As salam,

I'm not sure how January already over and February is coming to it's end as well. Heck I am not even sure how 2012 passed over me, in a blink of eyes. All I could recall is one post is piling up on top of another, lack of motivation and at the end of the day I couldn't even bother to write anything. I'm constantly saying to myself, I shall update tomorrow. I will find time to update tomorrow or ermmm maybe day after tomorrow will do and here we are now ha ha ha. When asked by a dear friend of my lack of updates, I could just say I foresee my last post on Hari Malaysia 2012 to still be my latest post on Hari Malaysia 2013 kah kah kah. Ahaaaa perhaps I could just edit the year on the title (pun intended).

                                                                 -________________-

Jokes aside, many many many things had happened to me since last quarter of 2012 till now, both good and bad, both happy and sad. For whatever is worth, I am grateful to Allah s.w.t to be given an opportunity to see the daylights of 2013 still and to breath comfortably. Indeed, I have a lot to thank for and be grateful about.

P/s : I realized I still owe a few posts on Europe trip. I shall continue with that later, if not sooner :)

Moving forward, I am delighted to share few of important occasions happening to me for the past few months, best told through pictures and minimum caption to avoid this post from becoming wordy and lengthy. Saya cuba yerrr..

:: Eidul Adha 2012. Chosed brown theme this year. Please excuse my un-matched tudung, that's the closest colour hue I can find to match my baju kurung from my very humble tudung collection huhuhu ::

In front Ambassador's residence ::

I was planning to make kurban this year, under my name as we did under my husband's name last year. If you guys still remember, we had korban event at embassy's very own compound. From slaughtering to melapah done by fellow Malaysians with the help of embassy's staff. However, this year Eidul Adha fall on Friday and Dzuhr here came early in summer, around 11 am. After putting in options we had, and weighing few factors such as timing, work force, total number of person participating and such, we decided that indeed it is not possible to repeat the last year's tradition, no matter how much we like to keep it. Therefore, after discussion made between those with intention of doing kurban this year, we decided to just do our kurban at Hawally Slaughter House.

:: 2 types of sheeps offered here, Ostroli (Australia) or Arabi (Local bred). Australian's sheep comes with much higher price tag compared to local. Understandable enough. We opted for Arabi then. While queuing for our turn, suddenly I remembered that we haven't done Erin's aqiqah yet ha ha ha. Oh my... And u know what, she's turning 5 this year! My oh myyyy.. It's better late than never.. Cliche but true he he he. So, we resorted with two sheeps this year, one for my kurban and another one for Erin's aqiqah. Kak Anis's family with 3 sheeps and Anis's with 2 sheeps. One for kurban and one is for their 6 months baby- Azalea's aqiqah. Opsss looks like we're a bit tad too late huh.. In total, 7 fat sheeps Masha Allah. May Allah accept our kurban and aqiqah. Ohhh you may pay cash or via credit card ::

:: You can pick your own sheeps and the shepherd will then tag it for you ::

:: There's cows also but cow is not a very popular choice of kurban here in middle east eventhough cheaper in price wise compared to Malaysia's rate ::

:: You'll be given tag like this for collection later. Unlike Malaysia, they don't have akad here. The akad is already written on the receipt. Same goes with zakat, usually you have to sit and utter some simple akad while paying your zakat. In here, they have different practice. You just go to any zakat house near you place, the officer on duty will ask you questions like how many person you're paying for, then he will give you how many amount of rice you need to buy. They don't accept money here. They only take zakat in a form of makanan asasi like rice or flour or perhaps sugar. If you can't go to zakat house, you can pay via online the equivalent amount and they'll help you to buy the beras on your behalf ::

:: The animal right officer from Australia who purposely flew to Kuwait to protect the sheeps's right. You can see the difference in treatment received between Australian sheeps and Arabi. The Australians have covered shed of their own and this officers will monitor the process and progress from the loading procedure to the time and length involved to get their sheep moving from pit to another. They'll interfere should any mal-practiced occurred according to international law since they were obliged to send reports to their boss back home. On another hand, Arabi sheep have no covered shed whatsoever and was gathered in an open clearing. October is still summer in Kuwait although nearing the end, but the temperature still spike to around 40 degree or so and as a result, we can see a number of sheep died due to heat stroke. Horrible sight! ::

:: Inside the slaughter house ::

:: Collection area ::

