How to melt the weight..

I am not one of those lucky mummy who would have their pregnancy weight "melt" off  while breastfeeding and just a couple of months after giving birth they are back into their pre-pregnancy shape. 
*can you feel that my eyes turning super green now?* ;P


Anyway, I am still doing best to "melt" the weight off and so far it's "melting" though not as fast as I wish.


To keep myself fit, (yes, I still need to exercise to keep myself healthy) I went back to running a couple of months back. I haven't ran for almost a year due to my pregnancy and recovery from giving birth, so it's taking me a while to find my pace and build my stamina.


In support of my wanting to lose the pregnancy weight and to help me regain my "passion" in running, my husband bought me a POLAR_®! (YYYAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!!!)

He also got me a foot pod so that I can track how far I have ran and my speed/pace! 

(DOUBLE YAAAAAAYYYY!!)

I have to confess that I haven't started using it just yet. Tomorrow would be my first time running with the full gear.

BUT if you wish to know more about POLAR_® before I can tell you how it's working for me.....
RUN IN (ok...you can drive then walk in) to Athlete's Circle at Jaya One, Petaling Jaya. They can tell you more about it and also recommend which one would suit you best! :)

Note:  
POLAR_® users, I would to read your experience with your POLAR_®... feel free to DROP A MUFFIN! ;)

My new boss..

I've recently "retired" from the corporate world (I'm still waiting for photos from an ex-colleague to blog about this) and decided to "work" for my new boss.

Here's my Monday-Friday schedule:

5.30am: Baby wakes up. Baby poo poo.Clean baby up. Baby waits for me to brush my teeth, change my clothes.

6a.m: Baby demands to go downstairs. Change his top to a more cooling one.

6.10am: Feed baby.

6.30am: Baby takes a quick nap. I'll wash the milk bottles, sterilize them. Put the laundry into the washing machine, wash clothes. Have my breakfast.

7.30am: Baby wakes up. Bring baby out for a walk.

 He does know how to enjoy his stroll around the neighbourhood.

8am: Come home. Bathe baby.

8.15am: Baby sits on his bouncer and watch me hang the clothes to dry.

8.45am: Play with baby for a while.


9am: Feed baby. Baby takes another quick nap.

10am: Baby wakes up. Baby watch Baby Brain Flashcards. (He enjoys watching the flashcards for "Right Brain". Think cause the voice sound like a chipmunk.)

10.15am: Baby plays by himself while I take a quick shower. My mum will keep an eye on him.

10.45am: Play with baby.

11.45am-12pm: Feed baby. Baby takes long nap. (at least 2 hours) I'll have lunch, do housework, go online, take a quick nap before he wakes up.

2.30pm: Baby wakes up. Let baby play by himself.

3pm: Feed baby. Baby takes another long nap (but this time it's slightly less than 2 hours). I'll blog and read the news online.

4.30pm-5pm: Baby wakes up. Baby watch another round of Baby Brain Flashcards. Bathe him. Bring him out for a walk (if the weather permits).


6pm: Feed baby.

7.30-8pm: Baby sleeps.

8pm: I'll shower and wait for my husband to call me to chat. (but sometimes I'm just too tired, I'll just sleep.) Some days if I have extra energy, I'll bake. :)

2-3am: Baby wakes up for midnight feed.(Which I'm praying that he'll drop it soon. I really miss my 8hours sleep.:( )

And the routine is the same every day.... (weekends are slightly different because my hubby will be back. I get to go for a run in the morning and sometimes I'll slot in some baking sessions with my bestie and there's also visiting my in-laws.)

So who am I working for now?

None other than this cute little chubby boy! 

He is going to turn 5 months old in 3 days! :)

Not complaining because I just LOVE watching him grow. :)

Hunting for Cloth Diapers

Now that I'm out of the corporate world (oops, I have not announced this on my blog yet.. ok, shall save this for another post.), I have to save as much money as I can.

Well, I'm not going to starve my baby, don't worry. He's still getting one of the most expensive milk in the market. I'm talking about switching him from disposable diapers to cloth diapers!

There are a number of benefits to switching to cloth diapers:
1) We spend less money on disposables. (Although my boy's skin is not fussy with the brands, it still does take up an amount of money in a month.)
2) We will be environmentally friendly! Mother nature will love the Tan family more! (huh??)
3) My boy will look like he is wearing pants! (Help mummy and daddy save more money! No need to buy pants!)

However, I find it very difficult to choose which brand to purchase cause I don't know which one would suit my boy.

If you are wondering how many brands are there in the market, here's the list:
1) BumWear
2) Happy Heinys
3) Fuzzi Bunz
4) bumGenius

This is just to name a few. There are a lot of other brands available and each brands describe theirs in a way that I may find it suitable for my son. *scratches head*

If only I could score some free samples like disposable ones, then I can determine which one would suit my boy best. (What to do, they are not cheap!! If I get one and it doesn't suit him, I can't wear it!)

So for now, my boy will have to look like this:

These scratches the sides of his legs. So we have to keep adjusting it. Poor him. 

So I'd rather he....

...promote Huggies wherever he goes til I can find him suitable cloth diapers..:)

Sugar Cookies

My bestie and I had another round of baking session. This time, we made Sugar Cookies! :)

We tried 3 different recipes.. Vanilla, Chocolate and Lemon flavoured Sugar Cookies.

Would you like to have some Sugar Cookies for tea?

 How about Sugar Cookies burger for lunch?

Hearts and flowers... aaaahhhh...

We liked all 3 flavours but could only use the Vanilla and Chocolate one to make them into proper shapes. The Lemon dough were too soft for us to shape, so we had to make them into round 1" ball and let it just spread on its own when baking. :)

 We had a sweet weekend.. how was yours?

