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Wooo we’ve been dining out alot for the past 2 weekends! I had purchased all these vouchers on various group discount sites (but of course) so it was time to finally redeem it because the husband was nagging the shit out of  me like a lil bitch about the vouchers piling up in my car! Yup am so efficient coz I print my vouchers out almost immediately and leave them in my car so we can use it whenever :D 

Plus seriously – I am addicted to these sites. First thing I do in the morning every single freaking day without fail  is to quickly check these sites out to see what sort of bargains I can get my hands on. I usually stick to food deals more than anything else…….but of course!

We all know dining out in KL is not exactly cheap. We’re looking at minimum RM50 for two if you go to a normal restaurant. I can never fathom why drinks are so pricey here too. Anyhos, if one can get them cheaper, let’s say at the fraction of the price, why not eh?

So yea, here we are at Blue Cow Cafe in Plaza Damas. I usually look out for deals for area/places that we frequent alot and got this voucher from Mydeal.

Pumpkin soup – now this was really rich and so good! Not much of a pumpkin fan (though I may look like one myself!) but this was seriously tasty.

Chicken pie with fries and coleslaw – gotta admit, the filling on this one was generously packed and so worth every discounted cent I paid. It also came with a drink making it a full course. Mydeal, please bring this deal back again, please…

Moooo blue cowwww.

Discounted Price: RM10.90 EACH instead of RM24. So that’s RM26.2 in total savings Woot!

Then for Mother’s day, I had earlier purchased a 4 course chinese dinner voucher from Groupon that was inclusive of fish, pork (for mom of course), bean curd and vegetable for a mere RM50. Imagine feeding 5 mouths for a mere RM50 for chinese food. What a steal. This was in D’Tau Heritage Food Village in B’fields. It was on second time there (the first time dad actually bought a 8 course meal voucher on Groupon – HAH, can you imagine a retired grandpa buying discounted vouchers??!) Now he’s actually subscribed to these newsletters too.

No complains as the food was GOOD esp the fish, super fresh.

Discounted price: RM50 instead of RM99. That’s RM49 in savings! God knows how they even make a profit on this one coz fish is expensive.

Sairah of course had her usual fried rice

Mmmm riceeeee! Champion food for Asian babies.

All set for voucher redemption in Ristretto Mont Kiara yo!

Wearing the outfit Daddy got her coz we were just heading for lunch and grocery shopping.

Somebody’s in a sticker mode

Stick stick stick…

Hah, things her dad allows her to do to him!

This wasn’t included in our deal but what I can say is coffee here is REALLY impressive.

Absolutely the best mocha I”ve had in KL, even Sairah got taken up by it (I”m guessing she saw the ice cream floating on top of it) I would come back here again and again for the coffee.

My chicken chop – loved the sauce that it came with and even a small side of salad was yummeh.

Sairah and hubby’s coriander infused chicken rice. It’s suppose to be a Peruvian dish. I wouldnt know coz I have not been to Peru (although it’s on my list, hmpf!) The rice was absolutely flavorful and was a hit with Sairah. Little Miss Greedy got upset when the waiter wanted to take away her plate after she was done, lol.

Discounted price: RM25.80 instead of RM58. That’s RM33 in savings.

Saying bye to the guards, she’s always super friendly to them.

Just a photo of super TALL buildings in Mont Kiara. Oh and my hair looks so shiny here. I”ve since cut my hair shorter and looking at these photos make me miss my long one-length hair

Next up, for Mother’s day, we were all set to redeem another voucher at Palate Palette. I like how some vouchers can be used even on special ocassions or on a public holiday. This was my second time here, you can read about my first visit here in 2008, geez it’s been THAT long.

LOVE this outfit on her, her top is from BBluvsme while the jeggings are from Jusco, only paid RM11 for it!

Vain baby is vain

Mommy-baby shot before we head out for Mother’s Day lunch that I paid for

Interesting wall art

The deal came with yet another pumpkin soup. Is pumpkin soup cheap to make or what?!

Daddy’s beer which he paid on his own of course. I had the Iced Toffee Nut Coffee (not pictured) and it was rather strong for me. Swear I felt a lil sick after that.

My chicken bolognese pasta which was pretty so-so. I swear I make em better

Hubby’s Asparagus and Smoked Chicken pasta which he claims was bland.

Not sure if this deal was absolutely worth it but what the heck…..we got to dine in Changkat BB cheaply

Got this on Groupon. Discounted Price: RM29 instead of RM100, that’s RM71 in savings

Typical Malaysian taking away the free magazine.

