cool kids’ stuff – HEALTH FREAK MOMMY

Squishy Craze

In case you’re still living in a fidget spinner or slime world, squishies are brightly colored foam toys that come in a variety of shapes and sizes, from a tiny panda face on a key chain to some fake-but-looks-real sushi. The shapes and varieties are endless. Some are scented with bakery-appropriate flavors like strawberry or peaches and cream. As the name suggests, their most important quality is their immensely satisfying texture. Squeezing a squishy is like crushing a loaf of Wonder Bread between your fingers, only to watch it magically re-inflate back to its original form. I have to admit that I am inside the squishy bubble now, joining Cass and Drama Queen!

Squishies are on their way to becoming the next big toy craze in the US, according to toy-store owners interviewed by New York Magazine and the New York Times. So far they’re being marketed, much like fidget spinners, as a way to relieve stress and anxiety.

When we were back in Ipoh during the recent school holidays, I brought Cass to Kinta City shopping mall to claim her reward. Apart from some novels and a few rounds of claw machine games, I also bought her a squishy as her reward. The squishy stall is on the first floor concourse of the shopping mall, outside Aeon. It’s been there for at least 2 years. Drama Queen shopped for her primary school bazaar’s lucky draw prizes from this stall 1.5 years ago. The range of colorful and oh so squeezable squishes is pretty wide and not only can a child go crazy at the stall, adults too.

Cass’ pick was this little pink paw, which is extra squishy, soft, squeezable and highly re-inflatable. No wonder Cass loves squeezing it, I love it too! After paying for the paw squishy, we both had a tug of war over who gets to squeeze the paw 😆

Super satisfying! Good stress and anxiety buster too.

No. of times viewed = 26

Lego Nexo Knights Launch 2016 @ Mid Valley Megamall KL

Lego Nexo Knights has finally landed on our shores!

LEGO Malaysia proudly and grandly launched the Lego Nexo Knights at the Mid Valley Megamall on 12 March 2016. It is Lego Nexo Knights’ maiden appearance in South East Asia and you know what? We are the first few in South East Asia to own a few boxes too. The girls, especially Cass is SO happy!!

The LEGO Nexo Knights, depicting a medieval kingdom set in a futuristic world, where five young brave knights “download” special powers to their shields in order to battle the royal court’s evil Jestro and a cast of monsters to restore peace.

The LEGO Nexo Knights set enables children and LEGO fans of all ages to relish an augmented play experience in both online and offline realms as they immerse themselves in the world of Knighton to be the best knights!

Can you spot Cass in this picture?

It was an event of great fanfare with attendance by a converge of media and bloggers, including yours truly, ahem!

This unique multi-platform product line which integrates a modern story line and technology with the timeless enjoyment of building blocks, should capture the imagination of children and parents alike, empowering them to learn together in a new fun way through play.

To extend the story and increase playing fun, more than 170 unique LEGO Nexo Knights powers represented as knight shields, have been scattered across the kingdom of Knighton. The powers can be found existing in both physical and digital forms, including building sets, print ads, books, comics and even the new LEGO Nexo Knights animated television series using the LEGO Nexo Knights: Merlok 2.0 apps which is now available for free via App Store and Google play. Once added to a digital power collection, children can creatively and continuously find new ways to join the knights to defeat the enemy with their ‘power ups’.

You can help your child to register at the NEXO Academy website at . Cass registered herself on our iPad and obtained some shields / POWER UP when she scanned the shield sticker on her Lego toy shield and Lego card bearing a shield using the iPad.

The media and bloggers were treated to lunch at Olive Garden. Cass’ eyes lit up instantly when she saw more complimentary Lego Nexo Knights on the dining table awaiting her! She was tickled pink!

While waiting for the food to arrive, Cass managed to assemble all the complimentary Lego Nexo Knights miniature sets. I must say that Cass is really GOOD with LEGO. She must have inherited the genes from her daddy, who is a big fan of LEGO. And it’s no wonder he so patiently waited for the entire event to be over. I think he enjoyed himself more than us!

Below – Yummy Italian food, courtesy of Lego Malaysia.

In under 1 hour, Cass managed to fix these Lego Nexo Knights.

After lunch, we were brought to a Virtual Battle Tour, where the kids had the chance to play with the Merlok 2.0 App game on iPad.

Below – Cass all soaked up in the Merlok 2.0 game on iPad at the Battle Zone while totally oblivious that she was being filmed by the media!

