There are so many possibilities with Canon Creative park.
I can think of scrapbooking in many ways. Like how I made the door handle to let everyone in the house that Rania is sleeping.



Rania loves the idea.
Everytime she wants to enter the room, she would knock and when I open the door, she puts her fingers on her lips and say,"Shhhh."

Then I did what I wanted to do for a very long time, which was to have a scrapbooked family portrait.



I love scrapbooking and I feel that there is so much love and effort put into scrapbooking.
So it was really awesome that Canon has tons of templates which I can choose from.

To be honest, I was spoilt for choices.

But I cannot be scrapbooking all the time! I was wondering what are the interesting things I can do.
So it hit me when I visited a friend who gave birth and she gave out chocolates to those who came to visit her and her baby. It was so cute!

Plus, it hit me how much we show appreciation to friends and relatives who came by to welcome our newborn with us.
I mean, of course we do say thank you but that would just be it.

I was sharing with Alfi that this time around, we should have some momento for our visitors come October.
Something that makes them smile when they leave the ward.
Already, they make us smile by coming to visit.

So that was when I started scouting and looking out for simple things that I can do.
Scrapbooking was out of the question.
Thank You greeting cards were too huge. So I stumbled upon the mini card section and thought that it is small and simple.



Effort was little. It was just cutting and pasting.
Browsing through, this design caught my eye.



I like how lovely it is and how apt it was for a baby boy.
Not only that, there were no text in it so I could customize it accordingly!

So I got on to work to do a trial set.
Here comes the printout!











The ideal final look?



Suddenly childbirth is starting to get exciting for me.
I think this is such a great idea if you are giving birth soon and would like to thank your guests. Or maybe you would like to help your girlfriend who is giving birth soon.
It's not too expensive to make for 30 but you surely place a memory in their minds when they leave the hospital.

xoxo

My Canon creativity

I was nonetheless estatic being among the 10 bloggers selected for the Canon Creativity Workshop.
I have always wanted to buy a photo printer but I am not very knowledgable about it and I will always end up very fickle of what to buy.

*lol*

Women!

I am honestly very clueless about photo printers and when I had my first few pictures printed out at the Canon workshop, I was in "ooohs" and "ahhhhhs"
So shameful!

But I was very impressed with my printouts. The picture was so clear and colours so vibrant that I fell in love with the printer all at once!



What more, I brought home a damn sexy red Canon Pixma MG3170



So here we are to share our creativity skills with Canon and I swear to you that I am one of the least creative people on earth!
But the workshop opened me to possibilities and gave me a new sense of motivation.

I sat down for a few weeks thinking what is it that I can do with all my resources. I went into the Canon Creativity Park for many days and really try to think through what I can do.

Then, just like Albert Einsten (chey!) I was gifted with a stroke of genius!

*lol*

As you know, I am living with my mom temporarily and it is filled with 7 adults and 1 little brat.
As a family with a child, our timing with the rest really differs! When I am asleep, they are up 'partying' and when I am up, they are asleep.
When I am out, the rest probably just woke up and when they leave the house, I am home tired.

So it is really understandable that they try to spend as much time as they can with Rania during the in-between timings, especially the weekends.

There are nights when I am trying to make Rania sleep and they just arrive home, knock on my door to take a peek at Rania. Then Rania gets all excited and her sleeping time gets postponed to another hour.
It is ok on weekends but on weekdays, the parents need to sleep too!
I admit, there are times when we sleep with Rania in between us, still playing and we are snoring away.

Damn teruk (terrible) la!

So here was my art project #1.

HOW TO MAKE A DOOR HANGER

Ok there is a twist to this one because I decided not to make a typical door hanger. I wanted to incorporate my scrapbooking ideas into it!
I have always loved scrapbooking but you know how these things are so expensive that I do not know whether I will get sick of it after a few months. It will not be able to justify the cost!

So I picked out a background colour from the website.



This time around I took a dark background so that I can work on bright things on it.
Then I selected pretty borders to match the background.




And then I selected the matching parts to scrapbook.



I printed one of Rania's photo from Instagram. A nice 1:1 to fit onto the door handle.

Here is how we start.



Materials required apart from the printed items:
- Glue
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Ruler

So I cut out the door label 20cm by 10cm because I did not want the label to be too long for a small instagram picture.
I drew a circle at the center and cut it out.



I started by pasting Rania's picture at the center and then work on cutting and pasting the other parts together.



I had an additional helper and could not work faster on this project but I managed to complete it at the end!



Wa laa!

So now, my family knows when Rania is asleep and detour from knocking on my room door.
Isn't that awesome!

