Thanksgiving for year 2007

Today is the last day of 2007, it is during this time of the year that I always have that mixed feelings..even when I was working full time. On one hand, very thankful to God for the year that has passed but on the other hand, rather apprehensive about what's coming up in the new year - parenting challenges, business, job stability, health of family members..etc etc, uncertainties. Hm..dunno if it is becos my birthday is in January so the fear of growing old too ....ha ha.

Reflecting the past year...I am filled with many many thanksgiving to God.This year, our church fcbc has adopted the theme "Year of Victory" and indeed my family has seen many victories this year.

My list of thanksgiving :

1. Physical Provision :

a. Miracle baby - we prayed for our 3rd child and God provide us a bubbly, healthy and smiley bundle of joy in Aug this year, Nicole Yiang.
b. Smooth and safe pregnancy though I have to oversee the renovation and shifting of the house. Packing the house ready for shifting...ssh..occassionally climbing up and down to pack cos I dont have a maid even at 7th mth of pregnancy. Really thankful for his protection!

c. Fast delivery - 3 hours of labor

d. My two elder kids Naomi and Nathan have indeed grown from strength to strength be it physically, spiritually and development in areas such as music, language and cogitive part..

2. Financial and Material Provision :

a. Granting Seb a new job in the area that is of his interest and a good and conducive environment.
b. Selling our old flat at a very good price that is way beyond our expected selling price and selling the flat on our own (saving the agent's comms) within the day that we advertised !
c. Thank God for helping us to get a bigger flat at a good price..now the prices has increased to $180K more for the same block. Seeing us through the renovation and the moving in smoothly before I delivered.
d. Granting our wish to move to the east and staying near my mum's and sibiling's flats. Naomi and Nathan are ecstastic to move here too since there are more people to bring them out for shopping and more visits to their aunties' homes.
e. God's financial provision for us even though I am not working full-time.
f. Helping me to achieve my goals working in MindChamps, financially and job satisfaction ie helping families and students to achieve beyond their potential. Achieve the Education Success Coach accrediation and also gotten two awards for achieving my targets.

3. Mirale of Healing

a. Mum's constant pain and ill-health - God always heal when we pray. Amen !

b. Mum-in-laws' eyes - operated in 2006 but always complained that her eyes still feel uncomfortable. God healed her eyes during Good Friday service and since then didnt hear her complaining.

4. Mirale of Salvation

a. Mum-in-law was saved during the Good Friday service

5. Other provisions :

a. Providing us an opportunity to travel to ChiangMai and HK at the beginning and the end of the year to bond with the kids and enjoy ourselves
b. Helping us to find a trustworthy and diligent maid at last ! Those who knows me , know that I have nightmare and episodes after episodes of maid horror stories. I can really write a book on "Foreign Domestic Workers 101" .

Last but not least... thank God for his protection and peace and his constant faithful love for us and our family ! Knowing the promises of God and that God is good all the time, we can face the new year 2008 with new hope, promises and many good things to come only if we seek him before anything else ! With this, we can move forward to the new year with anticipation and excitement ! Indeed, I have already have some new year resolutions already...looking fwd to fulfill them, with God's help, in the year 2008.

Arts and craft home lesson - making animals out of straws!

Can you imagine making animal models, even playground and trees, out of drinking straws? Sebastian borrowed an art and craft book from the Central National Library and tried his hands on making a squid and butterfly for the kids. That made the kids happy for the whole morning.

It's good to expose the kids to creative arts so as to expand their imagination and appreciation for the arts.

Thomas the Tank Engine and Barbie

Nathan's first Thomas the tank engine set

Commercialism has hit the heart strings of children! Children these days are so blessed with expensive toys and gifts...

Naomi received a Barbie toy set as Christmas gift from a close friend of mine and she was so estatic when she opened it. It was a toy shown on a TV advertisement and she had been asking for it, much to my objection to buying it. Any how, she got her wish.

We got Nathan a Thomas the tank engine set as his birthday present last June. He has been asking for another add-on set this Christmas, again to our disapproval. That same friend granted him his wish this Christmas! So now, he can fix up the 2 sets to expand the tracks and have double the fun!

A casual and relaxing Christmas day

Our church does not have a tradition of having church service on Christmas day. Last Sunday's service saw us celebrating Christ's birthday with Hall 10 filled with Christmas worship songs and festive decorations on the stage and all. The children's Christmas service at Hall 9 was also packed with children witnessing a Christmas musical. Naomi and Nathan were thrilled with so much gifts and goodies from their Sunday School's teachers!




