We are less than three months away from celebrating Chinese New Year. The one thing to prepare myself for CNY is pruning the lime tree now. This is how you should prune them.

1) Trim every branches so that a new branch will sprout out. There is no special skill for doing that. All you have to do is snip every thing like trimming hair.
2) Pluck all the old leaves. This is how you identify old leaves. The colour is usually darker and the texture is thicker.
3) You can go the extra mile rejuvenate the soil with a new one. For my case, I just fertilized them with organic fertilizer.

They should look bare after all the trimmings. Don’t worry as new sprout will appear in a weeks time before the flower starts blooming. If all goes well, everything should go as planned by CNY *keeping my finger cross*.

The result of the trimmings left me with a big basket of limes. I gave them all to the good neighbours on my left and right. And guess what, the neighbour on my left told me, “Sometimes I used to pluck your lime. I love to used them in my cooking.” Ohhhh, the cat is out from the bag. She has been stealing my lime all these while!  Not that I care.  I have too many fruits on the tree. lol.

There’s another thing that I need to do is to set out few brown recluse spider trap in the attic as the spiders have been leaving cob webs in there which can get very irritating to the skin and with the trap I have one less thing to clean up.

I couldn’t find a better title for this post so the title is just for fun only. There is no tuxedo man except the suit that Daddy usually wear for important occasion (work related). I love this shot very much. This is the nicest photo of Daddy them that I’ve ever shot. To tell you the truth, I have not seen Daddy in suit before and don’t even get me started on office attire. During working days, I will be the one that left home first while he is still snoozing in bed. The only time I get to see him in his office attire is probably at night when he comes home after work and that is if I am still awake. Let’s see, if according to my statistic, out of 22 working days, probably I get to see him only 4 times. The rest of the 18 working days he walked in to the house carrying his Zero Halliburton Briefcase while everyone was fast asleep. Is it just me or most husband out there work so late?

Other than awesome pictures I took in Morib with my new Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8, now I have to nurse a very itchy legs from the darn sandflies bite. But I reckon, no pain no gain. I don’t even mind all the red patches on my ankles after seeing the shots that I took (asif!).

My Sister, Julie and me each cook a little food but we always ended up with too much food. From my sister’s kitchen, she whipped out baked chicken wings, baby potatoes & broccoli salads, fresh fruits and drinks. From my kitchen, I need to finished up the Vietnamese spring roll skin before they really expired! For finger food, we had inari and guacamole as the dipped for nachos.

Kids as usual, dashed out to the beach. The midday sun is too direct and harsh. They are bad for photography as they created lots of shadowy pictures. Composition and angle has to be right then. As for the above picture, I am learning to take cloudy sky. aitelyu, my sifu hor, very selfish wan. I asked him for the tips so many times but he purposely ignore me. What type of sifu is that! The correct sky would have more obvious cottony clouds. I am somewhere there but still need more improvement.

I have fallen in love with the new Tammy aka Tamron.

Notice the shadow on Prince face? This is what I meant by direct-harsh-sun-bad-for-photography. Thank you.

None of us swim cos the water is too murky.

You know how some babies will put sands in their mouth? I was surprised as how well Jonathan, my nephew behaved. This is the first time he sat on the beach without crying. Fyi, he is a cry baby before that.

Little Jonathan is on Swim Diaper. Cute la.

Did I tell you Jonathan is a cry baby?

Hmm… I think I did not.

Jonathan is a cry baby! *duck from Sis flying pots and pans*

Ahem! I can’t resist myself from yoga’ing. Everywhere I go I always have lots of yoga’ing idea. I was in Wheel pose and Eldest Princess is in Cobra. I know the outfit is so wrong. But who on earth goes to a beach in yoga outfit? That is crazy right?

It’s the sky that I want to show off! And that too, the back bend pose.

It’s the sky again. And yes, I know. Cute baby.

Same thing again. Don’t get me started on the sky. I just love it! And yes, the baby too 🙄

Don’t worry. This is the last pic on sky and the baby. Nice wat. Kekeke, I know la. Syok sendiri only.

This is so funny I just can’t stop laughing! *rolling-on-floor-laughing-out-loud*

Taking photos of sunset can be rewarding. At these times of day when the sun is lower in the sky, sunlight travels through more atmosphere to reach the earth. As a result, colors are warmer, richer and often vibrant.

It’s vital when photographing the sun not to stare at it too long through the lens. You can damage your eyes as well as your camera.

Correct me if I am wrong. I think this is another version of dancer pose. Not very sure myself. Standing pigeon.

End of the picnic. Everyone started whining and was scratching non stop including yours truly. I have red patches all over my ankle and tight now. So you think the pain is worth it?

We grab the High School Musical combo set consist of one HSM cup and popcorn with HSM printed on the box for RM9.90. Walked in to the theater right on time. Once we sat down, Eldest Princess eyes was glued to the big screen while still holding on to the popcorn. Five minutes later, she is still holding on to the popcorn. Ten minutes later, she passed me the popcorn without eating them at all. That is how crazy a 8y/o child towards the movie.

