Seasons Themed Week

Samuel in his raincoat

Last Saturday we dressed Samuel in his raincoat in conjunction with seasons themed week. Every student has to explain and present to the class what season they are dressed for. Daddy and mummy wonders how and what Samuel presented infront of his class as we did not rehearse him at all. Daddy and mummy only mentioned to Samuel that he was dressed in a raincoat because it is rainy season.

Initially we were thinking of the four seasons (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring) but it was quite inappropriate.

Summer = lightly dressed (daddy was afraid that Samuel will feel cold in his airconditioned class)
Winter = winter clothings with gloves and all (too hot even in an airconditioned class)
Autumn & Spring would not be so distinctive

Being in a tropical country, the rainy season is common.

If only we can be more creative, daddy would have dressed Samuel as a "durian". hehehe Durian Season. :D

His Presents

1st Birthday Present - Bouncer with balls

2nd Birthday Present - Plan Toys Parking Lot with alot of transportations toys

I can't recall what did we get Samuel on his 3rd Birthday. I have try and search from photos on his 3rd birthday folder but can't find any familiar present.

4th Birthday Present - Books

Samuel's Birthday Celebration - Recap

1st Birthday family photo - without Jesse
2nd birthday family photo - Jesse in mummy's tummy

3rd birthday family photo with Jesse but without daddy- I can't find a complete photo on Samuel's 3rd birthday

He Is 4

Samuel celebrated his birthday in school last Saturday with his classmates. We were not allowed to be there, so we requested the teacher to take photos on our behalf.

On Sunday, we invited some of his friends to our house for his birthday party.

Samuel officially turns 4 yesterday. Initially we wanted to get him a cake, but since we have a big piece of left over cake from his party on Sunday, we decided to get him a cup cake instead, just for the purpose of singing him birthday song and blowing candle.

Tired Daddy and Mummy

It has been an extremely tiring weekend for daddy and mummy. We have been preparing Samuel's 4th Birthday party in our house (from decorations to party packs).

Wall deco daddy prepared that was never used (poor daddy)

Balloons and other deco all over our living room

Veggie Tales Themed Birthday Cake

Can't describe how tiring it has been. Will post photos of Samuel's birthday party in my next blog posting.

"Garbage? Not!" Whats that?

Many came across our blog on "Garbage? Not!" left some interesting comments. hehe

Example:

1. Wow... u guys planning to open a mini mart ah? kekeke

2. Wow... How many ppl are you feeding?

3. How often do you do grocery shopping?

hehehe... Just to help clear the curiousity... We are not planning to open a mini mart. It is also not for Samuel's birthday bash.. hehehe..

We do our grocery shopping once a week and of course it doesn't need 6 to 7 trolleys.. hehehe..

The many plastic bags and trolleys of stuff are turned into goodie bags as in the picture below:

More plastic bags. hehehe.

A sample of the content in the goodie bags

We (Daddy, mummy and Samuel) has been helping out a "community serving organization" to prepare goodie bags for 200 child. These goodie bags are donated to the Child Development Centre of Brunei.

Can you imagine how happy these children would be when they receive these goodie bags?

Jesse Loves Swimming

Daddy and mummy noticed from the time Jesse started her swimming lessons that she loves swimming. This photo is one of the photos that mummy took of Jesse while she was playing with the ducks in the swimming pool, smiling with immense joy while swimming.

Flying Samuel

Samuel has been very excited to jump into the water recently that it has become his favourite part of his swimming lesson. This is another photo daddy took while Samuel was jumping into the water towards teacher Isabelle during his swimming lesson.

Natural Poser : )

While Jesse was attending her Kindermusik class, daddy was busy taking her photos. To daddy's surprise, Jesse was naturally posing like this. How did she learn to pose like that? Amazing! hehe

Traditional Costumes Day

Saturday was Samuel's School's Traditional Costumes Day. Daddy and mummy decided to let Samuel wear his Korean Traditional Costume which was tailor made for him, not because of this occassion but for his previous concert. He was choosen to be a korean boy to sing korean songs.

Garbage? Not!

What you see in this photo apparently looks like many plastic bags of garbage, are in actual fact not garbage. They are made out of these many trolleys of items that we bought, all in one day.

