Walloping the King of all Fruits!

~ Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 at 8:04 PM ~

Yeap... we just had durians (pronounced as "do-ree-aunt") yesterday!! It was yummylicious! A close friend of ours came over in the afternoon and spent the evening at our house, their daughter is about 2 months+ older than Ben so they were having a blast playing in Ben's playroom. Then we went out for dinner and stopped over to buy back some durians to eat at home.

This is the durian stall we went to... They even have their own website! Coolness! Cool

Oh yeah, before I forget, noticed that new watermark on the picture above? What do you think of it? Also a creation of moi.. hahaha... I wanted it to look like it has been stamped the way they do when they sent mails and stuff but I guess this will do...

So anyway before I distract myself further from the topic of durians, we ordered 2 types of durians... We got one of the staff there to choose the best ones and he went ahead and cut open the durians with his big knife...

And then he showed us the contents:

Look at the glorious yellowing fleshy durians in there! The staff then asked us to take one and tried just to be sure it's the best, so hubby wasted no time and proceeded to dunk in his hand and grabbed one and tried. Look at the picture below... look at Ben's pitiful face... OK, maybe he doesn't look pitiful but he was gazing intently at the durian (by which all that was left in daddy's hand was the seed)

The rest of the durians were swiftly cut open and packed into a container for us to bring back home to eat. Sorry for the picture color, it was taken under yellow warm light, and definitely doesn't do the justice of those glorious and yummylicious durians... Kiss Ben loves eating it though we don't give him a lot, just tiny bits for him to try the new taste Wink

So anyway, you can read more about durians from Wikipedia at this link. How about you? Have you tried durians before?

Posted By I'm a full-time mummy Awesome Comments (8)
E-mail Permalink Post RSS Bookmark and Share

Product Review - Buds Organics

~ Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 4:51 PM ~

Before I begin, I'd like to mention that I received these products early in June and have been testing it throughout the month. The pictures posted in this review still carries the watermark of my previous blog's URL and I am not able to redo the watermark as my laptop was reformatted just few days ago and I've lost the original pictures taken during this review. (So, I have no choice but to use the photos which was saved in my review draft) but nevertheless, its my feedback that counts right, not the nitty gritty details like pictures' watermarks huh..?

Anyway, for this product review, I have highlighted the few main important dates where I tested the products and note down my feedback upon the testing. Without further adieu, the product I'll be reviewing in this post is: "Buds Organics"

I have been given this wonderful opportunity to review a product made in my home country, Malaysia! Buds Organics is produced by the Malaysian company I-Green, and is the first Asian brand of certified organic baby care products.

Buds was first introduced to the market as pure and natural and was then gone through reformulation process into organic for the past year. The implementation was completed last October 2009 and this basic range is now called Buds Organics which can be broken into 4 categories namely Buds Everyday Organics, Buds Soothing Organics, Buds Outdoor Organics and Buds Nurturing Organics for Mom. They have another luxurious line of baby and mum care, Buds Cherished Organics which is preservative free! Buds is now certified organic by ECOCERT of France.

Pure and gentle, Buds Organics will allow you to really pamper and nourish baby's skin without exposing her to harmful chemicals such as sodium lauryl sulphates, PEG, artificial colors, artificial fragrances, mineral oils, parabens and other harmful synthetic ingredients. This comprehensive range is made up of specific and specialized products to handle almost every situation from delicate newborn skin to diaper rash and even mum’s stretch marks.

Buds Organics products are packed with gorgeous organic ingredients like EFA rich Amazonian Inca Inchi, which protects, heals and nourishes and the luscious emollients, Sunflower and Jojoba oils and Shea Butter. Aside from the washes, all products are over 88% organic which far surpasses ECOCERT's minimum requirements of 10%.
At Buds, every effort is made to ensure minimum damage to the environment. They use post consumer recycled paper where possible and only box their products where necessary. Their plastic is recyclable and they use both sides of every sheet of paper because even the smallest steps can make a difference!

