Halloween

It's Halloween!  We actually celebrated a few days ago.  Halloween is really just an American holiday.  It's not widely celebrated in Singapore, but the families in my condo all decided that we would have trick or treating and a pot luck.  It was wonderful!  There are several other American families here, and several families that have lived in the US, so everyone seemed pretty happy about having a Halloween party.

We all met downstairs near the function room at about 6:00 pm and divided up into groups.  Our condo has 2 towers and 23 floors.  Not everyone participated.  If you wanted to have kids come to your door for trick-or-treating, then you put your name on the list.  Each group of kids (with at least 1 adult) was given the list.  Trick-or-treating was for 1 hour, from 6 to 7.  After that, we all met downstairs to play and eat.  Good times! 

Wyatt was Mario this year.  Complete with an inflatable tummy!  Hee hee.  The costume was long sleeves and long pants, and the just wouldn't do in this heat, so I cut it off.  

Lily was a Glitter Witch.  She looked beautiful!  I used a face painting kit to draw spiderwebs on her face.  

Madeline chose to be a Butterfly Fairy Princess, but her wings were uncomfortable, so she left them at home.  I guess that makes her a princess?!  I painted a butterfly on her face.  

I loved the mustache!

The Chuan kids!

The evening was a hit.  I think everyone had a great time.  Daddy and three tired kids headed to bed before I did.  I enjoyed some wine and visiting with the other moms.  It's nice to relax and enjoy a little social time after a long week.

In other Halloween news...  Today, I am headed in to Lily's class dressed as a witch to carve pumpkins and help the class have a Halloween party.  Lily's class was invited to dress up today, so Lily is in her witch costume.  Lily's teacher has organized some Halloween crafts and I'm bringing in some spooky music.  Another mom is bringing in some spooky food.  I think it will be great!

It's been 2 weeks!

Oh my, how has it been two weeks since my last post?!!  Life has picked up a bit and I seem to be struggling to find the time.  I suppose that's a good thing, but I don't want to miss documenting anything...  So, here's my attempt to catch up...

The first week of school was wonderful.  We were all happy to be back into our routine and to see our friends.  Lily had an Athletics Carnival (track and field day) the first week of school.  Here's an action shot I got of her racing toward the cones.  The children compete according to their school house.  Lily's house (Murray) won!  She was so excited.  There were 4 events, but each group only got to compete in 3 of them because there was a huge downpour!  We all got caught in the rain.  But, it was fun!

I think the rainy season is just starting now...  It's been raining every day.  It doesn't rain all day, usually only for about an hour.  Really, it's not too bad.  It's warm, so I don't mind if we get a little wet.  I've been advised that if it's raining when it's time to go to school, just stick the kids' shoes and socks in their school bags and let them walk to school in crocs.  They can change when we get there.

Scott came home!  Whoo hoo.  Boy we sure did miss him!  Two weeks was just a bit too long.  I think it was the second weekend that really made it too much.  Along with celebrating having my husband home, we were very excited to get the Halloween goodies!  The kids love their costumes and I'm planning to volunteer in each of the kids classrooms to tell about Halloween and pass out goodie bags.  I'm excited.

A special THANK YOU to Michelle Langenbach.  Michelle sent home a puzzle and a friendship bracelet kit with Scott for the kids.  I have to say, the puzzle is AWESOME!  It's an underwater puzzle and it's just right for Wyatt.  He wants to make the puzzle everyday!  Thank goodness the direction picture also tells the name of all of the fish.  He is learning the names, he probably knows more of them than I do.  It's wonderful!  The girls and I haven't made the bracelets yet, but we are planning a time where we can share it with some friends.  We'll have a special play date just to make the bracelets!  Thank you! 

Madeline is LOVING school.  Her teacher told me that she is very enthusiastic about everything they do.  I'm sure that's an understatement.  On Monday last week, she had an open afternoon in her classroom.  That's where parents are invited to come in and see what the kids are up to (open house).  Madeline is studying water.  Everything in her classroom relates in some way to water.  For her open afternoon we had to be scientists and answer some questions about water and record our findings.  Adorable.   

The children made this map using strips of blue and green paper and glue.  I love it!  I love how Australia is the center of the map.  Perspective...

