SINGAPORE IDOLS VISIT SCAS 2007

I found this video clip in one of the students' blog. The finalists from Singapore Idol 2007 came to Spastic Children's Association School and one of them {Jay Lim} wrote a song and dedicated it to the kids.

Enjoy

EMAIL ADDRESS

I've lost them ... email address on my personal email account. I exported them into a file before I restored my computer. Now ... looking high and low ... up and down my external drive ... I cannot find it. It may still be there. May just pop up when I least expect it.

but ... to my friends who write to me @ bieboy, please send me an email so that I can have you in my address book again!

Thanks heaps!

BABY FACE

One of the Teacher Assistants who first taught Jonathan when he moved to Spastic Children's Association School, came back to work and I was really happy to see Teacher Saahla. She's a very gentle and nice lady.

Today she saw Jonathan at the canteen and said that his features have not changed ... to which Teacher Lay Keong said that Jonathan still has got the baby face ...

I love my baby-face son ... ;o)

He was cheeky today. At spelling, he purposely spelt "opener" as "opinir". Later, when I asked, he spelt it correctly. While giving me the wrong answer, he kept smiling. What can I say? My baby-face boy is humorous! But I'm happy that despite not learning the spelling words {cos we were not in school to collect the spelling list}, he got 8/12.

Praise the Lord \o/

WHEN WE WERE YOUNG ....

I went to my mother's house for Chinese New Year visit yesterday and dug up some old photographs.

When we were young, we loved to play dress-up. My father was in a teochew club in his younger days and he was a freelance percussionist in the opera. One of our favourite pastime was to use bath towels and wrap around our bodies or arms to act in our very own chinese opera. That's me wrapped in a towel by my 2nd sister {above}. haha!

I don't know why I looked like I did in this picture....LOL!

Here are 2 more photos:

Here's another picture of my sisters and younger brother {I wasn't in there}, playing in the backyard of a relative's home in Johor. {above}

The picture below contains my paternal grandmother {dad's mum, seated}. Behind her is my dad's youngest brother and wife {left in picture}. Both of them, with my father's help, moved to Hong Kong from China. But they've already passed away. On the right of the picture is my dear dear mother. Young and beautiful.




Note: I used my digi camera to take these pictures. If I had scanned it, it would be clearer.

REUNION DINNER @ MUM'S

We had our reunion dinner at mum's on Saturday. Thanks to Olive! {a good friend ... front row in red blouse} for her camera {I forgot to bring mine ...}. My mum ... seated in white floral blouse {slightly behind Jonathan}. Not in picture are Arina's and Sally's family {who are in USA}.

Note: My grand-nephew Lucas is in front of his daddy, next to Olive.

We had a good time. Lots of food ~ Larry's ter ka {pork leg}, Emmy's herbal chicken, our otah, Olive's assam pork, Leanne's chicken curry, Mary's {sis-in-law) sambal broccoli, fried dumplings, prawn fritters, ngoh hiang*, white steam rice, orr nee** {dessert}, drinks, chin chow {another dessert} and bak kwah {bbq pork slices}. Yum yum!

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*In Singapore, ngor-hiang, or ngoh-heong, is commonly used to refer to a type of meat sausage made with a thin translucent beancurd skin somewhat similar to caul fat. Stalls selling this normally have a variety of other fried fritters, prawn fritters, beancurd(tau-kwa) and fish-cakes to go with the cut-up rolls.


**Teochew Yam Paste is a traditional dish made by steaming yams, mashing and then sweetening to form the dessert which resembles yam dough. It is often served with gingko seeds. This dessert contains fried onion oil to give it a nice fragrance. It is pretty a laborious job to prepare this dish.

MY NIECE NICOLE

My niece Nicole {picture below, left} turned 21 on 12 January. She celebrated her birthday at this beautiful SAF Changi Chalet {only for personels of the armed forces} seaview front chalet that her daddy {my brother-in-law} booked. It was a great party. Lots of food and laughter. We went there for dinner so didn't get to catch the beautiful seaview. But ... I managed to find pictures of the chalet they stayed in {scroll down}.

Here ... I just wanted to show everybody that they have grown so much taller than me! LOL!

That's us with Nicole {below}

This is the chalet that they stayed in {below}

The great view from the upstairs bedroom {below}

JONATHAN'S BIRTHDAY {CHINESE CALENDAR}

According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, today is Jonathan's birthday. He was born on Chinese New Year eve. It's different from the english calendar. His birthday is in February.

Took out my camera to take pictures of him ... here are Jonathan's quiet moments:

恭喜发财！

We want to wish our family and friends a happy and joyousLunar New Year!

