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Growing Up

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Happy Trails…We’ll Miss It Here!

June 29, 2013 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah, Milestones | 2 comments

This afternoon, we will bid a fond goodbye to our home here in Marlborough, MA.  We’ve been in Marlborough for the past 7½ months, and we’ve created memories that we will cherish forever.

Our home here has been terrific to come back to, and it definitely feels a little more than sad to leave this place behind.

When we arrived, it was at the start of winter, and the forest behind our patio was all drab and grey, but we’ve seen it through winter in all its snowy glory and now that it’s spring going into summer, it’s a lush sea of greenery.

The kids love to look for squirrels, badgers, beavers and rabbits scampering about freely… this was taken sometime last week.  Can you see a brown rabbit/hare in the background behind them? 🙂

Well, we’ll miss it here, but it will forever remain etched in our hearts.  The kids definitely had the time of their lives, experiencing snow for the first time and in more ways than one, gained independence in their own individual ways.  Only time will tell if we’ll return, but for now, we’re just extremely happy to be part of this entire wonderful experience.

Farewell, Six Flags…Thank You For An Awesome Experience!

June 28, 2013 in Emma, Entertainment, Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah | No comments

 

Last weekend, we took the kids to Six Flags(again!).  It was bittersweet because it was going to be our last visit there before we head for home in Malaysia next week.  The weather that day was spectacular: sunny, warm with a light breeze.  We didn’t forget our sunscreens! 😀

The kids enjoy all our visits to this theme park, although the crowds can sometimes be unbelievably HUGE.  As we bid goodbye to Six Flags, here are some pictures we took during our several visits to the park (five or six in total, maybe?).  Ethan and Hannah hopes to come back again when they are tall enough to ride on all the roller-coasters though.  Only time will tell when. 🙂

 

Emma and Bumbo

June 27, 2013 in Emma, Growing Up, Hannah, Milestones | No comments

We recently started putting Emma in the Bumbo.  We’ve had it since Ethan was born, but I had forgotten all about it until the other day when I was doing some blog housekeeping and happened to chance upon a picture of Hannah when she was 3 months sitting in the Bumbo.  So I checked the information on the Bumbo, and it indeed states that a baby can begin sitting in the Bumbo from 3 months up.

Haha, what can I say?  Caring for 3 kids makes me a wee bit forgetful at times.

Looks like Emma likes it, huh? 🙂

…and both her siblings were equally excited about Emma sitting in the Bumbo.

 

Hannah and Her “Kids”

June 26, 2013 in Growing Up, Hannah | No comments

These here are Hannah’s “kids”.  She takes really good care of them, and they sleep with her at night.  In the morning, she would bring them out from the bedroom with her when she wakes up.  She cooks for them, and holds birthday parties and tea parties for them.

I just love watching her attend to her “kids”.  From left to right: the dark brown dog is Cliffer, the teddy bear is Emma and the beige dog is Sunshine.

Yes…EMMA.

Hannah had named her bear Emma way before we decided on a name for her baby sister.  So we had a bit of a back-and-forth discussion with Hannah before she agreed to have her sister named Emma too. 🙂

Don’t Hannah and her “kids” look simply adorable? 😀

Absolutely Rewarding

June 21, 2013 in Ethan, Growing Up, Hannah, Parenting | No comments

Do you know what’s the most rewarding thing I’ve earned from blogging thus far?

Watching my kids read my blog postings together. 🙂

Previous postings I had made would bring back fond memories that I could only remember by referring to my blog!

Ethan would read out loud and they would laugh at funny stories I had written about them.  Then they would ask me to elaborate (sometimes), and they would giggle at their own pictures from when they were babies, toddlers up to the present day.

Now isn’t that the most precious, rewarding thing ever? 🙂

Worth More Than Gold

June 13, 2013 in Ethan, Growing Up, Parenting | 1 comment

What a pleasant surprise this was!  Made me go “Awwwww…..” and melted my heart so…

I found this in one of the activity sheets Ethan brought back from school last week. 🙂

My Sister, My Friend

June 10, 2013 in Emma, Growing Up, Hannah | No comments


Scrap Credits
6June13 Monthly Template from Sahlin Studio
Celebrate GDS! Freebit kit from Go Digital Scrapbooking.com

My big sister Hannah is the BEST because:

  • She sings to me, and she has the sweetest voice in the world!
  • She tells Mommy what songs she thinks I would like to hear.
  • She fans me to sleep when it’s too warm.
  • She tells everyone around me to keep it down when I’m asleep because she knows I might be disturbed.
  • She loves to hold and cuddle me.
  • She loves to take pictures with me.
  • She pats my head and strokes my hair gently.
  • She reads to me from her books and magazines and shows me pictures from them.
  • She makes me cute art and crafts items.

Night of the Arts

June 8, 2013 in Entertainment, Ethan, Growing Up | No comments

Ethan’s school was transformed into a little art museum last Thursday night, when they had their annual celebration of arts called The Night of the Arts.  Every child would have a piece of artwork displayed outside his/her classroom with his/her name on it.  Ethan’s school places a lot of emphasis on cultivating the love of art in the students and that can be seen by the amazing murals on the walls of the school.

It was a fantastic way to instill the love of the arts in the children, as well as a perfect time for families to get together in the evening.  Ethan proudly showed us his art piece and we also got to bring home his entire year’s “art portfolio”.

Mastering the Skill of Scissor-cutting

June 3, 2013 in Growing Up, Hannah, Milestones, Parenting | No comments

Hannah still could not use the scissors properly when we arrived in the US about half a year ago.  However, she amazed me when she picked up this essential skill almost immediately after starting school.

At home, she uses the same pair of scissors I had gotten for Ethan when he started using the scissors, and she will ALWAYS ask me if she needs to use the “safety scissors”.

I’m so proud of her for mastering this skill, but this would also mean we now have scraps of cut-up paper in all kinds of shapes lying around the house most of the time! 😛

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. 🙂

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