To everything there is a season...

Our Little Ballerina

Looking for a class with a suitable timing and location was definitely not easy and all the more for us to hesitate sending her for class as it would mean hardly much time home together on Saturday. After much deliberation and all, we finally agreed to let our little girl try out ballet. She's been ever so keen on going eversince we allowed her to try out one trial class. She's been pestering us eversince then that she would be so upset when we said no.

Simply Chicken Salad

A simple dinner with nothing too difficult than some shredded roast chicken, cherry tomatoes, lettuce and mayonnaise tossed together. Here are the little chefs! An easy feeling for our baguette which our kids loved. Must be the mayonnaise!

Savouring the fruit of their labour….

Hot Pink!

Daddy dearest bought Mommy a gift today. A HOT PINK Kate Spade bag. The first and only branded item that Mommy has. Not to mention the recent iTouch that came along with the iMac that Daddy invested in. Yes, with a candy pink cover.

Oh so pink…..

Keziah was so excited to open the parcel, even more so than Mommy. Haha…she'll be taking it around...

Chinese writing and craft

Keziah's been into writing Chinese words these days. Evening coming back she took the Chinese book in her activity box and wrote the strokes. Probably giving stickers was a good start to motivate her to write.

Our little girl dragged out one of those tear and paste book and did this piece based on the picture illustration.

With some inspiration, we tried to make a bangle by wrapping crepe paper round a cardboard and decorated it with some of those glitter pieces we had from some time back. A cheap good accessory for our little princess.

Fuss Free Haircut

Finally today we had a fuss free haircut with no struggles from Abel. Our friend recommended one hairstylist at Toa Payoh Lor 7. Though the chap was a young guy, he was rather good at handling kids. First he had toys to distract them, next he was relatively gentle and wielded his scissors and shaver quietly around our darling boy. It helped that the shaver was quite a silent one. There was initial resistance but after a short while, Abel was just playing and keeping quiet otherwise. At $7 for a cut for kids, it was quite a good deal. We'll be back to this same place again!

MathStart

Mommy's been rather inspired by this set of books Mathstart by Stuart Murphy. He delivers math concepts through simple stories and some even rhyme. We began withs some simply one on patterning. Of course our little boy loved the story since it involved cars but nonetheless if Mommy gets him to focus, he can surprisingly recognise simple ABAB pattern. This was definitely too easy for Keziah and she ended up making her own pattern.

For easy manipulatives for home learning, Mommy's friend has started a website MyPlaySchool sharing resources and a good one stop point for mommies interested in finding some ideas for activities for learn through play.

Grocery shopping with kids

Well, not an easy task now with both being agile and knowing their wants. Just look at them!

Keziah's first Birkis

Mommy bought this some time back and finally it fits our little princess.

Lego Land

Daddy's a great fan of lego and he has invested quite abit in it for the kids. However, little time was spent playing with it and this afternoon, they started digging into them to create their own little lego village completed with Abel's favourite train tracks.

Our Angel Boy

Mommy really liked this shot that Daddy captured…..How angelic! A moment away from the screams and shouts...

Our old hunt

We had taken a long break from our nature walks as the weekends are ever so busy or otherwise we just overnapped. MacRitchie has changed quite a bit with new carparks and landscaping to provide a sheltered area for gathering. There's even a small cafe. The performing pavilion over the waters was under repair. However, the kids still had fun running in the open place, being wowed by the large number of monkeys, looking at nature around them, spotting spiders on their web and nonetheless, making the walk most fun by trying to do 'tight rope' walking along the ledge.

We feasted our Soup Restaurant and the kids are eating the famous Samsui Chicken with Ginger the traditional way it should go!

"I miss you Mommy"….."I miss mei mei"

Mommy had really hit the ground running this term. There's just so much to do at work and not to mention, less time at home. Maybe Keziah was just having a withdrawal symptom of too much Mommy during hols that this week, she kept saying "I miss you Mommy in school". It really melts one's heart to be yearned for. One morning when Mommy didn't managed to tuck her the night before, she woke up earlier than usual before Mommy left for school and said with tears. Really felt bad not doing very much with her. Though a teacher, Mommy hardly taught her much and to sit down and do practices in the evening just wasn't Keziah's routine. Mommy really has to work at setting a proper routine for them which had been really haphazard eversince return to work. Even basic lifeskill like toilet training has been put on and praying for nature to take its course.

The two kids have been saying "play with me" whenever Mommy's home. Really that's what we need to build the bond though seriously Daddy is a much better player. Mommy has got to learn PLAY!

