Happy birthday to me!

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Happy birthday to me! I've just celebrated my 34th birthday on Boxing day - 26.12.2010

I've been so busy with Christmas: Assisting my MIL in hosting Chritsmas lunch, invited carolers to dine with us, Christmas gifts shopping, etc. 

My life is truly turning into a "green" leaf. This year 2010, is such an exciting and fruitful year for me and hubby. I'm thankful to God for His wonderful protection and blessings to me and my family. 

I'm so so bliss.

Thank you and love you all. 

   

Stewed chicken feet

Last Sunday, hubby decided to set me a cooking challenge. 

He drove me to Lido wet market, went straight to a chicken seller
and grabbed a bag of chicken feet. 

Ok dear, so I got the message -- he wanted to eat stewed chicken feet. 

That's quiet a challenge! Cause I've never cooked it before.

Of course I was panicked for a second, but thanks to Google search. 

We did research from how to prepare chicken feet for cooking, 

to how to cook stewed chicken feet. 

Plenty of tips available! So we did the experimental version. 

It was a success! Yummy~ ^^V

Rosanna's 6th birthday party

Remember I did a special DIY project for Rosanna's birthday? 

Well, it turned out to be the most memorable birthday for her. I'm so so happy for her

I didn't manage to keep a copy of the card for myself cause all were given away.

 Rosanna asked her mom if she could bake a birthday cake for her to bring to school. 

Even though Evelyn may not be good in baking, but she did it anyway.

Her talent as a seamstress has turned the cake decor beautifully with 

pink polka dots ribbon tied around it. 

Lovely!  

Rosanna happily received birthday gifts from her friends. 

Evelyn told me that a week before, Rosanna distributed her birthday invitation cards. 

On that day, all her little friends turned up and brought her birthday gifts. 

She was thrilled! Who wouldn't? :)

 

 Hand washing time! They all lined up to the washroom to clean up before meal. 

Cheeky Rosanna still get to play a little with her little friends.

1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6 candles. Now she's 6 years old.

How time flies! This little girl is growing up so fast. Unbelievable. ^^

 They all said Grace before meal.

May God bless this little lovely angel and make her wishes come true. :)

 Alrighty! Candle blowing time. Everybody sing "Happy birthday to you..."

 Yoohoo! Happy birthday Rosanna Ku. 

Aunty Jumbo loves you much! :)

Rosanna and her mom, my elder sister -- Evelyn

Pictures courtesy from sis JennyReo n hubby Ken Min. 

(Thanks for making time to attend Mei's birthday party)

The Manson family

Here's to my super fantastic hubby and his family. Thanks for making me part of your family. I love you so much. It is amazing how God has sent me a great lover, now husband and his loving family. 

The Manson family: FIL, RM, MIL, F, R, C

Oh, look at my hubby, isn't he cute??? He's still my cute guy now. ;)

The Manson siblings: C, R, RM, F

On the day we became Mr. and Mrs. Manson. Like it just happened yesterday...

We had a family reunion for relatives from my father in law- The Wong Loong Clan on 23/10/2010. Whole family attended. MIL was the caterer for the event catered for about 800 people. RM arrived from Sipitang with her children: I, H and A. Sadly, her hubby F had to go offshore to work. :( F, her hubby S, and daughter, little L flew back from Kuala Lumpur. C brought all the daughters: Au, As and An.

The kiddos. All are growing up so fast!

Before all have to return to their respective homes, we had a family gathering - Bbq dinner. 

We also celebrated lil L's 3rd birthday in advance.

Happy birthday lil L :)

It was really nice to have the whole family gather in our "little mansion". 

R and I missed all the laughters and fun we've had. Can't wait to see them again during Christmas soon. 

May God bless our family. XOXO :)

*Pictures from Manson family photo archive, RM, MV

Heyoo!

Greetings! Kopivosian!

Wow... It's been like ages since I have so many things and changes in my life. Deadlines, house moving and change of job. Yes, peeps, I made a very daring choice in exchange for more personal freedom. I'm glad I've made it. Thanks to all those who have supported me in my idea. Changes are good. :)

Back to my our mansion. We've not done much to fix the house yet and everything was still in a mess, waiting to be sorted out. My MIL's kitchenwares were left unattended because we're yet to get storage shelving sorted out.

Till then. Take care and God bless!

Yours truly,
Penny Manson

Who wants some vanilla ice cream?

Greetings! Kopivosian!

Do you know what this UFO-like thing is? Well, that's my mini ice cream maker. Hee! :)

I've long thought about how nice it would be that when we move into our "mansion", I can do lots of desserts and enjoy at home. So when we finally got our refrigerator (after almost 2 years of living without one), last night was "the" night to make some home made desserts while watching Crime Scene Investigation (CSI): New York at Channel AXN. 

