BelangZ

Date: 27 November 2016 We revisited Wellington Point for the second time, picnicking by the beach with Adam, Lin, Farah and Muzammail. Before that, we made our first trip to Kidspot's Baby and Kids Market at Nudgee, bought a few toys for the kiddos and feeling a bit disappointed that most of the clothes on sale were pinkish-girlish. Oh well, looking at the bright side, it's a good way to control our expenditure! But then, we went to DFO and grabbed myself another Skechers... So to date, I have 3 Skechers shoes which I don't wear as often as I should. Not feeling very proud of myself... *shakes head in despair* Anyway, enough about shopping - the topic for this post is King Island. I was very determined to walk to King Island this time around, even if I have to do it on my own! So that means, Hasben had to entertain the kiddos with their sandcastles and sea-splashing, alone! Bye boys! I walked along the sand pathway, only visible during low tide and was not sure ho

Date: 8 October 2016 Happy birthday Hasben! Let's go for a romantic island getaway... with the kids... which means, just an island getaway.. =p Coochie, a short ferry ride from mainland Brisbane, cost $9 return per adult - is one of the cheapest island trip in Moreton Bay. So there's a big chance for us to revisit Coochie. The only downside is that camping is not allowed - so a day trip it is! We arrived at Victoria Point Jetty at about 10am and bought the tickets once we boarded the ferry. 10 minutes later, we arrived in Coochie. We planned to cycle around the island by renting bikes from the local company there. However, due to some new safety regulations, only adults' bikes were available. That was quite a bummer. There is no way in the world we could drag the kids on a bicycle adventure. So plan B was to let the kids swim in the beach for about half an hour... while I just enjoy the view, sitting down. Not the adventure I was looking for, but

Viewer discretion is advised. Post contains toilet related issues. I don't know why but being as frugal as I am, I find it very hard to buy a new toilet mat. Those fluffy luxurious ones can cost up to $20, and I feel that is better spent on my clothes/shoes/handbags. Heee~ My current mats are not very pleasant to look at, with holes and black spots all over the place. So I challenged myself to upcycle this blue one using only scrap fabrics. I am a hoarder of scrap fabrics, I have loads of them. Am not sure what I am planning to use them for - so Challenge Accepted ! 1) This is actually very clean, freshly washed... Just a very ugly looking mat. So firstly, you need an ugly mat: 2) After much deliberation, I finally decided to use this blue fabric (it was previously a scarf). Covered the whole mat on both sides, and pinned them together:  3) Used a ruler and a pen to draw evenly spaced lines on the mat. With a sewing machine, sew on the lines, starting from the

We bought our Ektorp corner lounge a few years back from Gumtree, it comes with washable white with blue flowers covers. Having 2 kids, washable means a lot but white is just too much work. The sofa looks more brown even though I tried washing them a couple of times. Hasben was suddenly very excited in making over the house after watching some reality show on TV. He was keen on changing our lounge covers but finding out they cost $409 in Ikea, it was a bit of a let down. So we tried our luck on Gumtree and miraculously, we found this red cover in NSW. The seller was very nice and was willing to post the whole bundle to us! Mind you, the total weight was more than 8kg! We waited excitedly over the weekend for the postie to arrive, and when he finally did, it was like opening a birthday present! The lounge now looks awesome (Thanks Kelli!) and I even refurbished our old cushions. I combined 2 cushions into 1 to make it look more fluffy and bought this black-white furnitur

Date: 7 August 2016 Since Hasben had a new mid-year resolution to spend most of his time in the office to complete his PhD, he promised to dedicate his weekends for short travels. A few weeks ago, we drove to Melaney, Sunshine Coast (maybe I will write about this later) and last Sunday, I Googled for the best beaches in Brisbane for kids, and Wellington Point is highly recommended. The cosy town of Wellington Point looked very lovely as we passed by but we didn't have the time or energy to explore it. We went straight to Wellington Point Recreation Reserve, located at the tip of a little cape. The right side of the cape was exposed to the open water of Moreton Bay and the wind was very strong here. We were shivering as we walked on the dock. It may be a good spot for fishing as there were many people hanging out along the dock with their fishing rods. On the left side, it was much less colder with a view of Brisbane across the water. The tide was low so we can actually wa

Date: 28 June 2016 It is the last 10 days of Ramadhan and this was our first time breaking fast at a restaurant for this year. Khadijah wanted us to join her to try the new restaurant, specializing in everything grill. It is owned by 2 muslim brothers, therfore halal, and provided us with more dining choice apart from Sofra and Nandos. After Hasben finished his cleaning shift, we went straight to the CBD and arrived slightly after 7pm. Khadijah had ordered for us in advance so the food was ready for us on the table. I ordered King Prawns but felt that it wasn't enough,  I was still a bit hungry. There were only 3 prawns... So yeah... I will order something else in the future. However, Hasben's Lamb Chunk was a bit too much for me, it was a really humongous chunk! After finishing our dinner, we went for ice creams at Gelatisimo across the road. The cold winter night did not stop us from having cold deserts!

Just got back from Brisbane and I am exhausted! Woke up quite early for an appointment with Bupa, for Kimi's medical check up. He needed to get some blood sample for a TB test. He acted like a champ, cried a bit for less than 3 seconds. Was so proud of him! As a treat, we brought him to South Bank Parklands for some swimming fun. It was an unplanned trip therefore, the boys had to swim with their boxers - until they were shivering. Later, we visited the Queensland Museum again so Kimi could see some dinosaurs. At this point, Afi had dozed off quietly on the stroller. So that sums up our day trip for today. My little hero's bruise:

Date : 20 March 2016 This trip occurred about 1 month ago. Back then it was still summer, none of this waking up to chilly mornings. (I am under the blanket right now). We missed the opportunity to visit a cotton field last year, while celebrating Anzac Day at Jondaryan Woolshed. This year, however, we had Adam who was working on that part of Toowoomba to inform us that it was finally cotton season! I was not sure where the exact location was since there were not many information about cotton fields in the Internet. Using Zana's tips, we used the alternative Toowoomba-Dalby route, passing through Jondaryan Woolshed. This takes an extra 30 minutes to reach Dalby as calculated by GPS. After driving unsurely, we saw the fluffy whites of cotton and stopped by the road side for some pictures, wishing no one shoots us for trespassing. After feeling satisfied with the pictures, we went to Dalby town, had a bit of a walk in the CBD, shopped at Target Country (Target for rural a