Thank God daddy has an innova, we could fit in all of these in daddy's car :)

2 In a Photo

At this age of, Samuel (almost 4) and Jesse (1 and a half), it is not easy to capture a photo that the 2 of them looks at the camera "together".

This is one of the photos that daddy managed to capture of the 2 of the sitting on a side table next to the TV in their play/TV area (they call it the orange area)

Daddy's Girl

These couple of weeks, Jesse has been very attached to mummy. Actually “very attached” was an understatement. She sticks so closely to mummy that she doesn’t even want daddy to carry her. Daddy felt left out most of the time when Jesse only wants mummy all the time.

Daddy decided to spend more time with Jesse so that Jesse will again allow daddy to carry her and be close to her again.
Recently (only these couple of days), Jesse started to be closer to daddy. Daddy’s heart melts when Jesse wants daddy to hug and carry her again.

Most Satisfying

Most of the time, mummy accompanies Samuel and Jesse into the pool, swimming with them. This time, as mummy is careful not to get her eyes into the pool's chlorine water, daddy took the chance to have the honour to swim with Jesse.

Daddy felt that eventhough it was for a short time in the pool with Jesse, it was definitely “Most Satisfying”.

Floating Samuel

Both daddy and mummy has tried many attempts to let Samuel try to just lie down still and float on the water. Everytime we try, Samuel struggles.

It was to daddy's surprise that during his swimming lesson, he actually managed to float by himself. Thanks to teacher Isabelle. This was where daddy realised that not everything, daddy and mummy can teach Samuel. At times, he prefers to learn new things from other people.

Daddy took a sequence of photos of Samuel floating by himself on his back.

Birthday Cake

We brought Samuel to bakery shop to choose for his birthday cake for him to bring to school next Saturday. He requested Larry The Cucumber cake, which we feel that it might look kinda ugly for a birthday cake hahaha.... Besides, we wanted to choose the Veggie Tales characters for his birthday cake for his party.

Ended up, he chose Lightning McQueen car cake. It will be a chocolate and vanila 3 pound sponge cake with the car picture.

We will be ordering 3 cakes. One sponge cake for his school mates, one cheese cake for his party and one ice cream cake for the family. We have ordered 1, 2 more to go.

Candle Decoration

Samuel brought back a candle from school today. He has decorated the candle with some accessories. Mummy has never thought of such craft before. Don't you think is very unique?

Birthday Preparations

For the past 2 days, we have been busy thinking of how we want to celebrate Samuel's 4th Birthday. Besides celebrating it in school with his classmates, we will also invite some church members to his birthday party which we have decided to hold it at home.

We have selected a theme for his birthday party - Veggie Tales. Since he loves to sing Veggie Tales Silly Songs, we decided to choose this as the party theme. After selecting the theme, we started to think of invitation cards, decorations,games and party packs for his party.

Daddy suggested to do a Bob the tomato picture as his invitation. After giving much thought, we went and search for the suitable papers. We found this foam coloured paper which we think is suitable for Bob.

We printed a sample from website in an A4 paper, then we put the picture on top of the foam and cut accordingly. It is not difficult to do but its very tedious. We have to cut red body, eye lid and nose, white eye and mouth and green top. After cutting few of those, we tried to make Bob.

Samuel, who is not really interested in Bob kept asking for Larry the cucumber. He loves Larry as compare to Bob as Larry is green in colour (his favourite colour). As we were busy doing Bob, we did not give in to his request.

After doing one as an invitation sample, I felt that we can put in as a craft for the children in the party bag. All we need to do is to cut out the shapes and they will do it themselves. Daddy doesn't agree to the idea. Instead we are thinking of doing it as a fridge magnet, though it might look big.

This morning before Samuel went to school, he ran downstairs to the table in the living room to look for Bob the Tomato. He wanted to bring Bob to school but daddy convinced him that daddy will do Larry the Cucumber later today. In the end, both daddy and mummy made Larry the cucumber together. Samuel was so happy to see Larry but daddy didn't allow Samuel to take both Bob and Larry as they are the 1st samples that both daddy and mummy made.

Since both Bob and Larry looks quite nice, daddy and mummy decided to pack them into the party packs to be given away instead of using them as invitation cards.

Buzy ?

