School Events

Since I have not been updating the kids’ activities for the past few months, here are some event highlights, from recent to old, for my record. :-)
 
CE : Annual Concert & Graduation Night, 4 Nov 2012
This is our 6th year attending the kindergarten’s concert (3 for jie jie and 3 for didi). And it’s our last year… till our grandchildren’s turn, I guess. hahaha This year’s theme was “People of Asia”. Didi participated in the percussion (playing the castanets) and a dance.

~ percussion performance by the 5- and 6-year-olds ~

~ receiving his graduation certificate from the Director ~

~ Mongolian Chopstick Dance ~

He received a prize for getting 2nd in the colouring contest. It’s a Zebra double wall mug, which he started using the next morning. :-)

~ 2nd prize for colouring contest ~

~ singing the finale songs with the teachers ~

XY : Hari Anugerah Kecemerlangan, 9 Nov 2012
On the last day of school, she attended the morning session as it was Awards Day. She received a certificate and RM20 cash voucher (from a bookstore) for getting 2nd in class.

~ a proud moment ~

XY : Ceriaton 2012, 22 Sept 2012
XY’s school organised Program Ceriaton to increase school funds. She was given a booklet to collect donation. She has anti-social parents so she only managed to fill up less than half a page (with names of close family members only :p). In conjuction with that programme, the students had a performance. XY and her schoolmates sang a Chinese song, with actions -- 幸福的脸 (xing fu de lian).

~ performing a Chinese song ~

CE : Sports Day, 15 Jul 2012
CE is in the red house. His kindy organises Sports Day once every two years. Previously, he was in the blue house. His event is called Hopping Ducks. It involved carrying a ball in between the legs and hopping in a sack. His team was last so he got a bronze medal. There were only 3 teams in the games so everyone got a medal. :-)

XY : Sports Day, 30 Jun 2012
Standard 1 to 3 students played games instead of participating in track events. XY’s class event involved moving the ball with a hula hoop and walking with the bean bag on the head. Her team got 3rd place.

Super Simple Celebration

Oh yeah, I’ve grown another year wiser. In other words, another year older. :p Although last weekend was a long weekend, we didn’t go anywhere. Basically just laze around at home. We didn’t even hang out at the malls as didi was having runny nose. The weekend before that, the kids requested to go play at Megakidz, MidValley. PaPa offered to stay there while Kakak accompanied the kids inside the play area. And I got to walk around the malls (Gardens and MV) by myself for 3+ hours. What bliss! I actually walked till my legs cramped. *aiyoyo* Managed to buy some tees for myself (and inner wear too :D). On our way to Madam Kwan’s for dinner, we went to Crocs coz I saw earlier that they’re having a promotion where you get 30% discount if the said day is 6 days prior to or after your birthday. Not sure if this promotion is valid at other outlets as well. I got hubby to “approve” the design I chose (A-Leigh Mini Wedge Leather) and he said he’ll get them for me as my birthday pressie. This is my 2nd pair of Crocs. The pair of Crocband I bought in Hong Kong hurts my toes so I hardly wear them. Waiting to pass them over to jie jie. Y’know, her feet is almost as long as mine, just a little less meaty. o.O She can already wear my sandals. And she’ll try on my wedges whenever she gets the chance (high heels mah). Girls... *shake head*

~ take a wild guess, whose feet are these? ~

Back to d-day, we went out for dinner of my choice -- Korean BBQ (haven’t had it for so long, the outlet that we’ve been frequenting in Sri Petaling has closed down :D). So we went to another one nearby, Daorae Korean BBQ Restaurant. Food’s not bad. The barbequed meat were yummy. But they don’t have a very big variety of side dishes. And the waiters ignored my requests to top up some of the side dishes. *hmmmff* Maybe they didn’t understand me. Or they were just too busy to attend to us. :-(

~ didi and jie jie at Daorae ~

Before going to the restaurant, we went to Tong Kee to choose my cake. We only cut the cake at home as I felt shy to be “sung to” in the crowded restaurant. hehe When I looked back at last year’s blog entry, I realised that the cakes were the same pattern, just different flavour. Hubby chose the cake last year so it seems like we have the same cake preference. ;-)

~ vanilla fruit cake... yummy ~

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank my family and friends for all the lovely wishes. Thank you for making my day extra special! *muacks*

Last Parent-Teacher’s Day In Kindergarten

Yay! Kids’ exams are over. CE’s was in the 1st week of October while XY finished hers on Friday. We even had a mini celebration that night. They invited their cousins over and had pizza for dinner.

