It was Sitiawan’s turn for balik kampung Aidiladha this year. But I did not get paid for a work I invoiced so we could not gas up to go anywhere far. So Atok and Opah travelled from Sitiawan to Kuala Lumpur for the holiday. Also, Irfan’s exam week was looming. Coincidentally, Aidiladha was also the 13th wedding anniversary of Ain and I. So we decided to scrape up something for the day. 13 years through… a lot of things. Amazing things. Not so amazing things. Unbelievably inspirational events. Events that would destroy the spirit of anyone not prepared. Things I do not mention even in this blog. I owe a lot of people a lot of things. My parents. Sila and Vin. But without Ain to prop against and support my weight in the worst of times, it would have been a different world today. After solat Aidiladha, we took […]
Continue readingTag Archives: Around the House
TV first
Here are blog posts of things and events that happen at home…
Rafe’s 21 Month Birthday
And the boy is now 21 months old! 3 more months and he’s two! Wheee! [[image:2013_0929_rafe17.jpg:Giggle giggle:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions Again, I am so very late writing this entry. No need to make excuses, you all know how it is, right? And Adik seems to have come a long way in a month. Our little hero now knows all the letters of the alphabet! A-Z, in capital letters and small letters! We can’t believe it. In fact, he’s obsessed! He can’t get enough of it. He is yelling out all the letters that he sees, and singing the ABC song (including the techno-rap youtube stuff that he loves) and all around just totally immersing himself in the written language. He’s even saying the alphabets in his sleep, poor lamb. 🙂 And the truth is, I only remember teaching him O and S. He just picked up […]
Continue reading62 Months
Sixty-two months since the girl was born! [[image:2013-yaya62month-02.jpg:Artsy Yaya in her tent-fort:center:0]] The hat was a gift from Pak Yope and Wan Yong way back in 2010. 🙂 * Mouse over the pictures for captions As I mentioned in the sixty-one month entry, I’m continuing with Yaya’s monthly posts but minimizing the chatter. We have pretty much been maintaining the status quo. No new foods were eaten, steady progress on reading, writing and arithmetic. Lot of artwork done in the house. All good things. Yaya now travels with an entourage of “imaginary friends”, all of whom are cartoon characters from her favorite tv shows. New ones keep popping up. She even made paper teddy bears for imaginary Peep, Chirp and Quack to sleep with and some of her imaginary friends sleep with real stuffed animals. Yaya is a good big sister and plays with her brother all the time. She […]
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Irfan’s Eleven
Irfan’s eleven now! It started when we thought about inviting Emma’s forthcoming family-in-law for dinner. It just so happened that it was on Irfan’s weekend’s birthday! So unlike other years, Irfan had more people over for his birthday than before, including the aforementioned forthcoming family-in-law of Farid’s, Irfan’s cousin Aiman and Zara, and his schoolmate Fikri our neighbour from the next tower (but the same arcology – so to speak). Irfan sliced up his cake using his melee weapons skill. I got a photo of Ain with Irfan. But because everyone was busy with guests, no photo of me was taken. Irfan taught Aiman and Fikri to play Small World! If they had more time, Irfan would have also taught them Ascension and Star Wars The Card Game. In the meantime, Zara was practising her piano skills. Irfan got a cool totebag for his books from Cik Su and an […]
Continue readingRafe’s 20 Month Birthday
Our intrepid hero is now 20 months old! Whee! [[image:2013_0829_rafe16.jpg:Cheeeeeeese!:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions Where to start? I have left this entry to be written so late that I have to be sure that I am not documenting things that happened in the 21st month (yes, I am that late!). Perhaps I should just keep it brief and let the pictures shine. A few things I am sure of: * Adik has at least 14 teeth now * Food status: Adik loves his peanut butter and toast. Or peanut butter straight up. But he’s game to try what’s on your plate, if he’s in the mood. Lately he’s eaten a lot of peanut butter on a toasted bagel * Speech status: There is nothing that this child cannot say! If he wants to say it, that is. His vocabulary seems to be growing in leaps and bounds. […]
Continue reading61 Months
And so the girl is now sixty one months old! 🙂 [[image:2013-yaya61month-04.jpg:Let’s ride the scooter!:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions I debated whether or not to stop the girl’s monthly blog entries, given that she is now five (and 1 month!) and every month isn’t particularly different anymore. As it turns out, I am not quite ready to give it up yet. I admit it: I enjoy putting down a few words every month to commemorate the day that Yaya was born. And now, looking back, I am very glad that I’ve done this, and that I’m also doing this for Adik. However, I thought that it is time to kind of do a bit less, given that Yaya is no longer a newborn and that every month no longer brings a lot of changes. So while I will be posting an entry every month, I want to […]
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The Many Yops
Irfan’s Atok and Opah came to visit over the weekend. Here’s a picture of the three Yops together. Apart from Atok’s car having clutch problems less than 10 klicks from reaching our place, there were no glitches during the visit. They picked up Irfan from school when my weekday exam schedule did not permit me to do so. Here’s Irfan biting my little finger as he usually does ever since he was a baby. It hurts now though. Also, Cikma’s fiancé Farid came for dinner and met Atok and Opah.
