Doha Tea Party :)

Love bday's...esp when its not mine and I haven't thrown any since the April babies bday so when it was two of my good frens in Doha birthday was coming up...i saw an oppurtunity!!! a few days a part...i managed to convinced their hubbies and our friends to a suprise 'Tea party'.

( Birthday girls with girl pals :))

I have never been to a tea party before but read and watched it too many time and I always like the idea of a tea party although I'm coffee lover. One of the bday girl did mentioned that she always wanted to have a tea party but never had an occasion or a reason to. Everyone was onboard and got together for this party. Since it was a 'suprise' party, I was being very notty...telling lots of tales all week to the bday gals.Babes...please forgive me, it was all for the party :D.

Ms.N grinning at my not soo sconey scones,these must be the good batches coz these actually do look good :).

Birthday Girl 1 - Ms.S and hubs Mr. N

Birthday 2- Ms. N with hubs Mr.Z

Although there were sticks and bumps along the way plus it happened to be a very busy week at school and it was also the last weekend before the Eid hols, and I was on a verge of getting sick but thanks to advil and strepsil I managed to keep it at bay. Everybody contributed...from the food, the deco, the cake and the hosting. The husbands given a task on what to get and do and they were super!!! .They came well ahead of time with all the things they were asked to bring and help to decorate for the party while me and Ms.S was busy getting everything ready in the kitchen with our own little disaster!. Originally I wanted to have traditional english tea party but it was way too much to do in a week plus I don't have enuff tea set for everyone ( reminder - must get a tea set for keeps ) so I had to tweak a little and rebrand it to an 'Oriental Tea Party'. I got this floral tissue paper and got totally inspired and everything else was coordinated to this piece of tissue paper ( i also went crazy making tissue peonies til 2am !!! ).

So we had mini chicken shawerma ( which i must say was pretty damn good, probably beginner's luck !) , chicken wings , blueberry cheesecake, tea sandwiches , of course we had to have scones and clotted cream ( unfortunately some of them was a bit burnt and turn out to be like rock cakes instead but nonetheless was still yummy, but Ms.N was heading to London for the hols, so i told her to get the real deal in over there :D ) , chocolate cuppies with chocolate and raspberry frosting, chips & dips , grapes, sparkling ruby orange drink and hot earl grey tea. Cake was made my Ms.E and Ms.Z lent us this beautiful white table cover which was exactly what i wanted!. We missed you at the party.

We had planned a game too 'Charades" but that never happened, we just sat and stuff ourself again and again :). My camera decided to go dead 1/2 way thru so didn't take much pictures Mr.N had all of the photos on his camera, these photos here are probably the best i got on mine. The girls was pleasantly suprised and they seemed happy :) soo mission accomplished and a pat on the back for everyone that made this party happened.

Thanks guys....me love u lots ....xoxo

Til next birthday....Happy Eid Everyone!!!

Kueh oh Kueh

Since we moved to Doha, I must say my culinary skill has improved esp on cooking asian/malaysian dishes...for example, I made lompat tikam before the summer hols! I know now that its not rocket science to make this yummy desert,but nonetheless its an accomplishment to me :D.

What makes it more motivating is that when you cook and you have friends to eat it...good or bad! What we usually do, we gather over the weekend and cook up something for lunch and we all would bring and share a dish and enjoy a great lunch. It's a good way to spend a weekend when there is limited activities to do here esp during the hot summer season.

So last weekend we got invited to a friend's house for lunch and I had some sweet potatoes in the fridge that will go bad if I didn't use them up soon. I usually fried them like goreng pisang but Ms.N suggested that I make kueh keria instead. Hmmm....tricky one. Never made this before, so I googled a recipe and tried.

(Gorgeous Sweet potatoes)

It was suprisingly easy..

Kueh Keria

500g sweet potatoes ( diced , boiled til soft and mashed )

100g plain flour

30g rice flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp sugar ( i had very sweet sweet potatoes so didn't need much sugar )

a pinch of salt

oil ( for frying )

For the sugar coating

1/2 icing sugar ,a pinch oh cinnamon and nutmeg. Seive them all together.

(I change the frosting on this one just to see how it would taste like and they turn out good but a traditional kueh keria is coated with sugar glazed.)