Here, the children were trying to determine the shape of water.  They colored the water blue and had all sorts of different containers to put it into.  They poured and filled and learned that water takes the shape of whatever container it is in.  

Last week at pickup, we found this beautiful design on the floor outside of the Prep Hall.  It's made from flowers.  I don't have a clear understanding of who made it or why, but I think it's because of Deepavali.  Deepavali is the Hindu festival of lights.  The children have the day off this week on Wednesday in celebration of Deepavali.

I have new neighbors!  A new family has moved in on my floor just across the hall from my door.  They are from Denmark!  It's so fun to have Danish neighbors.  When I was in high school, I spent a year living in Denmark.  I loved it!  I love the Danish people.  It's wonderful for me to sit with my new neighbors and visit.  They also have a teenage daughter that is going to babysit for us this week!  Very exciting!

I've found an organic produce supplier that will deliver.  I received my first box this week and I was so excited!  I love fresh produce, it makes me very happy.  

On Friday, there was a BBQ at our condo in celebration of a birthday.  It was so lovely!  We just went downstairs and had some beer/wine and visited with our lovely neighbors.  The kids played with their friends.  They seemed to understand that they shouldn't bother us after a certain time, or we would go home.  We ended up staying down until about 9:30!  Wow.  The daughter of the birthday girl and her friend put together a concert.  They even made homemade programs!  The girls both play guitar and sing (I think the girls are about 9 or 10 years old).  So, they distributed the program and then asked us all to gather for the concert.  Lily took it very seriously and sat at attention in the front row.  I thought it was so lovely that these girls have this opportunity to perform.  They played 4 songs and then an extra one as an encore.  

Scott is off again today...  sad.  This time he's in Taiwan.  It's only for 2 nights though, so no biggie.  I don't think he has any travel plans after this.  Thank goodness!

Life's good!  We're happy.  I'll try not to let it go so long before my next post.... 

Madeline Goes to School!

It was an exciting day in the Caudle home today!  Madeline started preschool at the Australian school!  Today was the start of Term 4.  Madeline is attending preschool for this term.  In January, when the next school year starts (Term 1), Madeline will go to prep (what Americans call Kindergarten).  Madeline was so excited this morning!  When she woke up she ran into my room and jumped on top of me and hugged me with all of her might.  Then she said, "Mom, today I start school!".  What a sweetie!

Here she is all ready to go in her uniform, complete with her hat.

The girls together.  Lily was nearly as excited as Madeline for Madeline to start school.  Lily really loves her school and she loves the idea of Madeline being there too.

Backpacks on!  Umbrellas too.  We had torrential rain this morning.  We all got a bit wet on the way to school.  Once we got outside, I opened the umbrellas and the wind was blowing so hard it turned 2 of them inside out!  I would love to get a picture of me with the 3 kids, each with our own umbrella, walking down the street.  I'm sure it's quite a site!  

Look how giant these backpacks are!  I fixed the straps on Madeline's backpack after I took the picture.  I'm actually the one that carries these large bags to and from school.  

Madeline was delighted to be at school.  Once we got to her class, she was off and painting and gluing and crafting almost immediately.  There were no tears, quite the opposite.

Hard at work!

Big smiles at pick up!  Madeline came running out of the classroom shouting "I HAD SO MUCH FUN!  IT WAS SUPER AWESOME!!"  It is such a delight to be Madeline's mom.  She seems to really love being a kid and she isn't shy about expressing it.

Wyatt and I had a good day too.  After drop off we had coffee at a nearby coffee shop with 2 other moms.  Wyatt didn't have coffee...  just lemon-aid!  Then we came home and I cleaned up a bit.  I was a little behind on the laundry.  Wyatt wanted me to read him his favorite books, so we snuggled on the couch and read books.  He seemed to really enjoy his mommy time.  I enjoyed it too!

The timing is just perfect.  Madeline's class starts about 15 minutes after Lily and she gets out about 15 minutes before Lily.  It makes it easy for me to drop off/pick each of them up at their classroom door.  It also is good for Madeline to have a nearly full day.  I think it will help with her transition to full time school in January.

Lily had a great day too.  She was so happy to be back at school.  All the way home she was telling me updates about how all of her friends spent their holiday and what they did in school today.  I'm lucky to have kids that love school so much!

What a wonderful day!  

