We would request for our gynae to do a 4D scan of our daughter at every of our visit.  The best scan of her is at 32 weeks.  Our doctor commented that though she is very naughty, she is a cute baby.  She is always moving around during the scan making it hard to get a good scan of her and she is always covering her face with her hand.

She is a very active baby, moving and kicking so very often and lately due to space constrain, her movement sometimes are so strong.  What a sight to see my tummy moving and if Vince is lucky, he gets to see it as well.  He has felt her many times throughout the pregnancy and even felt her hiccups!

We look forward to meeting her in about a month from now.  How is she like, her character and personality?  All will be known in due time……Enjoy the video.

Click on the text below to watch the ultrascan.

Our Daughter In The Womb At 32 Weeks

Our Daughter In The Womb At 35 Weeks

Time flies……2 more months to go yet we hardly bought anything for our baby.  This is because most of the things have been given to us; even though second or third hand we still feel blessed as we need not to buy and therefore we saved a lot of money.

We would like to thank our family, relatives and friends for their genorisity and love.

Oh yeah, we are going to have a little girl.  It has been confirmed by 2 gynaes.  We used to go to Pantai Cheras for our checkups and changed to Dr Bedi from Kajang for various reasons.  Dr Bedi was recommended by my cousin’s sister-in-law as I was looking for a gynae who has 4D ultrascan machine.  After our first 4D ultrascan visit at 22 weeks, we decided to switch gynae as we felt more comfortable with him.

Our website NextGenParenting has been featured twice in the local newspaper News Straits Times, Tech & U section.  Do visit the site to take a look at the article.

We are 12 weeks pregnant!  Talk about being efficient and effective in the baby making department…hehehe…

Just completed the first trimester yet the nausea feeling is still lingering and with that the loss of appetite, this was the cause of my weight lost just a month ago from my last check up with my doctor.  He said I should be gaining about 1 pound a week and expect me to gain 2kg by the next visit.

During the ultrascan, the doctor pointed out the baby’s head, heartbeat, hands and legs.  It is exciting to see the development of the baby from just a spot (the first scan at 6 weeks which Vince couldn’t see) to what look more like a human.

Vince has been a wonderful husband since we found out we were pregnant.  He would carry heavy things for me and also helps me around the house.  He accompanies me to my doctor’s appointment which makes me feel blessed that I am not alone in this.

Well, I hope to feel better soon and improved appetite to gain healthy weight.

With this new addition to the family and the promotion of our status to parenthood, we have set up a parenting website at NextGenParenting.com, do drop by and take a look.

Till I write again……

When we break a rule, we have to suffer consequence; be it being fined or even being put in jail.  That is true if we break the rule of law.  What happens when we break relationship rules and boundaries?  We end up in argument.

We may or may not realise that we have broken the rule until it has been made known to us.  In our marriage, Vince is the one who makes the rules, not to say that I am a rule breaker, it is just that his expectation is pretty high.  Or perhaps, as human as we are, we can break the rules but when other people breaks them, they have to suffer the consequence.  I guess life is not fair……

So we have to live the best we can abiding by the rules of law, nature, relationship to stay safe and keep peace.

As I (Vince) is more accustomed to the intellectuals and the vision, Jo, will be more attuned to be the lady of the house, sometimes, nagging me and bossing me to off the lights, don’t throw my clothes here and there, and also things of that sort, which I really appreciate very much.

So, I will be reading my way through, while Joanne will be sacrificing her time for the maintenance of the house. When it comes to computers and websites and also the marketing and running the business, of course, I am the boss… chuckles.

Oh well, married life is about setting boundaries, tolerating, identifying individual strength and help the other build upon it while covering and making up for their weaknesses. Fair trade, huh?

Other things are, fixing the pipes, feeding the dog.. and yes, we got an intelligent girl dog named Chloe from Joanne’s friend, Dee, who has too many dogs and gave one to us. Joanne will post the pictures soon, as she is better with the camera.

