I'm a full-time mummy

Few months ago, I received an email on the possibility to review some hair clips. I initially declined the offer and kindly told the owner that our girls' hair is a bit short to be clipped with anything. The owner assured me that her clips will grip well even in their fine short hair. I thought 'Oh well, let's see how this work out!' and we went ahead with the review. Without further ado, check out my review below...

About the company:
"Victoria´s Class is a mum-owned company dedicated to giving you the very best of girl´s hair accessories, with a focus on exclusiveness, quality and comfort. The company was founded by Thassia Dezan, who realized there was no place where you could find authentic hair accessories for her and her daughter. While most hair accessories shops seemed to be selling unattractive accessories which were disappointing in quality and poor in originality and authenticity, Thassia started designing and making different and exuberant accessories to fit her and her daughter´s every outfit. The first head bands and hair clips received a lot of compliments for their quality and uniqueness which gave Thassia the impetus to turn hard work and inspiration into to a booming on-line store.

The company is named after her daughter, Victoria, who is naturally the biggest inspiration for her design work and class is related to the group of beautiful girls, such as Victoria, which our cute hair accessories are intended for. Victoria´s class accessories are freshly designed by Thassia and handmade by a team of master artisans in The Netherlands committed to providing accessories with superior craftsmanship quality and functionality with classic, yet timeless styles which can´t be found anywhere else. Our goal is that, whether you have a special event coming up, need something for a photo shoot or simply want a beautiful neat hair style for school or every day use, you will find something just perfect in our shop."

I browsed through the website and finally decided on the "Pink & Beige Interchangeable Headband 3 in 1" and the "Isa Hair Clip Set". You have no idea how long it took for me to finally settle on these 2 items. There are just so many gorgeous looking hair accessories in the website!

Let's proceed with the 1st review for the "Pink & Beige Interchangeable Headband 3 in 1". I picked this as I love things with multi-purpose functions, you know, things you can use in more than 1 way.

It consists of an elastic headband and a matching alligator clip which can be used together or separately to provide 3 different results: headband, hairband and hairclip.

Here is how it looks on our girls, totally love the striking pink color, very eye-catching and the elastic band is snug, holds on perfectly and just loves how demure our girls look with it!

Moving on to our next review on the "Isa Hair Clip Set". I picked this as I love the color combination in this set! This set consists of five boutique bow hair clips in the coordinating ribbons: heart print, vivid blue, daisy print, flower print and coral pink polka dots.

Here is a closer look on the hair clips. The bows are made of grosgrain ribbon. I would prefer it if the clip is covered up completely with the ribbon as currently, the bottom clip is not covered. Just my personal OCD habit hahaha...

(** Note: I have informed the owner about my OCD observation and she helpfully responded about the partially lined hair clips: "I don't cover the bottom part because that way it doesn't grip so well. The bottom part of the hair clip has a little curving metal that sticks better in the grip placed on the top (inside) part of the hair clip when closed. If I cover the bottom with grosgrain, it flattens up the metal curve and it has a negative effect on the grip feature. Therefore the clips are partially lined for an optimal hold.") So, okay, just the OCD me, apologies for not realising that there is a valid reason for the cover not being covered up with ribbon. Good to know!

Here is how it looks on our girls...

The hair clips are of good quality, easy to put on and I actually use it a couple of times when we go out! And true enough as mentioned by the owner, the hair clips stay strong even on our girls' fine short hair. Love it!

You can browse for more products at www.facebook.com/victoriasclass or http://www.victoriasclass.com/default.asp

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.

Our 5 years old boy loves dinosaurs and to have the opportunity to review this app is just awesome! I can tell by our kiddos excitement on this app the moment I tapped to start it and upon seeing the main screen, we got scared when the dinosaur (T-rex) roared at us!

* Title: Dinosaur Puzzle and Play
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Entertainment
* Released: Apr 17, 2014
* Version: 1.0.0
* Size: 28.6 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: CUPCAKE DIGITAL INC © 2014 & TM Discovery Communications, LLC
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Requires iOS 4.3 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5..

