by jo

Henry Hugglemonster is coming to Disney Junior!

Henry Hugglemonster's Family

Dear Peppa Pig,

H has loved you obsessively now for around two years, but I’m afraid you have a rival on the horizon. We still love you, but the good thing about love is that you can share it around many things and never run out.

Sorry, but I’m sure you’ll understand,

H’s Parents.

p.s. if your child is scared of monsters like H was, then this programme may well be one that helps turn it around – she’s giggling her head off right now at how funny the family are.

===

Henry Hugglemonster

Henry Hugglemonster has just entered our lives – and he’s set to enter yours too. Henry is a five-year old middle child, well, monster really and is based on the book ‘I’m A Happy Hugglewug’ by Niamh Sharkey (published by Walker Books).

Niamh has been very closely involved with the production – and having watched the preview episodes it has lovely graphics, a really nice message, catchy songs and the kind of thing you could let your child watch and know they’ll find it funny (rather than being troubled about something) – plus – it’s all about family and togetherness and gets the message across really well.

Today in Central London we were invited to meet Niamh to learn more about Henry and his family – and we all got to draw a Henry (H’s work was good – she helped colour in mine) – as well as having the book read to us.

Niamh Sharkey and H

So, what do we know? Niamh wrote the book back in 2006, and worked on a short piece which Disney Junior loved and commissioned straight away with Brown Bag Films based in Dublin. Niamh is also Laureate na nÓg, Ireland’s laureate for children’s literature – in fact, H has been going on and on about a book ‘The Ravenous Beast’ which they read a lot at nursery, it ends up* Niamh writes and illustrates that as well (so I see another favourite author on the horizon here). One thing she mentioned today was how she likes bringing pictures into reading – especially at the age our kids are now, they can’t read – but they can identify pictures and a lot is about having a good visual behind your story.

Henry Hugglemonster is voiced by Brian Blessed (hurrah!), Brenda Blethyn and just announced earlier today, Geri Halliwell as well as others. Then there’s the songs – ohh they’re catchy – especially the theme (which refuses to leave my head).

Geri Halliwell Henry Hugglemonster

There’s a sneaky showing this Friday at 5.50pm on Disney Junior if you’re not sure what all the fuss is about – there’s 48 eleven minute episodes made, plus two longer ones for seasonal times – so quite soon Henry Hugglemonster will be everywhere! The show premieres on February 8th on Disney Junior at 5.50pm and is shown twice a week. Seriously, don’t miss it. You won’t thank me for the earworm, though you’ll be happy to hear your little one giggling along to it!

Disney Junior are over here
Niamh Sharkey’s site is here

* Henry is in fact reading it on one page, H spotted it!

by jo

Justin’s Back – New Album ‘The Best Of Friends’ and tour

Mr Tumble

Justin Fletcher (who is possibly busier than Miss Rabbit as far as work goes) has a new album out, and is also heading out on tour (and the most important thing of all, the press release says – wait for it – CLIFF TUMBLE WILL BE THERE!!!!!!!!!)

Ahem, must compose myself.

Firstly, the new Justin album ‘The Best Of Friends’ is packed full of familiar tunes that everyone is going to love singing to – songs from musicals, classics, as well as his new single, the title track ‘The Best Of Friends (Best Friends Forever)’ which has a fun, easy-to-learn dance with hand movements for everyone to join in with!

Justin says: “Singing is something that the whole family can do together and I’ve had a wonderful time recording the new album. Children love all types of music so it has been great fun compiling a diverse collection of songs that we hope everyone will enjoy.”

Justin Fletcher - Best of Friends

Justin will be performing his new single live when he headlines the Justin & Friends arena show tour this Easter so remember to wear your dancing shoes and be ready to raise the roof as you sing along to “The Best Of Friends”!

For more information about “The Best Of Friends” visit http://www.facebook.com/justinfletcherofficial – you can preorder the album at Amazon, and it will also be available from all good record stores – physical and digital!

Nana Knickerbocker

So, as well as releasing the album, Justin is heading out on a Cbeebies Live tour – which will see Gigglebiz favourites like Nana Knickerbocker, Lost Pirate, Arthur Sleep and Keith Fit alongside the Tumble family from Something Special (yes, Cliff’s name is mentioned).