The recipe was very simple given by a kind lady, named Grace, who sold me this cute gadgy at mudah.com.my. You can check here for more details. Grace also gave a copy of her English translated ice cream recipes which are super easy to make. I chose to make the simplest recipe -- Vanilla ice cream. 

Recipe? 

1 can of NESTLE cream (approx. 300g) 

1 small can of condensed milk (approx. 400g)

2 tsp of vanilla extract

Mixed all the ingredients with my fantastic kitchen assistant's help -- PHILIPS food processor, then poured into mini icey-creamy maker before patiently waiting for it to set.

I wished I could tell you how it taste like. But the chilling and hardening process took longer than I expected. I started making the mix at 10PM last night, and by 1AM, then only it started to get hardened. The reason? Yeah, I kept it at the fridge, instead of freezer, which was suggested by hubby in the 1st place.

Okay, my mistake. But mistakes are meant to be made so more ice creams can be made, right? ;) 

I shall reveal the answer by this evening. So anyone wants to be my "food tester"? :) 

p/s: I've also made mango pudding last night, but I'll save your appetite for next post. ;)


 Penny Manson

Kuih cempedak (Cempedak fritters)

Greetings! Kopivosian!

I know I should be updating on the house move and the condition as requested (by some of you). Honestly house moving was really, really tiring. Since we've moved into our lovely home on 29 Aug, we've been sleeping like dead logs. So, so tired. Anyway, as I settled down with our home, I'll continue to update, I promise. :)

I want to share with you my exciting experiment in making kuih cempedak. I've checked on Wikipedia, there's no English name to this fruit -- Cempedak. All that's known is that Cempedak is a cousin of Jackfruit a.k.a. Nangka. Well, it was given to me by my mother in law. She asked me make sure to eat it. Since I've got some baking ingredients, my initial thought was to bake a cempedak cake. But hubby kept begging for kuih cempedak (fritters), so ok lah, I'd fry them all.

The Jackfruit's cousin, once ripen, has a strong smell and unique taste -- honey creamy, aromatic, and super sweet! Really is best to make kuih cempedak. I did my own batter and it turned of so crispy and yummy! Even hubby agreed. Yeay! :)

My jackfruit's cuzzies all soaked in the batter ready to go for a hot oil bath. ;)

Low heat fry using sun flower cooking oil, the kuih was slowly fried to golden yellow and the unique aroma even attracted hubby to enter kitchen for a peep.

Tadaa! Yummilicious!

 Look at that... It taste soooo heavenly... :)

This is what was left after I fried the kuih. Sorry, no "before" picture. ;P

In case if you're curious on what I've done to the batter, I did my own batter mix (approx. measurement) using the following:

• 1 cup of self-raising flour
• 1tbs of sugar (It's just to give some sweetness to the batter, the fruit itself is very sweet)
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup of milk (I only have evaporated milk, so I used that)
• some water (adjust the batter mix until it becomes smooth thick cream
• Cooking oil to fry
• Just soak the fruits in the batter and fry

Wow wee! The kuih is so crispy, after some hours still remained crispy. Now, I just don't understand why would some selfish, inconsiderate vendors want to add plastic straws to make their kuih taste crispy and hope to sell more for profit but risk others' health!? Bottom line: Home cook food is the best!

 Penny Manson

Signage for Margaret's Passion

Greetings! Kopivosian!

In preparation for setting up a flea market stall for Margaret's Passion at Megalong @ Mega Long Shopping Complex last weekend (14th & 15th Aug 2010), my responsibility was to design an interesting signage for our stall.

Since Evelyn is a seamstress, I went digging at her shop looking for some ideas for our signage on the eve of the event. I grabbed almost all her collections of buttons, ribbons, beads and stuff.

Then just when I was about to start, there was a blackout from 7pm until 11:30pm. Arrggh! What a bummer... Anyhow, I started almost 12 midnight and finished my design at 4am.

At 12am, I was still thinking, and the board was still blank. 

But hubby was already sweet dreaming away...

Then at 1am, ideas started popping out and design started to appear... Yeay...

By 2am, more ideas bursting out from my head... The signage is finally taking to its shape...

Isn't it gorgeous? :) Especially when it's done by hand... I'm loving it now... :)

Found these lovely buttons to light up the signage... Cute!

Tadaa! Here's our signage. It's done! :) 

I couldn't believe that it's done! And it was already 4am! I need to go to bed...

Ha....... :) I'm so, so happy that my job is finally done. Despite only slept for 3 hours, I was dragging myself like a zombie for the rest of the day, still, it was a great outing with the sisters, good job to myself!

I'm so pleased that the signage has attracted many to come forward and look at our stuff. One lady even gave me compliment for the beautiful, cute and sweet signage! Teehee!! :)

So when is our next date to participate for flea market? Let me settle with my house moving, I'll then talk about it. ;)

Cheers everybody!

