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Since we’re still in the CNY mood, here are some photos taken at our family friend’s home during the reunion dinner and on the first day too.

If you remember correctly, Sairah was just a itty bitty thing when she first celebrated her FIRST CNY!

And now look at her……..she was our entertainment those two nights, LOL. Children always are…..it’s free, they say and do the wackiest cutest things and we laugh and laugh in return so why not?

This was during the reunion dinner. Believe it or not, we had malay food which goes to show how Malaysian we are.

She was entertaining everyone with her chicken dance.

And this is Deric entertaining her back while showing off his phone.

Aunty Elaine giving out an orange to Sairah…

Happiness in receiving an orange! Or anything for that matter.

I”ll trade you my orange for that dog Aunty. What say you hmmm?

Screw the orange, let’s see what’s in my pink angpow packet.

Isnt this like the cutest pink angpow packet you’ve seen for a kid?

Then on the first day of CNY, the same family friend threw a get together for her relatives. The house was jam packed with laughter, good food and company. More people also equals more angpow packets for the kid RM160 to be exact, not bad for a kid of 16 months.

Sairah wore this gorgeous pink chinese outfit which my parents bought from Macau. I don’t remember seeing this type of outfit here as it usually comes with pants. I love the fact that this one comes in skirt form, so the girly! She rocked it further with this pink headband with ribbons attached to it.

I”m Chinese today mom

Making his debut was Baby Ethan who Sairah developed a strong liking for. She somehow favors babies instead of toddlers.

She also showed her big sister side which prompted some to ask us when’s the next one coming, hmpfff, well no, not anytime soon.

Yea everyone loves to fuss over a baby. He’s so cute and chilled out. If I have another baby, I want her to be as chilled out as him, hehe.

FACE OFF, hahaha

But we’re friends now.

Here she is again sitting by his side for a long time and even rocked his baby chair. She definitely was good company to the little one. It was too cute! Think I’ve  found the perfect nanny for my next baby, lol.

Okay baby let’s entertain people…

It was then she decided to show everyone how a baby cries

And this is my shocked face

Yup, will only feed self if there’s chocolate cake involved!!

YEE SANG TIME!

Second time for both baby and daddy

Hmm, can I have some of that?

I can’t decide if I like it or not, yet I’ll just continue eating it!!

Okay I can live with this!  It’s no chocolate cake but keep it coming grandma…

Geez, the four day holiday was what we totally needed! But I”m over the moon that tomorrow will be another short holiday for me in view of FT day (I LOVE YOU KL  even though your traffic gets shittier by the day I swear).

How was your CNY? Hope it was as good as ours!

Sairah’s a chatty baby when not shy. She remains shy in front of certain strangers and new faces but eventually warms up depending on her mood.

When at home, in front of those she knows, she yaks away like a little grandmother.

At 16 months she has already developed an extensive vocabulary that could rival her dad’s, haha.

Some of her words include gie (for doggie), mam mam (food), mom, dad, baby, grandma, car, home, MONEY, toe, hair, NO, doll, keys, poh-poh (while referring to this old grannie opposite my mom’s kitchen), ball, tek-tek (started from her obsession with her mother’s boobs),  toll (don’t ask me why I taught her this, we were driving past a toll and she picked it up!), lai lai lai (my mom taught her, it’s cantonese for come come come!), she can say that in english to – COME and come here, teddy, clock, blue, girl, mall, cold amongst a few other words that she says from time to time. Ok there’s more but me brains are kinda frozen at the moment.

We don’t do baby talk at home because from day 1 my dad (the self appointed all-of-a-sudden baby specialist, lol) kept nagging us to talk like adults in front of her. She can also sign when she’s afraid or wants to do her big business.

My mom and I have been instrumental in teaching her these words.  Everyday we repeat and knock these words into her tiny head until she says it out LOUD. We also use books to show objects and read them out loud. Though some objects she doesn’t say it, nevertheless she can point to her eyes, nose, tongue, toes, fingers, belly button, stomach, hair, fan, light,  aunt, grandpa  amongst others now when asked.

I’m very proud with her ability to absorb things in like a sponge. But it’s true, kids thesedays do learn very fast when there’s proper guidance.

Sairah also has a knack for books. She likes to flip through each page and ask us to tell her what the object are by pointing at it.

