Sponsored Review

When we were given the opportunity to try out ear-candling services, hubby was excited. He has always wanted to try ear-candling because he's heard about how relaxing it is. So, we dropped by Face Inc. last week and hubby finally got to try it. He blogged about his experience here.

The spa saloon is not big, but really cosy and comfortable with the smell of aromatherapy oils in the air. That's hubby lying down comfortably on the treatment beds.

The candles used by Face Inc. are organic and imported from Germany. Though they may be slightly more expensive than non-organic candles, they are pure and natural.

The therapist explained the ear-candling process step-by-step as it was hubby's first time trying it. She first started by gentle massages around the ear and neck area. This will loosen the muscles and help in the entire therapy process. According to hubby, it was very relaxing and comfortable.

The principles behind ear-candling is based on simple physics: The lighting of the ear candle leads to a natural pressure difference between the burning part of the ear candle and the ear. The difference causes pressure equalization, the so-called Chimney effect. This physical effect causes a pleasant feeling in the ear, which is often described to be very relaxing and balancing. In fact, the therapist shared with us that some of her clients who have been doing ear-candling therapies have seen vast improvements in their sleep quality at night. Those who've experienced insomnia could sleep better at night simply because the therapies helped them to relax from their stressful lifestyles. Those with sinus and sensitive nose symptoms also find relief through this therapy.

After the massages, the therapist then lit up one end of the candle, and placed the other end into hubby's ear.

She then continued to gently massage the ear, neck and even shoulder area. With the soft music playing in the background, hubby nearly fell asleep!

According to hubby, there was no pain at all and he could hardly feel any heat from the candle. The whole process was comfortable and relaxing.

All the therapists at Face Inc are qualified as well, having gone through courses and received certification for their training. You can be assured they know what they are doing. By hearing the explanation of the therapist on the benefits of ear-candling, we felt very assured indeed. Hubby especially was very glad because he has a history of sinus problems, and this might just solve the problem for him!

At the end of the therapy, I asked hubby how he felt. He obviously looked very relaxed, and he said he could feel that the entire nose and ear area were clear and unblocked. We were shown the inside of the candles after they were cut. These filters (yellow portions) collect the residue from the process.

All in all, hubby was very happy with the whole ear-candling process. :) In fact, the process is so gentle and all the candles are organic, so even children can also try it.

Those of you who are interested to try out ear-candling as well, you would be happy to know that there are some great promotions offered by Face Inc now in celebration of their 10th anniversary!

* If you take any of the above treatments, you are also entitled to one of three free services (eyebrow trimming, threading or face massage).

Call & make your appointment today! :)

Face Inc.
Blk 844 Yishun Street 81
#01-166
Singapore 760844
Tel: 6754 0230

* * * * *

GIVEAWAY!

The folks at Face Inc. have kindly sponsored ear-candling therapies (Usual price: $58 each) to three of my readers. All you need to do is to complete the following steps:

1. Like The J Babies facebook page, if you have not done so.
2. Leave me a comment on this blog post or drop me an email at why you would like to win a ear-candling therapy along with your name & email address.

Deadline for giveaway: Friday, 5 July, 10pm. Winners will be notified by email.

I am an instagram addict, everyone knows that. I may not be posting instagrams everyday, but I sure view my instagram feeds very frequently. I love how people portray their lives in photos and how different people have different interpretation of things. Very interesting to me!

Now with the recent addition of Instavid, where you can post video clips of up to 15 seconds and best of all, post it in your favourite filter! I've been having so much fun with it, and I have many ideas brewing in my mind. I just need to find the time and willing parties (mainly the kids) to help me create the videos I want. Then again, there's really no need to stress over what to shoot because instagram is supposed to be a photo and video sharing tool on-the-go. Just have fun!

I've posted 4 instavids so far - More to come! :)

You can follow me on instagram at klessislee. :)

While the whole nation was high on haze alert last week, we sought refuge in the Central National Library and stumbled upon a really lovely surprise called My Tree House.

My Tree House is the first library in the world to be steered by green principles in all facets from design, infrastructure and use of sustainable materials, to collection and programming. Eco-friendly building materials including energy-efficient LED lighting, eco-friendly drywall partitions, and low VOC paints and adhesives for improved air quality, were used. It also serves as a resource centre to help kids understand environmental issues better.

Located right in the centre of the Central National Library, I seriously felt like I entered a fairy-tale world as I walked through that entrance.

And of course, you should totally expect to find a Tree House in this place. Look up and you will notice that the green and yellow 'leaves' of the tree are actually recycled bottles painted green and yellow. Great visual effects.

That was inevitably the first place my kids ran to when they entered the place. It was way too exciting to see a library so lovely.

Love how the book shelves are shaped like tree trunks and branches, in line with the theme.

Aren't the sitting corners cute??

There is also a corner with an interactive video wall called The Knowledge Tree, along with many cute lego cushion seats. This installation has a question-and-answer component to help raise awareness on environmental issues. I suppose this can also double up as a cartoon screening venue for the kids. Other than that, the kids were having a lot of fun stacking and piecing the lego cushion seats together.

Notice the red and blue rubber chairs below? They can either be sat on like a chair or ridden on when turned the other way!

The green library contains a collection of 45,000 books suitable for children aged 4 to 12 in four languages, and a significant 30% focuses on green topics such as animals, plants, nature, water resources, weather, environment, recycling and climate change.