I went to CE’s school this morning to collect his report card. I’m very pleased that Teacher J doesn’t have any complaints about him. Well, the only thing she highlighted is that he needs to be more macho (yeah, that’s her exact word! :D). He’s still very shy and timid. He needs to build up more self-confidence. She said he’s improved compared to the 1st semester -- more talkative and sociable now. Other areas for improvement are his spoken languages, especially Mandarin. Hmm… these are almost the same feedback as in the 1st semester.

I’m also very happy with his exam results. He managed to score full marks for Science and Bahasa Malaysia. Although he didn’t get very high marks for his Chinese paper, I’m actually impressed with his ability to answer the questions. At least it shows that he can recognise quite a number of Chinese characters and understand what is required. :-)

The teacher's note in his Report Card :
A pleasant and hard working child who is able to express himself clearly. His work is always neat and tidy. His academic result is bright. Well done!

It was confirmed he got 2nd prize in the colouring contest which was held in school. He told me a few days ago but I had to see it to believe it. hahaha It was really a pleasant surprise. *wide smile* But I do wonder how they selected the winners. :p

His colouring contests in kindergarten :

Year 4

Year 5

Year 6 - 2nd prize

Well, at least can see an improvement over the years. :-)

10 minus 1

My little girl is no longer very little anymore. She celebrated her 9th birthday 2 days ago. One year short of being a decade old. haha As usual, we had a simple celebration at home. We have a (slightly) bigger group this time because Yeh Yeh and Mah Mah are here. Food was all bought except fried noodles. We had Subway sandwiches, Kenny Rogers roasters, cocktail sausages and satay. 7 adults and 3 kids couldn't finish all these food.

food to feed an army? :D

Subway platter - bought 3 foot-long, free 1 foot-long

After the kids have finished their meal, they played Wii games. I didn’t prepare any special activities for them, so what else is there for them to do? I didn't pump any balloons so no decorations and no balloons to play with. At least they won’t run around and make too much noise. :-)

XY chose pandan layer cake with dessicated coconut

sing-song session

After eating the cake, XY opened her presents. We bought an ambulance Lego set for her, which she chose herself. CH and family gave her a tutu while Yeh Yeh and Mah Mah gave her an angpow. Po Po and Zi Mai Po also gave her angpows which I took back from Penang in June. She even got a present (stickers and stationeries) from her piano teacher when she came for lesson yesterday. So sweet and thoughtful of her.

big princess and little princess

The Celebrations

This is another very backdated post. As mentioned earlier, we had a small party at home for CE’s birthday. I was really lazy to make balloon decorations. I told ah boy and he was okay with it (wah, so considerate hahaha). Then while he was napping, I felt bad so I pumped a few balloons and hung them on the curtain rail.

super simple deco

We had our usual “party food”. Bought satay, ordered pizza and Kakak fried bihun and nuggets (just a bit for the kids) and cooked curry chicken. After the kids finished their food, they played Wii games, as requested by the birthday boy (coz usually no pc/tv games on school days).


jie jie, didi, kor kor and mei mei

blueberry cake

presents



For the celebration in school, I bought a black forest cake for him and prepared party packs for his classmates. I planned to make the paper bags myself by referring to Sasha’s post. Thanks for the tutorial, girl! After buying the brown papers, I found it so tedious to cut the papers into the right size, fold, stick, fold, stick, fold some more and open it up. And I had to prepare 24 of them (including for jie jie and his cousins)! I wanted to give up so I went hunting for those ready-made paper/plastic bags. But can’t find any suitable/nice ones. There aren’t many choices around my area. The patterns are very girlish, not that suitable for his class where majority are boys. So I had no choice but to make the paper bags myself. Luckily I bought a steel ruler and a penknife (really sharp!) so it made the work a little easier. I cannot imagine the amount of work needed if I were to do exactly like Sasha. Cut out the alphabets to make the kids’ names? Oh, forget it. So I just printed some characters (decided by birthday boy) as decoration. I also eliminated the strings and just folded them over. Jie jie helped me a lot with making the paper bags and sticking the cartoons. The birthday boy wrote the names of his friends on the paper bags and put the goodies into them.

contents in party pack

party packs for friends

I also prepared some gifts (chocolates and sweets) for the teachers as they were celebrating Teacher’s Day on the same day as well. Got this idea from mom2ashley’s post. Thank you, D! Found some white plastic bags in the drawers, printed some wordings on coloured paper and cut out rectangular shapes from manila cardboard. Again, I got CE to write the names of the teachers himself.

gifts for teachers

Her Four-Eyed Journey Has Started

We finally brought XY for a refraction test on 12th May (yes, this is a very backdated post :p). I know she is shortsighted (she can't see the whiteboard in class clearly) but didn't realise it has become quite serious. She now needs glasses as her power is 175 for the right eye and 200 for the left. She has slight astigmatism in both eyes too.

