I'm a full-time mummy

We had our last family holiday before 2013 ended where we spent 3 days 2 nights in Penang and in the middle of the holiday, we had runny nose and sore throat and it spread throughout the family (except hubby). On New Year's eve, all 3 of our kiddos got the coughs and runny nose and started coughing badly.

Our 4.5 years old Benjamin is able to blow his nose and cleared the runny nose and is coping well with the cough. Our 2 years old Alyson sneakily dug her nose when I'm not looking and she tasted the snot (arghhhhh!!!), struggled when we gave her the cough medicine but otherwise the cough doesn't bother her much.

The same can't be said to our 3 months old Carolyn. Being the youngest and defenseless, it is a torture seeing her coughing and not able to cough out the phlegm from her throat. I used the nasal aspirator device to suck out her snot so that wasn't a problem at all but we can't figure out what to do with her phlegmy cough.

We do not want to use Vicks on our kiddos especially after reading an article that it can cause babies and young children to have respiratory distress so I posed the question on my FB fan page asking for tips from my followers. Some of them suggested onions. I googled it and tried the approach. You can see the steps below:

Within 5 minutes of putting on the socks, Carolyn cried due to her having slight fever as well but I didn't noticed any sound of runny nose which she has been having since the day before. She cried for a few seconds then was OK. After that she was calm and quiet all the way until I took off her socks 4 hours later.

A very important thing to note is to make sure the onion slice is not too big as when we tried to put on fresh onion slices before bedtime, Carolyn cried followed by Alyson (whom we also put on onion socks as well) - we suspected the onion slices I cut is a tad too big for them and caused them irritations. Initial onion slice sizes was about 1cm n diameter while the ones I gave before bedtime was around 2cm in diameter.

We took off their socks then and we had quite a rough night with Carolyn throwing up the breastmilk right after I nursed her, most likely due to her throat being irritated with the phlegm and the coughing made her vomitted out the milk but I do noticed the phlegm is not that heavy anymore. The next day, I noticed our Carolyn can cough much better and she farted quite often too.

Have you tried similar remedies before? What are they and does it work?

Other sources:

• Simple Onion Remedies For Colds & Coughs

• The Healing Effects of Onion

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I have never been a fan of crayons. Ever since I was young, I try my best to steer clear of using crayons whenever possible. I can't stand the icky waxy feelings of the crayons on the paper, more so the icky greasy remains of the crayons which is messy to wash off.

When I received a request to review the Amos Colorix Crayons, I think hard. I read over and over again the product details and finally decided to go ahead since I vowed to do more reviews on products which could help and benefit in our learning objectives. I told myself just because I feel icky with crayons, I should not deprive our kiddos on the experience of using them. So here it goes, our review after trying out the product:

About the product:

"Amos is from Korea. Amos Crayons have a wonderful smooth gliding touch and incredible vivid color! It is shaped thin and sharp for a better comfort grip and detailed description. Silky crayons come in twist-up tubes and are as easy to use as a crayon but go on like an oil pastel. Silky Crayons are watersoluble and with a q-tip or a paint brush you can create nice watercolor effects. Watersoluble also means these crayons stains will wash off easily with water. Non-toxic and odor free these are the next generation of crayons! Silky crayons are blendable and you'll be amazed at how beautiful the colors are. It also could be a smooth marking crayon for wide range of users in office and school."

About the sponsor:

"We're a friendly online store which mainly providing educational toys, cloth books, family tee and other mother baby items. Owning a cute and active toddler of our own, we understand what a parent would need. We love to bring convenience for all busy parents to just browse online, place order and all items would be delivered to you by door step. niceVin, your family store."

My feedback on the product's packaging: As a stay-at-home mum who is most of the time stuck at home with 3 kiddos, I truly appreciate children products with clear and organised containers. So the moment I see the Amos Colorix Crayons nicely arranged in a transparent briefcase-like packaging, I feel happy of course. No stress of the crayons being chuck everywhere. 

There is a clear label at the back of the packaging indicating the features of the product and storage and handling instructions as well. To open up the Amos Colorix Crayons packaging, you just need to flip open the 2 small tabs on one of the sides like how you do for briefcases. The crayons are securely placed and arranged according to the color tones.

