For those who joined Yummy Sunday, I am happy to announce that it is back. Thanks to my friend Bogie who is now hosting this meme. Please, if you would like to continue participating in Yummy Sunday, you may click this badge: (and please don't forget to change the code)

I have been blogging about moving out of our old house and moving in to a new house for the past few months. If you ask me whether we have finally settled in, I think, yes, we have. There are just little little things that need to be done but the majority of the work is finally done.

I like our new house better. There's some kind of a homey feeling in it. There is a small lawn in front of the house, and a little space at the back for gardening. My father has started planting vegetables there and they're already growing! We can have vegetable for free once they're grown.

Our room now is smaller than that in our previous house. But one thing I like about our room now is there's already two built-in cabinets with lots of compartments. I hope to be more organized in this house. Also, we have put up our bed frame already. I bought a new set of bedding to go with it. I bought it from Akemi for a 70% discounted rate. We don't really use bed wedges. But I am glad that our bed is finally up. Our room looks more cozy now.

My parents are pretty much comfortable. They're using Samantha's room now. I am glad to be able to move in and settle everything before they arrived. It is a blessing to have parents around from time to time. I am glad it is possible for us to do that. Thank you, Lord!

We do our major grocery shopping at Carrefour Subang. Giant Hypermarket is cheaper but hubby is not comfortable shopping there. Grocery shopping is kind of a family affair for us. We all go together. The kids love riding on the trolley. And recently, Samantha would go down and help me put all the goods inside the trolley. She's a very happy shopper. Sometimes, she would ask me: "we buy this, can?" Of course, not all the things she ask we will buy. She doesn't insist, that's the beauty of it.

My boy doesn't have a problem going shopping too. He doesn't help much but he also doesn't care what I buy. Typical guy, I think, that boy. Grocery shopping for us is like bonding time. Everybody enjoys it.

Last night was our another major shopping and since my mom and dad were with us, they went with us as well. Told my mom to buy what she needed, too. She went to the cosmetic section where all the beauty products were... that would include body lotion, facial cream, eye cream, shampoos, conditioners, etc. My mom was a happy shopper as well. My dad was content in pushing the trolley.

I can't remember going grocery shopping alone. My hubby always wanna go with me. Sometimes, I would tell him I could do it by myself especially when he's too busy. But he always insist on going with me. He always says he has a grand time going shopping with me and the kids.

My boy started bringing homework this school year. I was actually shocked the first time he brought one. But I thought it would be better to train them to do homework while they're young. Some might not understand this... but if you live in Malaysia, you would know that the education system is very competitive. So even at a young age, they are taught how to read, write, and what not.

When I sent my son to school the first time, I was shocked that they were expected to be reading a book already. I grumbled a bit, how could a three year old child read "whizzy and alzy?"

But then I realized their reading learning follows two programs: one is reading by recognition and another is by phonetics. So I was okay with the idea. My son could read (only) by recognition now. I am okay with that. And he likes to read very much. I'm scared that he would be needing prescription glasses soon.

But if ever he does, I know I could get a cheap but has a good quality pair of eyeglasses for my boy. In fact, you can get an $ 8 Rx eyeglasses. And by now, you would know that I am talking about the eyeglasses from Zenni Optical. I just saw Zenni Optical on TV!!! ...from my computer. Anyways, any thing is possible having an internet nowadays. I think they're really doing well because their eyeglasses are cheap comes with good quality. High five to Zenni Optical!

I just asked my boy that if ever he needed to wear a pair of eyeglasses which style would he prefer... and he chose this:

We started sending Schenker to Helen O'Grady Drama Academy in January this year. We thought this could be a good exposure for him as he likes to drama a bit. He was enjoying it. But because of our travels, we had to skip some of the sessions. When we came back from our trip in Macau, Hongkong and China, the real drama started.

The drama school apparently was having practice sessions because they had a drama showcase to show the parents what they learned for the first quarter. My boy only had two sessions left. And he was given a magician role for one of the acts.

But before we could go on with that, you must hear this one first. Since the start of this year, he has been telling us that he wanted to be a police when he grows up. Before that, he wanted to be a doctor. Not sure of the dramatic change though. But kids are kids and they can change preferences. I remember my husband's ambition when he was Schenker's age now was to be a street sweeper or a janitor. Probably if they were living in NJ, he would want to be one of those NJ trash removal workers. LOL. On the other hand, at that age, I wanted to be a househelper. Obviously kids' ambitions change overtime. So I don't have a problem with Schenker wanting to be a police when he grows up.

