Blogging about what to blog...

I have a list of things I would like to update but it would need to come a bit later because I'm swarmed with work since I was away for 1 week -__-

Hmmm maybe a bit of a checklist to ensure I don't forget...

1. Our trip to Perak for Brother in law wedding on 23-24 March 2014 (Updated: Heritage Hotel Review)
 

2. Our Johor-USS/Sea World Singapore School holiday Trip on 25-27 March 2014

• Day 1: Resort World Sentosa 
• Day 2: USS/Sea World
• Day 3: Thistle Hotel/ Hello Kitty and Little Big Club

     3. Ryan's school activity updates (Done)

     4. Iman and Ranya's latest developments (Done)

     5.List of outdoor activities for the little munchkins motor/fine skills developments (Done)

Till my next update, Have an awesome and blessed week everyone :) 

Just because I feel like posting....

Plan A fell through at the very last minute but instead of sulking I'm moving on to Plan B :) May Allah help us make this journey easy and safe....

Anyway the pictures from our short anniversary break is up on my Travel Diary :) The reviews on travel blogs was not really convincing, but based on friends feedback and our own experience, I have to say that we had tons of fun in Gold Coast, Morib :) Do try it out, though maybe not during the peak seasons...

Hmmmmm...... writer's block :p
Oh yeah will be updating on Ryan's progress + things I learned during "A day in their shoes-V.2" session at his school soon...

Take care everyone *muacks*

The one on "Sabr"

As human, we want to see results instantaneously. Rarely do we have the patience to wait. In the era where we can get fast food, fast info, fast everything and anything, having to wait is a torture. As a result, we give up on things easily. We don’t wait for our labor to bear fruits, when things don’t go our way… we leave… these applies to career, marriage, friendship etc.

When I became a mother, my biggest struggle is to maintain my patience. I’ve failed in many instances and succumb to anger (90% of the time), sadness and whatever negative feeling I can latch on too. I try to get out of whatever negativeness fast because I know my mood does have a great effect on my children (and husband haha) but it is so hard…

*sigh*

“Family is indeed a great gift but a great test too” – Mufti Menk

I want to be a better mummy, a better teacher and example. Someone was telling me, the easiest way to improve is to not do it for myself or even my children but Lillahi Ta`ala. In Sha Allah… easier said than done because I know on top of being impatient I am also very selfish. Horrible traits which I need to let go to become a better servant. Wish me luck

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Please also take the time to pray for the safe return of the flight and passenger of MH307. I’m just a bystander and I actually get nightmares thinking about the plane, I can’t imagine how the family members of the victims are feeling right now.

Of all the comments in relation to the flight, one comment stuck on me like glue

“ Apabila kecanggihan teknologi berakhir, di situ kudrat Allah bermula” Captain Norudin

Ahhh… we’re so “proud” of the technologies around us but we forget that Allah is the greatest creator and planner above all. If he refuses to show us the location of the missing flight, it will stay a mystery forever.

So let’s join hands and pray. Enough with the “know it all” comments. If you really think you can do a better job, pergila kayuh perahu sendiri and cari the kapal yourself, setakat nak jadi keyboard warrior and condemn everything from the S&R efforts and grammatical error of the Director General, I propose that you just keep your mouth shut.

Have a good and safe week everyone *hugs*

Of Traveling and Turning FIVE

People always say one of the worst things about getting married and having children is that you can no longer travel. I disagree...

It is not that you cannot travel, it is just a bit more difficult to do so :p The hassle of packing milk and diapers, the dreaded airplane tantrum (horror to horror) and probably the cost, with all the hassle, I do understand why some parents would just throw their hands in the air and give up.

People always equate traveling as going abroad. So their excuse for not traveling much is the cost. Experiencing new places need not be expensive. I bet there's a lot of places in Malaysia itself that we have yet to discover,right? 

