I'm a full-time mummy

I had previously written about how we make use of technologies to parent, educate and learn together as a family, shared our family's guidelines on technology usage for our children and also recommended some favourite Windows apps and utilities.

As mentioned before, I'm very blessed to own a reliable Windows computer with the fast processing power of Intel processors that does magic in our everyday lives and so for today's post, I will share with you on some of our recommended Windows games that we use in our family. Here we go, the list in no particular order:

Minecraft

(** Click icon below to download the app for free) 

You would have to be living on another planet if you have not heard of Minecraft. Minecraft is a game about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. You chopped off trees, gather the woods and materials, build your shelter, hunt for food and more. You can play in free mode or survival mode (it gets dark at night and zombies and monsters came out so you really need to build/find a shelter fast!) You can play on your own or join other networks/servers and play with your friends.

Some might think it is quite costly to purchase this game, I mean, hubby and I had the same thoughts too prior to our decision to purchase the app. In fact, we delayed for almost a year thinking it through and happy to say, no regrets so far with our decision to get this game. Our 6.5-year-old boy loves Lego, he loves building stuff so to see him blossoming more after playing on Minecraft, just magical.

Just look at what he built when he was 5-ish... I am not kidding you, all these were done by himself without any help from us except when he needed help to spell some words (he started kindergarten at 5 years old) so that he could type them onto the sign boards to place into his Minecraft worlds.

You can research more on this game for the pros and cons, don't need to take our words blindly. For us, this game really does wonder in our boy, he learned a lot from it, building and securing his shelter, sourcing for materials, mining for resources and minerals, combining materials to create new tools and stuff. On the rare occasions where I played together with our boy on our server, I was very impressed as I see him getting straight to source for materials to build his shelter while I was still fumbling around trying to get my direction LOL. Even from time to time as I read news articles to him or share something new that I learned, he will suddenly tell me 'Yeah, yeah I know. In Minecraft we have that!'

Agent P Strikes Back

(** Click icon below to download the app for free) 

In this game, you have to guide Perry aka "Agent P" and try to locate the other missing agents while battling robotic guards and double jumping your way through Doof's complex. When our 6.5-year-old boy first started playing this game, he was quite frustrated as he was not used to playing games like this. Having had to learn to manoeuvre left, right, up, down all of a sudden is quite a shock to him. I mean, for a child who has absolutely no problems playing Minecraft (twirling around 360 degrees you know!) and suddenly had to slow down to control the directions and to achieve some goals in each level is a challenge but after a few attempts, he got the hang of it and loves the game.

I am glad to see him being able to manipulate the controls on our Acer Switch 12 device and was amazed to see him whizzed through levels after levels.

Plumber 3

(** Click icon below to download the app for free) 

This is an interesting game that I like. In this game, you need to rotate the pipes to form a path from the valve to the end to let the water flow. Once you complete the path from begin to end, you will go to next level which will be more challenging than previous ones.

I used the opportunity from this game to let our 6.5-year-old boy tried out, to see whether he can have a bigger picture and solve puzzles like this. He managed to solve one level all by himself without any guidance from me!

Princess Memory

(** Click icon below to download the app for free)

In this Princess Memory game, you get train your mind matching with the Princess characters alone or you can challenge a friend. I like that our 2 girls can play this game together at the same time (awesome way to avoid the girls fighting to play with their favourite Disney princesses LOL). I also like that the game tested our girls' memories and enjoy seeing them trying to recall the pictures being flipped as they tapped each one and tried to find the matching ones.

Candy Crush Saga

(** Click icon below to download the app for free)

I am addicted to this game!! Argghhhhh... I can't stop playing this game! It is so addictive and fun to match the candies and solving each puzzles and journey through the game. So so so fun! I'm not even sure I should recommend this game but it is a favourite of mine so I had to share this LOL! This game is completely free to play but some in-game items such as extra moves or lives will require payment, so if you do not want to spend any money, just wait it out and keep annoying friends and players on the game asking them to give you live and chances like what I am doing so far hahahaha...

There are other games which we use for our family of course but the above are the regularly used ones that can be found on our Acer Switch device, computers and smartphone. I hope my recommendation is useful and helpful to you guys!  In the meantime, you can learn more at the Make Magic website. 

Make magic. Every day.

#makemagiceveryday

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Ever since I started kindergarten at 6 years old, I have been attending public schools (main language is Bahasa Malaysia) and during my earlier years, I mixed around with a lot of Malay friends and even spoke Bahasa with my elder brother at home (he also attends public schools), even to this day. So Bahasa Malaysia used to be my main language other than Cantonese and later on English (brushed up more when I met my hubby then boyfriend through snail mails, I had to practise and brush up my English as he doesn't speak Cantonese) Anyway, I think it is fun to be able to practise back and sharing what I know with those of you who are interested.

And so, here goes our next lesson: I Fell Down

For those of you who are more often on Facebook, you can also find the tutorials on my Facebook fan page. I have created a "Let's Learn Bahasa & Cantonese!" album to store the phrases. Enjoy learning!

 ** 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 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.