As We Move On...

goodbye 2012

hello 2013

i only have one wish for 2013, that is the health (and then some wealth) and safety of my family, Amin.

And there are men who say: "Our Lord! Give us good in this world and good in the Hereafter, and defend us from the torment of the Fire!"
Dan di antara mereka pula ada yang (berdoa dengan) berkata: "Wahai Tuhan kami, berikanlah kami kebaikan di dunia dan kebaikan di akhirat, dan perliharalah kami dari azab neraka!"

School Holidays 2012

alhamdulillah, we're almost at the end of the holidays. just another day then i can hang up the rotan, the hangers, rest my voice somewhat and take it easy on the panadols. the 7 weeks passed by quickly but at times, not quick enough.

i saw quite a few buntings and banners around the neighbourhood on school holiday programmes but they mostly do not suit the boys, particularly age wise. most cater for 7 years and above, and i do not want to send amir alone. it should, at least, cater to children 5 years and above, for me to consider.

thanks to bicdc, the boys were able to join a holiday programme for a week. the timing was just perfect because the SK bookshop opened on the same week, so i had time buy and wrap amir & asyraf's books. they came back bearing many, many arts & crafts and a new-found love for dinosaurs.
(pictures courtesy of bicdc teachers)

the boys also went to a cooking class at teacher hanifah's house. i had a couple of days to run around settling the school uniform & sewing the school badges & name tags.

(pictures courtesy of bicdc teachers)

on weekends they had swimming lessons over at cahaya spk resort. the pool is seriously not great, they have a lot of cleaning to do but at least the boys have basic knowledge of swimming, after 10 lessons.

akmal did not join the swimming lessons and played by himself whenever he followed his abangs to the class.

next year i need to browse earlier for holiday programmes. i'm targeting to sent amir & asyraf to an english programme and hopefully the new mosque would have some activities the boys can join.

other than the programmes the boys attended, they mostly stayed at home. they would spend the morning playing and cycling at the porch or playing at the nearby playgrounds. after their shower they would watch the telly or play their PSPs. asyraf and ariff would take out their activity books and are able to move from one activity to another. amir, however, would either play his PSP or watch the telly. he gets bored quickly with both and starts disturbing his brothers which leads to me screaming and yelling. akmal and ariff would take their late afternoon naps and that's when the house is relatively quiet.

all in all its not that bad. i do wish amir would disturb and irritate everyone less but according to him, he doesn't know how to be nice *sigh*

Birthdays We Celebrated end 2012

our family celebrate most birthdays towards the end of the year. from september to april, we have at least one birthday a month.

ariff and hubby in october
i thought ariff was older, can't believe he's only 5. ariff was very excited to celebrate his birthday. maybe because amir & asyraf had a big party with their friends at home last year. but i made it clear to him before his birthday, that we'll only have a small cake-cutting in school and not at home. he was pretty ok about it, as long as there's a cake, he said.

i totally did not plan for his cake-cutting at all. i only grabbed a cake the night before at king's over at giant. favours for his friends were simple cookies and chocolates. that got me a big time nagging from ariff, who said his friends didn't want cookies, they wanted toys *sigh* ok ariff, i'll make it up to you next year...

hubby celebrated his birthday 11 days after ariff (8 days after me). as usual, we don't do much on our birthdays. we don't even exchange gifts, really. but the boys serenaded him (loudly) before he went to work that morning.

asyraf in november
every year, as ariff celebrates his birthday, i gain a set of twins. asyraf will only celebrate his a month and a half after ariff, so during that time they are the same age. that's as close to having twins as we can get.

asyraf's cake-cutting this year was a 'should we, shouldn't we' but when i found out that asyraf's school will only close a week after the national school holiday begins, i decided to go ahead. i got really nice favours from rafiqah's cmog (containing bookmarks, notebooks, pencils and some munchies) and a cake from helly.

asyraf had another celebration towards the end of the week, a barbaque dinner at damansara. he got himself an ice cream cake (more for hubby than him, though).

tssc in december
a good friend of tssc organised a surprised party for him on his 71st birthday. he booked a function room in klgcc, had some entertainment and called tssc's friends to join the family to celebrate tssc's 71st birthday.

the boys had a great time watching the dancers and listening to the singers. it was a really good night and tssc was clearly very surprised and extremely moved when he walked into the function room.

Changes...

my change in career no doubt brings about changes in the boys' schedule. some we planned ahead, some were last minute changes.

we knew early on that asyraf & ariff would get to come home earlier than usual. they would, normally, had to wait until hubby picks them up, at times being the last to go home. as i'll be at home, they get to come home after they agama class everyday, though sometimes a bit late as akmal would be napping. they get to have their tea at home, biscuits, cakes, ice cream. then they watch the telly, play their PSPs, quite often they fall asleep on the couch. that bit was planned.

what we planned but was undecided on was akmal. i asked the teachers in bicdc, can i send him to school just for a month? they were, alhamdulillah, very accommodating. but we could not reach a decision. i had a week at home before october starts so we contemplated during that week whether to send akmal. finally we decided to send him to the three year old class. it was difficult initially. i had to send him to class everyday, then he would cry out as i was leaving. but the teachers were wonderful and he quickly adapted. he became close to his teachers quite fast. i heard that his two brothers would visit his class a few times a day. ariff brought his friends to see 'adik kita' while asyraf's friends would ask him 'kenapa selalu tengok adik?'

bye bye & thank you tis...

hello bicdc...

what we did not plan at all and came to a decision within a couple of hours was amir's transit. hubby decided in a split second to stop sending amir to transit between SRA and SK. i actually was very surprised. not that its a big change but i did make plans for lunch, i could take akmal or send him to damansara. but with amir coming home for the 2 hours, i had to cancel quite a lot of lunch dates. not a big deal for me but it was a big deal for amir. he was much happier. for a whole month he would climb down the school van when it stops at the gate and scream 'mummyyyyy'. i thought he would get over it after a week or two but he kept it up until his last day of school, so i guess he really liked coming home for lunch. he also loved being chauffeured up to the school gates everyday (well, on days he wasn't late to school, at least, there were days i get caught up in housework i lose track of the time, sending amir 5-10 minutes late to school).