July and August have been extremely busy for me, hence the lack of posting.

Zaria has turned into a bookworm this year, always holding a book whenever she’s not playing or watching TV; even at the mall! At times after we made a visit to the bookshop and she got her a new book, she would be reading it while walking with us in the mall, totally absorbed in her own world.

There are a couple of authors she likes, and always asks us to buy her books by them, or tries to borrow it from library. I asked her to write about the reasons she finds these authors’ writing interesting, and here is what she’s captured.

Mind her spelling, although I think she summarised the reasons pretty well.

If you knew me personally, you’ld know that I love buying books. I was a book worm when I was younger and now still do a lot of reading, although I may not have enough time to read all that I’d bought.

I love going to book fest and book sales to find a good bargain, but sometimes I want a specific title which can be difficult to hunt down in our bookshop. For example, I like reading Qiu Xiaolong‘s crime thriller series and it’s not found in our bookshops; My best friend recommended me Half The Sky and I’d been searching for it but only found the Chinese translated version available.

And then I was introduced to NoQ Store, a subsidiary of Times Publishing, one of the most reputable names in book printing, publishing, distribution and retail in the Asia Pacific! It’s an online book shop with 14 million titles spanning across different genres and all of them at discounted price! What more? Shipping is free if your purchase is RM50 and above.

And of course, I found Qiu Xiaolong’s latest books and Half The Sky available there. I’d just ordered them and can’t wait to receive them.

If you are a book lover, this is a good place to shop for books. And here is something for you.
From 14 August – 31 December 2014, you will be entitled to an exclusive 15% discount on all purchases at NoQ Store. Just use code MYTWOGIRLS at check out.

Happy shopping! (Like I did)

Notice added October – NoQ Store has since been closed from October 2014 onward.

We got ourselves our 1st box of Little Paper Crate craft, and it’s the Get Into The Wild set.

The craft arrived at our door step in a, well, little paper crate.

The girls were really excited to open and check out what came in the box (actually, me too).

This was the content of the box, all laid out. Oh wow, this is something that will keep the girls occupied (usefully and creatively) for a couple of hours.

Little Paper Crate is created especially for children to explore the world of arts and crafts at a convenience, this allows the children to manage the project themselves, with minimum help from the parents.

The simple instruction booklet has easy to follow steps.

The girls decided to split the responsibility. Zaria will make the alligator and colour the back drop for the puppet stage. While Zara will work on the snake, and all the puppets.

Instructions are so simple, Zaria who’s just Standard 1 is able to read and follow the step by step instructions. With minimal help, she managed to get her Alligator Chomper done!

She then went on to work on the back drop for the Puppet Stage.

With both of them working on different projects, the stage, the puppets, the snakes were all ready in an hour.

Time for a Get Into The Wild Puppet Show. In Zaria’s case, she got excited with having the alligator chomping up the animals in the wild.

Here is one happy girl who managed to create her own props for her puppet show!

How do you buy or order your Little Paper Crate?
You actually subscribe to it (3 months, 6 months, and 1 year subscriptions are available).
Each month, a new box will arrive at your doorstep, and in the box will be a new project theme, along with the materials and step-by-step guides towards completing the individual projects.
So children can configure projects on their own, and parents do not need figure out what crafts to work with their children and to go around hunting for arts and crafts material.

Wonderful isn’t it?

Continues from here.

♥June 4th♥

Day 4 of our trip was spent enjoying the morning at Noordin Mews.

For the girls, they could spend the whole day in the pool!

For us, the whole place is so pretty, we could just laze about and enjoy it.

The place is small enough where we could still keep an eye or listen to the girls’ voices wherever they were in the public area. That’s what I like best about small hotels. We could sit at the courtyard, and watched them swim, or watched them walk back the room to shower. For bigger hotels, no way I would allow them to walk back to the room alone.

When we checked out, the girls wrote their feedback on the hotel. Time to get their own Tripadvisor account maybe. 😛

Here is another bonus point. We found this really old soy sauce factory (100 years old?) at the end of Lebuh Noordin. It’s a corner shop lot with a very big piece of land, where urns and urns and soy sauce were being brewed.

Look at their signage. The phone number they had was only 3 digits!

We asked what the ginger was used for, and the brewery owner (3rd generation) told us it was to make their black vinegar.

