Say It Out

Add on to Reuben's vocabulary :

eli (elephant), eye, mouth, moon, moo, dog, meow, bird, bear, papa, mama (mommy), mama (grandma), milk milk, jie jie, apple, ball, no no, ish (fish), orange, ostrich, two, open (his fave), o-rit (orange), mum mum (eating) and woosh woosh (shoe)

Some words have disappeared :

banana, bao bao (carry)

Toy Car Craze

Reuben boyish instinct has recently manifested when he suddenly showed interest in toy cars. Previously, he was playing tea parties with his Jie jie. So since now that he likes vehicles, that gave me an excuse to do some shopping and buy some toy cars for him. Haha :) Mommy loves shopping! :) I've learnt that there's such thing called the Die-Cast cars and Hot Wheel cars are rather expensive, $3.50 each! So I choose to go Daiso and buy the $2 ones which are almost similar in quality but of course, the design is simplier. Over the weekends, we went to Toys R Us and put 2 more toy cars (a Mazda and a BMW), 2 for $3. I was elated! Now I'm into cars! (toy ones). Everywhere I go, I look for cars, cars and more cars! Haha :)

Pictures of TCS Flag Day

Don't understand why I couldn't add in pictures in my previous post, so I'll use the slide show method instead! Hopefully the problem can be rectify soon! :(

TCS Flag Day

I've existed in this world for almost 34 years but I have only sold flag 4 times. This goes to show how much, or rather, how little I have done to help the needy people in my community. I do have the compassion for them but I lack the initiative and passion to help them. Hence, I always pray for my children that they will grow up to be people with compassion and initiative so that they can put their sympathy for others into action.

The opportunity for us to put our prayer into practice arose on TCS flag day this year. TCS stands for Touch Community Services (and not Television Corporation of Singapore). Our whole family (yes, including Reuben) went to Jurong East to sell flags. I thought it would be a good learning point for Phoebe. It will teach her to be compassionate and responsible. Phoebe was made to be in charge of one tin. It was not easy. The weather was hot and humid. But Phoebe managed to gather many donations. I supposed, seeing a little girl holding on to a tin, doing some charity work, is appealing to the public. For a short while, Reuben also helped out. He held on to a tin while I carried him. His cuteness became a selling point. People would put into the tin and smile at him. One Indian lady said,

"I donate because of your son."

Haha. Reuben's charm is irresistible and formidable! :) But he got restless after a while. There were certain time when people just zoomed past her and Phoebe got discouraged. She kept asking me,

"Mommy, why nobody wants (to donate) ?"

I just have to keep encouraging her by saying that it's okay. Some people have already donated. After selling for about 1.5 hours, Phoebe was tired and hungry. It was Reuben's lunch time too. We lingered for another half an hour before calling it a day. We drove to the McDonald's in Science Centre for our lunch. I hope Phoebe will learn something out of this trip.

Open

For now, Reuben's favourite word is "Open". Anything that he wants, he'll say "open". He says "open" when he wants...

1) the door to be ajar
2) to get his toys out of the toy box
3) to switch on the television
4) to eat something from a container
5) to switch on the lights
6) to be breastfed !!!

Yes! You didn't get me wrong! He said "open" when he wants to be latched on. He'll come to me and lie on my lap and said "open". When I pretended not to understand him, he'll whine and pull my shirt and when I continued to act blur (innocent, confused), he'll start to scream. aarrrggghh...

So for now, the most useful word for Reuben is "open". With THAT one and only powerful word, all things are done! (^_~)

My Grape Feeder

Have you seen a Grape Feeder ? Do you own one ? I have my own personal Grape Feeder. He's fast, he's efficient, he's accurate!

He's...

SUPER REUBEN GRAPE FEEDER!

To Market To Market

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig...

