Gingerbreadman cookies

Ilyasak completed his read on 'the Gingerbreadman' story. He read the simpler ladybird reader and managed to read the entire book without much help from me. Well done my little boy! He has made good reading progress so far which I am totally proud of.
To tie in with the story, I decided to let him bake some gingerbread cookies. I was lucky to find a Pre mix for this gingerbread cookies which suits me perfectly because I am not much of a baker.
It was real easy as all we need are eggs, a tablespoon of butter, 2 teaspoons of water and of course the Pre mix flour. We are to mix all the ingredients together. Knead the dough and we are ready to cut the cookies. It was so convenient that the pack even provided us with a gingerbread cookie cutter.
We allowed the dough to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes before cutting it out using the cutter. Ilyasak was quite impatient while he waited for the dough to set. To make the wait bearable, I suggested that we try to complete the story book. He successfully completed his read after about 20 minutes.
I gave him a chance to have a go in rolling out the dough, cutting them out using the cutter, putting the M&Ms buttons and baking it. Of course, he popped in quite a few M&Ms into his mouth in the process. He was not so keen on the icing part as the squeezing of the tube demand some amount of strength. In the end, I had to complete all the icing activity myself while he napped.
I wasn't much of a baker and had to rebaked quite a few batches as it turned out to be soft after being out if the oven for quite a while. I guess I had to practice more aye!
Ilyasak gave some of his cookies to both his grandparents. Hope they enjoyed it. I did not have much of the cookies myself as I am not such a big fan of Ginger to start of with unlike the daddy who simply enjoys the taste if Ginger. Believe it or not, each time that we are in a coffeeshop, he never fails to order a cup of hot Ginger milk tea ( teh tarik .)

The Giving Tree

Ilyasak completed this book in about 4 days. I am extremely proud of him. He read about 2 or 3 pages a day and he will read more for pages with very few words. Of course, I had coax him and give him occasional nudges for him to perservere to complete the book.

Young Parents finalist

I was flipping through the Young Parents magazine September issue thinking of checking out the litte duckboat project which Ilyasak and the hubs sent in. Instead of that, I was surprise by a picture of Balqis in one of the pages. She was selected as one of teh 20 finalist for the cover baby contest 2010. Ilyasak was shocked too and told me excitedly, 'Umi , this is Balqis'

This was really a surprise for us as we did not even think that Balqis could make it to teh top 20 finalist. We even forgot about the contest. For a start, she refused to look at the camera and did not want to smile at all. We don't know of the existence of this particular photo which was taken. Anyhow, we were glad. Alhamdulillah, she still won something even if she did not make it to the top 3. It was already a big achievement for her and we were really happy for her. It will definitely be something for her to remember by when she grows up.

Huggies Babe

A few weeks ago, on the 21st of August we headed down to Downtown east (D marquee). I signed both Ilyasak and Balqis for some kid's race. Ilyasak teamed up with the hubs for the race but Balqis was on her own. We had to wait for quite sometime before each of their race started. Ilyasak was in category E while Balqis in category C.

I was scouting around for the Huggies babes and dudes contest as mentioned in the flyer as it was an on-site registration. I was surprise when I learned that the queue which was developing at that point was indeed the huggies babes and dudes contest. I was hesitant whether to join the queue as it was limited to only first 50 participants and looking at the queue, I had doubts that I could safely be in the first 50. Nevertheless, I went ahead to queue hoping that I was lucky enough to be in the first 50. My sis was there to accompany me in the queue so I wasn't too bored. It took me close to an hour before it was Balqis pictures were taken.

It turned out to be fruitful for us indeed as Balqis was shortlisted as the 10 finalist out of the 50. It felt good to hear the MC announced her name. She was called up on stage later where the audience had to vote for the huggies final babe or dude. The winner, of course the one with the most number of votes. Alhamdullillah, Balqis was crowned the Huggies Babe. She won 4 large packs of Huggies diapers for herself which was a good saving for the hubs.

We were very happy for her. We did not win any of the race although I was pinning my hopes on Ilyasak and the hubs to win some kind of prize. Oh well, most importantly we were there for the fun so it doesn't matter.

Ferdinand

Ilyasak had just completed the book 'Fredinand' by Munro Leaf. An entertaining book about a bull who love flowers and simly uninterested to fight. He truly enjoyed the book. It took him about 3 days to complete the book with the umi of course contributibg to a few pages when he is tired to read some of the pages. I am truly impressed at how he had progressed in his reading. He still needs to improve on his attention span while reading and hopefully, he can managed a slightly longer reading time in one seating. It would make me most happy, if he can read for about 15 minutes in one seating. Currently he is reading out loud to me.

This book is a good read and it is equivalent to Level 4 of the P&J series. He is now reading The Giving Tree and hopefully he will get though that in another few days.

We are slowing down in his progress in the p&j series simply because I want him to be expose to other books and the p&j books can get pretty mundane. I am not giving up on that series though but just a temporary halt for the time being. No doubt about it, the series had done wonders to Ilyasak's reading ability.

Kite Flying

Our first attempt at kite flying turned out to be fun and we are planning to have another round before Ramadhan. Ehmmm! actually I am not really a fan of kite fying but it is just simply pure joy when I see my brood looking so happy running around exploring the area. I personally don't fancy straining my neck and looking up at the bright sky trying to get your kite up It's just not me. The atmosphere however, helped a lot when you see little kites flying around in the sky. He We went to Marina barrage by the way and it was pretty crowded today due to the long weekend (national day holiday)
My sis and her hubs joined us today so we got extra pairs or hands to help us with the kids. It was pure coindcidence that we bumped into them in the train and they decide to join us.
The hubs was one serious kite flyer. He took turns to fly the our kind of pathetic kite with my brother-in-law. Of course with Ilyasak running around them.

When Ilyasak had enough of running around in the heat and he was perspiring from top to bottom, mind you-he requested to us that he wanted to do some water play. We took him to the water play area and could not even wait a asecond longer when he was all geared in his swimming costume. It was the same with Balqis. Both siblings simply love havng water play. They went sloshing around in the 10 inches of water pool, entertaines by the various fountains. I mean you can't go around sloshing around at every water fountain right?

Both my children are truly simple children. They can be made most happy by just having simple inexpensive (in fact free)activity. Going to the park, playground, water play and the pool are their favourite activiies-simple, cheap and sometimes FOC.

Hope to do it again but with the hubs of course.

Balqis to the finals

We registered Balqis in another contest a couple of months back. Call me 'obsess', but I am so into paricipating in every baby contets available. It is probably due to our small win in a contest in a CC previously.

She was scheduled for a preliminary round on June 5th at KK hospital. Hope she through. Good luck Balqis!