And so, when he was given a magician role, he refused it. He wanted to act as a Police. But there was no role available for cops. He disliked it so much he refused to do anything.

So on the drama day, he had a drama. He didn't wanna do anything. He was standing on the stage stiff and playing with his magic stick.

Now he doesn't wanna go back to his drama school. There goes his future acting career. LOL.

Anyway, I believe that the role of parents is to give them exposure to different areas while they are young. I'm sure it would be a joy to discover their gifts and talents while they are young so we could help enhance their God-given abilities.

Drama out. What's next?

When Schenker was younger, he actually asked one of his cousins if he knew about Jesus. I think because the cousin was one year younger (and he was too young), he didn't understand what Schenker was asking. He ignored him. He asked again: Do you know Jesus? After asking he got a first slap on the face. LOL. Well, of course I couldn't believe my eyes. But dismissed it as they were still very young. Schenker got slapped because he wanted to share about Jesus. I hope he gets rewarded for that. LOL.

Anyways, last week, he decided to take his Bible to his school. We allowed him to do it. He said he wanted to share the story of David and Goliath to his friends. We were glad because at such a young age, he already has a passion to share his faith to others.

So I asked him if he got to share about the story of David and Goliath when he came home. He said he couldn't find the story anymore but he asked the teacher to read, apparently. And so the Hindu teacher read the Bible in front of the class! It's amazing how God's word was shared by a Hindu teacher. All because my boy wanted to share the story of David and Goliath to his friends.

It never ceases to amaze me how God can use little ones to share His word. I hope that Schenker will not stop sharing his faith. And I pray that God will continue to use Him in any way he can.

My girl is showing readiness to go to potty by herself. She can actually do the no. 2. And sometimes she doesn't want to wear her disposable diapers at all. But there was an accident. And it was the job no. 1 that did it. I'm not quite ready to train her because we're still busy on organizing our stuff in the new house. But I guess she has started training herself already. LOL.

I have actually researched about potty training when I wanted to train my first child. In fact, I have written about an article as to when is the best time to potty train our kids. That time, I had all the time in the world to do research and write about my findings. Those were the non-paid blogging days:

When is the best time to Potty train them kids?

So, when actually is the right time to potty train them kids? Our oldies would say that we can start potty training even as young as 6 months!Age is one factor to consider to start potty training. However, age is not enough to consider. According to this source there’s physiological, psychological and physical factors to be considered.

Phsysiological readiness means the child can control his bladder. I noticed that today, when my son asked me to go with him to the bathroom coz he wanna wee-wee, i saw that the nappy was still dry. And the last time I changed his nappy was like more than 2 hours ago already.

This also means that a child must be willing! Willing to sit on the potty – when we bought our son’s potty, and we told him it was going to be his potty and he was going to do his “job” there, he refused to sit on it. Let alone touch it!

Psychological readiness means the child is able to recognize that he’s doing it (wee-wee or void). I think the fact that he asked me he wanted to wee-wee was a sign that he’s ready psychologically. Also, if the child is aware that he’s doing it, then he’s ready. My boy used to not care even if he has done it already. Let mommy smell it and it’s good enough! Now, he complains when he did it already. “Mommy, I wanna change nappy.”

Physical readiness means the child can walk to and out of the bathroom, can sit, and pull his pants up and down. Now, I wonder how mothers can train a child who’s not physically ready yet. I’m sure they had a very tough time, they had to carry and do everything for the child. Maybe, if I was willing to do all this for my son when he was not walking yet, probably I would have one difficult time, with my bulging tummy and all that! Kudos to mothers who sacrificially do all these for their kids!

Things to remember when we start training our kids to potty is never to push them to do it. The more we push, the more they resist, and all the more it will be so frustrating for mothers. Also, when they show readiness and tell you they wanna do it, acknowledge it and give him praises. This way, it will encourage him more to tell us when he’s ready to go. Also, we need to be really consistent and patient in the process.

Last but not the least, when it comes to potty, we not only check whether our child is ready or not, we also check ourselves whether we are ready or not because if we’re not ready, we’ll just contribute to the stress in the process. Both child and the mother (or whoever is training the child), must be ready. This way, we will be assured of smooth and successful result!

Hope this article helps for those mothers who are planning to potty train their kids.

