31/08/201327/01/2014 by jo

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever is a fabulous book I remember from my childhood.

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever is celebrating its 50th Anniversary. I remember this book so well, I think we had it in hardback and I’d spend days looking over the pictures and naming them until eventually I got too old for it.

HarperCollins have just brought out an anniversary edition (priced at a very reasonable £6.99 rrp) which brings back the memories, which keeps them going for future generations. I’d love to think H will read this until she too decides she’s too old for it which gets passed on to any future children of hers – I believe this kind of thing is known as a timeless classic?

The book has pictures, and is based around Busytown, everything has a name and is labelled, and as your child starts to learn to read this kind of thing is going to be really helpful with learning.

Looking through the pages I don’t remember a huge amount, until I got to the one about painting and drawing with colours and they flooded back. The two paint colours are mixed together to make another colour and to me it looks identical to the way I knew it 40 or so years ago. (gulp)

Richard Scarry comes from America but I didn’t spot any words which felt like this was a US edition. I did spot there were no eggplants or zucchini’s, so maybe they were avoided in the first place?

Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever has pictures on each page and within that you’re asked lots of questions which is perfect for H at the moment. She loves to go through the contents of a page and examine everything so I feel this is a book she’s the perfect age for. She also starts school in a matter of days and I think it will help her a lot with word recognition. There are also lots of counting challenges as well.

If you remember Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever from when you grew up, you’ll probably want to consider it for your child as well.

My best memories are the ones I can pass on to H which don’t feel out of date – this is one of them. I love it.

We were sent a copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own nostalgic ones and honest. This post contains an affiliate link.

30/08/201327/01/2014 by jo

The Day The Crayons Quit

The Day The Crayons Quit is out now, and appeals to my sense of humour.

The Day The Crayons Quit is by Drew Daywelt with pictures by Oliver Jeffers – straight away we knew we were probably on to a winner.

In a nutshell, the crayons have (mostly) had enough. So they send a letter to Duncan, their owner. Beige is fed up of playing second fiddle to brown, blue is tired, and pink is feeling neglected. Green is a bit worried about yellow and orange as they’re not talking to each other, whereas peach has a terribly embarrassing problem.

I found the book possibly a little advanced for H which isn’t a bad thing – she’ll grow into it, and she got why each crayon had an issue, but didn’t really ‘get’ why – that will come. I love the book and found it funny, and Oliver Jeffers illustrations give it a great character too.

Drew Daywalt, the author is an award-winning writer and director of film and tv, and of course Oliver Jeffers has written many books which we love.

Now I’m wondering what the chances are this will end up on stage – I give it a couple of years…

You can get ‘The Day The Crayons Quit’ at Amazon for £9.09 at Amazon currently – I’d highly recommend!

We were sent the book for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own. The Amazon link is an affiliate link.

28/08/201301/01/2019 by jo

My 99p Summer

We received £10 in vouchers to spend at 99p Stores, to see what we could buy and have a bit of fun with, doing the ‘My 99p Summer’ challenge.

A 99p Summer may not be something you’d think about, but actually there’s a lot of choice in-store. 99p Stores are one of those places I can always find something to buy – so when we were accepted for this challenge I was more than happy to give it a go. When we went summer was very much with us (unlike this slightly foggy grey morning we have today) and one thing we didn’t have a lot of were water toys – as in, water pistols, water bombs, a fishing set, an ice-cube tray and of course some bubbles. I know, I don’t know why either.

We found £10 goes a long way in 99p Stores – there’s a lot of choice for outdoor fun – so much so we had £9 worth of goods and H demanded a doll which we let her have as we felt we had plenty.

Here’s what we bought for our 99p Summer :

There’s quite a bit there – so, the verdict!

The water pistols were good – they had good range, especially important as Shaun was so much better at it than me.

The water bombs were AWESOME – they come with an attachment you can hold to the tap to fill it which is tricky but worked – I found that they were good to burst when you needed though would often just bounce! Not the end of the world as you don’t want poor quality ones when you need to surprise unsuspecting rivals and need to carry them a distance. These made me giggle the most too – I found my inner child again getting Shaun and H!

The Sparkly Windmill lives in H’s plants and makes it look pretty. We’ve found when it has been really windy it has blown apart but generally it has stayed together and is still going strong – it hasn’t broken (when it has blown apart we’ve rebuilt it easily).

Silver trays and serving bowls – ideal for barbecues and when you’re eating outside. We’ve never had any little bowls where you can put a selection of snacks, I was pleased with them as they’re the right size and clean easily.

