Recently I downloaded the Little Critter Collection #2 for Josiah to read in his free time. This app is special as it has 10 books inside not one for a price of USD12.99. Usually, one Little Critter book cost USD1.99 so this collection of all the best books is worth it. I also like that I don’t have all the icons cluttering my iPad Screen as all the books are in 1 app.

I did not realise Josiah loves the Little Critter series until he started reading this app. Mind you, I do not have to tell him there’s a new app, or make him sit down to read. I usually just download whatever good educational books and apps and when he’s using the iPad, he will check it out himself. So the last few days, he had been telling me stories from this Little Critter collection of books. The ten books featured are:

-Just Go to Bed: Playful and energetic Little Critter resists his father’s efforts to get him ready for bed.
-Just a Mess: The search for his baseball mitt leads Little Critter to the doorway of his bedroom which is “just a mess.”
-Just Going to the Dentist: Good natured Little Critter reassures young readers that going to the dentist is not that bad after all.
-Just Grandpa and Me: Little Critter and his Grandpa go on a shopping expedition for a new suit.
-Just Lost: It’s quite an adventure at the mall when Little Critter gets separated from his mom.
-Just Me and My Little Brother: Little Critter is looking forward to all the fun things he can do with his little brother.
-Just Me and My Puppy: Little Critter happily feeds, walks, trains and loves his new friend.
-Just Shopping With Mom: Shopping with his family turns into an eventful day for Little Critter.
-What a Bad Dream: Little Critter dreams that a magic potion turns him into a scary, disagreeable monster that no one wants to be around.
-When I Grow Up: Little Critter’s sister imagines all the wonderful things she’ll do when she grows up.

The Little Critter Stories are all suitable for 2-5 year olds. They all mostly centred around family life and activities a pre-schooler would do and their life issues. Such as when a younger sibling arrives, or being a little helper around the house, or washing up and going to bed. The stories are all rather short so they are suitable for bedtime reading. Yea I prefer short as I don’t want to read all night to Josiah and letting him go to bed late. Little Critter is also cute and hairy and I have no idea what kind of animal he is, Josiah asked me that yesterday, and I was like, hhm no idea. Nevertheless, his stories are fun and useful to teach character and habits and what to do and what not to do. Stories such as getting lost in the mall can remind Josiah of the consequence of running away from us in the mall, and he becomes more aware not to do that next time. If you have a 2-5 year old in the home, this makes a good buy. You can let the app read to your child, or just read it myself so the parent can read instead. A special feature is a voice recording one that I can use to record my own voice, or even have fun recording our voices together for the father to listen to later!

A couple of weeks ago, I received another email from Skechers asking me to review their Lifestyle shoes. I had previously reviewed their shoes for my whole family just last year and I am quite convinced this is the brand I’ll ever wear in my life. The great thing is that Skechers have shoes for any age group and for any purpose, from professional sports, running, walking to casual and even formal shoes. Even when I am not buying shoes, I always walk into a Skechers store whenever I pass by one as their customer service is excellent. The customer service will give you full service whether or not you are genuinely buying something. I particularly love that they always interact with my kids and make their experience a fun one too.

This time I went to Pavilion KL to get my shoes and I had never shopped at this store before. I usually go to Paradigm, Sunway, Mid Valley but not this one. When we went in, Josiah started picking out the shoes he likes while I had set my eyes immediately on a boots from SKCH+3.

I chose my shoes so quickly as I had already fallen in love with this pair even when I was looking at the pic on the website. What surprised me was it was extremely comfortable despite it being a 3 inch wedge. I do not normally wear heels and I can’t walk long ever in one. But when I wore these, I knew I could walk anywhere in them.

John had a harder time taking of Jordan and looking for this pair of shoes at the same time. It was near nap time for Jordan so he was a little bit cranky.

Nevertheless he was able to find a great looker with the help of the salesperson.

Finally with the help of the sales person, we also found a pair suitable for a new walker like Jordan. It’s a simple looking one but with flexible heels.

Funny thing was Jordan could still hardly walk and he so wanted to walk everywhere in the new shoes. After I took off the shoes, he started crying, snatched back the shoes and attempted to crawl out of the shop.

While I was busy getting all the shoes for us, one of the salesperson entertained Josiah with the ball machine.

