Bible Verse of the Day

Ethan

All about Ethan

Ethan’s Penny Timeline Project

June 3, 2013 in Ethan, Growing Up, Parenting | No comments

Ethan completed a very interesting project for school last week.  He’s learning all about timelines in school now, and he has been telling us the biographies of the people he has been learning about as part of his timeline study.

So as part of his homework, he was asked to complete his own timeline.  The interesting part was that it was a Penny Timeline project.

We had to hunt and collect pennies for each year since he was born, so all in all, 8 pennies from 2006 till 2013.  In addition, we printed a photo for each year in the timeline.  Blogging certainly came in handy here.  Ethan and I looked through my blog for events and pictures. 🙂

It was like a scavenger hunt for the past few weeks, and in the last few days before the project was due, we were asking almost every store we went to, if they had a particular year’s penny we were missing.

Anyway, we finally got ALL the pennies and Ethan was none the happier.  I helped him assemble the poster board pieces together in an accordion style and he stuck all the photos and pennies and wrote the event by himself.

He presented his timeline in front of his class last week, and I could tell he was so proud of his work. 🙂

Science-O-Rama

May 29, 2013 in Ethan, Growing Up | No comments

Last Friday, Ethan’s school organized a Science-O-Rama (like a school science fair) for the 1st Graders.  Parents were invited to attend the event in the child’s individual classrooms for a half an hour.

They were studying about the life cycle of plants and seeds, which coincidentally was what Hannah was learning about too, so I brought Hannah along with me too.

Pushing a baby stroller and walking with Hannah, we made it to Ethan’s school in time for the event, even though it was a rainy day.

The Science-O-Rama event was an impromptu one and the kids would just explain to their parents what they had been learning about and would show them their “plant folder”, together with some seeds they had planted: Zinnia and Pumpkin.

The kids also took turns planting two other seeds: Carrots and Turnips.  Here’s Ethan scooping up some seeds to plant in his cup:

I loved the interaction between the parents and kids during the event, and it was also a fun way for the parents to be taken on a tour around the kid’s class.

Big Toe, Little Toe

May 27, 2013 in Emma, Ethan, Funny Moments, Growing Up | No comments

Ethan: Look Mommy!  My little toe is the same size as Emma’s big toe!  In fact….I think it’s slightly bigger than her big toe!

Gosh, how fast my little kids grow! 🙂

Picture Day Photos

May 17, 2013 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | 1 comment

Recently, Ethan and Hannah, both on separate occasions, had their pictures taken in school for the obligatory Picture Day shots.  I suppose they would have had one earlier on in Fall had we been here then, but since we only arrived around Winter, the Picture Day shots they got were for Spring this time around.

Here’s a glimpse of what the pictures look like:

The pictures come in several different sizes and types and in some cases, different poses and backgrounds too.

In a way, I am glad they only had one in Spring because these pictures are exorbitantly priced!!  I mean we’re not forced to buy or anything, but this is how the photographer does it.

After the pictures are taken, they send a package back home with several printouts of your child’s photos.  The tricky part is where the cost structure comes in.  For example, it will be All 5 sheets for $44, Any 4 for $56, Any 3 for $42, Any 2 for $28 and Any 1 for $14.  We are asked to pay for whatever we want and return the rest.

Because I am simply paranoid about what they would do with the returned photos, I simply bought all. SIGH.  A sign a weakness on my part, I know…but …

In any case, I really love the photos!  For one important thing, thick makeup isn’t applied on the kids (unlike in most Malaysian schools). 🙂

Well, as cliché as it sounds, kids are kids just once in their lives anyway… and I’m enjoying these pictures as it is 🙂

The Making of A Lego Engineer

May 9, 2013 in Ethan, Growing Up | No comments

Several weeks ago, Ethan brought back a note from his school informing us that the school would be hosting an 8-week Lego program for kids.  Ethan would fall into the program for children in grades K-2, and registration was on a first come, first serve basis.

The cost for this program would be $125 per child, however, the organization running this program would also be sponsoring 4 “scholarships” by way of lucky draw.

Just for fun, I entered Ethan’s name in for the lucky draw, and guess what…he WON!

So he stays back in school every Friday now, for his program named Pre-Engineering With Lego.  There are 16 children per class, and I can tell he really loves it!

Class Description: Students will build cities, bridges, and motorized cars/planes and explore many creative possibilities of engineering with the LEGO system.  With access to over 100,000 pieces of LEGO, your child will have the opportunity to build what they have only dreamed of with the support of an experienced instructor to guide them.

Last week he told me he built a tall tower in class, and when he came home, he built this structure, and asked me if I knew what “technique” he used to build the wall.

The answer is “OVERLAPPING“: which will result in a stronger structure. 🙂

Lego Engineering FTW! 🙂

Easel Fun on Warm Spring Afternoons

May 8, 2013 in Entertainment, Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | No comments

Well, we finally get to put the kids’ easel to good use!  We’d shipped it over from Malaysia, but since it had been incredibly cold over the last few months, the easel has been kept in storage.

Spring is finally here and the days are getting longer, not to mention warmer.  The afternoons and evenings now often see us having warm sunlight on our patio, so we took the easel out for the kids last week.

…and boy, were they delighted!

They even brought their chairs out, to make it more comfortable while painting!

They certainly had FUN! 🙂

Ethan Earned a Medal!