I am convinced and proven myself that I am not that hopeless with creativity after all.
Why don't you give it a shot?

xoxo

Rania says Kenk-Kiu!

This will be the final lap for my sponsored post by Pampers Singapore.
I would like to thank them for giving me an awesome opportunity to share with my readers on the diapers and some of my usual posts. There are more than a handful that texted me and ask if Pampers was really that good.
So I asked them if they wanted to buy over my existing diaper stocks.

*lol*

Technically, Pampers Active Baby costs $0.36 per piece which is about $0.05 more than what I am pay previously. But I change Rania's diapers much lesser and of course I stopped waking up in morning and checking her diapers to see if it leaked.
No more putting a spare diaper at my bedside table.

I am more well-rested.

Pampers Active Baby pants has always been my choice when we head outdoors.




This underwear-like pants has slim crotch shape which makes it more comfortable for Rania to be running around.
Anyway, it really suits her active lifestyle. There are little/no creases around the crotch are and even if there was, it was not read.

With extra locking layer keeping Rania's bottom dry. Also the diaper is so soft and breathable that I have see no redness at Rania's butterfly.
Suddenly, this little girl is so easy to maintain.

*lol*

Another reason why I love to use active pants when I am outdoors is because handling a 16-month old active toddler is not easy. She tends to wriggle her way out when I try to lie her down.
Pants is like a disposable underwear for her.



The soft waist band also helps to prevent pressure marking on Rania. After trying a few brands, Pampers Active pants is the easiest to tear at the sides. It is holds so firmly and fits nicely on Rania without falling down.
Oh yes, I did try other brands with Rania and when the center holds a little too much pee, her pants diaper will go 'steamers' style. There was even an occasion it dropped down to her legs!!

What an embarrassment!

Plus, look at the difference in thickness of the diapers!
It surely saves space in my diaper bag!



Thank you Pampers for meeting the needs of my happy & active baby. Her smiles are always precious.
She is less cranky with wet diapers and I have my family/outdoor/meal times all in peace!



Trust me, Rania thinks this is a winner and yes sweetie, it will be a switch for you.

And here is Rania saying 'Thank you' the best way she can.



xoxo

Post-kiddo Marriage

Alfi and I met in Feb 2009 and by Nov 2010, we were hitched!
Many thought we were kidding to jump into the marriage boat too fast but I swear you can just tell if that was the person you wanted to settle down for the rest of your life.



Sure, there are things I didn't forsee when I married him. Like he just doesn't care if he farts loudly in public.
But any of those sorts are mediocre to me - thank god!

Honestly, I was still adjusting life as a married woman. My roles multifold. From being a daughter-in-law, to a wife, to my career and the toughest of all was time away from my mom. Something which I have spent enormous portion of my life with. Setting expectations were hard.

By April 2011, I conceived Rania.
It felt just like yesterday that our honeymoon ended. I was not ready to have a child but at the same time I knew that I could not wait any longer than I already did. But the thought of entering into another phase scares me and I was brutally honest about it in my previous posts.

Life took a turn. I was busy with work, home business and one tuition.
Still, Alfi and I had a lot of time to play around and date. Only that movies were a chore because by the time I entered my third trimester, Alfi will need to rub my back every 30 mins in the movie theatre and watching movies like Transformers was no joke.

We have our decaf coffee dates still and ate wherever I wanted to.

Then Rania came just before Christmas. She was truly a bundle of joy, bringing tears to both her parents - surprisingly. I mean I didn't think we were going to cry but we did!

Reality set in when we came home and all the attention was on her. Everyone's attention was on her.
Back then, I did not have a maid and did everything on my own during my maternity leave.

There was one thing Alfi and I didn't see coming. Our dates together are totally compromised.
During my pregnancy, we made a pact to date at least once a week. Then when Rania was born, we told ourselves that we would fix dates every fornightly.

Today after 16 months, I only dated my husband once. Then I was so upset how much I probably would have prioritized my marriage. Then I realized dates are just something quantifiable.
Plus, we are juggling more things today than we were a year ago. With the new pregnancy, work, me juggling 7 tuition classes a week and Alfi juggling with 6 classes a week, time was barely on our side.

There are many more which I practiced daily with Alfi. Like calling him during office hours, asking him his plans and working around my schedule so that I can see him for lunches or meet him at his workplace and we head home together. We always end our phone calls with 'I love you' and 'Take care'.
Sometimes we practice having breakfast together and when I reach office, I will just send him a quick text message saying,"I miss you already." or "can't wait to see you later."

Bottom line, Rania is a gift to us.



Life would not have had so many smiles without her.