What more can I say? This is the best Musical compare to the first 2 released. Not much of wacky choreography compared to HSM 2 but this time, they have more dance moves especially Waltz. I so love that part where Gabriella teach Troy to Waltz on the rooftop. They sing, they dance, they smooch a little. Or at least 3 smooches ON THE BIG SCREEN!!! I know I am blushing.

You ought to watch this movie not for the story but for some reason other than the singing and dancing. This time, it is filled with lots of them!

I know.  That is pun intended 😉

I have seen many bloggers out there making this dish.  I was very curious to try them and I did.  aitelyu, it was superb.  I bought Giant brand of frozen roti canai with onion and cheesy Weiner. Watch out for oozing cheese when it is done.  All you need to do is wrap Weiner in semi defrost roti canai.  It is up to individual if you want to cut the lines across the wrapped package but if you do, this will save you cooking time too.

Grilled them on 200C for approximately 45mins or till brown.  That is very time consuming isn’t it?  The usual pan fried took less than 5 minutes to brown.  They are so good kids can have 2 serving of this and because this is home cooked, there was not a drop of oil in them at all.

For dessert, they have half mandarin oranges, half plums and few jelly beans for treats.

Left to right: Hard boiled egg, grilled chicken skew with bell peppers and japanese cucumber, fried vermicelli.

I have no inspiration at all while preparing this bento. The main reason is because of the missing food separator that could not be replaced by Tupperware Company. Their agent’s excuses is so lame like, “We don’t provide spare part.” So what I did is send a e-mail to Tupperware Company asking if they could kindly spare one unit for me from their production. I attached a reference link to one of my blog post so that they can have a better idea which lunch box I am refering to.

And this morning, I get a reply from their Customer Service that goes like this, “Regret to inform you that we not able to open the file to view the picture. Appreciate if you could resend the file.”

Don’t know should cry or laugh. I send them a link. All they got to do is just click on the link ma. What file? Where got file la!

The only motivation I had is probably this cutesy egg mould that produces cutesy prints on eggs.

All you need to do is cook your hard boiled egg like usual.  Discard the shell while it is still hot, put them in the mould and soak them in ice water for approximately 5 minutes.

This is Daddy’s bento using the fish mould.  I know he will get embarrassed to have some childish imprints in his bento. Ok la, this is considered a bit macho.

Note: For more pictures on the wedding, please click the Photo Gallery link on my right bar. What I’ve posted here is the best 33 pictures out of 500 pictures that I really love. The one uploaded on the slideshow is the next best 100 pictures that I like.

To begin, I was not the official photographer for my Nephew’s wedding. More of self invited only. Kekeke. Good thing tho as I can have my own sweet time to capture ‘moments’ and ‘details’ on the events and this is the best time for me to graps the new Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 lens that I just bought specially for this wedding too. Not to waste anymore time, here are the pictures:

Love the white blinds as it allowed plenty of sun to shine thru. This is Alvin, the bride’s Eldest Brother.

This is also one of my favourite, favourite, favourite pic.

Baby Princess took one of the postcard from the hotel. Without paying. ‘-.- I thought it was some sort of complimentary corporate holiday cards from the hotel as a token of appreciation, mana tau, postcard pulak. Potong stim. ‘-.-

Another shot of her that I love. Don’t be fooled by her innocent smile.

The ceremony (ROC) is about to begun.

Eldest Princess with her cousin. She had a better version of this shot on her PNS.

Niece – Crystal: Love the bokeh again.

During the swearing where the Registrar blurted, “Don’t hold hands yet.” and all of us burst into laughter. Look at the shying bride. Blushing man!

The million dollar question, “Do you agree to take this woman as your wedded wife?” “Yes, I do!”

The proud Mama aka my Eldest SIL

… and another one thousand hundred million dollar question, “Do you agree to take this man as your wedded husband, wash his underwear, cook for him, clean after him, spend all his money, etc…” (OK, I was just kidding. But the fact is true. *kekeke…)

Oh, man! If I was one of the audience, I would have weep the tears of joy too. I am the type that can’t watch soap operas. But that day was different. I was too busy taking pictures. I just wish she could weep longer! So the touching.

Initially the Bride was smart to turn away from the camera’s direction. I have to really squeezed myself between some potted plants at where I am standing.

Guess which hand belongs to the bride? No prize for the correct answer tho.

The Bride’s witness signing away at the dotted line.

This is also one of my favourite, favourite, favourite picture.

The official photographer at work. The funny thing is, he stands at where he is and I stand on the other end and never did once he came over my side for a shoot. Why ah? That makes me shy to walk over to his side too. So what you see is basically almost at the same spot i.e. next to the bride and he would have all his pictures took from the Bridegroom side. Crappy!

One happy family.

