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In the past months, we’ve been scurrying around behaving like absolute responsible adults, all for the arrival of our first baby.  

For starters, I saw the sale on Air Asia and did not purchase any spur-of-the-moment tickets coz I know we’ll have to think of the baby now before making any plans.

 :D

And yes, we finally managed to buy ourselves an apartment. More specifically our next door neighbour’s unit! Now tell me how freaking awesome is that?  

We’ve been searching high and lo for something affordable and fairly decent size to live in for the next 3 years or so before upgrading to a house. It’s been quite the search as everyone knows how insane property prices are like in KL.

One of the key features that we love about this place is its location. Its about 30 mins away to work for me; about the same for the hubby too (although he is based in Cyberjaya). Goes to show how insane the traffic can get for those who work in KL The apartment is about 10-15 minutes away from my parents which makes it easy to drop Baby S before we head to work.

Only Step 1 has been completed so far - signing of the S&P which took place a few days ago. It will take months before we can call it our own and not forgetting the amount of renovation needed since almost everything in that place needs to be hacked out.  At least we’ll be able to supervise it easily since we live justtttt next door, hehe

We’ll definitely be able to convert this old looking place into something exciting and modern! We already know how we want our new place to look like and the husband is already sourcing for all fixtures.  I’ve come up with the ultimate baby room and can sooo imagine us spending our weekends getting all these things together :) Really am looking forward to that.

We’re so excited and can’t wait to move in, probably some time next February, or at the earliest, January!!

P.s: Buying this property together also clearly shows how my husband has finally come to terms about not moving to OZ any time soon That man has clearly grown a little wiser

Echoing what Whimsicaljottings said in her blog recently, there are lots of time I browse through blogs and cooking sites and am immediately hooked on wanting to replicate the same dish in my kitchen.

That’s exactly what I attempted to when I saw the photo of her perfectly made chicken chop.

But before that let me just say that I’ve always had issues with the combination of breadcrumbs + chicken because it CAN get stressful. At least for me.

Stressful as in:

1. You don’t want the breadcrumbs turning brown before the chicken does.  

2. You want to really make sure your meat is fully cooked and you can’t really determine this with the thick layer of breadcrumbs over it.

3. When your husband insists you just settle for breast meat because he’s too lazy to drive you to another supermarket that sells boneless chicken thigh. Little does he know that the thickness of the meat DOES matter whenever there’s coating involved.

4. Not wanting to mess up the dish after all that time spent preparing for it.

Thanks to him, I decided I’d cook it with slow fire and prayed for the best. Which unfortunately did not work out. The breadcrumbs turned brown quickly and I was 100% sure that the meat wasn’t properly cooked at all. So I put it in the oven only for the breadcrumbs to get burnt aand not wanting to mess it further, had to put in the microwave for a minute to make sure the chicken was entirely cooked.

By the time all that took place the chicken wasn’t presentable at all with bits of burnt breadcrumbs threatening to show tell tale signs of my failure :(  So I decided to chop it up while at the same time to check and see if the meat was properly cooked. I also took 5 minutes off to nag him for making me settle for breast meat I”m starting to think I should not take him grocery shopping anymore!!!

I thought I had screwed up badly. But once I poured the sauce over it and we both dug into it the chicken, OH MY – it was soooooooo good!. Something about the marinate and the combination of the sauce made it absolutely divine. Who cares if it wasn’t presentable because I’d like to think even the best of chefs have their off days, so what more for us normal folks eh

*mutilated somewhat but still very the tasty*

Thank you Whimsicaljottings for such an amazing recipe. This is one recipe I will definitely use again. But first, I must perfect the art of frying the breadcrumbs + chicken, failing which I’ll just skip the breadcrumbs all together

Oh but it could be with this perfume I just got

A happy looking little parcel came for me over the weekend:

If it’s not obvious enough,  I currently have a slight obsession with all things rose scented :D  And this Paul Smith Rose EDP  TRULY is the perfect fix for me.  It makes me smell like a garden of fresh roses (what else!) – so feminine and so vulnerable, heh.  I  might have found my HG of all rose scented perfume with this baby and a wonderful seller who sells perfume at a bargain price! Thanks again Marver You’re the best!

I also do have a 3-pax rose scented perfume on its way from the US. I’ve not heard of the brand name before but judging from the amount of positive comments from the site, it seems like it’s something I could possibly end up liking. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, if this rings a bell then you’ve probably seen it on countless road shows and ads on magazines.

It might work for some lucky ladies but NOT ME because it gave me a bad rash on my otherwise cute looking tummy :(  This is just dayssssssssss before a very important ‘event’ I have coming up!! If this isn’t yet another Murphy really loves (or possibly really loathe) me moment then I don’t know what to say.

Please, all I want this week is for my rash to go away and have no breakouts! Is that too much to ask?

8 months of pregnancy to date and I can tell you that of all three trimesters this is my least favourite one.

