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Lately I’ve been encouraging Anya to create stories with me. I’d start with a sentence or two, and I’d let her imagine how the story will go from there (by telling me another one or two sentences). We both then take turns in creating one scenario after another until we sort of create an ‘ending’ to it.

With this I hope to let her imagination soar, learn to story-tell and basically just have a little fun.

To make this a little more interesting, we made the setting a bit more ‘real’ the other day. And we made a little forest!

Especially since we already have two ‘palm trees’!

[Anya recently learned about 'growth' at Sunday School - how just like a little seed that grows and becomes a fruitful tree, we too should grow spiritually - and she made 'palm trees' as part of their activities. They cut out a few leaf-shaped foam sheet and stuck them on ice cream sticks. And to make them 'stand', they placed the sticks on a rectangular styrofoam]

What we used :

- Used cereal box (as the base)

- Green-coloured paper cartons (for the grass)

- Scissors, glue

- Little toy animals (we used our dog clips, a donkey and a gorilla)

- A storybook with a ‘forest-looking page’ to be used as ‘background’

What we did :

- I opened up the cereal box, and cut out the uneven sides

- I cut the green-coloured cartons into 3 rectangular shapes. Anya then cut one side of each one of it to make it look like ’spiky grass’

- We glued the three ‘grass’ cut-outs on the cereal box (with ‘paths’ in between), placed the ‘palm trees’ and the toy animals

- We placed the ‘forest page’ as the background (and placed something heavy on the back of the book as a ’support’, as it’d otherwise collapse)

And that’s all about it really.

We then moved the animals around as we share our story and create our very own forest adventure!

PS: This of course is just a little idea to jumpstart your very own storytelling time with your little ones. Have fun!

Guess what I found!

A birthday of photo of me (second from the left, just in case!) and my three sisters, when I was just a tiny THREE year old girl! Even Anya is older than me in that picture!

[And haha, check out the super-bob haircut that we sisters ALL shared!]

What a nice blast to the past!

Oh btw, one of my aunts keeps telling me how Anya looks just like me when I was her age. And now that I have this photo to compare, I guess both Anya and Vai somehow do resemble me, a teeny weeny bit ?

I know Anya and Vai love and care for each other, but just like any other siblings, they do bug each other too every single day. Without fail.

And many times, they put themselves into a rather comical situations! (well, at least that’s how I see it, as their MOTHER, haha, because I know one most likely find the other quite annoying at the time!)

Anyway.

This pictorial sequence below pretty much sums up what the two kids can do to each other every day.

Vai intently observes and checks out what the sister is so into doing.

Vai squeezes himself into the picture, wanting to also do what his sister does.

Vai finds himself a little corner on Anya’s drawing paper. And both the sister and brother peacefully draw and scribble on the paper. At least for A WHILE.

Vai finds scribbling on Anya’s drawing MORE interesting, and Anya starts pushing him away, telling him to draw on HIS own paper, and calls out ‘MOMMYYYYY!’

Vai refuses to budge. AND pretends to fall asleep!

Ah kids. Their silly interactions never fail to make me smile.

We all have questions about life, about things and the way things are in OUR life.

I know I had questions too, but I must say I’m glad that I’ve found the answer to my biggest question, about how my life will be later after my time in this world is up.

Perhaps not many knows about your struggles, your worries, your thoughts, your concerns. But I can say for sure GOD knows more about you than you know about yourself, for HE’s the one who created you and me.

I’d like to extend this invitation to you today. To attend an event that’s to be held over a span of four days, from Thursday 11 Sept - Sunday 14 Sept, 7.30pm, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

[Gospel Rally for children will be held on Saturday, 13 September, 2pm - 4pm]

The speaker, Rev. DR. Stephen Tong, is the one whom I’ve learned a lot from over the years. He exposes our most difficult thoughts and challenges us to see the truth that the word of God presents in the Bible.

I’ve learned a lot about myself, about God’s love, about my purpose in life, about many many things over the years, and I hope you too can share the joy that I’ve found and discovered the answers to whatever you have in your mind and in your heart.

