My sister's art work

At the moment...

At this very moment, Sarah and I are hanging out at the couch. She's about to go to sleep while nursing and I'm juggling between the nursing and typing and battling not to doze off myself. She already took a short nap this morning, we played for a while, I gave her a bath and now she's on my lap again. She won't nap for long unless I were to hold her or lie next to her. When she's wide awake, she's usually all over the place. Chasing her around the house is pretty much what I do these days as she explores and tries to put everything she sees and finds in her mouth. She doesn't sit still at all! She has started cruising more than 2 weeks now. She even tried to climb the stairs just 2 days ago! Seriously, I can't turn my back for one second, or she's off getting into trouble. It's fun to watch her and all the milestones that she has achieved right in front of me eyes. BUT I have to admit, it is also very exhausting trying to make sure she doesn't get hurt. 

She just got up from her morning nap and didn't have her bath yet.

We bought this ermmm..baby play yard (has anybody raised any brows yet?). I hope it doesn't impair her development in any way; cognitive, physical whatsoever. But Daniel and I wanted to give it a try just because it seems like we can't get much done except keeping an eye on her for most of the time.We never intended it to be a permanent fixture and we only leave her (usually with one of her brothers) in there for a short period of time, less than 2 hours usually whenever we need to get things done, like when Daniel wants to study and I need to fix dinner. It's only been 5 days since we got it and so far she's not a fan.        

                      

I was also browsing the bazillion pictures earlier in the day, pictures that I took last summer and am wondering how in the world I'm gonna post them in here without being so behind. In case you're reading this, Dad - are you still checking my blog daily? I'm so sorry! I'm still trying to figure out how this SAHM thing works - EFFICIENTLY! Either my time management is so poor or because there are so many things to do that never seem to end. And oh I'm a bit OCD. I have certain ways of doing things that I'm pretty sure won't contribute in being efficient but keep doing them anyway just to keep my sanity intact. Sometimes when I read other mummies' blogs, I can't help feeling a bit intimidated by them and how they've accomplished so much and here I am, still struggling to find the right ways, do the right things even after having 4 kids. I have to say I did get a lot of help from my mother and a live-in-maid for the first 3 children so that probably explains why I feel at loss sometimes with Sarah. And I worked before and I didn't get the privilege of seeing my 3 older boys growing in front of me. Heck I didn't even potty training them! My maid did it for me for all the boys.

Excuse my leg. Sarah was trying to get on the laptop and I was busy taking her pictures doing so. And that's my mom in the picture, with Neil and his wife Nancy. Neil is Daniel's friend and he owns a boat and he invited us to go sailing when my parents were here. It was awesome! But that of course would be in other post :-)

Oh oh, she's awake! 

 Post nap happy face!

 Trying to get our pictures together. 

She does not look too happy, although I think it's hilarious the way she looked at me, like 'Errr excuse me, I need to eat so stop taking pictures and feed me' kinda look .

Daniel and the boys just got home from work and school. In case you're wondering why Emir is wearing a reflective vest, he's a school safety patrol and he even got a badge for it. Right now the boys are reading. We set a schedule for them to follow to make life easier for us and for them. When they come home from school, they need to wash their lunch box, then perform their prayers, and do their homework. Then they need to read for an hour and then off to do math practice on IXL (which is great math practice site btw, apart from Khan Academy). And then when they're done with all these, they get to watch TV for an hour and/or play video games for an hour. In between these, they have to perform the rest of prayers of the day when the time comes and have dinner. We made the rule for them to play video games only on alternate days. The games drive me crazy but Daniel plays with them whenever he gets the opportunity.

Daniel is trying to lure Sarah to get inside the 'baby jail' by reading one of her baby books.

It works!

Now that everybody's home, I'm off to fix dinner.

It's all about Sarah

***Some photos from today.

I don't want to be in here!!!

