2019 coming to an end

In a blink of an eye, 2019 is coming to an end.  Perhaps one will feel that time passes more quickly as one gets older, scary, hehe. Before we welcome a new year, I should probably record down some happenings before I forget them all.

This year, in terms of studies, Dabao did well for her year end exams. It was unbelievable that she scored full marks for her composition given that she failed it during mid year exams. It was also very surprising that she got selected by her teacher for the Aspiring student award. In terms of CCA, she continued to represent Chongfu for scrabble competition after her exams, and was awarded Best Junior Player from her school. I guess she'll probably not want to change her CCA now that she has more interest and confidence in this game and her goal is to beat the strong competitors from St Hildas next year, lol. 

For her piano, Dabao has just completed her Grade 5 syllabus this year and will be starting Grade 6 with effect from Jan 2020. I guess it helps that Teacher Tang is also teaching her songs that she likes, and we are so proud that she has mastered 2 songs by Yiruma. They are River flows in you, and Kiss the Rain.  Dear and I have already bought tickets for the Yiruma concert that will take place in Feb 2020, it's expensive but we thought Dabao deserves it.

Dabao just turned 10 years old recently (she's actually grown 12cm this year and is 147cm tall now!) and she opened a time capsule that she wrote to her 10 year old self when she was 6 years old.  We celebrated her birthday by having a staycation at Village hotel Sentosa. No overseas holiday this year but we thought the staycation was a fun and enjoyable one. We went Trick Eye museum, Kidzania and also Universal Studios during the staycation, but poor mum suffered a bad sprain to her foot and stayed in the hotel room most of the time. Next year, I guess we'll be going overseas holiday but not sure if we're really going Japan as I'm really worried about the super cold weather there.

For meimei, she has turned 4 years old this year.  No party for her, but we had a yummy lunch celebration at Northpoint Swensens. With her unicorn dress and princess birthday tiara, this girl was definitely very happy with a day full of fries, ice cream, birthday cake and presents.  In terms of development, meimei is beginning to read some chapter books and it started with the rainbow magic fairy books. She's still very interested in coloring and drawing, so we've decided to sign her up for an art class at MuzArt Northpoint starting Jan 2020. Hope she'll like it and develop her interest from there. Other than reading, coloring and drawing, meimei obviously likes to sing too. Especially after the recent Frozen II movie (her first movie in theatre), she has been singing and singing the songs, to the extent that she requested the lyrics to be printed out for her.  I must say I can't do without my Spotify subscription now, lol.  I have one concern about meimei though, she seems to be losing interest in chinese and she's more adverse in speaking mandarin now. She even speaks english to her chinese teacher in school.  Must see what I can do as I really hope the girls can be effectively bilingual as they grow up.

Dear and I have signed up the annual membership for Gardens by the Bay (Friends of Gardens) as well as the Zoo (Friends of Wildlife). I guess we'll frequent this two places more next year as part of our family outings! Looking forward to a healthier, happier and wealthier new year!!! Goodbye and thank you 2019!  :)

Half of 2019 is over!

Can't believe that half of 2019 has passed just like that. Time for some recollection.

It's Xiaobao's first year in preschool and we had initially enrolled her in the Purple Train at Woodlands Civic centre. It's really tough having to travel to and fro woodlands plus the fact that meimei couldn't overcome her separation anxiety. And it was totally unexpected when the school informed in less than 2 months that they were going to close down. Guess every cloud has a silver lining as it was then that I realised that the Caterpillar clubhouse over at Eight Courtyard condo is a kindergarten. Meimei has since settled down in the school and we're all thankful that she's happy there.

As for Dabao, it's been a super busy year for her. At first, it was four long days in school and now with the recent e2k science program, that makes it long days for whole week! But dear and I are quite heartened to see that dabao seems more confident this year and is better at socializing with her friends.  There were down moments for dabao this year, like scoring a merit for her piano exam and also failing her SA1 english composition where she cried buckets, but there were also uplifting moments like getting a gold award at the Ars Nova Festimal competition and being selected for the e2k science program.  Well, guess that's how life should be, embracing the up and down moments so that she can grow to be confident and resilient person.

Dear and I have recently decided to put on hold our plan to rent a bigger unit. Instead, we did some decluttering by moving all the books to two huge bookcase that dear assembled, creating a home library instead. Will be dismantling dabao's double deck bed soon, hope the house will look and feel even more comfortable before we make further plans to our house next year!

To an even better 2nd half of 2019!!!!!