12 months

Alhamdulillah Yasmin turns 1 year old today.

It has been a wonderful journey for the past 12 months. I am praying i can have more birthdays to celebrate with you my little darling. You are my angel.

MasyaAllah, she is just perfect to me. 

She just got her teeth erupted a couple weeks ago and starting to take few steps.

Alhamdulillah very independent and active baby. 

I guess every baby is different and adorable in different ways.

Dear yasmin, mommy loves u so much! 

What i miss the most

Alhamdulillah we finally settle down and start the normal routine after 8 weeks of long vacation in malaysia

It's good to be back coz im just tired of traveling. Getting old i guess

Anyway, my park routine starts a few days back. I miss my playgroup so much and the park itself.

Ahahah, rindu oi nak bawak anak gi park sbb kat malaysia panas. Tak de masa nak singgah park. And the condition of certain park sangat menyedihkan.

Even though im having a blasting time during ramadhan in malaysia, tiny part of me i miss being in the masjid.

Kalau puasa kat santa rosa, almost every night we the whole family pergi tarawih. Kids are happy to join us.

Tapi balik malaysia, tak ada satu malam pon that i got the chance to go.

We were always out and on the go. 

Sedihkan? This is a muslim country. Supposely masjid is more lively. Maybe i je kot yg masih berfoya2. Asyik mencari tempat untuk berbuka and berjumpa.

Mungkin kesilapan diri sendiri.

Hopefully i can have another ramadhan here insyaAllah

Family restroom

Most of the outlets and malls in the States offer these amenities, family restrooms. 

It's convenient for big family, for a daddy that needs to bring his daughter to potty or for us the muslim family. 

Having said that, we always choose to use this restroom coz hubby can enter too and i think it's more privacy to change yasmin's diaper. Besides we  all bole amik air sembahyang dengan tenang.    

Unfortunately, there are people who i call

them mangkuk coz they don't understand or buat2 tak paham use this bathroom where it is clearly stated for family. Geram ya amat! 

The other day, Zara really wanted to potty and we waited patiently outside the restroom. We tried to calm

zara and asked her to hold it for as she could. Suddenly the door open and saw this single guy coming out from the family  rest room. Huihhhh, angin satu badan!

Tak considerate lansung! It happens in USA yalls

Busy packing

Assalamualaikum,

Alhamdulillah, another 2 weeks time we'll wake up in kuala lumpur, 

The excitement for the journey is high so does my headache too. 

So many things to pack and i need to make sure that i utilize every space that i have. 

Currently just finish packing 4 luggage and mostly are my business stuff.

There are few more things to buy.eg mosquitoes repellent. This is a must item to bring. Coz i remember the last time we went back, zara was covered with the mosquitoes bite. It's all over her skin. 

We will be back for 8 weeks and i am pretty sure the time will be a glimpse. We  plan the akikah one of the day after raya too. And i hope we can have some family time at one of the island if time permits. 

The mess

Coach, Michael Kors, Dooney n Burke , Fossil And Kate Spade

Assalamualaikum,

43 days till Malaysia.

I have some bags for sale. Pm for price

Post natal weight at 7mo

Alhamdulillah, although it's not drastically decrease, i can see slight improvement. 

I was 61.8kg before. 

Alhamdulillah i find my running partner the past 2 months. We have been helping each other by taking turns watching the kids at play ground. We squeeze our running time in between. 3 times a week at least, not bad huh?

Unfortunately, my running partner is leaving for Egypt tomorrow and she will be there for a month. I don't want to just be idle and do nothing.

After much of persuasion with hub, he lets me join zumba class everyday. I guess i gotta to work harder so it will worth the investment. 

Today, i went for the trial class.

I sweat like a pig. It makes me moves my entire body parts while enjoying the catchy music. Cant wait to go for my next class. 

50 days till malaysia!

Busy weekend

Normally we are out of town almost every weekend. Hardly had a chance to explore our own area. 

This week, we decided to just enjoy the weekend here in Santa Rosa. 

There were 2 main events held at downtown, the rose parade and agmen cycling race tour the california. 

We love to watch parade. The live music, the school marching band, the cars and the performers are the best thing. If you are with little kids, my advice is to make sure that you have the food, water n toys ready coz it can be 2 hours long. 

And on Sunday, there was the finale of tour the california race. This was my first time watching it. I didnt join hub n zara last year for this annual event. Despite the hot weather, i really enjoy it. Towards the finishing line, the crowds were really excited with the bell, whistle and the claps . Meremang bulu roma. Memang the cyclist laju gila! Awesome event.

And now, yasmin dah gelap due to excessive sun exposure. Her cheek is pink, mcm pakai blusher.