 Penny Manson

No more deadlines, please

Greetings! Kopivosian!

I've been super occupied with these list of things piling up waiting to be done:-

• Work - deadline: No deadlines, only instant
• Wong Loong Family Tree update - deadline: 15 Aug 2010
• Home Reno - deadline: 15 Aug 2010
• Home moving - deadline: 29 Aug 2010
• Little sister's pre-wedding (Makan Pitas) - deadline: 31 Aug 2010
• Little sister's church wedding preparation - deadline: 17 Sep 2010

At times I thought my head just can't cope with so many things at a time, but thank God, I'm still alive! Ha!

My great way for a-get-away from hectic thoughts is to think of moving into our new home soon. My mind can just start unwind and calm down. Exactly, this would be my, no, it's "our", me and hubby's comfort zone, our nest, our little mansion for us to settle down as a family. Ha... Isn't this every little woman's dream for happiness? When I think of my happiness, our home, I can just smile and dream away a little, and think no deadlines... :)

Here's a peek of my inspiration on my art craft project search for DIYs:

Look at what I've found! More pennies for my thoughts! Geez!  ;P

Picture via Re-Nest

What an amazing and beautiful craft work! Since the Bank Negara Malaysia has discontinued the use of one cent, I thought this would be a brilliant idea I can make out from my collection. You can read further here. 

Okie dokie. I'm chucking my Monday blues away for more happy thoughts. Hope you all have a great week ahead. God bless you all! :)

 Penny Manson

DIY Birthday invitation card for Rosanna Ku

Greetings! Kopivosian!

Remember my niece Lil' Rosanna? Or we would call her Mei-Mei (The little girl) in the family.

Mei-Mei with her birdie eyes

Well, it's her birthday coming. She's celebrating her birthday on Monday, 19 July 2010 at school during school recess. She has asked her mom for a "homemade" birthday cake so she could bring to school. And my job? It's to design her birthday invitation cards for her little friends and teachers at school.

Mei-Mei and Uncle McD at Kingfisher, Likas

Mei-Mei is turning 6 this year. Since she loves Disney characters so much, especially Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, I've decided to design her invitation card with the theme she loves most. :)

I stumbled on a fantastic website that creates Mickey and Minnie invitation cards for sale from Lisa's handmade invitation cards. Since it's impossible for me to order from Lisa, I decided to do my own version of DIY birthday card for Mei-Mei. There was no tutorials in Lisa's website, so I used whatever materials available for me.

My mouse head pattern cut out according to size and shape

FYI, I only spent less than MYR10 to make 40 cards. It's for a quick do and totally low budget DIY project. Of course it's done with patience and lots of love for my little niece. ;)  I used art papers (for mouse head and content of card), manila cards (to add extra colours), plastic buttons and fabric ribbon  for card accessories. Managed to make 40 cards for her. 

Partially done product

Mei-Mei carefully check on her name list and wrote each name with care

Mei-Mei has invited 22 little classmates, and 13 teachers in her kindergarten. She personally wrote all the names on the invitation cards all by herself. Took her awhile though to complete the loooong name list, with a couple breaks in between to stretch her little fingers and continued her beautiful writing. I was so moved by the big efforts she has made, and I think that's so, so cute!

** Hi! thanks for following up on Rosanna's story. Here's to catch up with what happened on Rosanna's birthday. Enjoy!

 Penny Manson

My home office - Part 1

Greetings! Kopivosian!

Today I officially started my home office project from a very humble beginning. As you can see my home office has only a desk and chair and that's totally okay.

The desk is a give-away from my boss (Mr. Fang) which I love! The chair? It's only temporary, found it somewhere at a corner of my house. I've already got a kind donor (My lovely sista -- Jenny) who is giving me not one but two! (Yoohoo!) executive chairs. So it's going to be a 'He" and "She" exec chairs soon.

I totally don't mind the "bumps and bruises" of the furnitures at all. I've seen bloggers actually "revived" some old furnitures and they look even more gorgeous than their "previous life". I'm loving the idea of "giving life to used items". And in support to "green" idea, hubby and I will not buy anything new unless necessary.

So what kind of home office I have in mind? Nothing fancy, all must be practical. Here's what I discovered from Design*Sponge, they featured some of my faves and fantastic ideas I think I can accomplish.

The simple shelving... (Image via Design*Sponge)

My ideal look of a work station... (Image via Design*Sponge)

The green wall... (Image via Design*Sponge)

The little pegline thingy... (Image via Design*Sponge)

Alright. I'm hanging on there to my thoughts until I put these ideas up. Meanwhile, hope you all enjoy my likings. For more ideas, you may check this place out! :)

Have a superb weekend, dearies!

 Penny Manson