I'm a full-time mummy

I was looking around for some nice cloth books which we can use and read to our kiddos before their bedtime now that our almost 5 years old boy has started his preK and we have started establishing our daily routine. I couldn't contain my excitement when I stumbled upon these 2 cloth books as I can immediately think how fun and educational they would be for us! I had initially intended to purchase the cloth books when the sponsor generously offered to sponsor me the books in exchange for my review.

"We're a friendly online store which mainly providing educational toys, cloth books, family tee and other mother baby items. Owning a cute and active toddler of our own, we understand what a parent would need. We love to bring convenience for all busy parents to just browse online, place order and all items would be delivered to you by door step. niceVin, your family store."

 I will start off with the 1st book which is "My Quiet Book". This book is so colorful! It is a little over 6 inches long and 6 inches wide and opens up to about 12 inches long in reading/playing mode. I like that you can close up the book by zipping it up all around and that there is a cloth handle for you to hold and carry it around. Neat!

I like this book for its educational purposes. When I go through this book, I think of the Montessori methods where children learns everyday tasks such as tying up shoe laces, working with zips and buttons and more.

The 2nd book which I totally fall head over heels with is the "Little Bear's Lullaby and Good Night Book".

This book is just so freaking cute and awesome! It is a little over 6 inches long and 6 inches wide and opens up to about 12 inches long in reading/playing mode. I like that you can close up the book by zipping it up all around and that there is a cloth handle for you to hold and carry it around.

I like this book as it helps to guide our kiddos and ease them into a proper bedtime routine. Brushing teeth, bathing, changing into their bedtime clothes, reading a bedtime story book, praying, and then going to sleep, all this are pretty much what we incorporates into our bedtime routine.

The cool and cute thing I like about this book is that you can move some of the objects (milk, soap, pajamas etc) and help the teddy bear as it gets ready for bedtime.

You can actually take out its clothes, put it into the bath tub, bath it with the soap, put on its pajamas and so on. Way, way, way realistic and cute at the same time.

Everynight, right before we get ready to sleep, we will take this book out and our kiddos will be waiting for either hubby or myself to go through this book with them.

I normally let them in-charge of each subsequent pages, first Benjamin then Alyson and so on until we finished the whole book. Both of them will be excited to be responsible and helping teddy bear gets ready for bedtime.  This book is a must have!!!

Summary: The "Little Bear's Lullaby and Good Night Book" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, I love it so much that I bought another one as a gift to our close friend. The "My Quiet Book" is a wonderful book as well as it  to have and I am glad to be given the opportunity to review this product and keeping it. Recommended! 

You can get the "Little Bear's Lullaby and Good Night Book" & "My Quiet Book" from niceVIN Facebook page.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by niceVIN 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.

For this post, I am sharing my drink recipe, my mum in law make this for me occasionally when I was in my confinement phase (well, we DIY our confinement and don't follow the practises so this is the only herbal thingy I took) Apparently, this concoction helps to increase breastmilk production on top of nourishing our body after giving birth.

Do note that the version that my MIL made is very easy to follow that I am now following every other day - especially now that I have my jug of Tupperware thermos! Anyway here goes my post on Black Bean & Red Dates Drink:

Ingredients:

Methods:
* Rinse a handful of black beans and some red dates in a container for a few minutes.
* Cut the red dates, remove the seeds (I remembered my MIL telling me the seeds must be removed as it is toxic)

* Drain the black beans, placed into thermos together with red dates.
* Add boiling water until the maximum level you can for the thermos.
* Cover up the thermos and leave it overnight.
* Your black bean & red dates drink is ready to drink by the time morning comes! Yummm!!

Outcome:

Do note that I'm trying out this recipe using the Tupperware thermos, which can yield just a cup of the drink. If you want more, you can actually slow cook or boil the ingredients in a pot for few hours. In the meantime, do read up the links below for the benefits of black beans and red dates.

Resources:

• Health benefits of black beans
• Red Dates: The Healthiest Fruit on Earth
  

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

I have previously shown some YouTube videos on butterfly life cycle and after our 2013 year end family trip to Penang which we visited the butterfly farm, our almost 5 years old seems to be more and more interested in caterpillars and butterflies.

On 14th January 2014, we found this caterpillar earlier in the morning and I told Benjamin that we will leave it where it is and continue to monitor it until it becomes a butterfly. Noon came and we saw the caterpillar on a leaf lying on the porch floor, torn away from the plant. Grandma wanted to get rid of it.

As much as I'm feeling the chills seeing creepy crawlies like this, the sight of Ben's sad face that his caterpillar is homeless and possibly facing death soon made me decided to give it a home, I have no idea how to keep it (alive that is) and haphazardly found a small container, plucked some leaves from the same plant where we found the caterpillar and chucked everything inside, covering the container with a mesh cloth for air circulation. I also took a picture and posted it on my Facebook page asking what else I need to take note of in caring for the caterpillar. Some fans shared some website links on raising a caterpillar and soon, we gained more information and when daddy got home, he took charge and adviced us what else to take note of - No caterpillar in our bedroom ESPECIALLY when the air-conditioning unit is on.

Btw, Ben named the caterpillar Ernie and says it is his pet. It's about half an inch long only when we found it on our lime pot plant. By day 3, it grew to about an inch long, much plumper and greener. I just shivers everytime I see it.

Now aside from the ewwwwww effect Ernie gave me EVERYTIME I looked at it, as a parent, I do think raising a caterpillar as a pet is good because:

* Our boy has been bugging us to get him a puppy and we think he is too young still to take care of a puppy, so a caterpillar is an easy starter (I hope!)

* Our kiddos can see with their own eyes, the life cycle of a butterfly and the transformation of its life phase.

* Teach our kiddo how to take care of another life being, to be responsible, maintain cleanliness and hygiene. Every morning before I send him to his preK, I would cut a fresh batch of leaves (still attached to the twigs) and ensure that our boy cleans up Ernie's tank (daddy normally helps and supervises the cleaning process)

* Teach our kiddo on basic necessities to survive - water, air, space, food, etc.

* Teach our kiddo to be patient, to wait for each transformation and not be in a hurry to see the final results, to slowly cherish each moment and to know the fact that it takes time for something to grow, change, etc.

So there you go! Thanks for reading my post! Wish us luck in raising a caterpillar!

** 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.