The next day, we brought her to an optical shop to make a pair of spectacles. There aren't many choices of plastic frames and half-frames for children so we chose a metal frame for her. As for the lenses, we used the Myopia Control lenses, as suggested by the optometrist we saw in ISEC.

'sei ngan mui'

Since 20th May, she has officially joined the four-eyed gang in the family. After collecting the glasses, I asked her to start wearing them, to get used to it. For the lenses to be effective in reducing her shortsightedness, she's advised to wear them frequently. She seems to be very excited about wearing glasses. Keep comparing her vision with and without glasses. One moment she'll say "I can't see this/that" and then the next moment, "Now I can see already" as she lifts them up and then put them back on. *mommy shakes head*

She’s been wearing glasses for a month already. And she seems to have gotten used to it. There are still incidents where she got squashed in the face when playing (rough) with didi and the nose piece got bent. Just got to keep reminding them not to play like that with her spectacles on.

6 Years Old

CE turns 6 today. We'll have a small do for him at home tonight, just us and BIL's family. He'll have another session in school on Friday. It's a combined birthday celebration for all children born in the months of April, May and June. I asked if he'd like to celebrate with his friends in kindy on his actual day but he said just a celebration at home will do.

At the beginning of the year, PaPa made a deal with him. We want him to learn to be more independent and do some simple chores on his own. By his 6th birthday, he must be able to clean himself after doing his big business, bathe himself and brush his own teeth. If he fails, there won't be a birthday party for him. hahaha Well, he passed the toilet test. But still not very good at shampooing his hair and brushing his teeth. I doubt they are brushed thoroughly. A good effort on his part, so the party is on. :D

Collected his 1st semester exam results on Parent-Teacher's Day last Saturday. Academically and socially, he's doing fine. He scored above 90% for all subjects, with a perfect score for BM (what a surprise). He mixes well with all his friends. Teacher J doesn't have any complaints but she highlighted that he needs to build up his confidence, to be bolder and speak up. He's very timid and soft-spoken in school (which is a total opposite at home o.O). Another thing to take note of is his Mandarin (oral). Guess we've to speak more to him in Mandarin. Actually, I think his BM is just as bad, especially his vocabulary. I wonder how he was graded.

The teacher's note in his Report Card :
CE is a smart and soft spoken child. He has improved in his social interaction skills among the friends. He is able to master in 3 languages. Keep it up.

Happy Birthday, ah boy!

May you grow up healthily and be happy always.

The Temporary Kakak

Before I continue with my post, here's wishing all mothers out there :

Happy Mother's Day!

I wonder if the kids can keep their promise of being extremely well-behaved just for the day.
:-)

The kids' exams are over... phew, what a relief. Luckily CE's exam was 1 week before XY's so I had time to coach them individually. Revision with CE was quite a breeze as his syllabus wasn't a lot. As for XY, although this was the mid-year exam where all the subjects were tested (8 altogether), I didn't spend that much time revising with her. We totally left out Moral (books not given back by teacher) and just browsed through PJK (only 1 writing book to look through). Anyway, these subjects are not calculated in the overall marks so I concentrated more on the 4 major subjects. :p

There's another reason why I didn't spend much time doing revision with XY. I was busy being the temporary Kakak. We gave Kakak a 2-week holiday back to her kampung as she wanted to attend her BIL's wedding. She's been with us for 4 years already and this is the third time she's gone back. Actually house chores are not difficult work, they are just time consuming. But I've got plenty of help. XY helped with sweeping and mopping the floor, using the magic mop. She also helped to hang the clothes sometimes. I only needed to iron the kids' school uniform coz hubby ironed his own working clothes. I rarely cooked, just a few times of simple noodle soup for lunch. We ate out during weekends and for dinner on weekdays, we "catered" from SIL. :D She was so kind to offer to cook for us. We ate at their house most of the time (I don't even have to clean up after that as she's got a helper) and packed food home for hubby (he's usually back from work quite late). When Kakak came back last Saturday (5th May), I happily passed all the work back to her. Ahhh... back to my blissful life.