This morning, after going through some MSN chats with my father in-law and sister (with the kids busy playing with the "winks" feature), we decided to go for a picnic at East Coast Park. It's the first trip to the beach for Nicole! The other 2 kids played "bubbles" and we had an enjoyable time snacking and simply catching some cool breeze by the seaside. Boy, was the park crowded!

Merry Christmas, every one!

HK Disneyland Adventure

Nathan's smile tells it all... Photo with Pooh, his idol

Naomi with Snow White, one of her favourite Disney characters besides Belle.

Naomi and Nathan posing with statue of Mickey Mouse at the lobby of Disneyland Hollywood Hotel.

This is the first time the 2 elder kids (Naomi and Nathan) visit a Disneyland (15 to 16 Dec 07). They enjoyed themselves so much that they kept talking about it for days when we got back home.

Disneyland Hollywood provided a 2-day pass to Disneyland and even gave us a complimentary fastpass for any of the 3 designated fastpass rides. Nathan didn't like the rides (especially the Pooh ride and the Astro Blaster ride) as he was scared. Naomi liked the rides but was scared at the sight of the Disney characters during photo-taking sessions, except the Disney princesses. When we missed the meet-and-greet session for Princess Belle and Snow White, she cried with disappointment. We went back for the next session and she was overjoyed with meeting Snow White and Belle. What a fan of Disney princesses!

Even though Hong Kong Disneyland was quite a disappointment to me (after visited Disneyland in Anaheim, Tokyo and Paris, the one in Hong Kong seemed relatively small-scaled and lacked the pomps), the kids had a wonderful and magical adventure there.

Naomi's ballet performance at Crestar School of Dance

Naomi has been learning ballet at Crestar School of Dance for a few months now. During the school term holidays, she has an excellent learning experience from an intensive workshop --- "Australia Dance Exchange Holiday Workshop 2007", conducted over the past one week at Crestar's Marine Parade dance studio. Tonight was "Performance Day" at Nanyang Girls' High School's Siew May Auditorium. Nothing beats seeing the joy and excitement on her face on stage.

Here's a short video clip (above) on her class (pre-ballet/primary) item "My Teddy Bear", choregraphed by Ms. Emma Nickoll from Australia.

Nathan's last music lesson with teacher Michelle at Cristofori

ment

Today is Nathan's last music lesson with teacher Michelle at Cristofori. Nathan has always enjoyed the "Little Mozarts" lessons taught under Michelle. Michelle is a very passionate and caring music teacher who understands the behaviour of young children. She is instrumental in shaping Nathan's interests in piano and music.

We received notice from the music school that teacher Michelle would be leaving her teaching profession at the school after her completion of employment contract in December. Here's wishing her all the best in her future endeavours. We'll going to miss her jovial and contagious laughter!

Reward system or behavioral modification program?

A week ago, Sebastian and I worked out a rewards system for Naomi and Nathan to motivate them to exercise self-control and instill discipline in them. They have a hand in the design of their own rewards booklets and are very proud of their works. For example, earning up to 5 rubber stamps in the "I will practise on the piano" rewards page will have a "push-and-pop" sweet reward. They seem to be rather motivated to do that. Whatever it takes to motivate them to become more independent and disciplined, we have to give it a try!

A quick search on the Internet show that there are very good materials available for download. For those who wish to try out behavioral modification program for your children, try downloading some very nice incentive charts from the Association of for Comprehensive Neurotherapy. They even have affirmative notes and coupons to constantly remind your children! It's fantastic!

"Kindercramming" by anxious parents

Time magazine ("Tutors for Toddlers", 3 Dec 07 issue) calls it "kindercramming" --- an obsession by anxious parents who are convicted to provide their toddlers with after-school tutoring beyond the traditional nursery education. Time attributed this toddler-tutoring frenzy to research reports advocating the essence of children entering preschools with elementary reading and math skills, which is essential for the strong foundation of success in later school years.

The article goes on to quote experts in the assessment of various pre-school teaching methods and emphasized the need for children not to have a hurried learning path but build up their skills through traditional learning-through-play programs.

For example, it says that reading specialists commented that although flash cards are used to teach letter and word recognition, young children are merely memorizing how to respond to each card --- drawing an analogy to the "paired-associate learning" syndrome which even "a pigeon can do it"! On work sheets, experts prefer the use of objects such as building blocks to "paper-and-pencil" drills in the understanding of early math concepts. Literacy skills are also opined to be more easily acquired through storytelling and exposure to a wide vocabulary, rather than through software-based learning programs.

