Adding some fun in your food

One of the ways to get your kids to eat their food is to make it fun....here's some that I made for my 2 monsters.

Living the Natural Way

Recently I seemed to be in the mood for natural product as I have such successful story with honey.  I just have to share it here.  I have started giving my SMALL FAN 1 tsp of honey every night before he sleep.  Heard from a honey seller that honey actually helps promote good sleep, but in any case, the purpose of my giving SMALL FAN the honey is for his sinus.  SMALL FAN used to have such bad sinus that he cough every night and day and sometime even vomit due to the mucus that was stuck in his throat.  We have brought him to pediatrician, to chinese sinsei and spend thousand of dollar on his medication but it just doesn't seems to work, he visit the doctor almost every few weeks.  So one day while searching for a cure I stumble upon this miracle honey from the website http://www.earthclinic.com/  and decided to give it at try.  (Crossing my hand) I proud to say that my SMALL FAN has not seen any doctor for almost 3 months now and I never heard a cough from him anymore except for ocassionally when his throat get too dry.  One side effect I found out from this is that beside sinus honey is also very good for fever.  I have tried it on myself and SMALL FAN and on both ocassion our fever breaks after 2 days of consuming honey.  My Baby FAN is now down with high fever so I'm trying to get her to drink honey water to see if it helps.  Introduced to my mum, she always have this persistant dry cough every few weeks, but ever since she started during honey, I hardly hear her cough anymore. Beside honey I also found many natural way of healing from earthclinic, here'a few that I tried and seems to work, so do give it a try better than paying loads of money for chemcially processed medication.

• Fever - mix 1 teaspoon of honey with 1 cup of luke warm or cold water and drink it as regularly as you can until the fever breaks
• Cough and Phelgm or sore throat - mix 2 teaspoons Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) with 1 tsp honey in half 1 cup of warm water and drink it 2 to 3 times a day.  (I love this concoction, always work for me whenever I have a cough or sore throat).  For those of you who can't stand the smell of ACV you can try using lemon juice to replace the ACV it works as well, my mum love this concoction, whenever she feels that she is coming up with a flu or cough she will drink this and so far she has been really healthy and seldom here her reporting sick.
• Sinus - 1 teaspoon of honey in half 1 cup of lukewarm water and drink it before you sleep. My SMALL FAN got his sinus cure this way.  I think the honey drink also keep him from getting sick easily.
• Dandruff - mix 1/2 ACV with  1/2 water in an application bottle or any container you can find,  mix them up well. Then apply this concoction to the scalp of your hair after shampooing. Leave the ACV on the hair for about 5 to 10 minutes than rinse it clean with warm water and dry your hair. I always have dandruff problem so recently decided to try out a more gentler way of getting rid of it instead of the strong dandruff shampoo.  Found this remedy in the earthclinc website and tried it out. After the 1st day, my head don't itch as much anymore, after 3rd day I can visible notice less dandruff.  Beside getting rid of dandruff, I also notice that my hair is softer and shinier, as if I have put conditioner on my hair.  Am going to continue this remedy for a while and see if I can totally get rid of my dandruff. 
• Reduce grey hair -  Mix 1 tablespoon of molasses with 1 cup of warm water and drink it every morning. As the molasses got quite a strong taste, I actually mix it with milk instead, Here's what I did, I mixed 1 tablespoon molasses with some warm water to dissolve it, then top of the cup with cold milk, it actually tasted like latte so it's easier to swollow. I'm currently drinking this every morning, it supposed to help get rid of grey hair which I have lots and lots of.  But I think it will take a while for the effect to be seen.  But here's what other people say that molasses can help, it's a good source of iron so it's very good for lady who is suffering from heavy mensus, it's also said to get rid of fibriod and also help with breast cancer.  But most of all, a lot of people has mentioned that drinking molasses give them increase energy so they dont't feel that tire.  I personally felt that I do feel slightly let tire in the day after drinking this concoction for 3 days.  

Beside such health remedy, I am now also looking out for natural household cleaning product.  My baby girl always dirty her clothes ever since she started eating solid food and want to feed herself. I tried bleaching her clothes but it sometimes distroy the coloured one.  Found this remedy from this website: p://frugalliving.about.com/od/cleaningtipsandrecipes/qt/Natural_Bleach.htm 

• Natural bleach - squeeze some lemon juice on the stain and rubbed some salt on it, then put the clothes under the sun for a few hours, then wash as normal.  Wa lah....nice clean clothes. 

Will be continuing to research on natural living and update my post along the way.  For now, toast to great health for all.

Extra Cash, anyone?

Was trying to find some ways to earn some extra pocket money or save cash for myself during this economic downturn when I stumble upon this particular individual Mompreneur Asia where she listed some useful way to work at home. Tried this particular site she recommended call Email Cash Pro which is a site that will send advertisement emails to you and you can earn points by reading the email and this point can then be converted to cash. The real money churner here is when you refer people, it works a little like MLM so if the people you referred read the email you earn extra points. Have been trying this for a while, as I wasn't too sure about the genuity of this site, I didn't really refer any people. So far I have been diligently reading the email and looking at my account I seems to have earn $0.20. Hi hi.... well just a way to earn extra cash.