Fish and a fishing rod – this is fun, H will spend ages trying to hook the fish onto the rod – really simple and loads of fun while also being good for her co-ordination skills. We’ve got her old toy tub and filled it with water for her to do a spot of fishing – good for those moments when she needs to have a bit of quiet(er) time too!

The biggest surprise of all were the bubbles – we didn’t think they’d be as good as they are – really big bubbles or loads of small ones with the attachment added – we spent a good hour just playing with them, after all you can’t beat trying to pop them can you?

In summary, we’ve had a lot of fun with our 99p Summer. You don’t have to spend much at all to have a good time – we were pleased with everything we bought and would highly recommend you have a look in your local store!

We made a little video of our 99p Summer fun day – we hope you like it. As you can see Shaun seems to get me the most as far as water goes, though I’d like to think I got the last laugh….

We received a £10 voucher to purchase these items, and we’ve had a lot of fun! This is our entry for the ‘My 99p Summer Competition’

27/08/201327/01/2014 by jo

Cussons Mum and Me Little Explorers Bathtime Fun

There’s a new range out there for older kids to enjoy bathtimes – the Cussons Mum and Me Little Explorers range.

Cussons Mum and Me Little Explorers is a decent range of bathtime goodies which are designed to make your child enjoy bath time again. The range has some characters – Blip, Squidge, Fizz and Splash and each has their own special bathtime treat. We received the following :

Happy Splashy Hair & Body Wash [£2.49 – 300ml]
Funky Fizz Bath Crackles [£1.00- 30g]
Super Soft Squidgy soap [£2.49 – 200ml]
Mega Mild Bubbly Bath [£2.99 – 500ml]

Bubbles mean fun for kids – the colours, the reflections and the magic of them popping and appearing again. Mega Mild Bubbly Bath is dermatologist approved, hypoallergenic and contains Avocado and Jojoba oils. It creates masses of bubbles and helps to keep their skin soft and smooth.

H has dry skin, especially as it gets colder and can react to things so we have to keep one eye on what we’re using. I was pleased to see that they’re designed for sensitive skin, and even more pleased as H didn’t react in any way to them other than with great delight.

Firstly we tried the Funky Fizz Bath Crackles – remember that candy you put on your tongue, then you close your mouth while inside there’s a mini popping firework display of sugary goodness? Imagine that in the bath and NOT in your mouth. It’s something like this :

This went down really well with H, she liked it as it was different and changed colour.

Our favourite by a mile though was the Super Soft Squidgy Soap – it’s a bit like mousse, the same kind of dispenser but you can squeeze and play and mould it, and even better it’s a really gentle soap. Since we got the Squidgy Soap H has got into the bath much quicker and just gets on with washing herself and daddy (lucky him) – you can hear the giggles from downstairs – never mind bathtime, this is FUN time! The soap stays quite solid but dissolves easily and we’ve already run out so I’ll be buying more very soon.

The Happy Splashy Hair & Body Wash is really handy for those mornings you have to give your child a shower and need them to have a nice smell, H hated the shower (she’s gone off them again) but loved how nice she smelt. This is something we’ll use over quite a long time, you don’t need a huge amount and it’s kind to eyes. I haven’t tried it for her hair as we’ve had a few reactions there recently to other shampoos, but we will give it a go when things have settled down.

Finally, there’s the Mega Mild Bubbly Bath – this hasn’t been used as much as the others as despite H having a bath every night she currently loves practising swimming underwater (we’ve a large bath) – so I’m not keen for her to do this with the bubble bath in. When she has a smaller bath (using the Flexibath which we’re still using – she’s very tall and just turned four) we have used it and found it to be nice and gentle with plenty of bubbles – perfect for a bubble bath!

For me, the things which make this bathtime range is the fun element – the Squidgy Soap wins hands down, with the Bath Crackles coming a close second. The question is, would I buy any of these? My honest answer, I would consider buying them, and when payday comes and we do our next shop I’ll be picking up some more of the Squidgy Soap as it went down so well – our only problem now is getting H to get out of the bath – she’s been having WAY too much fun!

Head here for more information about the Cussons Mum and Me Little Explorers range – find them on Facebook here and Twitter here.

We were sent all of the above to review, all opinions are our own and honest.

27/08/2013 by jo

Panasonic Kitchen Appliances

Back at BritMums I got to have a nosey at some Panasonic Kitchen Appliances, though not their latest range. These ones look pretty special!

