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A cooking post!!!

Which naturally means this lazy wife cooked something last weekend

Since we all know I either cook A. Italian or B. Chinese or C. Western so no suprises if you guessed Chinese this time around *pats your back*

I decided to make a nice EASY sweet and sour chicken dish and my fav broccoli vegetables. I found the veg recipe that seemed Chinese to me from guess where? Martha Stewart’s website. Who knew it actually came out decent

Easy Sweet and Sour Chicken Recipe

Step 1: Mix 1 egg yolk and some soy sauce with a bit of water. Roll the diced chicken breast in flour, egg, and then flour again. Fry the chicken and drain on paper towels. If you wish to skip this step also no problemo. You can use your fav chicken seasoning and fry it instead.

Step 2: Stir fry 1 chopped onions and half green and half red pepper until cooked.

Step 3: Pour in the sauce. To make it combine 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, 3 tablespoon tomato sauce, 3 tablespoon plum sauce and 1  tablespoon Worcestershire sauce together with 1/4 cup water or less. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Mix 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch with some water to make the sauce thick. You can play around with the sauce taste by adding in more plum sauce or tomato sauce.

Step 4: Add in 1 chopped tomato and combine chicken until sauce is mixed.

Step 5: Garnish with spring onions and WALA:

And now for the easy peasy Broccoli recipe

Step 1: Fry chopped garlic and chopped carrots until soft.

Step 2: Add in the fried taufo and broccoli with a bit of water to soften it. (okay recipe only called for broccoli but I added in ze carrots and taufo coz I’m mad creative like that)

Step 3: In a bowl, combine 1 tablespoon light soya sauce, 1 tablespoon oyster sauce (recipe didnt call for this but I LOVE Oyster sauce!), a dash of white vinegar and 1/4 teapsoon chilli flakes (though I used half a packet of Domino’s chilli flake – happens when you’re INDIAN) and stir. Combine into pan with vegetables. Add some cornstarch with water to thicken the bugger up.

Step 4: Throw in some cooked cashew nuts, stir and tada:

Healthy yummy greens with a kick of spiciness *cue Jet Li mad kung fu skills* So sad I won premiere tickets to watch The Sorcerer And The White Snake yesterday but couldn’t go

Ho ho sek wor!!!

And because everybody loves babies:

Sairah’s lil play date on Sunday:

Except there wasn’t much playing as he’s barely 6 months and can’t sit up. Yet.

Oh and this is the state of my baby girl’s room these days.

Which is a strong indicator that Sairah is a TODDLER now :(  Karishma, you were right when you said the room will come to this state one day in an earlier comment

If any baby is up for a play-date with Sairah, please do email me.  Promise I’ll at least try to tidy up her room a little before you guys arrive

Disclaimer: All photos are courtesy of Ezra Plus Photography while photos labelled with  (A) are thanks to my friend Anusha. Both of these parties did an EXCELLENT job capturing these precious moments as it is and I can’t thank them enough. There are approx 500 photos, only 92 made it on this blog post and even then I”m really just tempted to upload em ALL!

Gosh, if someone were to put a  gun to me and say bitch pick a single ONE photo that you love, I would rather say you know what, shoot me coz I love em ALL! That is how strongly I feel about ALL the of Sairah’s Birthday Party photos coz each photo tells a story and how we’re connected to each people in the photo

Venue: Tappers Cafe, Bangsar South

The Decor

(A)

The Door Gift

The personalized guestbook

Uncle Roshan signing the book

PRESSIES! Best part of the party, hehe

FOOD! Also the best part of any party

Hubby’s Aunt from Guam – she is GORGEOUS! No one ever believes me when I tell em she has 3 kids.

Heart this photo – nothing like some good satay on a Friday afternoon yo.

Nick – before he stained his clothes. Then again, he said stained shirts are always an indicator of good food, lol

Lil Princess made her way about half an hour after all guest had arrived.  Obviously the star of the party just HAD to make a grand entrance She was most definitely in the DAZE and I don’t blame her. She did thread the restaurant very very carefully, most of the time wondering what the heck is going on.

