Our Travel Wish: Where To Go ??

We are planning to go somewhere nearby @ within middle east before going off to Malaysia this coming June. So, which will be the best destination available? Somewhere that only require us to drive as I prefer road trip nowadays compared to plane journey. I have a list of places that I wish I can visit while we are here in Saudi..... Dubai, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and list goes on :)

Given that hubby don't have that much vacation days left (saving for Malaysia's holiday) we will only able for a short and nearby trip. Now juggling between Dubai and Kuwait.... which one should we choose? One will take us around 10 hours of driving and latter merely 4 hours. But the 10 hours one offers much more exciting places and shopping venues of course! And now I'm busy doing some research and study of those 2 places..... 

Let's Picnic @ Park

As the weather is nice nowadays and given that we only have a few months left before the hot summer comes, we go to the park almost everyday after daddy comes back from work around 415pm. Maghrib pon masuk lambat sket around 6pm, so we have around 1 and half hour before dark. The kids are happiest person on earth as they can run around and play the nice playground.

Here in jubail royal commission area, there are a lot of parks with playgrounds available. We have one even walking distance from our house. However, the kids love the one in Fanateer area which is about 5 to 10 minutes driving from our place. So we go there almost everyday.

Yesterday a bit different, i cooked bihun goreng so that besides playing the playground facilities we can also picnic.

The special bihun goreng

What's that over there?

Can I have somemore?

Let's walk together ...

swing time....

Erfan's new pant....

I tried to make his pant using tutorial available from this page http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-and-pattern-kid-pants.html . It was easy and fit him well. But i think next time I'll make bigger size for him so that it can be worn longer .....

Lana's Birthday Dress

Akhirnya, berjaya jugak jahit baju dress untuk lana. untuk sophia kemudian la kot :) I specially made this for her 5th birthday last 6th April. This is inspired by a friend of mine Aida. Sehari suntuk jugak la nak jahit baju nih, esoknya terus demam :P. I think supposedly i started off with sophia punya baju, takde la terkejut sangat. Nih terus size besar punya. Turned out nice but a bit short i guess. Nih size 5 tahun punya template nih. Agaknya Lana terlebih tinggi kot :)

Homemade Books

When I decided to be a fulltime mother, there are too manay things in my head that i wanted to do. Bunyinye macam lagi sibuk dari keja engineer jerk :). One of the thing that i wanted to do most is to be the best teacher to my kids. But it really needs patient and consistency I know.

One of my key goal (do I sound too technical?) is to read a lot to my kids and instill good reading habit towards them. My eldest daughter is now turn 5 this year, I hope that she will be able to read on her own before she goes to school. She is now staying at home and I plan to send her school starting next school semester which should be starting in september this year. And if she pass the assessment, she will go to Primary 1. Cepat jer dah darjah satu kat sini.

As part of Lana's reading program, I make some homemade books for her. Reason is to make her reading activity more interesting as some of the books is personally about people and things around her. Besides that, it is quite difficult to find good books around here in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. I did brought box of books and reading materials weight around 50kg from Malaysia when we came here to Jubail. I like to go this website http://www.starfall.com to find some reading materials that is suitable for her and then will get them printed.

Alhamdulillah she is now progressing well in her reading skills.

Some collection of her homemade books

My First Cupcakes

Today i tried to do my first ever cupcakes. I decided to get Jamie's recipe from one of his book. I have quite a bad experience trying out recipe from some other recipe book. I am not sure whether is was totally my fault or the recipe book's fault that make my earlier cake not edible at all :(

To my surprise.... it turns out wonderful... Alhamdulillah. It is so light and soo delicioius. However, i don't really like the recommended icing recipe so i modified it by adding some cream cheese making it more thicker. I know I still can improve in term of the presentation later...

Our Drawing Time...

Lana loves to draw. But normally she will draw alone or with me.

Usually Sophia & Erfan will just take the crayon and play with it with their own way. Sometime they bite, sometime they try to break tit and sometime they just throw away the crayon :)

However a few days ago they surprised me with their new interest and discoveries. They now can connect crayon and paper. And they can use the crayon to draw or sketch or write to express their feeling :)

It is so wonderful to see them drawing and having great time together!

drawing time...

"Kaklong, show me how to do it please..."

Hi, presenting my first drawing...