Back at home, I use picture and word flash cards to conduct literacy lessons to my children occasionally. A few years ago, I had even bought the whole series of Glen Doman English and Chinese flash card programs but just didn't have the discipline and time to work on it on a regular basis after the initial enthusiasm.

While not doubting the need for early pre-school literacy and math skills, I somewhat agree that parents should refrain from putting too much pressure on themselves and even their children in chasing after pre-school educational fads and not understanding the unique characteristics of each child's learning preference.

Underscoring the importance of literacy and thinking skills, I believe it is one of the fundamental building blocks in the child's learning success, which will prepare him or her for other skills such as math and sciences.

New birth announcement

Another baby piglet borned at TMC

Naomi and Nathan with the cute chubby girl , a visitor for another patient next to

auntie Yen Sean

Congratulations to my ex colleague, Yen Sean to the birth of her baby boy, Chong Heng. This is her 2nd child. Going to be a very handsome boy :)

Sesame Street and Dora, here we come....

Today we brought the kids to Ngee Ann City for the "Sesame Musical" and United Square for "Dora's Best Friend Day" Christmas shows. The kids enjoyed themselves and laughed themselves silly at the two shows. They especially liked the Dora the Explorer show, as the musical is a show itself with a storyline just like the CDs with talking map, Swiper and more.

Naomi braved herself to take with her favorite cartoon idol though she is very fearful of such big dressed-up characters. She always claims that they are so big and gigantic compared to the usual soft-toys. That was why she was missing in the Sesame Street "meet and greet" photo-taking.

Educating the kids about "Financial IQ"

Sebastian recently bought a Chinese book, titled "Dad, What is Economy?" 《富爸爸，从小学起》, from Popular Bookstore. The Taiwanese author ( 郑南求） uses easy-to-grasp concepts on the management of our finances and savings, emphasizing the importance of educating our young children on "Financial IQ". Equiping our children with good financial management skills is alleged by the author to benefit them in their future and long-term financial health.

A search on the Internet reviewed that many foreign education policies are now putting into mainstream education, a structured way of educating young children from pre-school, the essence of savings and dealing with pocket expenses. Recently, our Ministry of Education also announced plans to include "Financial IQ" in the syllabus of selected schools.

Robert Kiyosaki, a.k.a. the "millionaire teacher", tells us that it is the responsibility of the parents to teach our children about money. There is even a board game called "Cashflow for Kids" which aims to provide fun learning on money management. It seems that the greatest gift to our children is for us (as parents) to educate them on money management, thereby giving them a financial head start.

I like Bill Hogan's famous quote --- "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!". Someone then said, "Take small steps, but take them!". So whenever there is an opportunity to lead by example, let's make time to educate our children on financial awareness. After all, God has intented us to be His stewards by taking care of His possessions which He has entrusted us with. And that means, the well-being and life skills for our children too!

Visit to Changi Airport Terminal 3 (Open House)

After our church service and quick lunch, we spent a great time exploring Terminal 3 (T3) of Changi International Airport this afternoon before its opening to the public on 9 Jan 08. We took the skytrain service from T2 to T3 and arrived at the magnificent departure hall. The hall's ceiling is designed to allow natural sunlight to penetrate into the interior, yet regulating its intensity and keeping the hall sufficiently cool.

We were impressed by the "green wall" and landscaping at the arrival hall. Imagine walking into a garden after a tiring flight --- what a soothing thought!

At the viewing gallery, the authority has installed a koi pond and a butterfly garden to pamper the public.

The kids have had a wonderful time running around the restricted areas and halls. We also took this opportunity to educate them about aviation history and some of the screening process at customs and immigration.

Christmas celebrations at shopping malls

It's the season of the year again. For the younger children, it's goin' to be a joyous season of receiving Christmas gifts and attending parties.

The streets and shopping malls all over Singapore have began to be don with the yuletide decorations, spreading the spirit and meaning of Christmas.

For the last few years, I had brought my children to shopping malls to watch and/or participate in the various children programmes. The kids enjoyed themselves very much. As parents, watching their joyous expressions at these shows was worth the time and hassle bringing them to the packed malls.

