A very random post

I know its been a while since the last post but with it being a very long term (8 weeks) and no holidays, we haven't really gone anywhere. That isn't to say we haven't done a lot- just not stuff that I think would be worth blogging about.

We've been going to Bukhit a lot to keep fit (Zaheer is a machine- soooo not fun trying to keep up with him on 9 bloody hills!), swimming at school, having dinners with friends, eating out loads at the Indian restaurant Lotus (its just so tasty!) so its all been good.

(My mouth waters everytime I see this picture- stir fried prawns in chilli sauce- drooooool)

We are also getting very excited about going back to the UK soon- 7 weeks to go!! To be honest we don't know where the time has gone. When we first arrived it was so scary to think we weren't going to be seeing our family and friends from the UK for a whole year and it is very hard to cope with but Christmas seems like the biggest hurdle- once you're over that time just seems to fly and before you know it you're in May!

So since the last update:

Yusuf (you can always rely on him to fill up the blogging pages!) took part in Athletics day.

It was a really fun day (although very long) and they did four different activities- running, sack race, throwing and relay. Yusuf tried very hard and did well in all of them. Red house and (Ithink- I'm really not sure!!) Yellow house came joint first so Yusuf was happy and so was Zaheer who is head of Red house.

Yusuf had his school pictures taken.

School pictures are school pictures- none of the kids smile like they do normally and the parents are thinking 'W.T.F- but its not me and we'll buy it anyway and display them around the house to embarrass the living daylights out of them when they're teenagers and bring their 'cool' friends around' but we've all been there! Here's me with my brother:

(the concentration in trying to smile- its too much!)

I blame (1) my mum for the clothes (the waistcoat! My brother had some cool denim thing going on! WHY mum, why???) and the hair and (2) the photographer. If you inspect the picture closely you will see my brother (though not as seriously as me) trying to do the exact same smile/grin/scary face/lady gaga show me your teeth look, as me therefore the photographer MUST have told us to do that and us being Pakistanis who didn't know how to smile because god forbid we did in pictures (if your a Pakistani, from my family, you will know what I am talking about!), blindly followed him. And no I didn't show Zaheer this before we got married because I think he wanted ok looking children so I showed him one of me as a baby with rosy cheeks but then my evil sister showed one of the dreaded teenage years (evil evil sister!) and I think there was some serious thinking going on in Zaheers head (after the initial 'gah! who/what the hell is this!?)

We bought a mini tree.

No gardens as we live in an apartment and I always wanted a tree (in the garden) so we bought this. I love it. Even the birds get confused with it and try to sit on it and build little nests. Its cute watching them fail.

And finally, I'm going to leave you with this comic from my favourite website ever- Explosm.net. These guys are so incredibly funny and I aspire to be like them one day......and fail miserably

Hope you have a random HAPPY day!!

Yusuf's 5th Birthday Part 2

This was the big day for Yusuf. It was his party at the land of all parties- JUNGLE GYMS!!

This was the highlight of the year as far as Yusuf was concerned. We had called all of his friends from school and had to go pick up the (transformers) cake in the morning.

They did a good job (no where near as good as mine obviously!) and the cake was a very nice chocolate sponge. For the next 2 1/2 hours its leave the kids to themselves and parents just relax.

Its a win-win situation. The staff take care of the food and cake so you don't really have to do anything.

(Yusuf and Elinor)

(Yusuf and Oscar)

Then they bought the cake out:

There was so much cake that even after feeding all the kids and all the adults we had a third of it left over! We had fun trying to finish that off. I was officially chocolated out (yes I know that is not a real word!)

Yusuf loved every minute of it and had a brilliant time which was the main thing. He got so many presents in the end. He had a lot of fun opening them all.

By the end of Saturday we were glad it was over! Next year will not be as big as this- he's only turning 6!

Yusuf's 5th Birthday Part 1 (Don't worry there's only two parts)

It was my gorgeous monkeys 5th birthday on the 30th April.

He was very very excited and had been asking about this day for a good three months so he wanted EVERYTHING! He knew that he was going to be having a party on the saturday with all of his school friends but he wanted a 'little party' on his actual birthday and I was more than happy to make that little wish come true. So I put up a few ballons around the living room,

and started on his cake.

(A Victoria sponge! How I missed thee.........)

He has been Transformers obsessed for a little while now so I knew what theme the cake was going to be but I had to find something easy to do as I am not that good at decorating cakes. Luckily for me, the Transformers logo is all straight lines and very easy and something I could deal with. I was immensely proud of myself with the final product and I think Yusuf was too.

(How fricking cool is that cake!!??)

Then it was the opening of the presents. He wasn't dissapointed! Zaheer got him a Bumblebee Transformer (his favourite) and a friend of his from school gave him 2 Transformer models (One autobot and one deceptacon- I was excited to see them!) They were very cool presents!

And we also got him a huge Special Lego Kit with all the extra little pieces that you can't find with normal Lego. I think this picture says it all:

The finished product (which he put 90% of it together all by himself):

I asked Yusuf he could have whatever he wanted for his birthday meal. His answer- 'a fish finger sandwich with chips in front of the TV watching my favourite film, Ice Age 3'. We couldn't say no to that! He literally was in heaven!

(Simple pleasures....)

Simi and Salome came after that bearing huge presents and singing Happy Birthday at the door to Yusuf. He was quite embarrassed but very happy with his presents!

We bought the birthday cake out after that, sang happy birthday again and had it with tea.

It was a delicious cake- probably the softest I have ever made. Yusuf was happy, I was happy and everyone loved the cake! It was a good day and I'm incredibly grateful and thankful for having Yusuf in my life. He brightens up everyday and like Zaheer said, 'He's like Sid from Ice Age- the sticky gooey thing that holds everyone together!'