We will usually go to the supermarket to get our groceries once a week. We'll be laden with heavy items which will be arms-breaking if we do not use a foldable box trolley to assist us in our loads. Seeing us pulling the trolley, Reuben wanted to help too. But of course, we needed to remove the items from the box trolley before he could pull along in a breeze. He's a happy helper. Watch him in action, so shortie and irresistably cute :)

In the Deep Deep Forest

Yesterday and today were PSLE oral exam days. All of us were in the morning session. That gave me the chance to bring Phoebe for a 4 p.m. performance "In the Deep Deep Forest - Adventures of the Mousedeer" in Esplanade Recital Studio. We went with Linda and her son. As we were early, we went to a cafe to have crepe with mashmallow and gummies first. The performance was pretty short, about 40 minutes but it was good. Phoebe was captivated. All the children and parents sat on the floor.

That's the good thing about being in the morning session, we can have a lot of time doing things with our kids. But for me, it's difficult being in the morning because it'll be too cruel to yank 2 young kids out of their dreamland and export them to my mom's place in the early morning. Besides, my mom herself would most lightly be still sleeping at 6+ a.m. in the morning.

Maybe next time when the children are older, then I'll consider teaching in the morning session. :)

A Blissful Sight

Consider this pure joy :)

Phoebe hugging Reuben spontaneously. Then I told them to freeze to quickly whip out my HP to snap this sight. So sugary sweet! :)

If You're Happy

If you're happy and you like to sing along with papa, or do the actions with Reuben?

What's So Funny

When Reuben stamped his legs on his papa's chest, his papa would make an "Aiyo Aiyo" sound, which would bring about a bout of laughter from Reuben.

The Fragile Forest @ The Zoo

We go to the zoo so frequent that Phoebe knows how to spell it. Haha. Well, it's not difficult to spell it coz afterall, it's only 3 letters. We particularly like the Fragile Forest. It's free roaming for the animals and the animals are not afraid of human. They roam just next to us, we can stretch out our hands to touch them but it is not encourage as our hands might have bacteria that may infect the animals. The children were fascinated. Phoebe touched the butterflies and we got to learn more about the Tree Kangaroo and the Ring tail Lemur (pronounced as li-mah, not li-nah) haha (^_~). We love the soft and velvet-like fur, but of course, we did not attempt to stroke them. The children saw lots of Stellaluna (Fruit Bats / Flying Fox) feasting on juicy fruit. The last time, we saw a sloth on a branch beside us but we were so excited that we forgot about taking pictures of it. The children saw rows of cocoon and witnessed a butterfly in the midst of emerging from a cocoon.

Reuben learnt a new word "elephant" when he saw 2 elephants holding their trunks and tails, walking in a line to the Ride enclosure. Of course, he couldn't say "elephant". He said "eh-fant" which was good enough. I remember Phoebe used to say "eh" when she saw the elephant.

Zoo is definitely our favourite hunt. Anyone wants to go to the zoo can always ask us along. :)

Good looking and Young Engineers

There's our latest and youngest for LTA Engineers. Haha. Their papa brought the gear home because he had to be in the Pasir Ris MRT station to witness the installation of the half height automatic doors on the platforms on Wednesday morning (12.45 a.m. to 4 a.m.). The children were excited to see the helmet and safety vest. They took it out to play and Phoebe started singing this song :

Bob the builder... can we fix it?
Bob the builder... Yes, we can!

My Lil Bunny

Phoebe got down from her school bus wearing this bunny head band which she had made in school. She was the only one wearing this. She looked so happy with herself. She skipped towards the lift with me holding her hand. I would usually fetch her from the void deck of my parents' place after her school. I love to be the one fetching her from her school bus. I love to see her grin when she sees me from the bus window. I love to hold her little hand. Sometimes, she would whine and say that she's tired. I would pick her up and carry her without any complain, though she's already 16 kg. Love her carrots (nuts) !

