i started the holidays doing i usually do at the start of holidays - reorganising wardrobes. since i need to move uniforms around - hand down some, replenish some, throw away some, give away some - i also looked at the boys other clothes. the guestroom downstairs was full of boxes, some empty some full. i asked the boys to put aside the clothes they have outgrown and i went through them to see whether they should be handed down or given away. once i have sorted those piles, i brought down those to give away and reorganised the boxes in the guestroom. ariff and akmal helped me pack and label 9 boxes and are awaiting to give them away.
i also reorganised everyone's personal file. amir brought home a lot of certificates on his last day of primary school and i had put them aside until i find the energy to file them (yes, filing takes up a whole lot of energy). currently, i have sorted out all documents into 2 files - baby & kindy and primary school. i'll be adding secondary school files soon. amani's documents are at the moment in a plastic folder as i have not gotten hers ready yet.
with amani being so small, we had no holiday planned this year. we did, however, slot in a quick 4-day weekend getaway down south to jb and singapore. it was a good drive to test the car we got a few weeks earlier. it was also still early in december and the roads and universal studios were not packed with cars and with people. it was actually a nice drive down and a nice drive back and a pretty ok time at the theme park. the jb-singapore trip entries can be found on our travelblog.
as for the school stuff, i went quite low key this time around. amir needed new uniforms, of course, since he'll be changing schools. ariff needed new uniforms as well, since he's gotten much bigger the past year (and because he was wearing last year's uniforms and they've been eating his tummy and sides). akmal's uniform had been ordered and he'll be recycling his sra uniform. asyraf's wearing this year's uniform for sk and getting new sra uniform as he too have outgrown his.
as usual, i buy uniform really early, as soon as the holiday begins because i need to get the name tags and badges sewn and then iron them. i buy early and procrastinate on the other 2 tasks, usually. this year, i had to settle the badges and name tags on my own, as my late mom would do them the past few years. i couldn't be bother sending them to a shop so i used to uhu glue method. i used this method on some uniform last year, especially those with name tags that i had received after school had commenced. i don't particularly like this method as its difficult to take the name tags off at the end of the year. i prefer the name tags to be intact as i'll use them again for the upcoming years.
but this time around, as asyraf & ariff will only have one more year at sra, i chose the uhu method as i dont need to use their name tags again. ariff will also probably be wearing the same sk uniform for the next 2 years so i don't need to take them off. or maybe i'll just get more when the school commences so that i'll have back-up if i need to get him new uniforms. so the day after getting the uniforms, i settled the name tags and badges and ironed them.
we bought the boys' shoes and socks the day after we bought the uniform. it wasn't even december yet and we've settled uniform, socks and shoes. the lady at the shoe store said its a good move to get them early on. but of course...
next on my list were stationeries. i actually planned to get them at the stationery warehouse shop nearby. but we had vouchers from the uniform shopping spree so we went back to the same shop and got stationeries there. i managed to check almost all using the voucher (plus some cash). i've got a bit left to buy but generally they're all settled. i also got some school sets online from mph and that sorta settled their basic stationery needs.
the boys are quite lucky this year to be getting really good text books. i went through their stack of books and practically all don't require re-wrapping. i was about to jump up high until i saw ariff's stack. i went through the core subjects, ok...i expected them to need re-wrapping because of the usage, then i realised all his books were not wrapped. and ariff broke his wonderful surprise, he helped un-wrap the old wrappers for me. oh ariff!! ok ok...only 13 books, not too bad. i managed to do them all in less than an hour.
i went to the school bookstore on the third week of school holidays. i get this done quite early usually - right after uniforms. but this year i wasn't in the mood. i really don't like the school enforcing this activity book culture because there have been many instances where the books were not used, or only a portion used, and you can't recycle them as they change publishers every single year. and then of course the book wrapping (urghh!) so i was really not into buying books at all. i opted not to wrap the activity books this time. after 6 years, i just don't care anymore about wrapping books haha! so its just labeling them and writing names, which was a breeze!
we'll only get sra text books once school commences so i can put them off for now. i don't normally wrap sra activity books, so there's not much more left to wrap.
after much dilly dallying, we finally went to amir's school to get his starter kit and books. amir has loads of writing books but only a small number of reference books, which can be used until he is in form 3 so that's a refreshing change.
we spent the rest of the school holidays at home basically. we did some movie outings - justice league, the long-awaited star wars sequel no 8. the boys had a few outings with friends and went bowling with tiza. we went for a couple of birthday gatherings.
we also had a staycation over the long christmas weekend and registered amir, asyraf and akmal in a kids marathon in sepang the same weekend. that's about it, actually. pretty low key holiday this time around.
we ended the holidays with amir's secondary school orientation. not my first choice of a secondary school but oh well, i accept and i move on and i hope and pray for the best for him at this place.
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