A Day for Ariff

amir & asyraf go out for movie dates with tiza & tisu quite often. there was a period of time when they went out almost every weekend. akmal stays home because...well, because his mummy say so. ariff doesnt follow because he is un-handle-able. he runs here and there, disregarding what everyone says.

hubby & i have taken ariff alone out a couple of times just so he has a little bit of time out and not cooped indoors all the time. but taking him out on our own is terrible. he doesnt listen and we would need to run after him. usually a couple of hours is more than enough. so this time hubby & i decided to take him out together. it was better, 2 adults grasping his hand stops him from running all around.

we managed to do a bit of shopping - mothercare & FOS were having sale. hubby and ariff had their hair cut - i dont care what people say, i like my boys hairless. then we watched kung fu panda 2, which surprisingly i actually liked - i didnt like the first movie. then we had a nice quiet lunch at chili's - both of us were craving for beef!

the funny thing about ariff, though, is he kept asking when we were going home. when asked what he wanted to do, the stage was all his, all he said was 'ariff nak balik'. the only thing he was actually asking for was, grocery shopping because he said he wanted to bake a cake. aisehhh...

maybe we can do this again, eh ariff. but only if you remember to what?? ariff: :"jangan degil!"















the guest of honour...

A Hot Morning

we took the boys to the BJ carnival on saturday. BJ carnival is an annual event, we've been to a couple but have never spent hours there like we did yesterday. this year, the stalls didnt seem as appealing as back in 2009. i remember they had stalls selling ready-made baju kurung and stalls of the shops around dpangkin, especially the wellness centres. this year i couldnt find much that interest me. even the food stalls weren't that interesting.

the boys had a great time though. we arrived just as the guest of honour officiated the event. amir and asyraf stayed on in front of the main stage to see their friends perform while hubby went off to the tm booth (he signed up for unifi, which was not at all planned). we walked around the area, i stopped by the prudential booth while the boys entertained themselves doing sand art with their teachers.

i've not blogged about amir & asyraf's in their new school (because i dont have pictures to compliment the entry argh!) but hubby & i are pretty happy with their developments the past 5 months. the school and their teachers and their friends have had a positive impact on the boys and we're proud of how amir and asyraf have handled themselves in school, in making friends, learning, being part of the crowd.

we got to know more about the teachers and the boys at the carnival. asyraf's teacher zaza (in red top) is very loving and soft hearted, amir's teacher jey (wearing yellow t-shirt) is hard but kind. their headmistress & her husband are hands on, their ustazah is strict and attentive. cant wait to bring the other two over to bahtera ilmu. soon, insyaallah.

back to the carnival, the boys had a great time with their sand art project. i guess being around their teachers made them more into the project than without.
















before we left, we dropped by the 'mylife' stall. i wanted to get the basketball hoop stand. the boys entertained themselves with the cars and bikes around the stall. feel like getting them too but there's just no space around the house for them. sorry, boys!

The (Almost) Twins

they're 10 months apart. they can be the worst of enemies. they fight and punch and pinch and scratch and slap each other. they are always trying to outdo each other. they cant stand to sit next to each other, at the dining table or in the car. they sleep next to each other though, but that's only because amir wants to sleep nearest to the door. but in spite of all that, they can be friends (i wouldnt go as far as using the words 'good friends' though).

once in a while, this happens...

* note: amir is not in these pictures as he's off to the side sulking because he didnt have any blue pajamas...

Alone Time

hubby and i took the monday before wesak day off. that gave us a 4-day weekend. the saturday & sunday are for the boys, as usual. on wesak day it would be a repeat of that. so we took the monday off to run some errands and rest.

i initially wanted to take ariff and akmal with us but the boys had teachers' day celebration in both schools. amir and asyraf were asked to wear superheroes or myth outfit and we opted for batman and spiderman for them. ariff wanted to join the crowd so he wore his superman tshirt, while akmal, as he had no superhero outfit, became the "timmy time" man.















the running errands werent really a major task. we had some grocery shopping to do, some small shopping to settle and to wash the car (that was the only errand actually). so we went off to 1 utama. i love the car wash there. 3 weeks ago we took the 5 there to be washed and yesterday we took the CCP there. the guy at the car wash said it'd take about 1 & half to 2 hours so walked around for a bit looking for the things on my list, before doing something unplanned - thai foot massage!

we managed to slot in a good lunch at paddington house of pancakes. as we're so used to running in and out with the boys around, even when they are not with us, we managed to order, eat and pay in less than half an hour!















after 3 hours, we left 1utama with jammies for the boys, books for the boys and for us, purse and wallet for me, a half-full cold storage trolley, sore feet and back (from the massage) and a full stomach.

Kitchen Duties

i've been uploading quite a bit of food pix on fb lately. because i've been cooking quite a bit lately. its not easy working right smack in the city centre to come home and cook for the family. i usually reach home around 8pm and with the laundry, the bathing, the preparing of lunch boxes for the next day, homework and getting the boys to bed by 930pm, there's just not enough time to cook.

because i hardly cook on weekdays, the feeling of 'not in the mood to cook' sometimes spill over to the weekends - usually due to the empty fridge and kitchen cabinet. so for the past 4-5 years, its always been outside food for us or dinner for the boys at the daycare while hubby and i quickly down roti canai at a mamak nearby. that's always been our daily life.

but as the boys grow older and are interested to put everything they see in the kitchen into their bellies, i've started going into the kitchen more often. what hubby and i usually do is stock up on saturdays and cook the rest of the weekend. fresh food would last the 2 days while packed food need to last longer, they usually become the boys' dinner on weekdays - sandwiches, cereal, those kind of stuff.

long weekends are the best (aside from the fact that you get more than 2 days away from work) but also because i get to experiment more. the last weekend was especially great. i made something i usually make, i made something new, i made something out of the box, i made something fresh.

on the table on saturday was the very simple mexican baked eggs for breakfast & mihun soup for dinner.

sunday's menu was specially thought of - asyraf's pulut kuning for breakfast, ariff's butter cake for brunch, amir's fish cakes for lunch, akmal's rice for dinner and hubby's food at all 4 meal times.

on monday, i only planned up to lunch as i hate cleaning up the night before a working day (because i'd rather concentrate on the laundry). so i made pancakes for breakfast - 24 pieces of them! - and soup tulang for lunch which lasted til dinnertime and longan jelly in between.

what is great is that most of the food i cook dont require much preparation and are not too difficult. i've not gone through the stage where i want to spend hours in the kitchen or entertain tens of people yet. just something simple for the boys, who had bowls-ful and plates-ful. hubby and i were just amazed at how much they can eat.

the best reward i got, apart from the boys' very rounded bellies, was a statement from asyraf 'mummy buat nasi ke jelly ke cake ke, semua semua semua sedap sangat sangat' which amir and ariff supported. ahh bless them little monsters.