Last weekend, besides bring the children to music and swimming classes, I was busy watching HK series. My eyes were hooked to the series until I have forgotten to blog, hahaha. Now that I have finished the series, I should have time for blogging again. (Although I feel like watching another series hehehe)

Their swimming classes resume last Sunday and daddy had the honour to be with them. Although, I should be able to swim after 3w of lasik, I am still not very comfortable going into water. Will post some photos later.

Now, we are busy preparing Samuel's 4th Birthday. Besides celebrating his birthday in school, we will throw a party for him at our house. Since our weekends are pretty tight, we shall have the party on a Sunday night.

Lasik : Part II Surgery

I wanted for my surgery to be done in the evening, as advised by a friend. Before I had my surgery, I had a few drops of anaesthetic. Then we waited to be called into the operations theatre. By the time i am called in, my visions were very blur.

We went in the surgery when the doctor and his assistants were ready. Daddy was there throughout the whole surgery and he took some photos as well.

When we went in, the doctor requested me to lie down on a movable bed. He asked if I know what he's going to do. Then, he used some transparent tape to stick my eyelids to open my eyes wide. After that, the doctor inserted a "clip" to open the eyes even wider. The doctor constantly informs me before he does anything.

First, he used something to create a suction on my eyes. This made me blacked out for a while. Then, he cut my cornea to create a flap. Gosh, this was soooo painful and scary!! After the flap was opened, I have my vision back and he requested me not to move.

After which, there was some form of light going into my eyes. This was not painful. Although the doctor did mentioned that during the laser, we will smell something burning, (daddy did smell it) I did not smell anything unusual.


The doctor started off with my right eye. During the laser process, he kept asking me not to move. I have been trying very hard not to move my eyeball and I thought I did not move at all. Because of the movement, the laser took abit longer. If there's a movement, the laser will stop automatically. After the laser, he cleaned my eyes with alot of water. Then, puts the flap back in place.

After doing the right eye, the doctor repeated the same procedures with my left eye.

All in all, the surgery took longer than I expected it to be. In total, the surgery was about 45 minutes.

Once the surgery completed, I was brought to a room to rest for awhile.

Tractor

Recently, Samuel has been very excited about tractors. All it took him to be so excited was when daddy drew him a tractor on a piece of paper.

When he was in KL, grandma also bought him a small green tractor (green being his favourite colour).

Not knowing that daddy and mummy bought him a big big tractor which was hidden somewhere at home, Samuel and Jesse both got a big surprise when they saw daddy carrying a big big tractor.

Samuel had lots of fun “driving” the tractor while Jesse was sitting behind.

Shameful Mummy

This morning before daddy sent Samuel to school, daddy found out that he has Chinese homework. Quickly we grabbed Samuel to sit down and coached him with his homework. He never had any homework during weekdays. Usually homeworks are only handed out on a Saturday. And this was the first time he has Chinese homework.

One of the pages of his homework was for him to match the words with the pictures. It may look easy but both mummy and daddy doesnt know all of them. Mummy's mind was blank at one second. Later daddy found out that the other book has some similar words and that's where we found out the words.

We don't think it is appropriate for us to send him to Chinese Primary School. Even if we send him for Chinese tuition we will still need to coach him in his homework. We can't read chinese words.

Our Little Cinderella

Yesterday evening, Jesse accidently spilled some water from her bottle on the floor. She went straight to grab her hanky and started to wipe the floor. She even took out the pieces of the rubber mat and wiped under it. From my observations, she was seriously trying to clean the floor.

She has been doing this for sometime. No doubt she probably has seen the maid cleaning and wiping the floor, I feel that this is also because it is a little girl's nature. When the maid is folding the clothes, she will help her by taking the clothes or cloth diapers for her. Samuel never wiped or cleaned or helped out in the housework unless we ask him to do so or unless he feels like playing with the mop or broom.

Samuel's Lunch

We are glad that our temporary maid can cook. She cooks well too. We do not need to tell her what to cook for the family. Usually she cooks once in the morning when Jesse had her nap. We will have the same food for lunch and dinner. But she will boil porridge for Jesse again when she takes her nap in the afternoon.

Since Samuel is a fussy eater, if we have rice as meal, she will cook Samuel's dishes separately, unless we have noodles.

This is what Samuel takes for lunch today. A bowl of meehoon with fish fingers and cheesy tomato nuggets as side dishes. His appetite has grown and we are happy that he put on some weight. If we feed him the food he likes, he can finish it in less than 30minutes, else it will take him at least an hour.