The Panasonic Integrated Appliances Range has some brilliant choices. I’m really liking the induction Hob as one of my least favourite jobs around the house is cleaning the spillages around the cooker, especially if we don’t do it immediately so they dry out and get burnt on a little more than they should. Imagine – a flat surface you can just wipe, which stays cool as it’s clever and knows not to be warm there – it directs the heat into the centre. In fact, it’s on scratch-free glass too, and looks pretty good.

Sigh. I hate renting sometimes! This sounds ideal to my lazy nature. Have a watch of this video – it sounds too good to be true :

Another appliance I’m really liking is the dishwasher in this range, which claims to be their quietest ever; whisper quiet (44db). THIS appeals a lot, as our (rental) dishwasher is noisy, and shabby. It works which is the main thing, although half of the front handle has broken off. This dishwasher looks sleek and has loads of space too – my kind of thing, it means you don’t have to set it off every day – but also if you do that it won’t be noisy. I like the kind of appliances I can put on last thing at night and know it’s done by the morning. It also has an A+++ energy rating which is good.

As well as that I’m liking the features within the dishwasher – you can easily organise your shelves, they move as well so you’re not restricted to a certain height, and there’s a cutlery shelf. It looks pretty excellent as far as dishwashers go – watch the video and see!

As I said before, we rent so the reality of us ever having anything like this is pretty much non-existent, but it doesn’t stop me from dreaming! Now if someone can invent a washing machine which is also as quiet as this dishwasher and will put out the washing on the line for you too, I’ll be more than happy!

This post contains paid for content.

25/08/201327/01/2014 by jo

Birthday Cookies

H had her fourth birthday party yesterday, and one thing I had in mind to make was birthday cookies.

Birthday cookies are easy to make, you can bake tons of them and share them with the parents (parents are often overlooked when it comes to party food) and depending on allergies could be adapted for children who have nut allergies pretty easily by avoiding ready made icing.

Here’s the recipe.

Birthday Cookies.

1 cup icing sugar

2 cups plain flour

300g unsalted butter

For the icing:

Two Sainsburys roll-it-out coloured icing blocks. Yes, I cheated.

For the decoration :

Sainsburys icing pens (various colours) and some blue sugar decoration crystals (they’re nice and sparkly like monster snot).

To make the cookies :

Soften the butter, add the icing sugar and stick in the food processor until blended. Add the flour. You’ll have your dough. Leave in the fridge for 20 minutes.

After that, on a floured board roll out the dough and using a cookie cutter cut your shapes. We used a number 4 from my 101 Cookie Cutters set (they didn’t have any monsters) and made approximately 60 cookies.

Bake in the oven at around 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes (we have a fan-assisted oven) – keep checking them and turn your tray around. I found the best cookies were made on the bottom shelf as they looked a nice golden shade.

Once out of the oven leave to cool on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes (just enough time for the next batch to be added).

Once your batch are cooled, get your icing. I went for ready-made as it saved me time, I used icing sugar to dust the boards and rolled them out cutting 4 shapes again, and sticking them to the cookie with water.

Once they’d dried I used more water on top and added various decorations. As it was a monster themed party I figured it could be fairly messy so broke up some chocolate buttons and added them on top, as well as writing with the icing pens.

The best thing? Almost everyone ate them so it meant we didn’t bring much home at all. There were plenty for everyone too (18 children and a few more adults).

H loved them as they were proper birthday cookies with her age on as well, and I quite enjoyed making them as it kept me calm and stopped me flapping.

I think we all win there.

This post contains an affiliate link, and the recipe was put together using several recipes online for inspiration. I wanted to avoid too much sugar and also eggs.

23/08/201320/04/2017 by jo

Lego Table Ideas – Ikea Hacks

It’s H’s birthday and one of the things she wants is a Lego table.

A Lego table does not come cheap, this we have found. I don’t want her to have the plastic ones as they’re already quite small for her. We wanted something which would suit a tall girl and grow with her. I spotted an absolutely gorgeous wooden one you can buy for £100 which is a bit too much.

So I googled around. There are plenty of Lego table options to make out there, but this one stood out – so we stole a few ideas then added some of our own.

After shopping around, the Lego boards we need to go on the top can be bought via Amazon for £5 each, so four were ordered. After that all you need is the table and containers which worked out really reasonable and cheap.

H decided she wanted a turquoise Lack table from Ikea. We spotted some Bygel plastic hanging containers which fit on a Bygel rail, coming in at a very reasonable £1.50 for the rail and 60p for each container. After that we went for the Grundtal magnetic knife holder at £11 (it’s really strong) and three Grundtal magnetic pots at £5 – which were slightly more expensive but will be a nice touch to the table.

