Living each day to the fullest

Hello world! I hope you are all well.

I have been reminded yesterday that I have not post anything on my blog since January. No excuse but life has been indeed very very busy.

First school term ended about a month ago in March and kids are getting used to their school routine. This year my goals are to help Heather master phonics so she can read independently and enjoy reading as much as Hannah, Jon and me. I will also put in time with her Math and Chinese. For Hannah, I have to continue coaching her with academic work and find ways to help her learn better and faster without nagging.

This year, Hannah is enjoying school more except one particular subject which she struggles with. She loves bowling twice a week with her school team. She also participated during sport days and got first in a race (200m run I think). Royal Dance Academy (UK) Ballet exam was also finally over for her during the one week school break in March. She and her ballet teacher had put in their best effort in during the preparation period. Now she has to prepare for her ISTD Tap exam. Struggling to get the rhythm and steps right but the teachers are very patient and are more than helpful and willing to get her ready for the day if all of us work together towards the same consistent result, which is hard for a child of her age. Then again, she did expressed her wish to continue learning. I can only help supervise and encourage her to make that wish into a reality. No pain, no gain, I guess.

Heather continues to improve with her reading. She is doing fantastically with daily lessons with her kindergarten teachers and with me for 30 minutes when she is at home. We practise The Reading Lesson program and a couple of other Phonics materials as well as storybooks. We try to spend a bit of time each week doing additions and subtractions for Math. She started taking piano lessons about two months ago. She had asked me to let her learn music since she was around 3 and 1/2 years old. I thought she was too young then. This year I finally found a nice young teacher who loves little children to teach her. During her play time, she draws, plays with her bears and little animal figurines and swim.

Last week, she performed for parents during a Learn Chinese workshop at her school. All the kids were brave and superb at singing and dancing! I help her teacher to host a storytelling craft session. That was fun for me.

We get together with friends every few weeks and have been cycling a lot as of late. This year, I resolute to exercise more regularly. Hence, had joined the girls and Jon to form a cycling gang with a few other families (friends from kids' school) and had a few fairly big cycling adventures (39 km / 24.23 miles being the longest).The biggest group we had was 10 kids and 7 adults. We had a blast at East Coast Park.

We still cook a lot. We love food as you can see. Click on the images to enlarge and see what's in our home menu.

In my studio, it's busy! I can't think of a better word really. I am working on a few things and a new project which I cannot reveal at the moment. It's exciting learning new things everyday. I need a new Da Vinci drawing easel, a good Nikon DSLR camera, lots of pencils and sketchbooks, blue tape, drawing casts and models, a Macbook Pro ... any sponsor? ;)

So that's our life in a nutshell. Not sure when I get the time to post again. All I can say is I will try my best.

Take care you and stay well! Have fun with your weeks ahead.

(PS: my mum and dad are doing fine. Mum is still on oral chemo medication and taking Chinese medicines as alternate supplements. Dad is happy. My sis is ok. Thanks for your kind regards and concerns.)