Progressing

Since my last post 3 weeks ago, I have gotten my ACS assessment result and it's positive, yuuhooo!! One hurdle cleared.

So now I am preparing for the PTE exam which I have scheduled for 6th August, I am quite nervous about it since I am aiming to get great marks so that I can get more points which will result in better options and chances.

Being the cheap stake that I am, I am not paying for the online practise test because I think most of the available resources for free online are similar. So hopefully I won't pay the price of being too cheap stake and only using free resources online.

Otherwise, my other bigger worry is in terms of finances. So we are trying to liquidate some assets to cover some of the cost but still find it difficult. Will be taking a day off with hubby to go to the banks to ask for better financial management (debt consolidation) in order to make the best financial decisions.

This weekend I will be having a trip away with colleagues and leaving behind the family. Hopefully I find time to study and prepare for the test which is the Saturday after tomorrow.

Our Journey

Been a looong while. 

My family has grown to 2 boys and 2 girls, youngest being just about 2.5 years old. Things are ok, we are living our lives in Kajang, Malaysia. Busy with the usual, kids' with school and hubby and I with our work. We also bought a 20 year old semi detached house and had been busy since 2013 renovating it. Finally we moved in October 2014 although the house isn't really 'done' yet up to now. We are still doing improvement works and applying for the CCC which is a pretty complicated process. The problem is we spent all our money on the renovations and related costs. Therefore we are pretty much broke. Money we both earn just isn't quite enough although things are getting better and I could see we could start set aside some savings again by the end of 2016.

However, suddenly, out of a wimp, the idea of applying for Australia migration crept into our minds. Hubby and I both agreed we should try applying. Well, it was not really a wimp, several things led to this but it is a post for another day.

Anyways, since time is critical for us due to the age factor to qualify for skill migration, we have engaged a migration agent just to make sure we are doing the things right. Now we are at the stage of submitting my skill assessment to the Australia assessment body which the agent will do on our behalf. So in a matter of a week or two the assessment will be submitted. Next I am going to have to schedule an English test.

Once these two are completed, the agent can then submit an EOI for me and we will then wait to be invited to apply for the visas. The whole process if quick could be a matter of 2 or 3 months or it could take 6 to 7 months. Anyways, if it takes longer than 1 year, I will not be able to qualify due to points lost in the age factor.

All these are part of the process so I will just apply and wait and see what needs to be done next. Only thing that has me quite worried is the financial part of it, how we can finance this whole process without needing to sell the house that we have settled ourselves into, which we quite love.

Oh well, it's enough ramblings for today. I am sure with God's help, things will turn out well. I will post more on another day.

GE13 hype

It's been a long while since I wrote anything here. Just didn't have any motivation to do so. Today I saw one of my friends wrote on her blog about her friendship with another and I thought of my little blog that had been neglected. So here I am.

Well, there is only thing to talk about, GE13 of course.

This time around, I have 2 personal friends running for office. I am trying to support them but due to limited time and resources, I can offer very little help only. I will try to attend some their talks over the 2 weeks of campaign period left. However, I am volunteering as a polling agent on polling day! This is my first time doing so, will be fun!

For me, personally, I cannot understand how anyone can still vote for the ruling party after their very disappointing achievements over 56 years. Still there are supporters of the ruling government, maybe these people don't read other sources of information other than the conventional mass media. Or they just chose to close both eye and vote in the same old same old. After all, it doesn't matter to the ordinary folks who is controlling the government, life goes on as usual. In a way it is true, politics doesn't affect us directly. However, after knowing and reading so many misuses of tax payers' money, injustice and discrimination, the mess in the education system and lots more of utter nonsense coming from a 56 year old government, I think it's high time we change them.

This is the election that we have some real hope of real change which will only come through a change of government, period.

So I am hopeful that come 5th May (my hubby's birthday), we will cast our votes wisely and bring about the much needed change!


Adam Lambert - Change is gonna come!

Direction please?

February is already ending, CNY is past. Celebrated my daughter's 5th Birthday. Work is pretty much the same, a little busier lately but nothing I cannot handle. Busy with kids and all, between sending and picking them up to/from schools/kindy/daycare/piano etc..