The kids love it so much I think we will surely be back for short reading sessions if we happen to be in the area next time. :)

My Tree House is located within the Children Section at Central National Library, 100 Victoria Street, Singapore 188064.
Opening hours are 10.00 am to 9.00 pm daily.

Sponsored Review

I've always enjoyed cooking - I think it's therapeutic. But I tend to avoid those that involves tedious and troublesome preparation work because I really do not have patience or much time on my hands for that matter. As a full-time working mom, the only time I get to rest or spend time with my family is during the weekends, so free time is very precious. When it comes to cooking for my family therefore, I opt for the most time-effective methods so that I can have more time for the really important things in life - Being there for my husband and kids.

So I was naturally very thrilled when I was given the opportunity to review the Philips Jamie Oliver Hand Blender. It is such a nifty kitchen tool that I can't stop raving about it. Seriously, the right tool makes everything so much faster and easier. It definitely made my cooking experience more enjoyable. The most amazing thing was that I could actually cook a full meal with the help of my hand blender - from main course to desserts and even after-meal drinks. Too wonderful.

First, let me introduce the tool: The Philips Jamie Oliver Hand Blender

The whole set comes with a hand blender with add-on accessories - Whip blender, mincer and a container with lid.

And today, I'm going to share with you how I made meatball pasta with the help of my Philips Jamie Oliver Hand Blender. Simple, fuss-free and really yummy. :)

First, the tomato pasta sauce! Ingredients include tomatoes, garlic and onions.

Slit the tomatoes with a cross before boiling them in water until the skin starts peeling off. The slits will make the peeling easy.

Then use the hand blender to puree the tomatoes.

Done in approximately 1 minute. At the snap of fingers.

Then chop up the garlic and onions with the mincer.

From the previous photos to this in 10 seconds flat.

I need these to be very finely minced because my kids do not take them very well, but because they are good for building up immunity, I need to hide them in the pasta sauce so that they will eat up everything without knowing. :) This is so perfectly done, I love it.

Then all you need to do is to throw in the minced garlic & onions into the tomato puree and bring everything to a boil. I make more to store in containers in fridge so that I can cook a fast pasta dinner next time.

Now, for the meatballs! The simplest meat ball recipe includes:

500g minced pork
1 egg
1 tablespoon of soya sauce
Dash of pepper

Yep, I put everything into the mincer, and just minced everything together with my hand blender. Easy peasy.

Well mixed in 30 seconds - Can it get any easier than this?

Oil the baking tin, roll the minced meat into meatballs just like this. I oiled my palms before rolling the meatballs so that the entire meatballs get coated with oil. Then bake them in the oven till it turns golden brown.

There you have it - Meatball pasta, Edition Kless. My Philips Jamie Oliver hand blender made it that much easier. For a weekend cook like me who just wants everything fast and quick, this is godsend.

In my next post on my Philips Jamie Oliver Hand Blender, I will show you how the possibilities are endless with desserts and healthy fruit drinks! :)

Keep life simple with PHILIPS | Jamie Oliver range includes Food Processor (S$268), Hand Blender (S$128) and Blender (S$108). Available at leading electronics and departmental stores.

P/S: This is part of my on-going conversations with Philips, and I received compensation for the review. All opinions, comments and photographs are mine though.

Media Invite

Thanks to Puteri Harbour Family Theme Park, our family had a chance to visit both the Hello Kitty Town & Little Big Club. You can read about my post on Hello Kitty Town here, and today, I'll continue with Little Big Club.

I thought I would like Hello Kitty Town much better than Little Big Club, but I actually enjoyed myself at the latter very much. It is bigger (spans over two levels), has more activities for the kids and is generally, more happening. Toddlers generally would go crazy there because the cartoon characters they are so familiar with are all found there - Barney, Thomas & Friends, Angelina Ballerina, Bob The Builder, etc. Just a quick run-through of what you can expect to see there, and I'll introduce you to some crazy ballerinas at the end.

We caught the Barney show when we reached there. Many of the kids went crazy and were dancing along to the familiar tunes.

There are different sections dedicated to the various cartoon characters. For Pingu, you enter a winter wonderland which is actually an arcade that you can play for unlimited number of times. No need for tokens!

We found lots of nostalgic kids' arcade machines inside! Really very shiok that we can keep playing and playing...

Bob The Builder's section is an indoor playground with house-building areas. The 'bricks' are huge lego cushions that the kids can piece together to build a house. Really cute!

Going up one level to Level 3, we saw that the entire floor was dedicated to Thomas & Friends - it's an amusement park!

On this level, there is also a mega and huge indoor playground that was so massive, I regretted letting my kids run in. I spent almost 15 minutes trying to find them when we needed to leave. It was so big and huge that the only way they could hear me call them would be if I climbed in myself, which I did. =.=

Decided to end off with the Angelina Ballerina section because it was the girls' favourite - they spent quite a fair bit of time in there. It is basically a dance studio where the girls can put on a tutu and a mouse ear hairband (Angelina Ballerina is a mouse) and hold a wand. At specific time slots, there are dance classes held here for the kids to join in. Other than that, it's free play for the kids, with music playing in the background. This is also where you will meet the crazy ballerinas.

Totally not shy, as you can tell. My girls went dancing and twirling everywhere on the dance floor.

An attempt to do a graceful jumpshot that failed terribly.

The crazy ballerinas: