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Happy Monday people! I saw this on 9gag a while ago and laughed hysterically that could rival any hyena because come on, look at the photo (no disrespect to Kelly though she’s gorgeous now). So now everytime Monday hits and when I’m feeling blue, I think of this photo and I’m all good again. Monday has never been the same anymore folks

Moving on! Guess what came in the mail on Saturday for me? Had a tough time carting these back home *hugs all the boxes*.  Will naturally reveal all of em one by one in my post as the week goes by. I spent alot of time photographing items this weekend as well. And Sairah too (coz she insist on being part of it). So if you see Sairah in the same blue-purple outfit in the next few post, you’ll know why

Any idea what’s inside? Hint: I have a few giveaways in store!!

One VVIP parcel I was on a look out since 2 weeks ago was by Haute Avenue Haute Avenue may sound very the International but it’s a local site that sells high end branded bags at a discounted price. They do have medium range products as well which are wallet-friendly. Each sale on their site last for about a week or so, so it’s the case of siapa cepat dia dapat (early fast bird wins!).

Reckon it’s a Prada bag in there? *dreaming doesn’t hurt!*

So the thing about me is, I like to subscribe to various sale sites. I may not necessary purchase anything but I like to be kept in the loop so I know when a good deal comes by.  And in most cases, sometimes you do get ‘rewarded’ for not trying out their site first. SEE no harm subscribing to some sites sometimes I tell you.

In the case of Haute Avenue,  I was surprised to see a RM50 discount voucher sent with a NO minimum purchase required. Naturally I was ecstatic and while they were probably hoping I”d be eyeing something more expensive (or say the Prada bag on their site – DO WANT but no money ), but I saw something else, something that would be give me a better satisfaction than a Prada bag (of course I wouldn’t say no to it if anyone wants to buy it for me la).

I placed an order for Sairah’s surprise about 2 weeks ago and didn’t tell her about it. So when I told Sairah I had something for her, she was all eager and excited. She kept asking what’s in the box mommie, what’s in the box??? Oh for mee mee mee???! Then she gave me this BIG smile (that looks like it’s been put alot of effort into, lol) hoping I”d open the box faster.

There a less fake smile, hehe

If I tilt my head to the left would you open the box old lady?

No? How about if I tilt to do the right?

I told her to close her eyes shut while I cut open the box. I was super impressed she took my directions well – she didn’t attempt to peek or cheat whatsoever. SO now I know she’ll actually listen to me well IF there’s a surprise in store for her, heh.

*I hope its a bag I hope its a bag  Oh God I hope its a bag*

Told her to slowly open her eyes and this was the expression mommy was rewarded with These photos of her are just absolutely priceless I tell you.

HOLLY MOLLY! For me?!

Could it be???!

O.M.G – NO SHE DIDN”T?!

She looks like she’s almost gonna cry happy tears here. Hey, I’d look like that too if someone surprised me with a bag. Just saying.

Wait, there’s more in the box?!

Angry bird!

Sorry Barbie, gotta cheat on you for a minute as I look through my other bag.

Then again, I’m happy to have both.

Couldn’t contain herself and started tearing into the packaging.

Yup, that’s how I look like sometimes when some parcels/packing is too complex to open, it’s frustrating yo.

The look when it’s finally out! Her jaws even dropped bigger when we opened the bag to find tons of Barbie stationery in there.

Even an adult would love this bag I”m sure esp if they’re a Angry Bird fan.

I’m all ready for school, I think

Just.So.Happy! And that’s the look that makes it all worth while to see whenever I surprise my little girl with something.

Looking at all these photos, puts me in a good mood. And I do think that mommies have the natural instinct to buy for their kids naturally and without being told just to see the happy content look on their faces where else daddies always need that extra push from moms if they are gonna buy anything for their kids! Or am I the only one with this problem, heh.

Even as a kid, much of my clothes and toys came from mom when she was working. She used to buy me toys just to see a smile on my face and I’m glad to be working so I can do the same for my child too.

And now the million dollar question, how much did I pay for these?

The Barbie bag was being sold for RM40 while the Angry Bird one was RM30. Shipping was an additional RM15.

BUT as I said, since I was lucky enough to be rewarded with the RM50 discount voucher, you do the maths, let your jaw drop and then go on and hail me as an awesome bargain shopper, heh. I think I deserve that title for just this once.

