04/09/201327/01/2014 by jo

The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection

The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection is a new book from Igloo Books. It features Tommy and Tallulah and their friends from Nick Jr’s popular show.

The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection book has over 150 stickers as well as puzzles, games and activities within it, and is perfect for preschoolers.

Within the book there are various activities made from card that you can can pop out from the pages and assemble. We tried the birthday card and gift box. Here’s the result :

I really like Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection. I found that the activities are kept simple and with Tickety Toc being as popular as it is it’s something which will have a lot of appeal to kids – it’s the kind of book I could leave H to and she wouldn’t get frustrated by it and want me to help her (for certain activities).

The book has a Join The Dots puzzle which H really enjoys doing, as well as a maze. There’s plenty of colouring in and putting stickers in the right space, as well as general decorating of things.

There are some games in the book as well which makes things fun. Once you’ve assembled the card activities you can rip out the pages which makes things easier. Considering how competitive H is this appeals, she enjoys playing games and having something she’s made at the end as a prize is quite appealing.

You can buy The Ultimate Tickety Toc Sticker and Activity Collection at Amazon, currently at a bargain £3 (but out of stock) – if your child is a fan this would be something they’d love – and there’s enough activities in there you wouldn’t run out either – head over here. They’re also available from Asda.

We were sent a copy of the book for review, all opinions are our own. This post also contains an affiliate link.

02/09/201327/01/2014 by jo

Seaview Caravan Holiday Park Near Weymouth – Review

We’ve just come back from a quick stay at the Haven Seaview site, our second holiday this year.

Seaview is next to their Weymouth Bay site in Dorset, and it’s where we spent just under 48 hours this weekend just gone. This was a break, a short break. A very short break indeed. H was unwell so we left a day late, and H was again unwell so we left a day early – so we only stayed the one night. This was enough to get a feel of Seaview, I liked it, and would go back.

We had a caravan for six people – a Deluxe and while it was snug, it was the right size for us all – one double bedroom and two singles, plus an extra toilet (so two in total). We were close to the main reception and entertainment area, the Spar was basic but had everything we needed.

We arrived and headed straight to the beach, which is a 15-20 minute walk, crossing through another holiday complex. This area has a restaurant, shop (with buckets and spades) and toilets, the beach itself is good, plenty of sand (and stones) for tricky sandcastles, plus you get views of Weymouth right around to Portland Bill and out to the sea. We had a glorious sunny day and spent a good few hours there building, H had her first swim (of sorts) in the sea and had a brilliant time.

We headed back and tried the Seaview indoor pool. It has a depth of 1.2 metres apart from a smaller sectioned off area (which is also nice and warm unlike the rest of the pool – you warm up by swimming!), and had a good swim around for an hour or so. There’s a water slide to the side of the pool that H’s friend loved, but H was too scared to try it out and you can’t accompany your child to the top. We were going to try the outdoor pool which has a shallower and a deeper end but missed it due to illness.

Food wise, there was the standard Mash & Barrel food, we were happy with our choice, and it was identical to the food at Devon Cliffs so we knew what we were getting.

Our evening’s entertainment was provided by the Funstars Go Live gang who were excellent – we missed the toddler disco but got there in time for pretty much an evening’s worth of things to do, H and her friend M got into it and had a great time until they were too tired to continue. I probably enjoyed the Rock & Roll Bingo too much and had a few too many beers including the point we bossed Shaun onto the stage when our kids had to find things beginning with B (blue t-shirt with Buzz Lightyear on), our night finished with the Queen and Elvis tribute band King Meets Queen – we left as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ started, it was way past bedtime for the 4 year olds.

The plan for the following day was a trip to Corfe Castle. Our two cars set off, and Shaun and I got there uneventfully, however parking there is impossible; this is why they offer a Park and Ride service – worth bearing in mind. We saw Corfe Castle, as in we drove past but then received a call H had been sick, so headed back to find them and pick her up.

So, back to Seaview… where Shaun used their laundry facilites – the clothes and car seat cover were clean and dry within an hour or two and the service was reasonably priced. The Spar had an antibacterial spray which got rid of the smell of vomit from their car, and I was pleased to see they had plain rice cakes in there to keep H from feeling too hungry and being sick again.

We decided that really we should head home that night – we’d have better traffic than going the following day, and she’d have a night in her own bed. We were home by 10pm. Sadface.

Seaview is a small site which backs onto another Haven site, Weymouth Bay which is much bigger and where all the activities are (archery, fencing, football etc) you can use both sites. Overall, I found the entertainment much more fun than previous times and liked being so close to everything within the site. The soft play area was small but fine for our 4 year olds needs. The photo opportunities with characters were still there but it felt less pressured.

Our break cost us around £350 – and split between the two families works out around £175 – we were pleased with this as it’s roughly £60 a night – and you have your own space. The size of the caravan meant the girls shared a room (which they loved) and we all had enough space to move around. The extra toilet was also a good thing! The shower was a little wider than previous caravans we’d stayed in which was great as it meant I could go in there with H (she decided she didn’t like showers this week). There were plenty of cupboards and hooks too for storage.

In summary, if you’re thinking about a break around Weymouth, we found Seaview to be excellent – our caravan had a few loose fittings here and there but it didn’t actually spoil anything, we were just careful to make sure windows were properly shut, that kind of thing. The staff were all friendly, and it felt much more like a smaller site than Devon Cliffs which is huge and has security and people checking passes all the time. We’re now pondering whether to switch our planned half term break back to this area to do the things we’d hoped to!

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.

Mum Friendly

the things we do, the things we like