Camo Brothers

First, baby had his bath and changed into this pair of new PJs. He looked really good in it too!

Then ... to baby's surprise, D walks in after his bath .... in the same PJs!!!

JR was so amused by the similarity of their PJs.

And ..... then ..... Tim walks in ... and JR was super-tickled by then. HAHAHA!!! He went into hysterics!!!

Ah, the 3 brothers.

So unusual that these came in baby & big boy sizes! Cool, eh? I just had to get them!

Zoo Play

JR is 17mos today, and it's dh's birthday. Oh well, it's nothing to do with us visiting the zoo today. HAHA! I thought it'd be good to visit the zoo with big D while he is still on holiday since school only starts next week for him. Anyway, we had a nice surprise today ...

It's been a long time since I saw one of these Peacocks showing off. JR has read about peacocks in his books, but not seen one in all the 5 or 6 zoo visits we've been on? Should've seen the expression on his face when he saw the peacock lift all his feathers and prance around (that's the reason why the photo is not clear - hp cam, and the peacock dancing & showing off!).

There were a few other "firsts" for today's visit. We'd not ventured into the playground area before today. We found this boat. D just asked to join in with the kids since there were no other boats available and they looked like they needed help.

D complained that it was so tiring, since all the other kids are so small, so effectively it was just D & the other small girl pulling on the rope to make the boat move.


Another "first" was this flying-fox type of swing. It was really fun. Even I had a go at it with baby (oops, not recommended).


And we went for a horse-carriage ride!

I don't remember ever going on one anywhere else. Hmm..

Nothing spectacular about it.

The boys had fun. And I promised to bring them just for the water play on a separate day. Baby's ready for it now, it seems. The last time I brought him, he was somewhat scared.

Too bad I can't bring TJ. His CCA & tuition starts this week already.

The Little Prince

Really starting our Little Prince young on this. Haha.

He was quite fascinated by the page that says that the little prince protects the rose from the wind.

And it was only 50cents for this baby board book version of The Little Prince. There was another board book version and I'm tempted to go back and get that as well. Haha. Yeah, 50cents too.

And while I was at the same stall, I came across this cute puzzle-book.

I'd seen one like this previously here, but all it's pieces inside were missing, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book's were all intact! JR *LOVED* it! Mostly bc there's a bus in it! He has a fixation on buses!

He took the bus out and held on to it, refusing to put it back.

I *teased* him some bc one of the animals in the book was a Tiger. JR's really frightened of tigers ever since he saw/heard it roaring in the WTL's new zoo video. Each time we reach the Tiger page, I'd quickly take out the tiger for him, and he'd promptly place it right back into the cutout spot in the book. He would still refuse to put the "BUS" back into the book though!!


Barney books are often quite good for a beginner reader. Big words, simple language. But still need to select carefully bc not all in the Barney series are similar. I was again lucky today to find this.

JR could read most of this book altho' his enunciation is certainly not clear yet at this stage. And some words he can't verbalise, but I can see him trying to say out the sounds of the words that he is not developmentally able to.

He has started imitating words that he hears too.

Class Blog

The FT starts the school year off on day 1 with a Letter of Introduction to Parents, welcoming all to the start of a 2-year preparation for PSLE. OMG. And requesting for us to help, among other things, in organising and getting ready a set of ring files for our child ... like these.

And I'm impressed. For once in TJ's 4 years in pri sch, they have a class blog.

Relics Event

School Again

Yeah, the new school year starts once again! Snazzy schoolbag, huh? Cute & functional. ;-)

Winter Garb

I realised, on reflection, which type of clothes were best, esp for baby in subzero weather.

Fleece was the warmest. And not all types of fleece are equal. For instance, the baby's OldNavy fleece top was warmer.

Warmer than his cut-label fleece top.

His fleece sweatshirt with hoodie was also not bad .


To cover his head/ears, a fleece cap with ear flaps was quite good compared to flipping his winter down-jacket's hood up, as he could move his head more easily to look around.


We also kept to having him wear his little UniQlo thermal innertops, and I think I'll try to buy the same UniQlo thermals but with turtle-necks for him for the Hokkaido trip. Similarly, the tights that I used as innerwear for the baby were not all warm enough. The white ones were just sweatpants material while the 2 grey & the blue ones were fleece-lined and were much warmer. The white ones of sweat-pants material were not very effective in keeping his bottom/legs warm.