Yasmin is 7 mo

Alhamdulillah Yasmin is 7 mo already.

Every pregnancy is different so does every baby. 

She was more attach to me since I am a SAHM. I never leave her more than 2 hours. She's still nursing and waking up at night at least once. 

She's growing and eating well too. Her fav is mango and butternut squash purée.

She adores her sister so much. She giggles and laughs frantically when her sister play peek a boo or tag you rid. I love to see the healthy relationship between her and her sister. Inshallah, I will try my best to raise you and your sister with love dear.

Miss Rhonda's readers

When I was a kid, my mom never teach me how to read English book. I couldn't remember how I start learning to read too. I was a kampung girl. My life mostly or precisely like the cartoon upin n ipin. Exactly the same, where we all played batu seremban, tengteng n so on almost everyday. Athan is like our ring bell to go home every evening. It was fun! 

So when I grow up, reading book wasn't really my thing. Plus, I didn't have that much money to buy book. 

But, now I need to make sure my kids love reading books. 

So in order to reach the goal, my first step is to read as much book as possible  to her everyday. I just borrowed the books from the library. it's unlimited number, you can borrow as much as you can. Sometimes tu memang penat. But I guess now she's the one will reminding me to read her the book.

Now I'm on my second step. Independent reader. So I've bought some easy pheasy book for her.

She has started to love it. 

Here are the series! Why I choose these books? Simply because they are the suggested Montessori reading material. I think the content is good coz it's repetitive. I bought it from the Montessori services here in Santa Rosa. It's not cheap though but worth the investment. They offer a lot of other montessori materials too which I could help to decide on that day. 

Oh, I bought myself a book too. Ye la, duduk negara org no lain culturenya. I should equip myself with etiquette knowledge 

 

Islamic Yoga

Assalamualaikum

Alhamdulillah, today I had the chance to join our Muslim Sister here for the yoga class.
Seriously, every woman needs this class once a week. It helps to relax mind, body and soul.
And the best thing about this yoga class, the chanting, we replace it to zikir. MashaAllah. It sinks wonderfully.

Since Yasmin still breastfeeding and bottle is alien to her, I had to bring her along. Alhamdulillah another sister was willing to watch her while I was doing and she did good for the first 40 minutes. Then when she started looking for me, I placed her on my mat. I think she enjoying doing the yoga too! She was all smiling and happy.

This was our first class, so all the poses are for beginners and easy to follow. I'm looking forward to next yoga session.

Sometimes you just need to stop and pay attention to your own body and strength. You have so much energy that you never realize it. I was really tired and sleepy when I was about to go out from the house today. Alhamdulillah, after all the pose and relaxation, I feels like I'm ready for my week!

Deal of the week!

Hi all,
Some of you might now that I have my own online business.
Kecik2 aja. Just for my own shopping satisfaction.
Anyway, here is the deal of the week. I'm currently want to clear off my inventory.

PM me at shahida.mansor@gmail.com for more details. Item is already in Malaysia.

School, Parade and love

Assalamalaikum,

Last week was Zara's school spaghetti party. The school holds it every year and this is her second party since she joins the school. Actually it is a social event where parents can hang out and at the same time being entertained by the kids performance. This year, Zara's class had to sing the 'sunshine' song and I had been helping her to memorize the lyric in one day. She did a good job!

couldnt get a better view coz i couldnt let yasmin go through the crowds with our big stroller

Best friend!

The family photo

while waiting for her turn

Then on Sunday, we decided to watch the Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco. It is a big celebration among the Japanese. My girls enjoy it.
Btw, SF ni famous ngan org naked kan. So my girls ni dah biasala nampak naked guys. While we were waiting to get a food, ada sorang mamat ni pakai mcm cawat tu je standing in front of Zara. And she didn't like to see naked man..hahaha..

The proud japanese and japanese wannabe

Graceful dancer eventhough dah tua

Pretty pan-asian kid

This is what i'm talking about.

Orange yogurt popsicle

Assalamualaikum,

Since summer is approaching, the weather has been very nice lately. Some day a little bit chilly and some day can be up to 86F. Park is a must-go place everyday.

A chilly day at the park.

And apa yang best bila weather is warm, ice cream. There are a few ice cream store yg sedap like cold stone and dairy queen. But these are franchise store.

So, since I dah beli popsicle tu, I pon buat la ice-cream sendiri.
Ni ice cream orange yogurt. Senang je. Blend orange juice and yogurt. And add some sugar if you want it to be sweet.

Little helper in the kitchen.

