HOT hot hot!!

Man as if this month couldn't get any hotter!
Well I had a very productive last week, well not really that productive, but quiet busy.

1) I took the subway with Benjamin for the first time from our place all the way to Itaewon! What a mission! Of course the elevators were fantastic WHEN and WHERE I could find them. More  than not I went the way where there were no elevators but tons and tons of stairs! But many a nice random strange helped me carry Benjamin and the buggy down them. I was so glad I didn't take the Super Duper Off Road 4 WD drive bugger, cos there would of been no way I would of been able to fit on the escalator due to the fact that the elevator wasn't working at Samgakji ga Station!!!
Finally made it to Itaewon, our mission was to go to Taco Bell. FYI there is NO Taco Bell in New Zealand, we have only ever heard of it much like Dukin' Donuts ( which on my last visit home last year found a DD in the Airport!!!) Like we need Donuts!
However once we arrived at said destination the line that snaked out and around the corner told us that there was no way in hell we plus buggy were gonna wait or fit in the tiny poky store, so we had Quizno's ( which we also do not have in NZ) a good healthy option and Ben enjoyed his Chicken soup bread bowl thingee.
Enough said for adventure number one.

Exciting trip number 2:
This did not involve lovable bundle of pooh, but just myself! thank god cos it would of been a nightmare getting him to Dongdaemun. Anyways I went to Dongdaemun to meet up with my friend  Gerry ( she has an awesome website..check it out   http://buttersugarcream.blogspot.com/ ) as she was going to introduce me to the Bangsan Market! I didn't even know such a place existed until Gerry told me about the secret Baking/Bake ware/ wrapping Market. I was amazed. For me I usually try and find stuff on the net and order it, but this place was awesome, and semi cheap, though Gerry did tell me that in some places certain things were cheaper etc. It was amazing all the packaging, muffin cups, cupcake cups, sprinkles, ribbons, stickers, ingredients. you would not believe it but I finally found Cream of Tartar!! Now I can tell my mum not to bring any ^^ It was awesome. I bought a cookie cutter shaped as a onesie ( will try that out soon) a piping set as I need to improve dramatically. (Though I think I will have to persuade Gerry to make a class for all of us ex-pats who wanna learn!!!) some sprinkles and a couple of biscuit boxes. If I had more time and loads more money I would of gone mad! I am itching to make those onesie biscuits. Hmm maybe this week!

Last of all for my friend Summer, she is due to have her baby sometime last week or so and he is still stubbornly hanging on, it lasts like an eternity waiting for your baby to arrive! Anyways I offered to make her a nappy bag as she didn't have one and I really wanted to try out the design I found on the web. So I received her colour instructions any pastel colour except orange and off I could go.
I got this really cute pink rabbit design, coral canvas, and pale pink polka dot fabric to make this bag, also a real cute zip with a wee girl and a bonnet for it's tab!
So away I went with the design called the "Detour Diaper Bag" I got from  http://www.make-baby-stuff.com/         I just printed it off and away I went, though I had to make a few slight modifications and added several more pockets on the inside.
Anyways after I stuffed up the lining by sewing in in the wrong way, unpicking it and then resewing it this is what the finished result looked like

I was quiet happy with the result even though it was the first bag I had ever made and I did do some mistakes, so I have warned Summer not to look too closely and just hope it holds up! And if not she can always use it for something else. I was thinking about making some more similar to these, but I think I will go for a square "bum" instead or a round cos it's a bitch to line up the bottom and sew the round edges. Plus I like square. So who knows eh. I have all this time to play with and have some awesome turquoise fabric I am itching to use, plus I have some funky heavy cotton material with sheep and dogs all over it that I am sure would make a cool bag. Oh well back to the sewing machine eh!!! Oh there is the cutest wee pattern for pants so I have some awesome Woollen tartan which I will make into pants for my wee bundle for winter.