We’ve also started reading short stories to her. So now she’ll bring that yellow book to me whenever she wants me to read her a story….too cute!!

She loves it when her mom reads to her but doesn’t seem to pay attention when her old man reads, perhaps coz he’s got the most boring voice and tone in the whole wide world

One story before mom takes over.

Check out my baby’s mad skills – eating, coloring and hanging on to her remote control at the SAME time

She can also pick up crayons and scribble around. I introduced her to crayons about a month and a half back to fine tune her fine motor skills. So far so good, it’s not like she can draw a piccaso (we’re learning!), but merely scribble and can hold crayons/pen.

I also bought this little coloring book and crayon which I find beneficial when we go out for dinner. Because sometimes she gets bored and wants to get off the baby chair. So the coloring book keeps her entertained while we eat. Try it!

And then about 2 months back I got her this scribble pad, you know the ones where you can scribble and then erase it with a swipe? Best investment ever! Though the downside is she keeps shoving it to our face to draw her whatever she wants us to draw. So far, she likes us to draw a dog, car and ball! It’s so cute to see her work the eraser tab like a pro too once she’s done scribbling!!

Again, mad skills – standing while scribbling!

The other day I conducted a little mean experiment of mine, just to test her. As usual she pointed to the butterfly and was waiting for me to tell her what it is, but I just went CAR.

 Okayyyyy…….

Then she flipped the page again and pointed out to the mug waiting for my response. I went CAR.

She cocked stared at me before proceeding to flip to another page. She pointed out a bag.

And her crazy mommie went CAR!

And to show that she’s no way stupid, she got SO PISSED that she pushed the book away and start  crying at me coz she was frustrated I was teaching her these wrong things.

We all had a good laugh. And of course, now all of you are convinced I’m such an idiot of a mom

But that honestly shows that my girl is alert and has the thirst to study and learn! So proud of her. I”m very impressed with her progress and do hope she continues to have the thirst to learn new things!

Okay no point I say these nice things about my girl without proof right? So nah, here’s a video saying her favorite words and pointing out to what I asked her to.  Beauty and brains, that’s my girl right there

Noticed there was no cooking post for the past one month? That’s coz I havent’ been cooking much *shifty eyes*

But in view of the long Chinese new year weekend, I decided to cook some Chinese food! And now I got a few dishes to share with y’all! Yay!

First up – cornflakes chicken. Oh hell yea. You might think it’s weird, but it’s so easy to make and taste wonderful too.

Cut chicken into bite size and marinate with some sesame oil, light soya sauce and lots of black pepper. Fry it and then drain. In a separate bowl, pour sugar-free cornflakes (any amount you desire) and season with black pepper, lemon and pepper seasoning with a bit of salt, gently press down cornflakes to break it.

Heat wok with oil, add in 4 tablespoons of butter, add in 4-5 clove chopped garlic, curry leaves from 3 stems and 2 halved birds eye aka chilli padi (more if you like it spicy). It should smell glorioussss by now. Add in cereal and coat with butter sauce and then combine with chicken and stir for another 1 minute.

 And you’re done! Believe it or not.

I served it with some Golden egg tofu! And this was easy peasy to make.

First off, buy 2 tubes of egg tofu (soy beancurd in tube form), gently cut out the tube and let it roll out like toothpaste :D  Cut tofu into pieces and fry it with oil until golden brown. Prepare the seasoning by adding 2 tablespoon light soy sauce, 2 tablespoon oyster sauce, some black pepper, some seasoning oil, salt, sugar and some water. Prepare cornstarch with water for thickening. Heat oil, fry some garlic, red bell pepper and handful of dry chillies. I earlier boiled some baby corn and added it to the pan. Throw in seasoning. And the cornstarch. You can add an egg into the pan if you want. Add in browned egg tofu and you’re done. Increase seasoning if you want more sauce to the plate

Chinese new year dinner is served, hehe

Then on Sunday, I decided to make egg noodles for lunch because Sairah LOVES her egg noodles. I guess the Thai blood in her runs deep Thesedays I have to cook food that my toddler can eat as well so here’s a great recipe for kids and family!

Add 4 portions of egg noodles into the pot and boil until noodles are soft. Drain with cold water and set aside. If you frequent hypermarkets you’ll notice they love to sell a portion of assorted dumplings like crab sticks, prawn cake and the works for steamboat. Boil that in hot water until soft, I also added some baby corns to it. Chop all in bite size when done.

