I'm a full-time mummy

I have previously blogged about our yummy Christmas gifts to hubby's business clients which showcased gifts we DIY and baked and customised since 2008 to 2010. For 2011, we made some awesome Christmas ribbon trees and then for 2012, we made Christmas trees and houses made of snacks and treats for hubby's clients.

This year, 2013, it is really getting MORE and MORE challenging. With 3 kiddos in tow and time constraints as well, it is really a tough task to complete, though thank God, we made it!

We started cracking our heads on the theme for this year's gifts and hubby came up with the snowman idea. We then have to think what we can use to make the snowman. We have always tried our best to handmade if not all, the majority part of our gifts as we believe in putting in some form of uniqueness and personal touch in our gifts (instead of just buying ready-made hampers etc)

So I came up with my first draft of how our snowman should look like. We planned to get 2 plastic containers and stacked them up, filled them with snacks, candies and treats and put the snowman in a basket.

This was how we wanted the snowman to look like. I took this shot while hubby was in the car taking care of our 3 kiddos. Yes, the whole family have to go out and tag along as hubby and I have to decide together on what to get and how it should look like. Then hubby bought the ribbons and baskets while I get the buttons and other decoration items.

The next challenge is to decide how to make the snowman. Spray it? Paint it? And finally hubby said 'We do the Papier Mâché style.' And so begins the laborous tasks to shred newspapers, wet each pieces with glues and stick the first layer and then we need to add more newspapers near the container's base to puff up the snowman for it's belly and head. Picture below on left is the first result after pasting the newspaper on the containers.

Picture above on right is the first result after hubby add in the fillers to smoothen up the snowman, sand papering them and painting about 2 coats of white paint over the snowman. At this point to be honest, hubby was losing confidence in our snowman as some of them are cracking up and making holes when we hold them up and while I persevered on and kept on telling him it looks nice and not to compare our snowman with the commercial adverts showing those smooth rounded snowman image.

I did at one point lost my confidence too when I accidentally cracked one of the snowman just as I picked it up to investigate whether it has dried up completely. I felt so down that I began to make another prototype using ribbons and stuff. Hubby got home, saw my prototype and went 'No. We use our Papier Mâché snowman!'

The next day, he started making the snowman's nose, I gave him an orange colored marker pen and upon gluing the nose onto the snowman head, it really starts to look real nice. I immediately see hubby's face lighting up and as we drew the eyes and mouth (Ben even drew one of the snowman's mouth!) and started gluing them onto the snowman's head, followed by the buttons on the snowman's body, by then it really looks more and more awesome!

Then hubby had to rush out for an appointment and while our kiddos take their lunch, I continued onto touch up the snowman's hat with some tiny glitter stones on the hat's surface and also putting a ribbon all around the hat's base. I also started stuffing the snowman's body and head with snacks, treats and candies.

As for the snowman's hands, I used 2 toothpicks, 1 acted as the arm, while another 1 is broken into 2 as the fingers. Then I used a white paper plaster to plaster up the arms and the fingers. Final touch is to color up the hands with brown crayon. I couldn't find my brown marker pen, so crayon it is!

When hubby got home in the evening, we continued on to seal the snowman's head with a white crepe paper, secured with rubber bands and then we just put on the head onto the snowman's body. I then proceeded to cut out a long strand of red ribbon to tie up around each snowman's neck. Each of the snowman has different scarf style!

Next, we glued the hat to the snowman's head and hubby started adding snacks and treats into each basket where we put in the snowman. After all snacks and treats have been added into the basket, hubby started gluing and pasting the hands onto the snowman. After our kiddos went to bed, I quickly designed the greeting cards, printed them and pasted them onto postcard and cut out the cards accordingly. Punched a hole into each cards and string them with a nice green colored ribbon.

And so we present to you now, some pictures taken of the 2013 Christmas gifts for hubby's clients:

I personally like the one below, the snowman looks so cute with his tiny little O-shaped mouth, as if he is surprised with something!

Like I mentioned earlier, with 3 kiddos in tow and time constraints as well, it is really a tough task to complete this year! I think hubby did most of the tasks (the idea, the painting, etc etc), I only managed to papier mâché a few of the snowman's heads and bodies as everytime I tried to sit down to paste the newspaper shreds, either baby Carolyn will cry or Alyson will be disturbing Benjamin or vice versa.