Life has never been better as I feel complete after being married to the most patient and loving woman with the biggest faith in God.

Thank you Jesus.

It is nice to have our own home.  We are blessed to have Vince’s parents furnish our home.  Thanks mom and dad!

Here are some pictures of our home.  Our home is a town house means there are other houses on top and under us somewhat like an apartment, the difference is we have our own yard.

Front view of our home - ours is the 1st floor

Our sign board - our wedding backdrop for our dinner

Stairway - taken from inside our home

Living room

Jo’s cute collectibles

Dining area

Kitchen

Work zone

Jo’s work zone wall - inspirational quotes with doggies

Play zone - de-stress area - PS2, WII

Jo’s dressing table

Our bedroom - this is where the action is at night  :p

Well, I try to make it cozy and keep it clean so that it is comfortable and pleasant.

It’s our one month anniversary……

Time flies as they all say and we have been so busy after the wedding we have yet to go or even plan for our honeymoon.  We went to Penang end of last month but it was for work.  We will be going down to Penang again end of this month, and we will be making it a longer trip as a work cum honeymoon trip.

Being married for a month……

It is a nice feeling knowing you have someone to share your life with, all your ups and downs.  Many people ask me “So, how is married life? / How does it feel like being married?”  I would answer “Great!”  To some of our friends who are still single, I would add a cheeky reply “You should try it for yourself.”

I believe Vince feels the same for he often will tell me that it feels good to be married, to know that when he gets home, there will be someone there for him (I would like to think he looks forward to a good massage after a long day’s work and some lovin - if you know what I mean).

Perhaps we are still newly wed, but for the past 4 weeks, I feel that Vince has love me even more compared to when we were courting.  Of course it’s not a bed of roses and we did have some arguments here and there, at the end of the day, it is how you both of us work it out.

We had our pre-anniversary dinner on Sunday at Bubba Gump Shrimp located at The Curve.  Vince loves shimps aka prawns, and so I suggested that we have dinner there.  The food was good (though it is quite pricey to go just 2 person - the portion was meant for 3 or more people), but I must say the dessert name “That Chocolate Thing” was deliciously yummy - blended chocolate cake stuffed in a bottle topped up with vanilla ice cream, whip cream and some berry gravy.  I would return to eat just that for tea or dessert.

As of now, it will be a monthly anniversary for us until we celebrate our first year anniversary, don’t know if any couple does that but what the heck, every day we are alive should be a celebration.

We are a week old husband and wife and being newly weds, it has been a pretty exciting journey.

We do feel the difference of being just in a relationship and being married.  We feel more committed in our relationship and to each other after exchanging our vows.  For me personally, it is a new chapter and it will take a while for me to get used to being called “Mrs Cheng”.

We are now staying at our own new house which we still doing it up bit by bit.  I am excited to decorating and doing up our home to make it warm and cosy.  It is a 3 bedroom / 2 bathroom town house.  We sleep in the master bedroom obviously, 1 guestroom and converted the other room to be our work/play room.

Vince says to me, “You are the lady of the house so you can do what you want and I trust you will make our home nice”……Yeah, I can put my soft toy doggies anywhere I want……hehehehe

TMnet has fixed up our phone line and we are now waiting for our streamyx connection which we hope will be up by early next week.  Vince is a little disappointed with them because we applied for 1mb connection but now they can only give us 512kb connection, hope we can upgrade the connection later.

I will snap some pictures and post them up once we have done up our home.  So do check back soon.

We often hear the saying “Forgive & Forget”, however how many of us actually practice that?  God does, so we should to.  However as humans, we expect our partners to know what to do when the same situation repeats in the future and when they fall short, we tend to seek justice and begin to put into numbers or recall the number of times we are hurt by them and how unjust they are.

We are called to forgive one another seventy times seven times as written in Matthew 18:22.  This does not mean that we can hurt our spouse or the people around us over and over again, because they are called to forgive us when we hurt them; it simply means that, we should not hold an account of the number of times someone has hurt us.  For if God does not hold an account of our sins, who are we to hold an account of the sins of our brothers and sisters commit against us?