I had no success getting baby to wear his boots nor his woollen socks. He seemed fine with his usual cotton socks & usual shoes - thankfully. Feet didn't feel all that cold.

And, I'd need to either get baby full-length leggings or at least knee-high socks for the Hokkaido trip, bc when I carried baby, his pants would ride up and there would be a section of his legs between the bottom of his pants and his socks that are exposed. He got a cold dry rash along this portion of his legs. ;( Leggings would probably be preferred since knee-high socks might also drop down, right? And I think leggings would look better than baby legwarmers which cost an arm/leg. HAHA.

As for me, I too found the UniQlo's heattech range useful. The scoop-neck top was great for innerwear as it has a wide and very stretchable neckline which I could easily pull-down for nursing. I wore my long-sleeved nursing tops, and then a high-neck half-zip fleece-top(as opposed to one that zips all the way up/down as that's harder to pull up to nurse). I found the fleece-top better than my usual turtle-neck tops, not only bc they were thin but warm, but also bc they don't ever look crumpled generally, so are great for pulling up to nurse baby and not looking messy in between.

And finally, I found that ... the fleece pouch that I've had since TJ's time, is the best for this weather.

With this fleece pouch, baby seemed cosy even without his down jacket. And as long as he kept his hands inside the pouch, he didn't even seem to need to wear mittens. Cool, yah? Easier for me too. And I'd have my own down jacket over baby in the pouch and that could cover his legs too if need be.

Korea: Lotte World

As it's name 乐天 suggests, the kids had a great time here!

Lots of attractions/rides were indoors. D&S did go to some of the outdoor rides themselves - those, like the French revolution, were really good.

Me? I was stuck with baby rides, like this choo-choo train.

We queued really long for it though. ;(


We also queued for a long time for the carousel ride...

... and the monorail


I wondered how so many could wear their down jackets indoors. I was feeling rather toasty myself but kept my down jacket on since if I took it off, I'd have an extra item to carry, apart from carrying baby!

We found TJ along the way...had to "rescue" him from his Dad, who wanted to go for less "baby" rides but was stuck with scaredy-cat TJ.


The trip to Lotte World had to, of course, end with the parade (like in all theme parks, huh?)

D seemed to be so fascinated with it and waved at all the floats/performers

He even reached out to touch them! Haha!



Everyone was fairly satisfied, altho' the kids did wish they had more time there.

Korea: Everland

We'd thought it would be great for the kids to be going to 2 Theme Parks this trip. The only theme park we've earlier been to in Korea is Lotte World and we thought it'd be similar with indoor & outdoor facilities, since it's winter and we thought it'd be a park well-equipped to handle visitors during winter. Ah, we were so wrong. This is almost like us visiting Ocean Park(HK) on a rainy day. Such a cold day coupled with chill winds. Most everything is outdoors! We were freezing most of the time. Didn't really enjoy it much as such.

Here, we're at some ride. Don't remember the name, but it's very much like Disney's "It's a Small World". We just simply ran into any ride that looked "indoors" just to get away from the cold.

The older kids did manage to get in some outdoor rides, while I happily bought popcorn and sat with baby near a heater.


We also ran into this Candy store that we saw to warm up, not with intention to shop, altho' we did end up buying some candies to keep our energy levels up.

And while we had just entered the Candy store and put baby down so we could organise our things ... the next thing we saw was this baby having grabbed one of those tongs and walking around squealing with delight!

... dashing around looking at all the colourful sweets... in AWE!

We saw this main street parade and wondered how the performers could wear flouncy skirts and tights only in this weather.

We'd taken a ride on the Carousel in the background of this photo earlier, but with the carousel "spinning" and with wind, baby was shivering even though we were in a covered "coach". Brrrr....

Right after the parade ended, we ran into a Burger Cafe to eat lunch and to *defrost*!

Baby in "Quick-Defrost" mode. Love those rosy cheeks!

And hot drinks never feel scalding-hot in subzero!

Vibrato Laugh

We finally managed to catch a video of baby's vibrato-style of laughter. This was while we were eating ice-cream on the 1st day.

The other video is of them playing in the snow
Video: SnowPlay
This also starts off with baby's vibrato laughter.

