted and I are not 100% well.

I actually developed an overnight sorethroat that was so bad that I had a rather sleepless night last night. My throat was hurting so bad that it felt I had sandpaper for the back of my throat! So today I was a very good girl and stayed off the spicy and oily foods. Imagine how hard it was NOT to have Mee Ku for brekkie!!!! *shakes head* But that’s alright….hopefully tomorrow it will be better and then we can have Mee Ku!!

I don’t know of a quick remedy to cure sorethroats but I reckon the best would be to gargle with salt water (preferably warm salted water), drink lots of fluids, stay off spicy & oily foods, make a drink of lemon+honey (thought I only had honey coz our limau kasturi isn’t ripe yet) and eat ice cream!!! Yes, I know as Malaysians, we steer clear of anything cold when we are ill and it didn’t occur to me to eat ice cream but apparently the logic behind it (according to Ted) is that the coolness of ice cream or cool drinks helps to numb the pain so although it doesn’t cure it, it is suppose to help ease the pain without meds.

Plus it’s an excellent idea to gorge on ice cream! LOL I did have a little but not much and I reckon it did help a wee bit. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be feeling a whole lot better by tomorrow. I’m picking Ted up at the airport around midnight and tomorrow being the procession for St. Anne’s Feast…I’m really hoping that I will beat the crowd going home!! Otherwise, I’m dead meat….. >.<

Although its close to bed time and this happened in the morning, I am still not over the pleasant shock! I was stressing out for no reason really. Heh.

This trip back home was not only a family visit but also to renew my passport as it expires in March 2011 and there’s no way we could come down now and then again in March hence, I decided to renew my passport now. While we used to travel to Seberang Jaya to do it and 4 years ago, it took (from memory) either 3 days or the next day depending when you submitted your application but now, apparently the benchmark is that you receive your passport 1 hour after making payments.

I was thoroughly skeptical about it because…you’re talking about a government department here and I don’t need to stress that more often than not, they are SUPER slow at anything and to think that a passport can be issued out within SUCH a short period of time was literally, impossible. Hence I didn’t keep my hopes up at all. This morning, I arrived at 8am thinking that me arriving early would mean that I would have beaten the crowd. I was more concerned as to where I would park the car but I was spoilt for choice – parking space was ample! That itself was a good omen for me.

When I entered, it was practically empty except for 1 person in front of me and another behind me but since I had filled in the form wrongly (bodoh!), I got in at 3rd place and even then, it didn’t take long for my turn. It was 8.30am when I made my payment and then it was time to time the wait……

Although it was past 9am, staff was still walking in and out, returning with their brekkie and I was a little suspicious as to the posibility of me getting my passport by 9.30am and was tempted to just go as I had left the girls with Mum. When I left they were still asleep so no problem but it was after 9am and I was getting a little antsy but before I could continue worrying, a pile of NEW passports turned up!! I was pretty shocked and surprised…

And kepping true to they promise, I did indeed get my passport 1 hr after payment. In fact, I had it in my hands at 9.20am…that’s 10 minutes earlier than I expected. So, I reckon there is still hope for other government departments to be as efficient. There is still hope for Malaysia – we are not yet beyond redemption.

Cayala Jabatan Imigresen Kulim – you rock beb! ^.^

YAY!! Sis is dinally here after almost 20hrs flying….from Malaysia. =.= That’s what you get for flying with AA. The delays she had to endure, pity the poor girl….pity us too!! *sigh* Never mind, it’s the last time we ever fly AA even if they give us free tix to fly with them! Next time, it will be SIA and if I ever mention any other flight than them, I give you permission to b*tch-slap me, ok?

Anyway, sis brought down some, not much yummy stuff from home coz I’m already leaving in 2 weeks so this is more for Ted and MIL.

Ted loves this while MIL prefers the sugarless one, so Mum got both!

I couldn’t resist the temptation and caved it for a mug after everyone had gone to bed! O sedapnyer…..

She also brought with her some Farley biscuits for KR, really cute shoes for both girls and 2 blouses for me. I was flattered that she got me a size smaller even though there was a bigger size, thank goodness I can fit into it!! I absolutely love it….so my style.

And then……OMG OMG OMG!!! The fabric that I bought online in Singapore finally arrived. Because I very kiasu, a good friend who’s in Spore – Mabel, was so nice to help post it for me. It’s free shipping in Spore you see? In the end it costed less than SGD20 in total (from memory) instead of some AU30 each time I bought something had I posted it to Sydney. It’s good to have friends all over the world eh? I guess this is one of the fruits that I gained from blogging and making friends online. Thank you Mabel, you’re a gem!

Patty Young’s Tapestry Pink, Sandi Hendersin’s Vintage Cherries, Paula Prass’s Par Avion

I absolutely fell in love with the Vintage Cherries and Par Avion but they were never on sale until finally they were and I grabbed them!! I can already see what I’ll be sewing with them.

*drool drool* My first purchase ever of designer fabric and I’m over the moon!!!

Top : Jungle Jam
Bottom : Garden Collage, Birds of Norway

The moment I saw Jungle Jam, I saw Arianna in a pretty dress with those borders – she is SO going to be stoked! And the Birds of Norway…I don’t think I could ever chop that up! =.=

This was a complimentray gift that was included with one of the purchases that I made. It was a pleasant surprise but since I’m not into making stuff like this, this is going to be a giveaway.

All you need to do is blog about this and link me back at that post. Be sure to leave a valid email address to I can contact you if you’re the lucky winner. All the best and good luck.

Winners will be picked on 9/5/2010 in conjunction with Mother’s Day.