blessed.

so the past week has been quite eventful. i like to think of it as one of my last all-out weekends before we gotta take it easy and wait for jigglyboo to come.

my actual birthday last week was a quiet one. the night before my birthday, we actually had pizza night in. we went a bit crazy and pretty much ordered whatever we felt like (we had lots of leftover for days after hehe). i took the day off from work, just because. spent the day at home alone, cos R had a meeting that he couldn't get out of. so i mostly cooked for myself the whole day, nothing much.

anyway, the little sis came back as usual, and two of R's lil siblings also came from M to spend some time in kl that weekend. kicked off the weekend by catching a movie that i'd been looking forward to "kolumpo" - it was a good movie and we went with a bunch of friends and the lil kids in tow. R had told me a c ouple of weeks earlier to reserve saturday for ourselves - he didn't say much but if course i knew there was a bday thingy planned for me with the usual people. this year, we had a bday brunch at one of my fave bfast/brunch places. R had ordered a spread of various cakes and cupcakes from my SIL and my brother, who have a lil cake business going on. everything was yummy!

afterwards, the girlfriends threw a surprise baby shower for me! after the brunch fiasco a few weeks back, that wasn't really a baby shower (haha) - i had actually resigned myself to not having one at all - unless i had the energy to throw one for myself. mostly cos im so far along by now, and i just don't have the energy for it. but my girlfriends - led by two of my best friends - threw me such a lovely one. it was a small affair but we had so much fun with the games - courtesy of another of my bestfriend back from my old workplace. while this was ongoing, the boys just went to grab coffee amongst themselves at another place, then came and joined us towards the end. we also got a couple more additions of gifts for jigglyboo - i loved them!

anyway, although i'd been out since the morning and was pretty much exhausted, i genuinely loved the whole day. i spent it with people that i loved and i knew would always be there for me - i feel so blessed to have these people in my life. i seriously could not ask for more. so much love.

got home late afternoon, had a short lie-in before bringing out the lil siblings to dinner. my sister begged off because she's busy studying for her upcoming exams. R's siblings had gone out during the day with their other brother so we decided to take them out that night for a nice dinner. i had a strong urge for italian food, so we went to my fave italian joint. food was yummy as always, and as luck would have it, right after settling into our table (the place was quite full that night) - who should be seated at the table next to ours but one of malaysia's most well-known chefs! yup, chef Wan, in the flesh.

this was especially exciting for R's lil brother, who was a HUGE fan of his - he loves food, loves cooking, and knows pretty much all the cooking shows. so we let him have dinner with his family in peace while we went on with ours - and right before he left, the lil ones asked for a photo with him. he was actually super nice and funny, and very accommodating - much like his persona on-screen. anyhow, we had a happy fan going home by the end of the night :)

kick-started sunday pretty early the next morning for our ultimate agenda that weekend - the BBW sale. i had planned to leave home by 6am (we tried going around midnight last year - lets just say it was a different kind of madness, especially the lines at the cashier counters haha). anyway, we learned our lesson from last year, so this year decided to try our luck going super-early : my theory is that the midnight crowd would have already gone home by then and the morning crowd would probably only descend after breakfast-time. and lucky us, our theory was pretty good. there was a thin crowd, but nothing crazy. we got to roam around for a good few hours. this year, i decided to just focus on the areas that i really had interest in. i left R to his own devices to find books for jigglyboo in the kiddies' section, hehe. our two lil guests also seemed to have fun walking about searching for their own books. i'd already told them the book-hunting was my treat - it's only a once-a-year event and i'll pretty much do anything to encourage kids to read. the fact that the books were all super-cheap didn't hurt either, hehe.

we left the warehouse just as the morning crowd started to trickle in - and headed off to grab some breakfast. then we had to go on and run some errands which pretty much took up the rest of the morning. got home around noon and everyone passed out for a good few hours from the lack of sleep, haha. woke up and had a little light lunch and lazed around for til it was dinnertime. i whipped up a quick dinner - fried fish fillets, potato wedges, steamed green beans. then right after dinner, R led them all out (i only sent them to the door - i was exhausted) and dropped them off at their destinations - his lil siblings at the bus station to head back to their hometown then sent my lil sis back to her hostel.

so all in all, it was a tiring but fun weekend. i'm 37 weeks now, so just taking this week easy - have dinner plans with an old friend tonight but apart from that, just gonna stay home with R and chill out. hope this week goes by fast, i have another week and a half at work before starting maternity leave - with my gynae's approval. jigglyboo can stay in my tummy for as long as she needs - as long as she's not overdue, haha - we still have a few things of hers that need changing and buying and washing. our next appointment isn't for another week and a half - the same day i start my maternity leave. so lets hope all is well until then.