I'm a full-time mummy

** Welcome to the Pregnancy Necessities Carnival! This post was written for inclusion in the Pregnancy Necessities Carnival hosted by Parenting God’s Children. Today, participants share what they simply cannot live without during their pregnancies or simply what to gather for their upcoming new addition. Please see the full list of links to the other carnival submissions at the end of this post. Enjoy! ***

We found out I was pregnant when Ben is about 2 years+ old. I was still breastfeeding him about 3-4 times daily then.

Honestly speaking, I don't know anyone around me who breastfeed more than a year, let alone, one who STILL breastfeed while she is pregnant. So it is crucial for me to find out as much information I can about breastfeeding during pregnancy.

So what I really needed during my 2nd pregnancy while I was still breastfeeding are:

Information! Lots and lots of it!

• I sourced for information from the Internet and all those parenting and nursing mums groups on Facebook  (such as KellyMom.com, Code Name: Mama & The Leaky B@@b) and blogs around.

• I even ordered the "Adventures in Tandem Nursing: Breastfeeding During Pregnancy and Beyond" and "Mothering Your Nursing Toddler" books from Amazon as it was highly recommended by lots of people and it does helped me out to allay my fears in breastfeeding on!

Strong will

• People who know me will know that I've always been saying that I will continue breastfeeding as long as Ben wants it and as long as I can still produce breastmilk for him, so being pregnant should hopefully not be an obstacle or an excuse to wean him off breastfeeding.
• Despite hearing from our gynae and pead about weaning, I stood firm and breastfeed on!
  

Support

• On the family side, my hubby has been very helpful and has been spending more time with Ben even though he's so tired with his work and all so that I could have some 'me' time and rest for a while. So yes, I'm very very thankful and grateful for his help and support.

So the above are some of the necessities during my 2nd pregnancy.

To sum it, I breastfed throughout the pregnancy (though my BM stopped at 5th month, that doesn't stop my boy from continuing on!), delivered my 2nd baby at 39 weeks of pregnancy and is now tandem nursing my 2 kids at 6 months going on!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants!

• The Pregnancy Happiness List — That Mama Gretchen is half way through pregnancy number two and is spilling the beans on her pregnancy must-haves!
• What A Pregnant Woman Really Needs — Jennifer Hybrid Rasta Mama reflects on what items she could not live without during her pregnancy as well as those she wishes she had.
• Cravings of Another Kind — When reflecting on what made her pregnancy enjoyable, Adrienne at Mommying My Way discovered information is what she craved most of all.
• The Pregnancy Necessities — Kym at Our Crazy Corner of the World shares her top ten must haves for pregnant women.
• The Expectant Mom‘s List of Breastfeeding Stuff to Buy, or Not — Alicia at Lactation Narration shares a list of 10 breastfeeding products that the expectant mom might want to have on her shopping list, or not.
• Pregnancy Necessities with a Toddler In Tow — Amyables at Toddler in Tow lists several simple things that make pregnancy while parenting an older child much less stressful and more enjoyable.
• Ten Tips That Helped Me During Pregnancy — Kat at {Almost} Every Moment shares ten things that helped her get through her three pregnancies!
• First Trimester Staples — Megan BB from The Memoirs of Megan shares her first trimester "must haves"
• The Pregnancy Must Have — Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy shares the ONE thing she used almost daily, through all three pregnancies and suggests to all pregnant moms.
• Where to Find Cute Maternity Clothes — Lauren at Hobo Mama reviews which maternity clothing stores to hit or miss.
• My Pregnancy Support System — While there are many material things that are nice to have during pregnancy, Dionna at Code Name: Mama’s true essentials were her family.
• What I Needed During My Pregnancy While Still Breastfeeding — Jenny at I'm a Full-Time Mummy shares one of the things she needed during her second pregnancy while she was still breastfeeding her toddler.
• Ten Essentials for a HAPPY Pregnant Mama — Sarah at Parenting God’s Children is half way through her third pregnancy! She shares the things she‘s found to be essential to a happy pregnant mama.

Yes, people!

Finally the day has arrived!

It's my 32nd birthday today!

Don't know what to say except I am blessed with an understanding and supportive hubby and 2 cheeky kids, a helpful MIL, wonderful in-law siblings, bonding well with my one and only elder brother, made a new bestie (I have 2 now! Yay!) and meet with lots of you wonderful people!

Never would I imagine getting married,

getting pregnant,

giving birth naturally,

quitting my job to be a SAHM,

breastfeeding exclusively,

finding my passion in blogging,

getting pregnant again after almost 2 years,

breastfeeding throughout the 2nd pregnancy,

giving birth naturally again,

tandem nursing 2 kids,

being alive to write this post and thank God for everything I am blessed with,

and everyone for being a part of my life...

Here's wishing you all a happy and blessed day!

(it's my birthday, I want you guys to be happy and have a memorable day!)

I received an email from Olha, the marketing manager of this fun app as they were looking for ways to spread the word about their wonderful mobile application for kids. I replied that I would be delighted to review the app myself if they don't mind since Ben is not into spelling stage yet. Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Smart Speller English
* Price: The free version comes with 1 puzzle category (Vegetables), full version for iPad app: $2.99
* Category: Education
* Updated: 06 February 2012
* Version: 2.1
* Size: 29.7 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Lemberg Solutions Limited
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.Requires iOS 4.2 or later

Description from the product page:

"This simple to use and effective interactive learning game was created by parents for parents to help their children learn to correctly pronounce and spell words and letters. Thanks to its three levels of complexity (with hints, without hints and with extra letters), SmartSpeller will be exciting for kids to complete over and over again, moving to the next level as they grow up and learn. "

Although Ben is not into spelling stage yet, I am delighted to review this app because I am a bit of a spelling nuts fan and love games that require puzzle solving! Hey, at the end of the day, I keep all the good educational apps on my iPad so that I can let Ben use it when he's ready!

The app comes with 80 original pictures across 7 categories (numbers and colours, fruit & vegetable, vehicles, farm animals, shapes, body parts) and the game is played by tapping a moving object and then completing a word puzzle.

What's good?

* I love that we can also touch the objects on the screen and the narrator tells you what it is!

* I like the difficulty levels which correspond appropriately. Easy level allows you to see the spelling of the word, Medium level test you on the spelling without any hints and the Hard level has an additional letter to test and trick your knowledge to see whether you are confident with your answers.

* Upon solving each category, you will see the colors for the category appearing as rainbow so it gives you something to look forward to as a reward for solving all the categories.

* There are different language versions of the Smart Speller app! (FYI, there are 10 language versions available on the AppStore and 13 language versions on the Android Market)

Room for Improvement?

* I would love it if the letters being spelled out (upon solving) to have other colors instead of the current darker brown which is not so eye catching.

* I wonder whether it is possible to animate out the object image after spelling correctly, for example after spelling the word 'one' correctly, the app can animate out 1 ball bouncing around the page or something.

You can purchase the "Smart Speller English" app from the iTunes App Store.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! FOUR of you lucky people are going to win a copy of this awesome and educational app! You will absolutely love it! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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"