Best friends

They play together in school, they eat together, shared their sweets with each other, and even fought together! Yes, when Jeremy had an altercation with one of his classmates, his best friend stepped in to the rescue - with the result that all 3 were punished. By hey, that's what friends are for!

This is Caleb, Jeremy's best friend in school. Looking at the pictures, I must admit they make an odd pair. Jeremy is skinny, Caleb looks big and strong - he attends a boxing gym class too!

I think it's great that Jeremy has a best friend. Couple of weeks ago when Caleb went early to school, like 7+ or something, Jeremy said he wanted to get up at 5 the next day so that he can go early too and play with Caleb. Obviously it didn't happen...

We all know that Jeremy hates having his photo taken - his school graduation shots were minor disasters. But just look at these... it was moons ago that he had smiled so sweetly or contentedly before the camera. Alas they will be going their separate ways in their own "big boys' school" next year. But these moments in childhood are probably the ones most savoured and treasured as they grow up - those spent with your best friend.

Cars, Study Hard and Timmy

Recently, Timmy has been talking about buying cars.. and it is no ordinary cars.. its sports cars that he is refering to!!! We told him that he needs to study hard so that he can earn lots of money next time to buy such expensive cars..


One day, on our way home in the car, he suddenly asked me.. "Mummy, how do i study hard?". He was so serious!! Looks like he is quite worried that he cannot afford those cars..


Well, the funny thing is this... (nevermind what my reply to him was...)


We have been asking him if he would buy for us when he can afford to. To many of us (including his aunties and grandma), he had told us that he would buy us sports cars, except for DaYi.. He said that he would buy a BUS for DaYi. We thought that was because DaYi used to fetch one whole gang back from school together... But we were wrong! His reason is "because you are so FAT"... Ha2...


Kid's mind... dont underestimate them.....

Our very own "Ferrari" drivers

Recently, our boys have grown to like to watch Formula 1 racing. Probably with the influence of Daddy. So, we decided to make another attempt for them to wear the racing suit that Chuck bought many years back. To our pleasant surprise, they love to wear it.

Too bad Jeremy has out grown the suit. But he still looks cool ( as cool as ice-man Kimi)... On the other hand, Timmy fits nicely into it and he definitely looks like the short, oh, i mean smiley Massa !!

By the way, Timmy wore this to school one day as it was dress-up day for them (Theme was: what I want to be when I grow up). When he reached school that day, one of his teacher commented (in chinese) "Wow, Junming, you are a firefighter today! Nice".. i almost fainted and Timmy just bow his head... What a great start right?

Timmy's nose and "The Monster"

Timmy has very sensitive nose and it has got worse these few weeks. He has disturbed sleep. He would very often wake up in the middle of the night due to blocked nose. So, i started applying vaporub on his nose and chest before he sleeps everynight.

Few nights ago, i forgot and he told me his nose is blocked just after i have turned off the lights. So, i got up and reached out for the rub. but it was not there. So i jokingly said.. "Oh no, its not here! Has the monster taken the "blocked nose medicine"??" Then, off i went to check if i have placed it somewhere else.

When i came back, i noticed that Timmy was lying pretty still on his bed with his hand over his nose. When i asked him whats wrong, he whispered.. "Mummy, my nose is still here."

i burst out laughing because he thought i have said that the monster has taken HIS NOSE!!!

Poor boy, he must be pretty scared when i was off looking for the rub!!

BOGGLE - the mind boggling game??

Recently our nephews Shukri and Sadiq introduced the game BOGGLE to the rest of the gang. They had fun in Sentosa playing it. So much fun that each family ended up buying a set each, and have been boggling away since..

We bought a set for Jeremy 2 days ago. We tried very hard to teach him the rules of the game (which by the way was designed for kids 8 years and above). As for Timothy, he joins in the game as well, but instead of forming words I told him to write all the letters that he can recognise within the stipulated time. Their progress so far?

Jeremy:

He really surprised me tonight. Just last night, it seemed so hard explaining to him how to look for words. I didn't want him to be discouraged, so I manipulated the "shake" of the letters so that he got enough vowels to form words. Tonight, I was busy settling Timothy in his bed while Jeremy was "shaking" the letters. When I was ready to play with him, I realised that the letters were tough - he had difficult letters like "Qu", K, Y, W, X!! So i told him to shake again citing "too difficult" as the reason. He stopped me from doing so and insisted that he knows. And very quickly, he pointed out the word "KEY" to me!! So I let him try... and below is the list of words he came up with ..

key, axe, toe, keys, way, tea, tow, ways, wax, wet, no, on...

Think he was very happy with this because he said he wanted to show his daddy when he comes back from China!

