A Diva's Party

After Little Bee's 4th birthday party last year, with all her childhood playmates and cousins around her, she told me she wanted a 5th birthday party with all her best friends from school. Throughout the year, she would give me suggestions on the type of birthday party she wanted, and the 2 topmost on her list was: 1) a party with a gigantic bouncy castle, after seeing her jie-jie's 8th birthday party or 2) a fashion party! 

I thought a fashion party would be really fun for someone vivacious like Little Bee, after attending a similar party that Big Bee's friend organised when they were 6. 

Which was why we decided on a fashion party fit for a diva to celebrate Little Bee's 5th birthday. And we organised it a month earlier because we wanted to catch all the little kids before school closes for the holidays.

All ready to rock and roll! 

 

Party touches - no prizes for guessing the party theme, which was decided by Little Bee!

So, on November 6, we threw a bash alongside the great folks from Curly and Spike with a glamorous makeover party. All the girls from Little Bee's class were thrilled!

The transformation of Little Bee...

However, the 2 boys who turned up were a wee bit bored, although they could still get their hair done up. On hindsight, I should have organised more activities for the boys like racetrack building and lego assembling etc. 

The scene from outside the salon was one of organised chaos - 12 kindergarten kids sitting in different makeover stations, having their nails painted, their faces made up prettily with lashes drenched in smouldering mascaras, their hair curled into the latest princess fashions and or styled in a hip colour like green or red for the boys! 

There was also an art and craft table for the kids to work on woodblock decorations while waiting for their turns, although I would appreciate more attention from a party coordinator for this (I had to eventually turn craft teacher for the kids, and had to ask Big Bee to be my assistant!).

Big Bee didn't look too pleased at having to babysit so many little kids, but she did a great job that day!

Big Bee, being the cool tween, only got her nails painted and spent the whole party being the official photographer, just like her daddy! It was also an excellent opportunity for her to get to know her little sister's good friends, just like how her sister had gotten to know many of her friends!  

The highlight of the party was definitely the sizzling photoshoot with solo photos for individual fashionistas and an enamoring group photo as well as a dreamy fashion parade. The photoshoot was straightforward, with the stylists honing the photographic modelling skills of the kids - they each had to pose in different mannerisms in front of their gleeful classmates but all of them excelled in the art of photographic modelling!

I was absolutely delighted with the enchanting fashion parade! I opted for a slow-tempo music, and once the quixotic music wafted through the speakers, the lights dimmed, the disco ball overhead threw chimerical and bewitching fairy lights all around the room and the runway lit up with enthralling spotlights! 

The parents of all the kids were imbued with much excitement, and were so busy snapping photos of their strutting kids on the runway that we resembled the ubiquitous paparazzi on red carpets in show business!

Being the birthday girl, Little Bee had the opportunity to sashay down the runway multiple times, partnering each of her little guests. She looked shy yet bold, demure and daring. Being the convivial girl that she is, she was probably adoring all the lavish attention on her! 

All in all, Little Bee and her friends were really thrilled and elated with the party. The girls were posing and swaggering like superstars, and the boys - albeit a wee tad more shy - were displaying really cool stances during the photoshoots! I heard from the parents thereafter that they had difficulty getting their girls to wash off their curls and makeup! 

Best friends forever??

More importantly, Little Bee was surrounded by all the little kids who are her best friends - pals whom she spends every day in school with, over the past 2 years. I hope she will find this birthday party as memorable as it is for me :) 

The divas belting out the birthday song

Through The Seasons

As we focus on our homelearning theme of lifecycles, the Bees learned about the cyclical nature of various lifecycles, which is the most fundamental concept that they took away with. 

I thought it might be fun to depict the eternal recurrent pattern of lifecycles by understanding the seasons and how these seasons transform living things like trees. It is a "lifecycle" of sorts - where a tree blooms with resplendent flowers in spring, ripens into mellow dark green leafage in summer, casts off its gilded leaves of yellows and tangerines in flaming autumn and then remains barren yet stoic in winter with its branches laden with flawless white snow. 

