Here’s another simple idea for keeping your little one occupied for a good 20-30 minutes or so. Simple Bathtub Water-Play Just fill a tub with water, sprinkle in a few favourite bath-time toys and let the fun times begin! Sometimes (especially on hot days) I will let Nathan climb in and splash around to cool off. This is definitely one of my fool proof methods for finding a solid uninterrupted half an hour to get little things done around the house. Important tip : Always keep the tub nearby within your line of sight for safety and precaution. More play ideas ~~~ Linking up to…

So how was your Lunar New Year celebrations? We had a scorching one this year with the temperature hitting 42 Celsius on Sunday. I made some simple preparations around the house, including some homemade ang pow decorations hung around the house to give it a festive air… Nathan was very excited to wake up to the festive atmosphere and eagerly received his ang pow! We assembled a steamboat lunch to celebrate with friends – the easiest meal to pull together for a group. I just stopped by Emma’s Seafood to pick up most of the ingredients. ~~~ The next day we headed out to Northbridge to check out this year’s Perth Chinese New Year Fair . The food at the market stalls were ridiculously overpriced, but we bought some anyway so we could enjoy the full spirit of the whole festive celebrations. The big highlight of the celebrations was the street Lion Dances. It was Nathan’s first time watching these bright colourful creatures at play, and he enjoyed it immensely. ~~~ Hope your n...

I was just thinking back to an episode at our household a few weeks ago. We were all rushing to get ready to go out somewhere after dinner. Hubs and I were running around, clearing the table, washing dishes and packing things up. Nathan was parked aside with some toys to amuse himself while we got ready. Then I remember in the midst of all that activity, Nathan toddled up to me with a story book and said “ Read book? ”. I paused, took the book from his hand and hesitated a moment. Then right at that same moment, hubs yelled out from the other room reminding me to hurry up. So I quickly handed Nathan back the book and told him “ Later, mummy is busy now ”. How the bitter taste of those too often spoken words sting in my mouth now. Later in the evening after Nathan was tucked up in bed and hubs and I were finally collapsed onto the couch for a breather. We talked over what had happened earlier that day and wondered what all the busy-ness and rush was all about anyway. After all, d...

My dad recently shared this amazing story of how he recently discovered an amazing family connection as a result of our little family pet project of chronicling our family history. An extract from the family genealogy book being compiled by my recently discovered long-lost grand uncle On the way to work this morning, I was recounting the story to hubby. I remarked how amazing and mind blowing it was to discover this whole long chain of connections and historical roots. After listening to me go on and on about it for a while, when I paused for a second to catch my breath, hubby commented, “ You know, somehow I don’t think my own father’s side of the family would want to share their family history… in fact I think it might even make them a bit sad to talk about it. ” Then hubs went on to say, “ Come to think of it, I myself don’t really see what the big deal is… I mean, why is it so important to know all this family history? It’s just information; I can’t do anything with it. ” T...

So as promised, if you are hankering after your own customised personal planner , here is a bonus for you… a special discount code offer courtesy of the personal-planner.com.au team . Just use the following code to enjoy 15% off any purchase from the personal-planner.com.au store D-DMDD-ERAA (This discount code is valid until 14th February 2013) And you can customise the start date of your planner so you don’t lose out on starting a little late.

So since our days of just the two of us , one of our favourite Saturday morning routines is to enjoy a slow leisurely breakfast together as a family. Sometimes we have french toast , or oatmeal porridge , or scrambled eggs and sausages, or  egg and toast muffins or homemade bacon and egg mcmuffins , or the classic favourite… Pancakes! I’m a big fan of Macdonald’s hotcakes . I just find their texture so irresistibly fluffy and light. I’ve tried numerous times to re-create the same fluffiness in my homemade pancakes but always to no avail… until recently when I discovered a magic ingredient… 7-up! And best of all, this simple recipe falls under my four ingredients category! So here’s the recipe… Super light and fluffy 7-Up pancakes Ingredients 2 eggs 1 cup milk 1/2 cup 7-Up/Sprite* 1 cup self-raising flour (*Can substitute Sprite/7-Up with any fizzy lemon drink or carbonated water) Whisk eggs, milk and 7-Up/Sprite together until light and frothy. Add in flour and mix well...

It struck me that nowadays, we seldom see demonstrations of life-long gratitude and sacrifice . What I mean by that is a a visible act of gratitude that really costs you something your whole life long. My ponderings brought to mind two stories from my mother’s family… ~~~ The first story ~ A Life for a Life My mother once told me the story of how my great grandfather fell into the clutches of the Japanese soldiers during the Japanese invasion of Malaya in the Second World War. It was the harrowing tale of how he was tortured mercilessly , then dragged off to prison . All because he had missed curfew. He would have remained in prison if not for the intervention of a Malay man who helped bail him out. All he asked as a token was that if the baby my great grandmother was carrying at that time happened to be a girl, to give the baby to him . My grandfather flippantly said yes on the spot. As it turned out, my great grandmother did give birth to a girl. So as promised, the baby w...