Korea: Skiing

All the kids went skiing this time. This is the 2nd time in the snow for most the kids except for TJ. We were at the High1 ski area. The previous time we came to Korea, we'd gone to the YongPyong(famous from it's Winter Sonata showing).

It had not started snowing regularly yet since it was only mid-Dec, so unlike the last time we came to Korea ... the snow machines were at work. Not much of a Christmas Landscape yet. What a difference 2 weeks make, huh? When we went during the New Year weekend in 2006/2007, Korea had that winter wonderland look already.

Altho' it's TJ's 3rd time, this is his 1st time skiing. He was not brave enough to go skiing before this.

Yikes - collision!

Dear S says she'd rather not ski again, but the boys had loads of fun. No pix of the actual skiing up the slopes bc all of them skiing - how to take photos? haha. The photos above are from BEFORE they took the cable car up. I was not with them.

They looked real tired in the photos on the way back down from the slopes.



And while all of them were off skiing, I spent a really long day with baby. We took many cable car rides. Baby was quite angry each time I got off the ride! He wanted to continue, like - forever!

We found a place that had fewer skiers and lots of fresh fluffy snow. Much better for baby to play at. We had a snow sled(free in our pkg) but too bad we didn't bring it over here. We left it at the main ski lodge.

We started off in the morning with baby dressed in the rented snowpants and waterproof gloves(included in tour package).

He could barely walk, unlike the day before when he'd played in the snow in his own clothes. He looks so funny and stuffed-up, right? He was so angry that he couldn't move well, and he couldn't use his hands much with those gloves, trying to touch the snow, trying to grab his play tools, but not able to. So angry that he protested and kept crying in frustration. I brought him back to the hotel and changed his clothes. He was much happier after!

Even tho' his own gloves are not the "waterproof" kind, they are fleece and that's somewhat waterproof too lah. And his pants are fleece sweatpants, so it was quite ok in snow too, altho' the snow crystals kept sticking onto the gloves & pants. Luckily the snow didn't melt and wet his clothes.

I'd brought along the small ikea sand set.

We made many snowballs with that. Very nice, but no one to play it with. Sad. Bc the rest of the family up skiing. ;(

And I "made" a snowman, much to JR's delight.

Korea: Snowplay

It's JR's first time experiencing snow. The boys found a patch of snow near the hotel earlier in the day. JR refused to wear gloves/hat at first. It was fun while he played but shortly after, his fingers ached from the freezing coldness and so did his ears!

My ears, my ears...

Could finally laugh about it, but ears prob still a little numb:


Learnt a lesson himself ... so didn't mind getting all dressed like a stuffed dumpling later. hehe.


The kids had fun just messing around in the snow.

There were strong winds blowing so it was *cold*, but well, not so bad, we just kept running in/out to the building and having donuts & hot choc/coffee.





Trying to make a snow angel

Korea: Cultural Centre

We went for a Kimchi-making workshop! Haha - I'd not expected this.

The ginseng milk given was quite nice. Baby liked it too. The rest of the kids didn't.

Baby didn't like to be put down - see him crying for me to carry at my leg?

So I had to work on the kimchi with him by my side

TJ working his kimchi

It's quite a bloody mess, huh? Worse than bio lab.

After packing away our kimchi, and walking out of the "classroom", we saw to our surprise that D was already in Korean garb. Apparently he was accosted while walking outside and these women just dressed him up. HAHA!

Quite regal-looking!

TJ was in what seemed like a Korean little-boy's suit. Not so impressive

S looked really sweet

And JR who was initially hesistant about putting on strange clothes, was so happy with it bc of the 五颜六色的彩虹 sleeves. He was quite reluctant to take it off for return!

And there's all of us:

Korea: Food

Food ... some good, some great, some - we wonder ... D fully enjoyed the Korean food, esp Bibimbap. All of us loved the BBQ. And the side dishes were such a hit.

We did not bring food for the baby. He just happily enjoyed rice with whatever meat or vegetables there were.

In the mornings, I'd mix him porridge from whatever I found in the buffet line (scrambled eggs/seaweed/corn/vege), much to his approval!

He quite enjoyed the mixed grain rice that was popularly served there. I didn't get pix of the rest. Only this one which was a simple mix with what I think is millet. When I asked, they just said it's 小黄米 which to me is just simply too literal.

Some highlights ... 3 year old kimchi - esp yummy!