An update on our cheerful chubby boy!

James is now 4.5months old. He is now drooling a lot and he recently "found" his voice.. and... his tongue!

 Catching his tongue with his two little fingers!

As much as my mum dislikes the fact that he puts his hands/fingers in his mouth, she has finally accepted that it's part of his "development". It's funny when he plays with his tongue, it's as though he is trying to catch it. Babies are just so innocent. If you remove his fingers from his mouth, he'll smile at you.

If only I know how to upload a video on my blog then I could post up a video of him "talking". Anyhow, from the picture below, you can tell that he has just finished saying.. "gooooo"...

Oh.. I forgot to mention, he now weighs 8kgs! :)

Weekends

What do you usually do over the weekends?
Sleeping in? Jogging? Preparing for something? Staring at the ceiling? Running errands? or just plain running?

Well, I've been baking! not alone.. but with one of my besties! :)

Two weekends ago, we made fruit tartlets. Not just a few fruit tartlets but 150 fruit tartlets!!! We started on Friday night, made the crust and the custard from scratch. Then on Saturday we put them all together... of course with the fruits on top..

Shells ready to be filled with custard...

Yummy custard! MMmmm...

and the end result...

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...

..

.

Yummy Fruit Tartlets!!!

Of course, knowing us, we like things to be colourful, so we had other fruits as well! :)

We spent approximately 9 hours across two days just to get 150 fruit tartlets but it was really worth it. :)

Bestie also made two batches of  Double Chocolate Chip Cake on Sunday. One for me to bring to my father-in-law's belated birthday celebration and another for a random lady who called her up to place an order. :)

MMmmmmm... are you drooling already?

Last weekend, we did another round of baking. This time is to make a cake for one of my besties from university's son's first Birthday.

On Friday night, we prepared the cake (2 batches cause the cake look "short" when it's only one layer), the decoration needed and it took us about 5 hours just to get these done. We made our own fondant which of course many people will say that we could have used Ready-to-Roll but it is cheaper to make your own fondant. It was difficult the first time but after that, it seems so easy to just "cook" one up yourself!

The next day, it was time to put them all together! (Ok, we had to bake another batch of cake cause our first batch.. broke.. eeeps!)

Don't those colourful stars, balls and letters make you happy?

It took us a few hours to actually cover the cake nicely with fondant (we had to make 2 extra batches of fondant to be able to get a good thickness and ensure that it's wide enough to cover the cake) and we were really relieved once we could cover it nicely. Of course, it wasn't perfect but not too bad for a first attempt.:)

and how did the whole cake turn out to be...

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....

...

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One HAPPY cake! :)

Of course, we received feedback about the stuff that we made. Good and bad. Definitely will learn to fine tune our baking and decorating!

So, tell me, what have you been doing over the weekend?

(not just staring at the ceiling I hope.. :P)

Dress from Irenelim Fashion

I have been following my ex-high school mate's blog and when I spotted a post about how to get a dress for free, I just didn't hesitate to find out more.


All I had to do was to go to this blog and the instructions were all there! EASY!


When I found out that the dress was from Irenelim Fashion, I got even more excited as I've purchased a cardigan & a top from them a month ago.


All I have to do is to e-mail The Witch and inform her of my interest, then once she has given me the green light, I'll then log on the Irenelim and choose the dress that I want.


As my pregnancy weight is still with me, I was a little afraid that I may not be able to fit in any of them.I took up the courage to try one of them.


2 days later, my free dress arrived!


and guess what... 

It fits!!

I chose the Kimono Summer Dress in Pink.

Thank you so much Irenelim & The Witch!

Now I have a dress to wear for a good friend's Holy Matrimony in May!Yay!

P/S:Irenelim is one of the few online boutiques that I know of that has clothes in my size.More reasons to get clothes from them when I just don't have time to go shopping!:)

Oh.. one more thing, this project has ended and they ended the project on the day I found out and participated. I'm one lucky mummy! :)

What a girl wants... need...

....is a bag for every thing/occassion. Agree?

We have:

Toiletry Bag

At least one bag for the weekend..

Bag for work

A mummy like me need a bag to put all the baby stuff, so that daddy can carry it! (HUH??!!)

A gym bag!!

(Also to put whatever else you need to carry to work cause the work bag just can't fit everything!)

And of course.. a clutch for dinners.

Well, not every girl is a bag person, some of them are more into shoes. So we either get shoes to match our bag or get a bag to match our shoes!

I'm also a person who loves to just "try my luck" as long as I don't have to harm anyone/anything.

(My Tutti Frutti post is one of the evidence.)

So when I found out that Bagskaki is giving away free bags inconjunction with World International Women's Day, I was determined to blog about it and GET MY FREE BAG!!! :O

Here's how you can help me score a new bag:

1) For those who have the love for bags, no harm clicking on Bagskaki and "drool" over the bags and purchase a bag from them.

2) For those who are a big fan of Coach bags, click on Bagskaki cause they do carry loads of Coach bags.

3) For those who have daughters/wife that love handbags, recommend them to click on Bagskaki.

4) If you have nothing to do and viewing blogs is your hobby, make Bagskaki one of the blogs. :P

If you are wondering why I mention Bagskaki so many times, click on this link and you will understand.

Click away! :D

All I did was drop my business card..

... and I received these vouchers!!

Thank you SO MUCH Tutti Frutti!

Now I get to enjoy some frozen yoghurt without having to pay more than RM10! :D

Especially on days when life is just too stressful or when the weather is just ridiculously warm...

I get my cup of frozen yoghurt from Tutti Frutti.

MMmmm.. tasty cooling stuff!

The fun part is you get to choose what flavour of froyo you want and then add whatever stuff you want (whatever that is available of course!)

Guilt free comfort food?

For those who like to think so. :P