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Little Toez

If you have 2 little girls, the orbit of whom you circle around, and who adores fairies and flowers and everything nice, most likely you are an online shopaholic like me, constantly checking online stores on the look out for quality and stylish products.

When Chinnee told me about Little Toez, I was pleasantly suprised to discover that there is now an online baby boutique store in Singapore that carries stylish baby products.

Little Toez is an online baby and kids fashion boutique based in Singapore and it has 6 signature products.

The baby boutique carries handmade baby and kids hair accessories by Amelie B of Australia, baby fashion by Qictoria Baby Fashion of Australia and C.J’s Closet, featuring a wide range of pettiskirt and tops.

They also carries stylish socks from KM Baby Socks of USA, baby and kids fashion from Oobi of Australia and soft soled leather shoes from Cheeky Little Soles of Australia.
Incidentally, Little Toez is also the sole distributor for KM Baby Socks USA and Amelie B Handmade hair accessories in Singapore.

I used to spend a fair amount on shipping fee in getting Oobi’s cute little can-can skirts or ruffled rompers from Australia to be couriered over here.

Now with Little Toez’s baby and kids boutique, you save big on shipping fee. Not only that, you also get free shipping for delivery within Singapore if you purchase above $60.

The first thing, among others, that attracted me to Little Toez are those fabulous April skirts, from the latest collection of Oobi Designs. I am a big fan of Oobi Designs. Ha! Ha!

Aren’t these so pretty?

These multi tiered skirts has different fabric or design on each layer. It also has elasticated waistband, hidden prettily with a sash, which will be really comfortable for the little one’s tummy.

Little girls are going to look so gorgeously stylish in those ruffles.

So, go check out Little Toez now! And remember that if you purchase above R$60, you also get free shipping for delivery within Singapore!

Happy online shopping,all !

Mind your kids at the mall, earnestly !

What is the world coming to?

I get so paranoid whenever any one of my 2 kids wander away from my sight. And I would tell Kimberly off in public right there with my husband telling me to shush and not to be so loud.

But I just cant help it each time. I just want to get the message across to her that it is not done. And if it is not done, then it is not done, period !! And if it happened again, no shopping for the whole month.

Why am I so paranoid? Bet Malaysians know. All the headlines, all those news about kids missing (Sharlinie, the classic case, for e.g), popping up at your face every now and then when you read your paper over your morning cup of Milo-Kau.

To compound it, I have just receive one of those forwarding email on a child’s kidnap attempt, of which I will attach below in a while.

I don’t know how much of these circulating emails are true or substantiated, but as usual, its a case of readers beware.

Plus, one of my ex maid once tried to take Ashley out of the Mother and Baby fair away from my side, when Ashley was like, I dont remember, one year old? She had only worked for me for a week. This happened during the days when I used to have maids.

That particular day, I remember telling Brenda of babysashaandmom that she is a new maid, and I remember Brenda (who is selling her cloth diapers at one of the booths) telling me that when I move along, the maid made no attempt to follow me nor knew that I had moved along, but stood there resting her arms on the handle of the stroller, which Ashley is sleeping in, and watch people go by.

So, I made her stand by my side each and every time I stopped by a booth to check things out, while my other maid, a trustworthy one, Atin, watch over Kimberly.

And that particular instance, as usual, I check that she is with me (cos she is pushing the stroller) and again, remind her to stand beside me and not to walk away from me to examine things cos I want Ashley by my side. I had needed to keep repeating because she repeatedly walk away from me with Ashley despite my constant reminder over that hour itself.

Anyhow, within a split second, she was gone. How could that be? I had only held up a cloth diaper in my hand to feel the microsuede, put it down and she was gone. Frantic, I asked one of the girls at Babyzandmom’s stall to help me look at the other lane while I looked down that lane. I couldn’t spot them ANYWHERE !! My heart was just about went as cold as an ice.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I have an instinct that the maid may be trying to smuggle my kid out. So I ran out of the exhibition (at Midvalley) towards the exit, and what do I see? The maid, zeroing in towards the exit. And, the maid, , whether feigning innocence or not, told me that she want to go outside to the stores to look for ma’am.

First of all, shouldn’t she not leave my side as instructed? Secondly, shouldn’t she be standing in the same spot? Thirdly , to look for me, shouldn’t she attempted to look for me around the booths, instead of pushing my kid out of the exhibition zeroing on the exit, in a hurry, not looking left or right for me?

