Barney show at United Square

I have not intended to bring her to the Barney show at United Square. One Saturday after Amanda's class at Little Acorns, I brought her to United Square next door to walk around. Happened to see a poster and I thought there was a Diego show at 12pm. Hence, decided to hang around the mall and bring her to watch the Diego show. Brought her to ELC and toyrus and lunch at Hong Kong cafe. When I went down at 12 pm for show, only then I realised the queue was for a Barney show at 1pm. We ended up queueing 1 hr for the show but we have a pretty front seat. The show was not bad I think.

*KTV* time hee hee

Posing for me at HK cafe

The Barney show!

Amanda engrossed in the show

I heard the Strawberry Shortcake show is nice. I think I will try to bring her to catch that show too!

Going to the library

Brought Amanda to the library on a Monday (29/11/10) as her CC was closed for cleaning and I have taken leave to spend time with her.

Look as if she is a serious library goer haha

*Reading* the book she has chosen

Posing for her auntie at the library

Last Sunday, brought her to library again and borrowed quite a number of books for her. She was quite happy to have me read to her the library books that night. Maybe she is sick of the books at home haha. I guess we need to visit library often and they really do have a wide selection of children books !

Singing!

Realised I never taken any videos of her singing. Here are three recent ones that I have recorded

Cheeky face

The title says it all !

Missing the year end concert

The much anticipated year end concert falls on 19 November 2010. I was pretty excited about it as I wanted to see how Amanda would perform on stage as she usually likes singing and dancing a lot.

Here is Amanda back from school on one of the reheresal day. That was supposed to be her hair style for the concert lol

But alas............ Amanda was down with fever and had to miss the concert. Mummy was disappointed. Teacher has feedback she was one of the better performers in the toddler class but then really cannot help it. I guess I have to wait till next year.

A crying Amanda who was wailing cos she hated the cool pad on her forehead. Even a lollipop also won't do the trick. She did not even lick the lollipop once.

When Daddy was away for reservist

Daddy was away for reservist at the beginning of November for a week. While he was away, I was able to do more things/activities with Amanda as I usually do not watch television or switch on the laptop at all. All my attention was on her once I reached home from work. With Daddy around, usually the two of us were quite distracted haha.

She requested to do some colouring and scribbling while singing away on one of the night

We have just finished some *cookies counting* activities whereby we imagined some counters as cookies and she counted and distributed them accordingly to her respective *friends* upon my instruction of how many each friend wanted. In the photos, she was very thrilled and excited putting them to bed and posing for me to take pic. The third photo was requested by her as she said her Hello Kitty cannot be seen after I show her the first two photos taken lol.

This is me! One of the decent photo taken by Amanda. Not too bad!

The official birthday songbird

Its Amanda great grandma's birthday. (Amanda still has three great grandmas and one great grandpa) We went over to great grandma house on Saturday to celebrate her birthday and Amanda was most excited about the cake. She brought the cake out from the fridge with my help and helped to put all the candles on the cake.

After that she went on to sing 3 versions of Happy Birthday songs much to everyone's amusement. The first version is the English version and the second is the Chinese version and the third version goes like this :-

How old are you now?

How old are you now?

How old are you nowwwwwwww?

How old are you now?

And she was the first to blow out the candle too.

Maybe 2 years later, she can pass the baton to her meimei if she decided she has had enough of singing birthday songs haha.

Peer pressure

One weekend, Daddy brought us to City Square Mall together with my mum and sister as we wanted to try the *GONG TEA*. While we were waiting for the tea, Amanda and her wai por went into a shop called mini princess. When I went in subsequently, I met May there and her sweetie Erlene. Her girl is really very girly and was choosing a necklace for herself. Amanda was never interested in getting her hair clipped etc but upon seeing Erlene's nicely tied up hair and being so girly, she decided she wanted to have her hair clipped too! So the doting wai por purchased a pair of cherries hair clip for her and Amanda specifically told her that both sides of her hair must be clipped! Thereafter, she followed Erlene, looking at herself into the little vanity table mirror in the shop. She even showed off her nicely clipped hair to her daddy who came and find us with the teas.......

Even toddlers are easily influenced by their peers. However, the clips did not stay on her hair for long and they are now kept into a little bag along with the other abandoned clips haha.

Here is Amanda with her hair clipped that day

Mid Autumn Festival 2010

Whats that light?

Look again

Its Amanda with her old lantern

Initally, I wanted to bring Amanda to the garden downstairs for a walk with those traditional lanterns given to her by her GuGu but I reached home late and one of the lantern was already damaged. So mummy digged into her treasure box and found last year's latern given by Amanda's great grandma and she has a walk around in the darkness with the lantern.

Maybe next year Amanda will have more fun carrying lantern with her mei mei.

Things that we do and things that she said

Eversince I was pregnant, I have not been doing as much things as before with Amanda. Was guilty that she has been watching more TVs, using iphone etc. I am still trying to read everyday

to her but there were days that I was simply too tired at the end of the day or she simply does not want to do so and I will not force her to do it. However, I am glad that she goes to CC where she spends her day more meaningfully and that we are still attending lapbook class which gives me some guideline on what to do on some weekdays since I usually only have 1 hour or so with her before she goes to bed.

