Funny faces

The many funny faces of the boys.. all captured in a day!

 

Happy 2013!

We are still kind of settling into the swing of things. A whole new chapter of our lives has started, our usual routine is changed, as Kieran enters into his formal education years.

I'll hold your hands.

Caught this picture 2 nights ago. Even though we yell at them all the time to stop talking and go sleep, I still love it that they'll spend some time every night talking to each other before they fall asleep.

They always talk a lot before they fall asleep at night. I sometimes find them snuggling against each other at night or have their legs over each other in the morning. I hope that they'll see this photo in years to come and recall the love and fun they have with each other now.

Reading programme (or not..)

We aren't the most "on-the-ball" type of parents when it comes to academic pursuits. We didn't really do flashcards (tried for maybe 2 days and we gave up). We are also not the most consistent bedtime readers. We'll go through phases of reading every night to periods where we hardly read to them. We do believe in loads of unstructured time for the boys to play and thus to learn independence. Most of the time, they'll be playing with their Legos (Kieran) or having some imaginary play (Kiefer) by themselves.

Having said that, we do understand and believe in the importance of reading. I was a reader when I was small. I love Enid Blyton and I'm sure I've read most (if not all,) of her books. Thus with our boys, we do attempt to get them to learn to read.

We've been using Ladybird's Peter and Jane series. As boring as the books are, the repetition in the books really helped the boys to pick up words. We have been taking it slowly and Kieran has just completed Book 5b (I'm not sure what the standard pace is, but I know he's not the fastest reader around). Considering we only really started him on the P&J books last year, he now recognises many words by sight, though he still has a lot of work to do in the area of spelling.

He has gained much confidence in his reading that he was comfortable enough to help Kiefer read his Book 2a. He even helped Kiefer sound out the words. A very big step taken indeed.

Queen or Mummy?

This happened at bed time last night.

Kieran says, "We'll make you the queen of our house, k?"
Kiefer says," No, I want you to be my mummy!"
Either way, both thoughts made me smile! :)

No, it's a baby t-rex, Kief!!

Kieran has seem to have mastered the art of bluffing convincing his brother about things. This conversation happened at Bricks Empire yesterday when we were trying to get Kiefer to choose a Lego set as his birthday present. He couldn't really find anything he liked and we were trying to pick out interesting sets but he just wasn't interested in them.

We tried to convince him to take the dinosaur Lego
Daddy: Look Kief, this one is nice. Look there's a dinosaur and a gun. Gor Gor (Kieran) says it's not a velociraptor. (Kiefer doesn't like raptors)
Kieran: Yes, Kiefer. Look at it. This is not a velociraptor. Look.
Kiefer: *shakes head*
Kieran: What dinosaur do you like Kief?
Kiefer: T-rex
Kieran: Look Kief, this is a baby T-rex. It's not a velociraptor!

Birthday month is approaching again!

Yup, May is really fast approaching!! And I can't believe that my boys are growing up so quickly! Kieran will be 6 this year!! And he'll be off to primary 1 next year already!! Words can't explain the bittersweet emotions that run through me as I see them growing up so quickly.

Having said that, I keep thinking that Kiefer's turning 5 this year! :P Well, he certainly doesn't behave like a 4 year old. He talks older, and he behaves older. And he is such a loveable rascal!!

Gotta hug and kiss them more before they stop letting me do that!

They lit up my day.

People always say that kids have the most honest opinions. I certainly hope so. In any case, they lit up my day with a cheerful remark the moment I got home (at 7pm) today.

The boys were at the door way as I drove into the car porch. As I stepped out of the car, Kieran yelled "Mummy, you look so pretty!" and this was followed by Kiefer who went "You look like you are going to a wedding!" All because I wore a girly dress to work (they didn't see me leave the house in the morning).

It was nice to know that I was pretty in their eyes. :)

Quantity time not quality time

It was really heartening to hear the boys say that they like having mummy and daddy home with them even though they get more scolding and smacking when we are home. This confirms my belief that children at this age requires quantity time and not quality time with their parents. They have not much idea of quality time. They are just happy with mummy and daddy sitting next to them while they play. We don't even have to be playing with them.

Daily happenings..

We have just a little more time on our hands these days, and so, what have the kids been up to?

The boys started swimming classes about a month ago. They have since gained much water confidence and can now paddle by themselves while clutching onto their swim noodles. After just a month or so of lessons, the 2 of them are as brown as toast now.

Kieran started Chinese class at Tien Hsia this term. After just 7 lessons (#8 was a review session, #9 was a mini recital), he now recognises some 28+ characters and can recite about 6 poems in Mandarin. In fact he attempts to speak in Mandarin more these days. He will point out different vegetables/ fruits in the supermarket and say their names in Chinese. An amazing achievement for someone who once didn't utter a single word in Mandarin!

Both the boys had their end-of-year concert at their kindy last week. Kieran was performing a song called "Barnyard Animals Worship" and he was great as a little brown dog! The song opened with him shaking his little butt, and I thought that it was really cute. He actually warned us prior to the concert that we were not to laugh at his wriggling butt!

