I'm a full-time mummy

I have been sharing some of my favorite angpow pieces on an angpow collectors group in Facebook and some members have been telling me to continue sharing my memorable stories and so I thought, why not write it down, that way, our kiddos can read about it when they grow up next time, eh?

For those of you who are not familiar or never heard of the words 'Angpow' (also known as 'ang pau', 'ang pao', 'angpau'), here is a quick definition:

Angpow = Red Packet (filled with cash inside) given during festivals

So for today's angpow story, it comes from this piece of lovely angpow:

The moment I see the motorcycle on the ap, it reminded me of my late dad's motorcycle. It was not the same Suzuki brand (my dad owned a Yamaha bike) but it looks very similar.

Ever since I was born, the bike has been in the family. I can't remember how many times dad repaired the bike but he had to, we are not rich to get a car etc. I remembered in late 90s, dad used his savings to pay for a second hand Iswara when my older brother got his license - that was the 1st car in our family. Yet, dad maintained his faithful old bike.

I remembered the stories dad told me about his bike. How it saved his life back in the 60s during the riot times. Dad told me how as he was riding his bike away from his office, he saw people chasing around with parangs trying to attack and hurt others, whoever within reach. Thanks to his bike, it saved his life. He made it back home safely.

I remembered sitting at the front part of the bike where the petrol tank was located at. I was 7 years old and insisted to tag along with my parents to the morning market.

I remembered how dad got into an accident when I was in my early teens and it hurt him that his bike was damaged as well but he managed to save up his money to repair it bit by bit.

I remembered as I got older and looking at my parents riding away after I got on my school bus to school in the wee hours of morning.

I remembered when I started doing part-time sales promoter job at 16 years old during school holidays, dad would fetch me back home with his bike from the back lane of Metrojaya Bukit Bintang Plaza.

I remembered when I was working part-time at the souvenir shop during my college year and dad fetched me back home everyday at 6pm with his bike.

I remembered the times we had to squeeze through the traffic jams and was amazed at how dad managed to sverve left and right to avoid hitting the cars and busses around us.

I remembered the times when I got stranded with my dad at some shoplots when it rained suddenly and we had to take shelter from the heavy rain.

I remembered the few times we braved through the rain on the way home (in highway, no chance to stop for any shelters) and how his raincoat will flap over my legs and I tried to cover his back as well with my windcoat.

I remembered to look of 'we made it home!' during these occasions.

I remembered the looks of admiration from other bikers as we all waited for green light and people were asking my dad about his bike.

I remembered the bike was unique from others, dad's bike has 2 long exhaust pipes while the newer modern bikes has 1 exhaust pipe only.

I remembered seeing how proud dad was with his bike. It was old, antique and in running condition. How can one not be proud of it?

I remembered dad telling us how people offered his lots of money for his bike and he rejected the offers.

I remembered watching dad wiping, drying and cleaning his beloved bike.

I remembered even as my dad started getting too weak to ride on his bike and he asked my hubby (then boyfriend) to start and warm up his bike every now and then to make sure it is still in running condition.

I remembered how sad I was when my dad passed away, the bike was left downstairs at our government flat motorcyle parking bays where it has always faithfully been parked at.

I remembered the sadness and regret that we never bothered to take up motorcycle lessons and exams.

I remembered the anger and fury as I see the tires and some main parts of the bike got stollen days after dad was cremated.

I will never forget how I cursed the thief and hope they rot in hell for doing this despicable acts.

I remembered regretting my cursing as I realised as a Christian, revenge is not ours to take and we should never ever curse at anybody no matter how.

I remembered praying that the person(s) who stole my dad's bike parts will make good use of the parts and the money will be able to support their family in need. That is the only thought I can think of to console my broken heart.

So many memories of that bike... Of my dad... Of my childhood... Of alot of things...

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I have been cutting down on doing product reviews since 2014 and what more with baby #4 on the way this end of year, all the more I need to be particularly picky and selective with the products that I'm reviewing. Not that I'm trying to be hard sell, no, definitely not! But with 3 kiddos + 1 on the way, being a housewife at home with kiddos all the time and helping out with hubby's business, I just feel it is not fair to make companies and PR reps wait for my reviews while I slowly review and look for time to spare to draft out my feedback you know? But of course, like I said, I have to be selective, so products that we can definitely fit into our family dynamics (especially books on parenting or homeschooling stuff, family products, something along those genre) will be accepted!

