I'm a full-time mummy

Just a few weeks back, I was mourning to myself, thinking... sigh.. how fast time goes by, my 1.5 years old girl is not able to wear her cute Cammie Cow Shoes anymore and there's just a tiny pinky finger width left in my 4 years old boy's Terminal Radian Z Strap Shoes. The thought of needing to replace my kiddos' shoes (especially my boy because he really really loves his shoes!) is quite daunting and worrying!

And then God works mysteriously and wonderfully! I received an email from Skechers asking whether my family and I are interested to review Skechers' shoes again, this time under the Casual Lifestyle range of shoes. Oh my, oh my, oh my! I was jumping with joy after reading that email! Really excited and superbly happy that God answers my prayers!

So yes, few days after that, my family and I were back at Skechers outlet in One Utama shopping mall, choosing our brand new shoes!
 

About the company/brand:
"SKECHERS originated from a south California slang, which means "energetic youngsters". SKECHERS designs, develops and markets a diverse range of footwear for men, women and children. Born in a small beachside California community in 1992, SKECHERS has grown from a one-style, one-building company to be one of the world famous footwear brands. SKECHERS is now the No.2 footwear brand in the United States (according to Sporting Goods Intelligence) and was named Company of the Year by Footwear Plus for the 5th time in 6 years (2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010).

The Skechers Fitness Group have also hit the market by storm in the rapid growing toning footwear market and has captured 60% market share of the U.S. toning market in 2010. Shape-ups was named "Launch of the Year 2009" by Footwear News. Skechers has also partnered with renowned celebrities including Britney Spears, Ashlee Simpson, Christina Aguilera, David Cook. In 2011, Kim Kardashian, Brooke Burke, American Football legend Joe Montana, Basketball Hall of Famer Karl Malone & Hockey Legend Wayne Gretzky represented different collections. In Hong Kong, young singer G.E.M. was the spokesperson followed by superstar Sammi Cheng. There are now over 500 SKECHERS company owned and franchised or licensed stores in some of the most attractive locations in over 40 countries across 6 continents."

This is the prelude part of my reviews (I'm starting off with our shopping experience there, followed by each of the shoes we received for our reviews). The outlet in 1 Utama shopping mall is easy to locate (located at LG330A / Lower Ground Floor in the new wing) and you can't miss the shop with its big bright signage. You can look for their other outlets from this website: http://skechers.com.my/store-locator.php

The shoes as always are displayed neatly and very easy to see. This time we are to review the Casual Lifestyle range, so after a brief explanation by one of the staff in the outlet, we proceeded to try out our respective shoes.

As for my feedback on our customer service experience, I am happy to share that the staff are helpful and knowledgeable in their products. I also like that the staff hurried over to get the shoes in the sizes we wanted to try and waited for us patiently while we try and stroll around to test the shoes. Despite the high amount of customers in the outlet during that time, the staffs are still able to cater to our questions and requests for size changes. 

I like the cute little toy dispenser machine right in the middle of the children's shoes display as I think it is a creative gesture by the company to entertain the little ones! It was still around since the last time we reviewed our shoes last year. I'm actually glad to see it still being a part of the outlet!

While we waited for our turns at the cashier counter (it was quite a busy day when we were there, lots of customers!), another staff promptly passed 3 small tokens (special for the dispenser machine) to my hubby who then guided our 4 years old Benjamin to slot in the token and drew out a capsule for himself and another for his baby sister, Alyson.

Both capsules contains erasers (one in the shape of school bag, another shaped as stapler). One nice gesture noted is our 8 years old nephew who tagged along with us also gets a token to draw out a capsule for himself.

My 1.5 years old Alyson sitting on the cashier counter admiring the colorful boxes for shoes that we have chosen for ourselves. The staff promptly processed our details and the shoes we selected and passed a copy of the shoes we got for my reference before we head home with our new found treasures!

Stay tuned for my review posts on each of the shoes we got for our review. And here's a sneak peak of the shoes we got!

Awesome right?!! Thank you Skechers again for your generosity and awesomeness! You guys totally rock!

