Bye Bye 2014

Tonight, after EG settled the girls, he told them, "OK, go and sleep now. And happy new year to you both! Tomorrow is going to be a new year."

Natalie asked, "What's a new year?"
Eunice asked, "What's going to happen tomorrow?"

Cuteness.

Both our girls have grown a lot in this year. And thankfully, both of them are adapting very very well in this new place. No wonder many said children adapt real fast - and it's so true. Eunice now has picked up all the aussie slang, and also picking up the outspoken traits learnt from kinder & childcare. She is less shy now comparing to when she was in Penang - she would tell the cashier what she wanted, and she would greet our neighbors. She's more courageous to try new things now - and she could play most of the playground hurdles now (when we first came she probably would just stick to slide & swing :P)... And she can talk 15-20 minutes BY herself TO herself! Hope that's not a bad thing. :). And you know what, EG and I have been telling each other that she's grown up so much that "cute" is not the right word to describe her anymore!

For Natalie, she grows so fast that I hope time can slow down a bit. When we arrived, she could just baby talked but now, after 3 months, she started to talk 2-3 words, even my aunt who talked to her after 2-3 weeks also got a shock that Natalie could answer her question on the phone. After going to childcare for 5 months, now she can talk a whole long sentence, and I can now have a decent conversation with her. Her speech development is amazing, even the child care carers told me that she can talk really really well, comparing to some of the children at her age. I gave the credit to her sister, Eunice. Eunice has been Natalie's most faithful play mate ever since we moved here. And I guess putting two of them in the same room helps too. There're times when they'd close their room door and play inside, they said it's their castle and we couldn't go in - which we happily obliged to have some time for ourselves. :P

Life here is so busy that I have to ask the girls to play by themselves most of the time. They fought, quarreled, and argued quite a bit in the beginning, but today, I paid extra attention to them as they were playing together, they could play really really well and they could leave me alone at a corner having a break. They played pretend play together for almost an hour - setting up a Christmas concert & lunch. They can have very good conversation between them and they can really communicate very well now.

We are very happy to see both the sisters now are very close. They look out for each other (though sometimes still fight & quarrel), and truly love each other (when we threaten to leave one at home because naughty, the other will always says no!).

2014 has been a great year for my girls - a new place, new school, new home, new room, new friends, lots of parks & plays, playdates, dress up, church activities, toys, animals, etc - so much fun for them! I am pretty sure that they enjoyed their 2014 a lot, much more than the parents.

Next year, 2015, Eunice will be going to primary school nearby, and Nat will be "promoted" from toddler's room to pre-kinder room in childcare. Can't believe that they have grown up so big now.

Both my girls in March, 2014

Both my girls 9 mths later in Dec, 2014.
They look so grown up, is it because of the hairstyle?

Finally, I thought I should post this video in my blog as remembrance. I was warned not to post in Facebook though I really want to! :D... The father was having a good time imitating how the Elmo danced in Sesame Street together with the girls. They do this almost every morning (it's holiday now :P) and the girls normally laugh at him because they said he didn't do it correctly. That's why I so love holiday!

Happy new year from my two lovely girls to all of you. Thank you for your love for them. They truly love all the attention that they have. :).

A taste of kin-dah

Kinder, or Kin-dah - with the Aussie accent. :).. I learnt that from Eunice.

Eunice attends Katrina Pre-school and she loves her kinder. She talks about her kinder all the time - things that she did with her friends and teachers, activities/art/science that they did, things that they talked about, etc. Her kinder is just down the road on the same street from our house - maybe 5 houses away. We walked her to kinder most of the time since it's so near. It'll be silly for me to drive. :)

So, it was Melbourne Cup Day public holiday (after 5 months since the last holiday!!!! @_@) on Tuesday and my office decided to close on Monday so everyone has long weekend. Since I was not working, EG suggested me to sit in Eunice's kinder for half a session just to see what our beloved daughter is doing in her kinder - which I happily obliged. I brought Natalie along - yea, they allow that. She just roamed around and played with the activities on the activity tables, and sometimes joined in Eunice's friends - oh those pre-schoolers, they love small little child like Natalie. :)

It was a pretty good experience. We went in around 8.30am and they played by themselves all the way till 10am (I was actually bored - and kept asking Eunice when will the group time be...). Most of the children were not there (due to the long weekend), and there were only 10 of them in the class. So it's not as noisy as it usually is.