But so is Alfi to me. He is my pillar of strength and my other mutually exclusive half.



We do share our memories of what it was like during pre-baby times. We do miss it.
The first step is to let Rania sleep on her own after 16 months and while she has been great, the parents have been having withdrawal.

So I guess life really changes. But different isn't always bad.
We do have cheeky moments, many laughs and stolen moments. We are just short of going out on dates.
But this is marriage life.

While I think it is necessary to spark the flame, I think we don't need to be rigid in doing up a dating schedule.
I still like things being a little impromptu. It creates a little bit more excitement.

How do you maintain that spark in your marriage?
Share with my readers and I a little thing or two and maybe we could put the ideas to good use this coming Labour Day holiday or weekend!

This post is brought to you by Pampers Singapore

Here is to the second league

Thank you to all my social media sweethearts on Facebook & Twitter (darn that my Instagram can't be installed on a Windows Phone) and my friends and lovelies who sent me personal text messages via SMS and Watsapp.
It means a lot to me because it took some time away from your Candy Crush just to send me some love.

I am sentimental hormonal like that now.

So yeah, my second bun is baking in the oven. I call it incubating.
My little one gets to stay in my womb for the next 5 months and do nothing but to grow and grow and grow.

This pregnancy is very different from my first.
That's what they say. Every pregnancy is different.


*this picture was taken when I was in my first pregnancy.

I kicked off my pregnancy being sick when I was in Dubai. So I really think my immune system is low now. Took me over 3 weeks to recover and not fully. Not the whole swing came again. Cough and sorethroat and sometimes restricting my breathing. But I try as much as possible not to rely on medication.
Already I am on so much medication for my asthma and allergies and gastric.

Coupled with that, I am one heck of a lazy pig mom.
I will be lying in bed and telling Alfi to help me pass the remote on the TV. Telling him to bring up my food or he will have to head downstairs just because I wanted 'air sedap' ( a good drink) or even my Yakult.

But thank god, I have no cravings for Mac Donald's like how I was when I was pregnant with Rania.
There was no 3am calls to satisfy my hunger. There was no I must eat this and that.
I could control myself pretty well this time around.

But yeah the tummy is still big. Coming 15 weeks and 4kg gained, I blame my relaxed stomach muscle.
I have always thought moms with morning sickness have been lucky. You are a natural bulimic, throwing up whatever you have eaten and not putting on the weight in the first trimester.

I have been trying to hide the tummy even at work and it is getting harder. I think Alfi was exasperated looking at me stare at the wardrobe for hours that he said,"B, you are pregnant."

This pregnancy, I have one great kaki who is my cousin-in-law, sharing cravings and issues we are facing (mostly cravings though). Already before we both we pregnant (4 weeks apart), we have been weekend supper kaki. So being pregnant together was really an icing on the cake.

How we crave for Roti John at Pasar Pandan in Johor and how this weekend we are going go in search of satay.

It is amazing. So whoever else is pregnant with us, please join in the fun, share the love and food cravings.
Both of us are armed with children and husbands so the more the merrier!

Just like my first pregnancy, I never had a connection with the one I am incubating. I find myself like a machine. Just an incubator and waiting for the baby to come out.
Mom said my maternal instincts are not there. But my maternal instincts with Rania is amazing.
I am a protective mother in a sense that I take care of her from falling sick, I let her get bullied just so that she is exposed to mean kids in future but always watchful over it and I know when something is wrong.

I think my next set of maternal instincts will kick in when I give birth.
Of course I am excited to see little one when I head to the gynae. I am just amazed to see how it is growing and what a great machine my body is.



Being pregnant to a 16th month old active toddler is not easy. Sometimes I ask Alfi if we are planning it too fast.
But he said,"We are not getting any younger."

So here we are. 5 more months to go.
It is amazing how time flies. It just felt like last month that I just came back from Umrah and found out that I was pregnant.

And definitely not being able to share this news with my dad makes a whole lot of difference. I could not see his smile. I could not hear him nag that I should be losing the weight after pregnancy. I could not have him smuggle coffee for me when Alfi is not around.

Told you I was hormonal.

This post is brought to you by Pampers Singapore

xoxo

Sponsored Post: I'm an Active baby. Are you?

Hello everyone!

As many of you already know, mummy is trying out a new diaper brand on me. I heard her saying,"Rania, please come here and wear your Pampers."

So let me share with you my journey of wearing the Pampers diapers.



I always enjoyed wearing Pampers and since this is the last of post for the active diapers, I thought I should give you a comprehensive sharing of it.

