Pregnancy Photography, by Terrance Siew

I am a relatively simple person. I like my life to be simple, easy and hassle free.

So when hubby and I got married, we did it in a simple way - by skipping all the ceremonies. We did not have any dinner functions, no traditional Chinese ceremonies, no wedding photo shoot session etc. What we have is a marriage registration certificate from Putrajaya and a life-long commitment "to love and to cherish...until death do us part".

For our first baby, we have decided to make things simple as well. Simple clothing and preparation to welcome BB, minimal Chinese pregnancy superstitions, minimal Chinese traditional confinement practice etc. 

But one thing that we find important is for us to capture this beautiful experience through a lens, so that we can have some photos to share with BB when he is older, or to share with each other when our hair turns gray one day...So when hubby volunteered to be my maternity photographer, I was more than happy to be his model for the 2 days sessions.

I like the simplicity of the photos. Just like life, sometimes the simpler the better...

Family Parking Spaces: Who can Park?

Have you noticed this special parking sign board before? 

Family Friendly Parking Space, IKEA

It is quite obvious from the picture: a man, a woman, and a kid and stroller. Yes, this is a "family parking" space, specially designated for the convenience of families who come to shop at IKEA. It is very kind and considerate of IKEA to have provided such parking spaces that are close to the store entrance, as I can imagine the struggles parents with young kids have to go through before they can get into the store. 

But do you know that family parking area is also designated for expectant mothers? 

Now that my stomach is getting bigger, I am very pleased to know that the convenience of these family parking lots is also extended to pregnant ladies.

It was a crowded weekend at IKEA. 

Hubby and I were in the car trying to find an empty parking lot, when we noticed the car in front of us driving out from the family parking area. Yeah! Finally a spot to park...and it's even better that it's close to the entrance. 

When hubby was reversing our car for a reverse parking, suddenly a security guard rushed out from don't know where and stood in the parking lot, yelling to us: "No, No, No parking!".

And before we could react, we saw the Nepali guard directing another car behind us to park at this family spot. It was a car with a young kid. 

Hubby went down from our car, trying to explain to the guard that there's a pregnant lady in the car (that's me :p), why can't we park? The guard with his very bad attitude, just yelled "No No No - Family!" When we tried to explain further, he simply ignored us and walked away. At the end, hubby requested to speak to his manager to make a complaint. Luckily the manager handled the issue in a fairly professional way. Even though our shopping mood was slightly affected, it was not totally spoiled.

I think in the future if IKEA were to allocate parking lot for expectant mothers, maybe they should change its sign board to include the picture of a pregnant lady to avoid confusion.

Or should I suggest IKEA to provide better training to their security guards so that they at least understand the meaning of each parking sign board?

FREE RM10 Tesco Voucher, 26 Oct - 28 Oct 2011 (Exclusive for Tesco Clubcard Members)

As an almost full time housewife, I am more sensitive to promotions and offers nowadays.

For those who are as sensitive as I am, Tesco is currently doing a promotion exclusive for its Tesco Clubcard Members. They are giving away FREE RM10 voucher, to be used with purchase above RM100. 

Promotion ends 28 Oct 2011

So for those who are interested, hurry visit www.tesco.com.my to download the voucher.

Happy shopping!

My Dear Baby Products Warehouse Sales (26 Oct - 7 Nov 2011)

11 weeks before the arrival of our BB boy, hubby and I have got our shopping list ready, and are half way through our preparation to welcome the little one. I love to do BB shopping with hubby. It is like treasure hunting, every month we will buy something for BB, and I'll make sure I keep hubby updated of any BB product sales whenever there's one.

This month, one of the bigger sales is the My Dear Baby Products Warehouse Sales at Puchong, from 26 Oct to 7 Nov 2011.

After enjoying our Dim Sum brunch at Taiji Dim Sum, Puchong, hubby and I headed to My Dear Warehouse around noon. I was immediately wowed by the crowd upon arrival! Maybe because it is Deepavali public holidays today, the warehouse was full of people, ie. expecting parents, family with small children running around, workers etc. There was this sourly smell of sweat in the air, but I suppose this is also the smell of parents love to their children. And I too, was determined to join in the crowd and start shopping!

Super crowded!

2-hour queue just to collect our goods

Below is the list of items that we bought by the end of our shopping:-

At home, looking at all my "trophies", I am quite amazed by how determine and patient hubby and I were today! It was raining cats and dogs, we queued for almost 2 hours just to collect our goods, and we got ourselves wet trying to load the goods into the car.

