2006 Achievement

What a year we have in 2006!

Fay will be graduating from Kinder! At the beginning of the year, she could only 'draw' her name, now she can 'write' her name! Now that she can 'read' a few words, she realised her favourite day of the week is 'Friday' because it has her name in it. Her drawings has improved so much that she can draw pictures of things, animals that even her mum can't draw. While she has learnt a lot in kinder, she has also been busy teaching origami at kinder. So much so that her teacher Kathy decided that she would NOT want an origami book for Christmas. Looking forward, her BIG GOAL of the year is to be a 'School kid'! This goal will be achieved next year.

Matt has a wonderful year too. He participated in many sports this year, tennis, soccer and cricket. (I should keep a record of the km travelled!) He also started learning piano using the Suzuki method and has finished Book 1 and started Book 2 in December to keep him challenged. His teacher Lisa insisted that Matt is very talented in music, I nearly fell off my chair given the musical 'talent' that his parents have. Through sports, he made a few friends. In one of the soccer matches, he has a friendly chat with his opponent, and found out they learn similar subjects at school, what they like about their school and so on. That is sportmanship in my book. Matt also attended his first school camp in November and has learnt to take responsibility for himself, that was his goal before he went to the camp and we are pleased to say he has achieved it - he didn't lose a single item at camp! At school this year, the themes they concentrate on is 'Responsibility' and 'Relationship', we (mum and the teacher) think he get very close to full mark. Matt also has his first piano performance this year, he played 2 pieces of music after having learnt for 5 months.

Jonathan has a very busy year of learning too - he picked up guitar and tennis this year. He has completed his Duke of Edinburgh award this year. He attended 2 camps where they have to dug a hole as there is no toilet facility. He has also started applying for casual work at supermarket, meanwhile he has helped mum checked market research tables and decided that it is quite a boring job. However, I think he is really good at the job. At school presentation night, he received an award for "Excellence in Music", beginning to wonder if I picked up the wrong babies at the hospital!

We went to Darwin, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia this year to visit families. We learnt a lot on the trip. Matt is trying to understand why some children his age are selling things in the street in Vietnam, we all learnt a few words in Vietnamese and Malay. (Surprisingly, Fay still remembers some of the words just the other day.) Jono comments on Singapore: Singaporeans only eat and buy clothes! (I personally think he is spot on!) Darwin is a place we will go back to visit again.

Till next year, have a very Merry Christmas and Happy and Safe New Year.