School Term Break

For the last two weeks, Lily has been off from school on a term break.  One of the reasons I picked the school that I did was because of the wonderful school calendar.  There are 4 terms and between each term, there is a break.  This break was 2 weeks.  The next break is 5 weeks.  I need to start planning what we are going to do with that time!!

As previously posted, we went to Bali and had a spectacular time.  However, that was only 4 nights of our two weeks!  What else did we do?  Well...  For the first couple of days back, it was just business as usual.  Scott returned to work, I tackled the mountain of laundry, we all just tried to absorb what we had just experienced.  Then, we realized we were all feeling kinda sick...

Not a terrible sick.  No fevers.  It was still the sick that had started weeks ago.  We never really recovered fully.  We were coughing and going through a TON of tissues, it was time to see the doctor.  But where should we go?!  The nurse at the school gave me a card for a doctor that is close by.  As it happens, he has a clinic that is open every day from 8 am to 10 pm.  He sees both children and adults.  We checked our insurance website and found out he is on our list of doctors.  Whoo hoo!  It was Saturday, so Scott and I and the kids headed out to the clinic together.  It took a little while to sign in and there was a bit of a wait, but he saw all of us and prescribed medication for everybody.

When I walked out, I had a bag full of medication for me and the kids (Scott was feeling fine, so he actually was not seen by the doctor).  Lily, Madeline and I all needed an antibiotic but Wyatt did not.  Plus, we had medications for cold symptoms.  You can't get regular cold medication over the counter here, everything is prescribed by the doctors.  The medicine is not combined either.  So, there was one medicine for a stuffy nose, one for a cough, etc.  Wyatt did not get an antibiotic, he wasn't as sick, so we're hoping to avoid  antibiotics but he had 2 medicines for congestion and a cough.  In the end I had 14 bottles of liquid and 3 packs of pills.  All free.  Free appointment, free medication.  Wow.  When we got home, I made a chart for Mom's Dispensary.  Some of the medicine was 2 times a day, some was 3 times a day.  Some with food.  Some on an empty stomach.  Too complicated to keep it straight.

By Monday, my energy was returning.  I was happy to finally be feeling a little better.  Scott left on Tuesday morning.  He's in Texas right now.  He's there for 2 weeks.  We were all so sad to see him go and we miss him terribly.  We've been Facetime-ing every day.  Hurry home dad!

So, the kids and I have just been hanging around this week.  We've been swimming a lot and playing on playgrounds.  We've been to the water park at The Nex a couple of times.  A lot of the kids that live in our condo are still on holiday.  So many of the families are gone for the entire duration of the term break.  Things are kinda quiet around here.  We've been doing a lot of crafting and we've done every puzzle in our cupboard.

On Wednesday, Madeline's new preschool class had an outing planned!  We went along.  It was a new place we'd never been and it was also a chance for Madeline to meet some of the kids she will be in class with.  Madeline's class is starting a new Unit of Inquiry on water.  This outing was a way for the children to explore a lot of different ways that we interact with water.  We went to the MacRitchie Reservoir.  The kids took all of the pictures.

Here's Madeline lined up with some of her new classmates.  It was kinda wild, as you might imagine, with a large group of 4 year olds.

The lake is beautiful!  There were kayaks and canoes on the lake and fishing too.

It was a hot steamy day.  We met at 9:30 am.  I'm still getting used to the different way the weather works here.  It is my instinct to think that the mornings are cooler than the afternoon, but it's not really the case here.  The temperature is almost always constant, it's the direct sunlight that determines how comfortable it is outside.  From 10 am to 2 pm is the most direct sun, therefore the most uncomfortable time to be outside.

There are running trails all over the grounds.  We saw a bunch of runners!

I thought this was a cute picture of Madeline and Wyatt's feet.  I guess Lily took the picture.  Madeline refused to wear shoes the whole time we were there.

I liked this picture too.  It's kinda blurry, but I think it has an artistic element to it.  Lily took this picture too.

Madeline is about to burst out of her skin she is so excited to start preschool tomorrow.  I'll take some pictures of her in her uniform with her book bag in hand.  It's going to be great.  I'm looking forward to having 3 days a week with only Wyatt at home with me.  On Tuesday the kids all have a preview class at a gymnastics center.  They have a schedule where all 3 kids can be in class at the same time!  Whoo hoo.

Well...  That's us for now.