Handling Holland.. (and now aidan too!)

We were humbled when our good friends Noreen and D invited us to witness their akad nikah two sundays ago. i had so many ideas and so many things that i wanted to do for their special day but much time were taken by my precious son. i had to settle for something realistic insted and left all the ideas, still in my head.

Inteded to bake my so called ‘popular after first attempt baked cheesecake’ but somehow, shamefully, it didnt turn out well (no point putting the picture here, memalukan!). quickly came up with some chocolate cupcakes and since noreen’s mum loves anything apple-ish, i baked some apple muffins as well.

Finished all the baking and cooking and cleaning at midnight. wrapped their wedding present, prepared some munchies for our 2 hour journey to den haag, got ready aidan’s bag, and an hour later, were off to bed, with me smelling like a confused cake of cocoa, cheese, apple and mee hoon sup! didnt want to arrange the flowers that night so i left it for the morning.

A day before, i managed to get some white ranunculus and green mums and added some soft touches with this tiny little ones which i dont know its name. put them in glasses, tied some green and yellow strings around the glasses, and there you have it, an instant flower deco to add to noreen’s grandma garden of roses in her apartment.

As people are celebrating Carnival here (refer to previous, last year’s post), dressed up in all sorts of costumes, we got ready, wearing our baju kurung and baju melayu instead! sadly aidan does not have his 1st baju melayu yet so i put on something comfy for him. Stuffed the back of the car with all the stuff, plus the ever so pupular and precious limburgese vlaai and off we were, to the rumah pengantin.

It was our first time meeting noreen’s family who flew all the way from kl. they are such warm people, very friendly, very welcoming, very funny too! funny how small the world is, almost scarry! i was scared that aidan might create a scene and so i told him the day before and before we left that he needed to behave himself. "kita nak gi rumah orang, tante noreen’s getting married, so you need to behave, kena pandai bawak diri tau!" just like my mum always say to us when we were young- "pergi rumah orang kena bawak diri!" i’m now passing it down to my son.

First min he cried. i then calmed him down. and before i knew it, he was swept away by noreen’s youngest sister, sese. there goes my boy! both were really comfortable with each other. sese’s great with kids. and later changed shifts with the reliable yaya, noreen’s other sister, noreen’s mum and later her dad!

Unfortunately, the bride was down with food poisoning! what luck! poor noreen. she was in bed most of the day trying to get as much rest as possible before the akad begins.

The akad started after maghrib. both bride and groom looked elegant. D wore a full baju melayu complete with songkok. he looked absolutely gorgeous! sajak dan segak! (D, figure what that means!). the ceremony was done with such simplicity, with such meaningful words shared by the amazing kadi (he trully is), an absolutely beautiful union witness by only a handful of people, such a private affair, extremely modest and yet beautiful and meaningful.

Food was excellent! lekker! heel lekker! pengantin lelaki even duduk bersila atas lantai to have his beryani! he looked really comfortable and at ease with his attire! where’s the pengantin perempuan? well, she had to settle for a couple of toasts… in bed! aww….

I’m glad everything went well, alhamdulillah. i’m glad my son was at his bestest behaviour. he surprised me and i’m so proud of him for not making a squeek during the ceremony (i wouldnt want his voice, or any gas coming out of him to be heard in the video, you see!)

We left for home at 9pm, before we reached the end of noreen’s street, aidan’s already fast asleep. mana taknya, he didnt sleep at all, from 2pm to 9! so i reckon he had a good day too, i’m sure. he too witness his tante noreen and om daniel kawin!

To our good friends, Noreen and Daniel, congratulations guys. i wish you both all the love, all the happiness in the world and may your marriage be blessed and berkekalan hingga ke anak cucu, insyaallah.

Hope you like the present.

With all our love!

As i was preparing dinner, going back and forth to the kitchen and the living room to have a peek at the brit awards showing on telly, i kept on flicking the curtains to see if he’d arrived.

I heard a car pulled off infront of our house, and the sound of the door being slammed. a brief peek by the window, and i saw him walking towards our front door!

After exchanges of hugs and kisses, a scoop on his trip, and hardly 5 mins in the house, he quickly went upstairs to check on aidan, eventhough aidan was asleep. i guess the first thing on each and every father’s mind when they come home is their baby! i grinned from ear to ear

We had our dinner. he then fed aidan, shared a few giggles, a few smiles, exchanged their stories, and showed him what he got for his boy. he had never fail to bring back at least something for me (now, us) from wherever he was. it might be from the simplest thing! like a bottle of ribena (sadly we dont have them here) and i’d jump for joy! this visit i got a couple of gossip magazines (english, mind you its difficult to find one here!) with shilpa on the cover, and a dior lipstick (perhaps he’d rather me wear lipstick than a lipgloss?) and this is what he got for our son..

My husband is home!

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It was such a beautiful morning yesterday. such a contrast to what we had last week! the sun was out and bright and so i decided to take my son out for a stroll, to visit the ducks at our nearby lake.

It took me almost half an hour to get everything ready. wrapping up aidan with warm clothes, putting his socks and shoes (this was a struggle coz he loves to take them out), getting his bottle ready just in case if there’s an emergency cry-out, i then needed to get ready and had to find some snacks and some bread for the ducks. gosh! i reckon this will take longer once he’s up and runnning!

I could tell he was enjoying his stroll, observing the trees, listening to the birds, the cars that went past us, some passer by who stopped to acknowledged us. i then told him that we’re heading for the lake and we’re going to see the ducks. and how important the ducks are to his mama and papa. and how we used to feed them every weekend when he was in my tummy. i think i had probably bore him coz as soon as we arrived at the lake, he was sound asleep! oh well…

And so i fed the ducks…. alone.