Final product

Nutella Banana Swirl Muffin

Assalamualaikum,

I was planning of baking Nutella Banana Swirl Muffin last night. Tp, sangat malas.
This morning bangun pagi, I dragged myself to bake it.
Lately, I akan prepare muffins for Zara's breakfast. Sbbnya nak try to avoid her from eating the ready-made waffle.
Dulu almost everyday dia makan this waffle. Hubby kata, I should start baking something for breakfast.
Dah ada kitchen aid mixer, still malas lagi.

So here is the muffin yg I buat this morning. Sgt sedap! Please try. You dont need to have mixer. I pakai tangan je gaul all the ingredients.

I amik the recipe from this website. http://www.thenovicechefblog.com/2013/01/nutella-banana-swirl-muffins/

ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 medium over-ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans
nutella

directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin pan with liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until well combined. Set aside.

In large bowl, whisk together banana, sugar, brown sugar. Beat in egg, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Slowly whisk in the flour mixture, until there are no lumps. Fold in pecans.

Fill muffin tins 3/4 full. Top each muffin with about 1 teaspoon of Nutella and use a toothpick to swirl it into the batter.

Bake muffins for 15-17 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Serve warm or store in an airtight container until ready to serve.

Yummylicious!

Miss tak mandi ready nak makan breakfast

Bodega Head

Assalamualaikum,

How was everyone's weekend?
Mine? As usual, memang tak lekat kat rumah.
We went to Belmont and Cupertina, visiting our friends.
It was 2 hours drive but worth it. Hanging with other Malaysians. Zara pon tak nak balik, she's so happy meeting her friends there.

But today, we went to Bodega Head. About 45 minutes drive from our home.
It's a tourist attraction. If you were lucky, some of the day, you can watch the whale migrating from north to south or vise versa. I did saw a few when we came last time. It's big!

Unfortunately, no whale today. The wind was really strong. The wave was high too. We couldnt continue our hiking coz of the strong wind.

Have you heard about sneaker wave? Yes, California ni banyak case orang drown sbb sneaker wave. Just imagine, you walk along side of the beach and all off sudden you were swept away by the wave and nothing can be done! Scary tau..

So here are some of the photos that I managed to snap. Enjoy!

Pacific Ocean behind him

Yasmin is hinding inside the black jacket.

Beautiful scenery

Miss Explorer!

Sterilizer

Assalamualaikum

When you have babies, you tend to get all kind of gadgets to ease you. The list goes one page long.
And one of the must-have list is a sterilizer.

While back in Malaysia, I used to own one cheap and small sterilizer which can only fit about 6 pcs in it. I thought that having one can at least help the lazy me.

However, i was wrong. The manual sterilizer is much easier. Manual means masak the bottle in hot-boiled water. Yes, I've been using this method forever. Since Zara sampai la ke Yasmin.
Eventhough here sterilizer is really cheap, I still love doing manually. Kampung style.

yakin n mudah.

I just need to boil the water until it bubbles and dump evverything in it. Use the thong to scoop it out and place it in a bucket to dry off. Easy peasy!

Yasmin is under the weather

Assalamualaikum

Last week, the weather was not really on our side. Most of the days are either gloomy or raining the whole day.

Akibat main hujan while sending Zara to school in the morning, Yasmin caught the flu bugs.
She has runny nose and yesterday, her temp was high. Merengek je in the middle of the night.

I had to get the wet towel and put on her forehead. Alhamdulillah, this morning she's getting better. No more fever except the runny nose.

Poor bam bam min (this what we call her) She is soooo bam bam.

at 230am, wide awake

this morning, she's happily playing with her kakak

Post natal weight

Assalamualaikum

Let me tell you about my weight problem journey through out my life.

I have big bones and pear shape body type. My weight has never been less than 53 kg.
Kira nya 53kg was the lowest since I consider as an adult. To achieve this weight, I went through an exercise regime yg sgt strict. I was in my final year where food is scarce (eceh2! mana tak nya, MARA bg USD120 for food n belanja lain). Plus I took one credit exercise class. Memang turun berat badan. Muka pon cenkung. Time study senang skit nak shed weight, I think. Bole pegi swimming and so on. I suka exercise, so free time between class sanggup tu pergi swimming eventhough winter sejuk-sejuk tu.

After kawin I gained about 4kg.

My first pregnant, I gained 18kg. Then I managed to reduce the 15kg.

Second pregnant, I gained about 25kg. gila kan? memang dah macam ameba besar bergeerak.

Alhamdulillah, I've reduced almost 90% of it.

InsyaAllah, will try harder for the next 3 months. Sbb nak balik Malaysia and nak pakai baju raya yg buat last year. Tak pernah pakai pon baju ni sbb I was heavily pregnant.