I have booked Air Asia tickets for 5 of us to HK in May. So now I have to plan the trip and book the hotel. Yet to do so, because the hotels in HK are so pricy, I cannot decide where to book. If I book the cheaper budget types, it may be too unpleasant to stay in. I think I will opt to pay a bit more and ensure comfort for all of us. Don't want to not enjoy the trip because of bad hotel experience. Another thing is I didn't buy any check-in baggage, intentionally. I really want to travel light, so each person will carry their own bag, up to 7 kg, no check-in baggage. No crazy shopping, so we go light and come back light ;P.

I thought Election would be in March but looking like it may not happen. So now I am a bit worried that it will fall during my planned trip! Hopefully not, because I cannot change the trip anymore! Plus the boys are so eager for their first airplane ride, I will not reschedule anymore, for their sake and for my wallet's sake.

We recently sold our current house and bought another, so there will be major changes to our lives in a few more months. I don't even want to worry about that now because it seems like a long way to go. I will save my worry to when it is needed. Meanwhile, it is a lot of waiting.

I will try to update this blog more often, but it's been in the sidelines recently. My head is bit lost, I don't seem to have directions, I am just doing stuff without much thoughts to it. I am feeling like this for awhile now. It's not so good. Praying for God's guidance in our lives.

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year to you and your family.

Have a healthy and prosperous year ahead.

 

Chinese New Year approaching...

We are at the end of January of 2013. Chinese New Year is in 2 weeks. I have gotten some new clothes for kids, but still need more clothes and shoes. I don't know if I have time to find comfortable, practical shoes and clothes for them. As for other preparations, I am ill prepared. No baking cookies this year. I am not in the mood plus my over is broken. So I will go buy some this week. The house is still in a mess like usual. I dislike cleaning, even more, spring cleaning. So this will be a real chore for us.

We made an impromptu decision to visit Petaling Street/Jalan Sultan yesterday morning (a public holiday). It was a nice short trip, 2 1/2 hours in all. Since it is nearing the Chinese New Year, there was quite a lot of people at about 8+am when we reached. It would be real crowded by afternoon and more so in the evenings I am sure. We didn't plan to do any shopping there, so we brought our in laws along and had breakfast, bought some snacks, walked around abit and headed home. Was pretty enjoyable, and a different experience for the kids. Even for me, I seldom venture into KL, let alone Chinatown. The last time I went there was before CNY more than 5 years ago. But the atmosphere there, especially nearing/during CNY time is always great.

You know some times it's so ironic. People from all over the world come to Malaysia to visit our places of interest, Pestling Street being one of the most popular ones. And we as Malaysian don't even go there when it's just at our doorsteps. That's the mentality of the grass is always greener on the other side. Enjoy some shots I took on my iPhone of our visit.

Settling into 2013 with Exciting Happenings

Christmas is over and so is New Year! Looked like I 'forgot' about my blog for more than 20 days! Can't blame me la, been busy with school reopening and all.

I read back what I wrote last and realised I didn't do what I said I would do. That is to create a timetable for the kids for their daily/weekend activities. Will try to do so one day in the fuuuuuture...

Right now, the kids are settled in their routine. Eldest one goes to school wee early in the mornings with his dad. The other two follows me later on to their daycare/kindy. In the evenings, I will go pick the 3 of them up. So far so good.

Many things are also happening for us. Bought a new (old) house, putting up our current one for sale, busy with loan/sale agreement/etc.. Busy thinking how to revive the new (old) house.

AND the thing happening this weekend which I have been looking forward to, my gf's wedding! We will be busy from early morning, helping her out. As one of the gfs said, the last one off the shelf :P, so I am super excited! Helped her with her wedding picture slideshow to be played during the dinner. Bought new dress(es), made new dress for my girl who will also be going, going to send my car for carwash and go to the hair saloon on Friday! Even dieted for weeks to look better on her big day. Just so happy for her...

Exclusive! I am so excited, I will even post up the dress I will wear for her big night!  :P

Mothers do what they need to do...

My MIL is away in East Malaysia for a week now. I am now cooking in the evenings to feed hubby & the kids and also sometimes for my FIL and SIL who are at their home nearby. MIL will be back next week. So today I went to Tesco during lunch break to get some vegetables for tonight's dinner. Actually, I find it still quite manageable. I leave immediately after work, fetch all kids who will be at my daughter's kindy and get home around 6 pm. Starts cooking and dinner will be cooked by 7 pm. Not bad at all. But of course, it does need a little bit of pre-planning, like defrosting meat/fish before hand. I don't mind this at all but I believe my MIL still wants to cook dinner for us, so I'll still leave it to her when she comes back.Unless of course she changes her mind.

