I need to jump on my trampoline!

Well, that's what Kimi tells us these days.  Or he will say, I need more exercise so I need to jump on my trampoline now!

We just bought a trampoline for Kimi and left it in the hall (yes, my place not only looks like a nursery, it is also looking like a gym now!) so that he has full access to it anytime.

The benefits for trampolining are plenty and therapists are now using it as a tool for ADHD and other learning disorders children.  It helps to promote better gross motor skills and has the capability to calm them down.  Not that Kimi has ADHD, however, he is like an Energizer bunny so it is a good idea to have a trampoline for him to expend his energy.

The trampoline was delivered on Tuesday, 10/8/10 and so far he has been jumping on it and loves it! After a few jumps, Kimi has came up with his own jump moves - counting from 1-20 while punching in the air alternating his hands. 

And he has also tried the jump in the air and doing a split move!  I almost fell off the chair when I first saw this.  Now although I know it is safe cos he knows how to do it but the thing is, he is trying to jump higher.  So, I have to repeatedly remind him of the rules for safe trampolining. :) 

Since this is originally for adults, the hb has jumped on it and I can use it too.  There is a sale on this now at only S$145 from Aibi.  So far so good, everyone seems to be enjoying it so it is a great buy.  Thanks Charmaine for the great recommendation! :)

Alive Gallery @ Downtown East!

This whole week Kimi is at home cos Monday is a public holiday while Tuesday is a school holiday for National Day Celebration.  And due to some landlord takeover issues at his school premise, the school is closed for the next 3 days till it reopens on Monday.

Hence, decided to bring Kimi to have a look at the Alive Gallery which seemed rather interesting.  We had initially planned to have a playdate cum baking/bento session at Serene's place but I thought it was cancelled.

Nevertheless, Estelle joined us and the kids had a great time.  Well, not so much that they appreciated the art pieces except for the interactive Mona Lisa, they enjoyed running around together! Haha! 

However, Kimi did remember Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and was telling hb about Mona Lisa.  We also spoke briefly on our way home about the significance of the Holy Communion. :)

Taking a quick pix with Kylie

Then with Estelle

We are not supposed to eat inside but the kids took a quick snack ... sharing their fries and chicken tenders together

After lunch, we headed to Polliwogs instead as the charges were exhorbitant at Xplorer Kids! The kids had the most fun here!! As we made our way back, Kimi kept telling me he had good fun today. :)

Their favourite pit stop!

Goodness! They must have jumped at least a 100 times here!  Look how Kimi grabs Estelle's hands and jumped!  Eveytime they jumped, my heart jumped twice.

Singapore Garden Festival

We went to the SGF to experience it since we missed the show since it started.  It's nice to see more Singaporeans getting interested in gardening.

It was a little boring for the boys till they got to Level 4 where there were more interesting hand-ons for them like getting a weaved bird, drawing on interactive screens and learning about the different trees and leaves.  I felt this was more real for them.  Level 6 was too 'mature' and 'arty farty' for them to appreciate. :)

Anyway, nice to see familliar faces again! :)

My personal favourite - garden balconies

Kimi observing the lady weaving a bird out of a leaf

Kimi showing his little leaf bird

The 2 boys bouncing the birds

SAM - Art Garden, Children's Season

I've been wanting to bring Kimi to this exhibition cos I heard so many good things about it but never had the opportunity.  Finally, I told myself, I had to get there by hook or by crook.  And, yes, we did, on the last day of the exhibition, after church. :)

Overall, it is good as the many reviews had said.  We spent a nice afternoon there.  So glad we managed to catch 1 free screening of ABC Soup.  This is so cute and hilarious!  It showcases a few Weimaraners posing as humans using all the alphabets to make a yummy soup. And along the way, the kids are introduced to all the alphabets and the words that starts with the corresponding alphabets.  We loved the show and Kimi laughed so hard too!  Such a pity, we couldn't catch the rest of the screenings.  There's an exceprt here .

The cute and oh-so obedient dogs :)

Hop, hop, hop, hop like a rabbit!