3 months postnatal

6 months postnatal

I tak pakai PB ok! this is solely on exercise. I believe that exercise can help to reduce the weight in long term. Do you know by exercising you are actually exercise your heart to beat faster. This can help and regulate your blood cycle. Believe to the power of exercise. Oh, please. Dont tell me you dont have time. You know take a stroll with your kids in the stroller after work is consider as exerccise. Just go round your neigbourhood for a few rounds. Stay healthy peeps!

Zara's messy hair

Zara has long and thin hair. However, it is always tangled after shampoo and after waking up in the morning.
Horrible betul rambut dia. We have to apply the leave-in hair conditioner for her everytime nak sikat rambut. So far, since she was born, she had only 2 hair cuts. One, when we shaved her head bald. The other time, we decided to chop it coz rambut dia serabai time swimming class. No more lovely curl on her hair dah.

I prefer to keep her hair long. Tapi kene sabar je la bila nak sikat.

Look her messy hair in the morning. Macam anak singa bangun tido

Here is her new bag pack we got from the closing store. It's Skip Hop brand. She loves it.

Today's Menu for Yasmin

Assalamualaikum.

Alhamdulillah, Yasmin has started her interest in trying different type of food. So far, I've introduced mostly yellow/orange food like carrot, apricot, applesauce, pear.

And today, I ran out most of thing in my fridge. Went to Trader Joes, my fav and frequent groceries shop here in Santa Rosa. Bought green peas, sweet potato and papaya. Walmart dah lama gila tak pergi. I will blog about it later about my groceries store.

So here is the menu for Yasmin today.

Yasmin and her green peas puree.

I bought this Popsicle tray from a closing down store. Making a frozen watermelon.

Zara's school day

Assalamualaikum,

We've been sending Zara for a half-day preschool for almost 2 years now.
She has her ups and downs. There was a time that I had to sit in the class coz she didn't want me to leave her alone there. It happens right after we got back from Malaysia vacation and I got to know that I was pregnant. Since that, I can say she enjoys her days there. She becomes close to one of the kids there. She calls her BFF. They both look alike, Asian.

We just sign up for 3 days a week. But, memang penat being a driver. She must be ready by 8am which means shower and breakfast done by that. Then getting everyone in the car is a hassle. Macam lari satu padang skolah at a time. Her class starts at 830am and ends at 1130am. So everytime I reach home, it's almost 9am. So i have 2 hours window to clean, cook and bath Yasmin. Memang selalunya after masak, rasa penat gila! So by 11am dah kene get ready to fetch Zara from school. Ada this one time, I was 10 minutes late. When i came, she was crying coz she though that i forgot to fetch her.

Getting in and out of the house if I'm alone is a battle. Seriously! You can leave you child alone in the house nor in the car. So if i ever leave important stuff like phone, I gotta to unbuckle everyone and get into the house again and so forth. Memang everytime nak keluar rumah, I have to check that I have important things with me.

Here is the photo that i snapped this morning. It was foggy and cold morning.

Outdoor garage.

Yasmin's apricot puree. I used dried apricot and boil  it.
She loves it!

Solid Food

Assalamualaikum,

Alhamdulillah, Yasmin has just started with solid food when she was 5 months 2 weeks. Actually her Paed has given us the green light to start her with food when she was 3mo. I know some of you may think it is too early for a baby. But there is a recent study proving that introducing it as early as 3mo can reduce the chance of getting food allergy in the US. 

However, I'm holding it till she reaches 5 months. One of the reason because I believe that breastfeeding can help to shed some more pregnancy weight. And I would like to enjoy the travel without worrying about her food. Coz you know once she's on food, you gotta bring all the gadgets along when you are out of the house. Let's enjoys the moment, shall we?

Her first meal was a plain rice porridge. I did add some milk in it. (I still have lots of EBM in my fridge). Unfortunately, she didnt like it. The next day, I prepared mango puree. She tasted just a little. She likes banana puree more. 

And today, I prepared the carrot puree. She likes it. InsyaAllah, will try to make sweet potato soon. It helps with her digestion. Breastmilk baby is easy to constipate the first few weeks because the tummy has to do extra work to digest. Enjoy this photo of her enjoying carrot puree. Btw, I love this squeeze spoon. 

Introduction

Assalamualaikum .
Alhamdulillah, finally I have decided to start a new blog for my dear Rania.
I would like and love to  blog about food, places and the day to day routine of my girls.
InsyaAllah, I will try my best to update it religiously.

I would like to introduce my 2 Rania, Rania Zara(eldest) and Rania Yasmin(youngest).