I'm a full-time mummy

I have been cutting down on doing product reviews towards the last quarter of year 2016 to prepare for our coming 4th kiddo who was born in early November 2016 and I am now slowly resuming doing product reviews but prioritizing those that can fit into our family dynamics (especially books on parenting or homeschooling stuff, family products, something along those genre)

However, as busy as I am with 4 kiddos, home cooking, taking care of hubby's administration site of the business and swamped up with managing my FB page and blog, I just can't say no to reviewing good books, what more one as unique as this! Reading is my passion and coupled with books that are of parenting, children, family or religion or educational genre, all the more I gotta say yes! 

Title: Rasa Sayang Sing-and-Record Fun Book
Publisher: Peyron Singapore Pte Ltd
ISBN: 978-981-09-8706-0
Paperback: 16 pages (hardboard)

Description from the product page:

"Rasa Sayang Sing-and-Record Fun Book is the first-ever push-button Malay folksong book. Realising the importance of preserving and protecting the local cultural heritage, Lok Leejiun curated the book to reconnect the younger generation to their roots. The book introduces an ensemble of traditional Malay folksongs, featuring seven (7) Nusantara folksongs namely Rasa Sayang, Chan Mali Chan, Burung Kakak Tua, Anak Itik Tok Wi, Lenggang Kangkung, Bengawan Solo, and Gelang Sipaku Gelang for the kids.

The book incorporates interactive elements to enhance and create a more memorable learning experience for children. Besides the conventional push-and-play button for pre-recorded songs, the book also features a ‘record’ button to record parents’ singing, and a ‘playback’ button to listen to the recording – allowing for parent-child interaction even when parents are occupied. English translations of the Malay lyrics are also available to benefit children’s learning process further."

We received the Rasa Sayang: Song Book + Plush Toy Gift Set for our review. My first thought was "What a lovely gift box set!" Perfect to give on any occasion! And look at that cute plushie! When you press the toy, you can hear the 'Rasa Sayang' tune! Lovely! Sometimes either myself or our kiddos will press the plushie and let our almost 3 months old boy hear it, sort of like a lullaby song hahaha...

We immediately open up the box and flip through the book as well as check out the push-buttons ahahah... The book includes a ‘play’ button for pre-recorded songs, a ‘record’ button for interactive play and a ‘playback’ button to playback our singing.

I want to confess that I really did not read any instructions on how to record our singing and how to playback etc. Well, we were over excited with the new book and the push-button gadget hahah... but fret not, it is very easy to understand and operate the push-buttons, really, even for me who skipped following the tutorial (located on the 1st page of the book)

I got our girls to press the corresponding button pictures to the songs in the book and let them hear the songs over and over again. For ehem ehem, mature people like me, these songs really do bring back memories! I remember learning to sing them during my primary school time. Oh, how fun! I guess children these days will miss out on these lovely songs if they are not exposed to it anymore.

What I like about this book is it comes with the English translated lyrics as well (in case you can't sing in Bahasa, you can sing in English). The illustrations are cute and the fonts used in the book are easy on the eye, easy and big enough to read.

There is also a mini game you can play as you go through this book with your child(ren). You can try to find the mischievous baba (the company mascot) that is hiding in the pages of the book. Enjoying music as well as playing hide and seek at the same time, hahaha, nice nice!

At one point, our girls even danced along to the songs. Our almost 8-year-old boy told me he remembered learning some of the songs during his kindy time.

Our 3-year-old girl also quietly browsed through and repeatedly play some songs - I guessed she found some favorite new tunes. Days after we first used the book, I can hear her humming along to a few words from some songs. Precious, precious memories to pass on to our younger generation.

Overall, this is a really nice book to own. What a nice way to preserve a cultural gem!

I totally recommend this book!

Giant thumbs up!

You can purchase the book or the gift set at http://www.bababaa.com/shop-baba-baa/

For more information on baba baa, please visit their website at www.bababaa.com and https://www.facebook.com/bababaafamily/

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book 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 book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

** 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 every day) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

The other day our 7.5-year-old boy said he was bored. So hubby asked him what he would like to play. Our boy said puzzle games. Hubby then went to grab this book of word search puzzles and smilingly told our boy that he was very good in puzzle games like that and if mummy was to play it, will surely lose. Hah! I was laughing inside my head. Nevermind, like any humble superhero, I ain't showing my skills yet unless absolutely needed to.

After about 2 rounds of games (which our boy lost to hubby), hubby then challenged ME to the game. I accepted the challenge, still smiling while I let my hubby gloat on. We started with an easy puzzle as our 4th kiddo slept peacefully on the bed and our girls were on the floor playing with their princess toys. I won of course. Then hubby started shifting uneasily. I'm just warming up yo!

I won the next few rounds and that's when my hubby said that I won because it is harder for him to tilt his head to read the words. So I told him, "Fine, you can position the book wherever you want" and I ended up looking at the puzzle book like this. Exactly this position. No biggie. I can handle it no problem.

We continued on after I won again and again. If you have not seen how the look of despair is like, here you go...

Hubby finally realized that I meant it when I said I'm really good with word search puzzles! He surrendered after I won the last puzzle which is shown below. German names? No big deal, bring it on!

I remembered back when I was 12 years old, it was during the end of school term when the year-end exams were over and we were all waiting for the results to be out and we were allowed to bring any educational games or books to school to pass the time. One time, a classmate of mine brought this really giant book of puzzles. It was like 2 inches thick and that was my first time seeing word search puzzles. I was hovering at the back observing how the game was played as she played with our class teacher. Then I started getting the idea and slowly pointing to either my classmate or to our teacher where should the word be and as I got more and more excited (or annoying hahaha), my classmate offered me a chance to play in the next round and I was hooked. I think I solved almost all the pages in her puzzle book! It was really fun and exhilarating at the same time knowing I could do that!

** 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. 

For this post, I am sharing my next food recipe, Stir-Fry Fish with Ginger & Scallions (in Cantonese, we called this 'Keung Choong Yue Phin'). Without further ado, here is the recipe for Stir-Fry Fish Slices with Ginger & Scallions:

Outcome:

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

** 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.