We painted the 4 seasons and envisaged how a tree might look like in the different seasons. It is particularly hard to talk about seasons for us living in tropical Singapore, but travels to temperate countries, books and the mass media certainly helped in illustrating to the Bees the differences in the seasons. 

They had great fun using finger painting and the usual paintbrush techniques to paint the cyclical transformations of a tree through the four seasons! 

Big Bee's 4 Seasons

Little Bee's 4 Seasons

For Little Bee, I also used Chinese and English cards comprising of 春天，夏天, etc, as well as their English counterparts for word association and recognition. 

Her Forest Adventure

Big Bee went for a field trip to the Forest Adventure for a fun obstacle course, and she wrote about this account in her blog. Seemed like a fantastic trip for her! 

Here I am, standing aside, always behind her, lending my eternal support whenever needed....observing her as she becomes increasingly independent, developing her own personality, character and life....feeling entirely bittersweet :) 

Is this how our parents feel when we grew up into eventual adulthood? 

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Extracted from Big Bee's blog, unedited

I went to Forest Adventure at Bedok Reservoir for my school field trip on the 20th of October. Although it was only a 2 hours trip, it was very fun.

When I reached Forest Adventure, my mind was whirling with excitement while chatting nineteen to the dozen with my best friend. The day had dawned crystal clear and cheery. After queuing up to wear the harness, we started the tree-top challenge! 

My class went for the kids course. Some parts of the challenge were tricky, though most of them were actually quite easy. My favourite part of the challenge was the zip-line. It was exactly like a flying fox. I fastened the harness onto another rope and pushed myself off the little area to stand. The zip-line was fast and swift while my legs dangled in mid-air. I landed on the sand-pit at the bottom of the zip-line and sand went inside my shoes.

After a short rest, we needed to walk all the way to where the bus was. While walking, it began to pour as if a river had been let loose. As we all did not bring umbrellas, we had to run as fast as our legs could carry us another 150 metres to where the bus was. We were all drenched when we reached the bus! We finally sat on the bus and went back to school. It was a tiring but wonderful day.   

Spine-chilling Fun

On an overcast, stormy night, where the rain pelted down in dark fury and the winds were sighing agitatedly, a large motley crew of ghouls, demons, witches and vampires convened. There were also some fairies, a few princesses and a handful of pirates. Even Darth Vadar made a rare appearance from many galaxies away. 

Darth Vadar wheezed clumsily, then proceeded to remove his emblematic mask to reveal....Little Bee! A witch perched near Darth Vadar, with her face completely obscured beneath a dense curtain of thick, black hair, swept the hair aside to disclose...Big Bee! 

This was the 3rd Halloween party at our estate that the Bees were participating - and we had as much fun as previous years! However, timid Little Bee declined to take part in the trick-or-treats session this year, preferring to stay in the comfort of our safe home with my Mum. I guessed the gloomy weather had insidiously perturbed her!

The Witch and Darth Vadar

In the meantime, while waiting for the Bees' friends to arrive, Big Bee and I went ambling around for some trick-or-treats...and she was very brave this year! There was a house whose door was creepily shut with only a big skeleton hanging on the door with an eerie plaintive whine emanating from a scary sound machine. Big Bee, together with a group of 4 Japanese girls around her age, dared not knock on the door because they were spooked out by the scene and sound. I knocked on the door, with them cowering behind me, and the door creaked open slowly. A tall woman, hiding behind a monstrous mask, opened the door and moaned dramatically...albeit still giving the girls their treats. The girls retreated hastily, heaving huge sighs of relief. It was very amusing for me. 

There was a man who even asked me if I would like any treats, and stared in surprise when I told him I was Big Bee's mother. He uttered, "Oh, you look really young!" That made my evening for sure! ;) 

PF and LP came soon after, and after a quick dinner, the 5 children (minus Little Bee who was still contented to stay home) went jaunting around the estate for their treats. Check out their frightening ensemble! 