*Bows to the applause playing in my head*

Do check out Haute Avenue’s website and subscribe while you’re at it: http://www.hauteavenue.com/my/ and here’s hoping you’ll be rewarded the same eventually

And stay connected to their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MalaysiaHauteAvenue

P.s: Incase you’re still counting, the answer is RM35 for both bags

Am not gonna lie, it makes mom happy too

Sairah is a HUGE mall rat. She reminds me of myself once a upon a time where I could spend hours, if not days in a mall   You could blind fold me (though I don’t know why you would wanna do that) and I would I literally know the mall’s layout and my way around the mall at the top of my head.  I know right, such a waste of brain space memorizing mall layouts, lol, but those were the days.

These days, I rarely hang out in malls, infact I often get lost and forget where some stores are. And I find it also tiring to spend long hours in a mall. My legs and back (and empty wallet!) tend to cave in after a while. But come weekend, we do put aside at least 2 hours tops and we usually use it as a little treat for Sairah who is mostly cooped up at home for 5 days a week.  We’ll go to a mall to have lunch and mostly to redeem my vouchers and let the little one play in the kiddie centres (if there’s one) because to see a huge smile plastered on her face makes it TOTALLY worth it.

And as always, like mom, she also can remember the routes we use so even before almost pulling into the mall, she’ll go ‘we’re hereeeeee’ and proceed to grin the entire time.

I’m in a mall and got a treat to boot! This calls for a BIG grin on my face.

These photos was taken last Saturday when we went for her checkup. I think we probably spend even longer time in a mall whenever there’s a checkup involved because we have to take a number and wait for a minimum of 3 hours before it’s our turn to see her pead. So what else to do except hit the malls and window-shop

But of course an even longer time at the mall is something the husband is afraid of because that only means a drained wallet by the time we leave the mall, hehe.

After a good shopping session, feeding my growing child a good yummy meal is a must too.

Heh, kids eat for free they say?!

Bring me one chocolate cake and make it stats.

Like a true shopaholic, she actually sat down quietly, ruffled through her shopping bag and started looking and scrutinizing her buys.

Where’s my pizza?! I want pizza!

There, if I grin like this, maybe I’ll get it faster?

It’s been a while since I did some physical shopping for Sairah so here’s our mini haul. I got 2 tops from FOS and if you’re looking for a great cheap buy for the kids, you have to check em out. They do have some gorgeous items from time to time and did I mention how cheap and affordable it is??

Butterfly top (H&M okie!) was only RM15 while the blue stripey top cost us RM25. Manage to get her a nice black leggings from Pumpkin Patch at half price and paid only RM29 for it. Total haul was RM70. Savvy shopper much?

Sairah modelling her cheapo butterfly top. Work it baby! I love how it actually suits the purple leggings she already has on. I remember paying only RM10 for it. Love the color combination seriously.

Back view.

This stripey top is a little loose on her but I love the unique details on the front. Not bad FOS

Still matches her purple leggings!

If that’s not enough I also bought this lovely (and pocket-friendly) Braided orange top on this site and got it for her since it was on sale. Do check em out. A nice white legging ought to go well with it.

Btw I”m also TOTALLY obsessing over Next’s 2013 Summer collection. The collection is SO amazing that it actually got sold out on their website! I’m contemplating getting these (but of course I”d like to buy their ENTIRE collection) for Sairah but they will cost a whole lot than we’re used to paying. Sigh, wish money really does grow on tree. What do you think of these? Why can’t we find such pretty finds in KL, hmpf.

P.s: Do check out this video of Sairah singing to Somebody That I Used To Know (we love the Wote cover better) – all those times of singing it to her has finally paid off She makes me so proud in this video!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – at 2 years and 7 months when kids are at that stage of moving around in lighting speed, sometimes it almost becomes impossible and frustrating to photograph them. There are times I just don’t bother taking out my camera coz I know it will take ALOT of effort on my part to get a nice shot. But then after a while I take it out anyway coz I love photographing every single minute of her life and feel almost guilty if I don’t, lol.

You should see whenever my dad attempts to take photos of Sairah – we need a pack of cheerleaders around them both so he could get a good shot and even when I take photos of her, it is NEVER easy as I literally have to tell her to hold still coz she gives poses in less than TWO seconds people and by the time she has moved on to another pose or movement, I would have just only clicked on the camera resulting in a very shaky blurry photo.

Either I need to step up on my photography skills by snapping it fast OR that kid needs to slow down. It’s never a win win.

BUT on days when my kid is being absolutely co-operative, I call it a good day and what else, take tons of photos of her. So advance apologize for the lack of a proper post, instead here are tons of photos of Sairah taken two weeks ago when we went out to celebrate her aunt’s birthday dinner @ Aria Italian Dining.