Day by day I see myself morphing from a baby elephant into a mother of all elephants. Supporting evidence to this statement would be some of my tight maternity clothes! I had to go buy bigger sized ones a few days ago.

My poor stomach literally feels stretched that it itches sometimes while I keep getting sharp pains near my rib cage! I always thought it was my bra cutting into my skin, which prompted me to go out and buy bigger cup ones (okie so that’s the only advantage I can think of for now) but according to my gynea, it’s because of the pressure from the baby’s growth.

If that’s not enough, my back feels like its being snapped into two all the time. It almost feels like someone is hitting me violently with a stick and there’s nothing I can do about it. That’s what I go through almost everyday. There are days where the pain is soo immense that I am not able to move! I hate that feeling so much that I tell my husband that we should just perform a C-sect NOW and bring this baby out so that my back pain would just bloody stop. With all the pain, it suck eggs to be waking up early to go to work and being confined to the cube for 9 hours straight.

Gone are the days where I can sleep in till 1pm on weekends. Like an alarm clock, I am up by 10.30 a.m rummaging the kitchen for some breakfast!! I can’t even lift a finger to do anything these days. A simple task of bringing the laptop from the room to the living room or going to the kitchen to get a glass of juice just seems so daunting and an uphill battle. Which makes me ask my husband to do it. Which also make it look like I’m being a bossy demanding wife. Which could be true (it is it is it is!) but I’ll just blame it on my pregnancy if he ever retorts back. Which he hasn’t to date.  Coz bless him, that man knows what’s best for him

Every day my husband looks at my belly button and says he swears it’s going to pop. Every day I tell myself I am going to demand for something expensive once this baby pops.

And my Baby S! She has become EXTREMELY active. I can feel the kicks and punches everywhere, on the left side, on the right side, near my chest, sometimes she taps in mose code, or kicks me three times continuously like she’s attempting a knock knock joke and this goes on from morning while I’m at work right into midnight. Sometimes even till 1ish which makes it hard for me to sleep. Does this baby not ever sleep?? Sure it’s cute, other times, it can get a handful. I don’t know what the heck is going on in there but there are times I’ve told her to quit it or else……….(heh, who knew I’d be saying those words already!).

My husband is able to see her movements clearly from my stomach which excites him. Previously she would only use her legs to kick but now it appears that she has finally figured what to do with her hands – push mommy’s stomach and see how far it will stretch.

Destination Down South yo – It looks like my baby has finally turned position, which I long suspected even before the scan coz of all that kicking and pressure on my rib cage. From the recent scan, she is still my baby girl who just happens to have her daddy’s nose – that’s the first thing we both noticed! They do say afterall first borns usually look like their dads. Her cheeks are still very chubby,  most likely as a result from all that yummy food I’ve been eating :D  Can’t wait to see how she looks like in person.

According to my gynea, I am on a 95% way of having this baby via vaginal birth. Although I am quite happy to hear that (only because a C-Sect would take 4 weeks to fully recover), I am also terrified at the pain that I’ll have to endure down there. My visits to the gynea will be more frequent now too.

My new official due date: 16 September 2010. Which coincidentally is 1 Malaysia Day and a public holiday to welcome Princess S :D  7 weeks before she arrives.  We’re both very excited!!

If there’s one great chef out there I wish I could take after, it would be my mom!! She’s a fantastic cook and although I don’t say it often, my mom is by far the only chef I know who can whip up ANY sort of cuisine and make it tasty to boot! She bakes excellent cakes and cookies too. As a further testament to that, guess who polished off the entire peanut butter cookie jar last night? :D 

Like me, she didn’t know how to cook much when she got married so her expertise now certainly comes from years of practice and thrill of experimenting with various cuisine.  I most definitely would thank my lucky stars if I could be half the cook she is when I reach her age. Speaking of age, it was her birthday recently

Infact, my dad and mom’s birthdays are just one week apart. July is an expensive month! For my dad’s birthday, my mom cooked his favourite dish while my sis and I got him a new wallet. It was a simple quiet affair.

When it was mom’s turn, we decided to let Bubba Gump give her a good dinner, only because none of us can whip up an amazing one for her, YET!

We were there a few weeks ago to meet up my successful and very much available friend, Nick who was kind enough to take us on a kitchen tour!!

Latest kitchen addition – will clean for good food or free drinks

The food was good first time around, and no doubt, have no regrets going there for the second time too!

Peanut butter milkshake, mmm mmmm

Delicious platter of  Run Across America sampler! This one is to die for!

Cajun Chicken

Bourbon Chicken

Yes chicken in a shrimp restaurant – bite me.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae – the perfect dessert, best shared with loved ones

Mommy got a gift too

She’s smiling coz we got her a perfume to add on to her  already large perfume collection

A group photo of a very contented diners and one fat soon to pop pregnant woman.

Dang and now I”m craving for that chocolate chip cookie sundae