I'm a full-time mummy

We are halfway into our school holidays and in case you are not aware, there is a festival going on right now in the heart of KL city! Just for 7 days, parents, children and visitors to the festival will be treated to hands-on science workshops, interesting talks and forums, entertaining music performances and colourful displays of artwork.

Petrosains, The Discovery Centre, is bringing back the Petrosains Science Festival for the second time around, from 15 to 21 September 2014. Aptly themed “Music, Arts and Science”, this year’s festival which is open for families and youth of Malaysia, promises to be bigger, better and more exciting.

In the quest to help raise awareness on the importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education, Petrosains hopes that with this Festival, and the support and participation from Festival partners, it will continue to fulfil its vision of awakening interest and passion in science, spreading wonder in discovery and introducing the pleasures of life-long learning to the general public.

The Petrosains Science Festival 2014 is ongoing at 2 main locations:

* Petrosains Galleria, Level 4, Suria KLCC | 15 – 21 September 2014

* Esplanade, KLCC Park | 19 – 21 September 2014

Interesting workshops on cow's eye dissection, pop-up card art, batik canting, movie making, animation, world of robot, spiders, sea creatures, shadow puppet and more awaits you! Do note that prior registration is recommended if you want to sign up your kiddos for the workshops, talks and forums. For a detailed schedule of   activities   during   the   Petrosains   Science   Festival   2014, go   check   out http://sciencefestival.my/

Every year, a few months before December comes, hubby and I will get busy cracking our heads thinking of what gifts to give to his business clients for Christmas. We mostly DIY and made the gifts ourselves. We thought that it would be a nice gesture, with the added personal touch and feel to the gifts for each of our clients.

Let's reminisce through the gifts we made for our clients since 2008... Ready? Here we go...!

For 2008, we bought some 3 feet tall Christmas tree, bought tons and tons of sweet treats ranging from mini packets of M&Ms, Toblerones, mini packets of raisins, and not to forget mini packs of junk foods. (yes, yes, what an unhealthy choice of food!) I still remember hubby telling me someone in the elevator asked him  whether the gift is for sale and whether he could order one too while hubby delivered the gifts personally to one of his clients. I was 7 months pregnant with our first kiddo at the time, so it was quite a feat to be doing all this decoration then!

For 2009, still not too far from previous year's sweet treats, hubby thought that we should give the sweet treats in a candy jars. So we bought some glass candy jars from Ikea, bought some Famous Amos cookies, bought tons of sweet treats again and stuff everything into the glass jars and wrapped them up in a nice fluffy red ribbons.

For 2010, we stuck to the same sweet treats idea but with a bit of a twist, in the sense that I baked some cookies as part of the Christmas treats. The original idea was for me to bake enough cookies to fit into 2 biscuit tins (1 large, 1 small) but after baking a few batches which could only fit into 2 big and 2 small tins, I gave up and told hubby it was really tiring and hectic for me to be doing all those baking with a hyperactive toddler around. As much as I wanted to bake all those cookies, I really had to accept the fact that I simply can't take this challenge...

In the end, hubby asked me whether we could put the few batches of cookies I made into all the smaller size tins while we put sweet treats into the bigger tins. I mulled over the idea and thought it's a good solution in the sense that all the clients will still get to try my cookies (although they are all squeezed into the smaller tins) and we are still able to give both the big and small biscuit tins to each clients at the same time.

For 2011, just a month or so after delivering our 2nd child, we made ribbon Christmas tree with treats and snacks in a basket decorated with fake pine leaves. The ribbon tree was my idea after searching the Internet for inspiration and the basket with treats was hubby's idea. This is by far my favorite gift ideas, you can check out my tutorial on how to make these awesome Christmas ribbon tree as well.

For 2012, we made 2 types of gifts, one was a repeat from our 2008 gifts idea which we used 2 feet tall Christmas tree that comes with LED fiber optic blinking lights with treats around in a basket...

and the other idea was where we made cute little houses using bars of chocolates and yummy treats and stuff. We also put in some miniature Christmas trees for decoration and the Christmas-sy feel.

For 2013, it is really getting MORE and MORE challenging. With 2 kiddos and a newborn in tow and time constraints as well, it is really a tough task to complete, though thank God, we made it! We made papier mâché snowman using plastic containers (for body and head) and filled them up with treats and candies inside. 

In summary, it took lots and lots of planning and co-operation from the entire family members to play their part in order to produce these Christmas gifts every year. I would say, it was tiring but it was well worth it. As for this year's idea, plans already started and will be sourcing for supplies soon! Stay tuned to find out what we are going to make this year!

** 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.

We just bought some board games and card games to play with our kiddos. It took me a while to find the board games in the bookstore I went to, all hidden away in a corner barely touched... I was telling our 5.5 years old boy, back when mummy and daddy were little children like him, we don't get to play with iPad or go out or even doodling and drawing on tons of papers like what he can do now. I told him in our time, we are lucky to be able to play these board games and card games.

Hubby initiated the idea to get these games, he wanted to teach Benjamin how to play Chinese chess (a bit advance I feel for his age now), to learn Chinese words as well as to have fun playing games with other people (family time!)

Since I was in-charge of getting the games, I settled on a compendium of 15 board games (my primary goal is to teach him to play snakes and ladders which I feel is appropriate for his age now). I also bought the Chinese chess set and a deck of playing cards (Snap!)

We started with playing snakes and ladders, explaining to him the rules, teaching him how to roll the dice and move the pieces over the board. This will reinforce his counting skills, directions and order of number as you move your piece along according to the number you rolled. It also teaches him to move towards the goal and I was also teaching him what numbers that will cause him to be eaten by the snake or move upwards by climbing the ladder to get him excited and nervous as well hahaha...

We also played a few rounds of Snap card games. Again, explaining the rules of the game to him before we proceed. This game teach him to be alert and pay attention to the matching cards and whoever collects the most cards wins the game. This game brings back memories of my childhood as well! The countless time I smacked my cousins' or friends' hands real hard hahahaha!

I think other than a lesson for him, it is also a lesson for us parents as well. We definitely have to be more patient when playing with our kiddo, to gently remind him of the rules, to be patient and follow the rules and not bypass everything just to be the winner and that in playing games, there will be winner and loser but that is not the end of the world.

We tell him sometimes you might be ahead of everyone but you never know, suddenly you get eaten by the snake and ended up last. Sometimes you move slow and steady (like the tortoise) but ends up winning. We tell him losing is not everything. Most important is the spirit in playing, to enjoy the games with others.

We will definitely be continuing on with these games!

** 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.