Description from the product page:

"Take a journey back in time and play with 16 amazing jigsaw puzzles in Discovery Kids Dinosaur Puzzle & Play, perfect for the explorer in you! Learn fun facts and interact with vibrant, tappable scenes filled with the coolest dinosaurs, from the Triceratops, the popular herbivore to the voracious Tyrannosaurus Rex, plus so much more!" 

* There are 2 games you can play with from this app, puzzles or painting. Under the puzzle section, you can choose the difficulty levels (Easy, Medium & Hard), the harder it is, the more puzzles required to complete the picture.

* I let our 2 kiddos take turn to solve the puzzle pieces and I like that once the puzzle is completed, you can see some animation from the dinosaur and also learn more about them. Our 5 years old boy and 2.5 years old girl take turn to tap on the dinosaurs and see what animation appeared from it. There is a function to mute the narrator voice if you do not want to hear it.

* Under the painting section, there is easy to find navigation buttons, from zooming in and out from the picture, to delete or undo your action, take a snapshot of your painting and the various colors, coloring utensils and options you can choose from.

* My only recommendation for improvement is to separate out the sticker option which is currently located as one of the options in the painting section. The developer can reuse the dinosaur pictures from the puzzles side and allow stickers to be placed in it - that way it is more realistic as currently it looks weird when the stickers are placed in the illustrated painting.

* Overall a fun and yet educational app for the family!

You can purchase the "Dinosaur Puzzle and Play" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code 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"

For this post, I am sharing my next food recipe, Hakka Yong Tau Foo or stuffed tofu, bean curd and okra with fish paste. By the way, you can also use brinjals, bittergourds, mushrooms and red chilis but I omit them because I'm not a fan of them and I'm cooking this dish for the whole family (means including our kiddos) so I have to omit spicy stuff for the moment until they mastered eating spicy stuff. Some yong tau foo recipes calls for fish and pork meat paste but I'm using ready-made fish paste for my recipe today.

I remember my late mum used to do this dish every now and then. She was of Hakka descendants and boy oh boy, I just love eating that dish and it was one of the dishes in my list that I want to replicate and I am very happy to be able to make this dish, though not the same taste but it was quite close. I still remember her buying the fishes (mackerel if not mistaken) from the morning wet market and made the fish paste from scratch.

Without further ado, here is the recipe for Hakka Yong Tau Foo:

Ingredients:
* Ready-made fish paste
* 3 okras (ladies fingers) - quantity up to you actually
* 8 fried tofu puffs - quantity up to you actually
* a sheet of dried Chinese bean curd sheet (rinsed to remove the salt)
* 3 bean curds (square white color) cut half diagonally - quantity up to you actually
* Garlic - 1-2 cloves chopped finely
* Oil - about 2 ~ 3 tbsp

Sauce:
* Water - 2 cups
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 tsp sugar
* 3-4 tbsp of taucheo (fermented yellow bean sauce)


Methods:
* Clean the okras and slit the middle, remove the seeds and pat dry for stuffing later. (You can do the same step if you use red chili)
* For the fried tofu puffs, rinse with water and poke an opening at the top surface with either your finger or knife for stuffing later.
* For the bean curd sheet, I soaked it in water for a few minutes to wash off the salty layer of the sheet.
* For the bean curd squares, slit gently in the middle for stuffing later.
* Stuff the fish paste into the okras, fried tofu puffs and bean curds.
* Put some fish paste into the bean curd sheet and wrapped it - thickness / layers depend on you.
* Place the stuffed ingredients onto a plate and steam for about 5 minutes.
* Fry the garlic next until you smell nice garlic-ky smell from the frying pan. Be careful not to overfry them as it will give bitter taste then.
* Pan fried the steamed yong tau foo for a few minutes.
* Add the ingredients for the sauce and stir in.
* Let the sauce simmer for about 15-20 minutes.
 

Outcome:

My hubby likes the dish very much and our 5 years old boy loves the bean curd ones while I preferred the ones in fried tofu puffs.

This recipe is for keeps!

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