:: They will called out your number, in Arabic of course. However, sadly due to very unsystematic and messy handling, people had to wait for miserably long time and fight broke off among the crowd due to lack of patience. Arabs have very limited patience when it comes to waiting or queuing. Sad fact, but true. Come to think of it, I guess if you were made to wait from morning till evening in a very uncomfortable place with lack of seating area, under hot schorching summer, it is very hard to contained your frustration and anger, Arabs or not. Mind you, we came as early as we can, around 7:30 am. You know, first come first go. We had to stand in the heat until 9:30 am with no progress whatsoever. Definitely a very frustration situation. At the end, all ladies went back to Kak Anis home and left only the mens to settle the rest of the procedures. Kami kaum yang lemah u know ahakkkk...We only gotten our daging around 5 pm and it was raw. By saying raw meaning, the sheep was cut into 4 parts each and in order to distribute it according to syariah, we need to get it cut into smaller size which CANNOT be done at the slaughter house. You need to go to other meat shop to do this and all meat shop in the neighborhood refused to take anymore sheep in due to heavy volume of sheep they had to handle for that day already. To cut it short, the husbands had to go back to Mangaf, around 30 minutes from the slaughter house,to the meat shop in front my apartment to be exact to get the job done done and travel back to Jabriya, another 30-40 minutes where us ladies were waiting to sort the meat, pack it and send the fakir's part to nearby mosque where the kariah there will help to distribute it kepada mereka yang berhak. Subhanallah.. All of us were exhausted, sleepy and our patience were tested. May our hardships and deeds be realized and accepted O' Allah.. ::

:: Meats worth of 7 sheeps piled up waiting to be sort equally. Ma, Kak Anis's mom lead the sorting process and taught us how to do it properly. Masha Allah, she's indeed a big of help. Honestly, I was clueless of how and what to do plus the smell of the blood and strong sheep's scent was overpowering and daunting :(. I am not a meat lover hence the sight of mountains of meat and it's strong smells is not very pretty scene, no matter how positive I tried to be ::

According to syariah(islamic law), for aqiqah, we were encouraged to cook some portion of the meat and feast our neighbors and friends. Since I am not a very good cook, I suggested that we organised a BBQ session at family park where we can invite as many guest as we can due to bigger space compared to if we were to do it at home. Some meat, especially the rib part were set aside to marinade for BBQ, some meaty part will be cooked into something else. That's the initial plan..

Mr Muddy and I did all the marinade part involving almost 1/2 ekor sheep, plus some chicken parts for those who didn't eat meat ( read :me) and non muslim guests. Non muslim is not allowed to eat meat from aqiqah, hence the other menu prepared. I cooked another half ekor of sheep into soup tulang while Anis will make Gulai Kawah for the rest of em' sheep. The soup can be eaten with bread or mee kuning. I also fried some kueyteow and Anis ordered some nasik campur to top up to what we already have. Never in my life did I imagined to cook kambing, left alone the whole kambing, all by myself, from scratch! I kept doing the unthinkable lately.. hurmmm

:: My soup tulang ::

:: I am sleep deprived, having high fever, tired to my core so I was practically looks non human the whole day. Nevertheless one happy and satisfied host. Thank you to everyone for coming ::

:: Our BBQ site ::

:: Kueyteow pucat, sepucat tukang masak nyer ::

Alhamdullilah everything went smooth. Food was enough to last till evening with minimal leftover. My only hope was for our majlis, our guests and all of us to be blessed with abundance of barakah.

My end year this time time couldn't be any more happier because, 2/3 of Pak Mail's clan is here. Yeppp you read right. My parents and my baby sis came visiting us in Q8 last December. They stayed around 3 weeks and we were so very happy to play host. My girls have more than ever reasons to be in festive mood the whole time nenek, atok and ashu were here. Since they still have around a week of school days before taking a winter break, they were definitely enjoying nenek and atuk company and having the time of their life. 

For the whole week, nenek and only nenek cooks for their lunchbox, a slight change which mummy welcomes with open heart and open hands ha ha ha. Sila kan nenek, sila kan ... For those 3 weeks, my kitchen call sign have changed! From mummy to nenek.. Any request, please forward to nenek yerr.. So much so, at the end of their stay, I can't recognized my own kitchen and believe it or not, many of my utensils went missing in action hahaha.. Coming back from school they demand cookies, kuih kuih that never existed in mummy's book and many more food as they please while Nenek was more than happy to cook! Huhhh they turned spoiled brat overnight.. 

