Joni's Christmas Drawing

I had to work on 26^th December (had to teach a tutorial -- in fact, I had to teach on Monday, Wednesday and Friday Christmas week...) so Juliane brought Joni & Hannah to join me for lunch. After lunch, Joni (5) & Hannah (3½) drew on the white board in my office. Hannah drew a rainbow and Joni drew this:

Joni & Hannah's Christmas celebration

We finally put up our Christmas tree! Joni & Hannah helped decorate the lower branches ^‿^

We had our Christmas celebration at Community Baptist Church, Puchong, on 16/12/12 and Joni & Hannah had such a great time dancing to "Go Tell It On The Mountain"

Joni & Hannah also sang "Happy Birthday, Jesus" with several other young girls:

News

Fun in Supermarkets

Hannah had fun in Tesco helping daddy buy groceries. Tesco's smart in providing kid-sized carts.

Hmm, let's see, which brand of milk should I buy?

Joni and Hannah also have enjoyed pushing each other around in a shopping cart in Giant.

Cute in a scarf and sarong

Joni (almost 5 years old) had fun dressing up in a scarf and sarong. Here she is hugging her sister Hannah (3 years old.)

Leroy Anderson's “Typewriter”= c’est magnifique

I received this from a friend:

TO ALL MY MUSIC LOVING FRIENDS WITH LONG MEMORIES~ this may ring a bell! Best performance I've ever seen of ‘Anderson's Typewriter’. This will put a smile on your face.

---

My daughter Joni couldn’t figure out what the machine that man was using was ^‿^

Of course, she’s too young to have ever seen a typewriter, let alone a manual typewriter!

She belongs to that first generation of people who grew up with affordable video conferencing! I recall when she was about 1 or 2, and she was used to seeing daddy on the computer / TV screen Skyping from the office with mummy... one time I had a video I had shot on the TV and she started waving to the image of me on the TV, trying to interact with me... while she knew I was in the very same room with her!!! ^‿^

Fascinating Mimosa

Mimosa is a weed that can move. It is found in Malaysian fields of grass, for example, in parks. Here is a video of me introducing my children to this fascinating plant. Its Malay name is "semalu" -- from the word "malu" which means "shy" or "shame". The plant appears to be shy because when you touch it, it closes its leaves.


For more photos, see this Facebook album.

Beautiful Flowering Trees

This morning, when we came to work, we were surprised by all the trees in the Faculty of Engineering parking lot having flowered overnight. It looks like the whole parking lot was decorated for a wedding in pink and white!

Look at this album of mine on Facebook for more photos.

By the way, here's a more recent family photo than what was posted earlier:

Laugh your way to a better marriage

Someone posted this hilarious video by Comedian Mark Gungor on my secondary school alumni's Facebook page:

But he's not just telling funny stories, he's also got good tips for how to have a good marriage. Here's the rest of the talk (audio only) from Mark Gungor's "Laugh your way to a better marriage" seminar:

• Part 1
• Part 2

Joni's Mother's Day Performance

Joni and her classmates from her Community Baptist Church Sunday School Class performed this for Mother's Day 2012.

Joni pushes Hannah on the tricycle

4-year-old Joni pushes 2-year-old Hannah on her tricycle.

Two more cute kid stories

I've got two cute stories to tell too, in addition to the one Ian told earlier.

Story 1: When food drops on the ground
We babysat my friend's 7-yr-old girl. When my friend came to pick up her daughter, one of the three wee girls dropped some munchy on the floor. So my friend said, "Oh, don't eat that. It's dirty because it dropped on the floor." Whereupon, Joni's little voice chirped: "Mummy says she can eat it because she has a strong stomach." Blush, blush...

Story 2: Looking a gift horse in the mouth
Hannah was seen playing with a switched-on torchlight in her left hand and a wooden spatula in her right, pointing at the mouth of a toy horse given by a little girlfriend from church. A little doctor wannabe!

Ta, and so much for little girl stories!

Juliane

Joni the Mediator

We were at a birthday party and the kids got normal-air balloons on plastic sticks (the kind that stand up without need for helium).

Hannah had been annoying Joni by bopping her on her head with her balloon, so I told Hannah that if she didn't cease and desist, I would take the balloon away from her. She didn't, so I did.

Naturally, Hannah, being 2½, started whining and crying. After some minutes, Joni decided she wanted the baby sling that Hannah had on her lap. I told Joni that she'd have to ask Hannah for it because it was Hannah's. Joni asked, then complained to me that even though she said "Please", Hannah didn't give it to her. I explained to Joni that it was because Hannah was upset that her balloon had been taken away from her.

Then Joni proceeded to negotiate with Hannah that if mummy gave her back her balloon, would she promise not to bop Joni on her head anymore? So Hannah promised, and we gave her back her balloon, then Joni asked for for the sling "please" and Hannah gave it to her!

Juliane and I were quite impressed with 4-year-old Joni's negotiation skills! ☺