Can you recognise them? From left, Claire, Eugene, Big Bee, WW and WD

Back home, the mothers were chatting happily over dinner, and thereafter, after a long night, it was the kids' turns to pour out entire mountains of sweets to trade and discuss over!

Some serious trading going on! 

The next day, we adjourned to PF's house for another brief Halloween party where the Bees made new friends again. 

Little Bee can now join the rest of the big girls to play and yak, yay!

What a spookily fun weekend! 

Pasta Art

One of the advantages of aligning our homelearning theme with that of the school is that some of the crafts I planned to do were already done in school! Here is an interesting craft that depicts the amazing lifecycle of a butterfly which Little Bee created in school - using uncooked pasta. 

For the school's previous learning theme on dinosaurs, Little Bee also used pasta to create the skeleton structure of a brachiosaurus, after painting a landscape where the brachiosaurus supposedly lived.   

Pasta art is fun and creative - and really simple for the kids! 

The Laughing Game

On lazy evenings (like tonight!) when I do not feel like doing anything except good fun with the kids, the whole family would indulge in a session of "How Can We Make You Laugh Out Loud Without Tickling or Touching You?"

Each one of us would take turns to be the one entertained by convoluted sequences of creative hilarity, pure silliness and absolute antics by the others - and the challenge is not to laugh out loud or giggle! A slight smile might be tolerated, but the moment a chuckle escapes from our mouths if we are the one to be entertained, the turn goes to the next family member.

Lots of hysterical laughters and squeals would ensue, usually from those of us who are trying to make the main player laugh. Little Bee is amazing in that she could hold her laughter really well, putting on a fake woeful yet smug face, but she typically could not resist her darling big sister's antics. Big Bee would usually burst out laughing a full-bellied guffaw whenever Hubby or myself taunt her.

This is an absolutely silly game with totally zero "real" educational value. But to be able to laugh robustly, enjoy each other's tomfoolery and finding myriad angles to induce giggles - these, to me, are precious lessons about life and happiness indeed!

Side effects: coughing kids and heaving adults from laughing way too much!

The Festival Of Lights

Sweaty meshing of bodies. Ambrosial scents. Kaleidoscope of vivid chromatic fabrics.

No, I wasn't stuck in a dance party or a market. Rather, it was in Little India that I encountered such vibrancy for the senses.  

The Sunday before Deepavali, we trooped towards Little India to immerse ourselves in the impending celebrations of the Festival of Lights. It was the Bees' first trip right into the heart of Little India, and we wanted to go back another time soon!

We squashed with the festive crowds busy shopping in Mustafa Centre, and the Bees had their first experience of hastily trying out clothes in the constricted alleys of the congested Mustafa, with all eyes on them, 2 Chinese girls trying on resplendent saris. We bought 2 beautifully embroidered saris in dazzling lavender, all thanks to Hubby for choosing. 

The Bees adorned in their saris

We strolled along the streets of Little India, our olfactory senses engulfed in full-bodied fragrances of flavourful foods all around us. We looked around, amazed at the cultural diversity exploding in Singapore. We then ambled to the nearby spanking new City Square Mall, bewildered by the sheer size of the mall. 

We vowed to return with the Bees, who were as intrigued as us. And I would also love to bring them to Arab Street, Geylang Serai and many other ethnic quarters in multi-cultural Singapore...so that they would understand the idiosyncrasies and nuances of different cultures in Singapore.  

And on the day before Deepavali, Little Bee's class hosted the assembly performance in celebration of Deepavali (which was why we went to Little India to buy saris in the first place!). 

One thing I love about Little Bee's school is the opportunity to perform regularly (usually once in 2 to 3 months) in front of the entire school, performing plays, dancing and singing, so these kids would have no fear of public speaking and performing on stage in future. Parents are invited to such assemblies, and the school tries to involve parents in an interactive way during the performances. 

