Reading books

From young, we have tried to cultivate the love for books and reading habit to Xi. I have bought plenty of books online (www.thebookpeople.co.uk) and from book stores and it seems to have worked for her as everyday before her nap time and sleep time at night, she will "pester" us to read books for her, not one or two, but could be four, five or more. It's like a marathon. First she will pull my younger sis to her room to read for her (as she knows I will be busy with housework). If daddy is around, daddy will continue part 2 of reading. And lastly will be me, by reading another 2 or 3 books for her, before she will want to wear her socks, pants, and allow us to switch off the light for the night.

We have seen great improvement in her word recognition since the start of her school and lately, she shows her curiosity in understanding the meaning of the words in the books and keeps interupting our reading to her to check on the meaning. Two weeks ago, I realise she can finish reading most part of this book "It's Not Fair" by herself, and yesterday, "The Three Little Pig".


(You can buy the full book collection of 10 books from here, strongly recommended: http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&productId=177164)

This is another collection of books which she loves, Princess Poppy Collection . Beautiful books for girls.

(http://www.thebookpeople.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/qs_product_tbp?storeId=10001&catalogId=10051&langId=100&productId=140670)

As for Ru, while reading to her sister, she will run around the room and the house carring a bag filled with little books. Sometimes she will bring a book to us and want us to read for her. But the moment we open up the book she has run away already. Sigh.... Anyone has any method to let my little girl to sit still for 5 minutes?

Xi's sports day

Xi had her first sport day on 21 May 2010 at Toa Payoh stadium. The weather on that morning was superb. It was great fun to see so many young kids and energitic teachers, and parents who participated the games with their children enthusiastically. Though the N1 kids did not participate as well as they normally did in school and at home during the 1st part of the warm up sing and dance led by the Mandarin teachers, all of them managed to finish the team races which came after that.

Xi and her good friend, Olivier


With her English teacher, Elizabeth


The class queuing up for their first game. From left to right, Angel, Cayley, best friend, Phoebe, Ethan, Olivier, Xi, Chloe and Jeremy


Waiting for the next game to start


With friend, Angel and her Mandarin teacher, Yu Jiao

A day out

Last weekend, my elder sister and BIL came over in the morning to bring us for a trip to Jacob Ballas, the Children's Garden. It was nearly 2 years since hubby and I and Xi last went to the garden. I thought to take the opportunity to expose the gals to our mother nature since most of the time they stay at home or indoor. But I have the feeling that Xi might not enjoy as she is a typical city girl, who dislikes to be under the sun and the soil and sand.

Indeed, she was not interested at all at the plants, the slides at the Tree House (though her favourite game at playground is the slides) and the playground which is on the sand. The only thing which she was interested was the suspension bridge but she would only dare to cross the bridge with us holding her hands. :( We left the garden after 1 hour.



After breakfast, we went back to my sister's house and the kids had a great time playing at the playground.









We went home after lunch and the exhausted sisters had a good nap until past 6pm.

My little Ru

My good friend, CP has asked me before why I posted so little about Ru in this blog. Oh, how could I leave out my lovely 1-year-old? I love her so much that I feel guilty when I am expecting #3 (just as how I felt towards Xi when I was expecting Ru) and I can't bear to scold her when she was throwing tantrum just for a simple reason of wanting me to carry her!

She is such an endearing little darling whom the first thing she open her eyes was to look for me and crawl to my side wanting me to bao bao her to sleep; she has this sweet and clear voice which can melt anyone's heart when she calls him/her; she will give me a pat when she sees me coughing, she is as active as a little mouse in her every waking up moment; she will cry when she sees her jiejie cry when scolded; she will touch mine, her jiejie or her own tummy when asked where meimei is; she will hum or sing along with jiejie when listen to music; she will clap her hands after jiejie sings a song; and oh, she has the sweetest smile in the world which touches hubby, Xixi and my heart so much that we always like to hug her tightly, kiss her and smell her baby smell.

With a meimei coming along, my biggest wish is she will love her meimei just as how Xi loves her, and that the three sisters will remain loving to each other forever and ever...



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Waterplay at home

The past few weeks were hot, hot and HOT! Especially so during the weekend when we cosied at home without the air-con on. So one Sunday noon, hubby brought out the inflatable swimming pool for the gals to play. The last time they played with the pool, Ru was still a small baby and could not even sit unsupported. This time she was much bigger and the gals had such a good time playing with each other in the water that it took us much coaxing to get them out of the pool. More water play next time!

Book Week

Xi's school had a book week on the last week of April when the children were learning about books, how to take care of them, making book marks and even their own little booklets. The book week ended with a Book Parade on 30 April 2010, whereby the children are encouraged to go to school on that day, dressed in their favourite story book character and brought in the book as well. The school encouraged that the costumes be made with recyclable or readily available items found at home and work and avoid buying anything as creativity is the name of the game. The purpose was to encourage the children to save the environment by reducing, reusing and recycling. Getting creative and spending nothing will also instil in the children a strong and profound positive attitude to money where they learn to save and be discerning to buy what is truly and really necessary.

I was having a hard time thinking of what character to dress for Xi. What made it worst was I was extremely busy with my work that few weeks which ended up that I picked up the kids late every evening and reached home late and no time and energy to "create" a costume for her. Even up to the evening before the book parade, I was still scratching my head on the costume. Thank god I have my forever reliable and supportive aunty and the family! She brought out some nice recyclable paper and we thought of maybe can sew the paper to Xi's clothes! So she helped me to sew the paper to one of Xi's legging to make it a dress, and my cousin helped her to make a hat out from some cardboard. I also stitched a bracelet to her t-shirt and a necklace to her paper dress to create the sparkling effect. Carrying a small bag with a pair of wings on her shoulder and a Xmas wand, Xi was transformed to a little fairy.

Haircut

We couldn't remember when was the last time we brought Xi for haircut as she refused to cut her hair for the reason that short hair is for boys and she wanted to be like Princess Poppy who has long lovely hair. So day after day, her hair was to the extend that all of us could not bear. Worst was she did not like to tie up her hair and with the hot wearher, can imagine how messy and smelly the hair was. So 3 weeks ago, i told her that mummy is going to cut her hair, and so is Xixi. We were so proud of her when she sat still throughout the haircut and gave us a beaming smile when we all praised how nice she looks with her short hair. So now we are, mother and daughter, with short and neater hair. :)

During the haircut:


A happy Xi. She later told us no more long hair Xixi :):


Mother and daughter, happy with their shorter hair