Just over 2 weeks ago, I decided to get a new look.

My hairstyle that is.  I have been living with a long straight hair for more than 2 years now.  I am getting really bored with it, but I am not ready to part with the long hair yet.  I prefer long hair, it is much easier for me to manage.  So I decided to perm my hair.  Not the full head of hair, half of it, but with big natural curls.

I like the new curls.  It isn’t overkilled.  I like it.   It looks more feminine, as my sister puts it.

I also love the fun with the new hairstyle:

- My kids looked at me wide eyed when I came back from the hairdresser.  Chloe kept touching my hair wondering what I did to it.  JD was very curious and kept asking what the hairdresser did to make hair looked curly.  It got everyone really excited for a while!

- My babysitter was shocked to see me with the new hairstyle when I came home, and she almost killed me for giving up my long straight hair.  Because she has always wanted her hair straight.

The best was…

- My beloved husband could not recognise me.  And that’s with me standing right in front of him at the train station and he was still on his mobile phone asking me “Hon, where are you?”.  I thought he would have recognised me with me pushing a bright red pram with the 2 monkeys hanging out of it.  No, he still stood there for quite a while until I tapped him on his shoulder.  Ah, what fun I had.

I caught a bouncy bunny rabbit in the kitchen.  Stealing some hot cross buns. 

But I also spotted quite a chubby looking bunny rabbit in the backyard. 

And I realised from the photo how gloriously blue our sky is in Perth!  Blue sky, oh blue sky!

It’s 9.30am now.  I am here waiting for the wall plasterer to arrive, fixing up the rest of the wall in the living room.  My husband has taken the kids out to have breaky.  It’s glorious outside today.  But I have a tonne of housework to do, kids nice clean clothes still to be put away, vacumming, moping, 2 loads of washing waiting for me in the laundry, the back garden needs a good racking, I haven’t prepared my programme for tomorrow..somehow it seems like a heap stuff to do in just one day.

I have just gotten the vacuum cleaner out, but ahhh, I would rather be doing something else…baking, reading cookbook, or sitting down for a cup of tea.

Is there something you would rather be doing at times? 

Oh, it’s one of those days for me or weeks for me already.

Edited at 1.30pm - I decided to do a few things and left the rest to the other day.  I could tick off vacumming, moping the floor, laundry washed and put away already (woohoo, that would be the first!!!!!)….I decided not to rack the leaves in the garden because I am going to get my gardener to do it.  Also as this is a short week for me, I am not going to bother about planning too much daycare programme for this week….so yipee!

So the end result, I had my cup of tea, I also had a 30mins nap before getting up to do some paperwork and blogging.  Yes, less is more sometimes as my mum always remind me :) And I don’t need to finish everything in one day!  Yes yes, I need to keep practicing it.

I have always wanted to bake hot cross buns.  For years I never got around to it but I did it yesterday, finally!

I did it when my kids and all the other little 2 years olds were having their naps.  I had to tip toe around the kitchen, pulling out the baking trays quietly cautious not to wake up anyone.

It was fun.  Once again, my bread maker did the kneading, rising of the dough for me.  After about 1hr 10 mins, I took the dough out, split it into 12 portions, cover it with a tea towel for 3o mins for the dough to rise further.

Then I mixed some water and flour together, pipped a cross over the buns before putting it in the oven.

30 minutes later, a tray of hot cross buns were ready.  By then all the little ones started to stir and wake.

After a brush of some honey and water mixed together, the hot cross buns were glazed and ready for our afternoon tea.  I could hear JD in the background “Ummm, I can smell bread” and all the little ones were all jumping up and down, all wanting to have a fresh hot cross bun!

We ate some, and each kid got to bring home one together with some chocolate eggs and we gave 4 buns to our neighbour too.  It is all gone now.

What a blessed way to start the Easter holidays!

I was in the kitchen preparing dinner.

I could hear my 4yo child shifting the furnitures and my motherly instinct was telling me he was attempting to do something seriously dangerous.  But then I thought, ah, he should know better.

Yes, it was one of those “Look mom!” moments again when my 4yo yelled out “Look mom, I am a rocket!”

Yah, now get off those chairs before you do some damage to yourself!  Boys! 

But on other hand, it was great balancing skill he has in climbing up 2 chairs without hurting himself.  Yes, those gymnastics classes are paying off.

A weekend ago, we went back to the Mandurah Crab Festival.  It was one of those Saturdays when we didn’t plan much and then at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, we just packed the kids into the car and off we went. 

A year on from the last time we went, Chloe is older and has a lot more hair, hahaha!  Looking at her photos from that post a year ago, I just realised again she is growing up too quickly, oh, how I miss her being a baby! 