Big Bee with some of her best friends

For an extroverted and gregarious girl like Little Bee, who loves singing and dancing, she is like a fish in water when performing. For the Deepavali performance, her class performed a play depicting the origin of Deepavali, and 2 Indian dances. She had been constantly practising her dance moves at home, and telling us animatedly about her performance weeks before the day of performance. 

After the assembly, everyone praised her for her passionate Bollywood dancing. Some of the mothers were also dragged on stage to dance with them (including me!), and Little Bee was thrilled to see me beside her, performing in front of the school. 

Little Bee leading the pack during the 2nd dance performance!

That was truly one exciting performance by Little Bee and her friends, and I actually secretly enjoyed prancing around on stage with her! 

Exams Are Over!

Final examinations for Big Bee were over 2 weeks ago, and we rejoiced jovially. Not that we were cramming and mugging in a last minute way, as I prefer a consistent approach to revision. But it was liberating not to worry about academic homework and just indulged in whatever we wanted! 

Hence, we enjoyed a marvellous weekend - and an extremely busy one too! Here were what we did: 

Saturday, 15 October

1) Big Bee's ballet open house

She will be taking her Grade 3 CSTD exams next month, and moving on to Grade 4 next year. Time truly passes fast! In Grade 3, her solo sequence was a lot more complex, and the main tenet of performance ballet must be showcased - that brilliant, glorious, carefree dancer smile. I remember my younger days as a dancer in school when a megawatt smile could easily distract an audience from wrong dance steps! However, Big Bee, being at a self-conscious age, was so reluctant to smile, so she was dancing the entire sequence with her usual serious yet sweet look. Let's hope she puts on a big smile for the examiner in a few weeks' time! 

2) Shopping! 

We had an early scrumptious Mexican lunch, and brought the Bees shopping in Plaza Singapura, replacing their old shoes and stocking up on cute stationery. The Bees were ecstatic, although I was having a hard time controlling shopaholic Little Bee who wanted to buy almost everything she fancied! I had to request that she learned to make decisions and choose her purchases wisely. 

3) Delightful Afternoon Tea

Shopping was indeed tiring work, so the Bees were fatigued by 3pm, during which we chanced upon a lovely, cosy cafe where we had a peaceful and relaxing afternoon. The Bees were lounging on the comfortable sofas, whereas Hubby and I could sip our refreshing Moroccan mint tea in serene repose. They had both reached a stage when it was such fun chatting and bantering with them, and I felt like friends with them! 

4) Movie Time! 

After tea, we adjourned for a 4.20pm movie - Johnny English Reborn! The girls were thrilled and were enthralled throughout the entire movie. They were squirming with anxious anticipation over some thrilling and suspenseful parts, which was really amusing to Hubby and me.

Sunday, 16 October

1) We woke up bright and early for a breakfast at Rider's Cafe, where we munched on delicious fried eggs and bread, sipped coffee and stared with captivation at the myriad horses around us. 

2) We stopped by Botanic Gardens for a little while, and wandered along the sprawling verdant meadow beside the tranquil lake where we used to breakfast beside little cygnets. We decided to amble towards the new Botanic Gardens MRT and took a ride on the Circle Line spontaneously, much to the Bees' delight!

3) We took about 3 stops to Bishan - just a swift ten minutes! - and strolled gleefully around Junction 8 for a little while before heading back, still amazed at how fast we could reach Bishan from Botanic Gardens. The Circle Line was so new and uncrowded, and the Bees enjoyed themselves tremendously. 

4) Headed home for lunch, before scooting out in the afternoon to my in-laws' house for an afternoon visit, where the Bees frolicked and pranced around with their thrilled grandparents.

5) Went to our old regular restaurant haunt by the beach at South Changi (which had recently been renovated), and were captivated by the boundless sea that strayed right up to the diners, as well as the enchanting lavender-clad twilight that was mysteriously descending on us. Dined on yummy Indonesian food. 