Oh yes, while the kids were digging for stationeries for their exam, they found some "treasure" in the drawer. I've kept them there and forgot all about it. They are brand new, box unopened. Hubby won them in a credit card contest last year. I'm putting them up for sale. It's great as a gift for your little ones. XY likes to listen to it. She's learning a new Mandarin song (还是要幸福) by Hebe. I've printed out the hanyu pinyin lyrics, together with the Chinese characters, to help her pick up the language. Anyone interested to be their new owners?

Apple iPod Shuffle 2GB (4th generation) - BLUE
Price : RM109 (retail price : RM169)

Apple iPod Shuffle 2GB (3rd generation) - BLACK
Price : RM99

An Upgrade

My notebook has served me for more than 4 years already. Technology wise, it's like a dinosaur, no? :D So hubby decided to buy a new one for me. He said it's my birthday present wor. What? But my birthday's in October. So I said, consider as Mother's Day present lah. hahaha Anyway, I think this gift will cover ALL occasions this year. Yeah, this slave doesn't ask for a lot. *wink wink*

Went to look at some models and decided on an Acer. It's so much lighter than my old one. Now I can carry with just 1 hand. The fully charged battery can last for about 4 hours (old one can't even last for half an hour). It "wakes up" so much faster too. Although the new one has so many plus points, I'm a bit reluctant to chuck my old Compaq aside. Got sentimental value mar. Moreover I'm so used to its keyboard. Guess I just need some time to get used to the new one. And I haven't transferred the data over so I'm still using both. :-)

~ my new toy ~

Long Disappearance

*cough cough cough* Gosh, so much dust and cobwebs in here. Some of you might have thought I've abandoned this blog or retired from blogging... or something. :-) Well, I don't want to bore you with the excuses. So let's just have some updates. Hmmm... where should I start? Okay, in some sort of chronological order :

CNY 2012
The journey back to our hometowns were rather smooth and uneventful, thankfully. As usual, it's feasting non-stop and gathering with family, friends and relatives during the festive season.

We attended the CNY potluck party in CE's kindy. I brought sausages and nuggets (too lazy to prepare anything creative :p). Every year, they have lion dance, which never fail to fascinate the kids. The lions were very playful. So when CE put his hand near its mouth to feed it oranges, it "bit" him. I think his hand was pulled a bit too hard till it hurt so the silly boy cried a little. hahaha

~ CE got "bitten" by the lion ~

St. John Ambulance
XY was assigned to join St. John Ambulance and Maths & Science Club for her co-curricular (Ko-K) activities. If we don't agree, we can ask the teacher for a change but I think it's good to learn some first aid knowledge in St. John. I had a hard time looking for her uniform. The smallest sized t-shirt they have is so big on her. The smallest sized pants were too loose. I bought them anyway and the pants had to be altered. Even the belt was too long and I had to cut it myself. She has Ko-K once a week and it alternates between uniform units and clubs.

Valentine's Day
Received a bouquet of flowers from hubby. It didn't turn out to be a surprise coz when hubby called around noon, I didn't mention anything so he had to ask me about it. They haven't delivered it, although they said it'll be delivered in the morning. So hubby had to call them to check. Turned out they can't find my place and a taxi guy actually delivered the flowers at 4+pm. Apparently the delivery fella sub-contracted the job to him. o.O

~ a dozen of red roses ~

Slithering visitor
SIL's maid saw a little snake, about 1 foot long, in my kitchen. It must have entered through the small opening underneath the door. She quickly grabbed the broom and whacked it. It was hurt but still alive, squirming on the spot. Both the maids were scared, so I continued to whack it till it stopped moving. I was totally freaked out (thus forgot about snapping pictures :p) but someone had to do it, right? Hubby was out running errands and when he came back, he got the honour to scoop the "dead body" into a plastic bag. Afraid that the mommy snake was nearby, I called the Fire Department to lodge a report. They came in their big red truck, all ready with the snake catching tools. When we told them the snake is dead, they took the plastic bag and wanted to leave. We had to ask them to check the compound to make sure there were no snakes hiding around. One of the men said that the little snake must have been catching a rat and followed it to the house. o.O Later in the day, I bought sulphur powder and sprinkled it around the backyard.