It was nice going there in the evening, we strolled along the canal, enjoyed the seabreeze, let the kids had loads of fun, having a go at all sorts of games…a great way to enjoy a weekend evening. 

I had to smile when I saw Chloe riding in the car with JD.  She was just like her brother at that age, always wanting to have a go and seeing her sitting so comfortably at the back just made me laughed!  That’s a joy of parenthood and I am so thankful to enjoy these little moments.  Oh, I so love the both of them.

We walked, we ate, we watched the sunset, we lied down on the grass, watched the clouds. 

After the sun set, and as the sky darkened, we were treated to a great show of fireworks.  It was good fun.

Both kids fell asleep on the 1hr drive home, continued to sleep through the night till 8am the next day!

I was sitting in the the kitchen, staring at my laptop, checking emails and suddenly this little person popped into the kitchen looking like this…

Hahaha, I had such a laugh.  She was playing with the doctor’s set in the playroom and she must have found the pair of glasses. 

She is so funny.  Always into something….never a dull moment with her I must say.

Irene’s post reminded me of Chloe’s love for oranges.  She loves them.  She eats an orange or more everyday and she would eat them clean.  I must say one of the parenting joy is seeing your child eat and I enjoy that a fair bit :

And when she is done with the oranges, she loves to do this.  Looks like she didn’t require any coaching from her 2nd aunty, it is already in her!

But it also reminded of something JD did when he was 2yo while trying to have some fresh orange juice.  Funny.

Once a week, we will do a a vegetarian meal at home.  I love my vegetables, afterall, I live by that surname, haha!  JD is very much a vegetarian eater, and he eats more vegetables, fruits, tofu, beans than meat if I have them serve in a meal.  Chloe on other hand loves her meat, just like my husband. 

Last week we did a quick vegetarian meal, just snow peas, Japanese tofu and some dried mushrooms.

Ingredients:

• Fresh snow peas
• 6-8 chinese mushrooms (pre-soaked in hot water)
• Japanese tofu

First blanched the snowpeans in a pot of hot water.  Usually, I just use a big bowl, pour in some hot water from the kettle and let the frsh peas sit in there for 3-5 minutes.  It helps to soften the snowpeas a little bit and quicken the cooking process while keeping the cunchiness of the snow peas. 

Next, Dust some flour over both sides of the Japanese tofu.  Set it aside.  In a frying pan, heat up a little bit of oil.  Gently fried the tofu on bothh sides till it is browned.  Take it out of the frying pan and leave it aside.

Then in a wok, heat up a little bit of oil, throw in some fresh garlic and ginger.  Then drained the snow peas, pour into the wok, add the dried mushrooms that have been pre-soaked, seasoned it with some soy or oyster sauce if preferred anda bit of salt to taste.  Add a bit of water.  Then used some corn flour mix with a bit of water to thicken the sauce.  Lastly, add in the Japanese tofu to warm it up.

Serve it with a bowl of rice and a quick, simple, nutritious meal for you and the whole family.

My new Wednesday is my day off from work when I close my own daycare for that day.  It’s a new thing I do for this year by cutting back my working hours.  It’s a day in the week when my kids get to have me all to themselves, when I relax the daily routine, when JD spends the full day in kindergarten,  and I get to spend some 1-on-1 time with Chloe and of course ”ME” time.   I have been looking forward to this since late last year and after a taste of it for the last few weeks, I must say it tasted pretty good so far.

I checked JD’s school bag, plan his lunch and snacks for the school day the night before, then packed my own bag and a little snack bag for Chloe.  In the morning, we dropped JD off to kindy by 8.45am after a quick story and a group hug because Chloe would want a cuddle from her brother too.  Chloe usually gets very upset that she can’t join her older brother at the circle time in school…

But she has own little activity when we go for her weekly toddler gym, when she joins in with 10 other little toddlers in circle time, gym play, music time for 45 minutes.  That’s usually sufficient for her.  Chloe loves her toddler gym, she waves to the hello song, always wanting to have a go at everything, dance to the music and though smaller in size compared to her peers,  she is still as determined.  She knows the routine, lie down under the parachute during the finish time and I always smile just looking at her knowing and following the routine.  She is a darling at times.

Sometimes Chloe and I would lunch out, sometimes we have the leftovers from the previous night, sometimes we just have a sandwich…pretty much I would be on light duty during the day.

She would have her nap and I nap too.  Sometimes I would arrange for my babysitter to come for 2-3 hours while I go out and do my own things

I enjoy the 1-on-1 time with Chloe.  It reminds me a lot of the time when I only had JD.  Those days when I wasn’t working, and spending time alone with him was good.  And particularly at Chloe’s age now when she understands so much more, the quality time with her is nice.   Really nice.