Bismillah...

Image from: here

K1 and K2 will be having their PKSR1 exams starting today. Four days of exams.

Today : Bahasa Melayu and Agama
Tomorrow: Math and Science
Wednesday: English and Music
Thursday: Arab and Pendidikan Seni

Khadra is no stranger to exams, but this is officially Khaleeq's first. We are not stressing over it though. Buat je lah apa yang terdaya. Best part is, after this whole thing is over, we have our vacation to look forward to. Woot!

Khaleeq was telling me the other day, "Mom, this exam thing is killing me. "
Drama King.
Exam pun belum lagi.
I'm thinking this could be due to the imposed conditions I have put in place during exam week - no TV, no iPad, no DS Lite. Only toys and story books allowed for break time. I have also stocked up the fridge and pantry with loads of sugary stuff - packs of Milo, Vitagen, Calci-yum, Oreos, Pringles, Twisties, Cheezels, etc. Just to get a lot of brain activities going.

Preparation pun biasa-biasa je. Normally, we would go through the optional activity books for Khadra. But, most of the topics have been covered during Formative 1 and 2 exams anyhow. So, this time around, she's doing some past year papers. For Khaleeq, since there has never been any exams for him ever, (Standard One takde Formative exams) I thought, well.. belasah je lah Khaleeq. He has done some BM revision in his Bahasa Melayu extra classes that he's been going to for the past few months anyways. Agama and Arab pun ada jugak sikit-sikit revision at the Ustazah that he goes to mengaji to. We have also started to prepare the stuff he needs for his Seni exam. He's making a collage, so loads of menggentel-ing of crepe paper involved. This time around, biar dia tau je what exams are all about. And that he will not die from it. *Sheesh*

After going through the normal pep talk, "Do your best", "Answer all the questions", "Check your answers", "Jangan tidur"... we recited the doa penerang hati together in the car this morning.

There's nothing else to say now, just ..

image from : here

Tawakkaltu 'alAllah.. :)

All the best kiddos!

-dillz blogging out-

Planning for the term holidays

The schedule for the PKSR1 Exams are already out. Which means the end of term is near. Which also means the kids will be out for a 2-week break starting this 28th May 2011.

Plans have been made. We just finalized the air tickets some 2 weeks back together with the main agenda -- Hong Kong Disneyland!!!!

Picture from: here

We have a 5day , 4 night itinerary in which the first 2days and 2 nights will be exploring Hong Kong and the remaining 3days and 2 nights spent in Hong Kong Disneyland itself. best of all, our stay coincides with Khadra's 8th birthday. So, she will be celebrating her birthday there, Disneyland-style. Complete with decorated room in Mickey & Minnie theme and a special Disney character appearance during dinner with photo op. OMG! Dream come true?

However, the plan is still hazy on the Hong Kong part, but I've told Khadra to research on things she'd like to do there. Apparently, there's Madam Tussaud's there and they have a Justin Bieber wax figure. Definitely worthy of a visit, don't you think? hihihihihi..

Yeah, so any ideas on what to do in Hong Kong is very much welcomed. Plus, where to stay, ah? Somewhere nice for a family of 5, near to the things that we would probably like to see and do before we head on over to Disneyland.

For now, the elder kids would have to revise and prepare for their exams first. Khaleeda, on the other hand, has already made her selections on what she'd like to wear while roaming around Disneyland.

Uuuuu... I can't wait! (eeh.. Ibu dia yang berlebih)

-dillz blogging out-

Busy as a super honey bee

Anak dara saya will turn 8 (eight) this 3rd of June. She is so big already. So matured, so independent. Tak lama lagi nak dapat menantu la kami. huhuhuhu

This picture of Khadra was taken during the 2011 New Year Party in KLGCC. What did I tell you? Dah besar kan, anak dara saya?

Anyways, just wanted to share. Her schedule sekarang ni mengalahkan ibu dia. She's busier than me. Like no joke, okeh. Besides her normal schooling time, she has mengaji 3 times a week for one and half hours every session. Her year-long extra curricular commitments are rhythmic gymnastics on Mondays and Thursdays and drama on Tuesdays. On weekends, she has piano on Saturday afternoons and swimming class on Sunday mornings.

She is also in the school team for action song. They have just been crowned the Zon Bangsar champs a few weeks back and are now intensively training for the State level competition that happens to tomorrow - Thursday, 19th May 2011. So, that training somehow overlaps with her existing schedule, which forces her to drop drama for a term and continue in the next to be able to perform in the year-end production.

As for rhythmic gymnastics, she has to replace one of the sessions on Friday nights at a venue in Ampang, from 8-10pm. Seriously. Nasib baik lepas habis action song competition ni, baru start grading untuk rhythmic gymnastics. So, second week of the school holidays will be intensive training for the group routine pulak.

On top of it all, she's also part of the team representing the school for Disney Channel's My School Rocks. Yang ni untuk suka-suka je because of the sheer love for performing and the chance to be on TV (maybe) and the winner gets to go to Hong Kong Disneyland. So, have to slot in some training time for that new routine pulak. Which basically means weekends.

On the out-of school activities pulak, she is part of the Tree Theatre Group - a non-profit organization for kids that promotes environmental issues and the performing arts. Pretty awesome stuff. They go tree planting and performing mini shows for environmental causes and there is in fact an entourage going to the International World Children's Festival in Washington, USA this June. Sadly, we won't be joining the group this time around. Kalau tak, sure dia bertambah busy with practices for the performance during the weekends.