Timothy:

I think he got the idea of how the game is to be played while we were trying very hard to teach Jerry. Tonight, instead of writing letters that he can recognise, like what i have taught him, he actually put 3 letters together! Since he does not know how to spell, I could only spot one correct answer (EEL) out of the 63 words that he came out with! By the way, I did not even check if Eel should be there.. and also, 63 words was what he counted. He lost count after 15, jumping from 15 to 17, correct till 23, then jumped to 40s, then 50s and 60s... Good try Timmy!

Parent-meet-Teachers

Today, we went to school to meet both Jeremy's and Timothy's teachers. The purpose of the meeting was to allow parents and teachers to give feedback on the past year's (or semester's) curriculum and also on the child's development, both academically and socially.

I am proud to say that all teachers without exception (... ok, maybe for Timmy's English teacher, since we did not have a chance to talk to her) commented that we have very smart boys. Both of them are coping very well with their academic milestones. Well done boys!!

Jeremy:

Since Nursery, I was never concerned about Jeremy's interest for learning. He has shown great interest in wanting to know and learn more. So much so that i was not able to keep up :)

I was more concerned with his social skills. He is a very quiet and shy boy. But today, the feedback that I got from school was really surprising and at the same time, encouraging. Most of his teachers said that he has opened up a lot! He even volunteered to attempt at questions in his English classes and once, he even volunteered to do show and tell during his English speech and drama classes!

I was so surprised and was speechless... I told myself that i must not give up and label him as a shy boy. I know he can do it.

Timothy:

We thought we would be told that Timmy is a playful boy. But, we were wrong! Very wrong! All his teachers told us that he is such an adorable child and guess what? He is even Mr Popular in class! Apparently, many parents today wanted to know who is Timothy because their kids have been telling them that they like Timothy and Timothy is their best friend! So, looks like we may not have to worry about his social skills.

Academically? He excels in it too! We were so surprised when his teachers told us that he is very ATTENTIVE in school and would participate voluntarily in all the activities. Attentive? We really couldn't believe our ears because when it comes to story reading time at home, he would be wandering off to do something else after just one or two sentences (unless of course the story relates to some superheroes fighting some bad guys). And for the record, he demonstrated to us that his Chinese vocabulary has improved tremendously, reciting at least 10 Chinese words that were pasted on the wall in school!

I guess we came back feeling happy and proud of our boys! Keep it up!!

Pokemon...4ever..

Jeremy and Timothy started collecting Pokemon kraks (under the influence of their cousins) sometime early this year.. See below for samples...

When it started, we only have about 10 over kraks. Now, we have more than a hundred of them! This is within a short period of about 4months! The main reason for this superb multiplication was that Daddy got into it as well. As Jeremy has been hoping for these kraks "Mightyena" and "Groudon" for a long time, Daddy would buy packets and packets of kraks when he sees them, in the hope that he would get it in one of the packs.. i must say that this is quite addictive... After more than a hundred kraks, we have managed to get hold of "Mightyena" but not Groudon... With their enthusiasm dying, i doubt we would ever get "Groudon".. By the way, from this collection, i have 2 incidents to tell:

Incident 1: Both of them love to carry their favourite karks with them wherever they go. One night, Timothy placed them in the side pocket of his schoolbag, not knowing that there was a hole. When we left Ah-Ma's house, one of his kraks dropped into the drain through the "metal frame" on the floor.. Daddy said to forget it but mummy insisted on picking it up since much pain was put into collecting them... Mummy was about to crawl into the drain through a small and dirty opening when Daddy suggested to try to lift the "metal frame". My God, that thing must have weighed a ton! it was so heavy... With help from Ah-Ma, we managed to pick up the krak... and it was "Pikachu"! Satisfaction for Mummy! When i think back now, i felt so silly to go through so much just to pick up a piece of plastic!!

Incident 2: Actually, both of them had "Groudon", but they gave it to Joel (not knowing then that this is a powerful character!) They were asked many times if they were sure... and "Yes" was the answer. Too bad....

Mother's Day 2007

For the first time ever, Mummy received one gift each from the boys in the family!! So, i must publish this for memory :)

Jeremy made me some wonton in school... Yummy!! And best part of the gift are these words that he wrote...

Timothy made me a wonderful looking cookie....

Last but not least, Daddy gave me a FLOWER !!!!

Quest for the "Sakura"

Attempt one: On the day we arrived, we went to a park near Lay See's place, hoping to see the cherry blossoms. But, the flowers has yet to bloom. Consolation: the kids were happy as we had a ride in a "Duck".

Attempt two: When we were at Asakusa (the place with the red giant lantern), we wanted to go to a park nearby to see if the flowers had bloomed. But we cannot locate any park. Consolation: there were a few trees along our way into the temple with 80% of the flowers already bloomed. Nice.

This picture on the left was taken by Jeremy.