Click HERE to visit their official site for more info

When it comes to my kids’ birthday, I often feel clueless as to what we’ll be giving out as their birthday goodie packs.

I know I personally am not into giving out sweets since I myself usually don’t give Anya and Vai lollies frequently.

I prefer sharing something that can last longer, and if the goodie pack can somewhat be educational and useful to the children, it’s even better!

And (thank goodness) the idea of creating this DVD came to mind last week!

With this DVD, we wanted Vai and his little sunday school friends to remember - even years to come - their very first Sunday School days, how their class is like, the kind of activities they do, their teachers, their friends and most importantly, God’s great love for little children.

Vai likes watching it and keeps on singing along to the ‘God is so good’ song. The DVD does help me in teaching him his friends’ names too! (especially since he only remembers two of his buddies’ names so far! hehe)

And other than that, I love watching the Sunday School moments captured and the sweet faces of these little ones.

For I know these children will not stay little for long and this particular chapter in their life will close real soon as they move on to the next.

Click HERE to watch the clip on youtube.

We had a little get-together with Vai’s friends right after Sunday School today.

Thank you everyone for coming and sharing this moment with him.

And thank you God for letting us Mommy and Daddy be part of our son’s day too.

PS: Yes he likes Nemo, hehe.

And when it drizzles, they do put these ‘hats’ on!

Here’s a recent set of photo contributions to the magazine. A bit long overdue though, since the article was actually in last month’s edition. Somehow I just didn’t get around to posting it.

Anyway. The write-up is about seven good habits that should be introduced (and taught) to our children since young.

Click HERE (page 1 & 2) and HERE (page 3 & 4) to read the article (in Indonesian).

And here’s another one where Vai and his friend, Nate, were seriously fighting over a toy! Haha.

The ‘Mums know best’ page features a question by a Mom and a few recommended solutions shared by other moms. And in this edition, it’s about handling children who get ‘physical’ with other kids.

Click HERE to read the page.

Enjoy!

I can’t believe it’s been TWO years!

Our little Vai has grown so much over the two years and I must say, ever since we had him, he’s made our life even more colourful!

He’s determined. Silly. Curious.

He’s one who likes to try things out to see what happens. And even after he’s done with his ‘experiments’ and created REAL MESS, when told off, his responses will usually be one of the following :

- look away when talked to, and avoid eye contact
- smile (!)
- walk away with an ‘I-don’t-care’ attitude
- frown and throw his toy, slap the wall, the bed or whatever that’s near him
- show the ‘I’m-about-to-cry-but-I-won’t!’ look [ie. the photo below, which was soon after he sprinkled baby powder all over Anya's and his own bed!]

Though he can say, ‘Sorry Mommy…’ and pat my arm, he does it while smiling. Hmm. Somehow he just seldom cries after he’s done something wrong, even after we’ve seriously told him off. And yes, he can repeat whatever actions he did earlier (*sigh* a typical toddler’s behaviour)

He likes to hug his sister as much as he likes to bug her.

[That's him squeezing himself IN FRONT of Anya when she has comfortably sat on the truck first]

And yes, he’s still into climbing! (something he’s really into since he’s as young as 9 months)

[Btw that's him doing some 'rock climbing' at IMM's playground, on level 3]

He’s now 14.9kg and 88cm tall.

He’s tried to do the ‘number two’ but still can’t control his fingers, and end up doing the number one again and again. Heh.

Anyway.

There’re too many things to write about our little Vai. But there’s one last thing we’d like to pen down today, specially for Vai as he turns two :

Vai, if you’re reading this many years from today, know that we love you so much, perhaps even more than you could ever know. But however huge is our love, it’s nothing compared to God’s love for you! He’s faithfully cared and watched over you even at times when we couldn’t, and we thank God for entrusting you to our care.

May you grow and be a blessing to many, and become the kind of person God has intended you to be.

[ADDED]

A big heart-felt THANK YOU for all the birthday wishes we’ve received in the blog comments, and via emails, text messages and phone calls. It truly warms our heart. Once again, thank you.