Amira Turns Nine Months Old

my baby's 9 months old! three quarters of her first year flew by. time to start planning her one year old birthday party.

last month amira was pushing up and standing in her cot, this month she's pushing up and standing everywhere. whenever she encounter a while crawling, she stop and push her body up and continue standing. she has not started to step yet, her feet is not flat on the ground just yet. she's more of testing her balance, feeling the floor with her feet, getting comfortable.

amira is holding her own bottle now. i still stand near her when she's with her bottle. sometimes she falls asleep with the bottle, especially when she's so tired, so being around her would ensure she's safe and she finishes her bottle.

amira celebrated her first raya with us recently. while amir suggested the family theme colour, everything actually depended on amira. whether there is baju in the theme colour in her size. lucky for amir, there was. it was a bit big for her (i thought i measured correctly, oh well) but it wasnt that obvious. she was either being carried or on the floor crawling or napping, so a slightly-big baju kurung wasnt very noticeable. and then of course, amira ended up with 2 more baju kurungs, just for fun.

raya is also the time when i took out amira's dressses from the wardrobe.

during fasting month she was wonderful. she did not wake up at all, not when i woke up, not when hubby woke up. she continued sleeping while we had our sahur and went back to sleep after subuh. she was also great when i fasted in syawal. i had my sahur in the room and she did not budge a single inch at the noises i made at 5am! not only that, she continued sleeping until around 8.30 - 9am, so i get to sleep in a bit after the boys left for school. thank you baby girl :)

Post-Raya Family Getaway

usually on third day of syawal, we would take the boys away for some family time. we opted for a real close getaway this time so that we didnt have to be stuck in the weekend traffic. we chose cyberview as the rooms are quite large and the pool goes on and on. i also remember the food being pretty good when i had a company function there.

we went after friday prayers. packed a very light bag and lots and lots of carry ons. check-in was very fast and we drove to the building where our room was. we had only a few minutes to unpack and get acquainted with the room before the boys asking for a dip in the pool. we spent 3 hours there before it started to get dark.

we took the boys up to the room and got them dressed for dinner at the nearby shops - the shaftesbury.

the next day we woke up quite late, we hadnt had time to rest after the first two days of eid. we went to have breakfast and then back to the pool. we had a couple of hours before check-out and spent every minute at the pool.

we left around lunchtime and got home to lots of laundry to settle.

Hari Raya Aidilfitri 2016

eid this year is super hectic compared to previous years. it fell during mid-week so i closed my kitchen early. no cooking for iftar and sahur from the weekend for me to mentally and physically prepare for my rendang and other raya dishes. haha...yes, it takes that long to prepare a day's meal.

i started cooking on the last day of ramadhan. hubby wanted his rendang for iftar. to go with that i made pulut kuning and hubby bought lemang. so for iftar to close ramadhan, we had a really, really heavy meal.

while i prepared the food, the boys helped me clean the house. after iftar, as the boys played fire crackers outside, i prepared half of my raya morning dishes, which is to be nasi tomato, ayam masak merah and dalca sayur.

i continued after subuh on raya day together with instant nasi himpit and kuah kacang. quite a bit but well, its once a year, isnt it.

on raya morning, hubby, amir and asyraf woke up early, had some rendang and lemang for breakfast before going to the mosque. quite a lot of their friends at the most that morning. i set the table with our raya morning dishes and got amira, ariff and akmal ready. when hubby and the boys came home we had our usual raya photo taking.

we went to damansara around lunchtime and stayed a couple of hours before hubby received calls that his friends wanted to come visiting. that went on until maghrib, before we freshened up a bit and went out visiting. we came home around 10pm, tired but had a wonderful eid with family and friends.