Attempt Three: Thanks to Hiroshi, we managed to soak into the "real" sakura atmosphere! It was at this park in Ueno (actually, part of Ai Wah's recommendation prior to the trip was this place. my comment to her then was "why are we visiting the Zoo"!!) Beautiful!!

There were lots of people already there. Drinking, eating and merry making. We had our own little fun too.. Picnic





and enjoying this special Soda drink..

Tokyo DisneyLand

This was our 3rd day in Japan. Everyone was excited as we were going to Disneyland.. The boys were thrilled to see so many bullet trains along the way and the adults were busy planning which rides to take and which place to reserve for a good view of the parade at 3pm.

When we entered the park, to our "horror", there were people everywhere! The park was SO SO crowded! Queue for each ride was at least an hour!! Between the time we reached the park and the parade at 3pm, we had lunch and took the "Jungle Cruise". (Yes, only ONE ride) Even though the commentary was in Japanese, the boys enjoyed the ride as there were lots of animals to see and the commentator was quite expressive. Jeremy enjoyed it so much that he requested to go another time. Of course we did not agree as we were in the queue for an hour! We needed to queue for everything. From going to the toilet to buying popcorn! There were people everywhere.. lots of them.

About 2 hours before the parade, we saw people laying mats on the ground already. So, being typical Singaporeans, we decided to join in too, with no mats though.. We realised that it was an easy task to keep the boys occupied for more than an hour sitting down as long as you have ice cream, fries and drinks.. Junk Food, that is.

After the parade, we went for another ride. Peter Pan's Flight. We had to queue for about an hour and a half for this "less than 2 minutes flight"! And this wait was quite torturing for me as i had to carry Timothy. When we were close enough to see the "ship", Sadiq commented that he did not want to ride. We told him he has to get up there no matter what! Sorry, but this was our reaction after more than an hour wait!

After this SECOND ride, we had to go and reserve place for the night parade again! So, we bought out dinner and sit out in the cold for about an hour before the parade starts. Well, it all ended ok despite the "only 2-rides-trip" and Jeremy's disappointment that he did not get to ride the "Western River Railroad". The fireworks was nice and we managed to get some stuff.

For record purpose, we did walk round the entire park. And for those who intend to use the lockers, do not be fooled by the cheap rate. it cost you 400yen only. BUT, each time you open it, it will be another 400yen before you can lock it again!

Trip To Japan - Yuta and Miki and trains

Sometime ago, a few of us (me, Jeremy, Timothy, Ah-Ma, Aunt Ai Wah and Sadiq) decided to go and visit Aunt Lay See and Family in Tokyo. So, after tons of email exchange, we decided to make the trip on March 25 and we will visit for a week.

Highlights of the trip were Disneyland for the kids and for the adults, it was the hope to catch the Cherry Blossoms! Of course visiting Lay See and family was the main purpose... err..

Anyway, enjoy the photos below...

Miki. A big girl now. We could not recognise her when we first saw her.

Yuta. He can speak Japanese very fluently. He even translated an announcement in the train for me!

Our main mode of transport during our stay there was the train. The children loved it. The 2 pictures below was taken at one of the station where we can see "Shinkansen" aka "Bullet train". We did not ride on it as they are expensive and it is usually for long inter-state trips.

The boys had opportunities to be up close and personal with the trains too. Everyday, we needed to walk across the tracks to catch our train. And most of the time, the barrier will be activated for the trains to pass and this was when they had a close view of the train.

Jeremy's invention

Meet the GUN.

This was Jeremy's creation, couple of weeks ago, using his Junior Engineer set.

Timmy has one as well, and they loved playing with it. Daddy and Mummy get ambushed regularly, greeted with hails of bullets from the GUN as we walk unsuspectingly into the bedroom.

A week ago Jeremy revealed to me the secret of the GUN. It actually has a mounted camera, and it can turn around corners so that you can shoot at enemies around the corner without exposing yourself!

Technical specifications:

(inquiries welcome, please email for free brochure on full features and specs)

Side and plan views of the GUN peeping around corners

Providing safe harbour from enemy fire

Enemies staring down the barrel

We think it's an absolutely brilliant idea! So brilliant, in fact, that we considered applying for US patents for this invention! I asked him to name it and he said, simply, the GUN.

Just one little hitch though. I recalled reading about a similiar invention by the Chartered Industries some months ago. So I did some research - true enough, there was something SIMILIAR, but NOT quite the same:

Yes it's Singapore's very own SAR21 RCF (Round Corner Firing) module, with a mounted camera allowing soldiers to peep and fire around corners. There is however a significant difference between both designs - the SAR21 cannot bend! As the picture shows, the soldier still needs to expose his fingers around the corner, and this will no doubt invite enemy fire. And we think that a soldier with some bullet holes in his palm certainly wouldn't hold the gun very well...