Christmas was yesterday, went to church on Christmas eve and Christmas morning. In the afternoon, we went to have a small family get-together at sis' house. I ended up cooking, with the maid's help, while my sister and my mum had to do some last minute shopping for kids' presents. I did mine earlier. So the kids were all happy with a couple of presents each. Anyways, the kids had fun and it was wonderful to spend time with my siblings and their families.

The new year is coming soon, the kids will start school on 2nd January. I have yet to see how we can manage because one of the boys will be schooling in the morning while the other will be in the afternoon. The two boys, although cannot stop quarreling sometimes, are like always together. So now, this year, they will see each other less. When one is in school, the other will be in daycare and vice versa. I hope their bickering will be lesser. Anyways, they like to gang up against their sister and make her scream, still don't know how to stop that, both they making her scream and she screaming...

I was talking with my mum and siblings and the subject about how to teach children came up. So my mum said we should not shout/scold or hit our children but reason with them. Hmmmm... Ironically, I don't remember having a lot of chit-chat with my parents while growing up... In principal, yes, we should not scream and scold at them. But in practice, it's not easy. I blow my top sometimes, even hubby does that. When either of us do that, we get annoyed at each other. I believe my parents felt the same too, more my mum because dad was not at home as much as mum.

Sometimes, we just need to sit back and look at things in the kids' perspective. They have siblings to contest with for attention, they get bored easily and they are just mischievous little creatures by nature. When they can get their siblings miserable, they are happy! My sons would do anything to be able to play computer games! I definitely control that, I don't like them getting so hooked up at the PC or iPad/iPhone playing games. Fortunately (or unfortunately) my Streamyx at home sucks, so loading online games takes forever, that kind of hinders their online gaming activities (and also my Maaduu sessions as well :( ).

I think, we just need to help them spend time doing something more interesting and beneficial, together, or even apart sometimes. Last week, we spent sometime doing some paintings. We also should have some outdoor fun and exercise too. I think I am going to draw up a schedule to include some of these activities into their lives instead of shopping every weekend. Let's see how that turns out.

I got this book for Christmas, Thanks MT. One of the quotes inside goes like this:

The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all.

                                                      - Benjamin Spock

2013 Round the Corner

The end of the year is less than 2 weeks away and Christmas is in a week! Oh, not forgetting, end of the world is in 3 days. So what have you guys done in preparation for D Day? I have not done anything for end of the world, just thought I should packed up some drinking water and non perishable food. What the heck, we will consume those stuff eventually anyway so why not...

This year was hard for us. We went through a whole lot of emotional upheaval, stress and difficulties. When things were hard, we have family and friends that cared which made things a lot easier. Thank GOD that we came out of these difficult times stronger and more faithful. Most of all, Thank GOD for giving us the beautiful gift which will remain in our hearts until the day we leave this world (and beyond).

Coming back to the year end celebrations. Christmas is so close, the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what have you done in preparation for that? Hmmm, for us, we had caroling a few days ago. Singing house to house for our church members staying here. The house is decorated, most of the presents are prepared. I think we spent quite a lot of money already shopping :(. Spiritually, what have we done? We have gone for confession and are paying more attention during mass. Frankly, I think we need to do more, for the church and for charity. Lord, please steer us to the right direction, to do more of Your works. I am ready, to serve more. It doesn't mean only for Christmas but all year long. Lord, guide me.

So for all those reading this, have a Blessed Christmas and a very Happy New Year. God bless you.

Oat and Durian?

Hey, I checked my blog today and my last article was read 15 times! I usually get like 4 hits, and that could be myself reading my own blog. So 15 is good, since I posted it only 2 days ago. Hmmmm, wonder who have been reading my blog :P.  Anyways, hope you come back often and bring more friends so that I may soon have enough traffic to become a fulltime professional blogger! (Yeah, right...)

Back to reality. I got great news last night from a dear dear friend. She is getting married in 2 months. I am super happy for her. CONGRATULATIONS, PY!!!!

So I don't know why I am super excited about her up coming wedding, probably because she totally deserve every happiness in the world because she is such a dear. So you know what came to my mind after she told me, I need a diet and I have 2 months for that! I plan to dress to the nines for her wedding dinner and I definitely can't do that with my spare tyre around my waist. SOOOOO, my target is to lose 15 kgs in 2 months! Ambitious or not?? Hehehhee....

Actually, I don't eat a lot. But problem is I don't move a lot either.... so where to start?