Super old and dusty bamboo sieves lined one side of the wall (not sure what they were used for).

A helper gluing the brewery labels on cleaned/recycled bottles by hand.

And this is the signage of the shop.

We of course bought a few bottles of soy sauce to try, but alas, none of them had a label stuck on. So I can’t really tell what the name of the brewery is in English, but in Chinese it’s 瑞安和醬園醬油, I don’t have the address as well, but it’s along Lebuh Noordin if you want to look for it.

What’s the verdict of the soy sauce? Kwong Heng Loong’s soy sauce at Pulau Tikus is sweeter and darker, with thicker soy flavour. Soi On Wor（瑞安和 in Cantonese, since the brewery is owned by Cantonese) is saltier and lighter in colour (which probably suit Cantonese more) with a mild soy flavour. Both are good. Even at home, we have mixed reviews. Zara likes Kwong Heng Loong, Minerva likes Soi On Wor, I like them both, especially when mixed!

You go on and get a bottle next time you visit Penang and try it out yourself!

SkyTrex Adventure is the girls’ new favourite. They claimed Kizsports and Jungle Gym are too kiddish and lame for them and SkyTrex is more fun (adventurous). o.O”

Located within Malaysia Agricultural Park, it provides outdoor adventure activities suspended from tree. For the girls, they are only allowed to go on the Little Adventure Challenge.

We booked our tickets online (to avoid disappointment, it’s advisable to book on line), the best time slot of course it’s 1st thing in the morning, but we had something on and got the 1:30pm slot instead.

We collected our tickets at the entrance of the Malaysia Agricultural Park (you still need to pay the RM3 entrance ticket to the park, since SkyTrex is located inside), and then took the shuttle to SkyTrex.

The first thing they got us to do is to sign some disclaimer forms. o.O”

SkyTrex Adventure Name Tags for Crew

Then we were sent tp get our safety harness, where the crews put on for us, and for the children, they actually lift them up to see how secure the harness has been fastened on them.

We had to go through some basic training, and being taught which is a carabiner, which is a pulley, how to use them, how to read the sign on each adventure to know when to use a pulley and when to use a carabiner etc etc.

Then we have to try out what we’d learnt on the training trail.

Zaria was first to go on the training trail.

And trying out her carabiner.

After that, it was time for us to go on the adventure challenges ourselves. We were given 2hrs to do as many adventure challenges within Little Adventure.

Although whatever we do are pretty safe due to the harness, some of the challenges are quite scary, like walking on wobbly rope which is suspended from tall trees etc.

And for Zaria, we always have to be close by as some of the supporting ‘railing’ and ropes are too high for her to grab on to.

The girls favourite? All the flying fox challenges, although it seemed quite frightening in the beginning.

When they got the hang of it, all they wanted to was to go on the flying foxes.

WEEEEEEEE!!!

It was FUN! And I’m sure we’re going back again!

P.S. Rate for Little Adventure is RM 35.00 per session of 2hrs. For other courses, the min height is 140cm.

There were a couple of holidays the last few weeks, and we took the opportunity to visit different places, and one of them is the Malaysia Agriculture Park (Taman Pertanian Malaysia in Malay) in Shah Alam (sometimes also called Bukit Cahaya Agriculture Park or Bukit Cerakah).

We planned to cycle in the park and to visit the Four Seasons Temperate House which the girls went in 2010 during the ‘winter season’.

We brought along Zaria’s bike since she still needs her training wheels, and rented the 3 other bikes for us. As there were a long queue for the cheaper adult bikes, we took the more expensive ones, which cost about RM10 per hour (while the cheaper one is a Ringgit or two per hour).

The girls did well, riding on the hilly path, when the slopes got too steep, we all pushed our bikes up hill. When it’s a down hill ride, they all went zooming down. We had many rest and snack stops along the way. When the going got a bit tough and when it got too hot, Zaria would complain and nagged at us, “Whose bright idea is it to come here?”

We cycled all the way to SkyTrex Adventure Park, and then the little one got too tired and grouchy so we took the shuttle bus back to the visitor centre. Shuttle bus is provided for free, and it goes between the Visitor Centre and SkyTrex Adventure Park. They allowed bicycles to be loaded onto the bus which is a plus point.

