Wake Up and Smell the Cake

I'll be due in less than 7 weeks! Suddenly it's so fast. We haven't really prepared the house for the baby yet. We didn't buy any cute clothes, just normal home clothes you can get from the market. No shoes, no bows or ribbons. Things we have yet to do/buy: clean the house to make way for new cupboard and playpen cupboard for both Junior and No. 2 prepare my delivery bag!! Clothes, disposable underwear, sanitary pads, baby's clothes, documents diaper changing mat (I can tell when my boy is gonna pee but for girls, you'll never know!) new bottles to keep breastmilk bedsheets and pillows for playpen I think that's about all, not much prep for a second baby. The rest I have them already. No need for a birth plan blah blah. Will use epidural if I require, that's all. I hope I can go through with natural birth no matter how big she is. It's time to start panicking. Haha.

Back from the long weekend and dreading it. Haha. I've never believed in the concept of going for a break and coming back refreshed. Going for a break, yes, but who would want to come back from a break! Anyway. Lots happened! Like Junior's cookie session, and my 7th month check up (yes time flies!), another round of abdominal pains that got me so worried and got me thinking of death too later that night. But happy things first. Cookies! Wanted to make no chill sugar cookies but it didn't turn out well. I followed the recipe yet the batter was too soft so I added more flour and sugar (but more flour than sugar and the ratio got weird), and while it was good to make shapes for Junior, the taste was horribly bitter. So I threw them out. Good that I only used half a pack of butter, and saved the other half for chocolate chip cookies. Next time I shall just use my pineapple tart cookie recipe lah. Junior couldn't wait to press the cookie dough! Yes

Love the long weekend! Junior and I made some old fashioned chocolate cake by Nigella and I cooked chicken curry on Friday. Because the other 2 days we were out with extended family. Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake 116g butter, softened 133g self raising flour 133g sugar 1/2 tsp baking powder 30g cocoa (valrhona, not dutch processed) 100g light sour cream 2 eggs The recipe blitzed everything in a blender, but I did the old fashioned way of creaming the butter and sugar together, then adding in eggs one by one and then the sifted cocoa + flour and light sour cream. Junior helped too of course :) We put them into cupcakes, and got me exactly 12 normal sized ones. I have not taken any photo of the finished product, but it is soft and fluffy, and I love how the domes turned out! Totally love this recipe :) Chocolatey but not too much, perfect for chocolate base cakes! I cheated on the frosting, bought the Philadelphia ready made chocolate frosting because I have never h

Took the day off yesterday cos my mum had to take care of her baby boy (HAHA) so I took care of mine :) It was the first time we sent him to school. We went to work cos I had to settle some slides even though I was on leave, and later I fetched him from school. Junior was so bubbly and happy :) Love seeing him so carefree and enjoying life. After I settled work stuff, we took the public transport like he has longed wanted, so it was the bus and train! Junior entertained mama's selfies hahahaha :) We stopped by the Lego shop too to get more parts for his building Lego collection. Waiting for the train to come! And yes I got the reserved seat woohoo! By the time we reached our MRT stop, he was tired so we too a taxi home instead of another bus. He too said he was tired. Aww my poor little boy. Almost fell asleep in the taxi. But once he reached home, he has a sudden release of energy and was off singing and talking again. We did his Lego set, sooo difficult to g

The Husband is on yet again another work trip. I've lost count how many times he's left us for work. This morning Junior woke up and asked where's his abah, and when I told him that abah flew off for work, he was so sad he whimpered a lot. My poor boy :( Weekend we were supposed to cook nasi kabsa but it didn't materialise cos of other plans. Planned to spend the most out of the weekend we had before the husband flew. Just love spending family time together, I couldn't have asked for more. Am so thankful for a loving husband and son :) We had a good time at McDonald's Parkway Parade. Junior was having his dinner of nuggets and fries and there was someone playing music, the breeze was awesome. Junior really enjoyed his meal! Even told me he wanted to take off his Crocs while he enjoyed his meal haha. Junior enjoying the music as he ate. Love to see how kids enjoy life. It's so refreshing :) Managed to squeeze in time for baking with Junior, 1 batc

It's been ages since I've last updated! Recently we went to Dubai on a multi generational trip, 4 generations in total! It was a good holiday and loads of unexpected shopping but what matters most is that we spent family time together. Junior has also made some progress in his speech, saying one syllable words like cat, sleep, eat, egg, come on his own. We're so delighted to see him attempt to speak. He also attempted to count one to ten with the guidance of the husband. And we're happy to announce, we're having another Junior! :) I'm halfway through the pregnancy now. This pregnancy is more eventful than the previous, with me being rushed to KKH for abdominal pains at the end of 1st trimester for exerting myself too much, and recently the doctor said the baby is too big and I could have gestational diabetes. So now I have to really monitor my diet. Will only know the results in the next check up in May. Reading up on GD is scary. Anyhoo!! This year is re