Josiah was so happy to get some little gifts found the balls, some kind of rubber miniature stationary.

Meanwhile these two nice ladies helped me to pack up the shoes and did some of the stock stuffs. We are absolutely delighted with our new shoes and I had been wearing mine everywhere since.

Below are our shoes, stay tuned for my reviews of them soon.

Mine SKCH+3 High and Mighty boot

John’s SKECHERS Relaxed Fit: Masen – Kruger shoe

Josiah’s Police Hotlights

Jordan’s SKECHERS Mini Flex

I am so happy as I just received my iherb parcel after waiting for a long time and thinking the parcel might be lost, but it was not. I am not going to use non tracking shipment from now on but will just pay a tiny extra for DHL Express with tracking.

This is the 2nd bottle of Nutrition Now Rhino Gummy Multi Vitamin that I bought for Josiah and my parcel just arrived. I must sing my praises for this vitamin as it is one vitamin that my picky son won’t refuse. He does not like all other chewable vits but loves the gummy bear, particularly this one. I cannot find this vit in Malaysia, they have them in small bottles in GNC but not the big bottles of 190 gummies. Plus, it’s so much cheaper on iherb, below RM50 for this bottle.

Little active kids just don’t get enough of DHA/EPA in their diet. So I supplement them with this very tasty Omega-3 Gummy fish. I do realise that this one, the DHA is quite minimal and they suggest taking at least 2 to be enough, but it’s still not really enough if your kid’s diet don’t contain much fish or other oils. Well, I just ordered another type of kids DHA supplement and will review them once they get here. I’m thankful that my kids are not particular when it comes to eating yucky stuffs like this coz I train them from 1 year old to start taking, stuffs like kefir etc.

I also supplement Josiah with Vitamin C, also in gummy form. It’s not true that kids who take vitamins that look like sweets will end up taking more other sweets. In Josiah’s case, he doesn’t take any sweets at all, even when people offer him. He will bring back all the sweets people give him and give them to us, most of the time, they end up in the trash. This Vitamin C is a bit special, it has Echinacea in it, and this herb is well known to increase immunity, especially towards coughs and colds.

If you have never ordered from iHerb before, well you are missing out! I introduced my sister to this and she ordered more than 5 times this month alone. For first timers, you will receive $10 off your first order of $40 or more, or choose $5 off orders totaling less than $40. Remember, you only get that if you use my code when checking out, FEF467. Try it out, you can seriously save as prices of all the products are always cheap and sometimes there are special sales. Like for May, I received Extra 5% off for orders below $60 and 10% off for orders over $60.00! I also received Extra shipping discount for orders over $60.00! I also receive a minimum 5% off your order total if it is over $60.00!

Jordan can walk!

Jordan actually started walking some time end of April but was not really stable yet. He was then going on 13 months.

I recorded this last week and he started walking so steadily now. Yesterday when we went to the mall, he won’t even want to sit in his stroller anymore. He kept asking to get out so he can walk around. Of coz, he kept falling to the ground and it can be so dirty. I love the Papayaya shoes he’s wearing (passed down from Josiah) and it really helps him learn his walking faster. I predict he is going to be running very soon. And to think, just recently I was checking out baby slings and carriers, well it looks he doesn’t even need it anymore! My little baby is growing up so fast.

Below is a video of Josiah’s first steps. Josiah was 16 months when he first started walking.

And then he started running around in about four months after that.

Prior to our December 2012 Malacca trip, the last trip to Malacca was way back in July 2011 when Josiah was only 15 months old. This time, we went as four persons and Jordan was just 9 months old. This was an unplanned trip and we had to book the hotel very last minute due to John’s jamboree there in Tampin. I have not written a review of this fancy hotel we stayed in so thus this post. I did not have much time to read reviews when I booked this hotel but I must say, I was quite pleasantly surprised when I went there.

Makhota Hotel is really big and is really just opposite the mall, Mahkota Parade. I initially thought it would be easy to bring the boys to the mall all by myself when John is in Tampin, but it is not quite possible. Although just across the street, the highway is a 6 lane, so it’s not safe to walk across, with no short cut or zebra crossing. This hotel is also more like apartment style. From the lobby to the room, we have to walk through open air space, to the elevator and up, the walkway to the room is open space too, without air-conditioning just like your regular apartments, get it? First bad thing that I experienced was a problem with our key card. When we reached the room, it wasn’t working. Throughout our stay, the key card did not work for a few more times even after changing it. Standing outside the door waiting for the reception to come up was not fun, it was really, really hot basically. That was about the bad points there are.