“I’m incredibly excited about bringing so many characters to life on stage for a live audience” said Justin Fletcher MBE. “We’re using all of our showbiz ingenuity to bring them all together for the first time in a terrific new arena show.”

Justin will also be joined by Robert the Robot and Little Monster (from Justin’s house), and a spectacular rock and roly-poly show is promised for a very special visitor!

Justin will be joined by Nina from Nina and the Neurons. Andy Day the Cbeebies presenter, and Katy ‘I Can Cook’ Ashworth. As Robert’s enthusiasm for tidying up threatens Justin’s plans to stage the most amazing show ever, he’ll need your help to keep things on track.

Lost Pirate

Tickets are available now and are priced from £13.00 for children, with family tickets from £52.00 (for four people and subject to booking fee).

Here’s the tour dates:

DAY DATE SHOW TIMES
SUN 31-Mar NEWCASTLE METRO RADIO ARENA 1:30pm 4:30pm
MON 1-Apr MANCHESTER ARENA 1:30pm 4:30pm
WED 3-Apr SHEFFIELD MOTORPOINT ARENA 1:30pm 4:30pm
THU 4-Apr LIVERPOOL ECHO TWO 1:30pm 4:30pm
SAT 6-Apr WEMBLEY ARENA 1:30pm 4:30pm
SUN 7-Apr WEMBLEY ARENA 11:00am 2:00pm
MON 8-Apr GLASGOW CLYDE AUDITORIUM 1:30pm 4:30pm
TUE 9-Apr GLASGOW CLYDE AUDITORIUM 11:00am 2:00pm
THU 11-Apr BIRMINGHAM LG ARENA 1:30pm 4:30pm
FRI 12-Apr NOTTINGHAM CAPITAL FM ARENA 1:30pm 4:30pm
SAT 13-Apr CARDIFF MOTORPOINT ARENA 1:30pm 4:30pm
SUN 14-Apr CARDIFF MOTORPOINT ARENA 11:00am 2:00pm

For the latest Justin & Friends tour information visit www.bbcliveshows.com

by jo

App Time – Miffy in the Snow

It’s no secret I love Miffy – I grew up with the books in the seventies (how I wish we’d kept them) and given Miffy is still going strong I knew it’d be something I’d bring H up to love too. The books never seem to date at all – the colours are simple and the messages are always positive ones (Miffy is Naughty, the most current book being the exception).

We’ve missed a few of the iPad apps so far, but today spotted that Miffy in the Snow has recently been released and what with the weather being the way it is outside, I figured what better an app to buy?

Miffy in the Snow

It’s great too! There’s enough on there that’s good fun – you have the story read to you, complete with interactive sections – as well as this three people can record the story so you can have it read to you in different voices (I love this option for these kinds of apps), and finally there’s a games section – matching pairs and knock the hat off the snowman, plus a chance to make a card (though no obvious save option – I took a screengrab instead). As the games progress they get a little bit more difficult – I liked that with the snowman game you need a good hand-eye co-ordination for it to knock the hat off, which made H concentrate a little harder. The matching pairs was also interesting – she’d work on each colour to clear them rather than individual items. Mid-way through the story she skipped a couple of pages, and you’re able to go back a page by viewing the menu at the top (press the flower).

Miffy in the Snow - interactive part

The app is available in English or Dutch and costs £2.99 from the App Store which isn’t cheap, but I think there’s enough on there for H to do as she starts to learn to read more words, and don’t object to paying it. If you’re a Miffy fan too, you’ll probably find there’s enough in there to keep a young one entertained!

H's Miffy in the Snow Card

H’s Miffy in the Snow Card

Buy miffy in the snow at the App Store.

App Time at Mum Friendly

by jo

App Time – Everything’s Rosie

H playing the Everything's Rosie appWe were sent two Everything’s Rosie apps to review, and almost immediately we hit a problem – a minor one but one which slowed us down – our iPad is a first generation, and while the app worked, it would quite often crash so we could never work our way through it. However, as good luck would have it, we now own an iPad Mini, we loaded the games onto it and so far, brilliant!

