Gala de Gymnastic 2009

Her Gym school had a small celebration cum performance last Saturday.

When Summer starts in France means all school and ECA will end. School and ECA will only resume in September and what are going to do with the kids for the coming 2 months? :P

Gala De Chambrelent 2009

Last Friday, Shannon's school had a celebration which was held annually a week before the school closes for Summer Holidays. As usual, we sent them to school in the morning for some games organised by the school, then we picked them around 1pm and sent them back at around 3pm for the event which we were invited to join in. During the gala, the kids had a series of performances. They sing and dance together! The school had done a great job by combining different grades students to dance and sing together. Below are some of the videos taken on that day.



Video 2

They actually learned a few English songs from the school. The Rainbow Song, How's the weather, Head & Shoulders, Knees & Toes are some of them. Few days ago, Shannon actually started to sing "The Rainbow Song" which really impressed J and myself.

It was really fun to watch the kids perform. They looked so innocent and cute when they dance and most importantly, they seems to enjoy it! ^_^

Agnes, their teacher cum School Principal will be retiring this year. The kids sang her a farewell song in the following video and we brought a Swarosvki Necklace for her which she puts it on during the gala.

Talking about gifts, the culture here is really different from Singapore. If I am not wrong, Singapore Teachers are not allow to receive gift (over a certain amount) from the students. Over here, we are expected to get it for the teachers as an appreciation gift at the end of every school term!

Annual Dance Performance 2009

At last, Shannon had her first ever Dance Performace at L'Olympia last Saturday after practicing for 4 months. We arrived L'Olympia at 730pm and the queue to the theatre had already started. I got J to queue up as the tickets were free-seating while I brought Shannon to the backstage. The helper changed her into her first costume and I snapped some photos before I joined J.






The performance started at 9pm. After watching for about half an hour, it was finally Shannon's & Avril's group to perform. ^^ I got kind of emotional at one moment that I feel like tearing to see my baby's first performance... ;p

She looked so smiley and proud when she made her entrance. The moment she spotted me among the seated audience, she looked so excited and was slightly distracted and I got to remind her using my hand gestures to get her to continue with the dance. ^^






This was her second dance. Though it was a short one but we still could see that she was really enjoying the performance. The kids were all so cute but could be better if they faced the audience more often.. hehehehe.. they were actually constantly looked at the instructor who was hiding behind the stage dancing with them.

Snapshots captured from the videos.



I am really really proud of her! This baby dance group was supposed to start at 4.5 years old but the instructor allowed us to enrol them at 3.5 years old. In fact, she only practice for 4 months which was less than 16 times becuz of the HFMD quarantine last October and we went back Singapore for almost 4 months after the quarantine. I believe she will do so much better for the dance performance next year.

Her dancing classes ceased as the Summer holiday arrived. We will be enrolling her for modern dance and ballet dance this coming September. The dancing fees over here is much cheaper as compared to Singapore. How I wish I could stay here for a longer period of time. :P

The following are some photos taken during the Performance and a video of the Finale Dance of the night.

The Dancing Instructor who did all the choreography for the 3 hours performance.

Father's Day Celebration

We had a Small Father Day's Celebration yesterday. In fact, it was a surprise for all the fathers.. Well, thanks to our friend, Serene who came out with this idea! We had a potluck lunch and everyone of us had prepare a gift for the fathers. We had some fun games during the gathering too. The first was getting the kids to recognise their own father's voice. And the second game was getting fathers to act out what animals for mummies & their kids to guess. We really had fun yesterday!






In fact this game is for daddies to act out what is the animal and the kids will guess. But in the end I was the one who was guessing..hahahaha

Kudos to you!


Guess who is your father by listening. We had a good laugh over this game as the kids couldn't really differentiate the voice of their fathers...

I would really like to thank Serene for her effort to think of all the games for the families and the kids. We really had a great time! ^_^

Busy Weeks Ahead

It's coming to the end of Spring which means Summer holiday is here for the kids.

Shannon will be having her 2 months summer holiday 2 weeks later. This applies to her extra curriculum activities like dancing and gym class. But before it ends, there will be performance for her gym and dancing class. For the coming Wednesday, she will have a rehearsal for their dance at the L'Olympia Archacon and their performance will on the night of Saturday, 20 June 09. Her gym performance will be on 27 June in The Sport and the Leisures at Le Teich. Next Friday, her maternal school will have a small celebration to end the year and starts of summer holiday.

When her holiday starts, we will probably be busy packing to get ready to move to another house in Mid July.

Learning to Swim

Yesterday, daddies brought their kids to the indoor swimming pool while we mummies went to Vide Grenier to grab some cheap stuff.