Summer Visiting Vacation 2012 - Part 2

July 8 2012

We were supposed to wake up really early for our fishing trip the next morning. Instead, all of us went back to bed after our super early Subuh prayer and only woke up somewhere around 9am. By this time it already got pretty hot outside and it wasn't exactly the ideal time to go fishing anymore but after breakfast, the boys and the men went anyway. I stayed back with Grammy and Sarah and I remember taking a long nice nap with Sarah. It felt so good just to be able to hang out and not being bothered by any chores or errands.

 Morning view at the ranch

Random

The guys came back from the fishing trip. Unfortunately there was no fish caught. 

Instead they caught this water moccasin. The boys were pretty pumped about it.

 The guys with their err..catch of the day

We had lunch and did some clean up

Before headed back to Poppy's (Daniel's dad) house

Random photos of Durant, Oklahoma that I snapped from inside the car

Summer Visiting Vacation 2012 - Part 1

It has been almost three weeks since we came back from visiting Daniel's family down south. It was great to finally met and spent time with a few more of his family members. We flew to Dallas from Seattle in an almost 4 hour flight. We were pretty worried about how Sarah was going to react in the flight but she did great the first round. She was quiet and slept for most of the time. On the flight back however, it was totally a different story. Let me just say that there was a lot of shushing involved. We were thinking of going back to Malaysia at the end of this year but after this trip, we think it's best to wait until she's a little bit older, say somewhere next year hopefully.  I'm so glad that my parents are going to visit us in less than a week from today. That at least helps me with the homesickness that I'm feeling, the boys too for sure. It's been too long! 

July 6 2012

    Sarah's first flight!

Sarah: What? Are we supposed to be in the air?

The flight to Dallas took 3 hours and 45 minutes. After getting off the plane and claimed our baggage, we went straight to the car rental place using the free shuttle. The first thing I noticed when we were out of the building was the temperature. It reminded me of home. It was hot, completely different from the weather in Seattle but not so humid as I thought it would be. We already made our reservation a month earlier. Unfortunately when we got there, the van that we booked wasn't ready. Since we were all tired and didn't want to wait, we ended up having a SUV instead, which to me was not the best vehicle to use for a long drive. It hardly has any trunk space. Luckily we only had 2 luggage bags. We also requested for an infant car seat but what we got instead was this outdated toddler seat that took hours to install.  All of us were already feeling edgy at this point and just wanted to move on. I didn't remember how long it took us to get to Durant, Oklahoma but I knew it was more than 3 hours since it took us awhile to get out of the car rental place. When we arrived at Daniel's dad's house, it was already late in the evening. Daniel's dad and his wife, Gayla whom we got to meet for the first time, greeted us. All of us hanged out for a little bit, chatting and eating,  before called it a day. 
  
July 7 2012

We went to this really  pretty ranch in Caddo with Daniel's mom and her friend and colleague Uncle John, and spent a night there. This is a family owned ranch and it's huge, about 2500 acres! We had a blast and  are so grateful for the experience. 

 Caddo's old little town

This was what the boys love to do the most at the ranch, riding and driving ATVs

Grammy and Sarah stayed behind and enjoyed each others' company

Uncle John and Farhan, stopping at one of the lakes around the ranch

Our ride around the ranch

The boys couldn't decide what this is, a cricket or a baby grasshopper? 

Wild flowers

At one point, in an attempt to drive on a steep slope ,our 4 seater ATV got stuck in soft soils and had to be pushed. It was pretty nerve-wrecking.

One of the few stops that we made around the ranch. So pretty!

We spent a few minutes here, enjoying the great view. The boys got to meet Pushy, the 'not so stray' cat and Uncle John gave it some cat food and the boys played with it for a little bit before we headed back for dinner.

 The ranch during dusk

We had a campfire after dinner

A funny picture of Sarah looking as if she's a conductor in this picture

And she thinks leaves are funny. She really laughed when Emir shook this tree branch.

This was the boys' first campfire and they really had fun with it.

Their sister felt the same way!

Until she started to feel sleepy...