Bubbles!!

Ryan has the same habit as Rachel. Both likes to hold on to stick-like stuff. Ryan's favorite past time is to go into our garden and pick up all the twigs and sticks.

See what's on his right hand...

Its his first time seeing the siblings blowing the bubbles and he was fascinated with it. He look so cute when he went around chasing the bubbles!

He was really enjoying himself and his laughter is contagious! Cos everyone laughs with him!

Nicholas's School Update #18

The topic for this week is about "Community helpers". They talked about various occupations related to that topic. Listed below are some of the occupations that was discussed:

• Firefighters are rescuers extensively trained primarily to put out hazardous fires that threaten civilian populations and property, to rescue people from car incidents, collapsed and burning buildings and other such situations.
• A postal worker is one who works for a post office, such as a mail carrier.
• A police officer also known as a policeman or policewoman is a warranted employee of a police force.
• A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; they have various employment roles such as paratrooper, ranger, engineer, etc.
• A lifeguard is a person responsible for overseeing the safety of the users of a body of water and its environs, such as a swimming pool, a water park, or a beach.
• A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs.

Doing his worksheet. This week revision is on identifying the beginning sounds of f,b,s,l & b.

They also tried a new game, the 3-legged race. It was rather tricky for the children but they had lots of fun in the process.

In addition to that, the children were brief about the centre's upcoming fund raising event, the Rainbow Connection Fun Fair. They are encouraging the children to learn to share similarities and to celebrate differences.

On a side note, the centre even organised a half day visit from the Rainbow centre to come and mingle with the Kindie kids!

For Chinese lesson, their topic for the week is on Doctor. They craft work was to 利用废纸盒制作医药箱. And 用所有关于医务上的用具，让学生们选择角色，进行表演.

Nicholas's School Update #17

This week, the teacher engaged the children in activities revolving around the Mid-Autumn Festival theme. New words such as moon cake, lantern, pomelo, autumn, lunar and festival were introduced as well. The definitions that we explained are listed below:

· Moon cakes are Chinese pastries traditionally eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival / Zhongqiu Festival. Typical moon cakes are round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin (2-3 mm) crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs.

· The pomelo tastes like a sweet, mild grapefruit, though the typical pomelo is much larger in size than the grapefruit. It has very little, or none, of the common grapefruit's bitterness.

· Autumn (also known as fall in American English) is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter, usually in March (Southern Hemisphere) or September (Northern Hemisphere) when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier.

· A lantern is a portable lighting device used to illuminate broad areas. Lanterns may also be used for signaling, to guide your path somewhere or as general light sources for camping. In the older days it would have been used like a torch. Dim varieties are often used for decoration.

· Lunar (Luna) is the Latin word for Moon

· A festival is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community.

Sometimes I did question myself if the kids can gasped the definition and thus, I tried asking Nicholas some of the words the day I received this email and hey! He is able to tell me the meaning using his own words!

Back to the school update, they made cinnamon toast and the children were able to spread the margarine evenly onto the sliced bread, sprinkled the mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon and waited patiently as the delicious treats were slowly toasted in the toaster oven.

See how my boy sit! Aiyo, with one leg up on the table...terrible!

He still needs a lot of work to improve his griping skill.

The centre celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday evening. It was a wonderful event with plenty of food, fun and laughter! The children enjoyed themselves as they participated in the treasure hunt using their lanterns as a light source.

Birthday celebration @ home

The 25 mini car cupcakes was only part of the reason why he look forward to his birthday. The main draw was this! A big cake with 3 big racing cars!

Coincidentally, the number on one of the car is the same as ours and my BIL thought we had sent in a special request, which we of course did not.

We had to celebrate a day late as hubby was out of town. Really testing my boy's patience which is surprisingly good! Although the cake was in the fridge and tempting him each time he opens the door, he knew he had to wait for daddy to be home for the cake cutting and he made no further attempt to touch the "temptation"...(car)

See how brightly he smiled for the camera. He was really super duper happy when I took out the cake and placed it on the table. The picture really show him smiling from inside out.

This is a very beautiful photo of them. You might not be able to see it but Nicholas was the first to place his hands on both his jiejie's shoulder, pulling them closer for a good shot.

My four beautiful kids! Just noticed both Rachel and Nicholas have the same type of smile. Big wide smile.

4 candles lighted and lights off for the birthday songs....

blowing off each candle all by himself...

and insisting to cut the cake too by himself, signs of him being a really big boy now.

Posing with all his presents. His jiejie bought him presents too!

The Chugginton are from his sisters and the Gordon (his favourite) is from "Ryan"

A TRAINTASTICS Day for my boy!

Happy birthday Nicholas!!!

