Double Celebrations (Hafizah's and Jasmine's bday)

This entry is actually a continuation from "HafizahTurns 2 today!". As we have planned in the beginning of the term, we wanted to combine birthday's celebration as Hafizah n Jasmine shared the same birth date. I wanted to introduce something different at the playcentre. I wanted to share a special food from my culture with kiwi friends. So, I chose to make a yellow sticky rice cake or what we called in Bahasa Melayu as Pulut Kuning. The night before (24/06/09), I prepared the rice. In the morning, I fried some prawn crackers as I was afraid that the sticky rice was not going to be enough for everybody.

That morning, we had to set up the place as usual before everybody arrived at the playcentre. I went out to buy something for the decorations as I wanted the kids to decorate the sticky rice cake later. I bought a bag of halal marshmallows at the nearest dairy.

By 10 a.m., Kathy and Jasmine arrived at Peachgrove Playcentre. Kathy was not feeling well, but she still came and brought a chocolate cake made by her hubby to the playcentre. (sayang Kathy). She had to ice the cake with chocolate icing and decorated Jasmine's cake with some lollies. (kat sini semua jenis gula2 diaorg panggil lollies). At the same time, I asked some children to help me decorating the sticky rice cake with some parsley, strips of omellette and some marshmallows. They were so excited to help but at the end they wanted to eat the marshmallows more than decorating the cake!. :D

Then, it's time to sing Happy Birthday to the birthday girls. We sang "Happy Birthday" in English and Maori. I forgot to ask them to sing it in Bahasa Melayu as I had to write down the words first. (well, next time kena tulis dulu wordings tu). Jasmine only took few seconds to blow her candles. Hafizah refused to blow as we never really like to blow candles at home whenever we had birthday celebrations. So, Fathini and other kids helped her to blow out the candles. We (Kathy and I), cut the cakes and gave a piece of chocolate cake and a piece of sticky rice cake to everybody. Some kids refused to eat the sticky rice cake, but some really loved the cake. All of the adults loved the sticky rice cake as I also brought a bowl of beef curry to be eaten with the cake. Some adults asked for the recipe!. (kembang kempis hidung bila minah2 saleh puji sedap lps tu mintak reseipi pulak).

I was delightful with the little success of introducing part of my culture at Peachgrove Playcentre. It's good to know that they are quite open minded and always being supportive. Next term, I plan to introduce other things. (hmmm kena pikir2 dulu ni. kalau sesiapa ada idea, jgn malu2 untuk berkongsi ye. :D)