She made a snail - can you see it? :)

Posing with Alyssa at the play dough table

This corner has new activity table every term. This term it's a light box table.
My little Natalie is enjoying it lots :). 

The teachers put on the art smocks for the girls and let the sisters paint together :)

Can you see what Eunice made? She told me she's going to make a dog and I didn't know how she's going to do it (zero-creativity mum!). So, she took a tissue box as the dog's body, 4 small cupcake wrappers as its legs, 3 straws - 2 for ears, 1 for tail. And she drew a circle on the black paper, and cut it out herself (yes! by herself!), and she told me she's going to give him 2 eyes and a star nose by sticking the glitters, and she drew the dog's mouth showing teeth. :).. Amazing! So proud of her. Even the kinder teacher was amazed and put it on the display shelf to show everyone. :)

Writing her name on the dog..

Oh I love this - the sisters drawing or writing together :)

Natalie is never a shy girl (not for now), and she's busy entertaining herself in the kinder too. She loves this corner. See the note pad next to her? She asked me, "Ok, so.. now... what you want?".. and I just simply answered something, she'd type on the keyboard, and the turn to scribble the note pad. How cute. :)

My little girl had fun too

Puzzle corner

I was pretty amazed with the paint activity below. The teacher got the children to choose a color, and she poured some paint from a big bottle (like a juice bottle) onto the table. Then, the children will smear the paint with their hands (just like the pic), and then the teacher will pour another color in and let them mix it to see how the color changes. They asked the children to draw something using their finger tips, and they will then put a piece of paper over it to print it onto the paper, and next, put to the drying rack to dry up.

After this is done, one of the teachers will help to clean up the children by washing their hands at the basin, dry the hands, take out the smock carefully so it doesn't dirty the child's shirt, while another teacher will use a sponge to clean up the table for the next child to play the same thing. Repeat the same process for 10 times (10 children)!.

I really really have to salute their patience for the children. I probably will give up after 2 times. And I'll never let my kids do this at home. :P..

Fun time for the kids, really!

And finally, at 10am, the teachers turned on some music and all the children said - Oh, it's PACK UP time. Everyone started to pack up (very good training!). And after that, it's the group time that I've been waiting for the whole morning! I just love to see children sitting down quietly listening to the teacher - looking at their attentive faces. :)

So it's dancing time. Teacher Carmel turned on a song, she called it, "Freezing song". Very cute. Obviously it's not the first time the children danced this song as they already know what to expect but it's still very cute. :)

Group time - Dancing 

Natalie joined - very reluctantly :)

The children just looked so cute - I couldn't resist and took a video of them. :)

And I left after this - it was near 11am and Natalie was already complaining that she's hungry. After 2.5 hours at 1pm, I came back again to pick Eunice. And she cycled home. Oh, she actually asked for bicycle to cycle to her kinder that morning and we parked her bicycle in the kinder.

She's grown so big now. I have another real bicycle that I picked up 2nd hand, waiting for her daddy to do it up nicely for her to cycle. :)

Cycling home...

A new sun hat that we bought for her to protect her face :)

I really love Eunice's kinder. So, I decided to register Natalie to this kinder for her 3yo and 4yo in 2016 and 2017. Hopefully by then we can still sort out our work schedule to fit into her schooling schedule. :)

Playdates

Playdates here are common.

The first play date that Eunice went to was to one of her good friend's house in the morning before she attended the kinder at 11am. The kid's dad offered to fetch Eunice to his home to play with his daughter, and to drop both children back in kinder at 11am - so EG can work a little on Tuesday morning - very thoughtful of him.

Second play date that Eunice went was to another girl's home (Malaysian parents here since high school) during school holiday, together with the first girl - just for the kids to catch up, the mum said.

Eunice and her friends

Water play

Recently, one of the mums just gave birth to her 3rd kid and now in confinement. I offered to pick up her daughter from school so they can come and pick her up when they are coming out to fetch the son from primary school nearby around 3.30pm+, instead of coming out 2 times to fetch both kids. And invited the first kid together.