I had my doubts and told my husband but he dismissed it as one of those “incredulous” things that some Indon maids do. But this lesson taught me to push my kids myself when out shopping. We don’t let the maids push the stroller anymore after that.

Well, the maid took off a 2 weeks later anyhow. That was before we were informed by  our then renovator, who were doing up the kitchen, that the maid had on her 3rd day of her arrival tried to strike a deal with the Indonesian contractors at the construction across the road to sell my baby.

Apparently one of the Indon contractors assisting our Chinese renovater is in the same “housing” settlement as the Indon she tried to strike the deal with.  He is one of the 2 part timers working for our Chinese renovator in renovating our kitchen. He told our renovator and our renovator told us.

Lucky for us, the part timer Indonesian found it in his heart to warn us. Perhaps he found it weird that the maid keep “singing” messages to them in Bahasa Indonesia whenever they are at the back working on my kitchen. She is always singing whenever they are around. Atin said she is actually “talking” to them in a sing song way.

The agent gave us the money due for runaway maids, but refused to have anything to do with the kidnap attempt. We haven’t time nor the passion to pursue the matter ,and are only glad that the maid is not within our midst anymore.

I normally don’t like to waste time dwelling on the issues of maids but I figure it may be prudent to share my experience.

Our last agent also told us that there are always always syndicates all around taking advantage of maids as a tool to rob houses etc.

This is what add to my paranoia that my kids MUST constantly be by my side.

Anyhow, this is the email that I received earlier today about a child’s abduction attempt.

I am cutting and pasting the entire e-mail below in verbatim.

Hi parents and soon-to-parents,

A friend of my husband told him this true story which happened to his own sister in our very own Mid Valley City (for the benefit of those overseas, MVC is large shopping complex in KL) :-

The friend’s sister and her husband where having a meal in one of the restaurants in MVC with their young son. Then suddenly, they were intruded by a big fat lady who tried to be very annoying and intrusive. They tried their best to get rid of this stranger. As all this commotion was going on, the husband noticed that their young son was no longer sitting at the table with them. When the husband looked around for his son, he saw that the little boy was walking towards a man outside the restaurant who was beckoning him to come over.

The husband quickly got up from his seat and started calling out his son’s name. This was when the big fat lady gave a ‘hand cutting neck’ signal to her accomplice outside indicating that the ‘mission’ was to be aborted. The man and the fat lady then disappeared out of sight.

I’m sure you have heard of syndicates out there that are kidnapping young children, handicapping them and then putting them out on the streets to beg. This story shows that what we’ve heard is very true. We’ve also been told that the ‘targeted’ children are those who are between the ages of 2 to 5. And, the fairer they are, the better the price they’ll fetch too.

My hope is that you’ll let your family and friends know of this story and ask them to always be alert when they take children out. Please feel free to pass this email to anyone whom you think will benefit from it.

A very wise man had said this to me about his family — ‘… you are all I work so hard for. If I don’t have that, nothing else matters at all.’

I couldn’t agree with him more.

Warmest regards,

Janice

Parents out there, receiving this email reminds me again how diligently I need to watch my kids when we are out.

So, hopefully, this will nudge you guys as well.

Bento Silicon Foodcups - My “must have” !

I find silicon cups so useful. Before I purchased any silicon cups, I had to painstakingly divide the dry food from wet food with baran dividers or aluminium foil.

A lot of baran dividers sometimes.

…. Like so…..

Now with silicon cups….

I can just do this instead….

Slot the food in……

No prize for guessing why I was grinning from ear to ear when Angeleyes send me this parcel stuffed with silicon cups when she came back from her trip to Singapore !!!

And the darling won’t let me pay for it !!!

Isn’t she such a sweetie?

I rushed to the Post Office to collect the parcel immediately after receiving the red postcard from the Post Office. Reached there barely half an hour before the post office closes.

I brought them all to FIL’s place the next day itself where we spend the weekend and I utilised them fully. haha.

Used them for packing small portions of dishes home when we dined out because Ashley dozed off in the stroller and missed dinner and were bound to be hungry when she woke.

Used them to pack bento meals for the 3 1/2 hour ride to FIL’s place and to pack bento food again for the 3 1/2 hour ride home to PJ.

Used them to pack bento box snacks when we popped into DH’s relative’s place with the kids, knowing that we are going to be hours there.

Now that Angeleyes/Alice is into bento-ing, she is making up fantastic bento-s for her toddler, Darrius. Incidentally, Darrius is almost the same age as Ashley.

