Halloween 2009

We brought Shannon to Auchan for a free face painting in the afternoon to attend a Halloween gathering at our friend's house. She was so excited when she saw the booth and requested for a purple butterfly to be painted on her face. We taught her how to say "Purple Butterfly" in french and she started to recite "Papillon Violet" when she was queing up for her turn. Hehe

After the face painting, we tried to look for a costume for her because I didn't really see any that fancy me previously. As it was the day of Halloween, all the costumes had almost sold off, thus I decided to go home and dressed her up with whatever we had at home. :P



In the end, I used our Chinese Qipao bought during Chinese New Year. I pinned a few spiders on her clothes, tied a long devil's tail on her waist, put on a devil hairband and messed up her hair. Voila! A Devil in a Chinese Qipao...LOL



After taking some food at the gathering, we brought the kids to neighours' house for Tricks or Treat. The first house visit was a disappointment as the french neighour literally ignore us. However, we continued to look for other neighours and decided to visit our Singaporeans' neighbour instead. Well, after visiting a few houses, we decided to go back as the streets were really dark and quiet. We distributed the sweets to the kids and let the kids played in the garden instead.

Overall, we had great fun that night. This is the first time that I really dress Shannon up for Halloween night and I can see that she enjoyed the night too. ^^

Sleeping By Herself

We bought this bed for Shannon upon her request sometimes in August. J wanted wean off the co-sleeping and asked her to choose a bed that she love. And she chose the above which cost almost SGD 1 K!!!

I remember the first day she slept on her bed, she actually went up and down the bed for a few times finding excuses of washing hands or need to pee. After about spending 2 hours in her room, she decided to sleep with us and told us that she is too young to sleep by herself. (LOL)

Then J and myself take turns to sleep with her in her bedroom for a few times. After she fell asleep, we would go back to our room but she will definitely joined us in our bed if she woke up in the middle of the night. I am fine with it as I feel that she would definitely wanted to sleep by her own when she grows up so I should treasure this moments. However, we constantly remind her that we would give away her precious bed since she is not sleeping it.

3 days ago, when all of us was about to sleep, she suddenly said that she wanted to sleep in her princess bed. We left her in her room with the door open and the toilet's light shining in her room and went back to our room. And TADA, she successfully fell asleep and even she woke up in the morning to pee, she will go back to her bed and continue to sleep.

Last night, she fell asleep in the living rooms and we have no way to carry her up the bed and thus she slept with us again. She said that she will go back to her bedroom tonight and I hope she mean it.. hehehehe

Sushi & Monopoly

One of the Sunday, we decided to make some sushi. Shannon tried the sushi she made and began to eat non-stop. ^^

At night, we took out the Monopoly which came with Mcdonald Happy Meal and started playing. It is a simple version of Monopoly which Shannon can understand and she played with us happily. J was the first person who went bankrupt and I was the second, thus Shannon was the millionaire for that game! :P

Back To School

Summer holidays ended and Shannon went back to her Maternelle (Preschool). She was not enrolled in the same class with Avril and Brayden. They were all separated into different classes.. Avril and Zavier (who joined the same Maternelle this year) got in Moyenne Section, Brayden in Moyenne et Grand Section and poor Shannon got in Petite et Moyenne Section. Funny right? "Sigh"

I was quite perplexed about the arrangement as she will still be stucked in Petite Section for the first half morning session. Well, being a Kiasu Singaporean mummy, I asked J to called the school principal to ask for a transfer to Avril or Brayden's class. To our dismay, our request was rejected as the principal said they will be learning the same thing even though they are in different class.

According to the research I have done, information on French Education is as followed:

The weekly timetable covers 24 hours, with the day organised by the teacher around varied activities and communication exercises. There is generally no specific timetable for lessons, which are left to the discretion of the teacher.

The learning priority at nursery school is language development, which is carried out through four main areas of activity:

Living together;
Physical activity;
Arts and science;
Imagining and feeling.

All pupils in the grande section of nursery school are expected to start learning a modern language, which is continued with vigour when the child continues into primary and secondary education.

However, we were all brought up in Asian KS style and we just can't help comparing what our kids are doing in the 3 different classes. I am still feeling uneasy and fustrated to let my girl continue in the Petite et Moyenne Section but there is nothing that I can do..

Amar Circus

2 Weeks ago, we went to a Amar Circus held at Parc De Exposition La Teste. We heard from friends that this troupe has been in this field since 1924. The show is about 2.5 hrs and I love the "magic show" where the pocessors change their costumes at a glance! Take a look at the video I have uploaded and you will understand.



One of the show perform by the Acrobatic from China, Sichuan


Tiger Show



Our precious

Photos taken on that day

Some Backgrounds on Amar Circus
For its 85th anniversary, Amar circus, 1 st prize french national circus is on tour with his new show: Best Of.

With all of the acrobatic Chinese province of Sichuan as the guest of honor.

