first movies...

Bryan's first movie ever was Ratatouille. He was about 4 years and 3 months old. He sat in the cinema flanked by Mom and Dad. Still, half way through the film, he cried. Daddy quickly swooped him off his seat and brought him out for some fresh air. 5 minutes later, he was back in the theatre again. Except for that little hiccup, Bryan managed to sit through the whole movie. 

Kristin's first movie ever was Madagascar 2. She was about 3 years and 3 months old. A whole year younger than Bryan. I didn't expect her to sit through. But she did! Not once did she scream, nor was she clingy... she sat on her own. Actually, she stood for some time. Swayed between Bryan's and my seat. Then she sat some more, ate popcorns, while her eyes were still fixed on the big screen. And when the music came on, she had no qualms to jump off from her seat and dance! No tears, no fears! Hurrah! Looks like Mommy can go for a movie more often now! With the kids. 

The theatre was almost just ours. Bryan, Kristin and I with Bryan's friend and his friend's mom. There were a couple sitting right at the back. How cool was that? It was private viewing! 

school photos in fall...

This is what I'll miss when I go back to Sg. 

The preschool here arranges with a professional photographer to come in to take pictures of the kids twice a year, once in autumn and once in spring. It's so great to be able to look back at how our kids have grown over our three years here. Kristin only has three of these shots taken, while Bryan has five different ones. 

Kristin, looking frumpy despite her haircut at the hair-dresser's. Look at her unbuttoned shirt! 

We gave Bryan a nice shirt underneath his blazer and in the end, he wore only his thermal underwear under the blazer! 

He looks almost the same as he did 2 years ago in this post, minus the baby fat and chubby cheeks. 

Kristin is certainly looking chubby. Check out those chunky arms! And I complain she doesn't eat...? Erb... good thing she doesn't eat much! Maybe it's all the Pocky sticks! 

back in Carl Schurz School...

At last... summer break is over! The kids are back in the preschool again! Finally, I can catch some breath. Besides, I think they're bored with sticking around Mommy 24/7 since June 26th! 

Everything went smoothly. It's been our ritual to take a photo for the first day. Too shy to bring my new huge camera, but when I saw another mom armed with her DSLR, I immediately regretted my decision! 

Nothing new in school too. Bryan's teacher is Scottish and has taught him when he was three, while Kristin's teacher is an Indian lady who's born and raised in England. So perhaps not a very pronounced American accent for this year? Well, it's a good transition back to Singapore after all, isn't it? 

At drop off, I could see tears welling up in Kristin's eyes - someone who did not even shed a single tear when she went for her nursery class last year! I knew she was giving me a tough time again when she clung onto me like a koala! She never does anything like this to Daddy. Somehow dropping off Bryan first did help. By the time I got back to Kristin's classroom with her and told her to pose in front of the classroom door, she was all smiles again. Phew! 

cake-cutting..

Well, we all know that brownies have sticky, chewy tops.

So this plastic knife wouldn't cut through, lest you think my son was really "sawing" the cake!  

Anyway, you might have noticed by now who couldn't wait to sink her teeth into the brownies! 

clips redeeming or not...

Bryan was given strict instructions to let Kristin blow out all candles. 

This girl just can't wait for her birthday to come... 

She just told me today during dinner, "And Mommy, for my birthday too? You will bake a cake? Make my birthday come tomorrow, ok?" I replied, "But Daddy won't be home yet. He'll be home for your birthday." She said, "Oh! Ok."

Bryan's 5!

Yes, he is.

Unfortunately, Daddy is travelling. So this was a quiet affair tonight after dinner.

Here are some photos and video clips for you, Daddy!

The cake:

Kids helping to decorate the cake:

The happy Birthday Boy with his little sister:

Mommy and kids:

The birthday song (Take 1):

The birthday song (Take 2):

This is taking a long time to upload. Have been trying from 10pm - 1am.

Take 2 will follow. Well, you'd have guessed it anyway. A more peaceful take of the birthday song. :)

school photos in spring...

Gee, couldn't they get any unhappier?
Don't you think Kristin looks pretty in her outfit?!
Sorry about the quality... my hands were shaking, and that was a shot of a shot...

eeny meeny miny moe

Just the other day a friend of mine, Lilian, was asking about this bright-eyed girl. So here's a video on her imitating her brother.

bye, ah-gong! bye, ah-mah!

After we tried putting Bryan to sleep in Kristin's room on last Friday night, he begged me to move him back to his own room the next morning. So I quickly replied that it wasn't going to be possible since the other room would be made into the children's playroom. Suddenly, there was a twinkle in his eyes. "Ya, Mom. I think Kristin and I can share a bedroom." The prospect of playing all day in a room sounded inviting to him.

Just before the grandparents left tonight, we decided to involve the kids with the decoration of the playroom. Possibly a good distraction, otherwise there would be no end to whining from both kids.

Still they did cry when the grandparents left. Though Bryan was calm and composed, Kristin was wailing for grandma to stay, when the grandparents went through the departure gate. Then as we were leaving the airport, Bryan started his whining, as if it just struck him that he was going home now without the grandparents. Actually, it was more of a sulk since we told it was already very late and he couldn't stay at the MacDonald's playground anymore.

Look, who's competitive?

For quite some time now, I've been hearing Bryan recite this rhyme:

First is the worst,
Second is the best,
Third is the one with the treasure chest.

Wow! Isn't it great not being first all the time?

But now, everyone wants to be second in line. Somehow the word BEST speaks alot more than being FIRST. At the moment, the kids can't care less for a treasure chest.

new hair trends...

It's unisex!


Good for symmetry!


No need for a costume to attend a party!

our cutie pies...

Hey all!

This is an update of our cutie pies. Picture taken in October.
We just received our copies today.

