The holidays have begun!

I need to see why my iphone won't load up the new pictures but we left for Pulai Springs in Johor on Saturday to meet up with Terry and family. The 4 boys were happy to be together even in the cold swimming pool... Mom had just gotten back from Penang only to rush to Johor and then is now in Singapore to get her long term visa (instead of getting a limited stay of 3 months a year). She flies back to KL tomorrow. We drove back up to KL today after 2 full days in Johor.

As soon as the boys got here they started building a lego set and jumping into the pool. Since they napped in the car on the drive back, their batteries were fully recharged. Here is a picture of Nate taken by a friend, he has just lost the tooth next to his two front teeth and the one next to it on the other side is also wobbly.

Here is a picture of Pistol going after the bone from Morton's....

Ike in school

Had the parent teacher conference this week, Ike is progressing well though he is a child that needs to know what the parameters are so that he doesn't get into trouble or then he could test the boundaries...

The other day he surprised me with bopomofo, and reciting the whole chinese sound alphabet. He can also write it if the teacher says a sentence... now to get his english reading and phonics in place. I agreed with the boys today that over these holidays, they will both have homework, Nate needs to improve his handwriting and Ike to get used to homework...

I realise also that the school has not taught Ike, a leftie how to write so that his hands don't become so tired. Will have to speak to the teachers about that.

We had our hannuka party this weekend and I"ll have to post the pictures. Ike was not happy that he could not open the presents after his shower and had to wait, so he ran away from home! well anyway stayed around the compound.... He is also getting quite good on the bike without his trainer wheels.

I have now ordered some stuff online for the ski trip... I guess they will pick up skiing v fast and I will be left eating their snow dust....

Holidays in 2 weeks

oh oh oh.... not ho ho ho.... the boys break for school holidays on the 23rd of dec, the jewish school semester ended today... the boys will be off for 5 weeks.

Here are some pictures from the jewish school, I think nate made a dreidel (which he said broke) and ike made an oil holder... I now know why the boys are so eager for jewish school on sundays.... they have really evil snack time food!!

Here are pictures of me using the Art outreach program material on Huang Yao and doing a session at Ike's class.

Both boys have a bit of a cough, everyone seems to be down with some sort of bug.

Almost school semester end...

We are nearing the end of semester now... then the boys are off for 5 weeks... (scary!). We have 2 days booked in at a place called Pulai Springs where Terry and his family will be joining us as well. Then we will likely head up to KL.... mid Jan I will take the boys to tokyo for a few days and then loren will join us up in hokkaido for some skiing.

Loren has been away for almost 10 days in sydney, he says its the coldest summer in ages. He did manage to get some off season ski wear for us and will be home tomorrow. yay!

I just got over a BIG bad cold and I think the chinese medicine and acupuncture is working...

I bought some markers for the boys and here is Ike drawing on our glass door that separates the kitchen from the back area. Ike making finger puppets out of his raspberries and as loren was away, I took them to sentosa beach, something we used to do alot of when loren used to travel alot...

Perfect day

The orchid show was in town and as part of the event they opened up one of the two large glass houses that was built out in the Marina bay sands area. I finally got to see a baobab tree and here they are also known as bottle trees.

I took the boys to see it as well after their school and we encountered a singing flower.

Feeling Tardy

Dao has been on her month long break... 2 more weeks to go till she comes back... we are all missing her! We've finally got our act together for the January holiday and Chinese New Year break for the boys, too bad we aren't heading to Whistler but are going to Japan instead, we're going to a place called Furano and it had a good writeup from the Financial Times, I decided to also take the boys to Tokyo Disneyland and Seaworld but its going to be COLD!

I think I will buy those Lands End booties for myself and the boys, also would like one of those stores or labels that can tell me at what temperature would I need what type of clothing.... brrrrr. Furano is a rather small and quaint town, loren will get nice skiing as its supposedly great powder and many natural trails, there is no ski school but I can sign the boys up for about 4 hours a day, then we can do maybe a jet snow ski, tabagoning or build a snowman... or just hang out at the onsen! Though Loren will have to take them to the boys side...