Actually, I have tons of materials at home and I really need to organise and bring them out for us to *play and learn* ---- reminder reminder

A suggested craft from lapbook class :We were asked to make a mouse at home using any materials.

One of the evening, when we are not in mood to read anything, we did the craft.

I took two pieces of useless cardboard paper and ask Amanda to colour them. She chose the colour brown. Then I rolled the paper into a cone and cylinder and stick them together for the mouse's body and head. Amanda pasted two pink circle sticker as the eyes. I helped to cut the semicircle and strips of papers while she pasted them herself with the glue. Lastly, a longer strip of paper for the tail. Our mouse is done! After that, we had fun singing all the ryhmes and songs relating to mouse!

Amanda has been talking lots more and sings everyday. Sometimes she surprises you with the words she uses and also *scares* you by adding "lehs and lahs" in her not really proper sentence. Well, we cannot really blame her since we ourselves also cannot help and blurt out the "lehs and lahs" in our conversation. So another reminder to minimise those singlish in our conversation with her.

There are days she cracks you up with things that she said :

Incident one:

Amanda: I want to share the sweet with daddy, mummy and Amanda.

Daddy: Can you share the sweet with baby next time?

Amanda: No!!

Daddy: Why?

Amanda: Baby has no teeth!!

Incident two:

We were crossing the overhead bridge.

Mummy: Don't hold the railings. Its dirty. Hold my hands.

Amanda: Later I fall down how?

Mummy: ..........................

Barney space adventure

This is a long overdue post. I have been rather tied down or too tired with this pregnancy and handling Amanda and work that all I wanted to do everyday is to sleep. Sleep is a luxury and I mean uninterrupted sleep.

Anyway, we went for our first live musical last mth with 4 other mummies and their families. As hubby was working, I brought Amanda there by myself. It was quite an adventure to take the bus to Changi airport and then the train to expo that morning! Amanda was generally cooperative except she wanted me to carry on and off.

At the entrance (thanks to May for taking the pic)

The show!

The girls sharing a packet of pocky from Auntie Ade

I think she is singing the ABC song here again

Finally, group photo at the end of the show

The show was a little boring for me ahah and I think Amanda was not that *high* either as most of the songs were unfamiliar to her. Only when it came to songs that she knew then she would happily sing with them. She looked a little grumpy and sat quietly throughout in her seat that day. However, its nice meeting up with everyone for the show though we did not have a chance to chit chat.

Amanda's new bed

We decided to get a cheap toddler bed from IKEA On Sat(upgrade her from sleeping on matresses on the floor) due to the following reasons-

1. The mattresses on the floor get dusty and dirtied real soon and there is no walking space and everyone ended stepping on the mattresses.

2. Its such a chore for Mummy to change three matresses sheet every time and also to carry the mattresses here and there as she cleans the floor

3. It looks messy and takes up a lot of space

4. We need more space for our new family member in Jan next year

Before hunting for the bed, we filled our stomach with the Yummy food at Ikea Tampines

Daddy finally fixed up the bed and rearrange the cupboards yesterday. He even cleared and tidied the toy area in living room. Good Job Daddy!

Finally, a good night sleep for everyone as the three of us do not have to squeeze in the Queen size bed anymore which we did for a couple of days!

My PlaySchool Giveaway!

My playschool, a very useful website on home learning is having a giveaway!

In celebration of their 400 LIKES on their Facebook page, they are giving readers the opportunity to a hand-made learning aid worth $30.

For more details do checkout their website :-
http://myplayschool.net/2010/08/giveaway-the-quiet-book-worth-30/

Play Time- The Magic Island! - 29/08/2010

In the middle of the ocean lies an island.And on this island, a magical experience awaits you…
Play with cheeky mischievous monkeys, which will tickle your funny bone. Build your own sandcastles and when it gets too hot, dive into the clear cool waters to pick up pretty sea shells.When night falls, sway along with the palm trees and sing along to the special songs of the island!
There is plenty for everyone to do!
So come along, spend a day of fun with us and discover the spellbinding beauty on the Magic Island!

On Sunday, I brought Amanda for the above play at Esplanade for the first time together with May and her two darlings. I nearly did not want to bring her there as she was unwell the night before. However, seeing that she was active, I decided to bring her there and I was glad I did.

Ervin was a bit shy to sit with Amanda and Erlene cried when she saw the big headlights in the studio. Its a pity she missed the show. Hope she overcome her fear soon. As for Amanda, she was curious as to where we were as she looked around at the new environment.

The recital studio was done up like a seaside setting and we were all seated on the floor. Throughout the play,the characters are moving around and its interactive as there is one scene where the children helped to pick the seashells that were placed all over the studio. Children loved animals and the characters are mainly animals that they were familiar with and the children went crazy when the fish appeared blowing bubbles all over the studios. I think Amanda and Ervin had a good time as they were following the show without a blink.

When we got home, Amanda could still tell her daddy the things she saw and some details which I thought she won't notice. Never underestimate the kids nowadays.

I will certainly bring her to more of such plays and shows in future!

PS: Thanks to my mum and little sis who accompany the both of us there. Otherwise, I think I will be so super duper tired!

Here is Amanda on our way home that evening after shopping and having our dinner at Marina Square.