Another website that I find quite interesting is Fr3B.com. This website offer free samples for you to try. So one good way for you to keep yourself pretty yet don't need to pay. Have went into the site and found some of the product samples quite up to date and of good brand.



Well, will be searching out for other ways to save money or earn some extra cash and keep this post updated when I find anything interesting.

Good Tips to fight mosquitoes

My hubby sent me an email recently on how you can get rid of mosquitoes the cheap way. The answer is Listerine. According to the mail, just pour Listerine in a spray bottle and spray around the places that have mosquitoes.

Here's the comments from the mail:
"I tried this on my deck and around all of my doors. It works - in fact, it killed them instantly. I bought my family bottle from Target and it cost me $1.89. It really doesn't take much and it is a big bottle, too; so it is not as expensive to use as the can of Bug-spray you buy that doesn't last 30 minutes. So, try this,please. It will last a couple of days. Don't spray directly on a wood door (like your front door), but spray around the frame. Spray around the window frames, and even inside the dog house.Now these are Good repellant for Mosquitos!!!"

By the way, I also found out some DIY ways to get rid of insects like cockroach and fruit flies. This is what I did.

• To get rid of Cockroach - I bought lemon grass from the market and just throw one or two on those places that attract cockroach.
  
• To get rid of fruit flies - I take one lemon grass and grind it in a food processor then I cook it in about 3 cups of water and leave it to cool, after that I pour the mixture into a spray bottles and spray it on the fruits like banana that attracts fruit flies and it works! So try it, it such a cheap and earth friendly way to get rid of insects.

How to remove shoe odour

My SMALL FAN has this really weird habit, he only wears one pair of shoes every where he goes, he will only change his shoes when it gets too small and it really hurts his feet. As he don't wear socks, he shoes tends to get really smelly. Tried washing and soaking it in detergent but it doesn't really help. So, search the web and found this website Helium about removing shoes odors, here are some of the tips I gather from there:

• Wash any washable smelly shoes in bleach. If your shoes are not bleach safe, but are washable use a heavy duty detergent and a quarter cup of baking soda. Regardless of what method you choose, select the strongest wash cycle on your washing machine. Putting them in a washing bag or pillow case will help to prevent them from becoming damaged in the spin cycle. Allow your shoes to air dry and rewash them if the smell is still at all present. Do this at least 24 hours before you will wear them next.
• Stick in a plastic bag and freeze for 12 hours - this will kill the bacteria.
  
• Sprinkle baking soda in shoes, leave overnight and shake out the next morning. The baking soda absorbs the odor.
  
• Pour a small amount of rubbing alcohol and dry shoes (make sure shoes dry completely).

After you have gotten rid of the initial shoe odor, be proactive about keeping the smell under control. Here are some tips:

1. Keep dryer or fabric softener sheets in your shoes between wearing them or spray them with Febreeze after use.
   
2. Avoid wearing your shoes without socks.
   
3. Generally, shoes odor is caused by our feet sweating and the sweat absorbing into the padding in the shoe. Keeping your feet clean and free of dead skin and athletes foot will also help prevent shoe odor. Soak your feet every now and then to help remove dead skin. Additionally, use creams and foot powders to help cure any athletes foot you may be experiencing.
4. Spray shoes daily with disinfectants and deodorizers specially designed for foot odor problems.
5. Apply foot powder specially designed for foot odor problems to feet and/or shoes daily.

Home Cleaning Tips

Was happily blogging away when I suddenly remember I was cooking Baby FAN's porridge. Sigh...smell the "Chao Ta" smell, Baby FAN's porridge is burnt and the pot is now covered with soot. So, use my secret trick of salt and vinegar again to get rid of the burnt rice, without having to scrub. This is how it's done, pour water, vinegar and salt into the burnt pot and just boil the water. The burnt rice will just come off automatically. See pic below on before and after without scrubbing. I didn't boil it for too long, need to boil longer so some stain still there. The magic of chemical reaction when vinegar & salt is boiled, cool... (see pic of before & after)


By the way, here's more household tips that I gathered along the way:

• To get rid of vomit or urine smell: spray baking soda water (i.e. baking soda + water) into the spot and let it dry, then just dust off the powder.
  
• To get rid of blood stain: Quickly rinse with cold water and wash with shampoo. Never water it with hot water as it will fixed the stain. For old stain, I think hydrogen peroxide seems to work or rather the normal NTUC Bleach seems to work for me.
• To get rid of Super Glue from your skin, use Nail Polish Remover
• To get rid of Pen ink on Microfibre Furniture, just rub alcohol (or anything with alcohol in it like hand sanitizer, nail polish remover etc.) on the ink stain and then blow dry it to hair dryer on cool air.
• To get rid of yellowish stain on your airport or water boiler, pour some lemon juice or throw a few pieces of lemon into the airport and let it boil. Then let it stand for a while and pour away the water. Walla, the pot is now good as new.
• To get rid of grease and stain in your microwave, put a cup of lemon juice and heat it up for 1 min. Then let the oven cool then and wipe the stain off with a cloth. The lemon juice help to loosen the grease.
  
• more to come..he he... will add on this list when I experiment with more.