Nicholas' 4th Birthday Celebration In School

The DAY is finally here after 2 months of long wait for my dear little boy. Ever since he had chosen his cakes and placed his order, he been asking every other day how many more days to his birthday. He couldn't help not to think about his "order" and you can see why here. Cars on mini cupcakes!

Not only he was excited when his cakes finally arrived, his friends were screaming too when they saw the "design" on the cakes!

Little Ryan went over to give his korkor a hug....

and my sweet boy gave his little brother a kiss in return!

Hubby was out of town and the girls were in school..so only little Ryan and I in this photo.

Nicholas helped to pack the goodie bags for his friends the night before. Those with the cars picture were for the boys and the other for the girls.

See how happy he is!

A picture with his classmates!

Happy birthday, Nicholas!

Nicholas's School Update #16

Last week, the topic of discussion was "Hari Raya", also known as Eid Mubarak. It is a common misconception that it is a Muslim New Year, similar to the Lunar (Chinese) New Year, however this is not accurate, Hari Raya literally means a day of celebration and it commemorates the end of Ramadan (fasting month).

The children made greeting cards, green and yellow cookies and a large banner to celebrate the special occasion. Listed below are some of the new words that were introduced to the children:

Ramadan is the name of the one-month fasting period when Muslims fast for a period of almost 12 hours. They fast from dawn till sunset.

Geylang Serai, the place that is known for the Muslims to gather, is always filled with large crowds during Ramadan. Bazaars would be set up and they would be selling numerous festive items for Muslims.

Ketupat is made from rice that has been wrapped in a woven leaf pouch and boiled. As the rice cooks, the grains expand to fill the pouch and the rice becomes compressed. This method of cooking gives the ketupat its characteristic form and texture of a rice dumpling.

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. Muslims often refer to the mosque by its Arabic name masjid

Ryan @ 17months

FINALLY!!! FINALLY!!! He uttered his FIRST proper words!!! *phew* What a relieve! I was so worried that he really need to go for hearing check-up.

So the words that came out of his "golden" mouth are:-

"o per" for open
Phonic sound "P" for Percy

The 2 clearest words he can pronounced is neither "pa" nor "ma", which sadly he still refuses to say. Rather the 2 most accurately pronounced words from him are "This" and "There"!

With so few vocabulary he can said, he uses lots of sign languages. For example, he will indicates "come" with opening and closing of fist; pulling us to the stuff that he wants to show us, at night when he is tired, he will crawls on top of me and point at my breast/tummy indicating suckling time.

He loves to dance to the song of Thomas and Friends and Chugginton. He will moves his hands in a way as if he was playing a imaginative piano and his favourite character is Percy. Whenever he sees Percy in trouble, he will be very scared and cringed on to whoever is within his grab. (The 2 girls loves it and will always "fight" to be near him whenever they expect him to do it.) He will even cry when he sees Percy crashed (in the movie).

He loves and only reads Thomas and Chugginton's storybooks. Gave him anything else, he will walk off. So, not surprising that he is able to recognise all the common engines (even Terrance the Tractor and Bertie the Bus) in both cartoons.

His temper is indisputably the most terrible among the 4 kids but being the youngest, he gets away with everyone (except mommy, of course). The 2 girls "fight" for his attention and normally Rachel will win the "fight" cos my dear Charmaine is just simply not good with little ones although she loves them.

Since the beginning of this month, he starts to laugh in a very hearty way...like the one capture on the photo above.

He love sticks; twig; pen and likes scribbling....just like Rachel. Wonder will he be another Rachel?

Just observed 2 new things of him...he loves playing with his belly button and switching on switches! He fiddles with his belly button when he drinks his milk and even during his sleep! Sometimes, while still sleeping, he will lift up his shirt and fiddles it! The same urge goes for the switches. Whenever he sees a switch, he will have to go over and switched in on.

The 2 boys lying on the new Thomas's floor mat.

Nicholas's School Update #15

Its a short week for the centre with only 3 days of lessons due to Hari Raya celebration. But that didn't stop the children to have fun. They played a lot of fun games and took home plenty of goodies.

This week topic was - "Hari Raya" , also known as Eid Mubarak. Eid is a celebration that marks the end of Ramadan/fasting month.

Vocabulary for this week are:

Mosque - a Muslim place of worship

Tudung - the conservative head scarf that Muslim women wear to cover their hair, neck and chest

Songkok - a traditional head gear that Muslim men/boys wear during prayers or as an accessory to complete an ethnic outfit

Baju kurung - a two piece outfit that includes a sarong and loose fitting long sleeved tunic for women and long pants and a loose fitting long sleeved top for men

Salam - a handshake that symbolizes a form of respect for elders (the hand is held then raised up to the younger persons' nose/forehead) Back home, I got Nicholas to show me and he did it so well and so cute!

Their cookery lesson this week was to bake yellow and green sugar cookies which taste fantastic! He brought some home and was snapped out by the girls in no time!