What surprised us was when she started tearing and said "I miss mei mei" last Friday while we had our cuddle and tum tum time before bed. The conversation went something like that:

K: I miss mei mei.
M: Oh, God has taken her back home to a safe place.
K: But why no more mei mei? *Rubbing Mommy's tummy* I like mei mei.
M: Well, maybe God just think we weren't ready for another.
K: I can take care... I miss mei mei…
M: Maybe when you can take care of yourself….

Well, we had lost #3 just before the year started @15plus weeks. We had introduced our impending member to K but it was just not meant to be. To her then, she was so excited and kept saying baby was mei mei. We never knew the gender though when baby left us quietly. Seriously healthy wasn't the best for Mommy and it had been constant fatigue and we had put the these thoughts all aside till her mention. Do kids nearing 4 start having memories? She never remembered the HK trip she took at 2 plus. Now we really have to be more cautious about what we tell her.

Vietnamese fare to welcome

Sandy Gu Gu was in town with her hb and the family gathered once again at our eldest cousin place for a nice gathering. The kids had great fun playing while we tucked into a sumptuous Vietnamese fare prepared by Aunt Ti Ti. Lovely change of taste!

More crafts…Penmanship

Mommy had been really caught up at work since the start of the term. We really didn't do much aside from reading and crafts. We are back to colouring and cutting for Keziah. Just to get her to practise writing, we decided to name all the pieces that we made. For this week it's cat and spider and learning to cut straight and curves. Looks like she's getting better with cutting curves. Well, for our little Abel, Mommy drew him a turtle and his colouring was just the usual neat little bits here and there.

One thing that struck Mommy was whether there was a need to correct Keziah of the way she holds her pencil. She's been always resting her pencil on her ring finger rather than the middle figure (in theory the right way of doing it). Over the holidays, Mommy been constantly correcting and to some extent she's getting a little frustrated, showing her displeasure by refusing to continue her colouring/writing. Is really holding the pencil the right way important? Any good advice?

Dog show @ Zoo

Well holidays are coming to an end. This month just flew so quickly. Seriously, Mommy hasn't quite done much work with the kids aside from play and leisure. Of course not forgetting to catch up with friends. We met up with Keziah's ex-schoolmate for a trip out to the zoo. It was really easy ride on the tram, seeing for the first time the dog show and playing around the playground.

Surprise our little boy has no fear for petting dogs, even the big German Shepherd didn't frighten him.

Nothing beats playground time!

Art Garden @ SAM

This holiday there was quite a lot of programmes put up by the museums. Mommy decided to bring us to venture into the Art Garden @ the Singapore Art Museum together with Aunt Irene and her kids. It's our first visit and we must say it's quite interesting though the kids might be a little too young to appreciate the exhibits fully.

We hopped around and explored the texture, size and shapes in Walter the rabbit's garden.

Explored the enchanted forest and made some butterflies to add on to the many which were already there. However, Keziah decided she wanted to bring hers home rather than leaving it there to join the rest.

In Floribots, we saw how the flower grew from a bud and blossom. Yes, more crafts…we made origami flowers and added to the large collage there.

The kids loved this. Funky forest and Dasies which were interactive which allowed the kids to discover how their movements made streams 'flow' and trees and flowers 'grow' and disappear.

Happy Father's Day

Mommy knew this won't have come as a surprised as Daddy had seen Keziah weaving this heart but hope the little words that our little gal wrote warms your heart.

This really meant nothing but you meant a great deal to us. Always ready to sacrifice your time and all to meet our needs and always so loving. Always being there when we need you. Always rushing home from us to be there for us. The kids love you millions and so do I!

Cat @ Forum

Forum always have interesting storytelling and craft session for children during the holidays. The cast were just so animated and made the play so real for the kids. Even our little Abel was captivated by it.

Craft session we made a cat and a mouse.

The sun, the sea, the sand….our way home…Ostrich and Melaka

Time to say goodbye after 3 days of fun.

Today the tide was really high and seas were rough. It was washing up high to our chalet and even carving out a little cliff by the beach where we played on.

There was a nearby ostrich farm and we popped by. Keziah had been to the one in Desaru which was alot better but she had no recollection and it's the first for Abel.

Do you know the ostrich can lay 40-90 eggs a year and these eggs are real hardy, taking up a load of up to 120kg?

Not missing out the ostrich meat satay.

Here we got to see some monkeys and even to touch and feel them. The kids were so excited and didn't even squirm a bit when were asked to touch the creature.

On route back, we headed for Melaka for the well known Hainese Chicken Rice Balls and Chenol Dessert. The streets were busy and these two places we chose based on review were packed with people that many had to queue.

Something different.

A short walk down the street really reminded us of good old Singapore in the 80s.

The deserts…we had chenol, ice kechung and gula melaka sago. Conclusion, quite nice but not over the hill. Guess the secret is in the gula melaka that they used.