So, basically for these few months at least, she'll be in school after school every weekday and most weekends. Adoi, penat aku pikir schedule dia. Itupun she didn't enrol in cheerleading. Kalau tak, pengsanlah ibu dengan anaknya sekali. :(

Kadang-kadang, kesian jugak tengok dia. She comes home tired and sometimes I catch her crying due to exhaustion. Tapi, bila cakap dengan dia, we didn't force her to do all this. She was the one who wanted to pursue it all. She said she doesn't want to give it up. Perserverelah Khadra. Sikit je lagi.

We just have to take it one thing at a time. For now, let's just focus on the action song state level competition tomorrow. Gosh, it's tomorrow, y'all! Ibu dia yang nervous lebih. I have already taken leave for it. Have to. Our day will start very, very early tomorrow. Need to be made up and be at school by 6am. I'm thinking of stopping by for hotcake breakfast at McDonald's with my daughter tomorrow. She'd like that.

All the best, darling. I know you'll do great. No matter the outcome, just have fun and dance & sing your heart out. I'll be there by the stage, cheering you on! Love ya, Kakak Khadra!

-dillz blogging out-

We Have Expanded a.k.a. Rumahku Syurgaku! (Part 1)

Rumahku Syurgaku series | Part 1 | Part 2 |

I've always thought that a 3-bedded condo of 1,300sqft was a little small for our growing family of 5 (+1 campur Bibik Parmi). Considering the space that the kids need to grow, amount of stuff/junk that we have accumulated all these years and my need to have the dedicated place for each thing that we own, we have decided that we simply needed more room. I was getting rather demotivated by the state of "tongkang pecah"-ness of our home. Howlah nak jadi Rumahku Syurgaku, liddis? :(

Despite loving the location we're at, finding more space (= landed property) in the Bangsar area was pretty darn expensive. So, we searched other towns as well, termasuklah Petaling Jaya, Kelana Jaya, Bandar Kinrara, Alam Impian, Shah Alam, Bukit Jelutong etc. Various types of properties, at so many locations. Semuanya mahal and/or jauh.

*Iklan kejap - Mengapa property mahal sangat kat Malaysia ni? Bordering gila, okeh!*

Anyhoots, at the back of our minds, the ideal solution to our predicament would be if the owner to the next door condo unit would sell off her house to us. As theirs is the exact mirror -image of our current abode, our space would have doubled whilst maintaing our current location. No need to uproot the entire family. Perfect!

However, since there are only 4-units of houses per floor, the only adjoining unit to ours belonged to a lady (let's call her Lina - *bukan nama sebenar*) who is currently staying in Dubai (*bukan tempat sebenar*) with her family. She only comes over, probably 3 times a year to check on the house. She doesn't even rent the house out. She only gets her friend to house-sit it once in a while.

Here we are, sambil mencari rumah yang lebih besar, sambil berangan-angan dan berdoa that somehow, Lina would sell her house to us.

To keep the story short, by a stroke of fate and sheer luck, we managed to convince her to sell the unit to us. And after a long long wait for DBKL to sort the change of title deed, we finally got the keys to the condo sometime back in June / July last year. Yeay!!! Alhamdulillah.....

Serious! Macam tak percaya kan? Ini buktinya!

The living room and balcony.

Kitchen and dry area.

Some of the rooms and restrooms.

So, selesai most of the renovation works in the new unit , we brought the walls down (just a little bit je, the opening is around 6ft or so) on the 29th December 2010. Kami siap dok Double Tree, wak masa diorang tebuk lubang ni. :)

We officially have a front entrance and a back door now. Woot!

Status terkini:
Kami dah selesai meng-renovate rumah sebelah and it is now classified as a Work In Progress. The old condo unit will also be touched-up (a.k.a. Phase 2 renovation) once I have figured out where everything goes. The main mantra is NOT TO BUY ANYTHING NEW unless we are SO DAMN CERTAIN about it. Have to figure out whether we want to keep the stuff, where would it be in the new house flow and sorting the giveaways should we need to. Ni lah kerja saya setiap weekend selama beberapa bulan ni. Mengemasnya tak habis-habis.

Insya Allah, I'll share the after pictures section-by-section. I'm so excited. Ngee.. *bak kata @MarlizaRadzi*

-dillz blogging out-

May Already?

Hola people!!!

I am so sorry yet again for neglecting this blog. I have truly missed it, for sure! No excuses this time around, I'll just try to be here more frequently, updating you with the happenings in my life. Which has been plenty, I have to assure you. :)

So, Monday will be a pretty slow one for me and the company, I guess. With Wesak Tuesday coming, a lot of my colleagues are taking the opportunity to have a long 4-day weekend. I don't blame them, really. If I had more annual leave days to my name, I would have taken the day off too. hihihihihi But, I don't. So, I shall trudge along slowly to work and just hope that the day passes by ever so swiftly. It won't be too bad either, methinks. With most people on leave, the traffic would be better and best of all, I might even get a shot to park for free!

The kids will be having their Teachers' Day celebration in school. Telematch for the teachers in the morning, class party during recess and some performances later on. So, not much schooling going on tomorrow. Except for Khaleeda that is. She has the day off. *lucky girl*

BTW, May is a double celebration month for us. My dad turns 66 today and my only brother turned 31 on Saturday. So, here's a Happy Birthday shout out to the two men in the Zaghlol household! Hope you two have a good one this year. Boy, Bila nak kahwin? ;)

-dillz blogging out-