Welcome to God's Family!!

On this beautiful day, we were blessed with fantastic weather and on this beautiful date (10.10.2010), my 3 beautiful babies were welcome to God's BIG family!!!

For Charmaine, she already knows what baptism is about and why the need to. For Nicholas, I explained to him that baptism means joining God's family and God will be in him. He already learnt from Sunday school that God is in his heart. He had also started to pray on his own too! As for Ryan, he is too young to be briefed.

All were excited today and ready. I had to brief Nicholas on what to expect and hope he doesn't cry when the Vicar dip him into the water. During the water baptism, Charmaine was a little shy but otherwise ok. I have to say my 2 boys were fantastic given their personality.

No struggle from him when daddy handed him to the Vicar...

No WAILING from him!!! So relieved! That's my brave boy!!!

Ryan was another surprised. Ryan who was usually a koala bear and stranger weary didn't make a single fuss when daddy handed him over to the vicar.

No crying either when he emerge from the water!!! Even bigger surprise!

After the water baptism, the kids got changed and went up to the hall. The baptism candidates were invited to the front to be welcomed by the church members. After "showing" Ryan how to shake his hands with members who came forward to welcome him, he was seen (at times) stretching out his hands to shakes with those who came and welcome him!

A photo with our kids' Godparents before heading off for a lunch celebration.

Ryan @ 18 months old

October was a super busy month for me! So busy that I totally forgot to take photo of my little Ryan on the day he turns 18 month! Search through the photos and realised the only photos of him I took in October was at the end of the month, on my MIL's 60th birthday!

His achievements:-

• Nodding and shaking his head to indicate "yes" and "no". He looks very cute when he nods his head because he nods his head as if he needs to use a lot of strength. We simply loves making him nods his head!


• We always claps and makes lots of fuss whenever he did something right and now he had master the art of clapping, claps whenever he did right too. Now if we didn't clap, he will called out to us and as if to asked us to clap for him too!


• He is developing his gross motor skill very well. He is able to form his own train tracks and connect the Chugginton trains together. Need to special mention on his ability to connect the Chugginton trains because it requires some "skill" as the knobs are wobbly unlike Thomas & Friends trains which connect via magnets.


• He likes to snatch things too from Nicholas and he show his teeth and make the "ieee" sound as if he is using a lot of strength. Its a funny sight but I know we have to stop this even though he didn't really mean to "snatch". He just wants to play what Nicholas was playing because its always seems more interesting than what he was playing...grass is always greener in other's pasture.


• His vocabulary had finally expanded to "chay" for jiejie, "buts" for bus and clearest of all "CAR"!


• He knows the action for nursery songs like:-

- "Twinkle, twinkle little star" even forming the diamond with his fingers.
- and the kiddo's modified version of "Row, row, row your boat" which goes like this:

row row row your boat,

gently down the stream

when you see a crocodile,

don't forget to scream!

and ryan will goes "AH"

• He favorite fruits is apple when we gave him papayas or bananas, he would closed his eyes and mouth tighty.


• Beside playing with trains and guns, his other favourite game is cooking. He would slice his toys veggie/fruits and put it on a plate and serve it to me. He had also learnt not to place the toys in his mouth and only pretend the bite the "food".

Zoo Trip

There's no school for Nicholas today (centre closure for in-lieu of Children's Day) and thus, I decided to bring the 2 boys to the Singapore Zoo while the girls were in school.

My main aim today was to bring the boys to see those activities that they seldom get to see like the Elephant bath and Jaguar feeding. Both the boys, especially Nicholas, was too scared to go near the elephant. Nicholas shown a face full of worries (he was afraid the elephant will spray water at him) and kept hiding behind my back. Ryan was climbing all over me when the elephants came near us! Their response was surprising given that they both had went on the elephant ride when we were in Phuket and Nicholas had enjoyed himself then.

After watching the elephant bathing, we walked on. We chose to walk instead of taking the complimentary tram ride so that we can see more. We had our first rest of feet at the Jaguar area. Both boys had their little snacks and checking on the jaguars while waiting for the Zoo keeper to arrive for the feeding time. The boys enjoyed the feeding session especially Ryan who kept pointing at the jaguar and shouted "there"!

Our last stop of our short trip was at the Kidzworld. I got them a small bucket of carrots and beans each to feed the goats.

Ryan was tagging behind Nicholas, mimicking what Nicholas was doing, but at a distant. He didn't really feed the goats, only holding the carrots at a distant.

Then when more goats charged towards them for the carrots, Ryan duck behind Nicholas for protection!

After some assurance, my little tough nut finally summoned up all his courage to feed the goats and he got better after each feed! He even dared to stroke the goat!

After the feeding session, we watched the Animals Friends Show before taking the tram back. I was surprised that Nicholas not afraid of the big dogs and even went over to stroke them.

I cherished this short bonding time with the 2 boys and all 3 enjoyed ourselves. Back home, they took their lunch and nap while I "bond" with their 2 sisters..but this time, nothing enjoying., in fact was stressful....cos its preparation of exams!

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.