Lots of Qur'an.... and coughing, alhamdu lillah.

Eid went by with balloons, five sheep (big family), slaughter, sweets, cookies, and a new freezer! Mother-in-law got irritated at all the meat having no place to be kept.

The first few days with the in-laws we had a lot of cold, but with Eid came sunshine and warmth, and it has stayed pretty much that way since (except for the sun, we've had plenty of rain, but it hasn't been as cold as in the first days).

With Eid the kids' cousins had vacation for fifteen days, so I didn't see much of the kids! One day I didn't see #1 at all until 10 pm (not even for breakfast)! That is something I find hard about staying with in-laws. I lose control of them and I can't do much about it, Allahumma sabberni.

We've had the usual stomach upsets (not me! that's a first), colds and a terrrible cough, that we've still not recovered from completely. The baby is coughing too miskeena, and a few days earlier she was sleeping almost 24/7. DD2yrs was veeery clingy and unreasonable, wouldn't eat or play, but alhamdu lillah, the only thing left now is a runny nose and some coughing now and then. SubhaanAllah, the days that we had given up and decided to take her to the doctors, she woke up happy to play and go out etc, but as soon as darkness fell she started crying again. DH did consult a local pharmacist (!!) and came home with NaCl (yep! Water and salt!) and suppositories! Now, my Dearest Daughter hardly even lets me change her nappy, how would I use those suppositories!!? Lol. Alhamdu lillah 'ala kulli haal.

Now, the cousins have been to school for two days, and I'm trying to get us into a routine too.

DS#1 is the toughest. He goes to the mosque with his cousin in the evenings, for Hifdh (Warsh). I do Hafs from 'Aasim with him, at the moment he's in surat al-Baqarah, but making very little to no progress. He's having a problem understanding the difference between 'learning five new ayat' and 'reading five ayat' every day, or he's refusing to... I review the surahs he reads in the mosque too, and there he's only in the last few surahs of the 30th Juz', starting from the end. This is all revision for him, but they revise before they start with memorisation. So far, he's doing one page a day. I've found some sites for Tajweed rules, so will finally learn that properly inshaa Allah, and I need to learn the differencies between Hafs and Warsh, to point them out to DS8. Yesterday he revised surat al-Mulk with me as we started reading the tafseer of the surah.
Apart from Qur'an he's doing almost nothing. They are learning how to use the local currency, mashaa Allah (they add two zeros, eg. 10 is actually 1000, so there's a lot of counting), but using their money on too much candy...
He did a couple of pages in his Swedish book yesterday. Writing S and T and doing the exercises.

DS#2, well... I don't have any problem at all with him really... except for his occasional tantrums. He takes his little note book, that I've filled with useful url:s, and sneaks in to our room whenever the computer is free, lol! Mostly it's his beloved lions and tigers, but he also browses other animals. He likes Wikipedia and ARKive, especially. He also looks at Defenders of Wildlife and AWF. He's revisited Tigertouch, and The Maneaters of Tsavo. I read the Maneater of Mfuwe one night, it's a pretty scaring story... Have yet to tell him about it.
He's waiting with eagerness for the opening of EOL. He has written a few sentencies about the lion today and yesterday.

DS#3 is watching lots of animal pictures with DS#2, doing some on Starfall, and goes to the shop to buy seeds for snacks, but only with company.
DS#3 has it tough when it comes to Qur'an memorising. He's a bit hard at hearing and also at proper pronunciation and today I discovered that he says د instead of ذ! Looks like I need to spend a lot more time with him on tongue exercises, inshaa Allah. It took him forever to learn the word 'naffathaati'. I've tried tongue twisters with him and memory games, which he loves, mashaa Allah, alhamdu lillah.
Lately he's been playing a lot with his mouth, pulling his lips and cheeks, sticking his fingers in it, sticking out his tongue... very annoying. Maybe he needs to put that tongue into better use... weird.
He will inshaa Allah learn to read earlier than his brothers did, if we keep trying at the current pace. He can read some with my help already mashaa Allah. He's written some about the tiger in his note book, with my help, mashaa Allah.

DD#1 4yrs. She's writing a lot of doodles, alef and baa, mashaa Allah. She's reading some Qur'an and starting to get a grip of counting things (as opposed to just drilling the number sequence). She's learning the numbers with her play money.
She cannot say 'sh' ش! So I'll try to work on that, inshaa Allah. She learned raa ر this summer, and exchanged all laam to raa!

I've read about the differencies between letters seemingly the same in English/European and Arabic. SubhaanAllah, I never thought about it before, but yes it is so true!