For parents who fret what children activities to fill their school holidays schedule, Christmas celebrations at the malls may be a good idea. I have consolidated the Christmas show schedules from various shopping malls for easy reference here (click here to download the xls file). Feel free to pass it around.

Last day of teaching at Rainbow Centre

After 6 weeks of teaching Kindermusik at Rainbow Centre, it has come to an end today. Time flies ! As this is my first time teaching Kindermusik, it has been a great learning experience for me. There are alot of challanges teaching special needs and autistic* children --- catching their attention, lifting those children who are not able to walk while teaching, pacifying crying children who are sticky to their care-givers, etc.. Though I have a diploma in Learning Disorder Management and Child Psychology from Linguistic Council, real-life teaching experience is a different ball game altogether.

I must confess that I was a bit discouraged initially esp those times when there are no teacher to help out while I teach and times when the class is half-filled. Having said that I still find it heartwarming to see that many children are beginning to be more responsive towards me - greeting and shaking my hand as a gesture of thank you. Today, I am happy to see that many of them are getting to be more responsive and enjoying the activities.

Is heartening to see the fruits of my labour and this itself is all worthwhile.

*Autism is a brain disorder that affects development. Autism can affect a person’s ability to communicate, relate to others, and interact with his or her surroundings. Signs of autism usually appear by about 18 months of age. It is usually diagnosed between the ages of two and three. There is no cure for autism but early diagnosis and treatment can help people with autism lead more fulfilling lives.

Congrats to Patrick and Aileen

Having endured a near 24 hours labour, Aileen finally gave birth to their 2nd child baby Samuel Patrick Gallo at Mt Alvernia Hospital on the 10th Nov (Sat) at 8.44pm. We were blessed to be able to see baby wide awake when we visited them today. He is a handsome little baby with sharp distinct features, big eyes and sharp nose. Baby Samuel, may God bless you to be a healthy and intelligent child and to grow up to be a man of God, just like Samuel in the bible.

Parenting Seminar - Dr Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo

Seb and myself attended the parenting seminar by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo from GFI organised by our church, Faith Community Baptist Church. Yesterday's seminar touched on speaking life to our children - not to swear, speak negative proclaimations upon our children. We learnt how to elevate the negative side of our communication by speaking positively in our moment of frustration. Thank God for this teaching that reminds us not to blurt out negative comments and to guard our tongue when disciplining our children.

Ephesians 4: 29

"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto hearers. "


This afternoon's workshop touched on the topics "How to raise a responsible child" and "Did you hear me ? Beyond Basic Communication". In the former, we learnt how as parents we can avoid prompting, bribing and threatening our children to do basically his/her responsibilities without having us doing it for them. In the 2nd half, we learnt the different communication styles between a son and a daughter and how to give effective instructions so as to increase the chances of children obeying them.

Seb and I have indeed enjoyed the workshops for the past two days. Dr Gary and his wife delivered the whole workshop in an easy-going, simple to understand and humourous manner. We learnt alot from them and bought lots of parenting books for our own reference. We even asked for their autographs and to take a photo with them during the tea break ! (We truly have enjoyed the seminar - our beaming faces tells it all)

Year-end School concert

Can't believe we are approaching the end of 2007. This year passes exceptionally fast for me as I was busy from beginning of the year till now...pregancy, renovating house, packing stuff, shifting house, maid problems, my mindchamps accreditation courses (now am certified to be an Education Success Coach), work etc etc.

I am glad that Naomi and Nathan are adjusting well to their new school Tung Ling Kindergarten at Marine Parade since July. They enjoyed their friends and the teachers there and through their progress in their work. Thank God for directing me to make the right choice in enrolling them in this school.

The school concert this year is on the Noah Ark's theme showcasing the Amazing Love that God has for us. A very colourful concert filled with songs, actions and nice props --- truly enjoyable and entertaining. Well done, children !


Nathan is the boy in yellow, 2nd from left. He is acting as one of the giraffes in the Noah's Ark scene.


Naomi is standing on the 2nd row, 1st person on the right. Her K1 class presented the song " The wise man builds his house upon the rock".

Yippee ! I am now an accredited PwC facilitator

It has been my passion to share experiences with other parents and to learn from them on the challenges and the ways of bringing up children. After having kids on my own, I started to be interested in all sorts of topics in the areas of parenting and child education. Attending the accreditation course to be a "Parenting With Confidence" (PwC) facilator with Focus on the Family will help me in my parenting journey besides equipping me with the skills and know-hows to be a facilator of PwC workshops.