Raya 2011 Prep!

I have a confession to make.
I CANNOT WAIT FOR RAYA!!

I just can't seem to put a finger on my Raya excitement this year. We have about 8 days left and I'm ecstatic! I guess it may be because we're celebrating in my hubby's hometown this year and oh my god I think the last time we were there was last year! It could well be almost a year since last we visited.

So in my mind is all about baking cookies, cooking Raya favorites, my lil bug playing and socializing with her cousins (whom would be speaking a different dialect and language all together!), fire crackers, spending some quality time with my in laws and just relax having to be so far away from the city bustles.

I am a city girl, I must admit. I don't think I can ever live too far from civilization. But a different environment and change is always good once in a while :) My MIL is the only one living there now with one of my BILs. She must miss us dearly. I wonder what we can get her this year for Raya.

This is also the first year we are celebrating properly. New clothes for all of us (last 2 years we were on 'recycles', except Mia due to poor planning and adjusting) and home baked cookies :) The first year Raya in Msia we were back too short of a notice to tailor make our attires. Last year we were living in the suburbs and was too tiring to prepare much. So this year was just nice for us. I'm planning to bake cookies and bring them over for my in laws. I might enjoy the visit this time round since we will be back for almost a week and not many people will be around before the day arrives so I'll be able to conquer the kitchen tee hee!

Okay so that's maybe the reason why I'm so ecstatic this year. Plus Mia is much older now and knows what's happening around us to actually join in. I hope her cousins will accommodate her lack of language understanding :( You see, our lil bug has been going to school at 16 months. It is a full-on school with music classes, dance classes, sandplay, playground, lunch/snack time, nap time, art classes, writing classes etc etc so she's learning heaps and has a daily routine. It is structured just the way I like a school to be for her age. The downside is that the school is operated on mainly English language. There are Mandarin classes but no so much Malay. So our bug has a very high command of English vocabs with a few Mandarins but close to no Malays. Though I recently heard her pairing English words to Malay words ("ooh..rain!" waits for me to acknowledge then continues "..hujan") So she is learning some Malay words. Hopefully it's enough for her to understand during playtime with her other cousins. On second thought, may be not. Her cousins may be talking in thick Malay dialects *facepalm* Oh well, the older cousins will be okay I guess. Plus, she's only two and they say toddlers adapt well *crossfingers*

Sigh.
Welcome Raya 2011 :)