This is so out of character for me. But diah & bear’s invite just tugged at me.

Family day. The topic.

What should I blog about?

We, as a family never have a designated family day. Because every day IS a family day. But of course these days, when the girls are bigger and Ariz is off diapers and can more or less behave himself reasonable well for a 3 year old, our weekends are more structured.

I think we struck cinemas off for a good 8 years of our marriage and we’re back in the business. I’ve always loved the big screens. I remember going to the cinemas every Friday night when I was at Uni. And now, we go as a unit, all 6 of us. Caution though. Pick your movie. HighSchoolMusical-ish works wonderful. Madagascar’s always a great pick. Pick your time. Do the 11am shows and they’ll be eager-beaver, otherwise you’d end up guiding sleepy kiddos out of the cinemas.

I read Lollies‘s family adventures in the wild. It’s funny how her being away in a barren desert,far, far away from our tropical land, has been to all these nature-infused attractions. And we have not.

I’m almost ashamed of ourselves. I think families evolve.

First, then the kids are younger, we frequent tthe pets/animals zoos/sanctuaries/petting zoos and places like that. Then we’re at the cinemas where they can appreciate magic being played in front of you, apart from reading them in books. Then I guess, once they’ve gotten slightly older, nature walks/treks/camps should start to be included.

I guess we’re almost there. If I can convince Ariz to wear his shoes all the time that he doesn’t need to pick every single thing on the floor/earth to be investigated. If I can convince Ariz that creepy-crawlies are there to creep and to crawl. So leave them be. No need to be stomping on them. I cannot tell you how many dead insects he has stomped upon. It’s almost he hunts these, completely unperturbed by them.

Of course, the girls need to realise that animals and nature are good things. Things crawl and things creep and no need to scream your lungs out for Mummy or Daddy to come rescue you from that little beetle on the wall, minding it’s own business.

You think we’re ready for nature?

I made 25 if these yesterday. For Salehah and for a wedding. Hope she likes them. I contemplated with using fondant or royal icing for the white base. And I decided that royal icing was better.

And I left them flooded cookies in the girls’ room for close to 10 hours under air-conditioned room for them to dry and they dried perfectly. Alhamdulillah! I was so happy with them.

Traditional Challah is a family of Brioche i.e. very rich bread with butter and eggs. Mine were supposed to have braids but they puffed up so much, the braids were gone.

Mamachak again ordered these for her newborn’s Cukur Jambul ceremony.

She wanted a variety of baby stuff, but I could not the right cutters so, I could only managed these.

More bibs.

Prams. I only did 4 of these as these were pretty big and prone to break.

Onesies.

Mamachak ordered these for her parents’ 40th anniversary. Wow!!

These were decorated by fondant. I didn’t have the cutter for tiered cake, so I made my own for these cookies. Later, I bought the cutters and I’m glad to report that my tiered cookies are perfectly balanced now. *snicker*

Okay. I’m not a pink person. Never have been. Never will be. So, when Mamachak ordered these cookies, I thought I’d do burgundy. I tinted the fondant and the icing the night before and woke up the next morning expecting a deep burgundy. But found a dusky pinky instead. Grr !

Anyhow I hope she likes them and oh .. Happy 40th Anniversary to Z and R! *for lack of info by Mamachak*

A boxful of Monogram cookies.

While I was finishing this, I realised that even though my children have become used to having a maid around, for most of their lives, they have somewhat picked up some domestic skills.

When I was busy decorating the cookies, Aliya and Asha took it upon themselves to sweep the living room, pick up the toys, straighten up the room and generally clean the whole place up. Well, they did bicker who got to use the broom first, but heck, i got over the bickering way was back.

But I guess, it helps that Andes, my domestic helper goes on her not-every weekend outings to her relatives. So, some weekends see us on our own. Me washing dishes, cleaning up after the spilt ribena or picking up toys which magically get strewn all over the place every time i blink. Gosh!

I remember MsVogue told me that her wake up call to domesticate her kids came when her son asked the maid to fetch a bottle of chilli sauce from the fridge and Lollies once told me about Sya, while lying on the floor watching TV, called the maid who was in the kitchen to fetch her the remote control which was like few feet from her. But I guess, we mothers, once we see this happening, corrective actions spring into action. He he !

But you see, we never thought our kids could become so complacent to having hired help at home. I for one, at any one time would have a helper when I was growing up. At one point we had two, and that’s only because a pair of twins like us were too much of a handful for one.

But it warmed my heart tremendously watching Aliya and Asha so diligently sweeping away the cheerios on the floor and picking up bits of honeyed wheat puff off the carpet. The future’s bright after all.

Heat sealed and bagged with twirly pink ribbons for effect.

Dots and Pink Ribbons Wedding Dress

Monogram Hearts. It’s A & F. I did the & for half and then ditched it as I think A F looks just nice.

Wedding Dress – The Swirl Design.

Rotinina requested that I make wedding cookies for her sister’s wedding this Sunday. I was initially apprehensive since wedding are elaborate affairs and I kinda hate to mess things up. But today, looking at them. I think they’re alright. In fact, I’m so proud of my myself. Come on people. Clap ! Clap! Clap!

Roti wanted wedding dresses, panties, bras and tiered cakes. Maybe hearts too, though she felt hearts were corny and tacky.

Obviously, for Malay weddings, the panties and bras were quickly chucked out. Just the tiered cakes, dresses and hearts. Monogram, I told her.

But, my tiered cake cookie cutter acted up and I ended up making 28 pieces of the wedding dresses in 2 different designs. First the swirl and the second the dots. Then I made 23 of the monogram hearts. Then I ran our of fondant. Sheesh!

My first time using fondant on cookies. They look clean, exquisite and just divine. Royal icing kinda suck or I’m juts lousy at it. I can never thin it enough or too much and it takes foever to dry up. Hmm. I think I may stick to this.

I really hope Roti likes it.

Ciao!

Azen is a great friend of mine.

And one who has everything and desires nothing that I could afford to give him.

So, I made 10 of these cuppies and a batch of cookies for him.

Sweet eh?

Unfortunately, Azen was out of the country so, I had the girls at the office devouring these. *yikes*

These were one of my first orders in June 2008.

These were ordered by Nina for favours for a wedding. I so love the wedding dress. White on white worked wonderfully well.

Cookie cutters were hard to come by then. So, I made the cutter myself for these cookies. It was painful, strenuous work with wonderful results. Future wedding dresses are all made using the wedding dress cutters I bought off Cakeconnection. Yay!

A bunch of them.