Kayla's Own Blog

This is Kayla's own blog. She designed the blog header and background by herself, using Paint application and Paint Artist.

The blog is basically about whatever she wants to put in the blog, which mostly are pictures taken by her with her own camera. The url: http://happy-kayla.blogspot.com/

Developing Reading Habits

Parents who love to read will want their children to also love reading. So, since I and my husband really love reading, we are very serious in our attempt to develop the girls’ reading habits. It is a serious matter, since most children nowadays prefer watching TV and playing games than reading. And in most of our life, most things will need to be learned through reading. If they don't like reading, where can we go from there? Here are what we do.

First of all, we are collecting books. The girls get to choose the books they are interested in. Our new collection consists of books that just being collected in the last 1 year. The previous collection … all destroyed by last year’s big flood. We also try to maintain the proportion of the book collection into 50% English books and 50% Indonesian books, with some being bi-lingual. Our consideration is that books in our mother tongue are still more important, especially for Shayna, my younger girl; as important the second language is, what’s the point in speaking and reading that language fluently if she cannot do it better with her own language? Two third of the overall is books with Islamic background. We think that early years of life is the perfect period for giving the girls some basics that will guide them throughout their whole life time.

The next thing is developing their love and skills in reading. Kayla, the older girl, has to read at least 3 books (2 books in English and 1 book in Indonesian) every night before sleeping, at her own choosing. Shayna … well, actually we don’t require her to read as many books. But, she is keener in reading (and any other learning, actually) than her big sister, and she often ends up read more books than Kayla does. Some of the times we ask them to read books that are beyond their ages and understanding, although still children books of course. Some people say that it will broaden their horizon and understanding.

It seems working quite well.

Kayla - Being Best Student of the Week for 2 times during 2nd Grade

Good on you, Kayla!

National Geographic for Kids – May Edition

I nearly forgot to buy the latest National Geographic for Kids, the May edition. Lucky for me, the bookstore I went to got one copy left. Otherwise, I’d feel really guilty for forgetting to get this May edition.

What have we got here …? This edition has lots of supersize fun games, from matching, tracing, puzzles, and more. There are fifteen of them which are very exciting for kids of 5 to 12 years old. The kids will surely love the games. Besides the games, there are also reviews of two latest movies.

Now, this is important. Everyone can help preserving this planet, even kids. Some ideas of some small things that even kids can do are not littering, no plastic bag, planting a tree, turning off unnecessary light, and using rechargeables only. What have we done so far?

(Also published at my other blog Insparenting.com)

Big Family Weekend at the Park Lane

These pictures were taken last weekend while we were staying overnight with our big family from my hub side at the Park Lane Hotel.


Hotel Orientation Team

Cousin Akhtar, looked really cheerful

Dinner at Rawon Setan Mbak Endang, Casablanca

Although they were not feeling very well, they seemed to really enjoy the swimming time


Jacuzzi time ...

Disney on Ice

After looking everywhere to get Disney on Ice tickets since the tickets were sold out in most ticket stores, finally I got them, although they were of a bit higher class than what we planned. But, well, for the girls, I would be willing to pay for them. Anyway, it's not that Disney on Ice comes to our city every year.

Al last, last week, on 1 May 2008, we went to see Disney on Ice at Kemayoran. At first glance of the stage, it looked a bit disappointing. The stage looked quite small, compared to the previous shows such as Barney's show and Holiday on Ice. And the decor was not quite impressive. But, as long as the girls were happy, who were we to complain?

The theme was Mickey & Minnie's Amazing Journey. This show included 5 well known Disney's movies and their characters, like The Lion King, 101 Dalmatians, Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, and Lilo & Stitch. My girls, of course, loved Little Mermaid show the most, with their beloved character Ariel looked so pretty. And it turned out that the show itself was quite impressive, with lots of bright colors, great characters and their costumes, and surprising stage accessories to make the shows look like the movies. Some examples were Captain Hook's ship, Lilo's bedroom, and Peter Pan's flying acts. The most disappointing show was the Lion King one. But anyway, since the girls were very happy, so I should also be happy then.

Granny's Birthday at Pizza Marzano

These pictures were taken when we were dining out at Pizza Marzano, celebrating my mom's birthday. Those were my big family, with my mom and dad, my husband and the girls, my two younger brothers (those two men with similar styles :) ), and my sister-in-law and her family. It was not quite so often for all of us to get together, so whenever someone had a birthday, we always tried to eat out together.

The place was great, but the food was ... well, I would say adequate. Even the girls didn't really enjoy the food. Anyway, it was less than I expected. Lucky for me, they had my beloved Caesar Salad, and it tasted quite nice.