Korean Pancake

Generally a main meal with side dishes that vary.

Ginseng Chicken Soup

D, trying to steal his dad's burger.

JR was always very very busy during mealtimes, other than doing the real eating:

We discovered that he LOVED strawberries, eating so many at one go. Strawberries were in season. So big, sweet and juicy. JR had not liked them earlier in Singapore when I'd let him taste some when he was less than 1yo.

We also found these cute and quite tasty triangular-shaped biscuits in a convenience store. Too bad we didn't buy more packets to bring home. There are several flavours.

Oh, and street food is just extra tasty esp in winter, I think!

Being winter, many places had heaters of various types. The kids found this stove heater quite a novelty. Almost makes you think of the homeless along the streets of some famous cosmopolitan city, yah?

And in the same restaurant, the kids found this dried very stiff preserved fish and started going around chasing and whacking each other up!


The kids all love crispy seaweed and we had to have our seaweed side plate refilled many times throughout our meals, but what I found TJ doing on our last day in Korea was really quite amusing. This was in a shop.

He was feasting on the many samples of seaweed!

He would just take the stool and move it around to taste all the different flavours of seaweed samples!

And ... ice cream in winter! This was really good!

Look at JR's lips - smacking.

Korea Trip: Travel

This was our first holiday out with baby. Super-tiring with the babe. Have enjoyed all those years with the much older and more independent kids. Running around after the Baby JR at Changi Airport even before we even flew off was enough to tire me out for the whole trip. The rest of the days, I think I ran on borrowed steam!

There, baby dashing around. Had to keep him from being hit by trolleys and he kept disappearing into crowds of people.

And well ... "Mommy - it says GO, wat". Duh


Baby sat on me the whole trip of 5-6hours. It was a late flight out, so he was tired and slept as the plane taxi'd for take-off.

The flight attendent came to check on JR's height and then declared he couldn't use the bassinet as the height limit was 75cm. Oh well, despite it being a pain for him to be on me for 6hrs, I also think it'd have been tough to put him in/out the bassinet. I did not sleep well on the flight bc JR kept tossing and turning in his sleep. Aargh. And the older kids behind were playing the whole night with their seat lights on! The dinner of Bibimbap was nice but I ate it with some difficulty *over* the baby (who was sleeping on me lah!). Interestingly, there was no extra child safety belt offered unlike when I travelled with the older ones last time. In any case, I had JR in a sling which felt more secure than the flimsy child belt.

The kids had lots of fun at the Incheon Airport in Korea before the flight back:



Check out those ruddy cheeks from a week in the freezing cold!

On the flight back, it was in the afternoon, JR was not sleepy but didn't seem affected by the air pressure as the plane took-off even tho' he wasn't nursing or eating. He slept at almost his usual timing on the plane - 8+pm local time I think. Our flight landed at 10+pm. I managed to keep him sleeping all the way until .... we reached home. Sad, sad, sad. Bc then, JR got all hyper and awake and didn't sleep again until nearly 4am!!! *faint*.

A lot learnt from this trip and our trip to Hokkaido in Feb should run more smoothly - easier too since it'd only be us three.

Tis the Season

Been back from hols since late Sunday night, but TJ fell sick with stomach flu the next day and was down for 3 days, and I followed suit on Tue until today.

Sad...no Christmas Eve dinner as is our usual tradition. I finally managed to eat something today after almost 3 days of "no-food". While the family had roast chicken and I don't know whatever other to me is "smelly stuff" at the moment, I had plain rice porridge - plain, plain. I can hear Christmas carols in the estate.....

The Next Phase

Registration Day for Sec 1. Nothing much except to fill in 2 forms for 3rd Lang options and HMT options and to listen to a short briefing by the Dean & Principal. Interestingly, the pre-printed forms from MOE had all our addresses printed wrongly!

D studying his JH1 Orientation Package:

Queues were quite long after, to get books and uniforms. A little confusing, because there were queues for books, then PE attire, then the uniforms (which had 3 mini queues within - one to try size, one to pick the stock, and another to pay).

The PE queue was the longest - 30mins! Not sure why. How hard is it to pick t-shirt & shorts? Thankfully not much books to buy except for Math/HCL since NJ has their own curriculum. They gave us Sec1/Sec2 books all at one go!

Imagining D in this getup. D will wear this for Yr 1 & 2 only.