I am sacrificing lunch for at least 2 months. When I am hungry in the afternoon, I will drink some oat beverage. Lets see what we can achieve with this diet in a week! I will start tomorrow because I am going for durian lunch in Broga today :P. So I am bracing for tomorrow, ok?

Appetising?

APPETISING!!!!!!!!!

My Week Off

Was off work for the whole last week. We went to Legoland in JB on Monday and then sent the boys to BP to stay with my mum for 2 weeks. They are still there. Legoland was ok, it's more for kids between 6 to 12. Except for 2 roller coaster rides that adults may fancy, the rest are too kiddy for adults. If you ask me, I would say, go once. It's nice to visit at least once but I wouldn't go again personally. Not sure if you get the same answer from the kids though. Plus the wait for each ride was excruciating! We had to pick the ones we really like cause there wasn't enough time for all.

Legoland, good for kids only.

 Back from Bangkok after a 4 day trip. Had a pretty good time with my daughter while my husband went to work there. She is a brave 4 year old! We went on planes, vans, limo, taxi, motorbike taxis, motorised (James Bond) long boat, boat on oars and even went on elephant! All that and she didn't even wince a bit! I was surprised, I actually thought she will be afraid, especially on the elephant but she was like, "Yes, I want to ride the elephant!" Even after me reconfirming with her a few times! There went 900 baht for our elephant ride...

My 2nd son talked to his sister on the phone from my mother's house in BP and the 1st thing he asked her was, "Was it fun?". His sister of course said, "Yes!" and the poor boy was so jealous... But I have promised to take the 2 boys on a trip on a plane somewhere next year, so wait your turn :).

People in Thailand look very much like Malaysians, most of them speak to us in Thai, thinking we are locals. This was the same when I went to Chiang Mai. Bangkok looks a lot like KL too, but I think it's about twice bigger. The jam is worse than KL and another scary sight was the electrical and phone wirings running like some tangled mess along the road on posts. We don't see that in KL, thank God. I heard there are about 10 million living in the city, no wonder the jam is so bad. Otherwise, the city is nice for shopping and food, relatively cheap. Still, I prefer Malaysian food.

Authentic Tomyam Koong POWER!

The best place we visited has to be the Floating Market in Damnoen Saduak, which is about 1.5 hours from Bangkok. Things there are very expensive but the experience to ride on the boats which bumps and slides into each other was pretty cool. It's like traffic jam in the canal where boats slide along each others' side and the boatmen and women maneuvering expertly through. We were reminded to keep our hands and fingers inside the boat, if you don't want to lose them...

We also went to the Grand Palace but I think that isn't that nice. I wouldn't recommend that. When I came to Bangkok some 15 years ago, we didn't come here but to another temple, I think it was the sleeping Buddha temple and that was more beautiful. The Grand Palace is less interesting compared to that.

My girl and me at the Grand Palace.

The hotel area where we stayed was largely a Japanese expat area, so there were lots of Japanese restaurants apart from massage parlours. There were no tourist pasar malam, so I didn't get to shop alot. We did go to Tesco Lotus and BigC (equivalent to Carrefour here) and bought some clothes. I brought some 20,000 baht but couldn't finish it :(, I wished I had more time and more places to shop.

This Friday, we are off again to Johor to bring the boys home. We need to be home on Friday evening because my eldest has Confession and Confirmation (correction: it's Communion not Confirmation) on Saturday and Sunday.

Alexander Tan Shi Rong!

And I am officially a godma! My new godson, Alexander Tan was baptised last Saturday. Isn't he a cutie!

Election 2012

We have planned out what we are going to do and go for the whole of next week. Starting from Saturday evening we will travel south to BP, on Monday we will proceed further south to the tip of the peninsular for LEGOLAND! And we will be back in time for our flight to Bangkok on Tuesday. Then Friday late night we will back back home in time for next Saturday, the baptism of my godson, Alexander. I will remember to take photo of Alexander and post it up :). Will be a busy busy week, but something different from our routine. Kind of a busy break.

In the meantime, today we see the USA having her election. Me, having some weird kind of fixation with US of A (A lot of us are, come on, admit it!), am also following the results live on the CNN website. Looks like Romney is winning for now. I am glad, because Romney is pro-life although I don't dislike Obama. But what the heck, like it matters who I support. Now I am itching to vote for my beloved Malaysia, when will the PM call for election?! Well, he only has until March 2013, so our long necks will be able to rest soon.