I really appreciate hubby's patience today...and for the delicious dinner that he managed to pull himself to cook for me tonight...I hope our BB boy too, will appreciate our love to him. Really can't wait to meet him in 2 and 1/2 months time!

For the Love of Cooking - Marble Cake

It was a beautiful Saturday.

Hubby and I woke up in the morning, spent some time fooling around in the bed, then headed to Klang Wai Sek Kai for a Char Kuey Teow brunch. 

With a full stomach, we went to Jusco for some weekend shopping. Hubby bought 2 pairs of pants for me, some BB stuff for BB, and nothing for himself.

Then it’s nap time. Feeling fresh from my quick nap, since hubby still Zzzz, I decided to bake a cake – marble cake. 

Marble Cake

Ingredients:

Butter	115g
Sugar	200g
Salt (after reduced)	3g (1/2 tsp)
Flour	250g
Baking Powder	9g (2tsp)
Egg (A Size)	3
Milk Powder	75g
Water	160ml
Vanilla Essence/Extract	5ml (1tsp)
Cocoa Powder	35g

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Dissolve cocoa powder in a little bit of hot water until well-dissolved into a mud like paste. This is an optional step, I usually do this to eliminate any lumps from the cocoa powder, and to make sure it dissolves well.
3. Dissolve milk powder in 160ml of warm water. Set aside to be used later.
4. Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer until pale yellow in colour and fluffy.
5. Add eggs to butter-sugar mixture, one by one, until roughly incorporated.
6. Sift flour and baking powder. Also, this is an optional step, to remove any lumps, loosen up the flour and to mix the baking powder with the flour.
7. Gently stir in 1/3 of the flour to the butter batter, alternate with 1/3 of the milk; continue for 3 rounds until you incorporate all the flour and milk into the batter.
8. Divide the smooth batter into 2 equal portions: 1/2 as vanilla batter, 1/2 as chocolate batter.
9. Add vanilla extract to the vanilla batter, and the dissolved cocoa powder to the chocolate batter.
10. Intersperse globs of vanilla batter with chocolate batter into the baking pan.
11. For the marble effect, use a spatula or chopstick, twirl the batter together in a few figure-eight motions. Do not over stir, or you will get a well-mixed light chocolate batter.
12. Bake in oven at 180°C, for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Voila! In less than an hour time, we got to enjoy a moist marble cake with a strong chocolate flavour!

T had a bite. Oops...It's a bit too salty

I give myself 70% for the cake. The taste of the cake was fine, but I could have used a bit less salt. I think I should reduce the amount of salt from 9g to just 3g next time, as I was using salted Planta margarine instead of unsalted butter required in the original recipe.

I like free and easy Saturday like this one…Happy Saturday = happy family day!

Sweet Surprise

Ever since sugar was detected in my urine recently, T has been quite strict in controlling my diet, especially my daily sugar intake. He will monitor what I eat and drink, and whenever I am tempted to have my sweet treats, he will squeeze out his serious face, and try to use his very kecil eyes to warn me against my action.

So I thought...gone are the days when I can have all the sweet stuff I like whenever I want...

But last night, I found a sweet little surprise in my snacks drawer. It's a box of my favourite Ferrero Rocher! T must have sneaked it in when I was not around...

My happy potion

That's T and his little way of showing his love and care, which I appreciate very much...I promise you dear, I will only eat 1pc a day, erm...or 2 the most.

Again, TQ for the gift, I like it very much!

Congratulations my friend...!

I have a good friend. I've known him for years, since the early days of my working life, when we were both young and fresh.

Hubby and I call him ysl, because that's his nickname for MSN. Yes, that was the time...when we were single, free and unsettled in life, and had a lot of spare time chatting via MSN. Facebook was not yet in the picture, and no, no twitter too.

Over the years, we underwent tremendous growth and changes in our lives.

I've completed my 2nd degree in law, got married, started my own business, and am expecting my first BB early next year. 

Ysl has completed his postgraduate training, went to and came back from his overseas attachment, met the love of his life - the beautiful May, got married, and are expecting their first BB next year.

Beautiful May

Such wonderful couple

And now, he is preparing for another big leap in his life. He is going to open his own practice soon! Oh yes, he is an ophthalmologist, or in other words, an eye specialist.