The good far outweigh the bad, so here goes.

1) Water Fountains

Not everyone loves water fountains like my kids, but I guess most kids do. There are many water fountains in this hotel at the pool area. My boys can spend quite some time just watching it.

My then 3 year old who is crazy about water fountains.

2) Pools
Yes, this hotel has not one but a few pools.

There are at least about four pools and kids pools too, and at least 2 jacuzzis. One of the pool haves slides, and my boy had a blast sliding down those for the first time.

3) Playgrounds
There is an outdoor playground and an indoor playroom.

Enough said, which kid doesn’t like to play. I did not know about the indoor playroom until I walked around and found it. I love that it is well equipped, very spacious and clean.

This was where we spent most of our time while waiting for John to come back.

4) Bathtub

Yes enough said, there is a bath tub, hurray.

5) Big Room
I realised I did not take pics of the apartment. I booked a one bedroom apartment but somehow I was given a two bedroom apartment.

This is really great for when you have one big kid and one small kid that sleeps earlier, we don’t have to all cramp into one room. The master room and the smaller room all have their own bathrooms, but only the master room bath has a bathtub. The sitting area outside is rather aged but it is fine for us. They still use the old box tv. There is also a dining area and a kitchen but one that can’t cook. No stove or anything like that. I sure enjoyed the big space compared to a regular hotel room.

6) Location
As mentioned, this hotel is right smack in the middle of town. On weekends it can get a bit jammed. But getting to the mall is fast and easy if you walk. The bell boy was so kind to even fetch us to the traffic lights outside using his buggy as we did not want to get caught in the jam just driving out and searching for a parking. From the traffic lights, it was easy to get to the opposite side and get to the mall for our dinner and fun time.

So overall, I do like this hotel a lot, but the price is a bit on the high. RM300 a night plus. I booked on Agoda.com. If I have time to read reviews, I might have chosen a more budget friendly hotel closer to hawker food stalls.

If you only can get one Dr Seuss ipad app, I’d really recommend this one as it is very worth it with 8 classic stories, and I must say, I love all the short stories.

1) The Big Brag – A rabbit and a bear both boast that they are the “best of the beasts” only to be humbled by a mere worm who sees “the two biggest fools that have ever been seen!”
2) Gertrude McFuzz – A young bird named Gertrude obsessed to be prettier learns a valuable lesson about accepting and believing in oneself.
3) I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! – A boastful young cat learns the perils of bragging when he overconfidently declares he can lick 30 tigers.
4) King Looie Katz – King Looie of Katzen-stein insists that his tail be carried around which leads to his kingdom revolting with “demo-catic” results.
5) The Glunk that got Thunk – A small cat tells the story of his imaginative sister who “thunked a Glunk” and how he must team up with her to get rid of the disruptive creature.
6) Too Many Daves – Mrs. McCave names all of hers sons “Dave” which causes problems in her family and leads to an amusing list of names she wishes she had named them instead.
7) The Zax – A north-going zax and a south-going zax stubbornly refuse to move out of each other ways and get literally get stuck in their tracks.
8) What Was I Scared Of? – A timeless message about fear and tolerance as the story’s narrator repeatedly meets up with an empty pair of pale-green pants, both who are equally afraid of each other.

All the stories have some kind of moral values hidden in them if you read it properly, especially at the end. Josiah had been reading the stories all by himself, and his favourites so far are The Big Brag and King Looie Katz. After just a few reads, he’s already memorised all the names of the Katz in King Looie Katz, and there’s really a lot of them in there!

I love that all the short stories listed here are funny; my boy has a great sense of humour so he really gets it. Too Many Daves is one really funny one, where Mrs McCave named all her sons Dave. That is really out of this world and illogical, but that is what Dr Seuss specializes in. She went on to think of what names she could have named them instead of Dave and the names she suggested were really crazy too.

This app is only USD9.99 and really worth it as other one story app can be as high as USD4.99.