Eye Exercises

Phoebe's school has taught the children how to go about doing eye exercises. Her papa and I were very amused to see her doing it so we decided to record it down. She was not exactly in her most serious mood, hence the exercise was not done properly. Well, the gist is there though. I remembered my school used to get the pupils to do these eye exercises with a Chee-na music after their recesses. Reuben couldn't stop chuckling when he saw his jie-jie doing these exercises :)

National Day @ Jacob Ballas

We spent our late morning in Jacob Ballas Children's Garden with our neighbours, after our church service. It was a public holiday hence Phoebe did not have her usual ballet class. Last year, we also celebrated our Singapore's birthday in Jacob Ballas. We have made a pact that we'll celebrate National Day in Jacob Ballas every year, in RED and WHITE as always. We're a bunch of patriots and we're definitely proud of Singapore! Next year, there'll be 4 kids instead of 3! My neighbour is expecting her second child :)

When I look at the pictures in last year's post, I've realised how much our children have grown! Last yeat, Reuben was only about 5 months old and he was almost non-existent because he was sleeping throughout the trip. This year, he's in action, following the footsteps of the jie-jies, playing along, trying to do whatever they were participating in.

The children had learn quite a lot. We saw different types of vegetables such as sweet potatoes (leaves), Kang Kong (I never knew that their flowers are white!), long beans, bittergourd, chilli, tomatoes etc. I was pleasantly surprised when Phoebe told me that the orchid is called "Vanda Miss Joaquim"! Phoebe said her teacher has taught her that, that is our national flower. Wow! :)

The children climbed the treehouse and Phoebe was not afraid to go down the steep slide on her own, contrary to last year. She has indeed grown up and I love her feisty spirit. Of course, the children would not miss the water play area! They got themselves wet, especially Reuben. But they have enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

We had our lunch in the food court in Botanic Garden before heading home for a snooze. We had to rejuvenate ourselves as there were more programme in the evening. We were invited to Auntie Linda's place for a simple National Day dinner and we would watch the parade together and say our Pledge together at 8.22 p.m. with the whole of Singapore!

Happy 44th Birthday, Singapore! (^_^)b

Phoebe's school celebrated National Day on Friday, 7 August. The children had to wear the national colours.


Patriotic to the core, even our bikes have Singapore flag.


Phoebe and Vanda Miss Joaquim, Phoebe and papa on the wobbly bridge. Phoebe climbing up the treehouse.


Phoebe slided on her own while Papa carried Reuben to have fun.



I never knew that Kang Kong bears white flowers until that day.



Last stop, water play! How can the children miss it? Never! :)


Our pact : Yearly visit to Jacob Ballas in RED and WHITE on National Day

Swimming For Grands

My parents have never been to the Seng Kang Swimming pool even though it was opened for almost a year. It was my dad's first visit to the pool and my mum's third. They fell in love with the place immediately. They like the Jacuzzi pool best because they are able to massage their aching bodies using the powerful jets. My parents are not good swimmers but at least they can float in the water and do a few strokes. Since last Thursday, my dad has been to the pool for another time on his own. It's a good form of exercise for the oldies without straining their muscles or joints. Phoebe was in school and Reuben was sleeping at the point of time when they visited the pool (8.30 a.m.). Too bad, I'm sure the children would love to see their grandparents in action! :) I accompanied the grands for a while and assumed the role of their photographer before heading home to prepare for school :)

Ah-Peng Yi Yi's Birthday

4 August was my sister's birthday. Phoebe knew about it and wanted to make a card for Yi-yi. We did the card the night before. I asked her what words she wanted to put in the card, she said, "I Love You Yi-Yi" For those words that she could write, she did it herself. For those that she couldn't, I held her hand to write them. She said Yi-yi likes The Little Princess by Tony Ross (which is true, my sis really likes that character, Phoebe is very observant) so she tried to draw one on the front of the card. When she was drawing Reuben, initially, I couldn't comprehend why she has drawn such a BIG body for Reuben, she explained to me, "No, that is not Reuben's body. It's Reuben's blanket. He's holding a blanket." Oh! (^_^)

When she presented her card to Yi-yi, she also gave her a hug and kiss. They sang a birthday song and blew candles. Too bad, forgot about picture-taking! :(

Front cover of card, The Little Princess (yi-yi's fave) with a pink tiara (Phoebe fave colour)


Inside of the card, Phoebe wrote most of the words herself, including the red heart to show love for yi-yi. I only drew the blue flower on her behalf :)


This is her di-di with his blankie. The arrow is drawn by me and the words "August 2009" too.