USJ Eye Specialist Centre, Taipan, Subang Jaya

Congratulations my dear friend for all these amazing things that are happening in your life! This is another great achievement. We are very happy for you and wish you all the best in your latest endeavor!

Glucose ++ In Urine During Pregnancy?

In 2 consecutive antenatal checkups, I was tested positive for glucose in my urine.

 It was 1+ when I was 22 week pregnant, then it increased to ++ when I was in week 27. And glucose in urine is one of the indicators of gestational diabetes. 

According to my gynae, Dr.Siti from SDMC, it is not uncommon for pregnant ladies to develop this temporary type of pregnancy diabetes. Though it is usually not life threatening to both the BB and mother, and the condition generally resolves once the baby is born; but diabetic mummies tend to have bigger babies and higher chance of birth complications. So to make sure, she ordered an OGTT (Oral Glucose Tolerance Test) to check for diabetes.

So how is OGTT performed? 

To do the test, I started fasting from 10:30pm on Friday night. On Saturday morning, when I arrived at SDMC with an empty stomach, my first urine and blood sample were taken at around 10:30am. 

Then the lab technician gave me a super duper sweeet drink, that after drinking it, I felt like there are 10 butterflies trying to break free from my stomach through my throat...But the lab tech warned that I have to try not to vomit, or else we will have to do the test all over again. So to distract me from my uncomfortable feeling of queasiness, hubby brought me to have a quick shopping at the nearby Carrefour, while waiting for my 2nd urine and blood sample to be drawn at around 12:30pm.

What does the test result mean?

I had 2 anxious days awaiting the OGTT result on Monday. So I did some homework and surfed the net for some clues on how to read the result. In general, the chart below from Lab Test Online shows how to interpret the result:-

The goods news is, despite having glucose traces in my urine, I passed the OGTT and I am not diabetic. What a relief...as I always pray for a healthy body so that I can provide the best growing environment for my BB.

The bad news is, both Dr.Siti and hubby want me to control my sugar intake from now on...to Dr.Siti, that means eating in moderation; but to hubby, that means NO sugar, NO ribena, NO chocolate, and the list goes on...OMG...how my coming days going to be like without my beloved sweets...!?

Prenatal Massage, F.O.C!

There is a famous confinement centre called Peiling Confinement Centre, located near Taman Bahagia LRT Station. My friend Shijia and I went for their confinement talk about a month ago, that's how we got this free prenatal massage voucher as part of the free goodies to all participants.

Free Massage Voucher

I had a bad leg cramp during my sleep last night, and woke up with  stiff neck and backache. So these have become my excuses to pamper myself with a long-awaited and well-deserved massage session. Then I recall that I have this free voucher which has been sitting quietly in my drawer for a month now.

Soul Nibbana is a bungalow type massage centre located beside Peiling Confinement Centre, and if not mistaken, managed by the same management. My massage masseur was a 21 year-old cambodian lady with a wide smile. The 1 1/2 hour massage was quite relaxing and I nearly fall asleep, though it was not really superb. But I know I shouldn't complain much when I'm pregnant, as the masseur needs to be gentler with her touch, and the massage oil used was the unscented type to avoid irritation. And hey, it's FREE!

Overall, I am satisfied with the massage. If not because I have already signed a 7-session prenatal massage package with Veqish Spa, USJ, I would consider getting a package from Soul Nibbana. They charge RM460 for 6 sessions of 1 1/2 hour prenatal massage (worked out to be around RM51 per hour), compared to Veqish Spa who charges RM684 for 6 sessions of 1 hour, and 1 session of 1 1/2 hour (around RM91 per hour).

So ladies, if you are interested to try, I think Peiling is having another free confinement talk during the Deepavali week. I am not sure whether free massage voucher will be given this time, but you can always call them to enquire more.

For the Love of Cooking - Carrot Cake

This was my first attempt to bake a carrot cake. Thanks to Mimi's recipe, I would say it is quite an easy cake to make, and taste extremely yummy and moist.

Like usual, I've made some adjustment here and there to the original recipe, eg. adding 1 more egg, cutting the amount of sugar and adding some honey, used almond instead of walnut etc. I always feel that cooking is like an art, we need not to stick to the rule too strictly, just do what you like and enjoy process.

Hubby had 2 slices of the cake and likes it very much. He kept saying yummy yummy...and rewarded me with a "chip" on the cheek. How can I not fall in love with cooking... :)

The Outcome !

Slices of Carrot Cake