Check out her site for her bento posts !

And hugs to you, Alice, for the lovely lovely gift. GIFTS !!!

Bento #40

Bento #40 is Kimberly’s Tuesday bento. Ashley has been having the sniffles and has not been attending school.

Bento #40 is watermelon cut into Marie the Disney cat’s shapes and layered with 3 baran divider so that Kimberly could pick them up with ease. At the side of the watermelon are 3 rambutans. Wanted to give her more but I think the weather are rather hot lately.

Inside the divider are some grapes on skewers and boiled weiners on skewers. I figure she can have weiners today since she hasn’t had them for a long time

Will put up other bentos soon.

Have a great day today, all ! And Happy Bento-ing !

Protected: Weekend dinner with family

Bento #34 and Bento #35

Bento #34

Yours truly woke up late, so Bento #34 was made in a rush. And I do mean, a rush. Ha ha. what, like in 10, 15 minutes? wash bunches of champagne grapes, slot a bunch each into Tigger’s green round containers. Took out chinese sausage of the night before from the fridge, cut into strips, peeled pear, slice and cut 2 slices each for the kids, placed in silicon triangle cups, and that’s Ashley and Kimberly’s Tuesday’s bento.

Sorely lacking in colour combination and variety. My only consolation is that both containers came home wiped clean. At least its the food that I know they definitely want to eat. Perhaps they finished them purely because there is so little food in there.

Wednesday’s bento is somewhat better.

Bento #35

It’s peanut and butter sandwich cut into Hello Kitty shapes. In the purple jellybean container, skewered peeled grapes, peeled at request of my little madam who says that she had needed to spend a long time peeling them despite my attempt to get her to eat the fruit’s skin as well.

I didnt get a chance to use my Hello Kitty kamaboko, so sliced some yellow zuchini (the last of the lot) and green zucchini (also the last of the lot, ha ha) and layered them with the sliced fishcakes.

Ashley didnt go to school on Wednesday, so I didnt prepare any bento for her.

For Bento #36, Bento #37 and Bento #38, click “here”

Have a great week ahead, all !

I love Cupcakes !!

I knew that if I were to miss Darrius’s birthday party last year, I was going to miss Alice’s cupcakes as well. But it was on the same day as my brother’s wedding, so that’s it.

So when she said she was going to come back to KL for awhile and would be taking KL orders, I couldnt wait to place my orders.

Kimberly and Ashley were in absolute rapture over these !!!

Aren’t they the prettiest thing you have ever seen?

This is one of Kimberly’s favourite A castle ! Ashley pushed at it just before i snapped the pic, that’s why it’s leaning over to one side.

This is Ashley taking her pick !t

Yum !

Those of you who loves cupcakes, fast fast go over to her site and place your orders !!

I love cupcakes !!

A lazy Saturday

This is a late post. Since I have not been printing out the kids’ photos for the last 2 years, I thought I had better load some up at flickr or put some up at this blog before I lose all the pics for some reason, like , if my laptop went kaput, even though this Toshiba is purchased this year.

Anyhow, we went to Arthur and Denise’s daughter’s party last Saturday. Celestine is 6years old already. She and Kimberly got along great and we went around to Arthur’s place for the kids to play in the pool sometimes.

It’s a pool side party and we were reminded to bring the kids’ swimsuits.

This is Kimberly giving me a look that says,” Cut out the flash, momma !”

Now, are we wondering what’s the attraction here?

It’s the Magician, of course !!

However, the sandpit holds more attraction to Ashley than the Magician!

On a different note, this is us killing time while waiting for that one hour to go by between Kimberly’s Enopi class and her ballet class on one of those Saturdays.

New washing machine !

Our new washing machine came today. Ashley ran to hide when the Harvey Norman’s men came. She is shy that way. So unlike her bossy chieh chieh.

It’s time for a new washing machine anyhow. When we first got married, we wanted to save, so when my elder brother offers us one of his old washing machine, I snapped it up. Time and again, the machine broke down, but I never thought to get new washing machines , probably because at that time, Kimberly stayed with my in laws and we don’t do much laundry. Sometimes we took the laundry over to FIL cos we visit every weekend those days and there isn’t time for laundry at home.

With the birth of Ashley, our maid of 3 years, Atin was still hand washing Ashley’s clothes. Our clothes were still minimal.

Come the time when Atin left, and new maids came and went. Industrial cleaning from professional cleaners is still not an option at this point because we have replacement maids from maid agencies who still owe us maids in replacement to those we rejected.

