Emily's Grade 1 Ballet Exam

Yesterday Emily went for her grade 1 ballet exam. It was held in the morning session, so we took time-off in the morning to accompany her.
Hubby and I were glad that it was finally over at least for now, reason being she had to spend many hours of practices each week for the past 5 months. Not only was she tired, we, as the chauffer were always tight in our time.
After this, I plan to switch her to another ballet school for some reasons. Hopefully she will be able to cope well in the new environment where she will also be meeting some of her schoolmates.
Here's a clip of her rehersal before the exam.

Jared's 1st Cycling Experience

Hubby and I have been in a dilemma for the past few weeks, whether to buy Jared a tricycle or just let him ride jie jie's bicycle which she is too big to ride on it anymore. Today, we decided that he should just go on the 4-wheeled bicycle since he is tall enough already, about 96 cm.

As this bicycle has not been riden for quite sometime, a few of the metal parts are beginning to rust and surely it was very dusty. I had to do some cleaning to make it look new again :).

Jared got excited when we told him that he will get to ride on the bicycle. He immediately climbed on to the seat with some help from daddy. As with any first timer, he wasn't sure how to peddle. Will definately need more practices.

Not long after, he decided that he wanted to go swimming as jie jie was already in the pool. But when hubby wanted to put him in his floater, he screamed his lungs out and kept telling us "scared". All he wanted to do was to stand in the baby pool and played with water. Hmmm....

Jared's 2nd Birthday

Last Thursday Jared turned two. We had 2 modest birthday celebrations for him, one on the weekend at my brother's house and another one on the actual day with daddy around. He was thrilled when everyone started to sing the birthday song to him. After that he kept mumbling "Happy Birthday to You..". I ordered a birthday cake with Barney's face as he loves Barney very much. And it was very sweet of jie jie to make him a greeting card too..

Happy Birthday from Daddy, Mummy and Jie Jie

YouTube

As we are all aware, YouTube is one of the most popular websites after google and facebook. All this while I haven't been an active user bcoz I didn't want to broadcast anything on it. Recently I found it to be a very useful channel which I can use it as a teaching aid for Emily for things that we do not have the knowledge or experience to share with her. To quote 2 examples : 1) Playing piano - This is the skillset that hubby and I do not have. We have a lot of hard time trying to instill the interests in her as she finds practicing the piano to be a boring activity. However after I started sharing video clips of kids and adults who could play so well, I noticed that she has become more motivated and wanted to play well like them too. In fact she asked me how do these pianist play so well, my simple answer to her is, many hours of practice.

2) Ballet - Another skillset that neither of us have too :). I found many video clips which have dances similar to those she will be performing in her grade 1 exam soon. At least from the clips, I can point out to her what steps are incorrectly danced by her and she could also learn from those good dancers.

Craft work on a weekend

I bought this wooden toy for Emily from one of the mini-markets last week. We managed to assemble the parts together this afternoon. Must admit that the quality is poor, therefore it is not as easy to assemble them. Infact Emily threw tantrums a few times when she couldn't get the pieces to fit together.

Practicing Diligently for your Grade 1 Exam.

2 weeks ago, you couldn't play one of your grade 1 songs at all because you were not practicing for the past 3 months without mummy or daddy's knowledge. We were very frustrated and disappointed when we found out after receiving complaints from your piano teacher. Since then, mummy had to micro-manage you to ensure that you practised as much as possible daily. Mummy also shared video clips of kids and adults playing the same song on youtube and you were definately inspired by them. Yesterday when mummy picked you up from your ballet class, you kept telling me how you have admired the pianist who was playing the ballet exam songs during your rehersals and you wish you could play like her. Mummy is glad that all these have motivated you to practise diligently and now you can definately play better than before. Late At Night