Haven't been blogging! Junior is now in preschool, just a simple class at the block beside my mum's. He has been a good boy, wanting to go school, and now he loves school and his teachers. He's more expressive too, singing his own songs and having exaggerated expressions. He's just too cute :) I am so glad he likes his school, there's no need to find another school to transfer to, and for him to get used to. Never mind there's no montessori or what, for now what I want is for him to socialise and get used to a classroom setting and he's adapting perfectly. Baking and cooking-wise, I've been doing a bit here and there, now that we have Saturday classes for a few weeks I haven't been cooking much. Junior has been trying out new things, like golf which he absolutely loves, shadow play with his favourite puppets and we've transitioned him to sleeping on the mattress! He's getting too big for the cot now. Junior's second time at

This morning I woke up earlier to get ready and even have breakfast before sending Junior to my mum's via bus. TWO buses sadly. Same town, but at different ends. Our car is spoilt and Husband followed the tow truck to send it to the workshop. I must say, getting up early and forcing yourself to have breakfast is really good discipline. Junior was still sleeping when I was all ready so I had to wake him up. But since he loves the idea of taking buses (he's been asking for it for countless of times), he got up all fresh and ready to go. After sending him off, time for me to take another two buses to work. All in all the journey took about 1 hr 45 min which is not too bad, I reached work around 8.45am. Fatty me was panting by the time I got to office haha! Spent the entire afternoon in the kitchen yesterday, making pineapple tarts and daging masak merah. Junior helped too! He helped pound the garlic and ginger, then later with rolling of the dough. He loves helping out in the k

My oven can be collected yay!!! Last week we discovered it was spoilt, cannot microwave or heat. So yesterday we sent it for repair and today we can collect! I miss baking. Wanna bake with my baby boy this weekend! Speaking of baby boy, he tried to mutter some words and we're soooo proud of him! He can now sort of say egg, sleep, eat, red, snake and nak but not so clearly. We're trying to get him to say more words but so far he's only interested in single syllable words. We started with him trying to imitate Baby Jake from cbeebies when he says "koki hiya!", so I go "koki" and Junior will respond with "hiya". That opened him up I think. My mum heard him blurt out some words before, but for me, the first word was egg. We were baking and he pointed and said egg. And when I was reading to him his favourite books (vehicle series, what else), he saw the bird sleeping and he said "sleep" twice! Heart melting moment awww. Looking forw

It has been a roller coaster of a weekend! We finally went for Junior's hearing test and thankfully he did not need to be sedated cos he sat like a good boy listening via the earpiece. Thank God. Went home, cooked lunch of our version of ayam masak merah. I still can't get the gravy texture same like my mum's. I wonder why. Makes me feel like getting a handheld blender and blend the onions etc. Later that evening, was part 1 of project caterer for SIL's house: making brownies. I decided to add in a little twist and include red velvet swirl brownies too, but because it's a bit more tedious, I only made 2 batches. The normal cocoa brownies I made 4 batches and sprinkled with lots of chopped almonds. I used a cocoa recipe from ovenhaven . Below is the recipe: Cocoa Brownies 1/2 cup butter, melted 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (not dutch processed) 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup flour 1/4 tsp salt Melt the butter, add in sugar and

Hahahaha!! So funny right! That's just what I go through practically every day! Seldom do mothers get "me" time. Just like my Junior, he will run to the toilet to find me, open the door slightly and peek in with a cheeky smile. I seldom lock the door when I'm in the toilet, and that means he'll open and close the door with so much glee! Oh the joys of motherhood haha.

Saturday boy was I busy in the kitchen! Went to the market earlier and was home by 9.40am and got started cooking! The siblings wanted chicken fajitas so I quickly sliced the chicken meat and marinated (fajitas mix + paprika + black pepper + dried basil) before Junior & I went to the market. Junior made my heart melt: all those times spent baking and cooking with him paid off! He now is officially my little baker! I didn't want to bake anything, but he sorta forced me. How can I refuse when he took out the whisk and ladle and even the sugar! But before that, Junior was busy helping me cook! On the menu for the day: Chicken Fajitas Sindhi Briyani (Shan mix) Potato Soup for Junior Potato soup is really simple. Peel & cut potatoes, boil and add cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and fish/chicken cubes in and cook together. I throw in a teeny bit of salt, and some dried basil. It's even yummy for adults! So on to the biryani! I was kind of eager to cook biryani whe