June

What an epic month!
Not only was it my nephew's first birthday but also my hubby's birthday too. The dilemma of what to buy each of them! In the end Ollie got a heap of Korean cuteness and hubby got well bugger all actually. I was planning on buying him a guitar, but had no money :(
But instead I hired my friend to make him some birthday cupcakes he only ate one cos they were too sweet for him!

 She is an amazing decorater and has a newly made site  (http://buttersugarcream.blogspot.com/)
Where she is flashing her wares to the world and Oh My what wares she has!!!^^
Living in Korea finding someone who makes cupcakes like this is like finding a needle in a haystack! Aaaand the fact that Korea has like 1 cupcake franchaise which has just started up they are overpriced and bland..

He is made about all things soccer and Nike for some reason, I was orignially going to go for a nike basketball theme, but HELLO WORLD CUP 2010 and Red Devils.. and he was mad keen on watching all possible games, and since his party was on the Saturday the day that Korea sadly lost to Uruguay it was perfect to have a soccer theme!
Everyone LOVED them they were so impressed, just wish I could of said I made them..sigh... one day when Gerry teachs me I will^^

June..sigh...HOT

Well it's June already. My nephew has his first birthday next week, and Benjamin's is in 2 more months time. Time to start thinking about what to do for his party! Thank god my mum and dad will come over, will need some help with the catering! I have no idea how many people are coming maybe 40, maybe 60! Have to get my hubby onto that! What is good is that his friends will give us money!! And my friends presents he he Yea for Benjamin!

I am thinking no cake, just cupcakes for everyone. I mean it's not too hard to make the cupcakes, and for decorating them well I think I will do a beach theme? With the help from Martha Stewart!! Though then again I may totally stuff it up and not do the waves and sharks properly and there for need the help of this amazing woman called Gerry who made my friend's son's 2nd birthday cupcakes.. Frogs, and lily leaves and flowers and water.. it was awesome! She is gong to make some cupcakes for my hubby's birthday so I will definitely take photos to show everyone out there who happens to stop and have a squizz.

Though I did make cupcakes for my friends birthday last month.

As you can see the purple one looks like a dog has just emptied it's bowels on it! That was the first to be eaten!! Hubby did well with the little stars.. he spent some time working in a Japanese bar squeezing wasabi onto plates! I gave up after the flower cos the icing was melting and just slapped the rest on the cupcakes. They were really yummy! I used a coffee, chocolate banana recipe and it was yuuuuuuuuuum And I had cupcakes for breakfast the next day ha ha

Ok best sign off for this evening as am knackered

Humph..

Well it's a balmy lovely sunny day, but why do I feel so shitty?
Hmm must of been the kindy kids this morning! I mean as theories go, kids are at their worst when it's pissing down with rain, or freezing cold and they are going stir crazy couped up inside all day , then why the hell did I yell myself hoarse at the little buggers today?
It wasn't like they didn't know what I was talking about, as talking to them in Korean!! And it was easy work! I don't understand them, apart from the fact that if my son grows up to be anything like them I will slap him seven shades of purple! They have no manners, can not and will not share, are self centered and generally disrespectful! They dont even say Thank you or please!!
Oooh my son is going to have years of Thank-you, please, may I....training! He will learn to share, which he kinda does know because if you ask him " Mummy Aaaaaaah/ Daddy Aaaaaah he will give you whatever he has in his hand and try and put it in your mouth, very cute. Then he giggles.
Though this morning before bath time he was sitting infront ofthe TV with his back towards it, completely starkers and lo and behold he found his willy. With both hands I may add. Sure he's found it before but it has been a cursuory touch, like "Hmm ok it's there now where's my Pukeko?" but this morning it was a " What the hell is this? If I touch it it feels good" kinda touch and he proceeded to play with himself for like 5 minutes. It was both funny and distrubing to watch! But I am guessing that most lttle boys find their willies sometime sooner or later eh!?
At least my day started off well

MAY!!!