Kimi asking me to take a pix of the 'castle' he has built with the few bean bags he could get his hands on.  Love his ingenuity to work with how little he has. :)

The Floribots made from origami and grows and blossoms into a flower

The Enchanted Forest - One of Kimi's favourite as there were all sorts of animals in it!

Besides the elephant, Kimi also loved tigers

Kimi doing some colouring after some urging from me

He wanted to colour it blue and black - must be he remembered how the Blue Morpho Butterfly looked like.  Alot of impatience in this piece of work I would say.  Totally ignored the boundaries. :(

Kimi trying to cut out the shape of the butterfly

In the end, we had a good laugh as the butterfly got butchered literally.  Kimi looked at me and we both burst out laughing!  I think he knew that the poor butterfly had quite a fair bit of 'wings-trimming! lol!

The Funky Forest - Kimi liked this too as it was very interactive.  See how the river diverts its flow when Kimi stood in front of it?

 And trees can grow according to your movements.  Cute!

Lunch & Fun with Ju!

So happy we managed to catch the Chans before they went out for lunch and we made a quick decision to eat at Airport T3.  It's been sometime since we've been doing our dinner dates and the boys really missed each other so much.  The other week when Kimi was on school holidays, he insisted that I picked Charmaine and Julian as we were leaving for Botanic Gardens.  That's how much he missed them!

As usual, everytime we are here, Kimi HAS to go on these kiddy rides, he LOVES them!

Always Kimi's 1st choice - Police Bike! Pure happiness written all over his face

Then he decided he wanted to change to this car - see that cheeky face? My fave pix!

Supermummy Charmaine & Sweet Ju

As both the hubbies had something on, we decided to continue on our 'date' and let the kiddos skip their nap.  After dropping them off, we went to Polliwogs for some indoor fun.

Kimi as usual.. very drama!

Happy boy! Ju enjoyed exploring and climbing.  He was awesome on all the obstacles although it was his first time there! 

The last time we were here, Kimi couldn't 'swing' himself, I had to push him.  This time round he was doing it so well and enjoying it so much.  Look how sweaty he is!

What a wonderful and tiring day!!!

Boys' Playdate

Met with Cat and Tristan today for some gym fun. Pity Estelle and Enbi couldn't make it to join us.

Our first stop was to let them expend their energy and we wanted to try out Atlantis City. It is very small and we almost had the whole place to ourselves, save for 1 little girl. However, the boys got bored rather quickly cos I think the gym was perhaps more suitable for smaller kids as it was not challenging enough.

All the pix I took were blurred!!

Still, they enjoyed goofing around and fighting for the lone 'steerable' car. Haha! The other without the steering wheel was not favoured by any of the boys. :)

After an hour, we headed to Vivo for shopping and 'makan' (eat).

The boys at Soup Spoon.  My poor boy almost always get 'spurned' for being overly affectionate! Haha!! Such cuties!! (Pix courtesy of Cat)

Kimi was so happy when Cat gave him 2 presents and once he was home, he exclaimed, "Mummy, I'm so blessed! See Aunty Cat bought these presents for me?"

Thanks Cat and Tristan for the wonderful presents and a fun day!! :)

Bounce Bounce Bounce

Today we went on a playdate with my neighbour's son, Wayne. The boys had so much fun running, jumping, climbing and bouncing on the Bouncy Castle at T3 that before sleeping, Kimi said this to me :-

Kimi : Mama, thank you for a fun day at the Bouncy Castle!

Me : You are most welcome! (*Beaming from ear to ear*)

Sometimes Kimi CAN be sooo sweet .... :)

This Bouncy Castle is on at Changi T3 daily from 12pm to 10pm and limited to 15mins per child. And best of all??? It is FREE!!! Available from now till 4 Jan 2010!

I'm sure we will be heading there again! :)

A shot before attacking the castle! And this is how you do it - Kimi's style. Climb without using the stairs on the left ...
Slide down in style ignoring EVERY instructions laid out to him earlier by the play guides ...