Continue readingSelamat Hari Raya 2013
We wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Eid Mubarak! [[image:2013-aidilfitri-10.jpg:Chuffed that it’s Hari Raya!:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions Just a quick one with pictures. We begin with a photoshoot of the kids wearing their Raya finery (thank you Opah and Atok!): [[image:2013-aidilfitri-08.jpg:Happy Adik in his baju melayu:center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-09.jpg:Eid camaraderie:center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-11.jpg:Another good one of the kids together:center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-01.jpg:This is Yaya’s impression of a Malaysian girl (aka “where did I go wrong?”):center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-13.jpg:Yaya talks Papa into posing like that too!:center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-12.jpg:Yaya and Papa, normally this time:center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-16.jpg:Adik in the kitchen:center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-14.jpg:I love this photo – too bad it’s blurry!:center:0]] [[image:2013-aidilfitri-15.jpg:Togetherness is the Raya message:center:0]] The above pictures were taken on the day that the package arrived from Malaysia. On the actual first day of Raya, I worked. But I did make beef rendang and nasi minyak: [[image:2013-aidilfitri-03.jpg:Somewhat traditional Eid food:center:0]] No kuih […]
Continue readingThe One with the Actual Birthday and then the Party
So on Yaya’s fifth birthday, we went to the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery in Dayton as her birthday treat. We had originally thought about going to the zoo but the fact that it was a cold and rainy day (seriously? This has never happened in July to have a spring-like rainy day) forced a change of plans. However, it turned out to be an awesome experience, and since we are now members of the museum, we look forward to repeat trips there. [[image:2013_yaya5th_25.jpg:Yaya is all dressed up to go out on her birthday:center:0]] I love the above photo as you see how happy Adik is for his sister. Also contained in this entry are a few photos taken a week or so later when we had Yaya’s birthday party. Vin and I were so busy running around on that day that we took maybe 5-6 photos in total. For the […]
Continue readingFun Yaya and Adik pictures from July
So it seems we took way too many photos in July and there were a few with the kids together that I couldn’t fit into either of the “usual” blog entries, and they were too cute to not post. So here it is. No stories, no information. Just some gratuitous pictures of the kids (and I snuck in some photos taken during Vin’s birthday as well). [[image:2013jul-yanda-03.jpg:Happilly spinning on the office chair:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-01.jpg:On Papa’s napping chair:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-02.jpg:No sign of a nap though:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-04.jpg:Yaya could not wait for Papa’s cake ceremony, Adik blew a candle out:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-05.jpg:Papa blows out the remaining candle:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-06.jpg:Let’s all blow (/spit?) on the cake!:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-07.jpg:Sitting by the rocks:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-08.jpg:Fun in the pillow fort on our bed:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-09.jpg:More fun on the bed:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-10.jpg:Plotting something together?:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-11.jpg:Sayang Adik! Love Adik!:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-12.jpg:What did naughty Adik do to Yaya?:center:0]] [[image:2013jul-yanda-13.jpg:Awww, all is forgiven:center:0]] That’s it. Thanks for watching! 🙂
Continue readingRafe’s 19 Month Birthday
During the whirlwind that was Ramadan, where Yaya and Papa both had (real) birthdays, Adik sneaked in to being 19 months old! [[image:2013_0729_rafe15.jpg:Deer in headlights?:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions I was going through the archives and looking at Yaya’s 19 month entry, and according to it, she had four teeth and two more were cutting through. They say that “every child is different”, and they were not wrong. In contrast, Adik has at least twelve teeth with more sprouting! Not that I am comparing the two children, necessarily. I was just thinking about the fact that I was cooking a lot of foods for Yaya at this age, processing all the hard things (meats, hard veggies) so that she would eat a balanced diet – and I am not doing very much of that for Adik. This is because he is eating table foods now. We are […]