This was Kiefer's first concert and we were so proud of him. He was singing and dancing to his song "This little light of mine" and we could see how much focus he put in to get everything right. I thought he was the cutest little kid on stage. When he first came onto the stage, he started looking around for us. We could see his usual look of annoyance (the "why-you-never-let-me-xxx" look) when he could not find us. He was quite a blur bloke actually. We were waving and waving at him but he just didn't see us. Finally, at the end of the segment, as they were getting off the stage, I yelled "Kiefer!". He heard it, spotted us and yelled a really loud "MUMMY!". He was so adorable that the audience started laughing too! We saw his entire face light up when he spotted us. That's my little rascal!

 

Chicken Robot (by Kieran)

Eye (by Kiefer)

AT-AT (by Kieran)

We've finally taken their box of Duplos out of storage and they've been building and building and building the last couple of days. 

Really looking forward to the holidays really starting. Things haven't been slowing down in school for the 2 of us. So we are really looking forward to the break!

Record of growth

I have this height chart that hangs behind the door of the boys' room and I've been marking their height off the chart. Was looking at it awhile ago, I decided that I'd better record their heights down somewhere lest the chart goes missing in the coming months.

Kieran's Heights
29/12/08 - 91cm
21/7/09 - 96cm
31/8/10 - 102cm
29/1/11 - 105cm
10/6/11 - 109cm

Kiefer's Heights
21/7/09 - 73cm
31/8/10 - 97cm
10/ 6/11 - 95cm

The boys have grown!

Innocence..

Had this conversation with Kieran earlier at the supermarket:

K: Why must pay money? (pointing to the groceries)
M: Nothing is free.
K: But I am free!
M: puzzled for a while
K: I am free to play with you!

Such is the innocence of a young child. I sometimes feel bad that I have to show/ tell him what is like in the real world. I often wonder if I say tell him too much that we need money to pay for things, will he end up thinking that money is everything? Where is the balance? I see some children with absolutely no sense of worth (as in the worth of money). I do not wish for my children to grow up that way but yet I also do not want them to think that money is everything. Thus every time conversations that deals with buying things or going on holidays come up, I struggle with finding the balance of showing them that we need to save money for such things and yet not going overboard with stressing the importance of money.

And with the recent Japan disaster, we are also having a hard time stressing to Kieran that the earthquakes are devastating and it is sad that people are losing their homes and their loved ones. Kieran sometimes compares the pictures that we show him from the internet to the movies (like Independence Day) and goes "oohh!". We keep telling him that it is really sad that many children have lost their parents and that the earthquakes are real but I guess he is still too young to understand the severity. I know that he has empathy. I see it when he feels sad when he watches movies. However, I guess he still doesn't understand that disasters really do happen. I can also tell that he is worried about death. He keeps asking why people die. We tell him everyone will die one day. When we grow old we die. And then he'll ask if we are old already. To him, we are "old". I hope we are not frightening him too much. :( We just want to stress to him that he and his brother will have to take care of each other when we are all gone.

It's the Year of the Rabbit!

Happy Chinese New Year to Everyone! This is the season of eating, eating and more eating. Shan't blog about all the food. Will blog about the boys' cny clothes instead.

This is a tradition that I follow in our house. Something for the boys to look forward to every year. I always get new PJs for them for CNY and they get to wear them on new year's eve. And Kiefer's got to be Mr Skeleton for 2 consecutive years! :P Somehow we just manage to pick them up on sale for the last 2 years!

We've been busy last year and I thought that I forgot to buy new clothes for the boys this new year. I was so relieved to see these 2 polo tshirts that we picked up at DL Hong Kong last year in my "shopping drawer"! :P (Yes, I buy the boys clothes whenever I see a bargain throughout the year and I even buy them in various sizes. Thus, when I need new clothes, I "shop" from the drawer.)

These red polo tshirts were from Old Navy and probably like US$5 each. Yup, I realised I had them when I opened the drawer and thus solved all my CNY new clothes worry. :P

Doing homework

Got the boys down to do some work after dinner last night. They lasted about 10 minutes and that was about it. And then they were off to disturb the daddy who turned on the TV.:P

By the way, Kieran loves to draw these days and he can sit there for hours just drawing!!

Fighting

Back blogging this one.

The boys were in such black moods today that they kept fighting with each other. And poor Kieran got scratched by Kiefer during one of their squabbles.

Budding photographers?

Bought a Fisherprice Kid-Tough camera for the kiddos for their birthday this year. They had fun with it for a week or so and than it disappeared for 2 months. We finally found it again in one of their toy boxes a few days ago and I pulled out the photos that were in the memory card.

I just loved some of the photos that the boys took.

Think this was taken by Kiefer. Just loved the expression on Kieran's face and the angle of the shot.


I don't know who took this. But the composition is great. The contrast between the Kor Kor and Di Di's sandals, awesome!

At 外婆's house

The boys had to go 外婆's house on Friday morning while we were at work. I stayed with them till about 10am and then left for work. Both the boys had loads of fun there. I guess it was just something new for them.

Kieran had a great time with all the toys (Josh and Janelle were at school, so he had all the toys to himself!) and Fer, well, he was happy with the tissue papers!! :P