After that it’s just a case of drilling them on – so it looks like this!

The final touch to the Lego table is the four lego boards. As said in the link above, you can’t place them close to each other so need to use lego to space them out properly. Something like on this picture (use Lego to make sure they’ll fit). Glue-wise we used ‘No More Nails’ and left it overnight – the night before H’s birthday in fact.

And that’s it. Rather than spend loads of money we spent a fraction of the cost. The Lack table has really good height on it and Ikea do a small chair which fits perfectly.

EDIT – this also works with Duplo. If your child isn’t quite ready for Lego but is likely to move up then this would be ideal! It doesn’t work with other brands we’ve tried like MegaBloks unfortunately!

23/08/201327/01/2014 by jo

Warburtons Krazy Kitchen – The End Is Near

Warburtons Krazy Kitchen is coming to an end – after three weeks of competing between two families – the McDermott’s and the Griffiths, the final instalment of their gameshow goes live today!

Warburtons Krazy Kitchen has been a gameshow, a sandwich-off between two families, and it comes to an end this week. We’ve had mum vs mum, dad vs dad and child vs child so far with the final part today, Friday.

Yes, that is my child with a mask on and her glasses on top.

To help celebrate, Warburtons sent us a hamper of food to help create some of the recipes they’ve featured. I’m vegetarian so have adapted the Tuna Trawlermen sandwich (using Warburtons white sandwich pitta breads) and the Chicken Supreme (using Warburtons Sandwich Thins) – Shaun and H had the tuna and chicken as they eat animal products.

With it being H’s fourth birthday today and all the party preparation that comes with it, a quick filling sandwich is ideal for us – there’s so much to get ready – there’s no need for any craziness in our kitchen, it’s pretty manic at the moment anyway!

The Tuna Trawlermen sandwich was quick to make, however we found the pittas difficult to hold together – not the end of the world but I do like a pitta to hold its contents! We put low-fat spread in each half, added cheese and salad and added tuna and sweetcorn (or quorn in my case) and a bit of red onion. I liked that the pittas are broken into two and come in a circular shape

The Chicken supreme was a much more straightforward sandwich, really nice and soft and it was the right size to hold the contents in – hand-sized. For this one I spread some low-fat spread onto the bread, added some cucumber and red onion and some salad. After that I added a little bit of mayonnaise and added the quorn. Shaun and H had chicken. The bread is quite soft and moist which meant we didn’t need to use much so it didn’t feel dry which was good.

Warburtons Krazy Kitchen Quorn

H liked that she could make her own sandwiches with whatever she wanted! So we had a bit of a Warburtons Krazy Kitchen going on in our house!

We generally make our own bread, but I feel like we’d definitely buy the sandwich thins, they were interesting and filling and quick to prepare. I also likes the packages were resealable which is handy when you don’t use them all at the same time.

You can see the final instalment of the Warburtons Krazy Kitchen here today (as well as all the previous ones) – who will win?

The first three episodes can be watched here.

We received payment and a hamper to feature this video. All opinions are our own and honest.

21/08/201326/03/2018 by jo

Healthier Crisp Sandwiches With Walkers Mighty Lights

Today we had a go at an old family favourite, and something which disgusts Shaun at how unhealthy it sounds – some crisp sandwiches.

Crisp sandwiches always happen on a Tuesday in my family, some kind of tradition my Grannie had. I have to say I haven’t kept it going but do often quite fancy one, but the majority of crisps these days are pretty fatty – and when you’re looking after your waistline you want a good tasting crisp which isn’t going to have a high fat content.

Step forward new Walkers Mighty Lights, ridged crisps available in three flavours, all of them vegetarian. There’s Roast Chicken, Cheese and Onion and Lightly Salted. All contain 30% less fat compared to other crisps as well as no MSG, artificial colours or preservatives and they’re also a source of fibre.

So, back to the crisp sandwiches. Shaun refused to let me make them, but fortunately I had some salad leaves handy. I got some hummous to use instead of butter, and some cheese slices. The bread was freshly made that morning, so I sliced it (badly, seriously, can anyone tell me the secret of slicing soft bread?), spread on the hummous, added some salad leaves and cheese and served it – alongside a bowl of each flavour.

So, a taste test was next. H was asked the flavour of her crisp. She confidently told me hers was vanilla. Hmmm… It was the lightly salted, but she did agree she was tricking me so we’ll let her off. The three flavours work well – way back in time Seabrooks did some low-fat crisps which had such a high sugar content that they tasted disgusting – and I’m happy to say these Walkers crisps don’t – which is reassuring, as often a lot of low-fat foods tend to do this.