See.. I told you fellas I was a slack arse!
Man I can't believe it's half way through May already and I last wrote ages ago!
Well nothing really exciting has happened. My son got a severe throat infection thus causing me many sleepless nights.
Why is it that men's hearing switches off at night time? Do they have little switches in their brains that are connected to solar panels or is it the age old theoryof a little hamster running around on his exercise wheel, and when night falls, he thinks bugger this for a lark, I am going to sleep? All I can say is that being sleep deprived, having to teach kindy kids whohave no manners, working out, cooking, cleaning and looking after said bundle of joy makes for one super grumpy shitty mummy/wife! And he wonders why I am stressed out! He who has a solid 7-8 hours sleep every night, and more in the weekends dur to alcohol! I envy him and hate him at times.

What else exciting happened... hm Oh I got a new fangled passport with those nifty wee chips in them and mini holograms of me, plus my new name.. Yup I have a double barrelled new fangled fancy name.. Heaney-Lee. It was either that or be called Leigh Lee, and that is just stupid ( plus it has been my nickname since high school!)
I had to drive to the middle of no fecking where near Dongducheon cos the immigration office had moved from Uijeongbu, and man was I pissed, but the lovely parking man drew me a map.. I should of taken a photo.. it was just a straight line! But I did manage to find the stpid place then wait in line for hours,thank god I had a book. But I did have fun watching this curious little Indian boy pulling numbers out of the machine whithout his mum's knowledge and the poor clerk who kept calling said numbers and no one was fronting up! But the funniest thing was that after mum found out and held onto him, a little korean boy started to do the same.
 bugger aparently I have to go rescue my husband from our neighbour.. well keep you posted!

April 15th.... dum dum duuuuuuuuuuuuum...

Whilst sitting back and relaxing last night and getting the ankle biter ready for his bath, we surprisingly found out that our wee bundle of pooh can now actually crawl! Oh fantastic! The joys of crawling..

And here I was thinking that he could be lazy and miss the whole crawling stage and go straight to walking! But no as we found out and so did Benjamin that he is not as steady as he thinks he is! In the space of an hour he fell over three times and did perfect head butts with the wooden floor, of course with Irish luck an all he would have to be half on and half of the mat that we bought specially for him! It was rather funny to watch him go for gold, and then fall over, needless to say we laughed while he cried. ( I know sadistic parents are we!) However he has now advanced to crawling and spitting up his milk. He just doesn't know that he should sit for ATLEAST 10 mins for his formula to go down! Though I don't mind cleaning the floor, it's when he does it on you just as your about to leave for work you just wanna scream. Though silly daddy had been playing rough with him and he puked all over daddy's face and shirt and pants.. good boy ( just like when we went to the wedding!!)

So now begins the joys of vacumming everyday and moping the floor and finding kiddie rails and locks and dusting and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh more house work for me!
Though tonight while making daddy some Kimchi jigae Ben was in his wee stroller race cart thing running into my archilles heels and having a great time doing it, and me being PMS I had an epiphany.. That I am lucky to have a hubby even though he tends to ring 5 mins before he finishes work and tells me he aint coming home for dinner, after I had spent the last hour cooking for him....  I couldn't even begin to imagine what life would be like as a single parent, just you and the wee bundle of joy/horror/pooh/screams/ insert word of choice. I get ansty ( usually when I am cooped up all day) with Benjamin for the evening! I like spending time with him, but trying to get dinner organised, washing done, doing the dishes, vacumming, cleaning,  getting ready for work etc doing all that  single handedly and having to keep constant tabs on your bundle, it's tough work an I have the uptmost respect for single parents.. not just mum's but dad's as well! I don't know how they do it! They should write books about time management for us folk who have a partner and a baby, cos I sure as hell have no idea where all my spare time goes to and I know I have shit loads of it, I just piss arse around too much!

Working on a Saturday, what a dirty word!