Anyway, that is history now. The important thing is our job is finally done and I'm glad to see hubby's happy face at the results of our gifts this year. I hope hubby's clients will like their snowman too!

So what do you think of our gifts this year?

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Ever since I created an album on my Facebook fan page to share the pictures of Lego creations made by our kiddos, I have received some questions from fans and friends asking which Lego products that they should get for their kiddos as they were showing interests in the Lego bricks. Just in case you want to have a look at some of the creations by our 4.5 years old boy, feel free to hop over and check them out in my FB album.

Anyway, I think it is high time I blogged about this - also kinda tiring to keep on googling for the product models we got for our kiddos (we don't keep the boxes and I don't remember unless I googled it) Before I begin, do note that majority decision-making in buying the Lego sets came from hubby. He is the one with the brains and all in Lego-sy stuff. Me? I only started TOUCHING a Lego brick the same time our 1st child got his first Lego set just before he turned 3 years old. True story!

So here it goes, according to the order we bought it:

5932 My First LEGO® Set

Some info on this set: "Includes 1 minifigure, 4 wheels, 1 propeller, 2 windows, 1 door, decorated bricks and 1 building plate"

Why we got it?  This is a basic starter set, suitable for your child if you are just venturing into the world of Lego bricks. You may ask what's the difference with the gazillions other Lego sets and why single this out? Well, there are other basic starter sets as well but this particular model 5932 got our attention as it also came with a building plate. You see the picture above? The green color cover for the Lego packaging box? That is the building plate I'm talking about. It doubles up as the packaging box cover as well as to be used as a platform to build on.

This 1st model set lasted for quite a long while before our 1st child gets more and more interested in Lego and started building and keeping his creations. Soon, we ran out of bricks to use as our boy refused to dismantle his creations... gaaaa... and so, we went and bought the following model:

5623 LEGO ® Basic Bricks – Large

Some info on this set: "The perfect supplement to any LEGO collection features 450 basic bricks in eight different colours – providing even more creative building possibilities."

Why we got it? This model set perfectly is just plain Lego bricks in more quantity and different colors. We get this because our boy needed more bricks to build on. And when more things are being built and we needed platforms to place the creations on, we got the following:

628 LEGO® X-Large Grey Baseplate

Some info on this set: "This grey baseplate measures 15" x 15", so it's a great place to start building castles, skyscrapers, or what ever your imagination comes up with."

Why we got it? This is basically just a plain grey colored baseplate (a bit flimsy though I feel) that you can use to continue building your Lego creations on. If I'm not mistaken, we bought it for RM50

And when our boy gets more creative and independent, hubby suggested getting Benjamin his very first Lego themed set for his 4th birthday, which is this case would be from the Lego City sets. Hubby took the time to search for the right set which we both decided on (over the phone since I can't go out along as that would mean bringing the kiddos as well) And the model we got for our boy's 4th birthday is:

60004 Lego City Fire Station

Some info on this set: "Includes 5 minifigures: fire chief, pilot, and 3 firefighters with assorted accessories, you can build fire van, fire truck, helicopter, fire stations and has all the related firefighting accessories."

Why we got it? Our boy is crazy with fire engine stuff at that point of his life. He goes on and on and on with his fire engine creations, etc etc which is why we decided on this model. Hubby said compared to the other Lego City Fire range, this is the nicest one which you can build fire van, fire truck, helicopter, fire stations and etc. Being a perfectionist (our boy noticed even the slightest difference on the alignment or colors of the bricks!) and one who refused to dismantle his Lego creations, it took almost 4 months when our boy finally decided to dismantle this Lego set and since then, we went on to build more awesome stuff with all the Lego bricks!

The above Lego models we got are just guidelines to show you what we have and our reasons for getting them. General advise from me to you if you are planning to get Lego for your child:

• Get the age appropriate Lego sets for your child. If you want to get one which is not within their age range, you must be really really sure and confident that they can handle and take care of the Lego bricks.

• Start with the basic easy no-theme Lego sets. (Just like what we did)

• Try to get the starter set that has the baseplate so you can put your creations on it.
  

• Do not go for those fancy-smancy Lego themed sets for starters as that will limit your child's imagination and creativity, not to mention frustrates you as well as you will need to build the Lego bricks according to the pictures shown on the packaging (imagine how dead I would be if we get the Lego City set as the first starter set?!!!)