Surprise for mom
In early March, I went back to my hometown alone for my mom's birthday, without telling her in advance. I called my brother that morning itself, to pick me up from the airport. Didn't want to tell my brothers earlier, in case they accidentally leaked my plan. hehehe And it worked! She was VERY surprised when she saw me. Mom's birthday fell on a Sat this year. I actually bought AA's tickets in May last year during their sales. I only spent 1 night at home but it was really great to spend quality time with her as when I'm back with the kids, I'm usually distracted by occupied with them.

Kids' health
Didi had fever on the Thursday before the 1-week school holiday. He was coughing badly. Paediatrician said it's lung infection. He was feverish for almost a week. Luckily it was during the school holiday, so he had a good rest at home.

2 weeks later, it was jie jie's turn. She started having fever on Mon (26/3). It started with runny nose, then cough. Her fever lasted for 5 days. During that time, I brought her to the clinic 3 times. The first antibiotics didn't work and had to be changed before completion, to the same type as didi's. So I guess they were attacked by the same bacteria (lung infection), although 2 weeks apart. She was absent from school for a week. She also missed her first school outing (a full day outing to Pusat Sains Negara, chocolate factory and don't-know-where-else) on Saturday. She was really disappointed.

Last Wednesday, it's back to didi's turn. :( He's got ear infection, both ears. Complained of ear pain on Wed night. PaPa came home at 11+pm and brought him to the hospital (most clinics were closed already) coz we don't have any medicine at home. He was still in pain after putting the ear drop so I gave him paracetamol. The next morning, brought him to our regular paediatrician coz I don't really trust the doctor at the A&E. Although he didn't have any fever, the doctor started him on antibiotics coz he's usually more aggressive when it comes to ear infection. Luckily he didn't complain of pain after that.

Photobook
I've just received my second photobook. I bought 2 vouchers in Sept 2010. After procrastinating for more than a year, I completed didi's book in Jan and got it just before the CNY break. I was busy slowwwwwly working on jie jie's book last month. Finally it was done and uploaded for printing just before the expiry date (end of Mac). :p

~ from birth till 3 years old ~

~ from birth till 4 years old ~

~ inside XY's photobook ~

Back To School

Just into the 2nd week of school, didi had to skip class due to health reason. Sigh... He was the stronger one during the school holidays. Apart from having mild running nose, he was overall quite healthy. On the other hand, jie jie got sick (with fever) twice in December. But last Thursday, his eyes were swollen when I picked him up from kindy. Brought him to see the paediatrician in the evening as his condition got worse. Doctor suspected that he was bitten by some insect and was having some kind of allergy reaction. So I let him skip school the next day to rest at home as he was also having running nose and cough. Then red patches/dots (non-bulging) started to appear on his ears, hands and neck, then body and legs. But the funny thing is, the patches/dots will appear, then disappear a few hours later. And reappear again. The cycle kept repeating. It was like that throughout the weekend. When the swelling around the eyes subsided a bit, it was replaced with big red circles. He looked like he was punched in the eyes.

~ look terrible hor? picture taken on Thursday, 5:21pm ~

Then yesterday evening, he developed fever after we came back from lunch. Luckily it subsided after a dose of paracetamol. That's why I let him attend school today. The red patches/dots are gone. I'm praying hard the kids will recover fully for CNY. Yup, jie jie's also having a flu. :-( With all the "nice" food and travelling, it's going to be tough if they're not in tip-top condition.

As for the back-to-school routine, didi adjusted to it very well. He didn't have any problems waking up in the mornings. Anyway, he rarely had such problems previously. On the first day of school, I brought him to the gate, waved him goodbye and he walked in himself. This is his 3rd year in that kindy and I would expect him to be independent. When I picked him up, his teacher said he was well-behaved. She was worried at first as his cousin brother (who was his companion there last year) has graduated from kindy.

As for jie jie, I find that her honeymoon years are over. Now that she's in Std 3, there are more homework, but I'm sure nothing compared to those from Chinese schools. I was so surprised when she got her timetable on the first day of school. I remember they took about 2 weeks to give out the timetable when she was in Std 1.

She's been selected to be a prefect. I think they are on probation now before they officially become one next year. She'll still wear the same uniform but will be given a badge and tie. Some of her duties are to "take care" of the students in the classroom during the teacher's absence and before school starts, when they line up to go to their respective classes. She'll have an earlier break coz she has duties when the others are having their break. That means she'll have less time to finish up her work in school and I hope she won't miss any lessons.

CNY is just around the corner. Here's wishing you a prosperous, healthy and happy Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai and happy holidays! If you're travelling during the festive season, have a safe journey!