A show of more than two hours to find out among other international artists such as Christina Roy with a sail number air Beltram Duo with dual wheel air Lumei Duo, processors that change their costumes at a glance without forgetting the choreography
Arabian horses and ponies in Argentina and African elephants and very expected and Siberian tigers ovation presented by John Falck

Recovering And Moving

I hope/think Shannon had recover from the Viral Fever!!

Shannon woke up with a high fever at 40.5 degrees yesterday morning but after the fever subsided, it never came back till now. (crossed my fingers) However, I felt sick when I woke up on Friday morning and I believed that I had caught her cough virus. The symptoms are almost the same as sometimes I really coughed till I puked. I wanted to see a doctor on Saturday morning and only realised that no clinic open on weekends. :( The doctor from the hospital prescribed a cough medicine that she only requires to drink at night. I researched from the website that this medicine is to curb the itchiness in the throat and prevent puking. Thus, I "kapok" some her cough medicine and was feeling much better today.

In fact, this is wrong timing to be sick as we are busy packing and cleaning to move to another house tomorrow. The thought of moving to a bigger house with an extra room had been there since last year. We have been looking around and viewing houses since February but to invalid as either J or me didn't like the house. Last month, when we went to Laforet to check on a house, the agent suggested another house to us. We immediately went to see the exterior of the house and this time both of us love it.

Well, it reminded me when J asked me last year whether I want to move to a bigger house and my answer was:

" donwan lah, need to top up the rent leh (Our rental fees are paid by the company to a certain limit) ... unless it's a HOUSE, a standalone house that is surrounded by gardens, not terrace nor Semi D and no double storey. "

And yes, it's a house we are moving to!! A house that is surrounded by gardens. A house that come with 3 bedrooms, one enclosed kitchen, one garage and one big living cum dining area. The house is about 104msq with 400msq garden. It's about 10 minutes drive to Shannon's school. Well, we have to top up a bit but I think it is worth it as we really have no chance staying in such a house when we go back Singapore..... :P

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.

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 .

Le Vide Grenier

VIDE GRENIER in french means empty attic or car boot sales. In another word, it was "second hand market" held by the local communities in France. Normally when there was Vide Grenier around our area, we wives would meet up and wandered around the area hoping to buy some cheap clothes or toys. This time round, we actually participated in one of the Vide Grenier 2 weeks ago around Irene's place!!!






One day before the Vide Grenier, we ransacked our garage to dig out all the things that we no longer use/need to sell at the Vide Grenier. Well, it was -more or less- giving away our unwanted things because most of the things were priced at 50cents euro - 5 euro. Those bulky item like television and fans can't even fetch a good price. We got rid our 29 inch CRT TV at only 20 euro with my friend chipping in a 14 inch TV!!! *_*"

It was definitely an extra-ordinary Sunday for all of us. In fact, the kids enjoyed more than us running around and playing together.

And yes, we are going do another Vide Grenier on 17th May at Lac Magdelene!! Although I don't really have much things to sell :P

Happy Birthday, Shannon!!!

Today, our dear precious Shannon turns 4. As usual, we had a birthday celebration for her and it was held yesterday.



We started preparing the food on Saturday and woke up at 7am yesterday morning to cook the food. J was in charge of the Roasted Pork and Cha Siew while I fried the rice, Bee Hoon, Vegetables and deep fried the fishballs, hotdogs, nuggets, Ngoh Hiang and Longon Jelly. We bought some cold prawns, oysters and Roti Poulet(Grilled Chicken) to complete the buffet. Frankly speaking, we are quite amazed that we did all that ourselves. :P (anyone needs food catering?)



We were quite disappointed when we saw the cake. The decoration of the cake wasn't per our request. We even gave them the picture below and thought that they will do something similar



I had specially purchased the 3 princess topper online to put on the cake as the cake decoration over here are really normal. Luckily, the cake tasted really good so we weren't so pissed off ^_^



Our dearest Shannon was dressed like a princess and looked really happy during the celebration. The following 2 slides are photos taken during the party. Thanks Eddie for being the photographer of the day.

I would also like to thank all our friends for the gifts and for attending, making the party so memorable.

Photos Taken for the past few months

One sunny saturday, we decided to bring Shannon for a swim at La Teste Indoor swimming pool but only realised that the swimming pool was closed as it was damaged by the storm few months ago. Thus, we went for a Mac Donald Breakfast and met Serene Leong and decided to go for cycling at Archacon.

One fine afternoon, we brought the kids to Macdonald for lunch after their school and Shannon met her first "boyfriend". Initially, the boy was pretending to be a monster chasing the girls around but later turn to kiss them on their cheeks. Avril shoved him off but Shannon allowed him to kiss her on the cheeks. @_@ After that, they started to hold hand and played together. Then the boy brought Shannon to his mummy and told her that they are married. -_-'

Back to Gym Class. This was the first time she attending the gym with her friends. And we parent sat outside and chat for an hour...LOL



Back to her Dancing Class. Shannon was really happy to wear her Ballerina Costumes. I hope she can catch up all the dancing steps before the performance in June.



Hehehe.. This "Lou Hay" photo should be up long time ago...