Anyhow, I decide that its time to machine wash Ashley’s and Kimberly’s clothes. Reason solely because all of them maids failed miserably in hand washing clothes.

They all do the same thing. Soak in minimal soap powder and maximum water, then do one of the other, ie. just swirl their hand inside, or the other thing,scrub between their hand till lints came up.

And they usually scrub at the wrong spots, ie the spots that doesnt need scrubbing. Then they rinse with only a quarter bucket full of water, and voila, all done. You can still get soap water dripping off the lines. Doesn’t this all sound so familiar?

So anyhow, with the vigorous use of the machine nowadays, the old trusty has decide that it has seen its better days and that time has come for it to take an infinite break.

However, my sole reason for getting a new machine was Ashley. Everytime the machine spins, it rumbles and roars terrifyingly….or so it seems to Ashley.

Once it even rumbled so hard, it toppled off the concrete platform on top of me, who was trying to fix it. No harm done, cos it was only halfway toppled with half its body still on the lower platform and the other half at the top platform.

Ashley however, the poor dear, screamed in horror and toddled over as fast as her two little legs could carry her, and pull me by the arm away from the “dreaded monster”, saying “Momma !! Momma!!! Hurry!!! Hurry !!!’ and tried in vain to drag my body weight from the scene of danger with her tiny frame.

That touched my heart to no end. I didn’t know that my little 25 months old knew enough to save her mommy from danger. Isn’t she such a darling?

Hence, the new machine !

It’s such a pleasure to walk into the kitchen nowadays and greeted by the smooth finishes of a brand new sparkling white new machine instead of the yellowing cracked surfaces on the old machine. We just can’t do without this useful kitchen appliance , can we?

Phew…. finally… a new maid !!

Finally !!! I got a new maid. Not a reliable one, not a good one, but a polite one, that is. One that doesnt jeling mata when you ask her to mop the floor and one who doesnt walk off when you ask her to take the laundry out of the machine to hang.

I had the worse maids since Atin left in April. In desperation, i took reject maids because i couldnt wait 6 weeks for them to arrive. Of course… they are rejects for a reason. They pretend to faint when you tell them off, they claim to have sakit kepala come 10 pm, they claim to have sakit perut come 1 pm. Worse, when you ask them ,”kenapa, Jahara? Kenapa nangis?”Maid replied, “sakit kerana ma’am pukul” WHATTTTTTTTTT??????!!!

“YOU GILA KAH? BILA MASA MA’AM PUKUL?”

*moan* “ada, ma’am pukul”… come the reply in an eerily slow mo voice.*moan again*

Eeeyewwww…. *prickling goosebumps standing up*

I got goosebumps all over my skin with this maid. I drove her to my husband’s office immediately pretending that she is going to wash the toilet there and then phone the agent next door, told her what happened and instruct the agent to come over to pick her up. Then we brought her luggage back later that evening.

Scary….

Well, scary cos I didnt hit her and either she had the audicity to say I did or she plucked that out from a figment of her imagination. She always speak in this slow mo voice all the while rolling her eyes up to the ceiling… like in pain.. or in trance … or something. She was only here 3 days. No wonder she is a reject. Till today, i still get goosebump when i saw the tee shirt she owned that she left in my present maid’s room.

And then there was this reject maid who “lawan cakap” every inch of the way and clip a cloth peg on Ashley’s finger so that Ashley would wail “momma, momma, pau pau !! pau pau!!” while she scoot off to the kitchen or the front yard. to chat with the maid next door. Sigh… you met one, you met them all. Arent these stories just so familiar?

Its not too bad if those reject maids could cook or mind the kids or at least clean the house. Nope, none of the above, the only thing they could do is just to mop the floor and to hand up laundry, then fold them. Seriously, it took all of their 15 hours to do that .And not even up to par, to that !!

Anyhow, I am happy to report that my new maid is very polite and cheerful in her demeanor. Never mind that she is just an 18 year old kid who doesnt have a clue how to mop the floor, and forgot how to operate the washing machine each time i teach her. Never mind that she rest when I am busy with the baby cos she has no clue what to do in my absence even though i gave her a time schedule. It is just so refreshing to have a maid who is NOT rude. Whew….

Hopefully, Ashley will take to her in time and if she could play with Ashley, that would allow me some time to come back to blogger’s world… Hey, everyone… I missed visiting you guys’ blog. Chat to you guys real soon…