I have given up the food meme Yummy Sunday that I have been hosting for a few months now. After that, I changed my template to make it more suitable for my blog's theme now. I have lost my blog list in the process. Please forgive me.

If your blog link is not here, please give me a shout out so I can put it back. Thank you so much.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is just one of the things I like about the internet. You can apologize online. Of course, it is better that if you think you offended somebody, you would make a personal apology. But apologies in general will do too (sometimes it takes real humility to really ask for an apology face to face). I have to work on it myself.

Other things you can do online is to make general announcements. You can always do baby announcements if you're having a baby. You can even announce your engagement, wedding, birthday, etc. Isn't internet a real blessing? I thank God for it!

ABC Ice kacang (Malaysian version of halo halo) is just so cooling. We've been having ice kacang 3 days in a row now. As you've probably know, we are in the midst of moving to another house. We actually moved in already. We're just putting all the things in the right places. After a full day's hard work, you just wanna eat something to cool you down.

We have discovered another restaurant that offers Malaysian Delights called Papparich. And we like their ice kacang so much. Ice Kacang 3 days in a row. I can just imagine how much sugar we've been adding to our bodies. We'll probably need a thorough colon cleanse after all this non-stop eating.

Actually, the image above is not from Papparich. It's an ice kacang from Mydin Food Court. It's my favorite ice kacang in Malaysia.

Samantha is a small girl. I mean she's small for her age. Yesterday, when we picked them up from their cousins' house, she was saying something like: Joshua said I'm small. So the grandmother said it's because my sister-in-law let them all stand in line to see their heights. So I had to assure her that it's okay to be small because she's a girl. Girls don't need to be huge.

I used to blame my mother for being chubby. Of course, now I know it's not her fault. But sometimes, whatever we become, we blame our parents... which is not so good to do. I only realize this after becoming a parent myself.

But for Samantha, she has a small structure. She eats very well though. In fact, she's a better eater compared to her brother. But she's just small for her age. I think she has a fast metabolism which is good. She can eat well and yet don't worry about getting fat when she grows up. Of course, if that happens, if she becomes fat and she wants to trim down a bit, I can just tell her to check out weight loss supplement reviews before making any decisions.

As parents, it is our duty to guide our kids. We may not own them but God has given us the responsibility to guide and nurture them. It may be too early to be experiencing peer pressure for my kids now... but I know it's our duty to assure them.

As parents we would like to see our kids grow up with self confidence.

One of the things I am grateful about the internet is you could actually set up a business online without much fuss. Of course, you have to do ground works. If you're a pro blogger, you need to establish good readership for good traffic that would result to a good page relevance.

But of course, I'm only talking about small scale business. But what if you're into big time business online? You would actually need a lot of help from a software development companies because I'm sure you'll be needing a good business software.

Am I ready to go into a big scale business online? I don't think so. I'm sure I need lots of experience, wider connections, etc. Perhaps, someday... I could venture into it. For now, it's the small scale business that I can be capable of doing and I can say that I'm really enjoying it.

Thank God they're gone. I mean my zits. LOL. It has been there for a few days and my kids never stopped asking why I had something like those on my face. Kids and their curiosity - you can never stop it. But today, as I looked in the mirror, I saw that the breakouts were already drying up.

Suffice to say, I won't be needing any acne treatment, will I? With my experience having those zits, one can't help but remembering the days when I just didn't know how to stop them from breaking out. It gave me so much insecurities to be honest.

Breakouts are caused by so many things. You can't pinpoint which one is the real cause. It could be the stress, lack of sleep, lack of water, lack of healthy food (too much oil and sugar in the diet), hygiene problem, wrong cosmetics, or could be due to changes in hormones for women that undergo monthly cycle. But of course, the more we are aware the less troubled we become.

In fact, sometimes, we don't need to do anything. Just let them be and one day, you'll wake up and they're gone. Like today. For me. :D

I blogged about having fun with the kids while packing our things. Yes, moving is fun... but I am hypocrite if I say it's not stressful and it's not tiring because it is. I am in the midst of moving houses now... but I am blogging. I think I just want to rest. I feel sooooo exhausted... especially when the time of the month is here. It makes it more tiring.

We have movers to carry all the heavy stuff but I can't help but thrown in a bit if help in carrying some stuff. Can't blame me. I am too excited. Can't help imagining myself lying on a sleep number bed to ease my back pain.

I think I need helpers to clean up the old house. I cannot take it anymore. We all have limits and I can say that I have reached my physical strength limit already. Got to rest some more after this.