I personally look forward to any day trip during weekends because sometimes I just need a quick change of scenery, to recharge, try out new food, smell new scents so that I can further appreciate this gorgeous place called Earth. I also love the effect of traveling on my children, because every time we visited a new place they'll ask gabijillion questions and learn new things. I  hope they'll build little memories of the fun times they had with mummy and daddy through our "jalan jalan sessions".

So I've come up with a new resolution, to visit more new places or revisit old ones at least once in every quarter and download more pictures in my travel diary. Looking at pictures of our family together and having fun is a great stress reliever, and hopefully something for my children to remember me by when I'm gone one day *inShaAllah*

Today marks the 5th year where our marriage turns 5 years. Alhamdullilah. I pray that Allah protects our marriage always, bestow us with more taqwa and iman so that we'll both be more obedient muslims, improve our bad habits, and make us better husband, wife and parents. 

We're both far from perfect, but I know we're perfect for each other. My only complaint for you is to make  more effort to smile in photos and learn how to aim and shoot while snapping pictures of me. Haha our constant source of argument  :p anyway love you B, May we be together forever till Jannah... *inShaAllah*

Alternative Medicines: My First Try

Sending my children to daycare means one thing: constant sniffles

Now that Ryan is in kindergarten and the twins in the “big kids” room in daycare, means they are more susceptible to germs (though I do know people with kids who stays at home 24/7 but get sick more often than my children :p) . Anyway, I’ve made my peace with this a long time ago. Germs and viruses are everywhere; all we can do is deal with it as positively as possible.

As much as I believe in modern medicine, I do read about the harm prolonged drug use can cause to the liver. We feed the kids honey and Vitamin C daily to improve their immune system. We also try to minimize the use of antibiotics by ensuring that it will only be given to the children if the sickness is caused by bacterial infection and non-viral.

Anyway a few friends of mine have been raving about the benefits of “homeopathy medicines”. So I decided to try it out. The nearest homeopathy clinic is Klinik Radziah in Section 7, Shah Alam. It has been 2 weeks and results have been pretty positive. I’ll give another proper review maybe after using it for 2 months.

Demax : Fever, Prolife: for IQ/Physical activeness, Nasobett: Flu/Runny nose/allergies and Weezoff: Cough and wheezing

Review: after 2 days of eating the meds, the twins runny nose has stop. They still have a bit of coughing but only early morning (when it's really cold).The medicines comes in small tablet form (tictac size), it is really sweet, so it's kinda easy to feed the kids. They call it" ubat gula-gula"

Painturat: This is for "orang tua: like me with back and muscles pains. I find that my joint pains have greatly minimize since eating this pill. You're supposed to take it 3 times a day but me being me is not very discipline with it. Despite of that it works. The first 3 days of eating this I started burping and passing wind (haha) a lot. I guess it helps in getting rid of the "angin" in my body which is causing the pain. Alhamdullilah. We shall see if the effects stays. 

Ok so that's the review on the meds as requested. Will come back in a month or two to report if there's a prolonged positive effect.

Ryan says the darndest things...

Ryan has been going around telling people :-

"Ryan nak pergi sekolah ACS (the primary school for boys in my housing area)"
"Daddy pun pergi ACS school"
"Adik baru Ryan yang boy pun nak pergi ACS school"

HUH???? what adik baru yang boy Ryan???

So I asked him, "kenapa nak adik baru? Iman and Ranya kan ada..."

His answer???
" Mummy one, plus adik two ada three girls. Ryan and daddy ada dua je boy. So if ada baby boy baru nanti ada 3 boys jugak"

"Ohhh adik Iman and Ranya suka gaduh dengan Ryan, adik boy dengar je cakap Ryan nanti sebab dia small"

How exactly do I explain to him that even if Lan and I ever decide to have another baby, he can't exactly choose the gender?? Just imagine his reaction if he gets ANOTHER baby SISTER.... hahaha

P/S: Just in case the message is lost in translation somewhere, I'm NOT pregnant, at least not that I know off or unless Ryan have some 6 sense magical powers to predict the future that I'm not aware about....

