I'm a full-time mummy

Children are a lovely thing, all adorable in their tiny clothes, with minds still unsullied by the wide world that surrounds them. Sure, they can be a handful at times (a lot of times) but we still love them, even if sometimes it’s just because we have to (!). One of their more notable traits is the desire to explore everything around them in every possible way and to push the limits of their surroundings, just to see how far they can go, often leading to things getting more than a little messy. Bizarrely, I’ve noticed my kids –and those of my friends-  have a strange attraction to the doors in my home, taking every opportunity to see what they can do with them, so without further ado, the five most annoying things that kids do with doors:
 

#5 “We don’t live in a barn”
It’s a simple one, but gosh does it get annoying over time – Yes, it’s the classic leaving-the-door-open-when-you-come-in-a-room trick. As soon as kids learn how to walk, they’re want to explore places of the house previously thought unreachable, this is a pretty understandable trait in amongst itself but do they have to leave the doors open everywhere they go!? 
 

#4 “Don’t swing from there!”
Here’s another one for you – count the number of times you’ve walked into a room to see your child swinging from the door handle, weighing the entire thing down and generally being a nuisance. It’s likely been a good number of times, but here’s a horror story for you; one day, as I entered the living room to finally sit down, my son hung from the back of the door handle giggling cheekily to himself before a large cracking noise erupted and the door handle ripped straight from the wood, sending my son tumbling down and me to B&Q to replace the darned thing – all whilst reassuring my child that it was fine, but he mustn’t do it again.

#3 “It’s very nice, but what’s wrong with good old fashioned paper?”
Kids are an artistic bunch, with mile wide smiles when given the opportunity to draw what’s going on in their heads and see it come to fruition in front of their eyes. It’s usually for that reason that homes with children are usually littered with pens, crayons and all manners of paints, something that kids will always find use for. Cue spending the next couple of hours scrubbing as hard as you can, trying to get the pig drawing of mummy and daddy from the door before dinner.

#2 “I warned you about standing behind the door”
You can tell them and tell them, but children seem incapable of standing anywhere in the room but directly behind a door, meaning you either tentatively open every single door in your home, or your kid is getting a gentle nudge out of the way. Incredibly annoying and yet so simple! Genius, really.

#1 “Don’t slam the do-“.. “Oh, you did”.
Tantrums, tantrums, tantrums, an everyday occurrence in most households and apparently built in to every child is the desire to prove their levels of upset by slamming as many doors as possible. It’s by far the most annoying thing a kid can do with your doors, and gosh do they know it. Interestingly, this phenomenon has been noted back a long way in history, so it’s comforting to know the parents of yesteryear had to deal with the same nonsense.

Jakk Ogden writes for http://www.homesecureshop.co.uk/, a home security specialist helping consumers secure their homes with products such as home security locks and UPVC window restrictors.

I have been reviewing VeggieTales DVD on a regular basis for a while now, so when I received the press release for the "3-2-1 Penguins!" series, I told myself, I must review this, I mean, coming from the same company, it should be as awesome as well, and boy, I was right! So, here goes my review for the "3-2-1 Penguins! The Complete Season 1":

Description from the product page:
"Your favorite flightless space birds are back! Now for the first time - all 13 episodes from season one of this #1 rated NBC show are available together on one DVD!"

I received the DVD early in October but delayed watching it with my children as we were occupied with our ambassadors role for the Nissan LEAF car! And then in the first week of October right up till almost the middle of October, each and every one of us in the family fell sick, started off with my 13 months old girl who had fever (we found out she's sprouting two molars), then my 3.5 months old boy who had fever, and then my turn with flu, followed by my boy again who vomited 4 times (doctor suspected it's due to constipation) and finally my hubby who had chills and flu.

So yeah, took us a week and the whole family to get sick and recovered and over the recent weekend, we relaxed at home and I decided to pop in the first DVD into my computer laptop.

From the moment the show begins, right to the song intro (which got both my children jiggy-ing and dancing along) until the end of the first DVD, my hubby told me 'Look at your boy. He's just glued in front of your laptop!' Wow! Really, really!

At night, I played the second DVD and yup, my boy is glued in front of my laptop again. Now, I try not to let my kids watch too much TV (mostly during mealtimes and after 6pm nowadays, if possible, of course I will try not to get them to watch it) so I can't comment much other than the weekend that my kids watched this DVD - complete season 1 and I can tell you, this show is good!

It has catchy tune (in the intro song) and each of the episodes comes with very good moral lessons to learn from!

I like that this DVD teaches us moral lessons such as not to be envious of others, to learn to share, to have a sympathetic ear and listens to others when they are feeling down and so on. I made use of the opportunities to reinforce and explain to my boy (well, my 13 months old girl pretty much dances along to the catchy tune only) that we should learn to share things, not be greedy, we should not play tricks on other people and so on.

I can see that my boy is absorbing and learning all this, and I also like the use of scriptures taken from the bible in this DVD. It is subtle and yet goes right along with the episodes. And I really love seeing how each episodes ends with both Jason and Michelle (the twin siblings in the show) kneeled down besides their beds and prays and give thanks to what happened in their day. I hope this will rub off to my kids one day and that they both will do this too!

One thing that I'm still wondering is why we cannot see the grandmother's face, no matter how, her face is subtly covered. I wonder why? Hmmmm...

Highly recommended and we will definitely watch this again and again!

You can watch the trailer or get the DVD at: http://store.veggietales.com/3-2-1-penguins-the-complete-season-1.html

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.

I am so intrigued when I saw the press release for this pendant! I mean, a pendant engraved with 120 'I love you' languages?! How cool is that? So here goes my review for the beautiful "I Love You 120 Languages Pendant Onyx":

Description from the product page:
"Je t’aime…… Te Quiero……Ich lieb dich …… sun ho ez…. I Love You! If you can’t say it enough then say it in 120 languages! This elegant love pendant is a gift straight from the heart that will surely dazzle your loved ones, available in a stylish black oval onyx (15x21) engraved in 24 karat gold set in a choice of shimmering sterling silver or gorgeous 14 karat gold."

Sorry for the picture quality... I tried my best to zoom in as close as I can, it's either reflecting my camera or I can't capture the super miniature words inscribed on the pendant. Now, the pendant came in a cute little jewelry box with a miniature magnifying glass which you can use to read the various 'I love you' words in all 120 languages! 

I love the shimmering sterling silver necklace and the length is just nice! The pendant itself is not heavy at all and I love seeing all the words inscribed in tiny details!

You can get it at: http://www.nanostyle.com/i-love-you-120-onyx.html

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product for free using Tomoson.com 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.