May 8, 2013 in Ethan, Exercise, Growing Up | No comments

Last Saturday, after his second soccer practice session, Ethan proudly showed me the Sportsmanship Medal he had earned.

The teams play either a  4 vs 4 or 5 vs 5 game at the end of each practice session, and at the end of each game, a “Sportsmanship Medal” will be awarded to a participating team member.  Sense of teamwork, playing to the best of his/her abilities and hustling to make a play will be some of the considerations when awarding the medal.

So proud of Ethan, and he is improving every week too.  Pssst…his Daddy takes him to a nearby park on a couple of evenings during the week days for “extended” training too, now that it’s warmer outdoors. 🙂

Ya Gotta Love The Beautiful Game

April 30, 2013 in Ethan, Exercise, Growing Up | No comments

Last Saturday morning, Ethan attended his first soccer practice.  It was an 8-week program we had signed him up for, and he had been eagerly looking forward to it.  All this while, he had only been watching soccer (football) matches on the telly and also “practising” his skills indoors.

Here he is, reluctantly posing for the camera because he could not wait to go for the practice.

Don’t those boots look totally awesome? 🙂

He was given a jersey with a random number, coincidentally his was number 20. #rvp

I thought the jersey was super cool.  It was black on one side and if you turn it over, it was silver grey; made such that they could use it for home and away games with other teams!

The kids went through some basic dribbling exercises, taking turns to shoot and defend and then just controlling the ball.  The soccer practice ended with a match between Ethan’s team and another team.

Ethan had a whole lot of fun and has been telling me about his “plans” on how to score goals in the upcoming match this coming Saturday.

Our First Visit to Six Flags New England

April 28, 2013 in Emma, Entertainment, Ethan, Hannah, Parenting, Vacation | No comments

We had planned on going to Six Flags New England after lunch, when the accident happened.  And when we were done in Urgent Care, it was already about 4:00p.m.  Pete and I were ready to go back home to rest, but then Ethan and Hannah asked, “Mommy, Daddy, are we going to see our surprise now?”

You see, we had told them both that we would be taking them for a surprise that day.  They remembered.

So I checked with the nurse and doctor and Hannah got the go-ahead, with the caveat to avoid getting the wound wet.  So we made the 1.5 hour drive to Agawam, MA for our first visit to Six Flags.

We had gotten season passes to the theme park, so we’ll definitely make a few more trips there before we leave for Malaysia.  Hannah took a quick power nap on the way there, but was all excitement as we arrived.  Unfortunately we had to queue up to change our printed season passes to photo-ID ones, and that took about 30 minutes or so, a LOOONG wait for people with kids, let me tell ya.

Here are some of our pictures.  Because Ethan and Hannah wanted to go on ride after ride, Pete had to take them on those rides when I had to breastfeed Emma or change her and then I would meet them at a later time somewhere.  On rides that the kids had to be accompanied by an adult, we had to make use of the parent swap, where either Pete or I would ride with one kid first and then subsequently, we can ride with the other kid without having to queue up again.

It was quite an experience being in a theme park with three kids now, especially also since Emma chose that period of time to poop a few times!

It got colder in the night, and I could not believe that we actually stayed up till park closure at 9:00p.m.  Well, we will definitely be back! 😀

The kids are already requesting to go back the next day itself! LOL

Hope to get more pictures during our next visit!

 

To The Big Apple And Back

April 22, 2013 in Celebrations, Emma, Entertainment, Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah, Vacation | No comments

Last week, we made a quick trip to New York and back.  The primary reason for this trip was to get Emma’s birth registration and Malaysian passport done at the Consulate General of Malaysia.  Previously for Hannah’s case when she was born in California, we did not need to make the trip to the Consulate General of Malaysia in LA, and we only needed to Fedex all the necessary documents.

However, now that Emma was born in the East Coast, the rules for birth registration at the Consulate General in New York were different.  Not only did the Consulate General require the baby to be physically present at the point of birth registration, submission could only be done from 9:30a.m. – 12:00noon.  Same-day collection would only be guaranteed if we submit the documentation at 9:30a.m. in the morning, so in order to comply with that and not have to wait to collect the stuff a day later, we decided to go to New York on Thursday, stay the night and then submit the registration early Friday morning.

We left a little later than planned on Thursday morning (what’s new?), and while Emma was wide awake when we drove off, she fell asleep a few minutes later.

Hannah and Ethan were as excited as ever about our trip.  Here’s Hannah showing you how happy she is…You would know by now who’s the one who’s ever willing to pose for the camera and who’s just the opposite. 😛

Emma was dozing away beautifully and only woke up after we had our lunch; we stopped at Subway in Rocky Hill, Connecticut before heading on towards The Big Apple.

Traffic was unbelievably heavy on a week day, and even heavier when we arrived in NYC.  We drove straight towards the Financial District and parked our car near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

There wasn’t a long wait thankfully, and we boarded the ferry not long after.  Emma was quite fidgety at that time, and we soon found out why: she pooped while we were on the ferry!

Pete managed to take the kids up to the deck to get a closer look at the Statue of Liberty though.  It was rather cloudy that day but the kids just loved the ferry ride.

Upon arrival at Staten Island we took the next ferry back to Manhattan.  On the return ferry, and after changing Emma, I put her in a baby sling, and took her up to the deck for about a minute or two.  She was still really restless, even though I had fed her, and even when we put her in the stroller and pushed her out from the ferry.  In fact, Emma only settled down and fell asleep in the car, as we made our way to our hotel.

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