I took a few pictures of them playing. I was only the coordinator. Eunice was happily showing them around the house, her toys, her coloring stuff, etc. I didn't need to do much, though I did prepare some muffins and jelly for them.

It was really cute to see all the little girls playing together.

Drawing at the easel

My favorite pic of the day. All cramped into the small mushroom house.

Dancing when the radio played their favorite Frozen "Let It Go" song

Now to Eunice's bed, showing off her (or Nat's) singing Elmo

Enjoying a packet of Nachos with cartoon

Kids these days really know how to enjoy themselves :)

Swing time before going home!

They are all going to the same primary school next year. They are all good girls, And I sure hope they will stay close to keep each other company in the new place next year. :)

Fun in Playgrounds

When we first moved to Melbourne, EG and I both said that we'll bring kids to playground few times a week. It's a hard promise to keep, though it seems easy.

There's at least a playground in every suburb (just like library, schools, kinder, and other facilities). When we stayed with my aunt in Glen Waverley, there's a playground in walking distance. We arrived in late summer, and the days were longer than nights. And EG and I haven't started working yet - Life was surely more relaxing and stress-free. We often went for a walk, or brought kids to the playground before/after dinner as the days only get dark after 7.30pm during spring/summer. 

Then comes winter, when night comes as early as 6pm. It's not nice to go playground in the freezing weather, so we stopped going for a while. And, later we found jobs, started working, moved house, and all the daily errands and chores kicked in - make us feel even more tired or lazy to bring kids to playground, especially when it's time to leave to go home, the two girls would usually throw a big drama and it can be quite chaotic.

Now that things are in proper routine, I try to keep up to my promise. There's a playground just 2 streets away from our place, and last weekend, I brought the girls myself and just let them use up their energy. And now I have a tactic to make them go home - works well for Eunice but not for Natalie, at least it's 50% better. :)

Some pics that we took in some of the playgrounds. No wonder EG always says, children in Melbourne really have a very "playful" childhood.

Took us a while to realize we used the swing the wrong way :P

Looking at her hairstyle, you'd know this is taken when we first came.
How fast she grows and how different she looks now.

Nat was too young to play the big slide then

Not sure what so fun about this but somehow kids love it :)

:)

Now we got it right :D

Me and my small girl on the swing

I took a video of my hyper active 19mo (then) climbing up the slide and slide down by herself.

More updated pictures taken last few weekends:

Last weekend - the park near our home. Love the sun light :)

Big slide for big girl, small slide for small girl

One-Two-Three- GO!

Look at that happy face :)

Got the big sister to swing the small one so mummy can take a break :P

My fearless baby trying to go up the huddle. She did very well!

Big sister at the other end giving a helping hand

Looking at the pics, I really have to say how fast they grow. They look so different after six months. That also reminds me that I should bring them to playground more often before they grow too big to go.

Sparkles the Bear

When I picked Eunice up from her kinder one day, she was pulling a huge furry red trolley bag and shouting at me excited, "Mummy! I have Sparkles today! Ava chose me! I am SO HAPPY..!"

And all I can say is, "Wow, nice..."
And she kept repeating, "I am so happy! I am so excited..!"
And I just kept smiling and said, "Oh nice..." and turned to the teacher, "What is this all about?"

:P

So, Sparkles is a Bear that follows a child home everyday. The children will rotate among themselves to see who's bringing Sparkles home, and there's a journal for the child to take picture, write and draw what he/she did with Sparkles. Just something simple like - had dinner together, cycle together, went shopping, slept, played, etc.

I don't know what so exciting about Sparkles but I'll just join in the fun with my girl. This is the first time we actually had a "homework" from the kinder so far. Of course it's a homework for mummy. And Eunice chose another girl to bring Sparkles home the next day and the excitement goes on.

Sparkles Travelling Journal :D

Introduction

My excited little girl and Sparkles and his travelling bag!

Mummy had to join in the fun too

Introduction to all the soft toys!

Swing time!

Cycling time!

The homework

I got Eunice to tell me what she wanna write and I write for her :)
Quite a good experience with Sparkles!

Hope Sparkles continues to have fun with other kids! :)