What a f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c weekend, and we need not even go for a holiday, as we could get all these fun in Singapore! Will write about some of these places in more detail soon. 

The King Of Fruits

Hubby and I love durians. I have a wonderful love affair with my favourite fruit since young, when my 大姨 (my mum's eldest sister) would bring bunches of these pungently fragrant fruit to my house - for free! - from her farm in Sembawang. The country farm that we used to frequent and play around as kids had sadly been taken over by the government, but my love for durians persisted. 

I love digging into the fruit, feeling the velvety smooth exterior of each fatly endowed seed, and then biting right into that rich creamy texture while inhaling the pervasively beautiful smell of durians that many could not endure. I love licking my fingers after a yummy feast and sniffing the remnants of that amazing fragrance on the tips of my fingers long after our feast had ended. 

My parents played a huge role in my persisting love affair with durians, always creating a hullabaloo whenever my father bought durians home. We would then stop everything we were doing, lay newspapers on the floor, and sit around these thorny delights, sinking our teeth into the succulent seeds, and discussing which ones were the tastiest. My parents would always save the best seeds for me - especially those with really tiny seeds and a lot of the fruit. We would then drink tap water from the husks of durians, believing that this would dispel the "heatiness" from consuming the fiery king of fruits. Strangely, my brother was (and is) not a fan of durians, despite all these domestic reinforcements! 

Hubby and I wanted the Bees to share our common love for this delicious fruit, so we buy durians occasionally for them. So many young people I met these days have a natural and sad aversion to this fruit, so I am delighted that the Bees love the smell and taste of durians as much as we do! Yippee!

We particularly enjoy sessions when we could eat durians at the durian stalls, when we could just snatch the fruits from the husks, ravished the seeds and just threw them into an adjacent box on the floor. The Bees love this ritual, and I foresee we would all be looking forward to the next durian season! 

The Bees indulging in a "maosanwang" (or was it XO?) durian some months back

The Colourful World Of Bugs

Little Bee's curriculum theme in school (Minibeasts) and our homelearning theme (Lifecycles) had converged a little last term, and I found it a lot funner and easier to build on top of what she had learned in school into our homelearning. 

As we built our lifecycles lapbooks with information about butterflies and ladybugs, amongst other insects, these knowledge was reinforced through her art and crafts of minibeasts done in school, like some of these below. 

A fluffy caterpillar and colourful butterfly

A ladybug necklace

Laughter IS the best medicine!

This evening, as with most evenings since the end of Big Bee's exams last Thursday, I decided to just hang loose with the girls. The 4 of us indulged in a silly but really fun game, in which each of us tried making one of us laugh - without tickling or prodding! 

So, lots of crazily funny faces, hilarious jokes and statements, as well as uproarious actions were emanated from our bed in the master bedroom - which ended up in an hour of giggles, chuckles and guffaws. 

Love this intoxicated bonding! 

1 Scene, 3 Renditions

Big Bee had been fascinated by the short brush strokes painting technique of Vincent van Gogh, as well as his brilliant use of colour blends and psychedelic hues since May this year, when her art teacher in primary school introduced his techniques to her class. During the mid year exams, they had to produce a painting in Van Gogh's style, and her art piece was graded top in the class, much to our pleasant and unexpected surprise. 

Subsequently, after we visited his exhibition in the ArtScience Museum and through idyllic evenings at home, she would randomly paint the same scene using a similar brush stroke technique but different colours to reinforce the influence of colours on the mood of a painting. Well, of course she doesn't know the impact of colours and their influence on the mood of a painting in depth yet, but I am happy that she is experimenting with painting during non-study times at home, as painting is an excellent way to destress! 

Here are 3 renditions of a similar scene that she had done. Like me, she is particularly fond of landscape painting - I think it helps us dreamy souls escape into another tranquil world. Which version do you like best? :)

This was done in class during as a mid-year art exam, using oil paints on canvas

Done right after visiting Van Gogh's exhibition, using poster paints

Done on a lazy weekday evening, using oil pastel crayons

Making Sentences

Little Bee is a highly visual learner, so she truly relishes learning new Chinese words through flashcards, before reading story books with these familiar key words. 