Or, when more familiar, try the norm too ... just to show that he too can listen to instructions ....
And then, jump into the ball pit with aplomb and repeat cycle again! Haha!

Look at how tiny Kimi is against this huge musical ball. Every 15 or 30mins, it will open up and release lovely x'mas tunes. During scheduled times, (7pm onwards on weekdays and 12pm onwards on weekends) balls will roll out from the tubes and you can redeem it for toys, sweets, etc. How nice right? See my Kimi waiting dutifully to catch something? But nothing came as it was not during the scheduled time. He was so sad! All these are FREE too! We went to Forum after that thinking that the Green Sheep was still on but it had ended on 6/12, the kids were so disappointed! But Toys'r'us saved the day!

Fire Station Visit

This little outing is part of our Letter F learning week where we learnt about Fire station, firemen, farms and all things F. Next week we will be visiting some farms like frog farms and hopefully a vegetable or flower nursery.

We both had a really enjoyable time and learning so many things we didn't know and took for granted for too! These guys really give their ALL for the job. Without passion, I don't think anyone can be a fireman, really. It's all so much hard work! We learnt so much too.

I'm sure we will visit again. By the way, Kimi loves his fireman hat. :)

Sitting in the HUGE truck!
Look how huge it is??? Kimi don't even reach the top of its tyres!

Trying on the bike

Smart little fireboy in the Red Rhino

Kimi's favourite part of the trip - using the hose!

Artfully Busy Week ...

It's been a busy but rewarding week for us. First, we went to watch "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle, followed by Disney Live, 3 Classic Tales and then a workshop at the National Museum. All in the same week!

I was so impressed and proud of Kimi who sat through both shows! Amazing right? Well, at least for me cos Kimi is such an active, active child.

I think he enjoyed the Caterpillar show best cos he still (till now) mentions the caterpillar! After the show, I did not want to miss the opportunity, so when we reached home, I quickly read the story to Kimi again and we 'revised' our learning of the lifecyle of the butterfly with the toy set. Kimi surprised us by imitating the movement of the caterpillar by 'leopard-crawling' on the floor! haha! It was so cute!

Well, he was so keen on being a caterpillar that he repeated it all week! Guess we were lucky too cos in school, it was also the Caterpillar theme and they also read Eric Carle's story and did crafts related to butterflies and caterpillar. What excellent timing!

Although the Disney show featured 3 princess tales, Kimi was really rooting for Mickey and everytime they came out or the 3 little rats appeared, he would clap and scream, "wow"! I was so happy he sat through this 1.5 hours!

Lastly, we went to the Museum and this week's theme was on food. It covered foods from the past and present. There was a singing session, followed by image play of eating in a restaurant with play-food and then doing up a craft of the hawker baskets of the old. Then we were given a complimentary visit to the Food Gallery.

Didn't feel this was exactly a fabulous workshop but well, it kept him occupied for Sunday and Kimi get to go on a date with his favourite little friend, Estelle!

Kimi so captured with the things behind this wall

My fave shot - a nice smiley one! Precious!
Kimi is so like me - we love all things Xmas!

Before the workshop started, there were free play and of cos, Kimi would head for the puzzles!

Then of cos boy's play things - he loves fiddling with these!

Then it was singing time

Image Play - Eating at a restaurant and Kimi grabs his favourite food - corn!

The Mobile Satay Man of the old. Kimi helping to 'cook' the food.

Kimi handling over his craft for the adding the final touch of a stick so that he can carry on his shoulders like how the mobile hawkers used to.

Here's my little Satay man!

A visit to the Food Gallery. Kimi looking on at another boy pounding the mortar

These stations are his favourite. You place the thing near your nose and pull the key and you get a whiff of what's in the glass containers. There are cinnamon, cardamon, coconut, etc to try out!

Lovely isn't it? All the cake moulds of the past!

I love this pix even though it is overexposed cos Kimi is smiling so sweetly!

Can you spot Kimi's craft?

The 2 kiddos caught on the large video wall - nice!