Blue Hippo

I noticed there's only a handful of posts about Abel :P we took lots of picture of him but it just never got to the klog.
Abel here practising to walk on the Blue Hippo. I am not usually fan of plastiky toy but have to admit this one attracts the little ones. it chomps on things to and will come through its stomach.

Fireman Noel in action

This picture is taken late summer. Noel had been asking me to get him a fireman hat and I found one from Bargain City. Here, he brought it to the playground and pretend he was Fireman Noel in action.

Thomas, Lightning McQueen or...

Me: Noel, would you like Thomas or Lightning McQueen scooters?

N: or Dora? I saw Dora in there (referring to the Toy brochure)

Me: But Dora is pink.

N: I like pink, Mum.

Me: Pink is for girls.

N: (no answers, just busy slathering more bubbles on himself)

Now, why is it okay for men to wear pink shirts but it sounds or look so wrong for little boys to use pink bicycles or scooters? and Why do the manufacturer had to colour the scooter all pink and put picture of Dora on it? Why can't there be green scooter with picture of Dora on it.

Thanks Godma for the awesome car

I am sitting on 9 months of backlog. Yikes. Here, Noel is enjoying Godma's present. A little sporty racing car.
Unfortunately, the poor car didn't have a very long life. First, N found out where I hid the remote and got hold of the remote and played with it (of course when I was not home) and he broke the antenna. Anyways now he or Abel played with the remote and the car on separate occasion. Pretending it's one of their tool ...

Rite of passage

You might recall Noel used to tag along to the ocassional orchid meeting and he used to keep himself entertained with this trolley.
During my last meeting for the year (Christmas-do), I brought abel along, and it was almost like a rite of passage for them. Abel also checked out the trolley and he tried to push the trolley and follow what his big brother was doing.

BD Kindy

One of the kindy that N is attending. Some of the features that he loved was the zoom slider, and the giant sandpit. When I dropped him off one afternoon, he showed me around to the animals, and music corner where his favourite cymbal is. There're lots of animals at kindy too. There's the guinea pigs grotto, Lucy the rat, the budgies, Franklin the tortoise, the big gold fish. Above, pics of some of the resident pets.

Piano duet

Piano duet featuring N and C. (more like banging the keys) I am secretly hoping that both my boys will be able to learn piano and someday play a duet for me.

Kindy's Birthday at cockle bay

Noel's kindy celebrated its 15th birthday at the local beach. We had fish and chip for lunch followed by playing at the playground. At about 2pm, they had cake cutting. N was thrilled with it. A did pretty well. They both climbed trees. And N had a piece of birthday cake.

N's automobile

N has been asking me to make him a car. So here's my attempt. It survived his driving for good number of weeks before he told me that A has tore parts of the car off. He now wants me to make him a fire engine. It's still sitting in my to-do list as I can't find my pen-knife.

More sightings of Spidey...

Sightings of Spidey in the house

N received this Spiderman suit from his uncle and R during his birthday. He's donned the costume and did all sorts of things in it.

Arrrrr....

I was putting the laundry on the clothes line on the weekend. N was entertaining himself near me. He then said the following which made me laugh.

N: Mom, look, I found some money. (10cent coin from the lawn) It is a treasure. I am like a pirate. ARrrrrr...Arrrrr...

Pulling up

Abel pulled himself up in his cot. It was the first time I saw him pulling himself up. I quickly ran to get my camera and captured the moments. Oh boy, they are growing so fast.


Note: Pic taken in late November

Jesus, there's something about that name

This year the choir did a cantata called Jesus, there's something about that name on Christmas eve. Our theme was black and gold. Praise the lord, the turn out was nearly 400. I took this pic off another choir member's facebook. The pic brought back memory of when I was in the St Rita choir. Any one of you recall the presentation we did at the Public Library?

Trip to the Hardware store

Who would have thought you get so much thrill from going to hardware shop? Not just any hardware store. It has to be one that comes with kid-sized trolley. I managed to talk dad into building a kitchen for Noel so we made several trips to Bunnings buying materials. We get our ideas and inspiration from Ohdeedoh Here we were shopping for some nails, woods etc.I 'll be posting more pics of the project.
(Project completed last April). Sorry I had been super slow at posting things. Resolution for the year, to post /update blogs in a more timely manner.