I fell in love with their oh-so-cute baby cartoons on their labels! What's awesome is they even listed down the things that are NOT in their products. You can read more on this link on their website. These are the products I received to facilitate my product review:

Under the Buds Organics line:
* A 50ml First Aid Lotion
* A 225ml Baby Head to Toe Cleanser
* A 75ml Baby Cream
* Brochures on the products under Buds Organics
Under the Buds Cherished Organics line:
* A 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Head to Toe Cleanser
* A 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Cream

As usual, all products to be reviewed must go through Ben's high standards of testing which begins with him biting the baby cream tube. Well, bite test passed! :P

Ben is undecided on which items to test next since there's so many to choose from... Now let's proceed to mummy's test on Ben (Hehehe!)...

1st June 2010 testing:
The first product I tested is the First Aid Lotion, I dabbed some onto the side of Ben's nose which he scratched 2 days ago. By evening, the scab looks dried and smaller, and to think I only applied once on Ben! Good stuff! I like the First Aid Lotion tube cos it's small and I feel assured that the first aid lotion is made of organic stuff.

Next up in line for testing is the Baby Head to Toe Cleanser which I used when I bathed Ben in the evening. It smells nice, initially feels oily when I poured some onto my palm, makes bubbles when rubbed onto Ben's body but surprisingly, washes off real fast when sprayed with water. The current baby milk bath I used for Ben takes about 2-3 times wash in order to remove the soapy slippery feel so it's a nice change when I'm using the Baby Head to Toe Cleanser. Ben's hair also feels fluffier, smoother and softer. Surprisingly, even hubby and his eldest brother noticed that too although hubby said he prefer Ben's hair to be rougher! :P

One more thing I noticed when using Buds Baby Head to Toe Cleanser is it doesn't sting Ben's eyes when I washes the cleanser off from his hair. Compared to our current baby milk bath, Ben would've been running all over in the bath room to avoid his hair being washed and he'll be busy wiping his eyes (which sometimes makes it red) and I have to quickly wash his hair and wipe his face dry to reduce the irritation towards his eyes. So, yeah, this stuff is good man!Love it! And this is only day 1 of the testing! :D

3rd June 2010 testing:
Ben scratched his nose again in the late afternoon! Just as the first scratch healed up, he went and created a longer one. So, while he took his nap earlier, I took a close up shot of his scratch before I dab on the First Aid Lotion.
Look at that long scratch... sigh... let's see how fast it takes to heal with the First Aid Lotion.

5th June 2010 testing:
Ben's nose scratch has healed up completely! This stuff is good! In fact, I too dabbed on some First Aid Lotion when I scratched my left knee! It does stings a bit initially. The last I checked on 6th June, the wound has scabbed over and is on its way to heal! :D 

I have also been testing the Baby Cream with Ben and it leaves your skin feeling soft and smooth and I really love the smell of it!

9th June 2010 testing:

We tested the 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Head to Toe Cleanser (under the Buds Cherished Organics line) and the smell is so much stronger! I can actually still smell the fragrance in Ben's hair in the middle of the night (Ben co-sleeps with us) - totally love it!

10th June 2010 testing:

Today, we tested the 8ml sachet pack of Happy Baby Cream (under the Buds Cherished Organics line). Personally I feel that this is a bit too slimy for me and the smell doesn't lasts as long. I prefer to use the Baby Cream under the Buds Organics line.

You can go to http://www.budsbaby.com/ to find out the stores available in your countries that sell their products.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a free products by Buds Organics 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.

Posted By I'm a full-time mummy Awesome Comments (4)
Category Review Tag ,
E-mail Permalink Post RSS Bookmark and Share

Home Sweet Home!

~ Posted on Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 1:11 AM ~

... is what my blog would say! My blog has finally found its own home! Cool

 

After the process of acquiring my own domain (http://www.imafulltimemummy.com/) since 11th June 2010, I have immediately proceeded to design my new blog layout and settings. There are tons of things to take care of, such as:

* Hosting - where should I host my own blog domain now? Wordpress? Etc?