CREATIVE SCRAPBOOKER

Scrap-n-Crop.com has introduced this really good scrapbook artist.

Her name is Lucy Folch. She designs papers as well and her works are truly amazing.

Scrap-n-Crop.com's BLOG has full details about Lucy and there's also a LUCY FOLCH'S CHALLENGE where the winner walks away with a set of pattern papers designed by Lucy herself! Join the contest!

MY FATHER

My 二姐{2nd sister} in America found this picture of my dad! So precious! Miss him so much!

I think my 二姐 and myself have the same features as my dad in this picture... ;0)

SILHOUETTE

We were at the City Link {an underground link from City Hall MRT station to Suntec or Marina Square} a few months back {i think}. There is an underpass in the City Link leading to the Esplanade and along the underpass are art displays by budding or professional artists.

One of the displays was a projector screeing a swimming pool against the wall across the underpass. So when we walked past, our shadows were cast by the light projector on the wall.
Couldn't resist doing one silhouette of Jonathan.

A FLU FOR A FLU

Well...after the flu jab, Jonathan had full blown flu. Just when I thought he was ok, he started throwing up last night. Thank God he finally stopped retching at 2am and went into a deep sleep until i woke him up at 4am for his medication.

I was zonked {still am actually}. Set my alarm at 5am to change his diaper but went back to sleep instead and Jonathan ended up soaking wet in his pee cos the diaper was full and leaked.

Gotta go change the bedsheet. I'm so lazy now I just need to lie down.

Missing school this week again.

WINDOW SHOPPING

We've been bringing Jonathan out for window shopping for the last few weeks. These pictures were taken using my mobile phone and have been in my micro card for the last 2 weeks. H likes to capture the Chinese New Year atmosphere at the shopping malls we visit.

We were at Paragon over the weekend {below}
The CNY decor were really nice but too bad
mobile phone cameras can't catch alot of details.

This is at Parkway Parade {below}.
They had a few of these cute cows on display.

We were at Funan Centre (computer shopping mall) 2 weeks ago {below}
Jonathan wanted to cross this overhead bridge from Funan to North Bridge Road.

He wanted to look at the traffic while on the bridge {below}.
So we just stood there for a few minutes before proceeding.

Went to Ngee Ann City last weekend. Went to Kinokuniya Bookstore.
Couldn't resist taking a photo of him surrounded by books {below}.

Wish I had my camera then.

PROPPING

Jonathan has been doing this lately. Sometimes he will prop himself up like this and look out the window in the dining room or he will stay in this position to watch television. Most of the time lasting about 2 minutes.

I'm praying one day he will start moving his legs and crawl.

Took this picture using my mobile phone cos if he sees me whipping up the camera, he will quickly turn and lie back down on his back :)

FLU JAB

Brought Jonathan for a flu jab today at our family clinic. The last time he had one was more than a year ago.

He's very brave. I told him earlier today why he had to take the jab and he told me he wanted it on his arm instead of his thigh.

So we went. Dr Ong said it's wise for us to do this as it helps to prevent Jonathan from the flu bug.

Jonathan was not afraid to look. He's always like that with jabs. Although he had a little "cringy" face when he saw the needle, but he still looked at what Dr Ong did ... which won him praises from the doctor. LOL!

The next jab will probably be a year or 2 away. According to Dr Ong, some flu jabs can last up to about 2 years until they are informed of a new strain of virus.

SLOW START

I've been over sleeping. I sleep quite early ... 1.30am latest {if you consider that time as early ...}

Yet ... when my alarm clock sounds, I turn it off and go back to sleep .. and I oversleep and Jon misses school.

Then of course I make someone very happy ;-)

THE BATTLE OF THE BANDS!

There's a battle going on ... a ROCK BAND BATTLE between the siblings in Singapore and USA!

Not to be outdone, my siblings in America came up with their ROCK BAND @ ARINA'S!

WOO HOO! One thing's for sure ... we are a musical family (except for some of the out-of-tune singing...haha!)

Credit goes to my Asian Nephew Caleb for doing such a GREAT job on the video editing. For this ... I admit defeat!!! LOL!

This is really funnee! I had a good laugh ... Enjoy!

ROCK BAND @ EMMY'S

My family celebrated Christmas on New Year's eve because everybody's schedule didn't fit the Christmas dates. But it was good too that we celebrated New Year's Eve together. We had it @ Emmy's place {me sista}.

Lights were dim that night and Leon {me nephew} helped me take this video clip.

Marcus {me other nephew ... who's a kid at heart} has a full set of Rock Band equipment ... sort of like the Guitar Hero but with drums. It comes with a microphone too!

