I'm a full-time mummy

I have this vocabulary power flip book which was bought a couple of years back. I put it in our study room, just regularly flip to new words whenever we were in the study room.

Once in a while, I will point out the word and asked our eldest kiddo to pronounce it and then I will explain to the rest of our kiddos what the word meant. My plan is to leave it there, subtly mentioned to kiddos whenever we are in the study room. Once, I forgot all about the flip book and our eldest kiddo suddenly asked me what the word on the flip book meant. Oh wow, paying attention huh?

So I continued as per normal, teaching when the opportunity presents itself, no pressure, not too subtle hahaha...

** 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 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! 

I think the concept of monthly subscription boxes is picking up in Malaysia though it is quite a norm in overseas with all sorts of things that you can subscribe to monthly - books, arts and crafts stuff, cosmetic products, snacks and so on!

Description from the company:

"Josh & Cherie Books is a Singapore-based premium children book subscription for ages 0-7. Every month, we handpick 2-3 books (depending on your child's age group), gift-wrap it, and deliver it to your doorstep. We make reading exciting for children, convenient for parents, and affordable for everyone. "

Soon after letting Cheryl (one of the founders) know about our kiddos age range, we received this gorgeous box, nicely packed, so exciting!!! It's like Christmas all over again! Love the cute note written inside the box! Special touch!

We opened the box and found 3 books along with a cute little LED torch light to be used together with one of the books.

Let's have a look at the books we received, shall we? We started off with the "On the Construction Site (Shine-A Light Books)" armed with the cute little LED torch light. Kiddos were all excited with this new concept of reading book hahahah!

Now to be honest, I wouldn't have known such book exist had we not have the opportunity to try out this book subscription. What a cool and fun way to get the kiddos interested! They each get a chance to hold the torchlight and shine it from the back of the pages and see what the shadow reveals. Very cool indeed!

Even our almost 8-year-old boy got excited as well as he quickly answers my questions on what could be behind some pages. Rocks and stones underneath the ground, cabling behind the walls and more! Our girls (age 3 and 5) also look in awe as they admire the cablings behind the walls.

I like that there are some pages explaining the different types of machinery shown in the book and our kiddos get to learn about them as well!

The next book we reviewed is 'Pandora' by the Victoria Turnbull. I personally love the cover of the book. Soft satin material and the illustrations is captivating as well as the beautiful storyline. The book is meant for children from age 4 to 7 but our 3 kiddos seem to enjoy the book and feeling sad and happy as we flipped through the book from beginning to end.

The final book is meant for our littlest kiddo but he is a bit too young to fully appreciate this book yet, hence I will keep it until he is ready for it in a few months' time. The "Red Truck" board book by Kersten Hamilton is about the story of Red Truck saving a school bus from a mud puddle.

But seriously, I did try to let our almost 3 months old boy have a look. He was indeed captivated with the book, most probably because of the bright interesting colors hahaha...

Overall, I think the idea of monthly book subscription is really nice.

Imagine feeling Christmas-sy every month, getting new books (without the headaches of picking and choosing suitable ones) and feeling the excitement and surprises as you opened your monthly box!

I am also impressed on the way the books are selected. Picture below is taken from Josh & Cherie Books website. You can clearly feel that they understand the type of books that suit children, right?

I also think this would also make a wonderful present to gift to your loved ones, imagine every month your loved ones are reminded of your blessings as they received their subscription box. Isn't it wonderful? A gift that keeps on giving :)

You can find out more from https://www.joshandcheriebooks.com/shop

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a subscription box 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.

I have been cutting down on doing product reviews ever since our 3rd kiddo came along in end of Sept 2013. I do still accept review pitches but only when time permits and if it is something that I can see it being useful and beneficial to our family. Also, as busy as I am with 3 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! 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: Extreme Colouring: Amazing World
Author: Beverley Lawson
Publisher: Carlton Books Ltd (5 Nov. 2015)
ISBN: 978-1780977379
Paperback: 96 pages

Description from the product page:

"Extreme Colouring: Amazing World is action-packed with challenging, complex and advanced scenes that will keep any artist entertained for hours. Inviting you to relax and unwind, as well as encouraging and inspiring you to discover your inner artist, this extreme book of high- quality illustrations is like no other adult art book on the market. Taking inspiration from amazing places and locations around the world, this exciting, and expertly designed DIY art book will help you create your own advanced art masterpieces, one splash of colour at a time. With lots of thought-provoking and complex illustrations to inspire your imagination, Extreme Colouring: Amazing World encourages you to live life in glorious colour."

 I think I've been living under a cocoon or something as only recently I discovered this crazy colouring phase as I watched friends uploading their colouring results and seeing people asking where to buy certain brands of colour pencils at cheaper price. I absolutely cannot fathom the reasoning behind this colouring mania so when I was offered an opportunity to review a colouring book, I thought 'Should I jump into this bandwagon? I'm not artistically inclined, should I even attempt this?'

I asked around why people do this and was told that it was a therapeutic thing for them, to be able to slow down their life and focus on colouring, bit by bit. Whoaaa... therapeutic?! Sure, I'm in! As a busy mum of 3 kiddos, the last thing I could ever achieve was to slow down my busy life and do something crazy like this. I mean, attempt something crazy like this. I told myself, even if I could just colour 1 page that is a major achievement!

Now, I have to confess, I don't have any special colouring tools. All I am armed with is our kiddos' colouring pencils hahaha...

I like the theme of this book as it covers some famous places all around the world, Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, Eiffel Tower in France and more. At the same thing when I colour the pages in the book, I get to show and teach our kiddos as well. I started colouring, telling myself, no rules here, just take whatever colour my heart desire. I mean, this is art right? Doesn't mean the colour must conform to real life right?

When I started colouring, I do feel it is so tiring as I had to concentrate on the finer details. I asked myself 'What have I gotten myself into?!' I find myself restraining my impatience feeling, to slow down and really focus on colouring one spot at a time. After a few minutes, it gets easier and easier and I do feel more calm and happy seeing the paper coming to life bit by bit.

At some point, my 4-year-old girl was intrigued and decided to doodle on one of the pages in my book. As a young girl, her favourite colour is PINK so whatever she is colouring in the book is ALL PINK. Nevertheless, like I said, no rules. Just colour.

I even sneaked in some colouring time for myself as our kiddos were busy doing their colouring activities during the school holidays. Below is a picture I snapped as we were colouring haha...

And here are some of my completed colouring works... do not laugh at me okay?

The pink coloured fences in the picture below was done by my 4-year-old girl :) Now one thing I must add is I am very happy to notice how this colouring book impact my 4-year-old girl as I discovered one of her colouring work during Sunday school where she coloured the flowers and leaves separately. As in the flowers were pink (of course!) and the leaves were green. All nicely separated instead of her usual style of colouring everything pink. I'm glad to observe this in her!

In summary, it is an eye opening experience for me, I'm glad to review this book, to be able to slow down my busy life and enjoyed the calming moments as I coloured away. The sense of accomplishments as you see the pages being brought to life by your own colouring is amazing!

The book is available at all major bookstores. For international fans, you can find it at Amazon.

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 everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.