I took him round the big lake, trying to avoid being sniffed by a few dogs and carefully not to step on dog’s poo. by the time we got to the other side, where there isnt much ducks, he then opened his eyes, and probably thought "hey, where are the ducks?"

Mama fed them all, they’re probably full and asleep by now!

We then enjoyed the sunset.

Sorry ya aidan, we’ll go again ok?!

20 mins later, we were joined by hardy. as he greeted us and later asked "mana roti?"

Err… sorry boys, we will definitely feed the ducks again and i’ll save some bread for you guys next time!

My two boys. Lief!

Just finished feeding aidan his supper of 240ml -ish of milk. he seemed to enjoy that rather well followed by a heavy load of pampers and later followed by a few huge bombastic stinking farts. struggled to put him back to sleep as he was probably curious as to why his mama gave him the bottle tonight and not his dad. he probably enjoyed his milk too much not to realize it until he was put to bed.

As i normally look forward to 5pm - 6pm everyday to welcome my husband back from work, today, i look forward to his phonecall, letting me know that he has safely landed. i still sit by the window around that time, only to waive at john, our neighbour and his son back from work. i then fixed myself a quick bite (unlike this one lucky person who gets to eat seafood at some restaurant somewhere in cardiff!) no point cooking when you’re all by yourself. but no seafood and no cooking means i can enjoy my home and away the whole stretch!

Its just 2 of us tonight. and as i will be sleeping smelling his pillow and his tshirt he wore to bed last night, i hope he misses us as much as we miss him.

I got tagged by Adam a month ago but completely forgot all about it till now! what’s "tagged"? well…

Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. its like a blog-chain-mail.

6 things that people (or most people) dont know about me. here goes:

1. i arrange my clothes now by the season. in summer, i arrange them by colours and now its winter, its long sleeves on the left and short sleeves on the right.

2. i dont eat lamb. no matter how nice people say they are or how rugi i am for not eating lamb. altho… there was this time, when i was living together with my sister in oxford for a year, she bought minced lamb instead of minced beef and all the while she told me it it was beef! she tipu-ed me all the way throughout the whole year!

3. i need to wear clean bottoms (let it be pants or skirts), to sit on the bed. especially the part where i’ll be sleeping on. so no dirty jeans or those trousers you’ve worn the whole day on my bed.

4. i dont throw away paper bags (collecting is not actually the word either) so you figure!

5. i can get all sakit perut (tummy ache) listening to some songs which takes me back to a particular era/period/time. one example - sade’s sweetest taboo. weird. i know, but serious, i get sakit perut and put off by some songs.

6. i get all happy and excited when pampers are "3 halen 2 betallen" (3 for the price of 2)!! hey, its a huge saving o-k! and they have this new ‘flex’ with the catterpillar logo on it and nice colours, with cute olifant (elephant), pard (horse), koala! and with the rate of aidan poo poo-ing, we NEED to have loads of them!

okay, so that’s me. according to Adam, i have to tag 6 others. so spill it out guys!

1. hardy (this should get you back to writing blogs!) (still creating another blogger account - to be announced soon!)

2. our bride to be, noreen

3. our cute lil aemir’s mama, sabreena

4. our good friend who now can speak chinese, kyrzul

5. our baker, dayats

6. my new friend, anna

Adam, sorry for the delay! now what do i do?

To compensate my failed attempt to masak ikan 3 rasa last weekend, i cooked nasi ayam hailam (without cheating!) yesterday. it wasnt that difficult, i must say. i really must thank my son for being so considerate, in allowing his mommy to start cook dinner as early as 5pm! how? well, he went to sleep early - that’s how!

And tonight, as we had our leftover nasi ayam, snow came falling down. we hope it wont be as bitterly cold and mad winter like last year, but we sure hope there will be plenty more snow to come!

(will snap more photos if it’s still snowing in the morning and post in here)

It’s 11pm and we’re off to bed.

Welterusten……..

More snow pictures!

There’s absoultely nothing more i like doing than spending the weekends with my two favourite boys - let it be going out to town or simply staying at home.

I normally cook something special during the weekends. we normally have cornflakes, bread and spread on working days - not much time to prepare anything. but on the weekends, its slightly more than that, either nasi lemak, full english breakfast with baked beans, french toast, roti canai or if it comes near to lunch time, then we’d have an elaborate brunch. i’d try to cook, or come up with something different as well, either a new dish or i’d try and bake something  (whether i succeed or not is besides the point), but in most cases, even i surprise myself! (ehem!)

Last saturday, was a difficult saturday tho, as one of my boys (you guess which one!) felt a little bit restless, unsettled, uneasy and simply everything tak kena and cried most of the time. i felt hopeless, yet again (the first time being 7 days after he was born, was left alone as the other one went back to work). it was a handful saturday so i just managed to do kerabu su-un with a tak jadi ikan 3 rasa which turned out to be just ikan 1 rasa, to go with our now favourite programme - Dancing On Ice.

The next morning, on sunday, i woke up to the beautiful voices of my two boys, laughing and giggling. the feeling was simply unbelievable, surreal. and to be able to witness them two playing together, on the bed, with all 3 of us tak mandi, in our baju tidur and our messy hair, really made my day, completely!! totally!! hardy’s been busy finishing up the house during most of the weekends, but last sunday he took the WHOLE day off, leaving all his drillings and hammering and simply be with aidan. as they discover more and more about each other, i was left floating, flying, with such a proud feeling and happy mood.

We then had a good outing, and enjoyed a good healthy dinner, and our not so healthy dessert.

A phonecall to my 4 month pregnant sister, laughing, comparing notes, gossiping sealed my day.

Another great weekend.. hope yours was equally good!