This is where Jeremy's design is superior, and holds the crucial advantage. So... US Patents Office, here we come!

Seriously, we wondered how Jeremy came up with such an idea, considering that both of them never had guns amongst their vast array of toys at home. Must have been during one of those ambush sessions, for fear of Daddy or Mummy returning fire...

Timmy demonstrating the proper firing stance

Chinese New Year

The boys had a ball of a time during the 3 CNY days. Lots of sweets, goodies, soft drinks, and playing with cousins at ah-ma's house.

Also enjoyed themselves at grandaunt Cecilia's house, playing with uncle Cher Wee who came back from HK and uncle Matthew.

Jeremy is 6!

Happy Birthday Jeremy.... you are 6 years old!

As this will be Jeremy's last year in the child care centre that he has been attending since he was 3, we decided to have a "BIG" party for him in school.. As most of you are aware, Jeremy does not like to be the "center of attention" (if you may call it). So, before I decided on this, I kept asking him if he wanted to have a party in school, with his friends and teachers singing him a birthday song, taking pictures with his friends, etc. He told me ok. So, the planning begun... A magic show was booked, complete with goodies bag and a balloon sculpture for each of his 70 friends in the center... Plus a 4kg "fighter jet" cake (i mean, a cake with a few fighter jets on top).

On that big day, i rushed to pick up 2 of his cousins (by the way, poor Timothy was too sick to attend his party) and delivered the cake to school... then, my nightmare began.... Jeremy became a "leech" once he saw me... refused to stand in front of his cake to take pictures and even cried when his friends sung him the birthday song!! Sigh! i should not have been too hopeful right?

It was a miracle that I could get this picture!

Then, the magic show. I told Captain Dazzle (the magician) not to "focus" his attention on Jeremy.. for the obvious reason... He tried to lure him to help him with some of his magic, but to no avail... so, in the end, Jeremy's friends got those opportunities... by the way... NONE of his 3 cousins who were there had the COURAGE to go up!! And the 3 older ones, including Jeremy, was watching from a corner right at the back of the pack...(hmm.. does this run in the family? I wonder.)

Captain Dazzle with Joanne (Jeremy's classmate)

But whatever it is, the most important thing is that Jeremy enjoyed the show very much!!! and so does all his cousins and friends in school. Some even cried and refused to go home when their parents came to fetch them before the show has ended!

Maybe it was too much of me to ask for a 6 year old shy boy to perform miracle overnight. But i was very happy that he enjoyed it. and he even thanked his daddy for the magic show and he kissed me many times before he slept... best part of the day for me!

Last but not least... To Jeremy.... Happy Birthday and May God bless you always... and daddy and mummy love you!

Birthdays, and some fond memories...

Timmy's bithday has just passed, now Jerry's is around the corner. How time flies indeed - one is 4, the other 5 going on 6.

Was going through some videos of these 2 rascals in their babyhoods, interesting to see how Jeremy has changed but not so for Timothy. Here are some for memory's sake:

Jeremy at 6 months

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Jeremy the destroyer, at 15 months

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Jeremy the performer, at 2 years

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos


Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos


Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Along comes Timmy, here at 7 months

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

By then "kor-kor" is at the computer, jiggling to the beat

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Timmy's favourite munchie

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Timmy's first steps, at 11 months

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Timmy's 1+, and Jerry 3+. Didn't realise they've already started their training then of what's to come these days - fighting over toys!

Photo Sharing - Upload Video - Video Sharing - Share Photos

Timmy's new PJ

Some weeks ago Timmy was given a set of new pyjamas by auntie Angeline. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw him in it.

Yes, it looks more like psychedelic-coloured leotards, but it's actually quite nice. Takes some getting used to, of course, so initially he was whining and complaining "not nice...", "people laugh at me...". So all the time mummy and dadday had to convince him otherwise, but behind his back we were both trying our darnest not to burst out in laughter.

We suspected he actually likes it. Initially we had to take sneak pictures of him, but eventually he was even game enough to "pose" for the pics - even if he felt he had to cover his face.

The next time he wore it, not a word of complaint. So, he likes it after all!

Year 2006

Another year has zoomed by... yet again... 2006 has been pretty exciting... from Timmy calling "Mummy" (yes, i waited 3 years!) to Jeremy's performance on stage without having stage-fright and remembering every single dance steps!!!

As we prepare to "pack" our Christmas tree (permanently away), i thought i ought to take a picture of this good old tree which we bought some 8 years back... Some of the decorations were handmade by Jerry and Timmy, latest additions were the paper christmas tree and paper santa claus...

As we bid farewell to 2006, we are thankful for all our families (for the ever-reliable support) and friends (for your friendship)... Here's to a Healthy and Blessed 2007!