Through the 四五快读 series, she learned to create sentences using the flashcards. Sometimes, we played around with the flashcards and created nonsensical but really funny sentences. At other times, she would be quietly arranging the word cards into a sentence like the one below, called for me to read...and melted my heart :) 

妈妈爱我和爸爸. She insisted I must take a photo of her and her heartwarming sentence! 

Happy Babies

Tomorrow will be the last day of Big Bee's P3 final exams, and she is eagerly looking forward to it! (And so am I...and hubby as well, haha). In fact, she had already made plans with her best friend for a lunch in school, followed by a playdate at our place tomorrow! Soon, it will be outings after exams when they grow bigger, sigh.

We had been very busy revising with Big Bee since last weekend, and had not been spending as much time on homelearning with Little Bee, poor her! In time to come, by next year, we would hope Big Bee could learn to revise on her own...

So, we are definitely looking forward to imminent happy days in the long year-end holiday, back to lazy weekend afternoons of romping in the parks or having scrumptious tea or just lazing by the beach. Yippee!

The Bees at a cafe on an idyllic Sunday afternoon...

Heuristics For Math

With final exams looming next week, I try to be calm and composed when encouraging Big Bee to revise her work. I am a firm believer in constant revision, and not last-minute cramming, so as not to stress the child (although I was the direct opposite when I was a student as I operate much better under adrenaline rushes, haha!). I also believe in regular revision so my child will not be put off by this entire concept and philosophy of examinations. 

Besides, with longer days at work due to a new but exciting portfolio, Big Bee and I typically have less than an hour of revision each night, as I also set aside time for fun bonding, which is a lot more important than aggressive mugging for examinations. I want my kids to associate me with loving fun and not as a kiasu mum worried about exams results!

Hence, I am thankful that Big Bee is rather self-motivated (can be improved further, though!). I give her homework to do before I leave home for work, and she usually completes them when I am back in the evenings. I am also highly grateful that my Mum is around in the day to keep an eye on Big Bee, although the latter usually takes advantage of her nice granny whenever I am not around, thus resulting in a frustrated granny! She is a lot more disciplined and well-behaved with me around though! 

I am also heartened that Hubby is entertaining Little Bee to the max as I focus on revising with Big Bee these couple of weeks. Teamwork is indeed a fundamental key in a successful marriage. 

I am digressing actually. I meant to write about a couple of interesting Math sums in an exercise that I am currently marking after Big Bee had completed it. These Math sums are quintessential demonstrations of the heuristics and modelling methodology that most parents complained about (many very much prefer algebra that we had been used to). 

On the contrary, I had begun to truly appreciate the beauty of heuristics when explaining such sums to Big Bee - as they are a lot more logical and visual, hence, much easier to understand, compared to the remote concept of algebra (although they will be acquainted with good old algebra very soon!).

Kids take to heuristics and modelling very well. It is also not rocket science for parents, and I learned the methods myself, just by browsing through her textbooks. However, this evening, as I was working through a problem sum with Big Bee, she came up with the solution much faster than me, much to my amusement! I used to be embarrassed if I could not solve a problem in front of my child, but these days, I will graciously tell the Bees that I am learning from them too. Parenting is all about learning from our children as well, and our children will definitely love it if they know they can help us. 

Anyway, here are the problems: 

1. Carena and Megan save some money every day. Each day, Carena saves the same amount of money, and each day Megan saves $1 more than Carena. After several days, Carena saved $18 and Megan has saved $27. How much does Megan save in 1 day? 

2. Alice, Susan and Jane have 270 buttons. Alice has twice as many buttons as Susan. Jane has 3 times as many buttons as Alice. How many more buttons does Jane have than Susan? 