Ok here goes,

Add everything ( flour, rice flour, baking powder,salt and sugar ) to the mashed up sweet potatoes. Knead well till everything is even and you are able to mould to balls. It will be a bit sticky but don't worry even i panic for a moment there, so all you need to do is to put some flour on your hands while making them balls, then flatten them a little and a make a hole in the middle. I cheated a little and used a donut cutter (must be powdered with flour too ) mama gave me and make life easy :D. Next fry them til they are golden brown, on low heat preferbly coz you want the inside to cook thru. Once it is all done, powder all of them with your sugar coating front and back.

( ready for frying )

( Powdered with sugar mix )

There you go...my first timer kueh keria :D

Our 1st Family Tree

I'm still getting used to bubbles having homework this year and so far i've bee on track with her reminding me whenever she has homework. Last week Adek was down with fever and it was abit kalam kabut for me and i totaly forgot that she need to do a family tree due on the 2nd Oct.

Last saturday we had lunch at Ms Z's house who daughter is in bubbles class and she asked me if we have done the family tree.....and im like...ohhhh buggers...i forgot!!! and just then bubbles came in the kitchen with her friend's tree and asked me why haven't we done ours??? ohh dear...

So we came home after lunch...after all of us had good nap from a good lunch ( Ms. Z tres leches is the killer :)) we started on our family tree, luckily i still have leftovers from the girls party..papers, stickers, etc.

We had a strawberry tree family tree, it was her choice of fav fruit. Mummy help with the drawing and cutting, she did most of the coloring and sticking, daddy did the big tree and Adek was just mocking about with everything...sticking everything everywhere! It took us a good 1 hr 30 mins to finish it up and as a result, our 1st ever family tree.....tadahhhhh!!!

( Nur Safeia's Family Tree )

The proud owner of a great family tree, she was soo happy with it that she kept looking and complimenting it hahaha. I kept it in her bag so that we wont forget it in the morning and just before bed time, i saw her opening her bag and admiring her tree. Her very special tree :D.

Of course if kakak had a picture with it Adek must have one too....:).

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

Today..me and adek baked! ( ohh bubbles would be soo jealous if she knew !! )

She was not feeling too good last couple of days and had to stay home with mummy. So this is what we did!!! We made cupcakes :D and we loved it!

( Adek with the whisk )

( After a trip in the oven for 20 mins )

I have been helping out Ms.E with some baking and the last couple of weeks and my oven has been baking cupcakes. Chocolate cuppie are not my fav things to bake, as I can remember the last time I baked them was in Cairo..long time ago and it didn't turn out soo good and since then I stopped and only baked vanilla, lemons everything else beside chocolate cuppies. This time I was requested to make both vanilla and chocolate ones...hmmm...feeling quite nervous I ,did it. This time I used a recipe from a very cute cupcake book I have by Elinor Klivans and they turned out fantastic! well..Ms E was happy and so was her client and im a happy camper...hooray!

( A little dressing )

( All ready !! )

So I had some leftover sour cream in the fridge from last week baking and I thot if didn't use them up this week they will be bad...and sour cream are not cheap. I knew I wanted to make chocolate cuppies but I didn't want to make the same one again, i looked up on the internet and found these ones....Dark Chocolate Cupcakes (www.browneyedbaker.com) and frost it with the basic american buttercream frosting.

It was a really easy recipe and I didn't even have to take my mixer out. This recipe makes 12 dark yummy chocolate cupcake, I gobble up 2 before i could frost it although I promise myself that i would wait! ,bubbles had two in one sitting and for my little baker Adek..she just likes the process of making it and the licking the whisk part...she didn't have any, but she sure make my cleaning up much easier with all her licking!!

( A proud baker/helper )

Gabbie and Livvy farewell

( a sweet farewell )
( Adek and Livvy )
( Bubbles and Gabbie )

This summer we had to say farewell to one of Bubbles and Adek's fav fren...Gabbie and her lil sister Olivia.

To the Penry's safe journey and good luck in you new home!

Bubbles 1st ballet recital

(Our lil pirate!)
(The Pirates >>>>> click here for the show! )
(Guest of honor :D)
(Backstage shot before the show)
(Mummy and bubbles)

I mentioned sometime ago that Bubbles has been taking ballet lesson with her group of little friends and is really enjoying it rite...so just after school ended, their super sweet teacher Ms. Tove made a lil ballet recital for all of her students..there were about 70 girls all together.

She put on a fantastic recital and the girls are just amazing. Two thumbs up for Ms.Tova and her little ballerinas!! Each class had a different story line . Bubbles was a pirate, she and the other pirates found a box of treasures in the Arabian gulf and brought it to shore. When they opened it they found sparkling diamonds!!!! and becoz there were too much of it, they decided to share it to everyone in Qatar ...:)

Home Remedy

Its flaring up again...angryier, bigger and starting to hurt more now. Im talking about my P,its not a good time now, the last couple of weeks it really starting to effect me and my lifestyle. The sun is suppose to help but in my case, its seems to make it worst esp the dust ....aduihai..sangat itchy.

