Decorating Cookies - Part 2

Managed to do another round of cookies last weekend :-)

 

  

Plain cookies for decorating

I did heart, flower and teddy bear shapes this time.  And also some circle shapes (using Avent bottle cover)

 

 Stamped-out Cookies

I love these!!  I think I'll probably just do until this step in the future.

 

 

 

 And tadaaaa........some of the completed cookies.

 

Yipppeeeeee!!!!  I think I've improved quite a bit!! 

 

   

 

 

And of course, Elyssa wanted to decorate her own cookies :-)

Quite a few folks have asked me about the cookie recipe I used, so here it is :

http://yinmomyangmom.com/2012/12/15/how-to-bake-cookies-that-dont-spread/ 

 

Decorating Cookies

Decided to give cookie decorating a try recently.

 

As usual, Elyssa was eager to be involved. I used plastic squeeze bottles instead of piping bags cos I think it's easier to handle.

 

Decorating her own cookie

 

 

 So focused !

 

 

My cookies - "Outline" version

Not bad for a first timer eh?

 

"Flooded" version

Keke....and this is where all the imperfections are obvious! Partially due to lack of equipment too, cos the piping nozzle I have is too big. Plus I only have ONE nozzle.  So when I switched between the pink and yellow icing, I had to wash and dry it first.  Oh yeah, and then had to take turns with Elyssa for that ONE nozzle  :)

 

 

Best part - eating!

 

 

Since I still had plenty of leftover royal icing, I did a second round of cookie baking and decorating the following weekend.  My 2 nieces stayed overnight with us and they were happy to join in the fun too.

 

Elyssa with her cousins

I bought a new plastic squeeze bottle from Daiso but it was not that good

 

Using toothpick to do touch-ups

 

 

My simple outline cookies

Really need to go and buy a proper nozzle!

 

 

Just for fun :-)

 

Rather fun and addictive!  Gonna bake another batch of cookies to decorate this weekend.  But before that, I really need to get some blue colouring and proper nozzles.

Sweet Moments

*Phoo Phoo......Blow Cobwebs*

 

Haven't updated this blog for more than 2 weeks already! Various reasons actually. Have been unwell lately. Cough and flu for more than a month :(  So when the kids sleep at night, I tend to doze off as well. And of course, the longer I don't update this blog, the harder it is to "re-start" the engine.

 

So here's a quickie post to start things off again.

 

Presenting...... Sweet Elyssa and Erin moments:

 

Elyssa jie jie carefully feeding Erin

 

 

Reading books together at MPH 

 

 

Fooling around at home - they love their "same-same" pyjamas!

 

 

Sharing a cup of ice-blended coffee

(uhm....or more like trying to drink Daddy's coffee as fast as they can before Daddy wants it back!)

 

 

There are plenty more sweet moments between the 2 sisters. Love, love, LOVE moments like these!

 

But of course, for each of these sweet moments, there are probably 10  times (or 100 times?) of the "unsweet" moments. Ha ha.!  They do fight like cats and dogs A LOT!  Erin is at the stage where she wants everything jie jie has.  And Elyssa is at the stage where she doesn't really want to give in.  So yup, pretty much a standard recipe of lots of crying and wailing on a regular basis  ;-)

"T"

For Erin, the most important alphabet is "T". 

 

Example -

1. Ah Tong (= Ah Kong)

2. Tie Tie (=Jie Jie)

3. Toup (= Soup)

4. Too Too (=Shoe Shoe)

5. Took (=Good)

 

Ha ha..... I just love the learning-to-talk phase  :-)

 

 

" T's the best!!! "

 

 

Hospital Stay

After almost 6 days of persistent fever, Erin was admitted to the hospital recently.   :(

My poor baby!

 

 

On her hospital bed

I expected a wailing scene when the nurses poked her hand to draw blood and for the drip. But Erin was just so, so brave. She struggled a bit toward the end of the procedure (nurses took TWO vials of blood) but she hardly made a sound or cried. So proud of her!

 

 

Both hands with plaster and board

*Sigh*, so sad to see my poor baby like that. Nurses plastered her left hand as well to prevent her from pulling the tube from her right hand.  Surprisingly, Erin wasn't very disturbed by the boards. On the next day, she could even comfortably play games on the Ipad using her two free thumbs.

 

 

Her admission was around 11pm on Monday night. Still had fever on-and-off and it spiked again on Tuesday morning.  When the doctor came to check on Tuesday, she did not give the green light for discharge, so we had to stay on for another night.