Image may contain: 1 person, indoor

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Below – Cass trying her hands on the LEGO NEXO Knights SKU interactive game in the Power Zone @ the Center Court, Mid Valley Megamall yesterday.

Check out the shield she’s holding to obtain ‘power ups’.

From 8 March through 20 March 2016, these limited edition LEGO NEXO Knights 3D/hologram cards are exclusively yours when you make any purchase of the Lego Nexo Knights. There are 5 characters, available on different days.

Below – Cass waiting for a free print-out of her photo, which I posted on Instagram.
If you post a picture of yourself/kids/etc at this event on Instagram, you’ll get a FREE print out too!

Below – Our free print-out photo posted on Instagram, courtesy of Lego Malaysia.

Below – Cass receiving her new Lego Nexo Knights! She’s one very, very happy missy!

Back home, Cass was glued at the table and within 2 hours, she managed to assemble the entire set of LEGO Nexo Knights Beast Master’s Chaos Chariot (314 pieces) on her own.

Below – Cass is scanning a toy shield from her Lego Nexo Knights set with the iPad to obtain ‘power up’ for her Merlok 2.0 game.

Below – Macy (a female knight) now has more ‘power up’ to fight off Jestro and the monsters!

Cass thoroughly enjoyed herself at the launch of the Lego Nexo Knights as well as assembling the Lego and playing with the Merlok 2.0 app game on iPad.

That’s the sweetest thing to hear from your child when you know that you are only an imperfect mom!

Well, I must say that I enjoyed myself at the event too 🙂

The Lego Nexo Knights launch event is happening at the Center Court of Mid Valley Megamall from 8 March through 20 March 2016. Since it’s the school holidays, do bring your kids to check out the range of awesome products while letting them try their hands on the free interactive games, while getting some cool freebies too!

No. of times viewed = 40

Mega Lego Project – First Phase Completed!

There… finally the girls have erected the first of three Lego houses! I am so mighty proud of them coz you know why?

This is the reason why…

This Lego with 2,032 pieces is meant for 16-year olds and above but my girls – aged 6, 9 and 10 managed to co-build this! They take turns sitting at the table, spending an hour to two each time per person working on this project. For Cass, I have to teach her some Maths as some of the pieces that look similar measure differently in size. I really have to applaud their patience and I am amazed that Cass can read the Lego legend so well. She is the one who completed the third floor of this house last night! My girls are definitely better than me in the department of patience, critical thinking and three-dimension interpretation!

Here is the backyard of the house…

This Lego project is an excellent way for my girls to kill time during the school holidays. It helps with building their problem-solving, organization and planning skill, teaches them to think in three dimensions and enhances critical thinking.

Now, I sure hope someone from Lego reads this and rewards my girls with some mega Lego sets for them to work on during their next school holiday! 😀

No. of times viewed = 294

The Girls’ Mega Holiday Project

This is the girls’ first holiday project…

To construct a row of 4 Lego shop houses!

A friend of the girls’ aunt in Hong Kong gave this to the MIL. And now the MIL has delegated the girls to construct this mega project 😀

Today is the 4th day the girls are hard at work. They take turns constructing the shop houses.

This is the girls’ first project and after 2 days, they completed the first floor.

Chief contractor with the sidekick at work…

This morning, Sherilyn constructed a part of the second floor of the first shop house before she left for the enrichment center. Cass is now taking over. There are 3 floors for each shop house! This is by far the mega-est Lego project for the girls!

I am amazed with the patience that my kick-ass girls have to patiently sit for hours looking at the legend and finding the pieces. I know I have absolutely zilch patience for something like this ha! I see stars looking at the thousands of Lego pieces, especially those button-sized ones! And I feel woozy just looking at the thick booklet of legend. No way can I sit for hours on end hurting my fingers doing this!

Lego is a toy that requires absolute patience, endurance (for harder ones) and some brains to do! I fail in the patience department, miserably!!

I wonder if the girls can complete the entire mega project before they leave for New Zealand in 7 days…

No. of times viewed = 227

Vanity Is In The Air

Cass is indeed a lucky girl! A few weeks ago, santarina sent her another set of toy. For the vain pot who has always been pestering me to apply makeup on her face, she finally got her own makeup set! A wooden toy one that is, haha! Cass is so so happy with this toy!

