The one on running present and past...

One thing awesome about Ryan's preschool is that they are very activity centric. The activities are not just for the kids but it encourages parents-children interaction, so whether you want it or not you'll end up being deeply involved. The activities are very beneficial, I shall blog about it one day.

Anyway Ryan joined his first "Jejak Musafir 2013" programme. It is a 2 days 1 night programme, with trips to the coffee farm and kerepek factory, followed by a "sleepover" at Impian Hotel, Morib. The next day would be the kids Sports Day at the same place. 

A sleepover for a 3.5 years old child? Some question my decision for allowing Ryan to join the activity. Trust me, it was not an easy decision but we saw that the pros outweigh the cons so I said yes.

 The checklist and preparations. 

Serious OCD kan pack baju dalam zip-loc? 

Hahaha actually I did that to assist the teachers. One teacher is responsible of 5 kids. 

Tak ke kesian dia nak kena selongkar the kids bags to dress the up, so I pre-packed the clothing items (i.e underwear,pants,shirts) according to outfits and zip em' up. It is so convenient, I think I shall do the same for my next trip.

 Excited faces of Ryan Daniel getting ready to ride in the bus. 

Some of the kids and parents was all teary but Ryan and I was cool cucumbers :p 

Mostly due to the fact that I'll be staying at the same hotel later

 Trip to kilang kerepek  to "Makan kerepek bawang" he told me :p

This are the other members of Ryan's group (Lucky number 7) 

There's two 6 year old, two 5 year olds and Ryan is the only 4 year old in the group with Teacher Akma taking care of the 5 boys.

He looked so happy hanging with the "older boys"

 At the coffee farm. He even brought back some of the coffee beans. 

He told daddy you have to "smell" it "macam ni" - pastu dia sniff mcm some coffee expert

(All pics are ihsan from stalking his teachers FBs page :p)

 Muka muncung bila mummy visit. 

We had to leave after a bit sebab he was showing signs of merajuk especially seeing adik dressed up in pretty clothes. I think there was a bit of waterworks after we left but I had to go or else he would have refused to joined in the night activities

 Dinner and sembahyang jemaah with the rest of his friends. 

I smsed Teacher Akma that night to checked on Ryan, she told me not to worry and Ryan is doing fine, so I got to spend quality time with Iman and Ranya without having to worry (much ;p)

 The next morning, we got ready early to watch the little tiger play sports. He was in a good mood at first but after seeing his grandad - mulalah buat perangai. I think he was also feeling overwhelmed, what with being away from mummy and daddy the whole night + the crowd + letih etc he finished his "march" and it went downhill from there :p 4 outta 7 of his classmates started throwing tantrums, I felt so bad for the teachers since they had to the deal with the kids from the night before. 

In the end everything was fine, but next year I'm so not going to show my face to him until the end of every activity to ensure full compliance hahaha. To tell you the truth despite of all that, I feel so proud of my little man. Teacher Akma told me he was very cooperative and independent :) He was pretty much diaper free for the whole trip, only took his milk from the bottle once to sleep, dress and fed himself successfully. Alhamdullilah 

Before checking out from our room, Ryan did ask me why can't he stay longer in our chalet since he didnt get to spend the night before with us? I told him we only booked the room for one night and mummy had to go towork and I have no more money to spend . You know what his reply was? 

"takpe mummy mintak nenek ok, nenek banyak duit" ROTFL

More on the trip here : Morib break with the twins :)

My Cousin's Wedding

 While Ryan was busy visiting farms and factories, we attended my cousin Amer wedding. 

Congrats Amer and Munirah Hanis, may you have a blessed life and may you love each other till jannah *in sha Allah*

Amer is  my first BFF :)

We practically grew up together and he's this lil brother that I never had. 

Everyday when my dad sent me to arwah wan's house, he's the first person I seek to play with. I'm very protective over him being a year older and all :p He's a bit of a crybaby, everyday nak merajuk with wan and everyday he will run away from home. Tak jauh pun, he'll just run to our backdoor neighbours house and sat under the "lepak tree" and cry. Everyday I had to run after him and bring him back home. 