Her gorgeous tutu dress is courtesy of one of my besties in the UK. Thank you Wylane, it looked perfect on her.

(A)

Hmm something verrry strange is going on here.

But I”ll get to the bottom of this SOON.

The Berglunds – My bestie!! Her hubby flew in from Singapore just to attend Sairah’s 1st Birthday. Can’t thank them both enough!!

With my ex-classmate Minna and her toddler Vera.

My dad’s cousin

And her son

Dhash’s cutie pie Nikhil and her niece.

My ex-classmate with her hubby and son. Check out the thumb’s up sign, lol

Balloons on the floor – always a kid’s pleaser.

When relatives meet after a long time

More relatives from my side Sri Lankans uniteeee!

Macha KK and his ever charming expressions.

(A) The Billy Goaties (the hubby has since shaved that crap off his face after I nagged him 2 days in a row)

Dad’s cousin and a close family friend.

 Madhu, her hubby and her sweetheart son, Siddarth. Check out those BIG eyes!

After a while, mom and I actually changed her outfit into the dress I got her in Phillipines. YES, there was actually a dress change, lol. I was only 2 months pregnant when i got that dress It FINALLY came to good use. And to think I only paid less than RM40 for it?

(A)  At the same time it finally sunk into my baby’s mind that it was indeed HER special day and boy did she make the most of it. Till today the hubby and I often wonder where does she get those attention-loving genes from since we’re both on the quiet side.

YAY it’s my parttaaaay *clap clap*

(A) I’m soooo happyyyy todaaaay!

And because I’m sooo happppy everyone gets a flying kiss *muaaah*

(A)

(A) Mommy and Baby with the same expression.

(A) All three with the mouths open

(A)

Sairah and her Subang Grandma (otherwise known as my mom’s sister / my aunt, hehe)

Vera teaching her how to blow

Okay Sairah are we ready to cut your birthday cake?!

Can we cut the cake now hubby?

Thank you Eunice for the wonderful awesome cake. Everyone was super pleased.

Pretty obvious that Sairah-Bear would get a BEAR cake isn’t it?

Sairah’s first candle – make a wish baby girl.

(A) Chopping the bear’s head. Felt so bad after that. Having a cute cake is hard sometimes!

(A) Birthday girl having a taste of her own cake.

She obviously approved. Doing her signature ‘tadaaaa’ and enjoying every single minute of it.

Mommy and Daddy butchering cutting the cake.

Okay what should I get up to next mommie?

Then all of a sudden that lil girl went on a KISSING spree

One kiss for Siddarth.

One kiss for cousin Kasi

Another kiss for Uncle

God knows how many people she kissed that day. Daddy needs to a buy a shot gun soon I reckon.

GROUP PHOTO!

With Dhash, her hubby, Nikhil and her niece.  Believe it or not but we actually met on my blog! From exchanging emails and tips many times, I’m so happy that she showed up for Sairah’s birthday. Plus now that Sairah actually kissed her son on his LIPS, I’m guessing there will be many more playdates to come

The Loh Family

Sairah giving away the door gifts to the babies.

More loving from Aunty Anusha

And then came Uncle Kavin

Uncle Roshan adjusting Princess Sairah’s crown. Doesn’t get more awwww than this!!!

Ah yes, seconds before the lil one planted a kiss on Nikhil, lol

(A) Sairah and her grandpa, hence the lansi face

(A) The friends.

(A)

(A) Okay people, byeee and thanks for coming to my parttty! Hope to see you again next year.

(A) Ohh no we’re coming to an end

(A)

(A) Yay let’s go home and open my pressies mommie. And damn I have such a proud mommie face here.

(A) Huh?? What do you mean the party’s over already???!

And that ladies and gentlemen was Sairah’s FIRST Birthday Party Bash *tadaaaa*

P.s: If you’re keen on hiring a REALLY good photographer at an affordable price, do hop on to Ezra Plus Photography.

There’ s this quote in my baby girl’s guestbook that I found on the internet and just HAD to put it next to our photo in the book.

I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.