Today a friend recommended a home remedy, she read it in a herb book and she remembered reading something about a home remedy for P. So we looked it up and found that there 3 things that could help my P. They were turmeric, flaxseed and chickweed. I have taken turmeric capsule and flaxseed capsule before but didn't follow thru hence..didn't see any great results. Pills are like nitemare for me...i always forget which is why I'm never on the other P either :).

Since the the doctor appointments are not happening any time soon, i decided to give this home remedy a go. Its said in the book that i should continue drink and use the oral paster for at least 4 weeks to see some results so i'm gonna try to stick to it and see if its any good :) and oh yeah i'm also substituting a meal with raw food or green smoothies for now and keeping note of what i'm eating to find the trigger for my P. I know for sure....it's milk, oranges, red meat and tomatoes and i'm sure there's more.

Keeping it positive and staying calm......and let see how it goes.

Is the Mac dying on me??

I love my iMac..it's the best computer I have ever had to date and it was probably the best purchase we got from Cairo...it didn't break!. Lately its been acting up a litte...getting a bit under speed and hanging on some occasion...now...my mac never use to hang...never! so its abit worrying as we do not have any back up. It the computer decided to just end it , thats it all our stuff will go down it it esp my pictures..ohhh tidak!!!

So i think this mac need to see a doctor tooo and soon!!!

tup tup...its thursday already

Today i woke up and thot to myself....'ohh today got ballet'.. it is Thursday already? ohh nooo takkan laaa its soo cepat, what did i do this week? Then its the weekend and the another week and bubbles has school hols and it summer break til Sept. I wish sometimes that time will tick a little slower so that you take your time and appreciate. As a mother I wish I can control time coz I'm always...always....running for time! :).

I kept a fren company at the hospital today which was very nice and she is doing much much better and going home today...:) and im sure her family is going to very happy esp the lil one. Lately, I've been hearing about of my friends that are medically not well...and most of them are in their 30ties...like me. Alhamdulilah so far, i never really been sick except for the regular flu bug, sakit kepala etc, having to hear all this make me worry a little. I'm very bad when it comes to going to the doctor. I tell everyone to go to the doctor but not me. I'm not scared or anything , I just cant be bothered too...I always have excuses and most of the time its it becouse I don't have time...which is really not an excuse. I know and caveman is very upset that I take this doctor visits lightly but thats just me...degilkan..:P

Today when i was talking to my dear fren, I realise that its time that I change my outlook on all this, I'm not in 20ties anymore and not getting any younger either and have long line of family history of illnesses, I know its all in God's hand and will but He also said that we need to 'bertawakal' and from my experiences, most of the illnesses is time related. The earlier we detected it, there is the more chance of curing it. Like they always say....timing is everything.

I'm no superwoman and im definately not immortal like the vampires :). I 'm just a regular gal, who's very much loved by her family and friends and I would like to be there from them as long as Allah swt allows. So to that, I from now on, will take time,not ditch my doctor visit and most importantly take care of myself for the sake of my loved ones. If there is anyone who is reading this, please take time and check yourself up if you haven't done that already, you never know what lurking inside your body until you do.

My 2 dinars for the day.....Have a nice weekend!

My little mermaids

The best way to kill off the special Qatari summer heat is to have a dip in the pool and we are in it almost everyday this summer. the girls are like fishes in the pool esp bubbles. This summer she had gain allot of confident in the pool that she doesn't require any floaties anymore..brazo! as for baby lulu a.k.a adek however still have along way to go :D.

(adek mermaid)

(and kakak mermaid)

Summer is officially here!

Its here..no doubt about it. A constant 45degC everyday with the high of 50degC on some days.

Its hot! in school is red flag day everyday, its indoor games for the kids these days. My plants are all kerepot and some did not survive...due to lack of water ( its too hot to go out to water them ) and heatstroke. I keep telling myself that its not that bad and just deal with it and today while i was washing dishes the tap water was boiling! it was seriously hot. Even to wash the kids i need to constantly check the water temperature. In Doha, one need a water chiller instead of a water heater. When we 1st moved in the house it was in Oct and even then the water was warm, so i complained, why doesn't the water get cold when i turn the tap to green and the answer was, ma'am the house doesn't have a chiller and the water that comes from the pipe is of this temperature....say what!. Ok fine...then winter came and we were ok, but now its just too hot and it when a cold shower is soo essential. Today we asked the handyman to turn of the water heater at the tank,technically now when we turn the water tap to red, it should give us somewhat warm water instead of boiling water. Its yet to be tested as we need to finish the water in the tank 1st. Lets see if it works....i pray that it does.

