I'm a full-time mummy

No, really. This post is not intended to give you my personal tips on how to cut your child's hair. I'm actually asking the question, how do you cut your child's hair?

Ever since my boy started growing his hair, I have been his sole hairstylist. He refuses to let anybody but ME to touch his hair. Numerous attempts to lure him to a saloon and barber shop resulting in him hiding behind us and shaking his head frantically.

Sigh... I should be proud of my boy's ermm... good taste (hopefully!) in sticking to one and only hair stylist, but I admit I am still clueless on how to cut a child's hair!

The initial attempts in hair cutting has resulted in lots of laughs and jokes on my boy and myself. I really do not know how to cut his hair properly, especially the sideburns and above the ears part. Even until this day as my boy is slowly approaching his 4 years old milestone.

Normally I cut his hair at our balcony, always before his water pool playtime. This is so I could easily wash away the trimmed hair on the floor. I'll get my boy to sit still on our Ikea stool and he'll be wearing his Spiderman swimming trunks and waited as I cut, cut, cut!

I have tried checking in Youtube on tips to cut around the sideburns and above ears area but couldn't find any videos and tips on this. Hence, I am still depending on my own judgement and luck to cut my boy's hair everytime heheheh...

So any tips?

I was wondering where should I categorise this post review on, book or music or what and finally decided to put it under 'Product Review' for my post title. The reason is because this book also came with the accompanying CD that tells the storyline with wonderful music and instruments in the background. Now I do not have any background or experience in musical field, so the reason why I decided to review this is because I want my 2 kiddos to learn and appreciate music. How sounds are made, how songs are composed and how different instruments can create wonderful tunes and songs.

Description from the product page:
"In the best-selling and award-winning book Maximus Musicus Visits the Orchestra, Iceland’s best-loved mouse discovers the wonders of music and the symphony orchestra in his own joyful and charming manner.

The book, by Hallfrídur Ólafsdóttir and Þórarinn Már Baldursson, of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, tells the tale of the mouse, Maximus Musicus, who by chance finds himself in a concert hall. What an interesting and adventurous turn his life has suddenly taken! Maxi enjoys himself so much that he decides to stay in the concert hall and see what happens the next day. There he experiences many strange and funny events as well as some wonderful and moving sounds as the orchestral musicians warm up, tune their instruments, rehearse, and finally play the pieces in concert.

The book is illustrated with Þórarinn Már Baldursson’s endearing images and accompanied by an audio CD featuring Stella Arman’s warm and humorous narration, together with music carefully chosen to suit the young audience: Ravel’s Bolero, a Fanfare and some galloping encores as well as Maxi’s own catchy song."

The red colored hardcover book has a total of 40 pages, about 8.5 inches X 10.5 inches X 0.375 inches, and includes an accompanying audio CD where the storyline is narrated by Stella Arman with beautiful and captivating music and sounds as the background.

I used the opportunity to teach my kiddos the many types of musical instruments and I found myself learning too as there are some musical instruments which I have never seen or heard before too!

My 16 months old girl is especially captivated on the cute illustrated Maximus and keeps on pointing at it to me as I go through the storyline with her. My almost 4 years old boy on the other hand is more interested in looking at the various types of musical instruments and listening to the sounds each instruments made.

The music and storytelling is perfect for my 2 kiddos who love fun, groovy and exciting tunes now! A wonderful book that will delight and educate your child, even yourself!

You can get this book from Music Word Media website.

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

One of my 2013 resolutions (I rarely made them in my life so when I made it for this year, I'm trying to stick by it!) is to learn to cook for the family.

Shocking?

I guess you should be. You see, I only cook for my kiddos. The rest of the mealtimes are pretty much handled by my MIL and sometimes my hubby when he is free from his ever busy work or when he's into one of his food making craze.

So, yeah, back to my resolutions. To learn to cook for the family.

Now my first soup experiment is the: Szechuan Vegetable Soup. A close buddy of mine shared this recipe with me and the ingredients are so simple and the steps are easy to follow that I decided to make this soup my first attempt in soup making journey. Do note that I deviated a bit from the original recipe:

Ingredients:
* 1 Szechuan vegetable (palm size) (soaked in water for 30 minutes and then sliced) (** My notes: I used 2 small size Szechuan vegetable which is about my 4 years old boy's palm size and sliced them up and soaked in water for 30 minutes - very worried that it will turn out salty and spicy that I did the other way round, which is sliced and soaked :P)
* 4 tomatoes (** My notes: I used 2 tomatoes and quartered them up)
pork ribs (rinsed and scalded with boiling water) (** My notes: I used about 250gms of pork ribs, rinsed and boiled for a few minutes)
* 3 soup bowls of water (** My notes: I used 2l of boiled water)

Methods:
1. Bring water to boil.
2. Add pork ribs, sliced Szechuan vegetables and tomatoes.
3. Simmer for 1 hour or more until the ribs are tender. Serve hot. (** My notes: I used slow cooker instead of gas stove to cook this soup, so I put on high for about 1 hour, followed by low settings about 4 hours)

Outcome:

This soup I made is too diluted, maybe I added too much water as I didn't factor in that I'm using slow cooker instead of gas stove. Also because I chose to slice and then soak the Szechuan veggies for half hour instead of the other way round, I think I have made the soup less salty and NON spicy. Whoopsss.... Nevertheless, I told myself, first attempt. Try to do better next time!

To view my other recipes, feel free to hop over to my Recipe Library page for more info!