Fry one chopped onion and four clove chopped garlic until light brown. Add in one chopped chilli, and throw in the assorted dumplings and baby corn and fry for a bit. In a bowl add 4 tablespoon light soya sauce, 4 tablespoon oyster sauce, half tablespoon sugar, ½ tablespoon dark soya sauce, some sweet soya sauce, some water and mix. Throw in the mixture and add in the noodles while coating everything. You may cook some eggs after that and add to the  mixture. Season with black pepper and salt and garnish with spring onions, like this:

 DONE!

My baby absolutely LOVES this dish. She kept eating and eating it and when I stopped she would say maam maam, and she’s usually not *this* easy to feed, LOL.

The next dish is a super easy dish to make! And best of all, I boiled some tiny macaroni and coated it lightly with the sauce and added in some chopped sausages for Sairah’s lunch – it’s like killing two birds with one stone. The kid enjoyed her meal alright and then slept for a good 1.5 hours

For the chicken:

Using 2 pieces of chicken breast, slice each piece into half making it flatter and easier to cook in the grill. Season with black pepper, garlic salt, rosemary, dried oregano, some paprika – in short you can season with anything you like so long there’s rosemary for flavor. Fry in the grill with olive oil until cooked.

For Sauce:

Saute one chopped onions, 5 clove chopped garlic, red bell pepper in butter. Pour in tomato sauce (I used Prego’s as it’s sweeter) to thicken, and add in one cheddar cheese slice. Add in some rosemary and black pepper to taste. Sauce is done.

I had some Greek potatoes to go as the side. Cut 2 russet potatoes into large wedges. I nuked it for 2-3 minutes in the microwave so it will cook faster in the oven. Mince 4 garlic clove, half a lemon juice, black pepper, oregano and a drizzle of olive oil (I omitted this though). Then heat up your oven and cook it until it’s cooked. I would also suggest wrapping it up in a foil to maintain the flavor of the garlic juice while adding some water to it. I’ll probably try it later.

Arrange the chicken, potatoes and sauce to look like this:

A closer look – almost gourmet-ish, *pats back* Well done ME!

My husband officially turned 34 years OLD yesterday!

And because I got super excited and couldn’t wait, I gave him his gift a day before the birthday while we were in my parent’s place. So he could go to work the next day and tell his colleagues what his wonderful wife got him!

While he was downstairs talking to dad, I ran up and arranged his gift on the bed.

Is that for meeee? wonders Baby Sairah.

Okay when daddy comes in, what are you gonna do?

Why, I’ll give him this cutest, sweetest angelic look, like this:

And then, I’ll pass him his b’day card.

He’ll be super touch coz we said we wanted to get him a nice sports car but couldn’t afford it so we had to settle on buying this gift instead. It’s the thought that counts

Then I’ll try my luck at opening the present…

Hmm, wonder what my wifey got me this time? Trust me when I say it’s starting to get tough deciding what to buy this man!! But kudos to me for lugging around this HEAVY gift all the way from Mid Valley to Garden’s carpark despite my poor back.

The smile that says it allllll

I obviously nailed that perfect gift I got him the Nescafe Dolce Gusto Circolo because my husband is a serious coffee drinker. That man drinks at least 3 cups to keep him running. Plus it did help that I caught him checking out this machine a few months ago but knew he’d be too stingy to buy it for himself

Coffeeeee machineeee

And because we have limited varities in Malaysia, I got hold of someone from the UK to help buy me various capsule flavors to satisfy his coffee cravings. Check here out to see how many crazy flavors they have there!

I got the man least 7  packs (I’m crazy I know! ), ahem, so that’s coffee enough to last 2-3 months I reckon But I do seriously hope Nescafe would bring me more flavors coz the current ones we have is kinda pathethic! Just four freaking flavors Updated: We officially have almost all the f yummy flavors available here now in major supermarkets, thank you Dolce Gusto!! I highly recommend the Chai Tea Latte and Chococino for non-coffee drinkers!

Baby girl in her naughty mode

MINE! I WANT COFFEE

Coofffeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……………Haha proof that Sairah isn’t exactly angelic sometimes, lol

She’s starting to hate wearing socks. Constantly finds ways of pulling it off. Even her shoes too.