The hospital trip to the derm clinic

We have a health card here, you pay a 100 QAR per year and you get free medical services at the general hospital which is a pretty good hopsital...well equiped. So i got a referral letter from a dr to go see a derma of course i was suppose to go about 1 months ago...but never gotten around to actually go until yesterday. Feeling very positive and looking forward to what the dr gonna say about my skin ( they always say the same thing but im still curious maybe one of them will cure me....who knows kan? ) drove to the hospital,parked the car and walk to the derm building only to be given an appointment in June!!! at 1st i saw my paper, it says 930am...so i thot wow pretty good i get an appointment right away but i knew it was too good to be true and i ask the lady behind the counter ( who was more interested in her iphone then me of course ) 'excuse me this is for today'...dia tak faham....i asked again..' i see dr today? '....still not looking at me...'excuse me , is my appointment for today at 930? '....NO!...June! ....im like ohhh ok.....abit shocked. Now i wish i had gone a month ago and i would have seen the dr now...demmit noreena! So looks like its going to be June then. I did found another dr that is treating pll like me...it looks legit but im not sure if its any good...but ill give a try next week.

precious little card

Bubbles came back with this today...a little card for Mother's day!

Precious!

Farewell & Beriyani

( tukang masak beriyani )

Yesterday we had a little feast for our dear friend's mother who was going back to Malaysia after staying here for 3 month. During her stay here the kids exp my girls have warmed up and abselutely love her...i guess it made them feel like she was thier grannies too. Even for me, seeing her around make me miss my mommy too :(. So it was really nice all around for us.

( tetamu terhormat )

So caveman decided to make Ayah's beriyani for lunch yesterday.He was soo semangat and even went to the souq to get a stove to cook and a little paddle to go with it. My dad's beriyani is really easy to cook...like he always said ..."tersusah campak campak jer dalam periuk..." but the prep is alot....esp the bawang goreng part. If you have super tiny bawang goreng like we do here in Doha, 1 kg will take you at least 2 hrs of peeling, slicing and frying. Tak percaya??...cuba la but if you screw this up..habis la. Then comes the rice selection..which of course we didnt do. opppsss dont tell my dad yea :). If you have all this sorted out...you will soon have you nasi beriyani johor in a jiffy. Hands down..this is the best beriyani made my caveman to date...the closest version to the masterchef. Clap...Clap...Clap !

To accompany i the beriyani, i made sambal udang and ayam madu ( i was trying to make the ayam madu in restaurant Samudera in Lumut, not quite there yet but i found this recipe on the net from a Malaysian in Dublin, its pretty good and super easy and the we had acar , papadom and air bangung from our dear friends...terima kasih..me lap you all :) and my fav mango sago dessert.

We all enjoyed the lunch/company, and we're glad our "tetamu terhomat" was pleased and full :)

Selamat Jalan Opah...hope to see you soon!

Silly policies

I hate policies. I agree that we do need them but some are just plain silly.

One of my dear friend wanted to come over for a visit next month from Cairo and we all super excited rite, then 2 days back she found out that she needs to get a visa to come here...fair enuff we all need visa sometimes..true? but to come to Qatar,she needs to get a visa from a hotel and pay the hotel a minimum 1 nite stay plus the visa fees before she could come here? which comes up around 700 QAR in totaly in a 2 star hotel not even at the Ritz, does that makes any sense? its completely insane to me and truly disappointing for the both of us.

I understand that the country doesn't want to have any immigrant issues...fine and they don't need any money from tourism ( nothing touristic here anyway ! ) but what they are doing here is very restricted. For us Malaysian...yes, no problem..you pay 100 QAR at the airport and you get 1 month stay easy and hassle free but for those who needs visa and for visiting purposes ( unless u are related and can prove that you are related ) the rules above apply , sigh!!

It should be a case by case basis noo?

My little fairies...

Birthdays overload

April is always a busy month for me every year...its a birthday month. I have been eating cake and baking almost every week this months and i've got one more birthday party next weekend! I think ill rest the tummy from eating cakes next month...cake overload!!