Whoever does work today is not normal. Haha. Eve of a public holiday yet no half day oh the pain! Saturday my siblings came over for lunch, and cooking was yet another diner dash. On the menu was daging masak merah and very simple fried cabbage. Butter cookies was supposed to be an after-lunch activity but it was changed to butter cake because of lack of time. I also had to go to the post office to get Junior's books that arrived but were too big for the mail box. Maybe I should have one big mail box outside my door and ask the postman to deposit it there instead. The queue at the post office was so long! When I came at about 10, I was like 60th in queue?! So Junior and I went to get some groceries while waiting for our turn, and when we came back, the number only moved up by 20. Damn. By the time we were done and back home, It was 11.30! Not enough time to cook the meat! Thankfully Junior explored his new books on his own quietly, so I had time to cook. Multi-tasked: frying

Report of Saturday morning's cooking: double chocolate banana muffins, sayur asam jawa and fried chicken! Simple pleasures of food and finally one where there weren't leftovers. I need to manage my portions haha. I was under the weather - and still is - so lunch was simple. I used a ready made paste from Serambi Botani for the sayur asam jawa I bought when I was in Bogor. I just added in corn, long beans, carrot, cabbage and loads of peanuts! LOVE peanuts :) The vegetables made the soup sweet and yummeh. I tried the soup before the vegetables were cooked, and it was yuck. Tasted too much of asam. Once the flavours from the nuts, carrots and corn blends together, it was just what I needed for my throat. Made a quick spice mix of ground cumin, coriander, paprika salt and pepper for the chicken marinade before frying them. Soup + fried chicken + hot rice = yummy homemade meal. I made the double chocolate muffins earlier with Junior. I was craving for double choc muffins,

I'll steal in a quick blog post this morning. Last Saturday I tried out the Malay chicken curry recipe to the T from Malay Heritage Cooking by Rita Zahara. Not my type of curry, sadly. Too much coconut milk! It would have been much better omitting the coconut milk totally, or replacing with yoghurt. I'm an Indian curry lover, not Malay. Haha. Husband started his 6 week class on Saturday mornings and that leaves me plenty of time to do my own things. But for the past two weeks instead of stealing in a quick bake, I decided to cook! Feels good to cook for The Husband especially when he comes home all hungry and tired :) The weekend before I made sweet and sour fish, no recipe just throw in stuff. This Saturday I plan to make laksa! Heehee. I also managed to clean the house, do laundry and go to the market before cooking. It's amazing how much you can do in a few hours. No pictures of cooked food because I didn't bother taking any, but here's photos of Junior ca

Weekend is almost here but I'm not looking forward to it. Too many things happening that I am not in a good mood. I told FFL my itinerary for the 2 days and she said I need a superman's cape. I still haven't found my peace of mind thinking of what's to come. Very tiring. In chronological order: cooking 2 days' porridge (no time on Sunday) the usual ironing and laundry to do play group open house 5 houses to visit all in JB staying overnight in JB Junior's playgym wedding of someone I don't know and right now I don't care to go visit one house, if people are at home cook for guests we're expecting on Monday. I'm not doing the cooking but I'm doing cleaning. clear house for Monday. Peng's Kitchen just made some vanilla custard puffs that look easy to follow! If I have time (WHO AM I KIDDING RIGHT) I would love to try it out. Husband wants the stayover in JB cos probably he's sick of Singapore. It's only 1 and a ha

Heloooooo!! I know it's been ages since I've updated, there's still our family's umrah trip to talk about but I'll just do a random update here. You see, my brain is kinda fried for the day after three whole days of figuring out the stories behind certain numbers and accounts. It's tedious and frustrating at times because you can't get the whole picture due to some missing pieces. So, I'm going to spend the rest of the day clearing up, writing the to-do list, and some other menial work. We've to prepare our house for a small shoot on Sunday, and nothing's been done! Today we plan to vacuum, lay out the carpet, rearrange the sofa (on normal days it's just against the wall for maximum space), dig out whatever little ornaments that can be used for decoration (we don't have that many). It's going to be a long night! Kuih-wise, I've pretty much settled on my kuih list. Made two batches of kuih tart at my mum's last week (o

Junior is a kitty cat fan. He'll get very excited if he sees a kittycat. I have now made new cat sounds, what I call crazycat, and he loves it a lot. Will get into fits of laughter when I start my crazycat meowing.   Here's Junior with yet another cat encounter, but sadly, cats ignore him :( Or they'll be in defensive mode cos this boy runs like he's going to attack them. Can't blame these cats.    Hello kitty cat! How are you!  Oh? What is that you're looking at?  Mama, kitty cat doesn't want to talk to me :(     Hahaha that's pretty much the situation every time he sees one. My poor boy, rejected by kitty cats.   Anyway! I tried making lemon curd muffins in my bid to use up the big jar of lemon curd. I think I should use a cupcake recipe next time, muffins are dense and not very good to keep for a few days. I filled the muffin liner with one tbsp. muffin batter, 1 heaped tsp lemon curd and another tbsp muffin batter, but