Here is Ike on his field trip, he was rather anxious a few days before, preparing his hat and bag. I sometimes wonder if he wasn't entirely properly attached as he worries about alot of things like what if I don't pick him up from school...

Turbans and Kippas

The boys were off to jewish school today, its quite cute how they put on their kippa before going, this blue and orange one that ike really likes was knitted by Dao. Here they are doing their jewish homework. Since Dao has joined us and cooked us Thai food galore, we all seem to have put on a bit more weight.

Here is Ike in a turban from an app called a turbanizer.

After Jewish school today, we had lunch with friends that broke the news to us... they are leaving singapore :(

What did I do with my free morning, I zipped off to get some plants and pots to replace the ones that are presently planted in our front area. This is because the area gets very little light and its impossible to sustain any herbs that I initially intended. Even the rather hardy lime and lemon tree want more sunlight. So I will slowly substitute that area with ginger plants. I tried to pick up some orchids as well from the orchid wholesaler but he is at the orchid show... and his worker said the prices there are more expensive. Aiya.

Since its been raining so much, the kids have been watching alot of star wars and they have not been exercising so much. Poor doggies too!

Too many sites!

I have been hanging out on facebook more often, I still have not figured out how to upload photos from my phone to facebook... and am deciding whether I should have facebook suck up blog postings from here and upload it there directly or I should just leave this alone as my facebook page is mine... do I put up family stuff? do I put up my work stuff? and now loren is pushing to support Google+, I can barely keep up with this blog as it is!

I've been up and down Malaysia about 3 times in the past month, I attended by uncle's funeral, then another weekend attended the Malaysian Art Fair and this week I got back from my friend, Pearl's hen night and wedding. Dao has also left for a month holiday to Thailand (she hasn't been back for 5 years). Loren is going to start traveling alot.

Ike's handwriting has improved alot, here are the boys drying up at a pool where we went for a BBQ last week, this couple had lived in Turkey before and gave them turkish towels to dry up! Now I wish I got more, since they are better to use than towels. But then again, we've got alot of stuff.

Back to life, back to reality

After our month break... here are some recent photo's, we got the boys bicycles for their birthday's they have been riding them everyday around our compound... Here is Loren with his noogler hat... after his first day at work and ike trying to play the recorder... I think I should push him for music, he seems to be interested....

For the boys...

There was a really ugly pimento at the market that we painted at the art retreat.... the one with the zombie is my quick sketch and I could not help myself so I added the words in Chinese "Zombie Here I Come...", hope the boys will like it in relation to their favourite game, plants and zombies...

On the hike and trip, I picked up rocks, shells, seeds etc for the boys... and loren bought rock looking chocolates... wonder which they will like better?

Some pics from Ike's teacher

Today is the last day of our holiday... we head back to singapore tomorrow... Back to reality... Ike's class teacher posts at the end of the week, photo's of what they have been up to...

Below is the link to some of the exhibition clips we have uploaded to YouTube...
http://www.youtube.com/user/huangyaofoundation

Ikey lost his first tooth!

Ike's first tooth dropped off today in school!! He only turned 5 and is losing his teeth? his gums are growing quite large that there are gaps showing in his milk teeth. He said there was no blood and it had been wobbly for about 2 weeks.

Our baby is growing up!

The boy's birthday

Here is Nate, Ike and Jude having a Milo Dinosaur before the toy store opened... Zeda and Bubbi got the boys a huge ninjago set.

Yesterday, after Jewish school, Nate and Ike had their birthday party at a football pitch, Loren had organised everything and it was lovely, especially since I didn't have to do anything but mix and mingle. I also did a bad job of taking more pictures.

I got the boy's football uniforms in China...