Seriously people, the moment I saw the words "Little Critter" in the latest Oceanhouse Media's press release in my email inbox, my heart went "Eeeepppp! I gotta have it! I had previously reviewed the 1st collection over a year ago and I knew I had to add this into our collections!

* Title: Little Critter Collection #2
* Price: $12.99
* Category: Books
* Released: May 22, 2013
* Current Version: 2.3
* Size: 196 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

Description from the product page:

"Little Critter Collection #2 features 10 popular Little Critter stories that lovingly address all the major issues of growing up. Children will easily identify with Little Critter's adventures as he maneuvers through childhood one day at a time.

-Just Go to Bed: Playful and energetic Little Critter resists his father's efforts to get him ready for bed.
-Just a Mess: The search for his baseball mitt leads Little Critter to the doorway of his bedroom which is "just a mess."
-Just Going to the Dentist: Good natured Little Critter reassures young readers that going to the dentist is not that bad after all.
-Just Grandpa and Me: Little Critter and his Grandpa go on a shopping expedition for a new suit.
-Just Lost: It's quite an adventure at the mall when Little Critter gets separated from his mom.
-Just Me and My Little Brother: Little Critter is looking forward to all the fun things he can do with his little brother.
-Just Me and My Puppy: Little Critter happily feeds, walks, trains and loves his new friend.
-Just Shopping With Mom: Shopping with his family turns into an eventful day for Little Critter.
-What a Bad Dream: Little Critter dreams that a magic potion turns him into a scary, disagreeable monster that no one wants to be around.
-When I Grow Up: Little Critter's sister imagines all the wonderful things she'll do when she grows up."

I have most of the Little Critter story apps on my iPad but really, this is a collection that must be added into my iPad!!! My 4 years old boy likes listening and watching Little Critters so yes, I am definitely happy I get to add this collection! (and I've gotta keep my eyes open for the next collection hahaha!)

What's good?

* 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!

* My boy particularly enjoys 'Just Lost' as he is very much into his security guard / soldier / police phase right now and I love this app too as I get to use the opportunity to teach my boy to stick around us whenever we go out and also to teach him what to do in the event he found himself lost and apart from us.

* In "Just Shopping With Mom", my boy also like this app as I normally bring him and my 1.5 years old girl along whenever we go out grocery shopping and I think he can totally relate himself to Little Critter's situation in the storyapp. I took this opportunity to teach my boy that we need to be patient if we want something, to always behave, to stay close to mummy when he is out and to help look after and protect his little sister as well.

* The rest of the story in this collection are very good as well as it comes with lessons to learn which we can instill on our children - such as to be caring towards our pets and siblings, to be neat and control our emotions, to have ambitions and goals  and so on.

You can purchase the " Little Critter Collection #2" 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"

The first time I saw this picture, I chuckled to myself. So true! When our 2nd child came along, I was quite miserable. I had spent quite sometime adjusting myself and synching both my kiddos' daytime nap so that they both nap together and I get to rest a bit and just when they did managed to do that, my girl skipped her 2nd nap. There goes 1-2 hours of my rest time.

Now, I managed to sync their naptime again to around 2ish to 3ish pm and when they do both nap, it will be 2 hours of rest for me. That is if I don't have to help out hubby in his paperworks (not often nowadays). Sometimes just when I managed to close my eyes to rest, there comes the postman or delivery guy sending parcels and stuff to our house.

Or my 4 years old boy decided to skip his daytime nap - the good thing is when he does this, he knows not to disturb mummy resting and he can actually play his Lego or soldier toys by himself or watch iPad. Bad thing? He gets cranky by evening time because he skipped his nap and to be honest, when he skipped his nap, no matter how, I am not able to just sleep and let my boy play on his own. I just don't feel comfortable at all. So I normally just lie on the bed, surfed the Net on my iPad or catch up on my blogging or see if there's anything to help out on hubby's paperwork.

On average, if I'm lucky I get about half to 1 hour of sleep when BOTH my kiddos nap at the same time. Else, it will be me zombie-ing throughout the day until their bedtime. It's pretty tough especially now that I'm preggy with our 3rd child because I do really get tired easily and even a 5 minutes power nap does help here and there.

So mums, do you get to have your nap time?