Are you familiar with Everything’s Rosie? Surely you must with the catchy song (hear it once and you’ll probably not get it out of your head, even if you can’t remember the words) – Rosie is a lovable ragdoll character who has friends she has really sweet adventures with. These apps are two of them.

Everything's Rosie Bedtime Activity Fun
Everything's Rosie Bedtime

Firstly, we have Everything’s Rosie Bedtime – where you get a bedtime story and Colouring Fun & Spot the Difference in the Activity Fun section. The story is read out and H enjoyed it, and even recognised some words (gulp!) – plus I found there were good fonts, nice and clear too. (and no comic sans – hurrah!) The colouring, well yet again she amazed me – she’s started to use different colours on pictures and got on with it, she seems to love colouring in things on iPad games and picks up all the different settings and colours very quickly.You have a colour wheel and a choice of brushes on this one.

Everything's Rosie Playtime Everything's Rosie Playtime Activity Fun

We also have Everything’s Rosie Playtime – a daytime story which again had H hooked, reading it (and recognising a few words!!) – I like how each word is highlighted as it’s read so there’s a good educational element there too. The activities with this game are Magic Mazes and Funny Faces – there’s four different mazes based on each character which are a little bit difficult, so take a little bit longer (but not prohibitively so!), and Funny Faces which is just that – and is easily H’s favourite part to play.

Everything's Rosie Funny Faces

If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll love this. It’s currently H’s favourite app (she declared this fact to us tonight!)

You can buy both Everything’s Rosie apps for £2.99 each  at the App Store

Everything’s Rosie Bedtime App
Everything’s Rosie Playtime App

We were sent a code for the purpose of this review, all opinions are our own.

App Time at Mum Friendly

by jo

Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash curry

Shaun made this last night, and oh boy it tasted good – it was spicy but not too much. It was adapted from one of our WeightWatchers cookbooks.

You need :

an onion (0 points)
half a butternut squash (0 points)
sweet potato (allow 70-80g per person) (2 points)
peas (35g) (2 points)
three carrots (0 points)
green beans (as many as you fancy) (0 points)

Quorn pieces – 40g (1 point)

passata (as much as you need)
Curry powder (as much as you need)
200ml bouillon stock (0 points)
teaspoon of cumin
garlic granules

oil for frying (ideally in spray)

basmati rice (allow 40g per person (4 points)

simple Vegetable Curry

 

Chop the onion and put in a pan with the stock (so it’s softened rather than fried) Lightly spray your large pan/frying pan add the quorn. Add the curry powder, cumin and garlic and cook gently until heated through.
Boil the butternut squash and sweet potato for five minutes until it’s soft but not too crumbly. Add to curry mixture and make sure it’s covered in curry powder
Cook the rest of your veg as you would, and add to the mixture.

Cook rice – one way with basmati is to put boiling water in the pan with rice (washed and drained), bring to the boil then turn off the flame. Put a lid on the pan and leave for ten minutes – your rice should then be perfect.

Add passata and the rest of the stock to the curry mixture and serve quickly.

It tastes pretty good too. We also added some Gourmet Garden Ginger to the curry which gave it a good taste alongside the herbs too – the preparation time was no more than five minutes, and overall cooking time was around ten.

Points-wise, I logged this and it came in at seven points, the bulk of it being the basmati rice. If you wanted to lower your points more, swap your rice for brown which may save you a few points!

by jo

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup

It must be around a month since I last declared love for my Morphy Richards Soup Maker, so I’d better redress the balance right now. IT IS THE BEST THING I’VE EVER BOUGHT! (okay, that may be a bit OTT)

Tonight we had a really simple soup which tasted delicious. Last night (and I’ll post that one too) we had a butternut squash and sweet potato curry, so Shaun peeled and chopped the entire squash for me for tonight – which is where another part of WeightWatchers works – planning ahead, knowing what your meals will be from night to-night (I’m still tired out after the Christmas break, so thinking about organising is a real use of my energy right now, though I do try) and prep your vegetables the night before. If you’re anything like we are, you’ll have drawers of Ikea and Tupperware containers, and very little time when you get in from work – so having everything ready in the fridge is a good thing – we always cook from fresh every evening, and rarely have takeaways.