Well maybe you will find this interesting like me, the amount of money (2.5 Billion USD) spent on the 2012 US election campaigns and where the money is coming from. Watch this link. Wow, that's a lot of money! Imagine that being used for other more worthy cause!

Back...

Okay. I am feeling loads better, so I am back to post here. Been a good week for me, much better then what I had been going through recently. We have been having busy weeks with Rosary prayers at BEC members' houses almost every week night as it is October Rosary month. As the lovely Auntie A said, the BEC members have been very supportive of late of all the BEC activities and this Rosary month has been the most participated in our BEC history. I agree. It is lovely to have prayers in homes, as one or two gathers in HIS name, HE will be amongst us! Having Jesus in your homes, isn't that lovely!

Amongst other things, I am going to be godma to a lovely baby boy, almost 3 months old. Cannot wait to manja this baby with lovely gifts. We are also going to Legoland in November, tickets already purchased! The boys will be at their grandma's place for a week after that and the girl and I will be going to Bangkok with their dad, if all goes well. He is there to work, so me and the girl will just tag along for a few days. The boys, especially the 2nd one, weren't that happy to be left behind but being able to spend a week at grandma's helped convinced him abit. Also, we promised him to bring him somewhere on a plane next year. The boys do not have passports yet and I am waiting for next year to make them theirs since the government will give half price for kids passport. Next year is just a few months away mah. I feel a little guilty leaving them behind but dragging all the kids along will be hard since hubby will be working during the day.

Nothing cooking tonight, having pizzas!

Sad Loss

It's been such a long while since I last updated my blog here. People who know me, know that I had recently been through a very tragic family loss. I have blog about it in my other blog so I will not repeat them here.

Things are getting a little better for me as time passes but life will never be the same. I won't let it be. That's all I can muster today here. Maybe, later on, when my mood is better, I will upload more notes here.

Harvest Time! Yam Seng...

I am back in the office today, after a long long weekend with a trip back to BP. The whole Brady Bunch was carted off in our Exora to BP. This is the first time that baby Emily has gone back to my hometown and her first time meeting her grandpa. Everything went well, too bad most of the eating shops were either closed for Raya or were too busy that we didn't get to taste much of the nice food in BP. But nevertheless, we are thankful for a safe and fruitful trip.

My sister just delivered a baby boy on Saturday while we were in BP. I was about to harvest the rice wine I was brewing for her anyway, so when we reached home on Monday, we started the harvesting. The wine tastes and smells really sweet and good. But we learn that the brewing time should be shorten next time to 20 - 25 days instead of about 35 days like what we did this round. This is because, we could see mold starting to form on the side of the ceramic pot and on top of the rice. We managed to rescue this by wiping and scoping the mold off before we start harvesting. We also learn that proper sterilization will work wonders in keeping other organisms from growing. We only want the wine yeast to work its magic, not the other microbes.

Another thing we learn is the importance of filtering. The wine produced is clear liquid with slightly golden reddish tinge. But there is lots of residual in the pot too. We tried scoping very careful, it works in the beginning but towards the end, it's hard since the residuals started to surface and get mixed up with the liquid. So we had to resort to cloth filter (those used by the kopitiam uncles). Next time, we will try to find even more fine cloth filter for better results. After harvesting, bring the wine to a quick boil and then put off the fire and let it coll before bottling. Make sure bottles are clean and dry, possibly sterilized with alcohol. Overall, I am pretty pleased with the result, we had our first dish with it yesterday, ginger fried egg in rice wine. So sweet and tangy, yummy.

My rice wine success!

Repeal 114A

Olympic Wild Week

Had a long weekend but there was no rest. It was a public holiday on Monday and I took Tuesday off for my baby's medical follow up. It's the puasa moon and the boys finishes school at 5.30 pm instead of the usual 6.30pm. This makes for a mad dash every evening to fetch my daughter from daycare and my sons from school. Those boys cannot be trusted to behave if left in the school compound for too long. By the time I get to their school, it would be 6 pm. I really want this month to be over soon so that hubby can fetch them after work instead of me doing it. Hubby cannot reach by 6 pm.

Maid still not here yet, my mornings are still crazy. Sometimes, I am at awe of myself for getting through this crazy routine daily. Probably, other working mothers do the same too... You kids and hubbies out there need to realise how great your mommies are!