After lunch we headed off to Dr Cafe in The Strand. It’s officially my favorite coffee place. The ice blended mocha is absolutely lovely. This of course wasn’t part of any voucher form…..we paid full price And even then the stingy husband was complaining how expensive it is. Chettiars!

My pretty tired baby all asleep and safe in momma’s arms. Also made my coffee break a good one

Just wanna show off her lovely lashes

So yea, only a part of my vouchers redeemed! We still have a few more to go. If you haven’t really jumped onto this group discount band wagon yet, I highly suggest you do. Imagine the savings you make by not paying full price, you could go shopping with that Or buy diapers and baby milk Plus who needs to cook all the time when you purchase these babies

You can check out my favorite site here that consolidates most of the group discount site deals. Enjoy!

Sairah is what I”d like to call in a Parrot stage where she likes to mimic or say whatever you’re saying/doing. The other day I accidentally said shit and she proceeded to say shit! Thank God she has since forgotten that word.

Anything and everything that mom or dad touches, she wants to touch and hold too. Sometimes it’s hard to drink a cup of coffee coz she wants to taste that as well. Now there are three things that child always sees me do on a regular basis:-

1) Put on makeup – this came about because she always wants to be in the room with me when I get ready so now if you ask her how to put on lipstick, she will use her index finger and rub her lips, same goes with eyeshadow and blusher. She knows how to say “mommy makeup’ when she sees me get ready before our outing. She knows how to mimic mommy washing and blow drying her hair too!

2) Use my laptop, like so! She looks like a little programmer working on her father’s laptop. While he looks like a ttoal noob seeking some sort help from her, lol She tends to click alot of buttons prompting all kinds of pop up which we never knew existed!!

Want me to hack into mom’s email? No worries old man, am working on it…I”m almost in

3) Take photographs using my camera – by now Sairah knows what a camera looks like and what’s it for. So on Saturday, we were just lying on the bed as I went through photos I had already taken on my camera when she grabbed the camera from my hand. Because the screen on my camera is flippable (if there’s such a word), I flipped it around her and these are the photos of herself that she took, at 1 day shy of turning 20 months!!

I iz gonna show you that ugly Dora top that old man bought from Manila – HATE IT! Somebody call the fashion police and arrest my dad, please.

Gonna take half my face

And focus on my nose and eyes now…

Ah there, managed to get my entire face in, but wait my forehead is missing

Ah better!

Then she slowly learnt how to click down the button slowly, which would capture photos slowly so she could pose with both hands free. Btw of course I was holding that heavy camera all along……..she only proceeded to click the button – which is a very good feat considering she’s not even 2!

Look – NO HANDS!

What up Ma???!

Naughty face

Angry face – somebody gonna get hurt realll bad! YES we did go for Russell Peter’s comedy show and itwas DA BOMB!!

I’m sexy  a cutie and I know it face Now gimme all your milk babyyy!

Bah mom I’m tired from all that self-taken shots. Poserism ain’t an easy task…

Or is it now, okay one last pose for mom…..coz I”m a poser and I know ittt…

Don’t ask, this is  a very weird mommy-daddy-baby bonding session. Obviously my bum is big enough for 1 1/2 heads to sleep on. Its comfy they say. Oh well.

But who knew a child of 19 months could be so vain as to take her own photos Maybe this could be very well be one of her many other interest – self photography.

When Ipad was launched and everyone was seen carrying it around, I never really understood the craze about it.

Now I am what you call a techie noob. Same goes with my husband. I don’t care much for gadgets, and neither do they care for me. I also don’t understand the fuss about having the latest phone and so forth. I might admire it for a while and wish I had one but I can never bring myself to splurge that much on a tool that might get lost/stolen or be completely under utilized due to my noob-ness, heh. So when most of the time people talk about the latest gadget or parade their latest ‘canggih’ phones I completely blank out hide my crappy phone and just equate their love for gadgets akin to my love for bags ? Except I think my love for bags is a cheaper hobby than theirs, ahem.

Now I am no fan of getting my child addicted to such gadgets either. I think its plain bad when kids are shoved with their parents Ipad when they go to the malls. I”ve seen it countless of times. My child however is your old school kinda brat who ENJOYS going to the bookstore. I kid you not, the immense happiness she gets walking in a bookstore is beyond me. She loves flipping through books and when we go to the store she says ‘Gimme gimme book’! Too cute. There was one time we took her to Borders and she almost cried when the cashier took her book away to key it into the system. I wont have any complains if she turns out to be a little book worm coz I remember finishing up a thick novel in just one day!! I was soo into my book that nothing else mattered. That’s the power of a good book.