I was laughing at the bright red shorts, then dh said "hey, TJ would love that, ok?!". Haha.

And everywhere, it's coloured red/white/grey ... OMG ... reminds me of raffles, where everything is green/black/white. Gee ... even the sinks in the canteen were all red!


I told D that if I drop him at the main road, he'd better enter thru' the Red Gate instead of the Dark-green one, or he'd end up being the thorn among the roses.

Chinese Classics

Yay, I got the ones I want. All thanks to Sunflower!

I first saw these on YouTube, and enquired with the producer/seller. Found out that they were sold in Popular Malaysia stores.

I'm going once again use them Dolman-style. That is, I'll show JR 1 part for 3 days at a time before proceeding to the next section. JR seemed quite amused to see them. Must be wondering how they got from my laptop to the TV screen now. Haha!

NAC Masterclass

Following the NPVC earlier this week, D & I went for this masterclass by Ning Kam. The place was so hot as the aircons were faulty and our mood was truly destroyed this morning. ;(

My friend's son Casey who won 2nd prize(pte vid in link), was in another masterclass, so we didn't get to see him play again. We watched 3 other violinists instead. There was 1 little girl who didn't make it past the qtr-finals(Jr), 1 who is 3rd place in Int, and 1 who was a semifinalist, who is playing here in this video:

Her mom was in such bright hues...too bad she wasn't sitting in front of me. We were falling asleep bc of the heat and the stuffy room made both D & I end up with runny noses by the half-way mark in this session.

I couldn't believe when I saw this father in front of me having his paper FULL of notes.

I'd never even thought of doing that. And in the midst of this, I received an sms from a friend "Did you take notes"? Oh my...really, ah?

Ok, whoever wants to know, the gist of the Mstrcls covered:
1. Bow tightness: liken it to the suspension of a bike/car.
2. The piece is a story - tell it.
3. Sing, sing, sing. When you sing internally as you play, all your technical & intonation problems will go away.

D was going like....but LB tells me all those every lesson...and he makes me sing. Well, this boy was really grumpy ! Complaining that he was wearing jeans in that stuffy room.

SSO Babies Proms

Babies' Prom! Have not been since I last brought the kids in 2004 and they hated it. Too juvenile for them. They preferred proper concerts. Except that proper concerts were sometimes too heavy or long for them. *sigh*. So I resorted to looking out for shorter casual concerts for them since.

They were very happy to be bringing Baby JR this time though. But if asked if they enjoyed the concert themselves, they just say "it's ok, lah". *haha*.

Baby sat in awe, mesmerised for most of the concert, while the other tods were running around. It almost made me wish that JR was a little more spontaneous and excited like them, but I think he was really focussing. I think he also wondered why they kept stopping the pieces halfway for "Uncle Peter" to explain. And he didn't seem too amused by the handraising and some other actions like waving trees. He got happier nearer the 2nd half of the concert when the orchestra started playing most of the pieces in entirety.

For the last piece, all the kids were invited on stage, but parents were not allowed. So D & TJ brought JR up. It was so crowded, they could barely move.

They eventually did carry baby over to the percussions to watch, moving on to the woodwinds and brass just in time to watch the trumpet doing the horse "neighing" sound at the end of Anderson's Sleigh Ride. Precious bit! They never made it to the viola, cello & double-bass sections. The whole orchestra disappeared so quickly after that last item!

The boys got free tattoos. Too bad we didn't get one for JR. Would've liked to watch his really puzzled face as he tries to figure out why he has markings on his hand. ;-)

I think I'm going to try and bring baby and TJ to the Esplanade Beautiful Sunday concert later this month on 27 Dec and see how it works out. Maybe he'll be able to sit thru. Who knows!

Jamboree

Caught this performance at the Concourse.

7.15pm after the Jr Semi-s this evening.

Hey, voice is an instrument too! By MEP students.

D loved the harp performance. Too bad my digicam battery ran out, so I resorted to my handphone. Watch until the middle of this vid and you'll see the harp. (Note:And do turn the volume a little down or else the audio can be quite jarring/harsh.)

Some of the students waiting for their turn to perform:

Sadly, we realised that the 1st half at 7.15pm only had the piano, harp, voice students. We wantaed to watch the violin, but that was only in the 2nd half at 8.15pm, which was too late for us, so we missed that.