Fine, so the last sentence was probably there as a punch line. But the first line spoke to me. Why yes I want nothing but the best for Sairah. I want her to have all the things mummy can’t afford. I want her to have all the things mummy could only wish, stare, sniff, dream, touch and hope for. I want her to have it all.

Coz naturally I want her to have a better life than mine.

Afterall dare you to point out a parent who doesn’t want the best for their kids? Thought so.

So step one for wanting the best for her was opening up a savings account for the brat which we got to do recently. Plus it helped that my dad was consistently nagging us to do so. Afterall my mom and dad were the first folks to present Sairah her very FIRST cheque on her birthday and they were eager for us to bank it in to her :)  Imagine a 12 month old receiving a cheque in her name, lol, the world is crazzzzyyy sometimes!

Anyway all of a sudden I’m just itching for her to save and hopefully by the time she reaches 18, she would have a decent amount of money for herself. Going forward whatever cash received during birthdays, angpows, just-because, prize-money (heh maybe getting a lil carried away here) will go straightttt into her bank account! No going to Toys R Us or ice cream parlours to splurge on! And the hubby and I will be contributing some cash into her account every month too. Like what they say – sikit sikit, lama lama jadi bukit!

I have to say though that service in Maybank is SHIT – we still had to wait around to be served even though we were one of the first ones. But nothing like a loud ‘THIS IS STUPID, IF I DONT GET SERVED IN THE NEXT 5 MINUTES, I”M GOING OVER TO XXX BANK”

It works okie. Tried and tested

I have a what account now?

Whatever that is lady.

I’m just happy with this Tiger coin box. For now.

Tiger meets Tiger face off! Sairah won coz she pushed him off her bed. Such a tyrant this one.

And just a quick info for parents who want to open an account for their bub, believe it or not, only ONE parent can be guardian and have access to the account. Obviously I think the mother should be the one in charge, ahem. Just bring along baby’s MyKID, Birth Cert and your IC too. Sign here, sign there X 3 times and you’re done! It still took us approx 1 hour to get everything sorted. I opted to get online banking so we can transfer money in and monitor the balance.

But the icing on the cake was when the officer asked if we wanted to activate the TAC number so transfers can be made.

Told her I highly doubt my 12 month old would be doing any online transacations anytime soon.

Truth be told, I was afraid Sairah might have my online shopping addiction like the mom, hence the no TAC request, haha.

But yea I will  continuously do my best at nagging that baby toddler of the importance of saving. Money doesn’t grow on tree kid! For everything else you have your dad.

P.s: Anyone else who wants to contribute to Sairah’s account is also more than welcome, heeeh. Just had to try

These days we consider dining out in a nice restaurant a luxury! One of the things we always consider when dining out is whether the restaurant is a baby-friendly one which usually means smoke-free, bright and above all comes with a baby chair. Oh you’d be suprise how some restaurants don’t provide this. Anyway, dining with Sairah also means eating our meals in speedy gonzales mode since she gets a tad fidgety. The only way we can sit longer is if we share our food with the little fatty, LOL.

Giovino is a restaurant that I’ve been wanting to go to for quite a while. I remember wanting to take the hubby here to celebrate his birthday and thought against it since we were going to bring Sairah along.  I hardly see babies in nicer restaurants maybe because it’s not actually conducive, have you?

Since our anniversary was on a weekday, the hubby promised we’d go out to a nice dinner on Friday even when I said he didn’t have to do so. My mom was kind enough to baby sit Sairah so we could go out for dinner alone So off we went to Giovino’s – finally, YAY.

Deciding what to eat.

Oh hai.

We decided on something light and went for the Fried Eggplants and Sautéed Sausages in Tomato Herb Sauce. I requested for chicken sausage instead of pork and damn was this dish REALLY good.

We also shared a typically Greek dish called Vegetarian Spanakopita. The pastry was soo fluffy and soft while the filling was delicious. Feta cheese – everyone loves em!

Also tried the Greek Saganaki Tiri which is essentially pan fried cheese in bread crumbs. Sounds pretty easy to make but trust you me – I’ve tried it and it’s not. Cheese rules!

All set to dig in.