Her Sevi vanity set (designed in Italy) is made from wood and consists of lipstick, nail polish, blusher, eye shadow, comb, mirror and perfume. This is Just an awesome toy for little girls! Even her 9.5-year old second sister likes it! I always think that there is a little child in all of us and sometimes it takes our favorite childhood things to unleash the childishness in us and let our imagination run really wild 😀

Princess Elsa wannabe applying nail polish. Finally she’s got her own bottle of nail polish! 😀

” Squeeze squeeze some perfume on my armpit too!”

“Let me put some colors on my eye lids too!”

” And finally, the pink lipstick and I am all set to go for a ball” Cass always pretends that she is a princess who is going for a ball 🙂

I should have gotten Sherilyn this set of pretend make up years ago. Did you know that she had broken a handful of my lipsticks and eye brow pencils over the past few years? In fact, she broke my eye brow pencil again just a couple of months ago!! She has a very inquisitive mind, a pair of very itchified hands and vanity is the name of her game!

Christmas has definitely come early for Cass and she will be expecting another gift from Applecrumby & Fish soon. Thank you so much santarina!! 🙂

No. of times viewed = 310

Cute Wooden Animal Alphabets

Another surprise parcel awaited Cass when she got home from school yesterday!

When she ripped the parcel bag apart, she found three stacks of wooden alphabets. I helped her to unwrap the stacks of alphabets. While doing it, we were both guessing wildly what to do with the wooden alphabets. They are similar to those wooden alphabets that are stuck on Alycia’s bedroom door, making out the word “WELCOME”. But there was no instruction with our gift this time. We were even more baffled when we found out that there were 3 pieces of the letter ‘S’, 5 pieces of letter ‘A’ and the other letters were also redundant. It was not a complete set of 26 letters of the alphabet. Hmmm, what could it be? Santarina must have wanted us to work out brains hard to solve the mystery of the mysterious gift, ha!

No mysterious is ever left unresolved for us. Very soon, I figured that the set of wooden alphabets were actually for the names of Alycia, Sherilyn and Cassandra! Jeng jeng jeng…. mysterious solved!!

Cass used her blue tac to stick behind the wooden alphabets and plastered up the 3 names onto the wall. See how pretty and vivacious Cass’ little play corner is now!

Cute, bright and happy colored wooden animal alphabets to liven up your walls. Perfect for toddlers to learn their ABCs too! Thank you Apple Crumby & Fish once again! 🙂

No. of times viewed = 356

Applecrumby & Fish Sale!

Remember the pretty Stephen Joseph Go Go backpacks that Cass received from Applecrumby & Fish last week? If you have been eyeing the backpacks too, you can now get them at a 20% discount from Applecrumby & Fish! They are having a sale now!

From now until Tuesday, 16 September 2014, Applecrumby & Fish will be having a storewide 20% discount in conjunction with Malaysia Day. What good news to share with everyone!

Besides bags, Applecrumby & Fish carry a wide range of good quality baby and children products.

I am now eyeing this cute Stephen Joseph Pop-Up 3D umbrella for Cass. Sherilyn and Cass are always fighting to hold the one and only kids Minnie brolly that we have. With a new kids brolly, the skies will be bright for me even when it pours! LOL!

And this pair of gorgeous pink Stephen Joseph rainboots! Just perfect for the coming rainy season.

And this cute napmat, which will come in handy as the girls will be cramping in to camp with their cousins in New Zealand in December.

Vitamins too!

Quick hop over to Applecrumby & Fish now. I know I am a tad late in letting you know but you still have 2 days to shop! 🙂

No. of times viewed = 305

When Will The Rainbow Loom Bubble Burst?

My baby girl woke up even earlier than I did this morning. She knocked on my door at 6:30am and when I saw her, she had already gotten herself ready — teeth brushed, clothes changed and hair nicely tied up. She must have woken up at 6:15am or even earlier.

So why did she wake up so early this morning? Babe, it’s a Saturday and mummy wants to catch up on her beauty sleep!! I felt pissed off a wee bit that she woke me up from my dream… albeit I cannot really remember what I was dreaming about haha!

So this is the motivating factor…

To hook her loom bands for her teachers… she said that she wants to give her teachers and besties each a loom band before she leaves kindy for good in 3 months’ time!

Rainbow Loom has such a phenomenal influence worldwide. Kids and adults alike love them and wear them. Even the plumber who came to our house to fix our kitchen tap two days ago, who claimed that he is illiterate was seen wearing a loom bracelet.