Of course we got home and somebody couldn’t wait to set up his new coffee machine. It was set up in a jiffy coz instructions are pretty straight forward.

Oh hai, just setting up me new coffee machine

All done. Doesn’t she look pretttyy? Now we’re quite keen on having nice coffee mugs/cups and the whole works to go with our little ‘cafe’. Shit man, we’ll NEVER have to step into Starbucks or Coffeebean and pay cut-throat high prices for coffee anymore. Now we’ll have good coffee to go. What I love about this is the convenience!  Beverage is done in less than 1 minute (perfect for a lazy wife like me, then again I usually let the coffee/tea making to the husband, heh), you can always pack it to go in a nice tumbler and have this on the way to work…….such a nice machine to have seriously and I have no regrets purchasing this for us the husband. My only complain is the loud sound that it makes when it’s in action, lol but we can live with it….

We were deciding which flavors to try first, but it was late and we didn’t want any coffee intake.

Good thing I bought choco-cino which is a beautiful smooth blend of hot chocolate! You can actually control the milk level if you don’t want it too milky. So far I”ve tried this and the Mocha and just lovee lovee it.

LOL the look that says it all. It was superrr yummy! But now I gotta find ways of making sure we have ample supply of this.

And then on his birthday morning, somebody actually work up EARLY (he almost never wakes up early for work!) so he could get ready and serve himself a hot cup of coffee!

I can already see that this gift was indeed love at first sight.

P.s: I purchased this at Harvey Norman and got a 8% discount with some free samples in view of their sale. Sale is on till end of this month, incase anyone is keen Machine also comes with a 2 year warranty, sweet!

Yup, got myself the new Urban Decay Naked Palette 2!!

That’s right, I gots one You got? :D  And it came all the way from the US. Alaska to be precise! Sephora Malaysia recently launched the palette too, but I believe it was snapped out almost immediately. Saw a photo of ladies LINING up just to get their hands on this. Kudos to them for I can never do that.  Retail patience – they have it and I have none. But it does go to show that this baby sells like hot cake! And it’s for a reason.

I paid a little bit more than what you could get in Sephora, but I say RM20 more to avoid lining up, fighting with these ladies just to get my paws on it, and the need to want it asap is well worth it.

I believe a lot of reviews have been done with this already so I’m not gonna attempt to review this but merely give me two cents. If you could even call it that.

I’ll just say I’m a very happy camper with this neutral eye palette. It has the shimmery (and boy is it really shimmery) and matte colors to play with and you can use it for day or night. Helps that it comes with a nice black shade too for a nice smokey eye look. The color payoff is amazing, just a swipe of it and the color shows up, tanned skin or not.

I like how each color is labeled at the bottom, because god knows I’ve forgotten colors that I’ve put on my lid sometimes just because I’m old and quite retarded. The packaging is sooo much better than the first one (not that I own the first palette, only seen it in Sephora), it comes in tin form , which means I can travel with it.  I have one BIG 88 Coastal eyeshadow palette before this so lugging it around was out of the question.  Now I can have pretty eyes when I travel, wheee! This baby also comes with a dual ended brush although the quality on it its pretty meh but will suffice on short trips. The itty bitty sized gloss that comes with it serves no purposes as the color payoff sucks, actually there’s no color to it making it neutral, but does come in handy when all you want is some shine to your lips.

My little girl just went oooooooooo when she saw this palette. That’s the same expression her mom did too. Was just contemplating NOT using it so I can sit and stare at it but what do you know, I’m weak, woke up excitedly for work the next day just so I could use this palette. Shoved the palette in front of the hubby’s face, unfortunately he had NO expression whatsoever  to share my happiness and joy. Hmpf! Maybe coz he had to pay for this.

But yea, now I have a good reason waking up a little early in the morning

Retail price: USD50. I paid USD65. I believe it’s selling for RM187 in Sephora.

Know what would be awesome though? If they can come up with Naked 3 and have all matte colors for us girls who prefer matte colors more! And then follow with Naked 4, with just purely shimmery shades, heh. Or launch both at the same time! Whatever. I should be on their marketing team

The person who helped get me this still has four palettes available if you’re keen. She’s only here until 30^th January so if you ladies want a palette, you know the drill, email me!

Now excuse me while I go prettify my small naked eyes.