1. It has elastic sides which allows it to expand and contract easily as I move around
2. Extra locking layer which keeps me dry at all times. You know sometimes mummy can be really lazy carried away that she forget to change my diapers every 3-4 hours.
3. It has soft cottony comfort which makes the diapers very breathable. That means no redness around any of my diaper area.
4. Pampers diapers has hypoallergenic lotion with Aloe Vera extract which protects my skin and prevents me from diaper rash. I overheard mummy said she can save some money on Drapolene. In fact whenever we head out, mummy doesn't bring along the diaper cream. I told you she is lazy. But yeah, I survived as a happy baby still.

The best part of it all is that I get to sleep through the night (apart for crying out for milk) because mummy does not need to change my diapers. And I don't wake up wet! So comfortable!

So here is the comfy elastic sides which leaves me with no creases




And here is me in Active Diapers. It suits active babies like me!







Ok this one I am sorry. I was kinda distracted with Teletubbies on TV.



Till the next time I share with you again. I am sure mummy will be writing one more post soon.
She yaks a lot!

I think I got that best part of her.

xoxo,
Rania

On Family

Being a working mother and wife, I really treasure the times we spend together.
My weekdays are burnt.
Now that mid-year examinations is on the way, my weekday evenings are spent with the students doing revisions and polishing up their weaker topics.

By the time my day ends at 10pm, I have only enough energy to eat up my dinner and play with Rania for a while before I call it a day by 11pm. I can really sense my daughter missing me.
How she whines, grabbing my legs and look up at me wanting me to carry her.

I am under strict instuctions from Alfi that I must not carry Rania no matter how hard she cries. He does not want me to go through another miscarriage and the spotting was a scare enough to him.
But which mother can have the heart to do that. Whenever Alfi is not around, I will carry her as much as my body could take.

And it breaks my heart that whenever I do, she quickly lay her head on my shoulders as if afraid I will put her down the next minute.

So time is limited and weekdays are burnt.
Many will say weekends would be the make up time. But that is tough too. I have to split my time with my family, my in-laws and god in-laws. It is not troublesome but I wish the weekends were longer.
Maybe 3 days?

So whatever time I have with the three of us is really precious to me and Alfi.
It takes a lot of time management and managing the expectation of others. I think many of you will understand my situation.

And when we are out together, we challenge ourselves to keep our spending to the minimum. Say like about $50 per outing inlcluding parking and ERP charges and we feel a sense of achievement when we hit the target.
So we find where is the cheapest parking even if we need to walk a little further. We do not compromise on food but we do compromise on desserts and things that we need to buy.

Rania sharing a $1 ice cream potong with her dad and look how she is enjoying it.



Us, sitting at the corner of a pillar finishing up our ice cream potong.



At the end of the day, what matters most is that you have your loved ones around you and have happy times together.
The smiles captured are priceless and nothing can replace that for me.

That is family. We go through ups and downs but I always share with Alfi that it is ok.
It is not as bad as many other around the world have it.

I am just happy to have a great husband, awesome kid and with His Willing, another one along the way.
It's called building the love.

And that is how I would love to groom my family to be.

This post is brought to you by Pampers Singapore

Sponsored: Pampers Active Baby Pants

Another item which was sponsored to lucky mummies like me was the Pampers Active Pants.
Whenever I am out with the family, I will bring the pants diapers along.
It is so convenient especially at places where parent room is not available and it is time for a diaper change.

Being the lazy mom (especially right smack of the shopping center or in a sale event), I hate to be disrupted to go to the toilet, get Rania's diaper change and head back to where I left.
So pants diapers in that sense is a savior.

How did I do it?
Wear her pants halfway up. Then open her tape diaper. Take it out from in between her legs and pull up her diaper pants the remaining halfway.

My mom always say I am such a terrible lazy mother. That I did not wipe her butterfly.
But mom, probably back then you had to! I am living in today's era.
With Pampers Active Pants, her butterfly was really dry and no smell! Wiping it will only make it wet!
*lol*

Disclaimer: Do not try this when you want to change a dirty diaper with poop. It will be messy!

So I need to vouch that this diaper is really amazing. I love the way it keeps Rania dry with it's extra locking layer.



It is said that it provides dryness of up to 12 hours. I have not tried it that long with the active pants.
But the last time I know, it lasted me up to 6 hours without spill-overs of urine even though the pee was collected at the center of the diaper.

In curiosity, I took the diaper and pressed the soiled part of it. No urine was squeezed out.
So the extra locking layer is awesome!

The active pants is designed to look like underwear like. Slim crotch shape so that it really feel like an underwear.
Look how flexible unlady-like my daughter is. It was designed to make babies move freely and comfortably.
Rania looking too comfortable already.