One of my favourite shots too. That way, the Grandfather doesn’t look so fat… sheesh…. 🙄

All the shots I took are mostly candid. Why? Because the official photographer was there. Duhh. And of course, I was kinda shy to ask the Couple to pose even though I have tones of idea running. Never the less, I still love the candid very much.

This is actually a group shot but I zoom all the way and frame at the Couple only. kekeke…

Makan time! This two years old niece can eat curry puff! I wonder how did the parents trained their kids as my 8 years old can’t even take anything with pepper on it.

By the time I open the food container, all I see is food crumbs. So sad and super hungry.

The Bridesmaid’s corsage. Also one of my favourite, favourite, favourite shots!

I stole this shot from far. kekeke…

In the evening during the tea ceremony, I tried several angle but they all don’t looks nice and all their movements are too fast. I gave up after a short while.

Was more than happy to be able to capture this moment. I tried capturing the teacup exchange but failed. Like I said, they are too fast for me. One of the reason is because I was too tired. Not drained energy but the camera is too heavy! They weight more than a tons after you put on the 28-75mm lens and external flash.

I am sure the photographer will thanks me for this shot. He better did!

The many fine details around the wedding banquet. I am glad I noticed their initial embossed on the wedding cake.

My nephew asked if I changed any battery during the event. Well, the camera body’s battery is very ‘tahan lasak’ (long lasting). But the flash battery…. I used up 8 pcs of rechargeable battery and 4 pcs of alkaline battery throughout the day. That is a lot! I think I will need to get more rechargeable battery as alkaline is too expensive.

My verdict? Overall, the Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 lens is good superb. It gave me more control compare to 50mm lens as most of the time, I will masuk longkang (falls in the drain). I don’t mean to say wide angle are good. They have their own specialty actually. I still love 50mm for portrait shots but wide angle is still better for covering events.

More pics in my Photo Gallery. Enjoy…

I have whole lots of new gadget last week. Firstly, it was the onigiri mould and onigiri bento boxes that I just bought. To compliment to the onigiri, I bought a new plate just for photography sake. I know, this are all the wacky stuff a blogger did and I am one of them. Beside the new kitchen gadget, I bought myself two camera gadget too.

It was the Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 lens and Canon Speedlite 580 EX II external flash.

Just a week before my nephew’s wedding, I tested up the new gadget and of course that included my new kitchen gadget.

The flash was pointed upright at 180deg, 2.8f ISO400. Picture was a bit dark tho. I have the flash pointed about 45deg with the same camera setting. The outcome was:

Well, a little over exposed. The problem is, flash doesn’t work in macro and when you shoot in vertical, you should turn the flash to face upward and not side way. Those are the things to remember. Can remember ah???!!! So many things to remember now!!!! Don’t ask me to invest in flash memory $$$.

There are lots more to learn and explore with the new gadgets. Will see how it turns out during my Nephew’s wedding. On the other hand, of course the onigiri taste nice la. I can’t go wrong with my cooking.

Stay tune…

My kids love Fairy Bread very much. I think any other kids would love them too.

Fairy Bread is just a normal bread spread with butter and topped with lots of Hundred and Thousand and just about any other decorative sweets you get from the bakery shop.

This is my 8 y/o bento. We had some mandarin oranges, frankfurters & carrot in skew, monkey container with kewpie mayo for dippings and tulip cut out Fairy Bread. You need not have to worry as the bread is full of Hundreds and Thousands they won’t stick to each other even if you stacked them.

For my boy, I hate to have wastage from the bread. My all time favourite shape – triangle!

Seriously, kids won’t mind the shape at all. I put less Hundreds and Thousands as compared to the real Fairy Bread as they really covered them with the colourful sweets. Go check out more about Fairy Bread in the internet if you are interested. They are very famous in Australia.

While kids have those sweet stuff, the adult had real food. (asif)

Dunno why each time I see avocado in the supermarket, I must bring home one even if the price is RM4.99 per piece. I love guacamole a lot.

If you have a better recipe, please share them with me. This is my recipe. Very simple stuff:

• Avocado
• Sundried tomatoes
• Yellow onion
• Pinch of salt
• Half lemon/lime juice

Mashed the avocado and combined all of the ingredients. You get homemade guacamole. Very delicious to go with nachos.

This is the adult bento. Very obvious we had spaghetti bolognese, bake potatoes with chicken bits and cheese topped with guacalome and bake drumlet. Hubby told me three of his colleagues took the spaghetti one roll each as I put them in a ball size so that it is easier for him to share eat . When he told me that, I quietly cursed under my breath, “Idoit, don’t appreciate my food issit. Luckly his colleagues appreciate my food.”

We was driving thru Singapore’s Chinatown and I saw many other things that interest me like the antique shops and some very nice and old shop lot great for photography.  We do not have time to walkabout in Chinatown plus with 3 kiddos in tow, I don’t think they are interested to walk the miles.

I saw this very lovely yellow windows and ordered BIL to stop the car by the curb while I ran down to take same quick shots.