I know there are probably just four photos of her at the actual restaurant but that’s only because she was in a mood for a lil mini-photoshoot at home I found the lazy way out of turning on the flash to capture my lil speedy Gonzales so the photos wouldn’t turn out blur or shaky. It may look harsh but that’s what I”ll have to do  for now.

I know she looks like she’s holding a clutch but it’s my mouse which she insist on playing with all the time.

Don’t you just adore the flash bouncing off from the cupboard?

Believe it or not, this dress only cost me RM10, got it from Krabi.

Imma rocking this cheap RM10 dress mommy got me.

BIG smile for mommie.

I believe I can fly!

Oh no mother of all horrors, you’ve been photographing my expressions?

Her shy-oh-you-shouldn’t-have look

Her what-the-hell look.

Her Princess-look

Her i’m-still-a-princess-even-with-my-eyes-closed look

Her ssssh-top-secret look

Her imma-tiger-baby-and-I’m-gonna-claw-you look. Plus she was excited how our bags were actually sorta matchy-matchy.

Sairah and her grandma.

Cheeky monkey!

We had my dad, BabySis and husband taking her photo

Bring it on paparazzi, a girl can never have too many cameras pointed at her.

And that shall conclude this post for today, lol. Hoping there’ll be more cooperative days to come I really don’t know how kiddie photographers do it, they must have the patience of a saint!

We have a new musical instrument at home!  It may only be a baby drum set but let me assure you it’s still as noisy as the real thing! Almost feel sorry for our neighbors  And her latest addition of her drum goes along nicely with her baby violin, keyboard and guitar.

If all goes well and if she has enough friends, I do believe they can start off their own band OR she can be a her own guitarist, violinist, pianist and drummer – a one toddler show

Two months ago Sairah kept asking us for a drum set and she would ask it in the most random of moments. And then there were times she’ll make do with whatever toys she has and pretend it’s a drum and bang away and then say ‘look ma I’m playing my drums’ –  not sure if that kid wanted to guilt trip us but it was surely a pitiful sight, lol like as though we couldn’t afford to get her a set of drum after asking for it one too many times.

But I also liked how she improvised and used her toys/table/empty boxes as her make-believe drum at first.

I think that was when we took her hints seriously and decided to get a REAL drum set for her. Well a baby one anyway. I do believe in letting her dip her little toes/fingers in whatever she wants to, even if its just a phase coz you never know how it might just turn into a life-long passion.

Thanks to Dhash for telling me about this drum set months ago, I finally knew where to get it. Not all Toys R Us carries this drum set and it’s the only decent set you can find surprisingly. We got ours from One-Utama about a month back and we were surprised to see a RM30 discount after bringing it to the counter so all in we paid RM100 f or this.

RM100 was all it took for her to be this happy and it was SO worth it.

(All photos were taken from my phone btw)

OMG finally my very own REAL DRUM after months of asking my parents!

So happy to the point she could lift the entire box herself, heh. Happiness makes you stronger sometimes, true story

After a quick change, she patiently and nervously waited for dad to assemble everything up.

Of course Dad moved in a slow snail pace trying to figure out how it works coz he never played any instrument as a kid so the overly anxious kid just decided to bang away regardless.

Testing testing….gotta check reflection to see how she looks like as a lil drummer.

There all set!! Now to make the neighbor’s life miserable

For the past month she’s been ‘practicing’ her drumming skills and I help out by playing her favorite songs so she learns how to bang to the beat. So far she’s been catching on great and every time she gets home she’ll say ‘i wanna play my drums’  and that seriously keeps her off any naughtiness/tantrums so it’s a win win for us. I seriously hopes she keeps the passion up for a long time where playing musical instruments are concerned.

We did some re-arrangements to her room just to accommodate her drums All her other baby toys have been moved to the other side just because she’s rather selective of what she plays with these days.

And here’s a photo of her at mom’s place playing her baby violin. I introduced her to Radioactive – the better version (Lindsey Stirling is soo freakingly talented and amazing!) and she’s been also obsessing with playing the violin. Totally cute.

But what’s not cute is when you capture a 35 year old man hogging away his daughter’s baby violin and this folks is what happens when you don’t ever introduce any sort of musical instruments to your kid!

True story and here’s the proof But to his defense, he now has good taste in music thanks to his wifey, ahem.

Without music, life would be a mistake – Friedrich Nietzsche

Like A Boss, I should add

For someone who absolutely loves her red velvet cupcake, I’m surprised even though I’ve had a love affair with those red suckers for a long time now, I’ve never once attempted to make it!

