Thinking Thursdays: Scrapbooking... and singing along

Yesterday, the hubby helped me to collect some scrapbooking materials that I had purchased from a friend as I was busy at Pasir Ris with my data collection.  I only got to open the pack that she passed to the hubby late that night, and when I did, I nearly fainted with delight!  She had added loads of papers, embellishments and other stuff on top of what I bought... and to top if off, she had made this banner for Junior J:

Cars, stars and black glitter!  I've in mind the perfect place in his room to hang this (more "full" photos when I've done that!), and Jo, thank you so much again! :)

And since we're on the topic of scrapbooking, here's a book that I just recently borrowed from the library:

The Very Best of Yes, It's a Scrapbook!:  I really loved the projects in here, since some used recycled materials such as CDs and floppy disks, and made me view scrapbooking in a different light.  The projects here aren't just restricted to making albums, and you have interesting projects such as decorating large wooden letters etc.  Most library branches have the book, and you can get the details here.

And on the learning front, Junior J has started filling in the words of various songs when you sing them to him.  For example, when you sing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star", he chimes in with the word "star" at the correct part... So I've been trying to sing more songs to the little boy, and we've also been "reading along" to some songs too... We just recently bought the illustrated version of "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" (its available at Borders)...

... and the boy loves it when we sit down and sing along to the songs while I point out the words on the pages (we play the "Cats, the musical" CD, and Junior J likes to bob up and down for some of the songs!).  The book is really beautifully illustrated, and is a classic for any library!

Oh, and all this talking about books reminds me... Borders is having a "Buy 3 books and get 30% off" offer until the 5th of May... Click here to download your coupon!

What books are you reading or singing along to this week?

Weaning Wednesdays: Useful utensils

The parent-in-laws have left for home, so life is slowly getting back to normal.  The house still looks like a disaster zone though, and we still have 2 more toilet cabinets that need to be fixed up.  Managed to get the wardrobe fixed up with the help of the FIL this morning, but the doors have yet to be fixed on yet.  Baby J has caught a cough from the MIL, and is pretty grumpy.  Add this to late nights and early mornings, along with fieldwork (today's weather was good, but I was baked alive out in the mangroves!), and you get one extremely tired and grumpy mama.  Oh well, I'm still blogging just to unwind before I sleep, while waiting for the in-laws to sms that they've reached home safely...

Oh yes!  Baby J has started to say "mama", instead of "mamamamawwaaaaaahhhhhh" which he used to do when he was tired and hungry.  Now he goes "mama... waahhhhhh, mama...."  I never knew how two simple syllables have the power to turn me from a raging grumpy woman to a very happy one!

So again, back to the topic of weaning.  We've added barley and carrots to the repertoire of foods for baby J, and he seems to like barley, and is pretty indifferent to carrots.  Right now, these websites have been extremely useful to me:
Wholesome baby foods: This site has EVERYTHING you need.  Recipes, food guides, nutrition information.
My friend's blog on weaning her son: This blog actually charts her entire journey for weaning, and describes in detail how she prepares the food and her son's reactions to the various meals she prepares.

And... we discovered the "Take and Toss" range from Learning Curve sometime back from Ariana's blog, Becoming Mom.  The whole range of feeding utensils are PVC, phthalate and BPA free, are recyclable, and are relatively inexpensive, which really appealed to us!  We're currently using the bowls with lids, which are very convenient to bring out and have 2 compartments, as well as the spoons, which fit just nice into baby J's mouth.  Initially though, as the spoons were made of harder plastic, we used the Tommee Tippee feeding spoons, which were slightly larger, but softer and hence won't hurt baby J's gums.  Both types of spoons change colour when the food is too hot, which is a boon!

And in terms of sippy cups, we tried the Tommee Tippee Easiflow cup since it won some award, but found that baby J had difficulty getting anything out of it!  Right now, the Take and Toss sippy cup works better for baby J, who loves to drink water from it...

Ok! That's it for today... Gotta go!

Bargain books

We had to go down to Paragon yesterday to get a portable cot (for travelling) as Mothercare didn't have it in stock. Went to try the mee pok in Lucky Plaza next door, which was pretty good, and chanced upon this bookstore called "Discount Books". As the name implies, the store sells new books at a reduced price, as they actually obtain the leftovers from publishers. The store had all sorts of interesting reads that you usually don't see on the shelves of mainstream bookstores, but what made me very happy were all the children books they were selling at less than 10 bucks each! Usually we get most of our stuff from Borders when they are having the "3 for 2 discount" on children items, but children books can be pretty costly. The store was actually selling those little board books for $3-4 each, and they also had various types of flash cards, so we bought a few, and hubby got some guitar book for himself and a puzzle book for us to pour over next time.  I particularly like the board books as the pictures are photos rather than cartoony drawings.

Been having a lot of difficulty moving on with my dissertation as I don't seem to be able to have blocks of time to sit down to read journals.  Most of the time is spent playing/caring/feeding baby J, and when he's asleep there's all that housework and dinner to prepare.  But now that he's napping and that I've done most of the important chores, I'd better go and do some reading!

Thrifty toys

There are really a plethora of toys available for children nowadays, from colourful Lamaze stuff toys to all sorts of plasticky stuff that pop-up, make noises, and basically help to empty parents' wallets of their money. Some are nice, some are really good learning tools, but most of the good stuff usually is expensive. However, with a tight budget thanks to us being a single income family, I guess we are forced to be more creative in the toys we get for baby J.   So far, thrifty finds we've managed to glean were from places like Salvation army, various pasar malams (night markets), Daiso, as well as Ikea.  My mum has gotten very nice board books from Salvation army, and we got this colourful windmill (which we can use to teach colours) and ball from a pasar malam. The hubby says the ball looks like a virus, but I like the little nobs on it cos it makes it easier for tiny hands to grasp it. Then of course Ikea sells various interesting toys at reasonable prices, like the stacking cups at S$2.50, and Daiso is a treasure trove of stuff waiting to be discovered.

Just the other day, a 15 min jaunt into Daiso yielded these alphabet and number magnets, as well as various art and craft material, and everything costs just $2! Needless to say, I'll be headed to Daiso again for some more bargain hunting soon...