Of course the Lord is not saying that we have to be doormats, letting everyone step on us and forgive them for doing so even if they do it over and over gain.  I think what Jesus meant when He said that was; we should be gracious to others just as our Heavenly Father is towards us for as humans we fall short as stated in Romans 3:23-24.

Another important fact to note about forgiveness is that Jesus calls us to forgive others so that God in turn will forgive us, this is illustrated in “The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” in Matthew 18:23-35.  We are also reminded when we pray “The Lord’s Pray“:-

Our Father in Heaven, Holy be Your Name,
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us today our daily bread,
Forgive us our sins,
As we forgive those who sin against us.
Do not bring us to the test
But deliver us from evil.

I am humbled by the misunderstanding and argument we had today for we have have to throw away our pride, come before God and the person we hurt to seek for forgiveness.  The greatest fear when it comes to asking forgiveness is that the person we are seeking forgiveness from turn their back on us or reject us though for all you know, that person has already forgiven us.  We need to forgive and know that we are forgiven in order to receive healing and restoration to our souls.

I would like to quote what the late Pope John Paul II said about forgiveness.  He said, “Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil.  Forgiveness may seem like weakness, but it demands great spiritual strength and moral courage, both in granting it and in accepting it.”

We all like our marriage or relationship to be happily ever after kind of stuff but in reality, happily ever after is a myth.  It is achievable though that does not mean that you and your spouse will NEVER have arguments and/or disagreements.

A lot of people, during a heated argument just want to walk out or walk away from it all (taking the easy way out) and sometimes I do question what all these arguments mean and I just want it to end.  Basically arguments happen when two people disagree about a topic or one has invaded and challenge the others’ boundaries and limits.

The “victim” would feel that they are vulnerable and most of the time their defense wall will erect.  At times like these, both are thinking with their head and not heart, that is why sometimes we say things that hurt our spouse; words we don’t really mean which can threaten the relationship.  Arguments are energy draining and frustrating especially when one topic after another surface, it seem as if it is going no where and you wonder when will we come to a conclusion and agree or draw the line.

I would like to share with you what we learned from the marriage preparation course.  They outlined some RULES FOR ARGUMENTS in which when you argue fairly, arguments can be good.

1)  No name calling - don’t start calling each other names
2)  No third party - don’t involve a third party in the argument
3)  No past history - don’t bring up the past, what your spouse did or didn’t do; we all know we can’t change the past so let bygones be bygones
4)  Stick to the subject - sometimes we tend to divert the subject and bring it out of context
5)  Don’t hit below the belt - don’t pick on your spouse’s weakness and use it against them
6) Settle before sleep - “In your anger do not sin; do not let the sun go down while you are still angry” Ephesians 4:26

During arguments, we have to listen not only with our ears but with our hearts as well and we have to make the decision to be open in order for us to see the lessons that we need to learn through the arguments.

We, like any other couples out there, have good days and bad days.  There are days which goes on smoothly without any arguments and there are days where we have 2 or 3 “argument sessions” throughout the entire day.  At the end of it all, we will begin to define and learn more about each other which help us to grow as an invidual and as a couple.

I came across a book entitled “SACRED Marriage” in Salvation Bookstore.  It is written by Gary Thomas.  What really caught my attention and ultimately lead me to buying it (besides the price) was a sentence written on the cover; it says, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” This is something to think about as most of us think or want a happily ever after (happens only in Disney).

I personally can relate to the book because through the course of being with Vince, my walk with God has become closer, I learned to trust Him in every circumstances and my love for Him has deepen.  Among the past relationships I have had, I would say this is the most fulfilling.

We are not a perfect couple YET, we are looking forward to discover God’s purpose for us as we help each other grow to holiness as He has called us to be in 1 Peter 1:15,16 - But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”