My girls and caveman are all born in April one week after another. The good thing about this is that we have one big bash for all 3 of them but they have to be major! of course kids rules so the party is always about them. Last year it was a princess party and we had a great rainbow party for the girls this year...

With the bouncing dino pit, face painting, ice cream treats , yummy foodies, fireworks and poppers too!! Unlike last year, i left the birthday cake duty to a good fren and she delivered oh boy she did. She made us a cake that i would have baked myself if i had the will and skills to do it, like it was straight from my brain to hers. Thank you very much Nish!. But this year i did make my own food and decorations ( the Domino's excluded, i would have collapse in the kitchen kneeding the dough!!) chicken puffs, cream puff with lemon cream custard ( well this was not fully sucessfull, but it tasted yumss), choc dip strawberries, sugar cookies and brownies. I would not lie..it's hard work and i almost cried in the process of getting everything done but i'm proud and i've learn allot thru this process too. I am however very lucky to have wonderful frens that was helping with everything...Thank you soo much!!. I had fun...and my girls had a blast. Although it was time consuming, i'd do it again..esp for the kids and u see them smile...suddenly it all seems worthed!

Of course we had to have one in school too, i made these little rainbow cuppies and some treats to school. The kids in bubbles class was quite fascinated with the rainbow colored cuppies and it went down very well :D !!

Caveman bday will be on Tuesday but he is away for the week...*boringg.....*. Still looking for a pressie after he bought the Kinect that i wanted to get for him...demmit!! Why is it so hard to shop for a man??? why....anyways April is almost over and it was greatttttt month for us alhamdulillah..... :D

Happy birthday to my April babies!!!!!!

Muahsssssss

Singing Dunes

This place has been our favourite hangout place on Saturday afternoon....a late minang lunch, a walk about to clear the tummy and off we go to the singing dunes with a bag of Dorritos and watch the sun set over the dunes!

Why its called a singing dunes? strange enuff when you slide down these soft soft dust like sand it make a huge sound ...almost bass like. The 1st time we went...we weren't not very smart we started climbing from the middle of the dunes....it was impossible, a unfit person like me i could only go 1/2 way , caveman all the way up in multiple stops, bubbles 1/4 way and lulu didn't even try :P. Then we saw another family, obviously with some experince started climbing from the lowest point and walk up the dunes....then we felt ohhh how silly are we...ding dongs!! sooo we did...we started again from the end and walked up the dunes and it was amazing to be on the top, bit errie with the dusty skyline. When the wind blows the sand looks like fairy dust, shimmering gold.

Yesterday, being pros...bubbles just ran up the dunes and beat all of us, unfortunely lulu was abit cranky and wanted to be carried all the way, so caveman had a good work out yesterday.

I didnt bring my camera up the dunes coz i didn't want to carry any excess but next time ill try

Some studies have been done but still no one can really explain it. Leave it to nature i'd say.

Zekreet

I must say that since we moved to Doha, I'm slowly embracing it. The weather at the moment is really nice chilly but not hot ,sunny but not humid. It doesn't last very long so we are taking full advantage of it. I know soon I'm gonna start whine and whine when the summer comes justwait and as a part of embracing the new location and taking advantage of the the no tax and cheap fuelhere in Doha, we got ourself a desert car as bubbles calls, its not a monster car but i really luv it and since we got it caveman have been dying to take it out to the desert to have do its job.

So in early Feb we took the girls to Zekreet and it was beautiful although i was not feeling to good ( it was actually the start of my gut bug ) the girls was really excited to go so no choice...we go to Zekreet. It was only about 1hr drive from the house, there was not much signboard on where to go but caveman had found the coordinate and we plug that in the GPS

and voila!

We drove along the coast and it was a perfect day blue skies,turquoise sea and whitish yellowish desert rocks. It was almost like a mini white cliff of Dover but in the desert and it was almost empty. You'll see a few car parked along the beach but very few so its pretty much your beach and your desert.

We headed to the mystery village, why its a mystery?? haven't got a clue. There are some little house and holes in the limestone hills that have been craved in by time and wind. Its a perfect camping site i would say, some shades and protection from the wind and breathtaking view of the sea.

We stop by the beach and had a little nap and snack, the girls washed their feet in th

e water and played around. The water was still a bit chilly to swim maybe in a few weeks time it will be warm and it would be really nice. We didn't stay for very long, i had to be the party popper and asked to go home, coz i was beginning to feel really sick even vomited on the way back.

Although the day didn't end that well, we still has fun esp the girls. Since then we have gotten some camping gears so maybe next time we will sleep over in Zekreet. Im sure it would be an experience.