Amira is 15 months

amira turned 15 months 2 weeks ago. she turned into a hyper 15 month old, very very hyper. amira climbs. she climbs every single thing. she climbs up stools, she climbs up chairs, she climbs up laundry baskets, she climbs up bedside table, she climbs up beds, she climbs up tv cabinets. and then she falls and bruise and cries. she is one hyper and brave girl - and mummy's tired. she's also climbing up the stairs now and that is super tiring.

amira is busy running nowadays. she's passed walking and runs everywhere. again...falls and cries everywhere. she loves her evening walkabout (or runs) with her brothers outside but we try to limit that as she'd be too tired and whines a lot at night.

amira talks a lot! a whole lot. she used to go maa and miii. but not she can interchange all vowels in one go - aa and iii and uuu. she started with 'piyaaa piyaaa', we were surprised with her 2 vowels change. then it just went uphill and non-stop. and now she can converse with everyone. she's grasp the 'no', 'dah', 'tak', 'ok' concept and when to use them or more accurately, when to reply to them.

amira had her 4th and final pneumococcal jab recently. i thought it was a pneumococcal + second mmr jab (mmr is given twice now to follow moh's directory) but her second mmr will only be given when she turns 18 months.

amira now takes only 1 day time nap, in the afternoon around 2pm - 5pm. she used to wake up around 8am, take her morning nap around 11am and then another at 3pm. but that changed recently. there was one incident when she woke up when i was doing household chores in the morning and i found her crying (for don't know how long) in the room. from then on, we would take her downstairs from the room very early in the morning and let her continue her sleep in her cot while i do my chores. she would sleep till around 10am and forego her late morning naps.

amira's eating loads of food now. pasta and rice is her favourite. bread is her on the go meals and she loves her occasional cookies and chocolates. she takes her formula twice a day, sometimes three but usually twice before her naps. she loves a tumbler of plain water after her meals. she's also experimenting with fruits, she loves bananas, apples, oranges.

we recently turned her car seat front-facing. i wanted to wait till she was 2 years old but she wanted to see me when i was driving so i moved it around.

amira's favourite tv shows are teletubbies and mickey mouse. she also loves sofia the first but teletubbies is her favourite.

i took amira for a baby spa session recently - massage and swim. she loves it so much, i'm planning to take her every month for a relaxing session. if only i get to do for me too.

amira is a happy toddler and we're so happy to see her to see her smiles and hear her laughter every day.

Amir's 12th Birthday

its the big milestone for the eldset - the big exam, the big identity card change. eh actually only those two as he still acts like a kid, a big kid, and he's still in his dreamland and not stepping up to the plate.  some people say leave him be, some say he needs to wake up. oh well...i dont even know what to do, i wish i did but nothing we do is ever right with this one.

honestly speaking, i see asyraf getting more mature with age compared to amir. its kind of frustrating as i dont want to go hard on them but they need to know when to play and when to be serious. and unfortunately, when its big exam year (yes i know, some say, psshhh upsr, what's so big about it) its time to be serious.

unfortunately, amir doesnt want to take his studies seriously. its quite upsetting, he's not pushing himself in his studies neither is he pushing in his football. so he's neither here not there. i'm sad that i am so negative in his birthday post but he's really not smelling the coffee at all.

yes, there's still time to change and yes, we're praying non-stop for him. and we'll see where this year will take him and how he'll take this year...

his birthday lunch too isnt easy to choose. he wanted japanese but we've put off by japanese food for a bit. so he chose korean. and we chose a yucky korean restaurant that put me off for years! we got to have cakes afterwards so at least that's good...

Back to School 2017

its back to school for the new year. after so many years of hectic first week of school, this year feels more relaxed.  a whole lot more relaxed.

sk didn't require anything at all. a bit on the nervous side for ariff, who will be in the morning session in sk. but he's with amir & asyraf so he'll be ok. we just dropped them off on the first day of school (rushing to take a picture as i'd forgotten during that morning rush).

then we went to agama school to settle akmal's payment. we were quite early and was third in line. in less than half an hour, we were done and were happily walking to the canteen to have breakfast. then i saw the agama school afternoon teachers in the hall. this year they opened counters for payment since morning. alhamdulillah. we settled asyraf's and ariff's too and didn't have to come back in the afternoon to pay.

a big relief for us and for amira who was still on a two naps per day. she wasn't too happy about being woken up so early in the morning.

i was a bit worried about ariff in school. but i heard he was doing ok.

we went home after breakfast, settled amira before hubby went back out to pick up akmal. he had a quick lunch before getting ready for afternoon school. we sent him, stuck in the year 1 traffic, to school and i waited till the other 3 finished school to walk back to the car together.

then it was another mad rush for asyraf and ariff to get ready for agama school. amir was a bit lost of what to do after 5 years of rushing between the two schools. after we sent them, we had nothing left to do. we went home, got amira to take her nap and put our feet up. it was seriously a very calm day (except certain parts before school).

its going to be a hectic year in school. i hope all the boys are ready for the ride.

School Year 2017 Prep

this school year flew by real fast. even akmal's been mumbling...i can't believe i will be in year 2. there'll be significant changes next year. more in morning session hence the need for bigger lunch. one off agama school to concentrate on his big year 6 exam. one made a prefect and will be sitting for his first big exam. one will, by hook or by crook, be forced to be more active in school activities.

there'll be less uniform to be bought for next year. agama school uniforms can be recycled, and less by 4 sets (because its 4 sets per eai). as usual, i dont buy sk pants unless necessary. so it'll be mainly sk white shirts that we need to get - with that comes the badges and name tags that i so very detest.

i took a trip to 1utama in the last week of school to grab the boys' uniform and socks. its a short shopping trip. most items already in the trolley waiting for hubby to finish work and settle payment.

i went on a quick stationery replenishing trip at a nearby bookstore when the boys were in school. just the normal erasers, boxes of pencils, colour pencils, scissors, a couple of pencil cases (as 2 eais can use their current ones), magic colours, crayons to share, A4 paper for me and label printer paper for the many, many books i would need to label.

the boys bought their school shoes, compliments of nenny, in the second week of school holidays.

they had a lot of books last year, text books, activity books & exercise books. before starting on next year's books, i had to clear this year's stack of books first. the text books were returned to both schools in november. i'm left with activity and exercise books. those filled 3 garbage bags and we sent all 3 bags to a nearby recycling centre. once the boys' study table were cleared, i could focus on their books for next year.

before i sat down to look at their school books, i took advantage of the rare december sunny days and washed the boys' school bags. we wont be getting new bags this year as all their bags are still in very good condition.

they received their text books before the end of the school year. i absolutely hate wrapping books and took my time doing them. i spent a bit of time everyday for 5 days to wrap almost 50 text books.

i only bought activity books towards the end of the school holidays, after our year-end holiday. i know i wasn't going to wrap them before the trip and seeing them all stacked up would be an eyesore, so no point getting them early on.

i'm so glad there's no need for me to stay on in school the first week and no more orientation for me to attend. yeay!