Special gifts

When we left Oliver's nursery the teachers gave us a bag with a whole lot of Oliver's craft projects he has completed in the class and other bits and pieces. Within the bag there was this wonderful gift - Recipes from Nursery.

All the recipes from his Food and Tech class since September:



With photos of his classroom friends:



So beautiful! Thank you for all your work Unicorn teachers!

Oliver also got a teddy bear with some clothes made out of the JIS school uniform. He was very proud since only he got to take the teddy home, nobody else in the class!

Last day at nursery

Friday was Oliver's last day at nursery. Matthew came home on Thursday night so we could both do the school run.　Well... Oliver insisted on riding in Boel's car with Lucas and Linnea so we ended up driving without him on the way to school.

Once he was in the classroom his teachers told him how much they will miss him which was very nice. I don't think he knew it was his last day and he could not come back and play with his friends anymore... I felt very sad.

Since he started in September his speaking and comprehension has taken off, he improved his social skills so much. It was just perfect for him. I just hope we can find something as good as Unicorn class in Singapore once we move there.

Look at our boy so confident and so grown up!

So pretty!

Linnea has been teaching Oliver lots of new expressions and sentences, or more likely Oliver wants to copycat what L&L says. One of the phrases he uses (which I think so gorgeous) is "(something) is so pretty"

Here is one of the occasions he describes as "so pretty".

Luca:


Linnea:


And both of them together:

CNY celebration at nursery

On Wednesday Oliver had his Chinese outfit on for his class party. Of course (being dress up loving mother) I needed to dress Luca up as well before Oliver headed out to school.

Oliver:


Luca:


Both of our boys together:


The classroom was nicely decorated and they had a little party with some yummy food.



He was lucky enough to get more Ang Pao:



And a good luck orange:



With his homeroom teacher Mrs Jo:



It is great to see Oliver comprehending the event and telling me all excited about things he did at nursery. Sadly this will be the last event he will be attending as his last day of nursery is this weekend.

Lion Dance - CNY 2012

Yesterday we were invited to two open houses at our friends' places. I wasn't sure if I could make it as Matthew was still away but we did it!! I took my amah with me so that I could have proper conversations with my friends and enjoy lovely food :)

As soon as I finished eating, the Lions arrived! I wasn't expecting it at all so felt very lucky and excited (normally the host tells you what time they would be coming but this year I had no idea).



Went all around the house:



Luca was very interested, not scared at all!



Oliver of course was very scared/concerned and straight away wanted to go home, but this year I managed to convince him that there are only nice boys inside the lions and they are having fun dancing around. And it worked!



The boy playing the drum was only 10 years old but he was fantastic:



The Lion was throwing the oranges - Oliver thought it was very cool:



A little lion came out from the house:



Good luck family photo (without Matthew unfortunately...):
My boys were given Ang Paos and some lion hair to keep for extra good luck!



Wonderful host - Doreen's family:



Oliver in the end was most impressed by the lion dance. He was showing me his way of lion dancing on his bed - but he was a bit confused saying, "mummy look at my tiger dance!"

Quiet play

It is nice to have the kids giggling and having so much fun running around the big house but it gets out of control sometimes. At the end of the long weekend, I had to ask them to play very quietly...

Some colouring in:



And story time:

I am happy as long as

I am munching on something! Yes my teeth are coming through (finally!!!)

Making a rainbow

The other day Linnea and Oliver had fun time outside. This time making a BIG Rainbow : )

It was a lovely evening with a little breeze, the kids played nicely for a long time. I really enjoy seeing them play without toys - just a simple play, like how we played when we were kids...

At first there was a little lesson on how to use the chalk from Linnea:



Then using a big canvas they made a big rainbow!





Colouring in was quite a job...



Linnea also showed Oliver how to play , I am not sure he understood the rules but he was happy throwing stones and jumping after her!









Our time here in Brunei is running out. We will definitely miss our lovely surroundings the kids are in and the wonderful simpang siblings...

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Yes, the Year of the Dragon is here! It is my year! I am a Dragon myself - It the only animal that is legendary in the 12-year cycle of animals which appears in the Chinese zodiac.

According to some websites 2012 is the Year of the Water Dragon. This must be right, it is raining so much right now. Which means no fireworks tonight to wake my boys up - yeah!

By the way, I am a fire Dragon. According to Wikipedia it's motion is upward and it's energy is expansive. It is associated with Summer, the South, the colour red (associated with extreme luck), hot weather, and daylight.

Sounds like I have extra energy being in South East Asia where it is summer all year around with hot weather and bright daylight!

Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone :)

Bring it on! I am feeling extra positive abut the Year of the Dragon :)

Garden view bedroom

I love our Brunei house so much. Especially on a very sunny day with a nice breeze coming though all the bedrooms upstairs. Our bedroom especially has a great garden view. It make me feel so relaxed...

Learning about circles

This week at nursery the classroom activities were focused on learning about "circles". They played looking for circles in the classroom, did some shape sorting collage and in the food tech class (sounds so advanced ha?) they made circle pizza!

Oliver loves making pizza - he had a great big smile when I picked him up!





And of course ate it all before we got home, yum yum!

Loving school

I don't know where my crying baby has gone. This term at nursery Oliver is doing so well. He was ok before the holidays but still had to sort of trick him when we left him in the morning. Now? He runs into the classroom with big smiles and kisses me goodbye and is excited to see his friends and is right away into playing!

I am just amazed at how quickly children can grow. Here is Oliver - so grown up:





We will be very sad when he finishes nursery at the end of this month. But I am sure he will enjoy any other places he might end up attending.

Tongue

Luca is teething and cannot put his tongue away... Sooooo cute!

Words come to mind

We have these alphabet magnets on our fridge, Oliver is still too little to make words but he can recognise some of the letters.
Like O for Oliver! clever boy : )

The other day when I came home from the school run my amah had made a few words using the letters.



Nice words like good, best, honest, wonderful, key, car, and BMW???

Sunglasses

One of Oliver's favourite expressions right now is "It's so..."
This evening when I was putting Oliver to bed (he turns all the lights off in his bedroom so that it is completely dark when he goes to bed) he told me "Mummy, it's so dark, I need sunglasses." ...well son, it will be even darker with a pair of sunnies on in this darkness. Bless him I just couldn't stop giggling.

Brother fun

Our boys were very happy playing together this afternoon. Luca is not into crawling any more, all he wants to do is pull himself up and stand up and interact with others. Such a keen boy!