I'm a full-time mummy

I get asked often how do I handle taking care of 2 kiddos during an outing all by myself with them. Oh well, practise, practise and more practise I guess?

In my initial stage of pregnancy, I have avoided taking unnecessary stuffs like strollers and etc and prefer to travel light with my 2 kiddos. I get our 4.5 years old boy to wear his own school bag (with his own water bottle, a pack of baby wipes, a backup diaper for his baby sister and a spare change of clothes for himself and some snacks in case he's hungry) while my own diaper bag consists of the similar things I packed in my boy's school bag. Getting in and out of car must be swift and careful as well.

Anyway, now that I'm at 37 weeks preggy, it is tiring for me to walk for long distance and even carrying our 2 years old girl for longer than 10 minutes, so yes, I have to bring our stroller along for our latest mother-kiddos outing to Ikea. We had a church playgroup outing to a pet shop in a shopping mall nearby and I decided I must bring the stroller along since I also planned to get some box containers to revamp the toys and stuff in our room.

So how to handle 2 kiddos in an outing? Get them busy with something. The first thing I did when we stepped into Ikea is grabbed 2 pencils and 2 sheets of 'to-buy' checklist from one of their stands and then hand each to my kiddos. Both start doodling and scribbling as if they are onto a treasure hunt or something.

When it was time for lunch, I got our 4.5 years old boy to help out pushing the food trolley as I had to push our stroller with my girl sitting inside still. Just gotta make sure my boy pushed the food trolley carefully.

And finally, reward ourselves with nice yummy food! And before leaving, to gently remind kiddos it is time to go home right after our meal, no more stopping over at any toy shops etc.

Have a blessed week ahead and thank you for reading!

We had just recently reviewed "Just Me and My Cousin" and now, we have the privilege to add this story app to our collection!

* Title: Little Critter At Scout Camp
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Sept 04, 2013
* Current Version: 2.3
* Size: 36 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Requires iOS 5.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"Little Critter's eager nature and inquisitive mind help him explore the great outdoors at Scout Camp. He and the other critters race canoes down the river, learn about different types of plants and trees, and make gifts for family members. Scout Camp is running smoothly until Little Critter explores a little too far and gets more nature than he bargained for! "

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen and the words pop out to tell you what it is!

* I took this opportunity in this story app to teach my boy what normally goes on in a scout camp. 

* I took the opportunity in the page above to show my boy that we can learn a lot of things in a scout camp apart from making new friends

You can purchase the "Little Critter At Scout Camp " app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store 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. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

Over 3 months ago, I received an email pitch from 3M asking whether I would be interested to review their water filter system and the first thing that came to my mind was 'Huh? 3M? Water filter system?' I had previously reviewed some products by 3M, such as their Scotch™ Premium Kitchen Scissors and Scotch™ Kids Scissors and never would have imagined they also have water filter systems in their product range. After exchanging emails to and fro between 3M representative, we decided to attend their product briefing at their Innovation Center to learn more about their products.  

For your info, we have been using our current outdoor water filter system (to be referred in this post as 'brand B') for about 5-6 years and it has a backwash feature which hubby will occasionally turn on to backwash and clear off the filter. As for indoor, we did not install any water filter system at all.

Now, before I start off with our review, I just want to share that a lot of procedures have been done in order to ensure our product review and testing is done correctly and we have results to show for it.

CHECKING THE QUALITY OF OUR CURRENT FILTERED WATER:

Prior to the installation of the 3M Water Filter Systems, one of the 3M lab staff came over to our house to collect and test our current water sample.

Anyway, back to the collection and testing of our water. The staff took the water sample from our porch outside (after filtered by 'brand B' filter) and reverted with the results to us few days later and also sent us the photo shown above (right side) with the sediments settling at the base of the container which contains our water.

INSTALLATION PROCESS:

We finally decided on a date for 3M to come over to our house with their technician to install their water filter system. I managed to take some quick shots of our 'brand B' outdoor water filter system in comparison with 3M's outdoor water filter system.

Can you see the 'brand B' one was as high as myself? And see for yourself how small is 3M's water filter in contrast? We initially was surprised and wondered too whether such a small filter is able to do the job, but fret not, 3M has a technology where their filter particles are so extremely small and fine that it does a terrific job!

Anyway, the technician immediately went on to install the 3M water filter systems.

While the technician drills and installs the 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) which is located right underneath our kitchen sink (save space and looks neat outside), I let my kiddos play around with the filter cartridge. Again, a tiny little filter system, not heavy at all for my kiddos to carry! There's a sticker you can stick right on the cartridge to remind yourself when the time is up to change a new filter cartridge.

The cool thing with the 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) is it comes with a built-in bypass valve which means you do not need to shut off your water pipe prior to a filter cartridge change! Such an awesome convenience! You can also view this short video on how to change the filter cartridge for AP Easy Complete here: http://youtu.be/YlePAWUosdk

AFTER INSTALLATION PROCESS:

Here's how it looks like after the 3M Whole House Filtration SYstem (Model AP 902) was set up. A neat and small water filter system that does not take much space at all! The 3M Whole House Filtration SYstem (Model AP 902) helps to eliminate sediment and rush from the piping system.

And here's how it looks like after the 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) was set up. Just a tiny little faucet jutting out from our water sink, easy to lift black colored tab to turn on and off the water. The 3M Drinking Water Filter System (Model: AP Easy Complete) helps to remove 99.5% of filterable cyst, removing chlorine taste and odour, sediment and rust and also lead & parasitic protozoan cysts. You can read more on the NSF Certification for the AP Easy Complete here: PR3MNSFCert.pdf (682.84 kb).

3M WATER FILTER SYSTEMS IN USE:

After installing 3M Water Filter Systems, we felt more at ease using our water. We washed our food and cutleries with the filtered water, we even use the water filtered for our drinking water (being Chinese, we are used to boiling our water so, we do boil our filtered water first) and I also use the filtered water to make my red bean drinks.

TEST RESULTS OF THE QUALITY OF OUR CURRENT FILTERED WATER & AFTER USING 3M WATER FILTERS:

Below are the snapshots of the report sent to us after 3M tested the quality of our current filtered water:

To conclude our review, we love using 3M Water Filter Systems as we now no longer need to perform any backwash function (* Do you know that backwash function is not good for the water system actually? Drop me an email and I'll be happy to forward you the Star newspaper article to support this statement)

We feel at ease as the filtered water can be drink directly from the tap and another good thing is last time when we use the 'brand B' water filter, it came with a carbon filter that filtered away the chlorine which actually helps to prevent and counter contamination. Imagine we have been using our water without chlorine for years! Just for your info, it is not good if an outdoor filter have carbon filter because the carbon's function is to reduce chlorine and the water kept inside the water tank needs chlorine to kill bacteria and slow down the bacteria's growth inside the tank.

Maintenance wise, it is easy to change the filter cartridge for both indoor and outdoor water filter and there are also reminder systems to remind us when it is time to change the filter cartridges. Also with products produced by a well-known and trusted brand, it also adds up to our confidence level in continuing on to use the water filter systems!

You can find out more info from 3M website.

** Updates on Sept 2014 - Please search through 3M website for their products info and comparisons and for pricing info instead of sending emails to ask me as I'm not the products representative nor I get any commission or anything from doing this review. 3M staff will be more equipped to answer your questions instead of a blogger like me ;)

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by 3M 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.