(I know it is just sooo tempting to use algebra on this - I did use it at first! - but bear in mind the kids don't know algebra!)

3. Ali has 3 times as many marbles as Bala. After Ali lost 4 marbles and gave Bala some marbles, the two boys now have the same number of marbles. Bala has 22 marbles now. How many marbles does Bala have at first?

For Us, The Working Mums

Not many people talk about the issues of working mothers: the fatigue, the incessant mental juggle between work and family (yes, even at home), the guilt (both ways, at work and at home!), and the stress.

But as a working mum, I relish the challenge, especially the multi-faceted roles. I cannot live without my family, yet I cannot live without work that is stimulating. I cannot bear to leave the kids for work, yet I am thinking of work while I am at home sometimes. I cannot truly enjoy working, knowing I could've done a much better job mentoring my kids at home, yet, I know I will not give up on my work that excites my mind.

Life as a working mum is all about dilemmas. And choices. And decisions that we should never regret. Be it taking leave and immersing ourselves totally with our children, irregardless if our office needs us at work. Be it working long 12-hour days or travelling overseas for work, leaving our kids pining for us. Be it feeling truly tired yet peeling open our eyelids to stay awake to spend coupletime with Hubby, watching a home movie or just chatting.

It is always about choices and decisions that we make and never should regret. It is a long journey of constant "what-ifs".

And thanks to my good friend J, who sent me this trailer from Youtube for Sarah Jessica Parker's latest movie "I Don't Know How She Does It", it kinds of reminded me to savour the moment at this time when work is gruelling, when I have to help prepare Big Bee for her final exams, when I have to start preparation work for Little Bee's birthday party. But indeed, to be able to do all these and more, it just indicates that we are alive and healthy, that we have family and friends loving us, around us, that we can still contribute productively at work.

Little blessings in arduous times :)

Housing Of The World

Big Bee completed a project recently for school, titled "Housing Of The World", which I found really interesting. She researched for the various housing of different cultures - with a little help from me to focus her search to a few salient cultures - and did her own independent internet research for the write-up of each culture. 

More importantly, she learned about how different people in the world live, which opened up her eyes that the world is truly a multifarious, diverse place. Little Bee also derived much pleasure and knowledge while flipping through jie-jie's project book. 

Big Bee is the most intrigued by Mongolian yurts (and also because she discovered that Mongolians live amongst many horses, some of them gorgeously wild and free!). So, she is now persuading me to go to Mongolia for a holiday, so she could also live in a yurt, amongst horses! Sounds like a very compelling idea indeed... 

This pictorial reporting format - combined with internet and library research - is truly a wonderful way to teach our older kids about the many facets of our varied world :) 

Some other pages from her project book: 

Chilling Out In Marina Bay Sands

We watched the Mickey's Music Festival in the theatres of Marina Bay Sands on 11 September, but Hubby and I were not very impressed, largely because we felt disillusioned by the mix of current pop songs in the musical repertoire. We prefer the magical old songs of Disney, but those were jarringly mixed with rock beats this time. 

However, Little Bee loved it, and watched the entire performance captivated with rapture. There were also a lot of other kids who were bopping and dancing away to the fast-paced rhythms, so I guess it could be a generational divide that only Hubby and I did not enjoy it! Big Bee was utterly blase and nonchalant about this, solely because Miss Tween thought it highly uncool to be watching Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Disney Princesses in a show, haha. 

What Hubby and I enjoyed most was the relaxing lunch beside the Rain Oculus of Marina Bay Sands, where the kids were enchanted by the gushing water and incessant sampan rides drifting past us. We also particularly loved the ArtScience Museum, when we visited the Van Gogh art exhibition. 

It was indeed a fulfilling day - another instance where we need not travel out of Singapore to be truly entertained!

Here is Little Bee's super short diary entry on the musical show, and what she drew to depict it.

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Today, I went to the Mickey Mouse Musical. I dressed up as Cinderella. I like the show because I like Little Mermaid.