One day I got bored and decided to not run after him, and you know wat the lil tyke did? he ran out to the big road all by himself. Thank god Mak Iti managed to alert wan on time and brought him back safely.Suffice to say, he never left my sight after that :p 

He have gone through so much and have turned into such an awesome young man. I could not be any prouder. Alhamdullilah. I'm sure Arwah Wan and Arwah Pak Ngah (his late dad) is looking down on us and is proud of his accomplishments. I wish him all the happiness in the world. Love ya baby brother.

No family wedding is completed without Iman and Ranya trying to steal the show from the bride and the groom. Behold, My gorgeous girls in their hot pink tutus :P

Have a good day ahead everyone......

The one on turning 25 (aka BIG 30)

I hate mind games (usually) so if I want something I usually just tell people what I want to save everyone the trouble of seeing me sulk :p So in the usual Far's fashion, I told Lan what I wanted to do and where I want to go for my birthday. He just needs to pay for it haha... I think he secretly likes that arrangement because it saved him a lot of headache.

For parents with small children, you can appreciate how difficult it is to get a nice family photo especially for the purpose of turning it into a canvas print to showcase at your home. I've given up on doing it myself and have commissioned for the pros to help me capture precious pics of  my lil family. My 30th birthday seems like a good occasion as any, being vain and a bit of a camHo and all haha. It went as well as it could with the 3 little munchkins running around :p

(p/s: will blog on it as soon as I get the official pics from the studio)

The love of my life

I've imposed a pink and blue colour theme for my family on my birthday :p The children is too young to argue, the husband don't think it was worth the argument, so I got my way as usual hahaha

A slice of pavlova is more than enough :) I still have leftovers cake from my office birthday celebration. Sadly no one but me eats cake at home = kegemukan melampau

My BFF : The reason I smile, laugh, cry, scream, stress out. My darling firstborn Ryan Daniel who was singing birthday song for me all day.

My husband looks so young in this pic. I no like haha

We went to Paradigm Mall after the photo shoot. Despite all of the new and yummy restaurant there, we chose the one which is the most children friendly : Chilli's. Everybody is happy :) I guess when you have small children you tend to go for comfort rather than class :p Fine dining shall be reserved until they are all older. Lan and I are they type of parents that will drag the kids EVERYWHERE we go. We just don't feel complete leaving the children behind on such an important day despite the mess and chaos :p

Presents from the girlies. Love love them, it's all so me :p Ohhh and I received the most awesome glitter shawl & silk blouse from Cath which I love.  Had dinner with the parents. Lan still owes me a gift because I can't decide.....

What I want for my birthday........ hahahahah

The one on my gorgeous fairies...

My children is approaching their half year milestone soon. The twins would be 18 months and Ryan is turning 42 months in June. After reading my friends blog, I realised that I rarely blog about the twins progress as compared to Ryan's, classic 2nd and 3rd child syndrome? Sorry kakak and dedek..hehehe

 Collective Skills

• Walking, crawling, climbing, squatting and dancing
• Both are able to imitate Ryan's sports house "cheer"
• Pandai salam, wave, "group hug" and flying kiss
• Knock on doors :p and cry when mummy glams up and pakai tudung because they want to follow me out.
• Can eat on their own (translate to making loads of mess)
• Able to play, interact and "bergurau" in their own language :) 
• Both has very strong  but different personalities which leads to a lot of "fights" between them, but at a blink of an eye they'll be back to being BFF.

 Iman @ 17 Months

• She's the "doer" between the two
• Love playing "ring around the roses" and will force Ranya and Ryan to take her hand and create the "ring". Will force Ranya to participate even when her sister refuses.
• She's a bit more tolerant with Ryan being his wing-girl and all :p
• Obsessed with atuk, can sit on atuk's lap for hours haha
• Love food :) she eats non-stop 
• The serious one and more sensitive than Ranya (translate: moodier and suka nangis haha) 
• Love bathing (or going into the bathroom for the matter) she will insist on going to the loo after peeing and doing her no2. Tried introducing her to the potty this morning with too much success because she don't want to come out from the bathroom -__-
• Not much of a talker : but she can say mamma, tat (cat), mammam (eat), ayah (atuk :p), abba (abang), berd (bird), dog, nak, tu etc.
• Hates any form of accessories