Recently, I received an email asking whether I would be interested to review this colourful stationery brand originated from Australia (and coming soon to KL!!!) Since our kiddos could make good use of all these stationeries, I thought why not?

About the product:

"Born and bred in Australia, Smiggle is now 13 years old, with over 200 stores across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and soon to be launching in Malaysia and Hong Kong. Smiggle is dedicated to fuelling the creative spirit by delivering original, fun and affordable stationery. Smiggle products are about great design and innovation, bold colour, quirky graphics, good value and most of all – giving Smiggle customers the tools they need to have fun! Where a smile meets a giggle, it’s the world’s greatest place.

A treasure trove of stationery and fun ‘stuff’, Smiggle has everything you need for school, homework or play. Its new store will be filled with bright and bold stationery, bags, lunchboxes, accessories, gadgets and more. At Smiggle, every product features a special Smiggle ‘twist’ on a stationery classic - a burst of bright colour, unique design and quirky graphic illustration results in goodies that are miles ahead of the rest."

I received the following smiggle items for my review. Some are selected by myself while some are selected from the smiggle company (due to the items I requested being out of stock) Backpacks, water bottles, pencil case, coloring pens, ruler, eraser, watches even toys for our kiddos! God is so wonderful in continuing to bless our family by connecting this wonderful company to us with all these goodies!

As a parent, I will normally check for the quality of the products. As a parent with 3 kiddos (and 1 more on the way!), I will check whether the products can at least last 2 kiddos LOL. Zips, tags, straws, buckles etc - whether there is any possible hazards I can foresee or not (thank God no!) and I even tried scratching some products to see whether the color came off or not (thank God again no!)

I will not be reviewing each and every items we received but will highlight some of them that worth mentioning and sharing with you guys. We shall start with the colorful and sturdy backpacks. The backpacks come with padded adjustable shoulder straps or fixed carry handle. There is also a double zip access to main compartment, dual drink bottle sleeves, outer zip pockets and I love the name label and slip pocket inside the backpack. I'm quite particular with showing kiddos name outside their belongings so this is a good idea I feel.

The next products worth mentioning is the cool Watch This Space Swirl watches! At first I thought they were rulers as the front part is blank unlike the normal watches you see around. Once we took it out of its box and my kiddos started messing and pressing the watch, we watched in awe as the time lits up the surface of the watch. Coolness! All you need to do is just tap on the face & the time appears! You repeat the same steps by pressing longer if you want to change the setting of the time and date. The watches come in 2 designs which you can see our kiddos wearing in the pictures below - Swirling Black/Green and Pink/Blue with Glitter. The watches are made from silicone with metal buckle. Soft and comfy to the touch, I love it!

I'm so glad our 3rd kiddo get to play with something here hahaha... while I was busy checking out the smiggle's products we received, she quietly took out the lightly scented Jumbo Macarons Eraser and was happily disassembling and matching back the macaroons according to the pink and purple colors. Self-discovery of toys hahahaha! Anyway, these jumbo macaroons eraser are too cute to be used as eraser, I have a weakness for this! Can't bear to see them being erased away... so for now, I'll just keep it for our little girl to use as a puzzle matching toys hehehehe...

Now, if you have a child or know of someone with a child, I really recommend getting this Puzzle Serpent 2 toy for the child! This playful plastic puzzle can be moulded by gently twisting them into countless shapes, rectangle, squares, heart shape, snake, cane etc. I showed them to my hubby and he said he used to play something like this long ago when he was a small boy and it was so fun. He's happy to see our kiddos playing something he used to play with in his childhood. The cool thing with this toy is you can bring it along wherever you go, in car, out at the park, stuck at home etc. Very good idea for a gift as well!

This next item was requested by me as it reminded me of my childhood hahahaha! The Pinball Pop Out Pencil Case!! The pencil case comes with 2 main compartments (front and back) and 4 pop-out features which has a built-in sharpener, pop-up pen slot holder, 2 eraser / small parts compartments and 3 stand up pen holders, not forgetting the cool pinball game right on top of the pencil case! I remember having a pencil case like this when I was young. It was such a cool thing then (and NOW!), kinda like having a Transformer robot in your hand, just a flick of some buttons and you see it transforming and popping out stuff everywhere!