We returned our bikes and parked Zaria’s bike at the bicycle rental place; and then went to have lunch at the small eatery at the visitor centre.

It was a super hot day, but they girls still wanted to visit the Four Seasons Temperate House which is on another path different from SkyTrex. We decided to walk there.

We found some ‘propeller seed’ along the walking path.

We were told the Four Seasons Temperate House was closed on that day, because they were working on the change of season there. Just our luck!

Instead we went to the Observation Tower, and spent some time there.

The girls with their bountiful energy can still ‘exercise’ at the Exercise Park.

Me? I took a nap beneath the Observation Tower.

Although it was a hot day, and we worked out the whole day with all the cycling and walking, the girls still had lots of energy to take photos of their surrounding.
I’m always amazed at the energy they have!

The park is actually a very good place to spend a day at, however, like all Malaysia public facilities, the toilet there is horrendous! The one that we visited had not been washed for ages, there were fossil like poop found in all the toilet bowls! BUEK!

We’ll still go back again though, just try to avoid using the toilet. We want to bring the girls to SkyTrex and the Four Seasons Temperate House next round.

Note :
Entrance fee to the Park is
RM3.00 for adult and children 12 years and above
RM1.00 for children 4 to 11 years old

And…. Here are the winner for the last Barbie Giveaway Contest.

I have the winner list for the Barbie Design And Dress Studio!

They are *drum roll* :

Yan
MK Mummy
Sians

All 3 of you will be getting a Barbie Design And Dress Studio set just like this.

Here are their comments :

Congratulations once again to the above winners. Kindly email your name, contact number and mailing address to winx@gocomm.com.my for prizes delivery purposes. And have fun with your Barbie Hairtistic Cut & Style set!

Hopefully in future, there’ll be more Giveaways on my site.

**GIVEAWAY CONTEST IS CLOSED**

This is the last giveaway contest from Barbie on my site!

Here is a set which your child can style Barbie’s hair, and give her a hair cut.

Barbie is giving away THREE SETS of Barbie Hairtistic Cut & Style to THREE of my readers.

To win one of these, leave a comment on this post with your email address.

In the comment, answer the below question :
What can you do with Barbie’s hair? (there’s no right answer, just be creative)

(Read previous Barbie Hairtistic Cut & Style review to get some ideas, Here and Here.

AND

Complete this slogan : I love to win Barbie Hairtistic Cut & Style because…

Giveaway is open to Malaysia readers only. This will start on October 24th and will run until October 31st 2012.

One week after the end of October 31st, Barbie will choose the winner, and then it’ll be announced here; and the Barbie Hairtistic Cut & Style will be sent to the lucky winners!

This is your last chance to join Barbie Giveaway Contest, so don’t forget to put in your entry. Good Luck.

Tell me which little girl does not like to be a hair dresser??

Barbie Hairtistic Cut & Style fulfill this love that little girls have.

Zara : Maa, we need adult’s help with this Barbie. It’s not easy for us to put the hair extension on.

Playing with this Barbie will require us to participate. Helping the girls to put in the hair extension.

Zara has been trying to learn how to pleat hair, what better way to do this and learn with this Barbie?

After pleating (with some of my help), it can be worn as a braid.

Or Barbie looks just as dashing with her hair all let down.

What the girls like most about the Barbie? The scissors which actually make sounds like a real hair dresser’s scissors snipping hair.

Zara was pretending to cut Barbie’s hair, and then remove the hair extension, which mean, Barbie’s hair length actually got shortened!

The set comes with some accessories for the hair.

It gives the girls a chance to be a hair stylist and they love it!

For little girls, combing, styling, braiding (or attempting to braid) hair is one of the most fun things to do. Zara and Zaria sometimes spend hours trying on different headbands, or clips, or trying to create different hairstyle, on themselves, on each other and sometimes on their soft toys.

Now that we got The Barbie Hairtastic Cut & Style, they can do it on Barbie too!

This set comes with hair extension, a couple of hair accessories, and a pair of scissors and comb to cut and style Barbie’s hair.

Let the girls show you how they style their Barbie’s hair in the next post.

I’ll be announcing the Winners of Barbie Design and Dress Studio Giveaway soon too. Stay tuned.