This is definitely my choice when I am going out because only mothers can understand my agony of trying to catch up with an active little girl, running around with leaking diapers in the middle of my shopping trip.

Watch out for my next post brought to you by Pampers in the next couple of days.
p.s: It will be much easier writing the next blog entry because the cat is now out of the bag (my pregnancy) and there are so many things to share! Pregnant mummies sometimes cannot think so the number of options now help to think less for the next blog post!

This is a paid sponsored post by Pampers Singapore. All inputs and sharing is based on my own valid experience.

On Parenting: Come and Play!

Growing up in a place where you have 7 adults (including the maid) and no one else makes Rania really different from many other children.

Or that is how I see it.

One of my main concerns is that she refuses to play with friends her age. She is more comfortable alone.
Many parents share with me that it is good to have her independent. Yes, it is. There are many times where I can put her current exciting toys in front of her, switch on the telly and I can be seated at the corner doing my work while she plays.
She could play on her own for about 45mins to an hour before she whines up to me.

No matter how many times I bring her out with her cousins, she still prefers to be alone.



Some parents advised me that it is too young to educate her. So I think I might give her a little more space and time since she is only turning 16 months.
(I think I am a crazy mother)

But as it is, I am trying all that I can to have her warmed up.

I try to be a good role model.
I end up playing with the other children, just to send a signal to Rania that it is ok. They wont eat.
Result: She will feel that these children intruded her private space with her mummy that she comes by and sit on my lap and watch me play. Then she gives me hugs. And I will get distracted.

I try to give her some encouragement to mingle, play and socialize
Result: She loves socializing anyone who is at least 2 years her senior. She would pull me and bring me to a boy who is 7 and let go of my hands and smile at the boy. The boy was so dumbstruck okay!
Rania is awesome with my SIL (15 years old) and her cousin (5 years old). With her cousins born in the same year is still a no-go.

I try to learn Rania's character by watching her interact with other kids
Result: It is common for any child to take toys which do not belong to her. Today, I only need to say,"Rania, it is not yours." and she will dropped the item or allow me to return the toy without her crying.
Tip: After that I will quickly distract Rania with other toys of hers so that she won't hold the feeling of sadness in her for so long.

Rania is a very happy-go-lucky girl and she is most contented with the simplest thing.



Even on her own.

To me, what is most important is that she has a memorable journey with her childhood that someday she tells me that she wants her children to have the childhood I have given her.



For now, I let her grow up in her comfortable space and in time, I shall revisit this again.
She did make progress. Slow progress but more importantly it is progress.

She takes 4 hours to laugh and giggle with cousins her age.
Good job mummy!

p.s: It is very important for us mothers to give ourselves a pat on the back. It helps in making us happy mummies.

This post is brought to you by Pampers Singapore.

Sponsored: Happy Baby, Active Baby

Mothers typically get excited when they have sponsored diapers.
I am one of those typical mothers.
*lol*

I remember when I was about to deliver Rania, I asked the wise mothers on Facebook which was their recommended diaper and the response was awesome. But that made me one heck of a confused mother-to-be. It didn't help that I am very fickle by nature (sometimes)





So I remember standing there a month before my delivery, looking at the whole rack of different diapers in the supermarket.
When all logic fail, I decided to pick out what all mothers have trusted for the longest time.

Pampers.



To be honest, I have been out of touch with Pampers since Rania outgrew her newborn diapers so to be given this opportunity is very exciting.
A lot of people say anything we see in the market is just marketing gimmick so this is the time I can really try this out.

To be honest, I only tried this out on Rania over the weekends.
When I opened the pack of Pampers, I was amazed to see how thin the diaper is!



The first thing that came to my mind was,"Damn, this might leak."

So I decided to put it to test. I was out since that morning and travelling non stop.
Off we went out with her in the Pampers Active Baby. I brought the same number of pampers diapers as I would with other brands. 2 tape diapers (Active Baby) and 2 diaper pants (Active Baby Pants).

So when we were out from 11am to 7am, I only had ONE change of diaper for her in between and NO leakage.
The only reason why she changed her outfit was because she played with her water bottle. But there was no need to change her pants/skirt!

The best part when I open up her diaper to clean her, her 'butterfly' was very dry!
Amazing!!!

She was a happy kiddo yesterday, playing and running around, doing her own things and it makes my job as a mummy much easier.
It's amazing how a diaper can change lives of a mother and child!







I am looking forward to lug around less things in the diaper bag just because of Pampers!
Can you believe it?

When the diaper is great, you bring less diapers and less change of clothes!
That's it baby.. we are making THE switch!