Here are some other items I requested - the Juicy Memo Adhesive Note, Garden Wind Up Sharpener and the cute portable fan pen (need to put in battery for it to work though). The colourful juice carton contains 200 square sticky memos in 2 fluorescent alternating colours (mine comes in bright yellow and hot pink colors). The memos are easily dispensed from the back of the juice carton with clever pop-out action. I had to hide my juice box from our youngest kiddo as she was so fascinated with the papers coming out of the box.

This A5 Lockable Fluffy Buddy Notebook is one product I'll be keeping in store for the moment as our kiddos are still too young to appreciate this. I think a pre-teen will appreciate this gift! Remember the days when you have a diary and locks it up to keep our secret safe? Hahaha... This furry soft and fluffy acrylic textured lockable journal with embroidered and applique detail. There is 80 sheets or 160 lined page layouts and the book comes with a lock and 2 sets of keys. There's 3 other designs beside the one we received but I personally think this blue design is the cutest!

Overall, very attractive yet fun and good quality stuff!

There's just too many designs and choices to choose from!

Regardless whether you have a child or not, there's definitely something in store for you and your loved ones from smiggle!

Smiggle will be opening their first Malaysia store at Suria KLCC in mid April 2016.

So make sure you’ve got your running shoes on and sprint to Smiggle at Suria KLCC this April!

Do check out http://www.smiggle.com.my/ or https://www.facebook.com/smiggleasia/ or https://www.instagram.com/smiggle_asia/.

Do note that I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the products 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.

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I am crappy at planning things to teach to our kiddos way in advance. I usually just browsed through the workbooks softcopies on my laptop and see what interests me at that point and then print out the worksheets related to the topics or googled for the worksheets online. So happened that the topic I decided to teach our kiddos is PLANT.

At first I thought, I have to teach both of them together. Even though their age gap differs (4.5 and 7, I left our 2.5 years old girl play with her toys happily) I told myself I have to make it works for both our older kiddos. By hook or by crook I'm not going to repeat this topic again and again lol.

So I got our kiddos to sit on the floor facing the whiteboard while I started gathering up my thoughts on how I should approach this topic so that they both can understand at their respective ages. Yes, I think my brains works very well under pressure and critical time limit lol.

I started with explaining to them what is a plant. It is a living thing, just like the animals and us humans. It 'eats', 'drinks', breathe and grows just like any other living thing. Then I drew some examples of plants such as grass, plants with flowers and a tree.

I proceeded to explain to them the parts of the plants. Roots, stems, leaves, flowers, trunk, branches etc. What each parts does to the plant. I compared my body to the plants with flowers and also to the tree.

Pretending that I'm a plant with flowers, I asked them where should my roots be and waited for our kiddos to point to my feet. I repeated the similar questions for leaves and flowers and stem. And moved on to pretending I'm a tree and repeated the same questions, where should my roots, branches, trunk etc be if I am a tree.

After the explanation, I proceeded to hand them 2 worksheets related to the topic I have just explained. Now, our 4.5 years old girl is not reading anything yet but she can do her copywork decently, meaning if you give her any words and asked her to copy out the word, she can do it no problem. I didn't need to explain what to do to our 7 years old boy since he can read the instructions, so I focused on our 4.5 years old girl.

I read out the name of the parts of the plant and asked her where should the parts be. Once she pointed to the right part, I told her to copy out the respective words next to the part. She did so diligently and patiently. At the same time she practises her copywork and writing skills, I also get to observe her understanding of the lesson I just taught them. Whether she captures what I said and remembered anything.

(** Left by our 4.5 years old girl, right by our 7 years old boy)

I repeated the same method with the second worksheet. But this time, instead of her writing down the answers, I told her 'This word is circle means 'roots', now draw a line to match to where the roots are.' She happily matches the line to the parts and completed both worksheets. 

(** Left by our 4.5 years old girl, right by our 7 years old boy)

I'm loving moments like this where both kiddos can learn together!

Win-win!

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.