According to J, there is no kids pool and Shannon refused to go into the pool as she was scared. J nearly lost his patience and asked her to wait for him while he swim and finally she agree to let J carry her into the pool. Although a float was tied around her waist but the moment she was in the deep pool, she refuse to let go J.

However, when it was time to get out the pool, she refused and continuing swimming... Hmmm... Maybe we should enrol her to a swimming lesson since she loves it?

Coca Cola

Most of the kids love Coca-Cola, what about yours?

Shannon never like Coca-Cola even though we let her tried her first sip when she was 1 year old. In fact, I am happy that she doesn't like it as once they love it, they will never stop drinking it.

The main reason that she doesn't really like to drink Coca-Cola is simply because she is a picky eater and she is not adventurous in food... like me. -.-" I never liked to force Shannon to eat the food that she detest. In my opinion, the more you force her to eat, the more she will resent in future. I prefer her to pick up the "liking" herself. However, sometimes I will just cheat and put some tiny bits of vegetables which is essential in her diet and she will just eat it with other dishes.

Last week, she surprised us by asking to taste my coca-cola at McDonald's. I let her tried and she went non-stop....

Brush Teeth

Shannon started brushing her teeth since she was about 2 and half years old. However she refuses to use tooth paste. Everytime when we try to put some tooth paste on her toothbrush and get her to brush, she will induce vomit and cry. I was quite lenient for the first half year as I thought she will gradually accept it.

We did try to change different type of toothpaste favor but she still induced vomit everytime we asked her to use toothpaste. We told her that all her friends were using toothpaste and all the uncles and aunties will also encourage her to brush her teeth with toothpaste.

When I was about to post this post up asking for opinions, she suddenly let me brush her teeth with toothpaste! From last week till now, she happily brushed her teeth twice a day with toothpaste. After brushing her teeth, she will always come to me proudly and ask me to smell her minty mouth. I am really happy and proud that she had accepted finally the taste of the toothpaste.

Peep

Last Friday, I took some photos and videos during her dancing class. I think Shannon was looking into the big mirror while doing all her dance steps below..

Well, but during her dancing class, she started to be mischievous again. If you look carefully in the video, she was trying to be funny while doing the dancing moves. She was unable to concentrate during the lesson as well. They are having a performance on 20 June 09 at L'Olympia Archacon, hopefully everything goes well and I can't wait to see my girl on the stage... ^^

Looking at her dance moves, I feel like transferring her to Judo class instead... @_@

Cazaux Airshow 2009

We went to Cazaux Airshow 2009 on Saturday. In fact, I am not too keen but J wanted to bring Shannon there. We slowly strolled from one end to the other end and at the same time watching the fighter plane flying in the sky doing their acrobatic flying. The most spectacular airshow was done by French AF Patrouille de France .

Bon Fête Maman

Yesterday was a Mothers' Day in France. Shannon actually did some mothers' day present for me from Clapotis and her school. However, she didn't really gave it to me but kept for herself instead. LOL

Long Weekend....

This was what we have done for the long weekend...

Saturday, 30 May 2009

We went to Lye Kim Hup in Bordeaux and bought some chinese vegetables, fishballs and fishcakes and we proceeded to L'Entrecote for Lunch. Frankly speaking, I missed eating the Entrecote here but was reluctant to come as the queue was always very long. But eventually we came and this is our 3rd time.



After lunch, the waitress offered the kids a lollipop and we saw the following...

Then, we went to Ikea and left the kids with the "balls" for 45 minutes while we shopped...



After Ikea, we went to Auchan Supermarket to get some bbq food for Sunday and went home to prepare...

Sunday, 31 May 2009

We woke up early to prepare the bbq for the night. Cleaned up the house and garden a bit and had one round of mahjong with Irene and Chew before the guests came. LOL ..It was a small BBQ gathering among a few families. We had a great night chit-chatting away and the kids playing together. The only regret is that I forgot to whip out my camera for some photo-taking...hehehehe

Monday, 1 June 2009

Holiday in France - Whit Monday or Pentecost Monday (also known as Monday of the Holy Spirit) is the holiday celebrated the day after Pentecost, a movable feast in the Christian calendar)



Strike A Pose, Shannon!








We went to the beach with some friends in the morning since it was a sunny day. J finally pumped up a "boat" which was passed over from his friend 2 years ago. Initially, we thought it was a small boat but in the end it was really a long boat. Anyway, we brought it to the beach and the guys and the kids had fun with it.

We didn't stay for long as the water was still too cold for the kids. We went for lunch @ McDonald's and let the kids play for another hour in the Indoor playground before all of us headed home.