Flavour-wise I’d say the cheese and onion and roast chicken were pretty good – I can’t remember the last time I ate any flavour chicken crisps but I felt like they had a good taste, not at all meaty (at this point you need to bear in mind I’ve been vegetarian for 30 years please). They were so good they went perfectly into my sandwich, and made the perfect ‘healthy’ crisp sandwiches (ahem). The lightly salted isn’t too salty, it’s nice and subtle – just how I like it – I don’t want my tongue to feel bleached by salt.

Portion-size wise, it looked a little less than you’d usually get in a packet of crisps, but flavour-wise that made up for it. I got top crisp satisfaction while having had just enough.

Walkers Mighty Lights are targeted at kids, but actually I’d buy these as an option if I’m doing a Meal Deal; at the moment they’re only available in multipacks in supermarkets.

One really important thing I spotted – the crisps are made in a nut-free environment (all Walkers crisps are) – which means anyone with nut allergies should be fine eating these crisps, according to the FAQ on their site – None of our Walkers Mighty Lights flavours contain nuts or sesame seeds, and we do not handle either in our factory. I’ll be taking a pack with me this weekend for one of the children at H’s birthday party, as I had no idea Walkers were okay.

Ultimately, it all comes back to the crisp sandwiches though. Is it really truly a proper crisp sandwich if it has cheese and salad in there? Am I compromising my crisp sandwich needs for the sake of looking better on the blog? Should I have a secret Roast Chicken crisp sandwich tonight with just butter when everyone has gone to bed? Do you think they’re crisp sandwiches?

I think they’re massively underrated! They’re pretty yummy with the new Walkers Mighty Lights anyway, and definitely worth a try.

How do they compare? I’m comparing the Lightly Salted to the Ready Salted regular crisps, both by Walkers.

	Ready Salted	Lightly Salted
Energy [KJ]	549	477
Energy [Kcal]	132	114
Protein [g]	1.5	2.1
Carbohydrate [g]	12.9	15.2
– sugars [KJ]	0.1	0.2
Fat [g]	8	4.7
– saturates [g]	0.7	0.5
– mono-unsaturates	6.3	3.7
– poly-unsaturates	1.0	0.4
Fibre	1.1	1.2
Salt [g]	0.35	0.28

So as you can see, there are differences – higher carbs but lower sugars for one, as well as the lower fats.

The biggest question of all though, is what I made a crisp sandwich or not? You decide…

I have received payment to review these crisps, all opinions are my own and honest.

19/08/201326/03/2018 by jo

Easy Bunting Craft With Tiger Stores

Tiger Stores is one of my favourite craft supply shops – everything is at a good price, so today I made some easy bunting which involved minimal effort from me and still looks good.

Easy bunting is something I’ve had in mind for H’s birthday – and Tiger Stores have some cool things in stock at the moment, but I hadn’t had the time to start it.

Today I was ill from work and needed something to occupy myself without it being too strenuous, something which involved minimal effort but decent results.

easy bunting from Tiger Stores

So here’s my Tiger Stores Easy Bunting Instructions :

Buy the Karton cardboard triangles which are bunting shaped. There are 50 in total, in ten different colours. £2.

If you’re anything like me you’ll always have a stash of the sticky back plastic drawer liners Tiger do – they have various colours at £4 a roll. I always keep any pieces I might do something with, as even the tiniest amount works. I have four different patterns at the moment.

Other than that I picked up some Snor purple string (£1 or £2) to use for hanging them.

easy bunting from Tiger Stores

Step 1

Work out the letters you need and using the handy guides on the back of the sticky paper make sure they’re the same size. Cut them out and look out for the letters which will come out the opposite way (like p) – don’t forget to do those backwards (I forgot).

Step 2.

Take each card piece of easy bunting and sort them into the colours you want. There are ten colours; green, dark green, blue, light blue, pink, cerise, yellow, orange, red and black.

Step 3.

Sort out which letters you want on which colour. Peel off the backing and stick them on.

Step 4.

You’ll probably have bits of plastic sticky stuff left – don’t throw it away, use it to fix the card to the string at the back – it’s strong sticky stuff so should do the job.

Step 5.

Hang up and admire your easy bunting then have a long lie down afterwards.

Gulp. I’ve just read they’ve opened a BIG store on Oxford Street. Dangerous. For my bank balance, that is…

Mum Friendly

the things we do, the things we like

Month / August 2013