My feedback on the product: The crayon's length is just nice and its size is also just right for childrens' fingers to grasp on to. I am not a big fan of letting our kiddos (especially below 3 years old) use the common small size color pencils or pens as they still need time to perfect their finger grasping skills. You just need to gently turn the bottom cap anti-clockwise to extend the crayons and continue using it. I totally love that the crayons are covered in plastic holders so you have less exposure to the crayons - not that these crayons are icky at all.

I took two of the crayons' to compare. The crayons does not feel icky at all! And I am totally mesmerised with the colors and the ones in gold and silver color tones are just gorgeous!

One of the things that annoys me when using the Amos Colorix Crayons are our kiddos' being rough when coloring - I guess it could be their excitement of using crayons for the first time. You can see the tip is blunt and chapped as well. Maybe it's just the OCD in me - can't stand it! In fact, I felt a tad sympathy seeing that poor crayong losing it's perfect cone-shaped tip.

Picture below on the right side is just to show you how the crayon works when you turned the bottom cap clockwise or anti-clockwise to extend or shortened the crayons.

My feedback on kiddos using the product: The moment I opened the packaging, our 2 years old girl is already hogging the packaging and our 4.5 years old boy was excitedly looking for blank papers to color on. Our girl then proceeded to take out her favorite color which is pink and then handed me the purple one (clever girl knows mummy's favorite color!) while our boy immediately got down to asking me what I wanted him to draw.

Our girl happily doodles away while our boy concentrated on drawing the things I asked him to. The three little piggies' brick house with a chimney, snowman, robot, Doraemon and even Ironman!

At one point, some of the crayons got smeared on our girl's onesies and I told myself, gotta wash it off later and after our kiddos were done with the crayons activities, I let them play in their water pool at the balcony and when they were done, I noticed the crayon stains are gone! Then I remembered that this crayons can easily be removed with water! Ahhhhh... nice, nice! And I also noticed there are no icky waxy smells with the crayons at all!

Summary: The Amos Colorix Crayons is a wonderful product for children, it has certainly helped me regain back my faith in using crayons and I'm happy to be given the opportunity to try out this product. I'm glad our kiddos enjoyed using the crayons. Pictures below are some of the colorings and drawings by our 4.5 years old Benjamin ;)

You can get this crayons from niceVIN Facebook page.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by niceVIN in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine.

Reflections on 2013:

2013 was a year of good memories and wonderful milestones!

• I colored my hair for the first time in my life! And ended up not seeing any difference since my hair was originally so black that the hair dye color was not showing at all!

• I learned to make a couple of Chinese soups for the family using slow cooker! ABC soup, Lotus Root soup and Szechuan Vegetable Soup.
  

• Being pregnant for the 3rd time and giving birth to our 3rd child and hence completing our number of family members as 5 (for now hahaha)

• Our 1st child is officially potty trained before he turned 4 years old!
  

• I get to review more products which benefited our family.

• I joined an awesome SAHM group on FB, attended my first playgroup with the mummies and kiddos, made a number of mummy friends on FB, was even promoted to be one of the admins in the group, but sadly after lots of consideration, decided to leave the admin post and the group after that to focus on my family and after realising that I am getting too addicted to the group (that is another story to tell in future perhaps)
  

• We joined a playgroup where I bring our 2 kiddos to their kiddy playgroup sessions every Tuesday and Friday which I think greatly helps in their social skills, especially after seeing how our 4.5 years old boy slowly shed off his shyness and tantrums in public.

• I encapsulated my own placenta and CONSUME it.

• Hubby and I attended a marriage seminar in Melaka and it helped strengthened our relationship and brought us much closer (we brought our kiddos along btw)
  

• We managed to register our 1st child into his pre-school for 2014! He's going to start his K3 classes on the 6th Jan 2014.
  

Moving on to 2014:

I am not big on making new year resolutions - probably because I don't think I am able to fulfill them hahaha... but, oh well... 2014, today is a new day, a new year, I should resolve to be a new person, well at least with new changes and hopefully new positive attitudes.

• I hope that with Benjamin starting his K3 classes this year, I will still be able to bring our girls to the kiddy playgroup sessions.

• I hope that Alyson will be independent.

• I hope that Carolyn will be an easy to care for child just like her brother and sister.
  

• I hope that I will have the opportunity to learn to cook more for the family.

• I hope that our family will remain united and strong.
  

Here's wishing you and your loved ones a wonderful 2014 and thank you for your support!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.