Ok since I have lived in China for 2 years and everyone works pretty much every Saturday and it is not un common to work on a Sunday and living in Korea where the work life is similar, since having a small son there is a thing called money which one desperately needs, so now I have no qualms about working on a weekend.
However if I was back in good ol New Zealand working on a weekend is blasphemy, unless your in the retail or food industry, once it hits 5 pm Friday it's offically the weekend. ( My hubby is going to be pleasantly surprised by that fact when we move back theresometime in the future!)

But I digress, working on a Saturday poses one little teeny weeny problem.. Benjamin. Normally cos I work mornings my wee bundle of pooh goes to daycare for about 4 hrs everyday ( my daycare rocks by the way) But they are not open on the weekends.


So I am really thankful to my Mother-in-Law fr being on holiday from Jeju Island, and living about 40 mins drive from our place! She kindly agreed to babysit said bundle of pooh on the morning. So in gratitude I made her some awesome semi healthy muffins ( from a cake recipe) but tweaked the recipe as I didn't have sour cream.. shall I share or be greedy and keep it to my self..

Coffee Cake by Alison & Simon Holt - Meals without Meat
150 g butter                                          1 tsp baking powder
1 cup brown sugar                                1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2Tbsp instant coffee ( I used Irish flavoured)      2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs                                                    1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp Vanilla                                           1/4 cup walnuts -chopped
2 cups wholemeal flour                           2 Tbsp lemon juice
250 g sour cream * ( I have used both yoghurt and cream cheese as substitutes and both have worked fantastically)
Cream butter an sugar. Add coffee to mixture and beat well.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix till all lovely and smooth
Mix dry ingredients together.
Had half dry ingredients and half sour cream* to buttery goodness, mix then repeat with the other half.
Add nuts and lemon juice at the end, then slap it into a ring tin or a 23 cm paper lined cake tin. Or do what I do and bung it in a well oiled cake tin and any left overs slap them into a muffin tin.
( I used a muffin tin for this)
Bake at 180 for 40-45 min if a cake or 20 mins for muffins.
(Be warned muffins tend to sink in the middle so great for addig a scoop of yummy velvety vanilla ice cream.)

Why 5!!!???

Why 5!? Why not 6 or even better 6:30! But no it's always around 5 fecking o'clock that my small bundle of joy wakes up and makes too much noise! But wait it's not only at 5, but also 2 and alittle earlier 11!!
He's 7 months an 2 weeks old, surely he knows by now that mummy and daddy like to have a wee bit of a sleep in! He was so good before going to sleep at around 7:30 waking up at 6 and that was that for a few months, then all of a sudden everything has gone up the whop. And don't give me this teething business, it's not like he has been teething for the last 2 months!!!! Sometimes even though I love the little bugger, I wish I could palm him off to someone else!!!
Right now I hav to go and rescue him from whatever he has gotten himself into and can't get out of!

Am I saaaaaaavy enough for a blog?

Well bugger me.
I think I am now technicologically advanced enough to start a blog! But is my spelling up to scratch? (This is yet to be proven)

And will I be bothered to continue to write funny and witty comments( or lame arse monologues), or will they turn into bitchy snarly comments directed towards all the evil people in my life ( haven't got any..yet)at least I know I wont be talking about politics cos I have no interest in that what-so-ever and live in a country that I can not vote in, and if I could, I so wouldn't. Because everyone knows most politicians are as cunning as a weasel, and not as nearly competent or house-trained.

Many of my mates probably wont be arsed to even think about creating a blog, let alone reading the damn thing, so I guess in this day and age it's ok to blab your heart out to the millions of faceless spectators hovering around out there. So if I say something to offend you then tough cookies, you don't need to continue to keep reading my blog, and don't slag me off just because I decide to shar my opinions, people are allowed opinions and no one can mark them wrong for having one. So if you voice your opinion I will duely note it and a) agree with you or b) value your insight but think you're a complete muppet if I disagree.. but I wont ever slag off another person unless your my mother^^

Though I have a question to pose to you.. Is it weird that my husband just kissed a can of beer? ( This after not having a beer for about 3 weeks?)