In case you do not already know, the creator of Rainbow Loom is Ng Cheong Choon, a 45-year-old Chinese Malaysian, who until recently worked as a crash test dummy safety engineer in Michigan. At home, he noticed his daughters making rubber band bracelets on their fingers. Eventually, vague trappings of an idea began to form in the recesses of his head: a plastic loom toy that would help weave the rubber bands into bracelets. Unlike most people, who think of innovative ideas but never act upon them, Ng got to work on it, visualizing the toy that would become the Rainbow Loom!

Ng Cheong Choon and his family.

When will the Rainbow Loom bubble burst I wonder? Every Tom, Dick and Harry on the street and mall is seen wearing a loom bracelet. What am I going to do with all these colorful rubber bands when the Rainbow Loom bubble bursts and my girls no longer want to have anything to do with them? I think I should keep them in a box and keep them like how my mum has been keeping all my most-loved-collectibles since I was a little girl. When my girls re-discover them again many, many moons down the road, I hope that these will give them the warm fuzzies of their happy childhood days. Till today, I still love my 3-decade old Sanrio collectibles. I love them to the moon and back and will never give them away 🙂

No. of times viewed = 1239

Learning To Write From The iPad2

I used to spend a fortune on those alphabet and numbers tracing books for my girls. Baby has been learning how to write lately and has keen interest too. But this stingy mum does not want to spend so much money on those tracing books as sometimes she will get bored with the books and dump them in one corner. So I did a search on my iPad2 and found several awesome apps for kids to do alphabet and numbers tracing, yiiiiihaaaaa!! And they are so attractive, enticing, so colorful and comes with an iTeacher too, who will ‘talk’ to my baby girl and guide her! Not bad not bad, no regrets buying this gadget!

There are arrows guiding Baby the order of the strokes too!

No. of times viewed = 280

Angry Bird Craze Girls

No thanks to the popular Angry Birds online game, my 3 girls are loyal fan-see of the ugly birds with heavy frown. Almost every kid I see on the streets are crazy over ABs. The other day, while I was paying for ABs lanterns, I saw a little boy about 2-3YO, wearing ABs clothes. He saw the ABs lanterns that I was holding and kept saying “Angry Bird daddy”.

My girls, especially Alycia is besotted with ABs. She draws ABs whenever she has free time. She bugs me to bring her to the toy and sticker stall at the pasar malam every Friday and would behave herself very well, just to earn her ABs rewards from me.

If there is no ABs reward for her good behaviour, this girl will be one Angry Girl, I kid you not.

Even I love those Angry Birds tees, which my mum bought for her 3 grand daughters.

Part of my girls’ ABs collection…..colorful pens and stationery sets….

Glue, pens, mechanical pencils, sticker books, jig saw puzzle (for Baby, the jig saw puzzle buff) …

And oh yea, I also bought them each a cute Angry Birds lantern from a nearby mini market last week, to add to their collection of Angry Birds 😀 Shall take pix of them later.

No. of times viewed = 4734

Cheap And Nice Crocs

The pasar malam at my neighborhood has a stall that sells Crocs – cheap and nice ones! I used to get my girls and myself original Crocs but after comparing the ori with fakes, I cannot really tell any difference, except for the logo. The color of the white Crocodile on the logo of ori Crocs will not fade while the fake ones will fade over time. Price aside, I love buying replicas as I can buy them as often as I want hehe…

Tell me, nice or not?

This Princess Aeriel for Baby only cost RM10 a pair…

This Hello Kitty for Alycia cost RM12 a pair (or was it RM10?) …

The pink-white flip flop for myself is RM12 and the pink Hello Kitty for Sherilyn is RM10 a pair.

4 pairs of Crocs for about RM40 is a steal eh? I can get my girls new ones again when new designs are available. Checking out the Crocs stall at the pasar malam is something the girls and I look forward to every Friday. Even Baby loves choosing her Crocs, that vain pot!

No. of times viewed = 548

A Toy Parrot That Responds To You

This battery-operated toy parrot is no ordinary toy. It will chirp in response to your voice, to vibration and to loud noises. The hubs bought it at only RM9 from a street peddlar at a coffee shop. Ever since he bought this parrot 2 days ago, everyone in the family has been clapping hands, banging on tables and chairs and raising our voice kakakakakakaka!!!! This parrot also helps to douse away our anger. Each time my mil or I scream and scold the 3 rascals, the parrot will chirp too, as if telling us to shut up LOL!!

If your kid wants a real bird as a pet, go get him/her this toy parrot. It’s an awesome toy.

