Malaysian Wife, Australian Life

1. Waking up for Sahur and seeing my dad in his sarong up to his middle, heating up food for us all. Yes good people! We're back in Jay Bee .:) Left Bali yesterday arvo for a 2 1/2 hour flight to Singapore and it took us about the same time to cross the causeway to get home. Crazy Friday night + people shopping & going back for Eid traffic. Ayisha went from 'see Cik Mah, see Cik Mah' to 'twinkle twinkle, mummy sing, twinkle twinkle' to 'zzzzzz' in the car. 2. Anticipating the arrivals of my siblings & their family. This year, all of my brothers and sisters will be coming home for Eid. It will be a blast! I am so looking forward to just hanging out with them and catch up on things. I also can't wait to see Ayisha being all 'grown up' hanging out with her cousins. Hang on, except for my sister, Wa who'll be spending Eid in Sunshine Coast. Why do I keep forgetting this? Must be because for the longest time, I've always spent my...

So this is Mike, Yan's husband writing today's blog :) This all came about because our crappy home internet wouldn't upload this great video of Ayisha below, so I am uploading it at work. Shhhhh!!! On top of doing this little upload, I wanted to take a few lines to say how much I love my wife :) She is the most kind, most giving, most loving, most thoughtful person I have EVER met, and to get super cheesy 'she makes me want to be a better person' (Feel free to leave now and have a little throw up!!!) But not you Yan, you need to keep reading, I have more to say to you: I love you so much, and somehow when I feel that my love for you is so huge that I will explode, you manage to make me love you even more :) Thank you for everything, and thank you for taking care of me and Squeaky, all day every day. We would be lost without you. You are so beautiful. I LOVE YOU M For all of you that are still reading, here is a little clip of Ms. Ha kicking it for her fan...

When it comes to cooking, I am pretty bad at following instructions. I love recipe books but if something is too complicated with a lot of steps involved and has a bunch of ingredients that I don't even know, I'd lose motivation. So when we were packing our books to come to Bali and Michael asked 'ok, which ones would you really really really use?', I only picked one - the 4 Ingredients Book. It's a birthday gift from my sister and it's perfect for me. I love how all the recipes only have 4 or less ingredients (not including 'to taste' stuff ie. salt, pepper, water) and the instructions are mostly only 1 paragraph long. This is the only no-picture recipe book that I would want to look at more than once. Some of my favorites from this book: 1) Caesar's Fish - 2 fresh white fish fillets - 1/2 cup caesar salad dressing - 1 cup crushed cornflakes - 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese Preheat oven 160c. Arrange fish on lined baking dish, drizzle with ...

When Ayisha was born, we agreed to a plan to breastfeed her till she's 2. There wasn't really any written down step-by-step plan to follow, it was fairly straightforward - task: feed your child, period: 2 years. But now that she's 2, we don't really have a clue on what to do next. When I shared my concerns to friends & family, I've been getting some mixed responses; - You're still breastfeeding? She's 2! - Why do you want to stop? Because all the books said recommended breastfeed until 2? - Just do it now, cold turkey. It'll only take 1 week max.. - You're not working or anything, just let her breastfeed till she's ready to stop - If you want to get pregnant again, try and stop feeding - You've done it for 2 years, you don't have to feel bad for wanting to stop for no reason I don't really have the heart to stop cold turkey, so we thought we should do it gradually and start with the night time ones. Ayisha sleeps in a mattress...

Out of all the drawing & coloring pads that she has, my note diary is always a top pick when inspiration comes. Big circles are so last week. She loves them small nowadays. 1 is her favorite number (the only number she can draw lah!) :p This is Mummy. What, can't you tell? Done for the day.....

If you come to Bali, you cannot NOT go to at least one of their many Spa places for a pampering session. They're not only cheap compared to anywhere else in the world, they're also probably some of the best - offering excellent quality & service as well as using the finest & most natural ingredients. Ideally, I would've loved to go to the Spa every week if not everyday, but I'm not that vain lah . Ok, maybe a little bit but we still have a mortgage & some bills to pay so I'm doing my bit by keeping the pampering session for special occasions or pick-me-ups and PMS'ing moments. So, once a month eh at least? :p There's so many to choose from here depending on how much you're willing to pay. You can have a 1/2 hour, 1-hour or 2 hour of Balinese, Aromatherapy or Hot Stone massage for as low as RM15 or as much as RM200. The massage itself, particularly Balinese, I think is the same. It's the ambience, the service and the lil extras (towels, ...

My youngest sister aka Ayisha's favorite " aunty-who-I-made-clean-my-poopy ", Cik Limah was here! My sister came to pick-up my mum. She arrived late on Friday, had 2 full days on the weekend and they both left yesterday. When I brought my mum back to Bali, we wanted her to stay for the whole month of Ramadan and leave with us when we go back for Eid but she didn't want to be away from home too long and she wanted time to prepare for Eid. We didn't want her to travel back on her own, so my sister came as she was the only one who could make the short trip for this purpose. Not like she needed too much convincing ;) It was her first time in Bali but because it's Ramadan, like Moi, doing the sightseeing stuff and exerting yourself ie. walking in Ramadan is a big NO-NO lah. Why? Because we can't have ice-cream while strolling down the beach. hehe. And like I mentioned every Ramadan too, using fasting as an excuse is a big NO-NO to Michael. So to be fair, we d...

On the weekend, Michael decided to cook Sushi for break-fasting. To those who've tasted Michael's homemade sushi, they would've agreed with me that his Sushi is pretty incredible. It always looks so wonderful with all different types of fillings you don't get on a sushi train and beautifully cut too. It tastes even better. I was super duper happy cos I looooove sushi and of course, I get the day off cooking! So we went to Carrefour to get our Sushi stuff. Carrefour here is awesome! I would've loved to go to Carrefour every week for our groceries because they've got excellent stuff and lots of choices. But it's a lil bit further away than all the other supermarkets that I normally go to so whenever we do go to Carrefour, we'd go a little bit crazy. We'd by different cuts of beef & chicken and yummy homemade sausages. We'd also get some spices & bits and pieces that we've never even used before just because we don't see them at the...

It's the 3rd day of fasting here in Bali and so far it's been pretty good. It all seems like business as usual here because the majority of Balinese are Hindus. But on the first day of Ramadan, while I was out and about, I did get a lot of 'Happy Ramadan' & 'Happy Fasting' wishes from friends & strangers including the cashier & parking attendant. I thought that was just lovely! :) I wake up at close to 5am to prepare for Sahur - something I have to make sure I do because my mum is here and she needs to take her morning medications and we break-fast at about 6.18pm Bali time. So, woohoo! :p Friends & family back home have been wondering if we have Pasar Ramadan (food stalls selling breakfasting goodies) here. YES, apparently there is one near our house. Not just that, we also have Pasar Sahuran dong (food stalls selling pre-dawn goodies) and I was told they are pretty awesome. However, we haven't checked them out yet. The main reason for ...