Go for a Swimming

I'm sure not many families has photos like these... Taken from INSIDE the swimming pool.

Thanks to my Olympus waterproofed camera, I get to take these precious shots of my children at play.

Well, it was a hot afternoon, best is to be soaked in the swimming pool.


Ally totally enjoyed to water, she has been talking about going to the swimming pool for quite a while already.

Isabel used to be so afraid of water, she couldn't step in to the waist height pool without a float. but nowadays she has overcome her fear.




This is me, the first attempt to do a somersault under water was a disaster, almost swallowed water through my nose. After that, I just tried staying underwater while posing for the camera.


Ally warmed up sliding on the mini water slide, later I brought her to the bigger slide which you can see in the video below.



Ally slided twice with me... no fear.



I tried teaching them myself, but they just won't listen to me. Maybe I'll let them learn swimming through proper instructor, so that they're not afraid of water.

Updates on the Butterfly cycles I

We had a pleasant surprise this morning. The cocoon has finally transform into a beautiful butterfly. The girls were fascinated by the scene. To Isabel, it is more like a magic ....

Ally has never come so close to a butterfly before.

See how beautiful it is....the patterns on the wings is just so unique!

The girls had a debate on whether the butterfly is a male or female.

Isabel: Mummy, do you know whether it is a boy or girl? I say it is boy because there is black dot on the wings.

(I have previously read to Isabel on an articles teaching us to identify between a male and female butterfly, but frankly speaking...i totally forgotten about it. But it did says something to do with black dots on the wings. I'm surprise she still remember bits of it.)

Ally: No, i say it is a girl.

(Ally always wants to be different from her sister even though she knows she may be wrong)

Anyone here if you have any clue, do let me know :)

We decided to release the butterfly back to nature... Isabel was in tears when the butterfly flies out of her sight. she says she can't bear to see him leaves. I try to console her saying that she had done a great job to keep him safe for the past weeks and we still have 3 more "babies" to look after before they turn into butterfly.

Deep in my heart, I'm so happy that i am able to witness the creation and transformation of the life of a butterfly :)

Butterfly/Moth Life Cycles

Lately, I noticed lot of black stuffs (or you can also call it droppings) around my plant. So i decided to check it out. To my surprise, i found not one but 3 green caterpillars happily munching on the leaves of my plant.

As you can see from the picture above.... they are really fat and juicy!

I decided to keep them and see if they will really turn into a beautiful butterfly....also can use them as a educational tools to teach the girls on butterfly life cycle. But then....my husband insists that it looks more like a moth :(

So day and night we have been feeding them and cleaning them cos they really have lot and lots of dropping.

There are altogether 4 stages in the life cycle of a butterfly.

1) Egg :
The female attaches the egg to leaves, stems, or other objects, usually on or near the intended caterpillar food.

2) Caterpillar :
is the long, worm-like stage of the butterfly or moth. It often has an interesting pattern of stripes or patches but ours seems to have no patterns except bright green in color.
Here is the feeding and growth stage. As it grows, it sheds its skin four or more times so as to enclose its rapidly growing body. Day and night, they just munch....munch....and munch....

3) Chrysalis :
is the transformation stage within which the caterpillar tissues are broken down and the adult insect's structures are formed.

4) Butterfly/Moth

On average it can live up from 6-8 weeks, but when it reaches adulthood, it will spread its beautiful wings and launch out to do God's work, pollination flowers, so that the flowers can grow fruits. Also showing to the world and letting it admire it beautiful colors that God has painted on their wings.

Will gives more updates to our "project".

Jokes

The latest about Isabel is that she's been trying to tell jokes... her classmates in her Kindergarten has been telling jokes, but Isabel only know one joke which I told her long ago.

"A mosquito landed on a little boy's hand, the boy was about slap his hands together and kill it. The mosquito cried, "Don't kill me, its my birthday today!" So the little boy happily sang "Happy birthday to you" (clapping in rhythm)"

I went online to search for "kids jokes", but to my surprise, some of the jokes in it can be quite crude for kids.

So I had no choice but to modify one of my old jokes to suit her:

A number Zero was walking down the road, from far he saw number Eight walking towards him, when they got near, Zero suddenly shouted "Hey its you! You are another Zero! Why are you wearing a belt? I thought you are number eight."

The best part of all this was my 3 year old Ally was trying to come up with a joke on her own. She's been repeating her creation of "Char Siew Bao" joke:

"A Char Siew Bao walking on the road...then...then... boing boing boing... fall down... then a man eat the Char Siew Bao... ha ha ha"

I find it amusing that she made the joke. Maybe one day it will evolve to be a really good one.

Young Gamer

Recently I started to let Isabel to play a little of the XboX games. All this while she only watch me the veteran gamer in action but never really had a go at it.

I found this really cute game which is really for children. Its about this curious monkey having an adventure in the big city. The controls are simple and there's unlimited lives and tries.

I started to let her play because it can train her to be patience... certain part of the game requires her to try and try again till she gets the timing and sequence right. At first she always asked me to help, but I keep telling her to do it again and again. Even if it takes "a hundred thousand times" she must never give up.


At times I will take over the control then she'll be shouting instructions, "left left... go up, go up... jump over there"


She knows very well she can have only an hour on every sunday to play the game. So on the weekdays, she will do her homework, never dared to ask about it any other days except to remind me of the game on sunday

Ferris Wheel @ Downtown East

The other night when I was driving past Downtown East, my attention was captured by the striking colors and lightings of the new building....

Isabel & Ally: "Mummy mummy, when are you bringing us to that Ferris wheel?"
Me: "errh...maybe this Saturday!"

Since then, Isabel has been reminding of my promise almost everyday.....(somehow, children seems to have very good memories when play is concerned...how I wish she can apply that to her spelling)

When Saturday finally arrived....and I kept my promise!

I spent $18.50 to get a tickets for family of 4 person. And there is actually a queue for the ride too. Frankly speaking, I am not very excited but the girls were really on cloud nine when they were queueing for their turns.

One Happy Family.....

Of course there is always the safety rules that you need to comply when taking the ride... never stand up or stick your hands out of the carriage.

The ride is only 2 full turns. But with no view to see except staring back at the people who are staring at us at every floor, 2 rounds is good enough.