Continue reading60 Months (a.k.a. the Fifth Birthday)
The girl is five years old now! A whole half decade! 60 months! 1826 days! Wheee! Happy birthday, beautiful! [[image:2013-yaya60month-03.jpg:Peek-a-boo! Like the humongous bow in my hair?:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions It’s been another whirlwind month! We went to Elkhart for the 4th of July weekend, and got to see a bunch of family. No work trips, luckily, but somehow every day goes by so quickly. Before we realize it it is 11 PM, the kids are asleep and Vin and I are exhausted. We also of course had two birthdays this month (happy birthday to Yaya and her Papa!) so there were activities surrounding the birthday. Food status: despite turning five and agreeing that at five she would start trying new foods as she was a big girl now, Yaya is backpedalling. At her 5 year checkup, her pediatrician had a serious talk with her about […]
Continue readingRafe’s 18 Month Birthday
Here we are at Adik’s 18 month entry! The boy is now 1 and a half years old! [[image:2013_0629_rafe22.jpg:Short break in the action:center:0]] * Mouse over the picture for captions Adik is now fully mobile – walking, running, and climbing. He can now manage to walk down the stage steps face first without falling over (after some practising of course), while carrying something in his hands. He was determined to not be the only one backing down those steps I suppose. He climbs up the stairs when we go up to bed, but we do not allow him to come down the stairs yet as he thinks he is too big to go backwards, feet first. But overall, his coordination is pretty good. He can throw objects with pretty good speed and accuracy, and loves to bounce a ball off the wall and chase after it. He loves to run […]
Continue reading59 Months
One more month till Yaya hits the half decade mark! Woohooo! [[image:2013-yaya59month-01.jpg:Poster child for barrettes?:center:0]] Note: Mouse over the pictures for captions It has been a busy month of June. We started off at the end of May going to Maryland to visit the family, and then working in New Jersey and Pennsylvania before returning home at the end of the first week of June. I think we are all still recovering from that long and crazy ride! But everyone did well, and we made it home and back to our usual routine. Food status: No change. What can I say? The child is strong willed. We were never able to get her to do anything she wasn’t ready to do (e.g., talking, potty training) and we just have to keep being patient I guess. One day, she will snap out of this and start eating normally again, inshallah. Yaya […]
Continue reading58 Months
Two more months till the big birthday! And how much do you love backdated entries! Woohoo! [[image:2013-yaya58month-13.jpg:My beautiful baby:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions Food status: No change. Nothing new passed through her lips this month. On the other hand, it is cheap to feed her and it is cheap not to have to get her any toys or games. I guess I’m a glass half full kind of person. 😉 We had some work travel at the end of the month, and fun travel to Chicago at the beginning of the month, and everyone did OK. We managed to do a big east coast tour during our work travels – saw the family in Maryland, friends in New Jersey and crammed a lot of socializing into a short thirteen days. Whew! Yaya really is a sweet child – I learnt that when we went to the Children’s […]
Continue readingRafe’s 16 Month Birthday
After another fast-paced month, Adik is now 16 months old. He seems to have grown so quickly – when I look back at pictures of him as a newborn I can hardly believe it is the same baby as he is becoming more and more of a person in his own right. We saw that with Yaya, and continue to see it with her, and now we are seeing it with Adik and this is definitely the greatest gift anyone can ever receive – the opportunity to watch our children grow and become their own little persons. 🙂 Especially when they are as funny as our Adik is getting to be! [[image:2013_0429_rafe02.jpg:Jelingan manja (coy glance):center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions As far as I can tell Adik still has eight teeth, although i think I saw at least one more starting to cut through (bottom jaw, probably a […]
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