A shame really esp since I love it so much. Maybe coz I already know, no matter how much I try, I would probably never bake it better than my two go-to places for kick-ass red velvet which can be found at Upstairs Café in Subang and of course Just Heavenly!

But on Saturday, I decided to just brave it and at least try to make it once to see how it would turn out. Mind you, it’s also been a few weeks since I baked anything but surprisingly I was not nervous at all. Worse case scenario, I would just throw everything out I told myself.

I came across a blog with the recipe in malay (credit to nani rostam’s blog!) . Everything was based on weight, and since I didn’t have a weighing scale I converted everything to cup form.

Here’s the recipe – it may look like a lot of work but is’ not. I did everything quite fast.

All translated for easy reference

Step 1: Mix 250ml evaporated milk mixed with 2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar (works as buttermilk I believe, if you’re feeling rich, you could always buy a box of buttermilk). Add in 4 tablespoon red coloring. Mix it, then keep aside. Do take a moment to marvel at the redness in the bowl though.

Step 2: In a separate bowl, mix 2 cups of wheat flour (tepung gandum), add in one tea spoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoon cocoa powder and mix it all.

Step 3: Mix 2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar with 1 teaspoon soda bicarbonate, watch it sizzle in front of you and wonder if that’s suppose to happen. The answer is yes. Keep aside

Step 4: Beat 3/4 cup of butter, add in 1 cup brown sugar followed by ½ cup castor sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence and then beat in 2 eggs. Finally add in your flour mixture and alternate it with the milk + coloring mixture. Beat until soft. Final step is to add in the vinegar with soda bicarbonate mixture, beat it a lil more and then arrange in muffin liners.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 160 degrees. I SO love how they look so even, my cupcakes rarely turn out this pretty okie. I used the big muffin tray simply because eating mini sized red velvet is truly a sin and waste of time.

After 20 minutes. I spent at least 10 minutes just ogling at them.

Perfections *strokes red velvet cupcake*

You can also choose to make your icing before hand or after. I chose after coz I wanted to wait for my cupcakes to cool down. I didn’t use the icing recipe provided by that blog. Instead this was something the hubby’s aunt told me about and because she makes really good red velvet, I decided to follow her recipe.

It’s basically a one to one recipe where you beat cream cheese, butter and icing sugar! It’s that simple yet so good.  I added in some vanilla essence. Try to use unsalted butter if possible. I used some cheapo butter coz we couldn’t find decent one (damn you Giant), after beating up everything, chill it in the fridge for a while.

And here comes the funny part, do not laugh at my icing skill (or rather the lack of it). The first time I did it, the icing recipe was soo bad! And while this time around, it was good, let’s just say I need to work on my icing skills la ok? Shitty icing skills aside, even I am impressed how good these babies turned out.

Some chocolate sprinkles to cover the cacat-ness

My pretty babies in a glance – each uniquely designed, lol. Make no mistake, this recipe can make up to 6 BIG muffins, and about 15 medium ones.

Mmmm MY red velvet cupcakes! My cousins and aunt popped by my mom’s place that night so I used them as my guinea pig and the results: let’s just say everyone said it was so good (including my mom!), but of course someone did say my icing skills could improve, lol.

Can you see how moist this baby is? You can always chill it and eat it the next day and it will taste EVEN better! Hubby and baby absolutely loved it as well. Overall rating for this recipe, I do give this an 8 Score of 10 is reserved for my two favorite go-to places for cupcakes coz I do realize they probably took years to perfect their recipe

And here’s a photo of the hubby’s cooking on Saturday night – he did it all by himself and made us quesadilla, it was surprisingly good.

Of course random photos taken over the weekend – am beyond stocked that my little girl is allowing me to do up her hair these days. I actually went to stock up on hair accessories on Friday.

I call this the Boo from Monsters Inc inspired hair! When I told her she looks like Boo, she went ‘WHAT BOO?’ and that made me laugh so much so I had to show her some clips from Youtube and let’s just say she believes she’s Boo right now, hehe.

And this was taken right before BabySis Birthday celebration @ Aria! I tied her hair up with 2 clips at the side and it stayed on for a longgg time until after dinner that is. Can’t have em all but at least she’s happy with mom touching and playing with her hair now. I cannot believe how grown up she looks as well, sigh. More photos to follow of course…..and believe it or not, I only paid RM10 for that dress

Now go try that Red Velvet Cupcake recipe! Wonder what I should whip up next to challenge myself, hmm….