Counting and Sorting

I didn't really use flash cards with Noel when he was younger. I read in several places that flash cards don't necessarily work. Anyways, now that N is older, flash cards are good. He would sort them and tell me about the card. Here he sorts out the 3 sets of cards he has and he recites the number as he sorts them. After he completed the task, he said to me, "Mommy, say Good Counting, Noel"!!!!

Trip to the library

Brought the boys to the library and above N doing the puzzles. Abel is busy playing with the bead counter thingie. Pic taken when N turned 3 and A would be 9 mths then.

Gone Bananas

The bananas have gone too ripe at home so I decided to make banana smoothie for breakfast. It's very easy to make.
I used a big bottle of muscle milk,(cow's milk) 1 cup per banana and 2 ripe bananas. Doesn't hurt to have an eager preschooler who wanted to help out. I assign Noel the job to cut bananas into pieces. He did a stellar job with the butter knife.

Put the bananas and milk into the blender and blend. Below, N enjoying his banana smoothie with a straw.

p/s: Don't forget to also get the eager beaver to help out using the blender. He was so thrilled when he get to press the button.

HO HO HO!!!

N found a santa hat and has been wearing them all the time.
Below is our conversation.

N: Hello Mom. (In his santa hat)

Me: Hello Noel.

N: I am not Noel. I am SANTA!

Me: <_>

Spiky Ankylosaurus

When I made the plateosaurus with N the other time, I thought that it got its name because we were using paper plate to make it.
I was so wrong. There was really a dinosaur called Plateosaurus. Anyhow, we made this spiky ankylosaurus with cardboard. It was pretty easy. N coloured two cardboard with colour he likes and then I cut them into its body, tail, head and legs and spikes. N had lots of fun gluing the spikes and he also tried to arrange the spiky teeth and eyes.

Playgroup

Here are some pictures I took when I brought the boys to a playgroup at a local church. It's held every Friday on school semester and it's a rather popular one. I usually meet up with a friend who brings her son there too. It starts with freeplay, group singing, morning tea and finished with craftwork. Last semester, they learned about insects. noel has also grown a pot of grass from seeds and made quite a bit of crafts.

Above, Abel was chilling out on the bean bag. He usually plays on the mat with babies his age group while N would be outdoors playing with the motorbikes etc. Below N chose to dress up as a tiger. He plays with the toaster, he chose to play with the cymbal during the group music session. I miss attending playgroups.

A day to remember..

A day to remember for the newlyweds and all the guests. Our friends' eldest daughter R got married sometime in September. Theme was purple and silver. Our pastor was the minister and he has known the groom since he was 3 and the bride when he's in her teenage years. We also dressed the boys up for the ocassion. Cupcakes and the wedding cakes were all baked by friends. It was definitely one of the sweetest wedding I've attended in a long time.

Baking session

Again, this is activities that we did together while I was on my extended leave. I decided to let Noel help me with baking. We decided to do gingerbread man. His involvement was to pour flours. He got very excited and also somehow got his face covered with flour. After cleaning his face, I got him to cut the gingerbread man from the cookie dough and also to decorate the gingerbread man. It's a very fun activity. He describes what he is doing and he also choose how to decorate the gingerbread man ie giving him raisins on their legs, making eyes, giving them a hat, etc etc..how did the gingerbread man taste? It was okay. It wasn't very sweet as I chose a recipe which used the least sugar or sweet syrup. Next time, I won't bake so much because we got sick of it pretty quickly.

something new..

I love browsing the supermarket aisles. My absolute favourite aisles are the baby aisles, the toiletries, and the spreads (jams, the like) and also the cereals and the laundry powder. *Ooops, it's nearly all the aisles. Cadbury in recent years have tried to develop new products, and over the last year they launched many new flavours. They even ventured into the 'dessert' category in their chocolate, ie the banofee and blackforest flavour. I didn't like them all that much. This winter, they released this 'bar of plenty'.
It's definitely a keeper for me. Btw, did you all notice how all the manufacturers have downsized their products ?

n's aquarium

Here's my attempt to make an aquarium for N using cardboard. I referred to madebyjoel on the construction of the aquarium. Of course, the aquarium I constructed only looked somewhat like the one on the website, but N got to choose what animals to be in his aqarium. He wanted a crab, a seal, a tortoise and a fish. He wanted more sea creatures but I told him 4 is the limit.
The amusing part about this whole thing was N asking me where is the water for the aquarium.