Here's the video clip of the performance ... and ... much to our amusement ... Augustine {me brother-in-law ... aka Leanne's hubby} couldn't read the lyrics on the television screen ... TOO SMALL! HEE-LAR-REE-OUS!

Enjoy!

"I DON'T WANT NEW SHOES!"

This is Jonathan's current shoes that he wears to school. Because he doesn't walk in them, it's been in good condition for almost 2 years. He wears them to school but he will always kick off his shoes once he reaches his classroom. That's his habit. He loves to wriggle in his socks while sitting on his special wheelchair seat and attending lessons. He will willingly put it back when it's time to go home. LOL!

Since last year, the shoe lace, that was elastic and held with a catch, broke. So I had to use a pair of normal shoe lace, tied them at the end {see picture below} because they were too long.
Anyway, from the looks of the shoes, it's slowly tearing at the seams and also tight for Jonathan's feet.


So we decided to get him a new pair today.

While at the shoe store {Bata}, he was whining and getting upset. After a few questions, his answer was "I don't want new shoes! I want to keep wearing the old one."

Harith explained to him that it's time for a new pair and he reluctantly agreed.

it's so funny...he just likes old stuff ... even his current sandals. He preferred his old one but again we managed to get him to wear a new one as the current one was torn.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

First day of school went well. Jonathan said he likes his class. He has the same Teacher Lay Keong {everybody thinks I sign contract with her cos Jonathan had her for the first 2 years in SCAS! LOL!}.

In the class there is a Teacher Assistant called JS. She's a very dedicated teacher. When I told 2 parents that she's in Jonathan's class, they straight away say "wah....you don't have to worry about Jonathan anymore! She will take care of him!". LOL!

Praise the Lord for giving him 2 good teachers!

Two of his classmates from last year's class are with him, Zoe and Muhd. The rest are new to him but I know most of them already.

It will be an easy year for him and I. Praise the Lord!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It's the first day of 2009. Harith, Jonathan and I wish all our loved ones and friends a blessed new year filled with abundance from Abba Father!

For 2008, there are many things to be thankful for. But 2 thank-yous are due to one or two anonymous persons.

Yes ... we received 2 unexpected gifts in our mail box. One is a few months before Christmas and the other one or two days before that.

If you are reading my blog, please know that we are grateful to you for your gifts. Thank you for thinking of us. And know that your gifts were answered prayers. Most of all, that Abba Father will bless you in return more than what you gave.

We are also thankful that Jonathan has stopped falling ill so regularly. In fact, during the school holidays, he didn't fall sick at all! Lately, he has also been singing alot. Every time he makes a sound, we will ask him if he's talking or singing, he will choose the latter {ie singing}. The most obvious thing we noticed is that he's able to spit water out when we brush his teeth. We put water into his mouth and tell him to spit and he will do that.

Lately, he has been rolling over unto the tummy and prop himself up quite a lot too.

He's always a cheerful boy. We enjoy his cheeky smiles when I make him nap. We love his facial expressions when he talks and exclaims. We enjoy his laughter...he never ceases to amaze us with his funny antics :)

Jonathan has grown taller. He's a little heavier but we are still able to carry him.

The school year is starting tomorrow. Lord ... we know you will watch over Jonathan and we believe he will continue to progress!

FAMILY GATHERING ~ TAN FAMILY

We had a great time last night at 大姐's house. Thanks to Vincent and Emmy for once again opening your house for our gathering.

Our food spread:

1. The ever popular popiah by 大姐.
2. Soon Kuehs, Koo Chye Kuehs
3. Otahs
4. Leanne's ugly check {one day I must take a picture of this ugly chicken cos it's really ugly but the taste is superb!
5. Potato Salad {my favourite} by my sister-in-law Mary plus cocktail and special sausages.
6. Fruits
7. Wantons and chicken nuggets
8. Drinks

and lots more!

I have video clips but I won't be able to post them up now. But will do it later.

Most of all...I want to thank everyone for their generous gifts to Jonathan!

CHRISTMAS PRESENT @ 42

I guess one is not too old to receive presents haha! I got this box of from Valerie of Scrap-n-Crop.com. They came way before Christmas and I opened it ... before Christmas! Well...I'm still a kid @ heart!

But thanks Val for the generous gift. She even gave a story book to Jonathan and I got a Chatterbox t-shirt that's actually waayyyyyy too big for me...LOL! But I'm still grateful.

Besides what i got from Valerie, my friend Mabel {who went to Australia for a short trip} got me a 500gm tub of buttons plus some other assorted buttons from Spotlight there!

Thanks ladies!



Jonathan's new story book.

My new t-shirt.