* Blog Design - how do I want my blog to look like now? Do I use back the previous design or do from scratch?

* Blog Identity (header/banner, buttons, signatures, gravatar etc) - depends on my blog design... if I use back my blogspot design, then everything pretty much remains the same...

* Migration of data - what about my almost 350 posts since I started blogging in June last year? Not to mention over 2000+ comments received on my blog? Do I leave it in blogspot or I move it over to my new domain?

* Activities - What about my current blogging activities in http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/?

* Followers - What about my current followers? How do I migrate them over?


Well, anyway, after much considerations and some wishy-washy-indecisive-do and redo process, I have decided to:

* Hosting - go for something other than Wordpress.. I am not a fan of Wordpress actually...

* Blog Design - refer to one of the template from BlogEngine (*thanks to Magnus Jepson for his template!) and fine tune it myself based on my own liking... The reason why I decided NOT to use back my previous template in http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/ is because of my blog identity. I want it to be unique and hence decided to not reuse the template in my blogspot theme.

* Blog Identity (header/banner, buttons, signatures, gravatar etc) - Since I decided to do my own blog design, everything has to be designed and customised from scratch! Blog headers, all the sidebar titles, my new blog signature, gravatar, new blog buttons, new blog meme etc... Please excuse the simple design as I do not have any experience in graphic designs and I do all this using Microsoft Paint & Powerpoint softwares but I do love it myself so I guess you guys have to just bear with the ugliness of them OK?

* Migration of data - As much as it saddens me to leave everything as it is in my old blogspot blog, I made this decision mainly because I want to start everything fresh... I mean, I finally have my OWN BLOG DOMAIN! So I decided to leave all the old posts and comments as it is (even though I did initially migrated all of them over to BlogEngine for my testing in this new domain). Oh, another reason is most of the images in my http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/ are watermarked as http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/. "Bad move", says my husband... Yeap... how would I know I would one day decided to have my own blog domain and be super strict and possesive with my own images??!!!

* Activities - As for current blogging activities in http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/, I have to temporarily reduce and even stop posting some new stuff in the blog (need to keep those new ideas in my new blog ehem ehem!) and just be contented with blog hopping while I rushed up the development of this my own blog domain. I also have a giveaway running in my blogspot which will ends on 30th June 2010, so I figured it'd be best if I announce the winner here later ...

* Followers - As for moving over my followers, I did some searching on the Net and found some tutorials to guide me along, but as of now, I'm still tinkering around as not very good in web scripting for this... thank God hubby managed to set up the Google Friend Connect widget for me!


Of course, I do get worried with things like:

  • Will my own blog domain be as awesome as my older blog in http://imafulltimemummy.blogspot.com/? Undecided
  • Do the images for my own blog domain looks nice? Undecided (You have NO idea how much time I spent designing and redo, screen capture, cut and paste, upload and delete all those images you see in this blog now!) Oh well, to save myself from spending $$$ in getting a web designer or purchasing those ready made or customised blog templates and images on the Net, I will not regret this decision! Tongue out
  • Will my own blog domain be getting back its regular bloggy friends and visitors or am I going to be the only one reading my own blog domain now? Cry


Oh well, now all that is history... I've gotta move forward.

Today is a brand new day for me... and definitely for my blog.

Finally I don't have to be in fear of 'squatting' over blogspot (free thing doesn't mean its good... I'll explain more on this later...)

I've got to get down to doing some product reviews which are waiting for me for a while now and also posting some new developments on Ben... Till then, thank you for coming here and I really hope I will see you back here again!

 

p.s: If you don't mind, could you leave me your feedback about this blog? Anything that comes on your mind when you are here... like the design, structure and layout, the sidebar widgets, fonts, anything... Thanks, really appreciate it!


Posted By I'm a full-time mummy Awesome Comments (7)
E-mail Permalink Post RSS Bookmark and Share