BelangZ

Now that the kids have remembered all three Duck Letters, we can move on to our next batch of letters. Here is another worksheet I made for the Sunday madrasah class. It is to introduce Baa, Taa, Thaa and Nun.  Reciting some surah before the lessons. I call them The Funny Face Letters as they resemble smiley faces with different eyes. At first, I called them Monster Letters... but one of the kids said - I don't like monsters! Fair enough... Afi thinks they are hilarious, so hopefully, it will help the kids remember easily. Sharing this worksheet to all kiddos out there. The tasks are: 1) Draw the funny eyes on the empty faces. 2) Colour in the smiles. Happy learning!

Yesterday, Kimi's second tooth was removed by the dentist at Brushland, Toowoomba. It was all drama as usual so Hasben promised him that he can choose a special toy tonight, after we had our 'buy 1 free 1' meals at the new Toowoomba Paparich. The 3 Lions looking for toys at Kmart. So when we arrived home with the new toy, a track for battery operated cars  that glows in the dark (which I did not approved, by the way. It was Hasben's idea), it was already bed time.  K: Ibu, help me fix this track. Me: No, it's already night. We need to sleep now. K: You need to be a good mom and help me fix this track. Me: What?? Are you saying I'm not a good mom?? K: No... but I'm just warning you to be a good mom... (he was just whining, not threatening) I wanted to laugh but had to focus on being strict. The vocabulary is good but can be misleading... haha! And as for Afi: A: When I big, I am going to drive a plane actually. It's easy. ...

This morning, while I was packing Kimi's lunch and washing the dishes, Kimi was eating his breakfast with his brothers on the bar, looking at me quietly. He usually has cereal but as we have ran out of milk, Kimi was dunking his biscuits into a cup of Horlick - not a popular drink here but one of my favourites, so much so that my mom brought it all the way from Malaysia - love her to bits! Bought these bar chairs (Chairs&More) from Gumtree last weekend, made my morning routines so much easier. I can monitor the boys better this way.  Then, he suddenly asked: K: Ibu, who I'm going to marry? Me: I don't know. It's one of God's secrets. You will know when you grow bigger. K: But I want to know. I think I'm going to marry a Malaysian girl. Me: Maybe. K: How do you know you're going to marry Abah? Me: Because he was not lazy. So I thought to myself, I can marry him because he can help with the kids. Girls don't like lazy boys. So you ...

Every Sunday morning since early this year, I have volunteered to teach non-Arabic speaking children, ages 4 to 8, to read Arabic at our local madrasah. It has been a good experience for me, as teaching little kids is obviously waaay different than what I am used to. It also gives me the opportunity to meet up with other moms who volunteered, and make new little friends from different cultural backgrounds ;)   Saw this wild flower near the car park - pretty! Beautiful Sunday morning at the mosque. So every week, I have to plan ahead on the lessons which usually takes about 1 hour. Currently, I am teaching Jim, Haa, Khaa - I call them The Duck Letters - Jim with the dot on the wings, Haa is the funny one (Ha ha ha!) and Khaa is the angry one with the dot on the head. It seems to be working as after 3 weeks, the kids can remember all 3 quite well. Learning the Ducks Letter! I have made a worksheet based on this concept (using some of the images online) and anyone who ...

After 8 years, I have finally decided to revamp my blog. Yes, I haven’t written much this past couple of years - with only 2 posts in 2017! Motherhood must have taken a toll on me. Juggling 3 kids with other things have taken my writing mood away. It is true, I guess, that stay at home moms have less time for themselves. The hours just seem to swoosh by so quickly. Today, I would just like to preserve a screenshot of the old blog that I have grew to love. Bye-bye old Belang-belang. You will be missed. And here is the new one. I am a bittt regretting my decision but gotta move on now! Update: 19th August 2018 I wasn't satisfied with my previous header so I hand-drew this one instead. Now I am feeling happy and content. This makes more sense to me - Oh yes, I have now officially shorten my website to just belangz.blogspot.com . It is no longer belang-belangz.blogspot.com . BUT, still the same old me =D

I can’t believe that Toys ‘R’ Us will be closing very very soon. They just opened this store here in Toowoomba less than a year ago, and I was actually quite excited about it. I mean, more things to do with the kids. But now, everything is at least 50% off. The store was nearly empty last weekend when we visited for the first time, and probably for the last time. The good news was, we found this shark toy from Animal Planet that Kimi had been asking for since December. We searched everywhere - both in Malaysia and Toowoomba but it was right here all along!! He probably saw them in one of those YouTube videos, where kids/adults review toys. Very influential advertising, I think. Goodbye Toys ‘R’ Us. Had a vague childhood memory that involved browsing toys in its London store, and probably didn’t buy too many things due to the price. You will be missed...

Date: 21 June 2018 Karipap - It has to be one of the most favouritest Malaysian 'kuih' ever. Hasben loves it sooo much - he'll let everybody know (especially the Malaysian ladies) so that maybe, they'll remember to send some karipap over to our house if they ever made them (>u<) . For example, Kak Hani made some for him a couple of years back for his birthday, and most recently, Kak Ija gave a whole plastic bag of frozen karipaps - twice! Okay, cooking is not my thing. But I had attempted to make karipap in the past and decided to give them another go. Made the filling - no problem, just a bunch of potatoes with curry powder. The dough was a different story. I mean, I mixed the flour + butter + water okay, but just not sure how to make them less sticky, so that I can actually shape them. I was so frustrated that I ended up just chucking them in the oil, regardless of how they looked like, just as long as the filling were completely covered by the dough. Has...