Aren't they both looking gorgeous? :)

KAPUTT!

I was just thinking of the funny words my kids use to express something is out of working condition.

The top favourite for Kristin is "kaputt". It is German, but can also be found in the English dictionary. She moved on very quickly from "broken" to "kaputt" and probably thinks that this is her favourite word now when something is out of order.

Bryan likes to say, "Look. My ship is wrecked." Or, "look Mom, Meimei ruined my train!" And I constantly hear him scream, "Don't wreck this! Don't ruin that!" whenever the two are playing together. Yeah, you can almost sense his frustration coz Kristin is definitely not a very nice little sister now. She's going through the phase where she destroys all things! O help! Kaputt! Alles kaputt!

He's got the whole world in His hands...

Enjoy!

child labour?

Haha... just a little something to keep them occupied, while Mommy relaxed over dinner preparation the other day.







As you can see, not much of relaxing there if you can hear the tone of Mommy getting all stressed up towards the end of the clip.

Here's one with Kristin enjoying herself:

first day in pre-school...

While it's just back to school on the first day for Bryan this year, it really is Kristin's first day in school today. Attending school first time ever!

After a whole year of practice of going to school - Kristin comes with me to school every day when I drop Bryan off - and watching her brother attend school, Kristin walked into her classroom on her first day with much confidence and enthusiasm. Not a single tear, while the rest of her classmates were crying their eyes out! We had the shortest first day as parents. We really did just drop her off and that was it!

In the meantime, I went to my gym, had lunch with Alan and did some toiletries - well, not exactly groceries - shopping between 9 am and 2 pm! Hey, wasn't I good? Already three things off my list! Haha!

By the time I returned to pick the kids up, they refused to leave. Yeah... first day of school and not leaving it! After much coaxing and bribing (marshmallows if they went home with me), we finally left school only at 2.50 pm!

Kristin fell straight asleep in the car before I even hit the main road on our way home.

So how did she do today?
Her teacher said Kristin was excellent! She was a great teacher's helper. She helped to bring toys to the other kids who were crying, hoping that she could distract them. She sat down and listened to stories and punctutated the story-telling session with her occasional "Look!" Actually, I was surprised that she even spoke.

She had her snack and ate her lunch alright, made a new friend - Debbie, and did some colouring.

After dinner, she was pounding on me like a mad puppy while I was lounging on the couch, watching Daddy play Wii. She told me, "Come, Mom. Let's go! Let's go to school!" So need I say more on how much she loves school now?

check-ups before 4 and 2...

The first thing we did when we came back to Frankfurt was to have Dr. Conrad check the kids. Actually, Kristin did have a sniffle, but that didn't worry me. They were due for their 4th year and 2nd year assessment.

Funny things one does here for doc's assessment besides the normal knocks on the joints to check the children's reflexes.

E.g. for a 4-year-old, Bryan was asked to walk from one side of the room on tippy toes, and then back with only his heels. Quite hilarious to watch actually. :p Then he was asked to hop and skip on one leg. Next, he was asked to use his index finger to touch his thumb, then the middle finger to thumb and all the way to pinkie touching the thumb. Now that was quite a sight! I was watching him sorting things out in his brain! Really interesting tests, right? But I was disappointed that that an eye assessment is not done here. So I'm still gonna be bringing him for his Polyclinic assessment when he's back in Singapore next January. Language wise, the doctor only wanted to know if Bryan could use pronouns... Alan was like, "Ermm, he's already started using it when he was 16 months old with his famous one-sentence 'I want to go'."

With Kristin, it was nothing unusual, although she was very eager to show the pediatrician that she could skip and hop too. Actually, she was jumping across the room. But what really was of interest to the doctor was to have her run quickly. And that she passed without much effort since she's been walking and running all the time in Singapore for the past three weeks.
But what got me very worried is her height and weight. She's so petite, and I don't mean comparing her to the German growth charts. She's only the 25th percentile among the Singaporean growth charts too. So the PD is gonna measure again in 3 months' time to assess her growth. Speech wise she's doing very well. Naming body parts isn't a problem at all.

What really cracked me up was a couple of days later when I was changing Kristin, she suddenly picked up a suction hook and pretended that it was a stethoscope and went, "Boom, boom, boom, heart beat pounding, boom, boom, boom." :o)

what do you do with cranky children at home?

It's definitely the lack of sleep. Bryan was such a terror the whole morning, from the moment he woke up to Daddy picking him at Sunday school. Every moment was filled with some tantrum outbursts.

Yeah, we had been terrible parents. We were out the whole of last evening, night and only got home at midnight. Errm, that's horribly late for kids. But we did enjoy ourselves at Bryan's teacher's place. Marcia and Stefan invited us over for an evening of barbecue in their gorgeous garden. We were totally filled with respect when we heard how this man singlehandedly remodelled the whole house: How he knocked down walls, re-did the plumbing, laid the electrical cables etc. Sorry, didn't take any pictures there.

Anyway... I was talking about cranky kids, eh?

Yap, so what I did after lunch was I filled up a tub of soapy water (baby bath foam) for Bryan to wash his crocs imitations.

Both of them had lots of bubbly fun until Mommy's finger got pricked by a rose thorn (I was busy pulling out weeds), and Daddy caught Kristin brushing her teeth with the dirty foamy water!!! In the end, we showered them and tucked them to nap.

Erm, if you must try: Water play is definitely fun. And getting Bryan to wash his own sandals does save me alot of trouble too. But I think I shall look for a better brush the next time. I just gave the kids old toothbrushes to scrub the sandals.

brother and sister...

This is one golden moment when they do not fight.

But it isn't always picture perfect in real life.

it's showtime...

Bryan, too, couldn't resist the bouncy beat of the Jungle. So he ditched his book and joined in the dance.