 Ranya @ 17 Months

• This girl has an extensive vocabulary, she can say Allah, Mama, Dada, Abba, nak, mammam, no, star, cat, berd, dog, gajah, bak, there, ok etc.
• She can "sing/hum" to twinkle2 and sambung the end of the song like - Twinkle2 little STAR, how I wonder what you ARE
• Loves playing masak-masak and dolls. The girly one :p she loves her necklaces, headbands, fairy wing, you name it, she'll put it on
• Not much of a walker. She prefers crawling instead, She can walk but it's just that she choose to crawl 60% of the time. I don't know why.
• She's the happy twin. Cheeky
• Love food too especially bread
• Nenek's girl. She's obsessed with their mini stroller, everyday she will force my mum to walk her around the park
• She's really good with fruit ninja :p this lil girl is very tech savvy

I can't believe that they're going to turn 2 end of the year. Seems like yesterday that I was cuddling these two tiny angels in my arms... *sigh* time flies...

May Allah protect them from harm and provide the with all the goodness, iman and happiness in the world and hereafter. Amin

No Race Card Please...

I hate what the current election season is doing to Malaysia.

I hate how they are playing the race cards and inciting the races against each other.

I hate how they keep on throwing the May 13 incidence at our faces.

Let me make it clear, I’m not a follower of both parties. I’m one of the so called “unprincipled” atas pagar individuals who is still trying to make up her mind on who would be the best leader for my beloved country. The best thing about not being a hardcore follower of any party, I’m forced to work harder for my information. I don’t rely mainly on U.tusan Malaysia, TV3 and RTM for news nor is Har.akah and Malaysia.kini my only reference point. 

I read every media available to me and am still deciding. My problem is the more information I gather, the less faith I have on both alliances. I really hate it when candidates play on the race sentiment to garner votes and support (admittedly one more than the other)

Let me tell you something about my childhood. Since I was 7, I am usually the only Malay girl in my “group”. Don’t ask me why, at that time I was too young to base my relationships on things like race or religion. I was mostly attracted to my friends based on common interest. We like the same books, play the same sports, listen to the same music and watch the same movie etc. It just so happen the Malay girls my age does not share the same interest. I never find anything wrong with that though I do know people who thinks that there is something wrong with me :p “Mat Salleh celup, perasan bagus, tak sedar diri” are just some of the less colorful words that are thrown at me. 

I never cared because I truly love my friends. Instead of focusing on our differences we choose to focus on our similarities. We don’t just TOLERATE each other religion and customary beliefs we truly respect them. For example when we go out and if it’s time for prayers, my NON MUSLIM friends would remind me of the prayer time and wait for me while I perform my solat. During fasting time and if we were to go out, they would refuse to eat or even drink in front of me as a show of respect. There was even once when my friend refuse to eat in a restaurant with a “no pork-no lard” sign because she said there was a no HALAL sign from JAKIM. 

In return, I remembered sending my mates to the church in time for their Sunday mass once I received my license (and a car; p), attending their weddings and even listening to their mums lecturing me about the chinese/indian pantang larang and things I should do and not do when I was pregnant.

You see being a Muslim, there a certain parts of other races beliefs that are forbidden for me to practice as it considered as khurafat. However, in order to be respectful, I do not throw my religious beliefs in my friend’s faces. What I try to do is 1. Don’t look at weird animals photos in front of my Chinese friends when I’m pregnant (haha)  2. Nod and smile. 

In return my friends don’t make fun and make unnecessary remarks about Islam. If they truly do not understand the Islamic practices, they will just ask me to explain it to them and I will do so in the simplest way I know how. No making fun of the ulama’ and their teachings, never questioning fatwa knowing they do not NEED to understand the reasoning of things that do not apply to them and NEVER ridiculing my efforts to be a better Muslim. Now you know why I LOVE them and stayed friends with them even after all these years??

The problem with the current election fever and with this so call liberation of “freedom of speech and expression” people take it as a license to INSULT and to comment on EVERYTHING and even things that don’t apply to them. I find it incredibly insulting when non-muslims make fun and question issuance of fatwas that they have no understanding off. Questioning to learn more is one thing, but questioning the wisdom of the learned ulama’ without trying to even understand the basis of them coming up with the decision is uncalled for. Oh well but I can’t blame them, not when my fellow Muslims brothers/sisters is a part of the ones doing the ridiculing…..