A photo of us before we head back. You’d think we would have spent hours out since we had some Q-time together but nooo, we were back in less than 1.5 hours. HAH. Even my mom and BabySis were suprised.

Food here was slightly above average, wouldn’t say it’s spectacular probably coz we were too cheap to indulge in the more popular dish. Anniversay dinner came up to approx RM120. So now I can strike off this restaurant from my must-try list.

Anyway, we rushed back to take Sairah home and decided to just cam-whore and chill the night away

Naughty face ON 

You gotta excuse her crazy hair, she has mad-hair thesedays, lol. Then again blame the mother who forgot to comb her hair!

EH?!

Come to think of it, would trade any luxury restaurant and eat in speedy gonzales style with my baby girl!

So we did throw the little one a small do. I remember saying back then what’s the point to a first birthday party since she won’t remember it all BUT guess I got carried away and went ahead with it anyway I”M SO WEAK! But I have no regrets.

Pick A Date

Like duh. Preferably on a weekend or Public Holiday, like what we opted for. Keep two dates available – and above all check if the restaurant of choice is available to a private party on that day. Ours was on the 16th. We wanted the 17th but the cafe was booked for another event – so that is why keeping two dates as option is a must!!

Guest List

I actually drafted out a guest list first to roughly gauge the amount of people we would have to cater for. I made it clear that only people who play a role in Sairah’s life and close relatives and friends will get an invitation.  So the folks who turned up at party are obviously people who are dear to me (well except for one person but that’s a different story) It’s easy to get carried away and ballon up the list esp when we have to invite so and so ‘just because’……. if you’re Indian you’ll know what I mean, lol.

Picking THE Venue and Food

Now this one is a toughie. There are SO many options out there ranging from a house party to cafes and restaurants. It all depends on your budget and amount of guest you have to cater for. For starters, I didnt opt to have it in our apartment coz  it’s obvious  that our place is small. Hubby suggested we have it at the pool area but I wasn’t keen on guest not having the comfort and going through the humidity so I chose a cafe :) I did SOOO much research that it wasn’t even funny at all. But the one thing most of these places had in common were  the high price followed by simple food served which did not justify the amount we were gonna pay for each pax. Imagine paying approx RM45 per pax and getting finger food like sandwiches and chicken pie in return??? Cut throat!!

Then lo and behold, I found a place very close to home that charged me the same price BUT with good variety of comfort food and tons of it! :D I also made sure we had some vegetarian food.

Venue: Tappers Cafe, Bangsar South The owner Florence was very accomodating to my requests and that is what I like most

Total Cost: RM44 x 42 pax with corkage and extra tea/coffee charges: RM1,920

My biggest worry was not having enough food for everyone so I’m glad they were even leftovers at the end of it.

Score.

Sending The Invites Out

I personally called relatives, esp the older ones and for friends, I sent them a Facebook invite, lol. In order to save trees and telephone cost I told em :D  I did it approx 1 month before the party followed by a few reminders because I was sooo worried they’d forget and not show up. At the end we had about 50 people at her party – just the right amount

Total Cost: Free + a small amount for phone call/ text messages. Can’t look that cheap by putting these figures down here

Cake Cake Cake

I must have sent approx 10 or more emails out to get a quote for the bear cake I wanted! And this was 2 months beforehand. Most of them were either too busy or charged a high price for a small cake. Then by luck, I came across this person who I once bought cupcakes from and I have NO REGRETS! She charged me RM350 for a big 2kg bear cake followed by 16 3D cupcakes, can you say double score?

The end results? You gotta wait for the photos But Eunice is a seriously awesome baker. Check out her blog here.

Total Cost: RM350

Photographer

Now this is an option. I’ve realized alot of photographers charge an arm and a leg and I was bent on not adding up the cost. So I managed to find someone who was ready to take these photos for free as he’s building up his portfolio. I have no regrets since they worked really hard at capturing all the moments. More details on that once I get the photos. I also had a dear friend who took some awesome photos thanks to her awesome camera.

Total Cost: RM200 – coz we weren’t gonna take anything free so it was just a small angpow

Now here comes the fun part – The Little Extras

Since the cafe was already white, we wanted to stick to a pink-white theme. Hubby walked in to a few stores and they charged exhorbitant prices for decorative items, can you imagine that?