Only Ashu will help them get ready for school. Ashu and only Ashu can sikat and ikat their rambut. Before Ashu here, mummy tied and braid their hair the best. Now no more! Wellllllll, it doesn't bother me AT ALL! And most importantly, Erin refused to sleep with me for the whole 3 weeks. Honestly, I was a bit sad and kinda miss her snuggling under my armpit in the middle of the night, her scent and so on but I got over it in no time. Our master bed was king size and only now I realized how big it was kah kah kah. I had the bed all to myself, especially when mister was on night shift. Well, changes is not necessarily bad. It could be bless in disguise hihihihi..

I will usually send and pick them to and from their school bus everyday under normal ciscumstances. If my husband on off day, he'll do it then. When my parents was here, the task was officially belong to ATOK! Non negotiable. Ohhhhh no objection from either me or mister, AT ALL ha ha ha.. 

Arghhhh you have no idea how I wish they can stay here longer, maybe a year onwards muahahaha..

:: Ashu and Erin during one of the outing ::

:: Enjoying Nasi Bukhari Yemeni ::

:: Stopped by Hard Rock Cafe for some souvenirs and we decided to enjoy sunset by gulf road ::

:: Temperature while they were here. Apparently, they're not fond of winter much ::

:: Some serious shopping at Souq Mubarakiya ::

::@ Souq Jumma - Leather jacket section ::

:: BBQ session with close friends. As you can see, the sun is so bright but all of us all wrapped up in either trench coat or wool coat. It was below 10 degree C this time around so don't get fool by the sun's brightness. ::

:: My parents at their favorite corner. Antique section ::

:: Ladies gotta do what ladies gotta do ::

:: As the saying goes, apple doesn't fall far from the tree :) ::

:: My little girl, all grown up.. Sighh  ::

:: Adik manisss ::

:: Time sure does fly fast when you're not looking. The farewell @ Kuwait International Airport ::

:: The aftermath as expected, on our way home after nenek atok boarded ::

After all that have been said and done, I still have one important event, by far the biggest, happened before year end. I had this announced on my Facebook status a while back......

Yessss, thank you Allah.. I am expecting our 3rd child. Since I had 2 girls already, I am not so secretly hoping for this one to be boy. We haven't figure the gender yet as of now, hopefully soon. My due month is in August. As we speak, I had just entering my second semester. Compared to my previous 2 pregnancy, I had it tough this time. The sickness was pretty rough based on my personal experience as I don't recall being hopelessly un-energetic, fatigue, nausea, dizzy and moody the whole day, nope .. actually the whole 2months, before this. Usually, by 3 months, my sickness has almost resided. This time is another different story. The dizziness started at the end of my first trimester, around 2nd month entering my 3rd month, then crankiness settled in. I am miserably dizzy and nausea 99.9 % of the time. Not to mentioned, grumpy beyond console on most days. I rely on ice cream and orange to soothe the sickness. Thankfully I ate just fine despite the dizzy and vomiting episodes. Ha ha this is nothing new actually. I don't usually lost my appetite even when I was down with high fever, cough or runny nose. There's nothing much you can do about being sick or getting sick. Life must goes on muahaha, and for that, you need food!

Ahh case in point, since my 2013 started with being pregnant, my resolution this year is revolved around pregnancy and actually pretty simple. Not that I am ambitious before when it came to resolution or religiously make a list every year. I just make one this year for fun. Are you ready????

Phewwwww...

My resolution this year is not to get TOO FAT while being pregnant and to try to beat or at least follow Megan Fox's sensational pregnancy record! She gained only 10 kg of baby fat and lost all of it almost immediately soon after gave birth. 

Ha ha ha SIMPLE ain't it?

For my previous 2, my maximum weight gain during pregnancy is 30 kg. Not healthy, not pretty and definitely not inspiring. 

Unfortunately, my resolution failed on the very first week of New Year ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.. Can't hurt to dream right??? Megan Fox lah sangatttt.. Ambitious sangat ko nih hihihiihih...

Anyway, I still have 6 months to go and hopefully I will make it through till the end, safely. Please pray for the safety of me and the bun in my oven yer and I can't thank you enough. May Allah repay your kindness with Jannah..

:: Meet my lil pea ::

It's Hala February in Kuwait now, a festive month where Kuwaitis celebrating independence day so most school are on break. Taking the opportunity on a week break, we're going for a short getaway to city where East Meets West this Friday and shall be back after a week. We will be going with another 2 family friends so I foresee a fun and memorable trip for all of us. Pray for our smooth sailing journey and do take care wherever you are and whatever you do.

Let's meet again in March.. Insha Allah..