I guess “tolerating” does not cut it anymore, people need to bring back the RESPECT and sometimes respect is really about shutting up even when you think you know better… 

Let’s try to look at people beyond their race and religion. At the same time learn to accept our differences and respect it. Maybe one day we all would truly learn to live harmoniously. For the time being I’m scared for my children and how the situation may push them to become a racist lot (Nauzubillah).

This is going to be one tough lesson to teach :(

Just one one of those days....

I WANT these
(ok maybe not ALL just one each for the girls will do :p)

I know it is not practical and the girls grow up so fast...
It is also quite expensive -__- 
and I usually don't go crazy for designer clothes for my kids because YES I do read about Dr Muhaya's opinion about spoiling our kids very early on in life *pffftttt*
(but let me justify that this is actually cheaper than what they're selling in one of those "leading" Malaysian online shop and it's DVF not some cikai designer)

Yeah I freaking sound pretencious and I hate sounding like this but I really like this line for some reason, I can imagine the girls wearing this for Raya... I don't even mind if this is to be their only non baju kurung baju raya because I want it I want it and I want it...

So saya akan beristigfar, take a deep breath and I'm gonna do what I always do when I want something real bad even when I know I shouldn't. I will wait for a few days and see whether it is really something I want or is it just one of those "in the moment nafsu thingmajingy) and if I still feel like I want these dresses on let see, MONDAY?? I shall just go and buy it..As for the moment I shall delete these from my "shopping bag" and try to forget it existed for a while hehehe

Psycho mummy alert mode... or more like psycho shopaholic mental problem mode hahaha

The one on the Snobish Bookworm...

I haven't done any book review in AGES... 

I hate to admit it but I don't have much time to read and finish a book lately. Planning to break the horrible cycle, so yesterday I forced myself and managed to finish a book in a day :) More on this later on..

I'm a bit of a book snob. You can't be a student of Mrs Mag Literature class and not be a book snob :p At the young age of 16, I was already exposed to the wonderful world of character and plot analysis. You don't just READ a book, you analyze the motivation of the protagonist and antagonist, the maksud tersirat, tersurat of each line, character development, the events which contributed to the climax of the story and of course the conclusion and the moral for each story. You just have to look at my worn copy of Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" and judge yourself.

Having said that, despite my English being pretty crap and my "gone" grammar, I still can't pick up a book and have what most people describe as "easy reading". I'll nit pick like crazy... it drives my friends nuts because they'll be all excited over a book and I'll be like "the plot is stupid, the heroine has no back-bone and the ending is a disappointment". The reply I usually get is "Far we're not in class, STFU :p"

Anyway I've been picking books to read based on the current "now showing" in the cinema list :p However, instead of watching the movie first, I choose to read the book first and usually end up being hugely disappointed in the movie or tv series. It is just so hard to despict and potray the emotions and details that you can find in a book that directors usually failed to capture on screen. I guess in the end their motivation is MONEY so whatever brings in the ratings would be highlighted. Oh well you can't make everybody happy.

List of book currently on my side table which I've read, in the midst of reading or will start reading soon :) 

Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy

 

I'm sorry but this whole series is crap. The plot is repetitive throughout the whole 3 books. I don't know about you but I'm so over the whole beautiful supposedly "intelligent" young woman swooning over a hot young guy she met ONCE just because of his "mysterious smile and smouldering eyes" (Twilight and Vampire Diaries, rip-off much?). The book is describe on Wikipedia as the "mummies p.orn" hence the popularity but truth be told the se.x scene got pretty much boring after Chapter 8 Book 1. I've read Mills and Boons books with much interesting depiction of love making (hahaha) Even after the discount, it was the worse RM69.90 I've ever spent on books. Don't even get me started on the ending which is very anti climatic (pun intended) *Sorry Christian Grey fans :p* 

Silver Linings

 

I haven't watch the movie despite it winning Oscars and all, but let me tell you I am so running to the nearest DVD shop to watch this, after picking up and completing this book yesterday :) I absolutely love the story. It is a love story with a twist and instead of having the perfect "shinny" couple, you get a bunch of loonified, crazy and screwed up protagonists :) I love all the references it made to the classics (books) and having Bradley Cooper on the cover is always a plus...