The London 2012 Olympics is still underway, it's closing this Sunday. Just managed to follow a few random sports on local TV since it's all in the middle of the night. I am usually out by 11pm. I did catch LCW's final match against LD. It was a very close match that made me respect LCW more. I used to follow badminton games a lot, my favourite player was the cool Cheah Soon Kiat. I thought he was cute :P. But ever since the Malaysian team's performance took a dip and after so many disappointing games from them, I gave up following. But seeing LCW play this time brought back my confidence in our badminton talents. Even though he lost and only got silver, there was no need tobe disappointed as he had performed marvelously. The game could have gone either way. So syabas to him. And last night this young Sarawakian diver got a bronze which surprised a lot of us. Great wo

I am a brewer!

My wine making had started about a week plus ago. I was supposed to check it on the 3rd day but because I was too busy so I only managed to check on it on the 5th day. I was so happy that it appeared to be forming well, the rice is fermenting and producing liquid as it should. Even tasted it and it was so sweet. Mixed about half a bottle of rice wine (samsu) (bought from the chinese medicine store) into the pot and turned the fermenting rice upside down. Now just have to wait another 20 days or so before it is ready for bottling. Yippie, my first try at making rice wine and it looks like it's a success (so far).

Cooked glutinous rice, wine yeast (crushed to powder) and red stuff for colouring.

Alternate yeast powder and rice in layers and end with more yeast on top.

Sprinkle generous amount of water and close with thick plastic sheet. Make some holes on the sheet.

Cover with 2 layers of newspaper and make your daughter stand beside it for a picture.

Let it sit in cool dry place, i.e. under my kitchen counter. Wait about 25 days. Open to check on day 3 and add half a bottle of bought rice wine.

Busy me...

Phew! Finally it's the weekend. It's been one crazy, hectic week. Managing the kids in the morning, alone, is really hard, even for me! I tend to miss something or forget stuff in the rush and that makes me late. Luckily, only slightly late. I am like 5 or 10 mins late for work only. That's better than some others in my office! But still I dislike being late. Next week my mum will be here so I can breathe easier and get things done quickly with her help.

I bought the iBaby IP cam online through Superbuy, it was delivered a few days ago. It was a breeze setting it up for LAN and wifi. Nothing to it. And it worked automatically on my iPhone and iPad using the app. But getting it to work on my browser in the office proves to be much harder. Could be the firewall or network restrictions there but I will get it sorted soon. Using the browser at home through the external IP/DDNS only needed a port routing set on my router. Next week, will try fixing it from my office pc.The price is a bit high and the manuals/FAQ sare not so satisfactory but the night vision is great and you can easily rotate the cam with a swipe of your finger. The ability to hear and talk through it (require external speakers) is a great bonus. I could talk to people at home using the cam. Overall, it is a good product.

Hubby and I are off on Monday to bring baby for checkup. Also, we have many things planned for the weekend, cleaning the store, repairing the baby cot, clearing up the clothes in the spare room. I also plan to make rice wine and make some Bak Chang! Too ambitious maybe. We'll see what we can achieve. Besides, I am getting a bit of a flu too. I am not made of steel after all :P.

This is life

The Bak Chang making was sort of a success with some small mishaps of a few loosen Changs in the pot. I have some ingredients left over, so I would be making some again within these few weeks. Next, I will be trying my hands on rice wine making for my sister who will be delivering a baby in August or September. More on that soon.

We are renovating the office at work so we have temporarily moved to the computer room next to our office. It will be another 4 to 6 weeks before the office is ready. Meanwhile, we are all seated in the open space, feels like we are in a Japanese manufacturing company:).

I am still waiting for the maid's arrival, so now it is a bit of a rush for me in the morning to get the 4 kids ready for their day. My sons have to go to day care in the morning and the center will send them to school in the afternoon. My daughter goes to kindy and stays back after that until the evening when I pick her up. My baby goes to her grandma for now. When my mum stays with us, it's much better, since I do not have to bring the baby to a different place plus she will prepare breakfast for the kids.

I have been reading recently about babies dying because of negligent childcare centers and it is really scary to hear. I can really feel for working mothers whom have to send their babies to centers or babysitters, we are left with very little choice. Even when we have maids, we would still be worried if our kids, especially babies, are well take care of in our absence. I am planning to put a IP webcam in my living room so that I can see the house from work and keep an eye on my baby while she is with the maid. We are still looking for the most suitable model, one of them is iBaby which works with iPhone and supports 2 way communication. We are expecting the maid in end of August so we are still have a bit of time to do so.

iBaby which works with iPhone.