Book courtesy of Aunty Dhash

While I’m glad my daughter enjoys picking up and holding a book, I also know we need to keep up with times. Besides, some apps for children are actually quite beneficial and would be a good tool for her. Of course limiting her time on it is also quite essential – so mom and dad can hog it

Which is why when my hubby’s uncle made us an offer, we just couldn’t resist!!

He had purchased the new Ipad 32GB from the US for his colleague only to be told his colleague wanted the 64GB instead.

So, being the generous person that he is, he gave my husband a discount and sold it for RM1.5k!!! A good price we think.

So now we are proud owners of the new Ipad 3 although the husband was acting like a little boy by warning me not to hog it to myself. He got further irritated when I told him I wanted to buy a HOT PINK cover for it. After MUCH negotiations, he settled for the red one

To date its mostly filled with a few games for mommie and alot of kiddie LEARNING apps for Sairah. Some of the learning materials are actually quite good and the little one seems attentive so far, repeating words and learning about animals. For the past 1.5 weeks I”ve spent teaching her these things and she has since picked up more words. She can say mommy’s ipad now too and actually work it better than her noob daddy! Her favorite so far is this Elmo teaching tool and of course Pocoyo series!! That kid just LOVES her Pocoyo cartoon with her favorite character being Pato, the duck. Though a few months ago it was Eli the Elephant. Kids!

Dear lord / daddy thank you for this Ipad! I can now have access to Pocoyo whenever I want!

That said, we’re limiting the use of the Ipad only to home usage. And it doesn’t help that every time mommy buys an app, daddy would receive notifications from the Bank that something was charged to his credit card. Meh. But oh wells, I’ve been blaming it on his daughter’s apps thus far so we’ll see how long this can carry on….coz daddy seems very generous when it comes to his baby girl. Don’t they all?

Goodness, I have not cooked for a LONG time!!! You can tell by the lack of cooking post can’t you? :D  Bad wife…bad bad wife!

So for lunch yesterday I decided to whip up something easy and my all time favorite go-to dish when I crave for spaghetti: Spaghetti Chicken Bolognese. Admit it, it’s a favourite dish of yours too What’s not to like about this Italian dish.

Here’s the recipe:

One whole white onion, chopped

6 clove garlic, chopped

Half carrots, chopped

Quarter green capcisum, chopped

1 packet Maggi Spaghetti Bolognaise sauce mix

1 tray minced chicken

1 big tomato can (I used Hunts as I find it not sour)

2 tablespoon tomato paste (Hunts)

1 tablespoon tomato sauce

1 tomato, chopped

Parmesan Cheese

Monterey Jack Cheese

1 tablespoon sugar and a pinch of salt

Black Pepper / Basil / Oregano seasoning

Italian Parsley

Directions:

1. Boil spaghetti until soft, set aside

2. In a pan, fry onions and garlic in olive oil until slightly brown. Add in carrots and capsicum and fry for another 2 minutes. Add in minced chicken followed by the maggi spaghetti sauce mix powder (this is just for added flavor!) and fry until meat is cooked. Throw in a can of tomato sauce followed by half  can of water. Add in tomato,  tomato paste, tomato sauce, sugar, salt followed by all the herb seasoning.

3. Let the sauce thicken and add in more water, black pepper and herb seasoning if you like. Throw in Italian Parsely and let it boil for another 10 minutes. The thicker the sauce, the better. And the longer you leave it out on the pan (I made the sauce first then only boiled the spaghetti) the more tastier it becomes. Add in a little parmesan cheese to the sauce.

4. Arrange spaghetti on plate, throw in the awesome sauce, add more parmesan cheese and top it up with some monterey jack cheese cube (I found this single pack serve in Cold Storage in Parade for just RM3!!) and wala – a simple yet luxurious yummy meal! This tasted just like mom’s cooking which is a VERY good thing in my books.

Excuse the large cubes,  I told the husband to cut it smaller but he never listens….the monterey jack cheese went so well with the sauce.

Mmm all ready to dig in.

Yum yum let’s fatten me up!