The Hobbit

Ok this is a re-read and re-buy :p I lost my copy of The Hobbit, and when the movie came out, I got a bit sentimental and went out to replace my old copy. Tolkien never disappoints and I'm bias because I love his work. Fans of middle earth would agree with me. If you want to start your Middle Earth adventure I suggest you start with this book, moving on to the LOTR trilogy, The Silmarillon and Children of Hurin.

Les Miserables

I got myself this complete and unabridged copy of the book months ago and I am still on the first chapter :p Admittedly, I got lazy and I shall complete this book once I finish reading this.......

The Host

This book seems easy reading enough, and I picked it up because it is written by Stephenie Meyer the writer of Twilight. Read some good review on this, so I shall start reading this tonight and hopefully finish this by this week? Here's to hoping and wish me luck :)

Mari membaca everyone....

P/S: Don't take my review seriously. Everyone has different taste and since you shall not judge a book by its cover, pick any one and you may end up loving it... even if you hate it you're bound to learn something.... Peace yo!!!

FarryTales 3.0???

My birthday is coming soon but this year instead of just thinking about presents, another thought is slowly creeping up to me is “dangggg I’m going to be 30 this year”. But to tell you the truth I don’t really feel OLD. Adakan sebab saya tak sedar diri or because I’m naturally surrounded by “wiser” people daily that make me terperasan muda haha :p

Anyway when Lan turned 30 2 years ago,I asked him this question. “Is this where you envisioned yourself to be when you’re 30?” Now I’m going to ask myself the same question “Am I in a place where my 25 year old self envisioned to be at 30 years old?”

Alhamdullilah… I think the answer is a big fat yes :)

When some major changes was taking place in my life short of turning 25, I decided to stop making new year resolutions (which don’t work for moi) and concentrate on achieving 5 major goals for myself. To ensure that I would follow through I’ve set a 5 year timeline. It wasn’t easy but I quietly worked through each and every one of my goals and prayed to Allah to make my path easier. With Allah will, the help of those closest to me and my own hardwork. Alhamdullilah I managed to complete all 5 of my to do list as follows:

A.      Get married and start a family

This sound a bit “kampung” I know but maybe I’m a kampung girl at heart and proud of it (haha) Anyway I just got engaged at that time, so you can imagine what “triggered” this dream :p  My parents also inspired this desire of having a “young family”.

I guess based on my family experience I always thought having the abundance of energy to “layan” my kids is a big plus despite the lack of experience and funds :p In the end  all this  goes down to the blessings that Allah has bestowed to me. Providing me with the rezeki of my 3 children is the best gift I’ve ever gotten my entire life and that is saying a lot because I’ve been blessed with many things which I can’t even began to be thankful for.  

B.      To buy a property under my name

A house (check) A car (check)

C.      To complete my masters

Check :)

D.      Perform my Umrah

Check (big thanks to my in-laws)

E.       Career Advancement

Check

Another achievement that is not in my list but I have to say I’m very proud of myself for doing, is to start covering my aurat and wearing the hijab full time. I have to say I’m not quite there. I have yet to completely rid of the figure hugging clothes but something a friend said to me totally motivated me to try harder (She’s non-Muslim by the way) “Far when I first met you it was all short skirts and spaghetti straps and looking at you now, trust me I believe it is a huge achievement :)” 

Anyway, I would like to reiterate again and again that the above is not my doing alone or even at all. It is all driven by Allah will and blessing. I have to remember to be extra grateful and thankful. I’m always reminded by my parents that sometimes these “blessings” is a bigger form of test than any hardship could be. Because hardship will usually bring you closer to god but “kesenangan” sometimes push you away from him. So remember Farhanna remember…

