Birthday Preparation....80%

Last minute hand made invitation

Toys we bought for the kids from Penang

Thank you note

Presents nicely wrapped up for the kids at school

Checklist:

1. Invitation (Done) - Day before yesterday did last minute invitation card at about 11+pm till 1am.
2. Cake (Done) - Reese decided to have Strawberry Marshmallow Cheese cake from Secret Recipe. Ordered yesterday afternoon.
3. Wrapping presents (Done) - Did it just at with hubby at about 4.15am. Can't sleep after we were woken up by Reese because he wet the mattress!
4. Prepare pictures and information for his birthday walk at school. (Not yet) - Too tired and busy... really have to do it by tonight.
5. Helium balloons for the kids and Reese. (Not yet) - Have to order them today!
6. Paper cups and plates, fork and spoons (Not yet) - Have to buy them today!
7. Food preparation. (Not complete) - Need to go marketing afterwards.
8. Present for Reese (Not yet) - Still not sure what to buy for our boy, bicycle or scooter?

** Had been very busy and tire with my dad being in the hospital and caring for him after he was discharged. No time to really plan Reese's birthday party. So it's going to be a simple party at school. It will be Reese's first birthday celebration with his school friends. Looking forward to it tomorrow. I am glad my dad and mom will be joining us at Reese's birthday party.

Birthday Plans...

Reese's birthday is coming up real soon... it's next Thursday!! We have bought the party favours and wrappers only. Reese wanted a Mr. Frederickson's house with balloon cake... I have been thinking of how to do so without spending too much money on the cake! Hehehe... Then there is the party food to think about....do it myself or just buy KFC for the kids. Have to order those lovely helium balloons for the kids, have to make nice paper bags for the party favours.... have to make the invitation cards..... nothing is ready.

We are excited to celebrate Reese's birthday at school, this is the first time he is fully aware of what a birthday party is all about! He has been talking about his birthday party for a few months now. So much to do.....

Public Toilets, not afraid anymore!

Phew.... my dear son has finally conquered his fear of using public toilets! Yippie! (We can save on diaper pants!)

For the past two weeks we had successfully coaxed him to use the public toilets a few times to pee and also to pooh.... The only thing is we have to be selective with the toilets, Gardens at Midvalley has the cleanest and most comfortable kids toilet. :) Yes! another milestone before his 4th birthday.

Now need to work on the way he pees! He still doesn't want to stand and pee but prefers to sit and pee. Hhmmmm....

Conversation with Reese

Yesterday over dinner at a restaurant.... I tried to eat some of Reese's fried chicken pieces and guess what he said?


"Hey! Mummy don't SIMPLY ACCIDENTALLY eat my chicken pieces!!!"

In the car on our way home (He didn't want to go home)

Reese: "Mummy Alien, baby alien doesn't want to go home"
Mummy: "We must baby alien. It's very late."
Reese: " I am sad mummy alien."
Reese: " Mummy Alien, baby alien is not a lucky alien anymore"
Mummy: "Why aren't you lucky anymore?"
Reese: "Because I am not."
Mummy: "Is it because you have to go home? Is it because you are not happy?"
Reese: "Yes!"

** He has been role playing that day with him being baby alien, I am mummy alien and daddy is daddy alien. I also explained to him what lucky means the day before. I told him when someone is lucky, everything that happens will turn out well/good and you have everything that you need and you are happy.....

Saying Grace...

Reese started giving thanks to food when he was 2+. He learned to do so at playgroup and he will always be the loudest or sometimes the only one that said it out among his friends. The little prayer goes like this:

Thank you, thank you God for food, help us, help us to be good. AMEN.


So as usual, before our meal we will ask him to give thanks for the food and he surprised us by saying something like this:

Jesus loves mummy and daddy, Reese sets the table, Reese has food, Reese puts the fork and spoon...... we have rice and tau fuuuuuuuuuu....... bla...bla...bla.... AMEN ! (Can't remember what he said exactly...was a little too surprised to remember...hehehe )

Reese's Master Pieces II

A plate of Kuih Lapis (The 7 layer pink sweet cake)

A beautifully decorated house

Diving in deep sea and building sand castle on the beach

A big tree with lots of branches and twigs and leaves

Tsunami: Big waves swept away buildings, tree, fences, flags....

Chinese New Year house with lots of lanterns and oil lamps

Many many tall buildings

Special planets he see from the game Katamari and the Milky Way

A big fountain

Lollipops

Sculptures

Mr. F's house from UP

Sculptures (inspired after seeing a sculpture shop)

Volcanoes

Science Centre

Mr. F's house from UP surrounded by many buildings

A house got hit by a few tornadoes

Reese's interpretation of Wall-E in his house filled with light bulbs and ketupats for decoration

A pagoda with lots of oil lamps and flags. Can you spot a Columbia flag?