Oh oh oh, and if you happen to pick up this months’ HER WORLD magazine, see if you can spot my lil review in the magazine I was hoping to score the spa package review that was featured two months ago in the magazine but got this instead, hmpf. I’m still thankful though coz I got to keep the product which I’ve since given it to my mom

Meanwhile you sooo gotta try my chicken spaghetti bolognese recipe, just saying

If you’re Malaysian, you will know what it is like is to deal with any government agencies because all they ever do is give you the round-about chase with their don’t-know attitude which naturally creates a very bad case of efficiency level!

So yea, as my passport came to a 5 year end, sniff, the task of renewing my passport was almost inevitable. I miss my old passport coz I flipped through it and realized that little small book contained a lot of sweet memories. But then I realized that my new passport will contain even better ones because all our travels will be with my little one

I remember re-newing my passport 5 years ago at the kiosk. They had just introduced this concept and we were very eager to try it out. Naturally one tout kept harassing us to ‘help’, it was scary coz he just didn’t want to go away and did almost everything to convince mom and I to get his help. Plus damn instructions on that machine wasn’t even clear! Naturally it took all of 3 hours to get my passport.

So the other day, hubby and I went early to the branch in Damansara only to find out they have shifted to Solaris Dutamas. GREATTT, I don’t recall seeing this important notice on their website!! We drove to the new location and because the damn building says Kementrian Dalam Negeri and there is no direct indication that the building also houses the Immigration Department, we drove around Solaris Dutamas attempting to locate the immi department!! It was confusing because you have so many other government agencies housed in this area. And truth be told, I was looking for Kementerian LUAR Negeri coz you use your passport outside of Malaysia, no? It’s debatable, whatever.

After 10 minutes of wasting our time, we finally located the building. Finding the Immigration Department was easy as the sign boards INSIDE the building was clear. Off we went to the first floor. One lazy looking officer advised me to use the kiosk instead of lining up as it’s faster. So off we went to the kiosk area that looked pretty high-tech except for one or two out-of-order machines, hah. There are several officers stationed here to help you out and one lady came up to me and told me what I had to do. She was courteous and helpful unlike the other lazy makan-gaji-buta officer.

Basically have one RECENT passport size photo of yourself, a copy of your I/C, your old passport and pick up an envelope at the desk outside and write your necessary details. Follow the EASY instructions as shown on the machine, put in your RM300 (or RM100 for 2 years) together with the envelope containing all the needed docs. The machine will produce a receipt, hang on tight to that!

And I LOVE the fact that no bloody touts can come here now coz first of all, officers are everywhere and the kiosk is INSIDE the department. Your thumb print is also needed for scanning so good luck Mr Tout – go get yourself  a real job!

Now feel free to hang out at their cafeteria for a good one hour. Yes you read right, just one hour. After you’re done, go back to the same place, go to counter 29, show your receipt and then collect your number and wala within 5 minutes, you will be rewarded with your brand NEW renewed passport!!

Amazing? Yea, just ONE bloody hour for your passport. OMG can cry coz we’ve come such a LONGGGGG way. I have to say I left that place being VERY impressed and happy to know that I didn’t have to rot my precious time away waiting for my passport so well done Immigration Department – proud of you, for once :)  Also, if you prefer to do it online, there’s an option to do so here.

Btw freaking hate my mug shot coz the woman took it in less than 5 seconds!!

Hubby saw the new and old passport and went damn, you look much older now. Effin hell! Like what do you expect, that other photo was taken 7 years ago! I said, well look on the bright side, at least I still have hair LOL – yea I did hit under the belt but what the heck, you don’t EVER compare a woman’s photo taken 7 years ago and a recent one and say she looks old so he deserved it that nerd

Since we had so much extra time to ourselves now thanks to efficiency, we decided to utilize my vouchers at Jade Pot Dim Sum Restaurant in Old Klang Road.

Sup ma? Feed me! Yes it’s crazy hair day everyday today.

I said, FEED ME

Nvm, I’ll just pretend that I”m eating from a bowl

Har har this imaginary food is sooo delicious!

Mom was there too, a good break from taking care of the naughty grandkid!

And the happy face that says it all – we love dimsum but hardly have time for it.

So yea efficiency – we all love it because it gives us extra time to do something else that we’ve always wanted to do.

Again, well done Immigration Department, now please continue to be efficient and perhaps one day in the future we can renew our passports online and you come over to deliver it? Just a thought. An awesome one

P.s: Feel like doing something good? Then please go here and help donate. I’ve already done so, have you?