The one on spanking....

Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable.

Lately there is a lot of talk about corporal punishment in reaction to the story of the Malaysia couple detained for hitting their child. I'm not going to comment about the couple alleged actions but I would like to share some personal experience in relation to the matter.

I've been caned as a child, shouted at for being naughty, grounded for disobeying my parents, my personal belonging confiscated because I did not do well in school (i.e. walkmans and books) All in all I've experienced it all. To tell you the truth I had it quite easy as compared to some of the horror stories relayed  by friends who was hit with a belt (eekkk), chased around the house with hangers (bite nails) or tied to a tree for cutting school (pee in pants).

You want to know what I have in common with all my friends? we're all functioning adults, who have successful careers, in a functioning relationship, respect our elders and love our parents very very much. I've read in a comment section in a parenting section somewhere, that kids who's punished as a child does not respect their parents and are just fearful and would be emotionally scarred blah blah blah.... I'm happy to report that I'm going to turn 31 and have not exhibited any tendency of becoming a serial killer any time soon :p

I'm talking about light caning when the child does something serious for example a tap in the hand when your 4 year old throw things at their siblings, 14 year olds refusing to solat, a smack at your 16 year old for cutting curfew or if your son is caught smoking etc. Why not? especially if ample warning have been given beforehand. You know that saying "spare the rod and spoil the child?" I mean, I'm not condoning physical abuse and ask you to walloped the kid for no reason. Know your boundaries and NEVER discipline your child when in anger.

The problem with parents nowadays, we're too concern about how our children will perceive us, thus we try to be their friends and not their parents and that is where the problem lies. That is why children nowadays are so indiscipline and lacking manners. All of us wants to be in a relationship of love and trust with our child, we want to be the person they turn to when they're in trouble but that does not mean that we can't reproach and be cross at our child during their "impossible" moments. 

My children can count on me to love them endlessly but if I think they're crossing into the wrong path, they can count on me to set them straight, any way I know how, yes I'm going to sound mean but that it is only because I love them enough and I want them to turn out to be the well mannered soleh/solehah young man/woman they're made to be....

Project Birthday 2013 (Part 2)

Event: Triple Birthday Celebration to celebrate Ryan, Iman and Ranya's Birthday :) 
Date : 28 December 2013 (Saturday)
Venue: KFC Extreme Park, Shah Alam

*warning: this is a picture heavy post* 

We choose to celebrate the children's birthday in KFC this year. Main reason for not holding the party at home is because I do not want to cook and clean up (haha) But me being me, I still went bonkers planning decorations, Ryan and I had so much fun working on the deco's together. 

Since it was a shared party, I had to come up with a theme suited for Ryan, Iman and Ranya. Naturally, Ryan wanted something superhero which was kinda easy to set up, coming up with a theme for Iman and Ranya is a bit tricky so I mixed a little bit of everything from Elmo, Tinkerbell and the Disney Princesses. For their outfit, we got Ryan a cute Batman outfit and the twins recycled their Disneyland Snow White and Rapunzel dresses :)

The Deco and Food

The Dessert Table : KFC has an outside food restriction but they made some exemptions for desserts like birthday cakes and "jajan". For the dessert table, I ordered Ryan a Batman birthday cake,matching cupcakes and mini pavlova from The Baking Fairies. For the twins I chose the adorable Grace Kelly cake from Wondermilk. For added deco I stuck a Tinkerbell and Snow White figurine on top of the cake. I also prepacked some yummy flavoured popcorns from Popcorn World, icing biscuits and some candies in some DIY decorated boxes,

My little man chose this cake design himself after making me google "Batman Cakes" on the search engine -__-

DIY photo props and pop up books on the center table

Party favours from KFC and some additional ones we prepared for our mini VIP guests

Food buffet by KFC.
You're given 3 options according to the number of your guest.
We choose Options C to cater for 40-50 guest

 

Chiky Meals for the little ones 

We had a choice between nuggets and fried chicken so we ordered 10 boxes of each to give the kids options

The "Penyeri Majlis"

We invited mostly family and just close friends to celebrate the happy day with us :) Ryan was the life of the party (as always) Iman and Ranya was a bit reserved, I guess the crowd and some unfamiliar faces scare them a little...