I am expecting my next batch of clothes from my supplier very soon. Head over to Old And New Stuff For Sale to see the new arrivals. Prices are nett, with FREE shipping 😀

No. of times viewed = 406

Fake Or Original Crocs? (Part II)

When I went to the pasar malam last week, I saw the man peddling his Crocs shoes at the side of the road again. I did not have intention of buying but my hands were itchy, so I took a look. What caught my eyes were this pair of white Hello Kitty Crocs with the picture of Hello Kitty in pretty pastel colors. They were so cute and I’ve always been a fan of Hello Kitty, since I was in primary school. I searched the right size for Baby and she looked so cute in the cute Hello Kitty Crocs. The best part was it only cost RM15 a pair! So without any second, third or fourth thought like I would have if it were original Crocs, I quickly bought it.

Alycia also chose a pair of purple color Crocs. I think the color is just too gordy and suits a boy more but this girl likes boy stuff and hates girly, cute and pinky stuff, sigh…..

Then this pair of heels caught my eyes and after trying it on, which looked nice on me, I bought it too, coz it only cost RM35! My pair of original pink and white Crocs wedge which I bought last year cost me a whopping RM169 and that stupid original Crocs (which was made in China) would cost me painful blisters each time I wore them, aargh!!!

So you think these Crocs are original or fake? I think they are fakes though they look so original.

No. of times viewed = 691

Washable Crayola Finger Paints

One of my sils bought a pack of Crayola finger paints for the gals about a year ago. I had kept the paints away from the gals but during our move recently, Alycia saw the pack of paints, took them out and pleaded with me to let her play with them. Since it’s the school holidays and they have been bored to the core being cooped up at home, I allowed them to play.

Alycia and Sherilyn loved playing with the finger paints. I cut up some potatoes and let them do potato printing but they were not that interested. They were more interested in soaking their hands with the paints as if they were hand lotion!

Whilst I left them alone with the painting, I bathed Baby C with the help of my maid. And guess what? Both my brats wanted to poo poo at the same time and their hands were all messed up with the paints. They went to the toilet themselves and suffice to say, I think you can imagine how messed up the new toilet was after that!

It was messy, really messy, especially for Sherilyn who had the paints on her face and clothes. Luckily the paints are washable. I don’t think I’ll let them play with them again soon, unless my mum is here to supervise them.

The end result? Total mess everywhere… which means more work for my maid and me. Oh well, having kids equals mess and dirty job all the time, isn’t it?

No. of times viewed = 1537

Mess-Free Crayola Finger Paints

The other day, Alycia went to the cupboard in the maid’s room used to place all their new stationeries, books and toys and dug out a cool mess-free fingerpaints that their koo mah or koo koo (can’t remember who bought it) bought it for them last year.

It’s really a neat activitiy as it’s mess-free and does not stain the table, clothes, skin or anything, except that it’s pretty oily on the fingers…. but it’s non-toxic though.

The paints that are colorless but….

…the minute the paint touches the paper of the coloring book, it turns into a color. It’s really cool and amuses the gals…

The gals think that it is magical coz something that’s colorless can turn into different colors when their little fingers touched different drawings in the book.

However, this activity needs to be under adult supervision coz my 2 brats were so amused with the magical paints that they kept digging and digging on the paints with their fingers that within 10 mintues, more than half the paints were wiped off… and only 2 pages of the coloring book were colored and there are still over 20 pages in the book, which means that there would not be enough paints for the remaining pages.

Has anyone seen this fingerpaints in our local bookstores? This is bought either by my sil in New Zealand, Saipan or HK. I don’t think I’ve come across this fingerpaints here.

No. of times viewed = 52138

Mess-Free Magic Color

Alycia’s koo koo (my youngest sil) sent her a belated birthday present all the way from Saipan (an island in the U.S.) last week. It’s a Crayola magic set – consisting of magic color that’s truly magical. The pages in the coloring book are made of a special type of paper. Once the white color ink of the magic pen touches the special Crayola coloring book, the white ink turns into color.

This is really ideal for toddlers as it’s totally mess-free. I wonder if this is sold in Malaysia as I am thinking of buying the gals the coloring book when they have finished this one. Has anyone seen this in KL?

Sisters play turned awry when they fought with each other to color the book. Sherilyn snatched the marker while Alycia grabbed the book! So koo koo, if you are reading this, buy 2 sets lar next time, the gals will surely fight if there’s only 1 set!

No. of times viewed = 218