I guess now that I’m turning 30 I shall start a new series of 5 year goals to be achieved before I turn 35. First in order and I shall put in writing to always remind me is  TO STRIVE TO BE A BETTER MUSLIMAH WHICH IN TURN WILL TRANSLATE INTO ME BEING A BETTER MOTHER, WIFE, DAUGHTER, FRIEND, EMPLOYEE etc. *In Sha Allah* 

Repost photo source google.com

The other 4? I guess you have to wait another 5 years to find out if I managed work it out. Pray for me will ya :) 

Ohhh hubby is turning 32 tomorrow (old man alert :p) An early birthday wish to the love of my life. May Allah continue to  bless you with the gift of contentment for your awesome life, beautiful and intelligent wife (haha) and gorgeously healthy and soleh children. I wish you loads of love, awesomeness, health and may you become a better Muslim with every birthday :) Love you branches Kismissy. Muacks!!

The One on My Little Baker...

I'm big at finding new activities for Ryan to try.

This is mostly to minimize his time watching TV or playing with his tablet. Alhamdullilah I've managed to minimize Ryan's TV time as compared to before and the twins are not exposed to much TV (not even Sesame Street DVDs etc) I think learning from our experience with Ryan, their time would be better spent playing or doing creative activities.

So TV time is minimize to only at around 30mins or less at my mum's house (we only on the BabyTV in the morning when the kids are getting ready to help distract them) and NO TABLET time allocated at all. Our approach is very simple, the tab is mummy's and you can only play with it when mummy gives your permission to do so. It sounds a bit dictatorial but so far it worked since none of my kids are addicted to youtube and the likes of it - They watch what Lan and I want them to watch. Fullstop!

My children, Ryan especially is at the age where he's very open to try out new stuff. He always has a thing for cakes (since the TV when it is on is always tuned on the food channel) and though I do bake from time to time, I'm not really at the stage where I'm comfortable to include Ryan in the activity. So you can imagine my delight when I found out that my friend's little sister Jaja of the The Baking Fairies has introduced a cake decorating modules for children or Little Fairies as she called them :)

Photos are reposted from TBF IG

Photos are reposted from TBF IG

Photos are reposted from TBF IG

Photos are reposted from TBF IG

Anyway Ryan had a lot of fun decorating the cupcakes and even made new friends. He was so excited and the first thing he did when he got home was to demonstrate to his Mak Long the right way to "ice" a cake. I definitely plan to send Ryan to more baking classes in the future. It encourages creativity and even fine motor skill. Do check out their website (as attached above) if you're interested. Highly recommended by moi :)

With Nawal

His handiwork

Haha yes he was the only boy in the Saturday class :p

Thank god there's not much stigma about sending boys for cooking classes anymore. Even if there is, I don't care. I plan to raise Ryan the same way my late Wan raises her boys. My uncles and dad are all hands on fathers who not only help around the house but are also awesome cooks. So as far as I'm concern all housework even the cooking are to be shared equally between the 3 children and Ryan being the eldest would be responsible (when the time comes and if need be) for his little sisters meals :)

Hopefully he'll grow up to be a soleh responsible young man who's also an awesome cook and baker *in sha allah* Hahaha how's that for raising the next Jejaka Idaman Melaya?

Off with the head....

Been dreaming over this colour palette for a few month.

Finally decided that it is to be the new wall color for the kids playroom

I wanted something girlie (coz technically it is more the twins playroom than Ryan)

but I did not want the traditional pink/purple combo... 

So last week, we went to the paint store to get this gorgeous mint paint called "Tinkerbell"

How fitting, huh?

Since it is just a tiny room, I left hubby to his own devices and decided to venture into a new project that I've been meaning to do as a part of the playroom deco:  Head Silhouette

 In my case I needed 3 20cmx20cm canvas to start which I spray painted white with spray paint.

Let them dry for a few hours and make sure that the newspaper did not stick to the wet paint 

(which totally happen to me :p) 

 There's several way to get the head silhouette

1. Draw the profile free hand & fill in the blanks with the colour of your choice. Traditionally silhouette are black in colour, but feel free to change it up (my chosen method of the day); or

2. Take a side profile pic of your child/ own head, blow it up and "trace" the profile on a piece of paper ; or

3. Print the profile off the internet and stick it on a canvas or for an easier and cleaner method put it in a frame :p

Once the silhouette are painted on the canvas, wait for it to dry and later spray the gloss paint on the canvas to get the shiny/gloss up effect. Depending on how efficient you are, the whole process would probably take  around 3 hours (taking into consideration the "drying period"). 

