Agapeland Graduation 2008 concert

Last Friday was the graduation concert at Zach's current childcare centre, Agapeland. This is the third and final year he will be involved cos come beginning of 2009 we will be changing him to a new childcare centre, Cambridge. Agapeland will be closing in end 2009 but since Zach was going to be in K1 next year, Flem and myself thought it would be better for him to start in a new school when he starts K1 so that there is a better follow through all the way from K1 to K2. So even though it was not Zach's graduation concert, it still felt kinda different from the previous years, hmmm strangely, we felt sad after the event was over. I know Zach really like his present teachers and friends and will miss them all. Thankfully, one of his classmates Reagan will be going to his new school too and that kinda helped when I told him of the switch we needed to do next year. El who has been attending Agapeland once a week (every Tues when I attend my course) for the past few months have also grown attached to the teachers there. El had been sticky to me since he was a baby and would cry all the way whenever I left him in anyone else's care . Since he started going to Agapeland in July this year, he did the same and it took a while for him to adapt and though he still cries when I drop him off in the morning, the teachers tell me that now, he is fine throughout the day. If Agapeland was not going to close, I was also intending to put El in there eventually.

Anyway, in the midst of my search of a new school for Zach 1 to 2 months back, I decided to try Elliot out in a Kindergarten next year and thankfully, I managed to get El a place in Ascension Kindergarten which I had heard is a pretty good school. I was surpprised to learn that there are long queues for positions in many kindergartens and parents register very early in the year. Tomorrow is Elliot's orientation and he will be meeting his teachers and classmates for the first time and I just pray that he will enjoy it and tells me he wants to go school next year after the orientation tomorrow. His new kindergarten has a wooden train structure right in front of the office and he loves sitting on it and pretending to drive and at the moment he's kinda sold on that ;)

Sling-a-babe

Was looking through some of our collection of photos and can't resist sharing these ones of me babywearing Elliot. Those were the days! I started off with the ring sling which I found extremely useful when breastfeeding El or when he wanted to nap. Subsequently moved on to the baby pouch when he was bigger which was wonderful for shopping trips and doing household chores. In fact I love the baby pouch so much that I ended up making them myself. Made one for Flem to use too and started a little home business selling to friends who were interested. Personally believe in the benefits of babywearing (read more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_sling ) despite many concerns such as spoiling baby etc.. Even El wanted to sling-a-babe himself ;)

Eloquent Elliot turned 2!

Actually El turned 2 in August, so its about 2 months back but I had been so busy that I had no chance to blog this. My little one is growing up so fast. I describe El as Eloquent here cos I am amazed at how well he can speak (at least in my eyes) at a mere age of 2. I am not saying he is a genius but I call him a pretty diligent speaker cos he would attempt to copy what we say and he tries to speak in proper sentences. In fact, he recently spelled "FIRETRUCK" for me cos he picked that up from one of the Barney episodes and it really helps that he has a elder brother to learn from through play and communication. Looking back, I still remember El's first few months when he never wanted me to put him down and would cry the minute I did. Think most of my friends remembered how I was always with a sling with El tucked inside whenever they saw me. So many people had advised me that I would be spoiling him if I gave in and carried him all the time, so believe me I tried so often to put him down, of course most times ending up with a very upset El and mummy too! After a while, you could say El won the battle and El just had the time of his life sleeping and nursing in my sling all day. And the best thing is I think I enjoyed slinging him around cos it actually was a lot easier caring for him that way and I could do housework, go shopping and work at my laptop without having to worry about a fussing baby. I just decided that every baby is different and have their own needs and I can't adapt one style of care to all babies. I say this cos my elder son Zachariah is totally different from El. Zach was perfectly fine without me carrying him and could sit a whole day in his pram when we were out and was also happy playing in his playpen when I put him in there. Heehee, so much so that Zach earned himself the nickname "Pram Boy" when he was younger and think the pram was my best investment when Zach was born ;) So you can imagine my initial frustrations when I had El. Anyway, now that El is 2, he is happily running around exploring anything he could get his hands on. Glad to share that there really was no need to worry about spoiling him with all the carrying ;) Every child is different and El is one of those babies who love being held :) And for his 2nd birthday, he specifically asked for a "Cars" cake, so here's one of our very own creation ;)

Happy Teacher's Day

Zach and I decided to make a cake for his teachers in Agapeland for Teacher's Day. After much discussion, we finally decided on a garden theme since all his teachers are ladies. We had the cake in a flower shape and we decorated it with flowers, a butterfly and a bird and of course M&Ms. Think this is the biggest and heaviest cake I have made so far at more than 3kg I believe and it was enough to feed the whole childcare centre :) Glad Zach's teachers liked it and of course which child could resist a chocolate cake with M&Ms, haha. Looking forward to making my next cake already ;)And Zach got flower lollys for his teachers too :) But sadly though, this is probably the last Teacher's Day celebration Zach will be having at Agapeland cos the centre will be closing end 2009 and we are in the midst of looking for a new school for Zach to switch by beginning next year as he will be starting K1 then. We have been looking around at some schools and praying for God's wisdom to tell us where to place Zach so that he will be happy!

Today's Parents Father & Child Portraits Contest

Flem and Zach had been selected as one of the 6 finalists for the Today's Parents Cover Father and Child Contest. They have been featured in the latest June 2008 issue of Today's Parents. Zach had lot of fun doing a photo spread for the magazine as part of the contest. Both father and son were photographed for the shoot by the pool at Fairmont Hotel and Zach even got to make new friends with the other contestants. Here's a pic of the photo spread in the mag.

Happy Father's Day!

Wanted to get Daddy something from the boys and myself this year. For the past few years, Daddy's gift had been specially arranged pictures of precious moments shared by the boys and himself and thought we should do something different this year. So we decided to make him a cake. The boys were too young to bake but they had lots of fun decorating it with the colourful M&Ms. And since Zach could write his alphabets already, I got him to write the card for Flem. Here's a pic of Flem and the boys on Father's Day morning with the Shirt and Tie cake and it even came in a shirt box ;) Our second homemade celebration cake for this year. And the best reward for us was - Daddy said its the yummiest chocolate cake he ever tasted! We love you My Daddy!

It's Dress Up Time

The boys love dressing up in different costumes and posing for the camera too!

Here's one of Zach in a pirate costume to attend his classmate's birthday party. We didnt want to spend money buying one so this is all homemade. Daddy helped drew the skull on the bandana, I cut out the pic of a skull and sewed it on one of Zach's shirts, made him an eye patch and completed it with one of mummy's red sash around his waist and voila, our little pirate is made!

Pirate of Bishan I	Pirate of Bishan II
Blue's Clues	Baby Zach Zach's litle brother
Our very own "Phua Chu Kang"	The Crocodile and ...
...the Parrot!	"SuperZach!"
The Fireman!