Christmas trees beautifully decorated

One of my favorite. A space ship (left with a round body with letters XAN on it. Below it are the blasters) blasting buildings and causing them to collapse

A big house with alot of smoke coming out from the chimney

Hari Raya and Chinese New House. You can see oil lamps and lanterns and also light bulbs

School Holiday

Drawing.... his drawing is getting better day by day... What you see here are trees (coconut tree, banana tree with a banana flower and papaya tree), flowers,fungi and many birds in the sky.

Enjoying his new book

Reese's school is off for 2 weeks and I was lucky to have a little more than a week's break from teaching and hubby got almost a week off from work. Usually when there is a long break we will travel but this time. We chose to stay home and not travel anywhere. It was a good break (no work and rest) for us all except a few really bad things that happened. (One of our car's all 4 rims and tyres got stolen outside our condo and another car of ours got a thermostat problem and had to be towed to the workshop!, then I fell sick for 2 days and now my dad is down with lung infection)

Oh well, just have to look at the bright side right? :)
So what did we do at home? Reese was happy because he gets to stay home alot to play and draw and watch some of his favorite cartoons and movies. You see, usually Reese will go to school and then to my parents place and stay there while I teach. We will go home only around 7.00-7.30pm. By the time home, it's usually 8pm and he only gets to play till around 9.30-10pm.

We also took Reese to Small Land in IKEA to play a few times and walked in shopping malls. Have a few nice meals outside. So that is our little break so far. Next week is back to work and school!

Math progress after 27 days....

It's been almost a month since I started Reese on Horizon Math Grade K and so far, I am happy with his progress. He can write all the numbers. He is now working on single digit addition, ordinal numbers like 1st,2nd and etc, more advance shapes like octagon, reading calendar, counting money like pennies and dimes, reading time and also counting in 10's.

Horizon Math Grade K has 180 lessons to be done over a year of schooling but currently we are working on 2 work sheets (15 to 20 minutes) a day and about 4 to 5 times a week. We are already on lesson 35! Looks like we will finish way before the end of school year... hehehe...

**My son loves to connect dots/pictures (counting objects), draw stars, scribble all kinds of stuff on the worksheets! At first I felt it's not right and told him not to do so, he was obviously not happy. After that lesson, I sat and thought about it. Should the worksheets be kept clean like what we had been taught or should we allow the child to scribble or draw some stars as rewards? Well, why must we keep it so clean and nice? why can't the child do whatever he wants as long as he completes the work properly? right?

So... now, I allow him to scribble, draw his own stars and markings here and there... I even allow him to use marker pens to write as long as he completes his work and understand what he is doing! Learning should be fun.... do whatever you think is right! :)

Here are some samples of our very messy worksheets! Hehehehe....

See those x (small and big) marks? those are suppose to be stars drawn by Reese...

See those connected dots? Every time we do sums with dots... he will want to connect them all!

Spelling words by writing!

A few days ago, my dear son has interest to spell by writing. Before that he did his spelling orally. Practicing writing with him is difficult because he doesn't like it. So all these while I only managed to get him to write A and B but surprisingly he knows how to write most alphabets on his own. I have always dreaded the day that I have to teach him writing. I lack patience and I hate the boring task. I thought by sending him to school he will learn it from there but so far, nothing from school because he refused to do work with the teachers! So I had to do it with him. *sigh*

Just glad that he can somewhat write on his own and he is showing interest in writing alphabets or rather spelling words. *phew*

Oral Hygiene

Today for the first time, I used fluoride toothpaste for children when I brushed Reese's teeth and taught him how to spit out the toothpaste and rinse his mouth. Thank God he followed my instruction. I was so afraid that he would swallow it!

Everything went well and we had a fun time brushing teeth. So no more First Teeth Toothpaste! It's so much cheaper using Oral B Stages toothpaste. Ah.... more achievement before his 4th birthday end of the month! :)

At 3 Years 11 Months 5 Days Old

The past two weeks had been good. My dear son behaved himself well at school and he even joined group time! Last Friday he also hit a child for the first time! Was it intentional or not... we don't know but when I asked him whether it was pretend or real... he answered real! So off he went to the thinking chair and after sometime, to the teacher's surprised... he said he wanted to do work! He sat with his teacher and did math worksheets and also some alphabets worksheets for about an hour and then continued to do reading with another teacher without complaining... all these for the very first time!

I am so proud of him. :)