 

Both hubby and I stayed in the hospital with her, while Elyssa stayed over at Ah Kong and Ah Mah's house.

 

Going for a walk in the ward

 

 

Luckily, she didn't have any fever on Tuesday afternoon onwards and on Wednesday morning, doctor said she could be discharged.  Yay!

 

 

Happy with her balloon

The tube was removed around 11pm on Tuesday. The 3 of us went downstairs for breakfast @ Subway the following morning and she happily chose her Hello Kitty balloon right after that.

 

 

And what was the diagnosis?  Nothing conclusive actually. Dengue ruled out. Urine results showed no infection. So, the general term "viral fever" was used. She was put on drips for about 24 hours with 1 dosage of antibiotic into the last round of drips as well as standard oral paracetamol every 4-6 hours.

 

A part of me still thinks the fever would have ran its course anyway and the hospital stay could have been avoided. But then again, I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry. (and hubby who's Mr Panicky would have driven himself crazeee with worry!)  

She said it!!!

Yay....... my baby can finally call me!  Ok, instead of "Mummy" it's "Ah Mee"  but that's good enough for me.  During dinner just now, she happily pointed at me and said "Ah Mee", Ah Mee" Ah Mee" in quick succession.  Yippeee Yay  :-)

 

 

I can't believe the fuss mummy is making about me saying "Ah Mee"!

 

 

Her other words:

1.  Eh Dee  (Daddy)

2.  Ah Tong (Ah Kong)

3.  Ah Mah (Ah Mah)

4.  Jah Jah (jie jie)

5.  Pohr Pohr (pom pom)

6.  Mine (mine = she says this when trying to take things from other people)

7.  NO ! 

8.  Toup (soup)

9.  Thoo (shoe)

10. I wa!  (I want)

11. Elvi (Elvis, our dog.  Either that or she's asking for an LV bag. keke)

 

A big improvement indeed, in just this couple of weeks. I think we're going to hear plenty of words from her very soon  :-)





Juicing

My latest craze is -- JUICING!!

 

I bought a second hand Hurom slow juicer about 2 weeks ago, and have been happily juicing almost every day since then.

 

I started off with pure fruit juices. My first attempt was a combo of apple, orange and pineapple. It was of course, very nice to drink but that wasn't my purpose of getting a slow juicer.  

 

Pretty soon, I got my veggies in! 

 

Fruit &Vege Combo - carrots, broccoli (yes, broccoli!), cucumber, turnip, lettuce, orange

 

 

Elyssa helping with the juicing

 

 

As expected, Erin didn't want to be left out!

 

 

Juice from above combo

Both girls gulped down their portion and asked for more :-)

 

 

Another Fruit & Vege Combo - carrots, celery, broccoli, organic sweet potato leaves, turnip, green apples and oranges.

 

 

Green juice from the combo above.

Hubby and I were pleasantly surprised with the taste but both girls refused to touch it

 

 

Here's a more "potent" combo - bitter gourd, carrot, celery, sweet potato leaves, turnip, apple

 Verdict : bitter but drinkable!

 

 I knew Elyssa won't touch the combo above, so I asked her to pick her own combo of 2 fruits and 2 vege.

 

She picked this for her personal combo : carrot, sweet potato leaves, orange, apple

 

She drank it all up !

 

 

Didn't take photo of the rest, but so far, I've also added - yellow zucchini, lemon, pomegranate, spinach, guava and Japanese cucumber.

And here's my take after 2 weeks:

a) Adding any leafy greens makes the juice a lot less palatable  :(

b) Thumbs up for carrot, celery, turnip, yellow zucchini and cucumber

c) Adding bittergourd makes the juice bitter (ahbuden!) but lemon helps a lot

 

On weekdays, I make these juices after work and I'm really glad to add on all these fruits and vege to the daily diet. Once, after being stuck in a particularly horrible traffic jam on the way home, a simple juice of celery and green apple made me feel much better :-)

 

 

Oh, I've been making nut milks with my juicer too. There's a lot of negative studies about cows milk (hormone injections, not meant for adult humans bla bla....). A bit worrying since we drink a lot of  cows milk in our household. Not going to go for a drastic change of zero cows milk, but I like the idea of having an alternative milk in my fridge :-)

 

 

My first attempt  - creamy, nutty, Almond milk with some added Milo.  Yuh-mee!!  

 

 

Cashew nut milk 

Made 3 rounds so far

 

 

 

Really loving my juicing (and nut milk) journey so far :-)