Lo and behold a head silhouette of my children : Iman, Ryan and Ranya. Anyway though the twins looked more grown up than Ryan, I'm very happy with my handiwork :)

Will post the picture of the completed playroom once I'm done with it. 

Toodles, have a great weekend everyone and happy trying...

Which way to the Zoo??

We've been wanting to go to the zoo in ages but there's something always stopping us, be it weather, sickness, kenduri-kendara or just plain malas-ness. Last Thursday Lan and I took leave to send my parents in law off to Mekah to perform their umrah. We brought Ryan along as he was on school holidays (wow I have a child who's on school holidays- old haha). 

My PIL checked in around 11am so we had a lot of time on our hands... I had listed down a few pre-schooler friendly places for us to go to such as Petrosains, Taman Burung, Butterfly Park, Shopping complexes (haha) but Lan was adamant that he wanted to go to the zoo (oh well he must have been missing his "friends" at the primate park :p ) so we drove all the way from Putrajaya to Hulu Klang (macam jauh je haha)

We reached the Zoo around 11.30am and the sun was shinning brightly. I quickly changed to my flat-est shoes, insisted on bringing the stroller and digging out the umbrella. I was wearing a jumpsuit and a chiffon top, not the most zoo friendly outfit since I started sweating like crazy before we even reached the ticket counter, but Ryan was excited so that is enough motivation to put some spring in my steps.

The elephant, giraffe, pony, flamingo, landak and camel.

There's more animals picture but it is all in my DSLR.

I shall upload it (one day) into our "travel blog" ok :p

 

 At the ape centre discussing our next destination.

Ryan was pointing at the map and himself saying - "nak tengok Ayen"

...

Confused kejap... why would he want to see himself?

.......

ohhhhhh it finally dawned to me...

....

He wanted to see the LION-Ryan? geddit?

"A day in the life of si peyat..." 

I shall blog more about this (someday ;p) 

 Monkey facts

 Hi I'm Ellie the elephant 

I dont think it is his/her real name. 

I'm just making it up as we go along :p

Anyway we were pretty lucky that 70% of the animals are up and eating when were there.

In fact si Ellie was busy eating sugar cane handed to him non-stop by the other visitors

Ryan was entralled by the process..

 Why they chain the elephants?

Not because they're cruel ok..

It's for their own safety-la

 Miss Giraffe(s)

Who looked happy and kenyang :) 

Bringing the stroller was a good bet

because after 2 hours Ryan was too tired to walk and he got a bit moody.

It guess to hot sun got to him (and me)

Anyway I saw this woman (who I assume is CRAZY)

because she was walking around in an outfit suitable for photoshoot, full face make-up and 5 inch heels (bukan wedges ye.. HEELS)

I have nothing againts heels, in fact I love any form of shoes

but walking around uneven terraces and pathways in those shoes are just plain suicide..

padan muka balik rumah mesti blisters

I told Lan, that she must be from the "blogger tegar" community

self torture in order to get gorgeous IG photos.. hahaha

Verdict?

It was a fun filled activity for a 4 year old who's able to appreciate the animals and the surroundings

I'm happy that Ryan is happy-la

However, the condition of the park is a bit sad, mostly due to the fact that it is undergoing major constructions in some of the habitat areas. Hopefully they'll get more interesting animal back in ASAP

For example the African Lion is missing, yg tinggal is one very bony Asian lioness with not bushy hair -__-

I would also like to suggest some improvement to their "Savannah Park" which really looked like the park in front of my house je hahah

Where to next?

Maybe we should go back to Malacca and bring the kiddies to the Malacca zoo next. If my memory serves me right it is more exciting ohh and I heard the Taiping zoo is not bad as well...

Yeap we shall have a few sessions of Cuti-Cuti Zoo Malaysia planned :)

*in sha allah*

But we shall wait until election is announced ok babies

Selagi tak GE13 jangan harap la nak book any holidays coz daddy is on standby to report for duty :(