The girlies : Farisa, Najwa, Irma, Iena and Rinie :)

Reza and Syer and the very content Hareez at the back 

Atuk and Mak Long supervising the little ones :) Ryan terrorizing his Induk Alia as always hehe

Batman engaging in a fist fight with his Tok Chek

My traditional costume wearing princess making their debut :p
Farisa and Najwa who came straight after a wedding

Mrs Tinie and Ienano with their precious cargos running around

Lil miss newlywed, who was in KL for a short trip

Irma who I have not seen since Ryan's first birthday :p

The Celebration

At the end of the party Chicky made an appearance during cake cutting. 
Iman is scared of Chicky but thank god she didn't cry but she totally refused to look at him the whole time haha

Yeay!!!

My cinta hati(s) and a chicken :p

Cake cutting time for Iman and Ranya

As a part of the package, a party personnel was around to help us with the organizations and activities. The kids were kept entertained with 3 games, so cute watching the blur munchkins trying to follow orders. Thank god for my cousins who was around to "facilitate". Anyway a shout out to our friendly and helpful party personel (I think her name is Zura) we had so much fun :)

My shy shy cat princesses :)

Chicken Dance time :)

Until Next Time *inSyaAllah*

My babies are so blessed and spoiled with so much rizq. Thank you for the toys, books and awesome learning tools (i.e.art supplies, telescopes etc). I appreciate the effort of everyone getting them educational toys. Hahaha macam tau2 je perangai mak dia macam mana kan? *alhamdullilah* and triple thanks from all of us...

At the end of the day, many thanks to Allah for giving me the opportunity and means to throw this birthday party for Ryan, Iman and Ranya  who totally enjoyed themselves. We are also blessed with the attendance of family and friends near and far :) So good to catch up and watch the smiles on the little kiddies face.

So until next time :p I have a feeling that Project Birthday 2014 would be a more low key affair possibly somewhere outside the state (or country??) Oh well a girl can dream *toodles*

Project Birthday 2013 (Part 1)

Another long overdue post on the munchkins birthday celebration :p

12 December 2013: Iman and Ranya's Birthday

Lan was away for work on the date of Iman and Ranya's 2nd birthday, since we managed to celebrate earlier on, I bought the twins a chocolate cake from Village Grocer for them to cut at home. Loving their expression when I brought out the cake, they were estatic :) 

 

Ranya trying to pick on the chocolate slivers :) 

Iman happy face. MasyaAllah that smile, gets to my heart everytime...

We bought the gift for school and party favours wholesale from GM Klang at a very reasonable price. We wanted something the kids can enjoy and use. Again we managed to go "jajan" free this year. We got a mixture of Princess Sofia/Tinkerbell/Disney Princess things for the girls. For the boys Ryan chose Avengers and Spiderman stuff. We bought some bags, stationary sets, puzzles, playdoh and packet cakes to complete the gift bags. Hope the kids enjoyed it...

20 December 2013: Ryan Daniel's Birthday Celebration @ Taska

Ryan wanted to celebrate his birthday in school with his friends for as long as I remembered. At first Lan and I thought of just supplying the party favours, but Ryan begged for a cake. A Superman cake to be precise :p Since we already ordered a personalized Batman cake for his birthday celebration in KFC, I told him "NO WAY" as I do not want to spend so much on birthday cakes in ONE month. 

He tried to persuade me to bake the cake for him instead but I was really busy that week and the oven was a bit nuts so that didn't happen :p Ryan finally settled for a small chocolate cake from Wondermilk which he and I jazzed up with MnMs, lollipops and sprinkles instead.

