International Week Concert

What a fantastic performance! It was truly amazing to see so many talented students at the International Week Concert last night. We were very excited about this special night as I've heard the students and teachers have put so many hours into rehearsing and it was the first time the new Art Center Auditorium was open to the public.

The new Art Center Auditorium:







Every part of the show was spectacular!

The orchestra:



The Suzuki violin group - Twinkle twinkle little star:



Waterfall:



The Nutcracker:







Here is Oliver's simpang sister Linnea:



Kate:



Matthew recognised someone else in the show, Mr. Garry Thin who was the head of music at Matthew's high school in Christchurch. What a small world!



We were just so impressed at the end of the show. Everything ran smoothly. There were so many more amazing performances, such as Irish dancing, Hip hop dancing, opera singing etc. (I got busy watching the show instead of taking photos in the end). I hope one day Oliver and Luca will be interested in participating in performances like this.

Who's got bigger eyes?

Our boys

Cheese : ) : ) : )



Oh they are so cute! I love you both very much!!

111111 Groovy Dance Party

We were invited to celebrate this special day 11-11-11 at one of our friend's houses. The house was turned into a disco!
I cannot recall the last time I danced until I got sore feet...
It was such great fun (I only had two glasses of wine but that kept me going!). Unfortunately our iphones didn't really work in the dark so there are no photos to put up to show you how much fun we had.

International Day 2011

To complete International Week, the children at JIS took part in the International Parade this morning. This wasn't completely new to Oliver as he was there as a little Maori last year from Geckos toddler group. New Zealand was well covered so I prepared a Japanese yukata for Oliver to wear this year.

Oh boy it was a struggle! Hard to convince him to stay still while he is getting dressed and stop him pulling the costume apart.
After so much screaming and bribing, I managed to dress him and got to school on time!

Here is Oliver walking/running to his classroom in his yukata.







The school has changed the program a bit. This year all the students went to the brand new art center auditorium to watch the International Concert performed by 250 students (we will be going tomorrow night). I talked to Oliver's classroom teacher afterwards and was told that the nursery kids were very confused but very excited to be there and watched the show very nicely.

Us parents were invited to watch the International Parade. It was much more comfortable than the previous year, in the air conditioned gym with seats instead of outside in the Brunei heat. There were displays of the countries the students have been studying during the week.

Here is New Zealand.



Oliver's year group didn't have any display but studied the same country - Malaysia and it looked very nice.



All the students were in the gym and ready for the parade! So many countries to represent - so colourful!
I assumed it would start from the very little ones to the oldest. But no, Oliver didn't come on the stage until 3 quarters of the way through.



Finally it was time for Unicorn students.



Oliver's little friend dressed as a Smurf - from Belgium

I was worried Oliver would cry his eyes out. There was so much noise and so many people around them but he managed to get to the other side all by himself!





Lucas - the World Champions - All Black



This girl had an amazing costume:



After the parade we went to the International Foodcourt:





I managed to eat my favourite NZ pavlova and got Oliver a sweet treat.



It was a very very long morning for Oliver but we all enjoyed a special day at school : )

International Week

The Unicorn class has been studying Malaysia during International Week.

Very nice display in the classroom:



Oliver did some Malaysian crafts:



There are so many different nationalities in his class such as Germany, Malaysia, Brunei, France and Belgium. Oliver is fortunate to be exposed to different cultures and make friends from all over the world.

Jinbei playdate

It has been a while we had Oliver's Japanese friends over for a playdate. Since it was a public holiday today in Brunei all the kids were off school together (some go to local nursery where you have Fridays and Sundays off which makes it difficult to organise a day to get together).

Both of the girls showed up in their Jinbei (Japanese summer wear) so I quickly re-dressed my boys in them too.

Here they are ready to hit the backyard!



They looked gorgeous in their outfits. As always he loved having his friends over to "his house". They spent quite a while on the swing set too.







I think Luca enjoyed himself too. Look at our boy, looking very healthy and happy. (It was his 5th months birthday - he is growing sooooo fast!)



This coming week JIS is celebrating International Week. The children will be studying ‘Near Neighbours’. I think nursery kids may be too little to appreciate all the happenings during this week (Oliver is studying Malaysia in the classroom). But I am looking forward to seeing the The International Parade on Friday. The children will be dressed in their National Costume in honour of their home country.

Oliver participated in this parade last year as part of Geckos. He was dressed in a Maori piupiu. So this year I've decided he will dress in a Japanese costume. I could send Oliver in his Jinbei outfit like today but I bought him a more traditional Japanese summer kimono/Yukata. He will look so good in it but he is not too keen on wearing it. We will see if we can convince him. (He wants to be an All Black. I don't blame him...) It will be an exciting week ahead!

Boo

Balance bike

We bought this balance bike for Oliver's 2nd birthday from this New Zealand website. It is designed to help children learn balance and steering before riding real bikes. It has no pedals so to ride on it you sort of need to reach the ground. When we gave him this in May he was obviously not tall enough but finally the time has come!

We also gave him a bell and a front basket which made Oliver smile even more.



Ready - Set - Gooooooo



Look I can ride without daddy's help now! We just have to make sure he doesn't go too fast.

Little creature in the garden

In Brunei you get surprise animal visits in your garden every now and then. We had a big monitor lizard at the previous house, some snakes (not poisonous ones like next door tho), monkeys and pretty birds. Our recent addition is a squirrel. He lives in the tree behind Oliver's house (I think) and plays in our garden.

He (or she?) is always running up and down the trees or fences. Today he got more adventurous and spent a good 15min in the garden while Matthew and I chased him with our camera. He checked out our front garden, sat on our outside furniture, ate an acorn, and played in Oliver's house. Unfortunately Oliver was having his afternoon nap and missed out on the excitement.

Haka

The Rugby World Cup transformed our little boy into a rugby fanatic. Every time Oliver kicks a ball he has to perform the "Haka"!

There you were!

Oliver is in love with the movie "Cars". Thanks to Toysrus here in Brunei we now have access to all sorts of toys. We bought him a few cars from there.

One of the cars/characters is called "Francesco" (Oliver names him with a little bit of an Italian accent - very cute).

For the last few days we were missing him and we looked everywhere in the house. We just couldn't find him until... Lucas picked up one of our stools and shook it. He told us "Francesco" is in here!" WHAT? We just couldn't comprehend a toy car is inside a stool?? I didn't even know the top part of the stool comes off, you know.

Matthew had to use a knife to open the top of the stool. Here is the footage of the rescue mission:









I guess next time something goes missing I need to make sure we check inside the stools : )

Mini cakes

On Tuesday I went out to be creative and crafty with my "Creative Crew" once again. It is so nice to get together and chit chat over coffee while we work on individual projects. I am still working on making cards as there are so many birthdays coming up.

Here are some of the cards I made:



And the "Creative Crew"



Before we started the session I got a surprise from one of the crew who is very very talented (you can see more of her creations here "Great and Treats" ) She made these mini cakes for my birthday! Aren't they just gorgeous!



They are mine! How special!



Oh they were sooooo yummy. Soft and very moist inside - almost too pretty to cut up and eat them. I took one of the pieces home and shared it with my boys.
Oliver was very impressed with HIS PINK CAKE! and of course took the very important roll of blowing the candle out for me.
My actual birthday was uneventful this year but so many little celebrations.



These creative cakes made everyone smile today. Thank you so much Beenal!