2010 Highlights - Part 2

Christmas is over. But our story about it has not been told. So Part 2 of 2010 highlights is all about Christmas. Lots of pictures, less words as usual. I'm a not a great story teller.
 
We opened up some of the presents that we got on the morning of Christmas Eve as we didn't want to carry all of them with us to Gresham, Portland where we spent a night at Aunt Dottie's house. Remember her from my Thanksgiving post? She's one of the two aunts that Daniel has and both live in Portland. Another one is Aunt Barbara. I'm so glad that we have some relatives nearby to spend the holidays with. Anyway, this is Ezzat with his new robe. This is from Grammy! And he loves it. All of them love their robes actually (including me!). Mine is in cream and it's so soft. If you guys were to hug me while I'm in my robe, it would feel like hugging a soft fuzzy teddy bear.

And the PJs! I LOVE PJs... I mean the boys love them :-). Thanks Grammy.

Some more awesome stuff from Grammy except the tweety bird slippers. Those are ours. I just used the picture to complete the collage.

Later that day we went to Aunt Dottie's house and we arrived there around 7pm. Had some light dinner and I helped Aunt's Dottie's daughter Briana made some cookies.We had a great time that night just chatting and hanging out in the kitchen.

These were some good cookies. Daniel shaped that one burned cookie. Can you spot it among the good ones?

 The boys probably woke up before the crack of dawn waiting anxiously to open their presents.

Emir got this awesome Snap Circuits Pro with 500 different projects to do and he started to put them together right away.

Ezzat checking amazing outside view using Uncle Don's binoculars while Daniel was being silly.

Uncle Don made yummy waffles with strawberries and whipped cream for breakfast and Ezzat was very pleased with it.

The weather forecast the night before said it was going to rain. But it turned out to be a great beautiful day. The boys had a blast playing in the backyard. I had a great time taking photos around the house. Daniel doesn't usually go around in pajamas but he ripped his jeans before this picture was taken :p

This boy needs to push his glasses up.

Farhan lost his tooth the night before. Now, he only has 2 middle top teeth and no teeth on the sides; hence the beaver face in the top picture.

Always the baby

Still have a lot of pictures to post on here. But it's getting late so I'll just wrap this up (for now).  Happy weekend everyone!

Just because...

I have to post this because I think it's super cute! My little sister is now an English teacher at an all-girl school back in our hometown after graduating with a TESL degree from one of the universities in Auckland, New Zealand. And this year she is assigned to be one of the form one class teachers. Form one is for students age 13 that just finished with their primary school. One of the things that she's excited about being a class teacher is to decorate her classroom and the first thing she did was this mural. 

Adik, I reblogged your stuff - hope you don't mind :p

2010 Highlights - Part 1

Happy New Year! Is it too late to wish? I know we're already in the fifth day of 2011 but then again, I'm always overdue on almost every post that I put on here. It's like time flies so fast from day to day that sometimes I make myself stop for awhile to think about whether or not I have  had a productive day. The kids are back in school, husband is back to work, house is quiet again for half of the day, and I'm back to the pre-holiday routines. New year resolutions? I don't really have any. Well, I sort of have them at the back of my mind, but let's just keep it that way :-).

We have a new addition to the Mukthi family - Nadyn Shahnaz! She was born on Dec 15, 2010 and she's the first daughter to my brother Nasfi and his wife Sherina Shahnaz. And she's also the first granddaughter in our family. Mother and daughter both share the same middle name, CUTE! I can't wait to meet you Nadyn - probably sometime this year? I don't know for sure but all I can say now is Insyallah. Living far away from our family can be pretty trying sometimes. We have missed quite a few important occasions since we left Malaysia. But to all my family and friends, please know that we are always thinking of all of you. 

Nicked these pictures from my sister's blog and FB.

 My brother, Nasfi and his wife, Shahnaz and their baby, Nadyn Shahnaz.

My dad and Shahnaz

My sister, Nabila took this video when my family when to Shahnaz's house to visit the new grandchild. In this video, my father let Nadyn tasted a little bit pureed date (following the Sunnah of the Prophet PBUH).

A slide show of Nasfi's wedding back in Mar 2009 which I've never put up on the blog. Feeling a bit nostalgic today after seeing all these pictures.

Speaking of weddings, my youngest brother Najmi got engaged on Dec 26 2010 to Dhiya Izwin. The wedding would probably be somewhere in July this year. Congratulations to you both!

Fun at the Wickhams - Part 2

The lovely chefs. They are the sisters of Daniel's dad.

Goat meat on the grill

 I'm in love with this huge industrial like kitchen with wood floors, stainless steel  appliances and over sized windows that let brilliant sunshine in.

 Pumpkin, walnut, coconut and cranberry casserole waiting to be baked.

This would be deep-fried. Yum!

Saw these two gentlemen practicing

Can't help myself from taking random pictures since the lighting was great

The deep fried turkey in progress!

Cute Aunt Dottie was out for some fresh air

Another random pictures

View of the living room cum dining place for Thanksgiving from upstairs

Aunt Dottie preparing white rice topped with wild rice

I'm not sure who brought the green bean casserole. I'm never a huge fan of green beans and never had this kind of casserole before but this is pretty good. Excuse the poor lighting. It doesn't do justice to the dish.

The turkey came out perfect. Aunt Dottie made some sweet walnut dressing that went well with the bird, I'm not sure what else went in there but to me, it's great. Here Aunt Barbara was pouring cranberry sauce out from the cans into the bowls and cutting cranberry jelly into small pieces. The only time I've ever had cranberry sauce was at Ikea in KL and that was with Swedish meatballs. The jelly reminds me of agar-agar and now I feel like having rose flavored agar-agar with evaporated milk and canned tropical mixed fruit. Sedapnya.

The glorious deep fried turkey

 We all said what we are thankful for

The Wickham's neighbors, Asif and Annie. Thanks to Asif, Aunt Barbara, Uncle John and another neighbor Tomas, we're able to enjoy some good turkey and goat. Most importantly for us, they're halal. Uncle John also asked Asif to say some short prayer before we started devouring all the great stuff.

These make me want to fast forward the time to next year and help myself with another full plate goodness.

Attempting to make all these in one day was madness. Just because I've never bake as much. I did plan to spread the work over several days but this time I'm blaming it on the blackout.

Andy the dog got excited to see an ilama and started chasing it. I think it's too much for the ilama and the poor guy had to go home

They didn't look so thrill when I asked them to stop playing to take some pictures

Lovely couple - Sam and his girlfriend, Robin. Sam is Daniel's cousin.

Aunt Dottie with her daughter, Briana

And then the whole family picture - Uncle Don, Briana and Aunt Dottie

Aunt Barbara busy putting the leftovers away. I just realized that I did not have any picture of the Wickhams as a whole family. I'm so sorry!

More random pictures. The cheese and cracker platter was really good.

Everybody helped to put the living room back to it's original cozy state.

What started as a simple 'jamming' session between Daniel and Uncle John turned out to a full blast where almost everybody started grabbing something to play with. Fun! Thank you Aunt Barbara and Uncle John for inviting us. It was great to have the opportunity to meet with the other Bonnin families and we all look forward to meet you guys again soon.