• Again, age appropriate, I would advise you to keep the smaller parts until your child is old enough to know not to put it into their mouth and not to simply misplaced them. By small parts I meant those bricks as small as few milimeters in sizes and those smaller accessories like cups, walkie-talkies, etc

  

• If your child is too young to be handling Lego bricks, you might want to consider getting them Duplo which can be integrated with Lego bricks or Mega Bloks instead.
  

** 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.

Almost to the middle of October this year, I received an email from Miss Karen of Whimsical Articles asking whether I would be interested in reviewing the products in their online store. I was still in the midst of settling down with baby Carolyn (barely half month old then) and hence decided to keep in view for the time being.

A few weeks later, I emailed them again asking whether I can review two of their products which I think our 2 kiddos would be using and enjoying. My review for the 1st product was Melissa & Doug Wooden Bead Set - Sweet Hearts and here is the review for the 2nd product.

Description about the sponsor:
"At Whimsical Articles, we also wanted our children to have fun too! And so we lovingly handpicked every item for the kid’s crafts - to help encourage our little ones to develop creatively and have endless hours of fun! From products that one child can do at home; to the products that can be done as a group and not forgetting crafts which can be made during parties. Your child will have loads of fun! These crafts will help your child to create masterpieces and keep as keepsakes for years to come!"

The reason why I requested to review the The Orb Factory Sticky Mosaics - My First (Team Rescue) is so that I can let both my older 2 kiddos try it out. Our 4.5 years old boy loves vehicles like fire engine and police car while our 2 years old girl is crazy with stickers, so this is a great combo that can serve the purposes of entertaining and educating both our kiddos!

My feedback on the product's packaging: The sticky mosaics are placed on either colored foam layers or the shiny glittery sticky mosaics are stuck on transparent plastic layers. It's hard to believe that there are over 600+ mosaic stickers and gems in this packaging! 

My feedback on the product: The quality of the sticky mosaics is very good and strong, in fact some of them are so strong that I have to help out our kiddos to unstick it from their little fingers. The colors are striking and eye catching and the sticky mosaics are soft and smooth to the touch which is good for little kiddos' fingers.

My feedback on kiddos using the product: The moment I opened the packaging, our 2 kiddos lunged at the contents, trying hard to grab onto them to see what is it all about! I spent a few minutes going through the contents (while trying my best to hold off our 2 anxious kiddos) and then I asked our 4.5 years old which rescue vehicle he would like to choose and we ended up with the police car. I slowly explained to our 4.5 years old boy what we are supposed to achieve in the activity, to stick the appropriate sticky mosaics based on the colors and shapes shown on the rescue vehicle card. 

As I had mentioned earlier, our 2 years old Alyson is crazy with stickers but being a tad young to be doing this activity since she can't quite grasp the concept that she must stick the mosaics according to their colors and shapes, I let her played along by peeling off the sticky mosaics, passing it one by one to her so that she can passed them on to her older brother. I can see Alyson feeling happy and proud for being a part of this activity!

Because of this, I actually get to train our girl to be patient in waiting for me to peel and pass to her the sticky mosaics one by one and she also had to wait again for her brother to slowly stick the mosaics correctly. As for our 4.5 years old boy, I am amazed he is able to sit still and slowly adjust and stick the mosaics correctly.

Summary: Of course at this point in time, it is still too early to expect our girl to be doing this activity like our 4.5 years old boy who is clearly enjoying the activity! On top of that, I am pretty satisfied with this product as it really kept our kiddos occupied and quiet throughout the duration they used to complete the stickers for the police car template.

I definitely see the potential of this product being played again in future though I was a bit worried that the sticky mosaics are not enough thanks to our 2 years old girl peeling off the stickers and sticking them all over the places instead of on the rescue vehicle template! In any case, this definitely could make a great gift option as well :)

You can get this at http://www.whimsicalarticles.com/kids-crafts/the-orb-factory-sticky-mosaics-my-first-team-rescue.html

Whimsical Articles has also offered a special discount for my blog followers. Below are the details of the discount:

Purchase RM180.00 or more and get additional RM15 off on top of the already discounted products.
Customer can use this voucher as many time as possible. Valid from now until 31st December 2013.

Steps to get the discount:
1) Log in / Register as a member at www.whimsicalarticles.com
2) Add in the products to purchase into cart.
3) At Check-out, place in Coupon Code : IFM2013
4) Please check that products total is more than RM180 before code can be used.

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