Looks so yummy, kan?

Hehehe all up and ready to bring his cake to school

Celebration pictures taken by his teachers

Cute... love the kids expression :)

He was so happy he came back and told me it was so much fun, hugged me tight and said "Ryan sayaaaanngg mummy" heheh After that he asked for another birthday celebration "facepalm"

Anyway we also did a doa selamat for the kids and to give thanks for 2013 blessing at our surau :) Ryan was so excited to follow atuk and daddy for his "doa selamat birthday" and even did his Maghrib and Isyak prayers at the surau. Balik tu terus cerita "mummy tadi kan tok imam tu cakap Ryan comel, tapi Ryan handsome kan? mana ada comel, tu untuk budak kecik je" hahah Ryan... Ryan...

"Ryan nak pakai baju syeqal beli kat kelantan boleh tak, mummy??"

Will upload pics from our KFC Triple Birthday Celebration soon...

2013 in Reflection

The last day of 2013....

2013 has been quite kind to me. Alhamdullilah...

We managed to get some traveling done in and out of Malaysia. Marveling in the different cultures and seeing the world :) Love that the children managed to learn new things from our trips and hopefully it will help shape the way they view the world, one day... 

In Sha Allah more trips to come....

Throughout 2013 I see Ryan, Iman and Ranya thrive mentally, emotionally, physically etc They are learning so fast and I hope Lan and I can provide them with good examples that they need. They each have new interest, acquired new skills and is fiercely interested in learning. So my new year resolution is to do my best to play more with them, indulge in loads of creative play and learn session and minimize their usage of smart phones/tablets.

Major accomplishment of 2013 : They only play with the tablets if we have to travel or in need of major distraction (during long majlis or something) I can safely say they play with my tablet about 5-8 times a month and  at the very most around 10 minutes)

We need to work harder on TV time though...Need to MAJORLY supervise the kind of shows Ryan watch on TV. Urrrgghhh the quality of cartoons nowadays is horrible. Too much fighting (Ultraman and the likes of it), stupid gags (Spongebobs) and horrible language ( benci shows like Boyboyboy and Bola Kampung, the aku and kau is one thing, but "bodoh" "tak guna" etc on a CHILDREN SHOW is unacceptable)

I can't control the things they watch in Kindy but we try our best to limit these shows at home. Ryan has been asking for some of these programs but I said NO because I truly don't see any benefits to the kiddies anyway. We try and stick with shows like Sesame Street, Upin & Ipin, Prophet Cartoons (Ryan managed to retell stories of Nabi Yusof and Nabi Nuh already, how awesome is that??) and SOME Disney cartoons like Doc McStuffins (No-no to major princess exposure - this is more Daddy than Mummy :p)

The twins are sleep trained successfully Alhamdullilah.They sleep in their own bed which is adjoined to our bed, two more years until they sleep in their own room.

2014 baby training plans (In Sha Allah) :

1. Ryan to start sleeping in his own room in February 2014 (in sha Allah) I'm kind of nervous.At the moment he's quite excited at the prospect of choosing his night light and bed sheets, but we shall see how this will go.
2. Potty Training & bottle weaning the twins : Hahaha this will be an adventure of its own... not one but TWO little girls, wish me luck. Ryan was off the bottle & diapers around 3.5 years, we're aiming for the same timeline with the twins but decided to start a bit earlier this time around. No harm right? :p

There are some "off moments" and bad decisions made in 2013. I rather not highlight them. Dwelling in negative stuff brings nothing but misery. With all the happenings all around the country and the world, it is best we prepare for the worst but pray and hope for the best. May Allah blessed all of us with an awesome 2014.

But for the time being : Alhamdullilah, Alhamdullilah, Alhamdullilah for the blessing that has been bestowed upon me and my family so far...

Signing off for 2013. See you next year In Sha Allah :)

Love,
Far