So I did the next best thing and sourced for it online, got it at a fraction of the price at Bug’s Party Shop. Free shipping for RM50 and above And very efficient seller.

We spent Thursday evening decorating the place with the help of my cousin Roshan. THANK YOU!

Total Cost: RM75

We only had less than 8 kids so I got these party items from Giant – which is also a good option for affordable party packs.

Total Cost: Less than RM20

I wanted to have a lil guestbook/autograph book for people to pen their thoughts/wishes for my baby girl. I sourced high and lo and you’d be suprise there aren’t many places that carry autograph books! And to think this was REALLY popular back in my time!

We did the next best thing any parent in love with their baby girl would do – we personalized it with our bare hands!! I spent the day running to Mid Valley to print the photos out, buying the stickers and supplies, spent hours cutting the photos, printing out quotes and sticking them to the book etc. If you know how much I HATE craft, you’d love me.

I’m sure Sairah-Bear will enjoy reading this one day.

Total Cost: Less than RM50. Daddy and Mommy’s time + effort = priceless

The hubby working on the DIY guestbook while the mommy worked on the door gift 2 days before THE day.

Now I REALLY have to take credit for this (Thank you creative brain – didn’t know it existed? heh!). I intially thought of cupcakes but bah – that is sooo yesterday. And expensive.

I tried searching for door gift boxes and came across this affordable site. We drove to their store in Bukit Jalil and settled for some DIY gift boxes (which the hubby bitched about non-stop how hectic it was gonna be putting em together). I had earlier bought the baby bottle gifts for the kids when I told the hubby why dont we get em for ALL guest – afterall at some point, I’m sure all they were all on the bottle So he drove back alllll the way on the same day so we could exchange and top up for these cutie lil bottles. It helps that they happily exchanged for us

It was my idea to fill em up with Smarties and Hershey’s Kisses, which are both my fav chocolates. These babies were a hit!!

BabySis got these stickers customized during my baby’s first month ceremony. And to think these stickers are close to one year too, hehe

I couldn’t resist putting up these quotes Everybody LOVES chocolates, it’s a fact.

Total Cost: For bottles – RM78 (for 52 baby bottles). Chocolate: RM130. Come to think of it, the cupcake option would have been cheaper but I like my idea more so…..

I wanted a simple door gift for the kids and babies and thought story books would be perfect for them. We accidently bumped into Excess Book Store in Amcorp which sells books at a MUCH cheaper price.

These only cost us a little under RM3 though the retail price is RM14 each Did a simple ribbon tie to it followed by  stickers with the kid’s initial to it

Total Cost: RM24

This was also my idea! I also hate it when I go to a function and have to figure out what the heck is on the food tray. So we spent hours printing this out, cutting it and sticking on the cardboard all for the comfort and convience for our guests.

Total Cost for our Baby’s FIRST Birthday party: A little under RM3k.

To be surrounded by loved ones while making my girl one happy baby – PRICELESS!

And of course I’ve realized though some of these things cost money, there are other things that come from love and strong family-ties like how my cousin Roshan drove alll the way from Subang in traffic to help us put up the balloons in Tappers, how my two other cousins came to our home and helped blow more balloons and let’s not forget BabySis who helped us by transporting the door gifts and cake on the day itself. And my parents who were in charge of dressing up and bringing the birthday girl to her FIRST Birthday Party. Let’s not forget friends who came early to help out and a friend who helped transport a vegetarian dish Priceless I tell you!

And with that I’ll leave you with some photos of the ACTUAL day birthday on the 14th. We took her to the temple followed by a simple cake cutting.

Cake was by Merienda De Eva -one of the better chocolate cakes around in KL I swear. Like I always say you don’t mess with the Fillipinos when it comes to desserts

Making her first wish

Just happy to have chocolate in her mouth

YAY I”m so happppyyy todayyyyy…….

Baby with our maid/nanny

And here’s a lil tease of the Princess at her party.

:P

Promise to put the party pictures up soon!