Toy Story 4: Littlelam’s Round-up!

So Littlelam turned 4 last week, but not without a ‘last hurrah’ party I planned for her at a holiday bungalow. Figured I’d give her a great bash before her baby sister comes along, so I happily slogged it out getting the party theme, cake, games and stuff despite the fact that I was already 35 weeks pregnant!

Littlelam’s been enamoured by Toy Story, even though she didn’t last 20mins into Toy Story 3 (which I actually won’t recommend to young kids cos of the more ‘mature’, emotional themes and scary bits). As I mentioned in my previous post, she is particularly crazy over the Cowboy toys ie: Woody, Jessie and Bulls-eye, with Jessie being her favourite cos she’s a girl. So with this very complicated theme in mind, I had to trawl the web for ideas while adapting them to my very low budget and lack of supplies in Singapore. To reduce the need for me to yell and do active ‘crowd control’ (and to save my aching back), I enlisted the help of a friend who earned much admiration from the little boys (& parents) but scared the babies with his too-good impersonation of a Cowboy aka Gamemaster!

Shan’t go on anymore except that I’m really thankful for all the help I received from my in-laws and hubby – they cooked the food and brought it all the way to the chalet! Here are some of the pictures of the day:

According to theme, I drew and made two cardboard ‘Bulls-eye’s for the Horse Race. Basically it is a relay race with 2 teams, just pretending to ride the horse on a stick. In this case, it was a cardboard face attached on cardboard rolls (less dangerous for the kids who were all below 6 yrs old).

Bulls-eye Horse Race

Next up, we played ‘Pin the face on Mr Potato Head’, which is a simple variant of ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’. For large groups of kids, you can have them line up and hold a eye or ear each while you blindfold them, so you have less chaos and everyone’s occupied for a longer time!

'Picasso' version of Mr Potato Head!

Best version of Mr Potato Head - only the moustache out of place!

We also had pass-the-parcel, with forfeits, not prizes at each opening, but that kinda failed a little cos the kids either refused to do the forfeits, or burst into tears. Oops, my bad! Over-estimated the kids! No photos of this game. Thankfully, the bringing out of the lovely Toy Story 3 cake after lunch brought out all the smiles and eager faces again.

The super detailed Toy Story 3 cake. Obviously I DIDN'T bake it!

All the little ones trying their best to keep their hands from the cake!

The final game we played after chomping on the delicious chocolate cake was ‘Gold Nugget Hunt’. Got the Gamemaster to hide Hershey’s Gold Nugget chocolates out in the garden, and we got the kids to hunt for the Nuggets. Judging from the squeals and happy faces, I’m guessing they enjoyed themselves!

Dashing off (with their cowboy hats as the baskets) to find the last 2 'gold nuggets'!

Taking stock: Counting how many gold nuggets had been found so far!

Littlelam opening her presents...and being very pleased with her new Jessie doll!

 I’m glad I didn’t go into labour during the party. Don’t think I’ll ever do a party on such a large scale again while pregnant! But now it’s counting down to D-day for me… if I don’t update for a long time after this, you know what happened! haha!

Chinese DVD series

Despite being 100% Singaporean-Chinese, it is an unfortunate irony that my Mandarin-speaking skills are seriously not up to par. I get ostracised in my neighbourhood by the other Mandarin-speaking mothers because they hear me speaking English to my daughter, or when I attempt to speak to them in my halting Mandarin, it just comes across funny. If they only knew that my spoken Mandarin is already A LOT better than it was before I moved into the neighbourhood.

Anyway, this lack of mother-tongue linguistic skills has rubbed off on poor Littlelam. We hardly speak any Mandarin at home (cos it’s just me and her, right?) and both sets Grandparents hardly speak it too! When they do, the intonation is a bit wrong , so she ends up getting a little confused. So in a bid to create more interest in the language, her Grandma (who’s doing a great job trying to speak to her in Mandarin) chanced upon this series of DVDs which have been a big hit with her, and her peers! Most importantly, the music and singing is nice – non of that jarring yelling of kids that you tend to get with low-budget Mandarin VCDs, and the musical arrangement is not too boring as well. The graphics are good – it’s just very simple animation, non of that ridiculous footage of unrelated animals, trees, children running around etc.. The animation is tasteful and depicts the meaning of the songs, so even if your own Mandarin ‘cannot-make-it’, you’ll be able to easily make out the storyline.

From being unable to speak a word of Mandarin, she is now able to sing whole songs in Mandarin, in accurate intonation as well. Of course, starting school has helped because the Chinese teacher only speaks to them in Mandarin, so she’s also started picking up phrases, and better understanding sentences in Mandarin.

So anyway, I’m posting the pic of the DVDs because it doesn’t have an English title, and I’ve gotten a few requests from other moms asking what it is and where to buy them. It’s by Innokidz , which also has quite a few other good kids titles, and it’s a by local company, Innoform. You can buy these DVDs from Kiddy Palace and Isetan, from what I know.

Fun with Karaoke "Children's Song Little Genius" (loosely translated)

 

I think there are 3 or 4 DVDs in the series, I can’t remember. Pictured here are No.1 and No.3 The yellow No.3 album is Littlelam’s (and my) favourite because of the nice songs (even though some are pretty hard, but don’t underestimate your kids!!). I have friends who prefer No.1 because they are more familiar with the easy childhood tunes like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. But I find No. 1 has a lot of war-like and ‘communistic-sounding’ songs!!! But that’s just me.

My recommendation is start with No. 3 to pique your child’s interest, then move on to No.1 or No.2 to teach the words/ lyrics which are easier. But don’t be surprised if your child starts singing the so called ‘difficult’ songs just by memory! If you do buy it, leave a comment here if this has been helpful!

Donald Duck and the supporting cast

Today Donald Duck turns 75. He’s played the supporting role to Mickey Mouse for the past seven decades, but I think he’s one wildly successful star in his own right.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so, according to this news report.

Since I was a kid, I’ve strangely emphathised with the ‘loser’ or ‘suay’ (as we say here in Sg) character, like Sylvester (vs Tweety Bird), or Wyl. E. Coyote (vs Road Runner), and even Tom (vs Jerry). I always feel very sorry for the poor cat who kena whacked by the little old lady, or smashed to a pulp by a falling anvil… heh. 

Anyways, it’s good to know that Donald Duck, the grumpy, quick-tempered feathered fowl is being honoured too, and unfortunately, IMITATED in my own home.

Littlelam is now saying “What’s the big idea!” , which is Donald Duck’s favourite expression.

I console myself that at least it isn’t a rude word!

And to date myself further, I remember playing a great Donald Duck game on SEGA called Quackshot! Can’t find the pic of it, but I did find another game I used to play later on in my adulthood, on the 1st version of Playstation