So, the soup:

soup1-2

As much butternut squash as you fancy, though remember the Soup Maker only holds so much. This will be 0 points.

A cube of ginger – and by a cube I mean a dice size of cube – this will also be 0 points
2-3 teaspoons of low-salt bouillon. Oh, and yeah, that’s 0 points too.
One spoon of Aussiemite, the new Australian yeast spread – with its fruity taste I thought it was worth putting in, and it made a difference! Marmite would also work. 1 point.

Add water, press the buttons, have a nap, 21 minutes later you’ll have a nice runny soup which tastes pretty damn fine – the ginger is subtle and the Aussiemite gives it a slightly fruity taste – the bouillon isn’t too overpowering either. It was nice and filling – and if you divide one point by five, then multiply it by two (as I’d say H has a fifth, we have two fifths) then you may well end up with 0 points again, making a (possible) 0 points soup. Cool!

Spicy Butternut Squash soup with a dollop of Aussiemite

We had it with WeightWatchers Naan breads which are lovely and soft and three points per Naan – I had one and a third, so let’s call it four points.

I’d say that was pretty good going there, easy to make, easy to clean up afterwards, and filling too. If you’re really starving you could add some pasta shapes to pad it out a bit, maybe?

by jo

Books For Bugs

Books For BugsH is a bookworm – she has an entire Billy bookcase from Ikea full of books (and some toys, to be fair), but I’ll never tire of buying books, and I’m always on the lookout for quirky titles and different ones. I used to be a Barefoot Books Ambassador a couple of years ago, but had to give it up – so if you know the kind of books they do, you get the idea of what we like.

Somehow, I stumbled across Books For Bugs (I can’t remember how!) – they’re based fairly locally to us and do some fairs, and their website and shop is based on selling affordable books to parents. I bought some in their recent sale which arrived today for presents, and they fit perfectly into the kind of books we love. Add to this there’s loads of phonics books (and yes, I do still have concerns about H and her starting school this September, despite her doing really well at her private nursery preschool) and you can buy them at a good price (all their board books and story books are just £2.99 each, no matter how high the RRP), PLUS there’s reviews or short summaries of the books on each page to help you choose.

Their shipping price is really reasonable, and the books arrive well packed and quick – all in all I’m really happy with the service we received and highly recommend them to you – keep up to date with them on Facebook for any sales or deals that might be happening too – they’re running competitions when they hit a certain number of followers!

by jo

It’s a Dog’s Life in Disney’s Superbia

Superbia Logo

From January, fans of Superbia, the popular online game for kids and tweens themed around hit Disney Channel shows, will be able to adopt and care for their own virtual cats and dogs, chosen from a range on offer in a brand new Pet Shop. Superbia has experienced a record breaking launch, with one million players logging in since it launched in February.

Whether or not tweens receive a pet this Christmas, they will be able to practice caring for one in Superbia, where pets’ happiness depends on how clean, well fed and nurtured they are. Players will be able to buy a range of toys and accessories for their pets, and spend time grooming them. In return their pets can be entered into special competitions to win prizes for their owners, or be sent on missions to dig up treasure.

Boel Ferguson, Vice President & General Manager, Disney Channels and Disney Online UK & Ireland, commented:
“We know it’s been a dream come true for many Disney Channel viewers to get the chance to move into Superbia and live side-by-side with characters from their favourite shows. Now, as well as dressing up and making friends, players can visit the Pet Shop and practice caring for animals. What better place to teach kids how important that is, when they’ll be directly rewarded by their happy, well nurtured pets with hidden treasure and competition prizes!”

Disney Channel LogoLaunched in February 2011 and based on the hugely popular Disney Channel Italy game Fun and Friends, Superbia is a colourful virtual world of Disney-inspired places, from the Austin & Ally music store to the Shake It Up dance studio. Following a record-breaking launch, a million players have moved into town, creating their own Disney Channel persona, dressing up, shopping and decorating their new virtual homes. Superbia residents are guided through the game by their new neighbours, Ella and Max who help them to complete quests to unlock new rooms and content.

Players can make friends with each other, send gifts and emoticon messages and visit and ‘like’ other people’s rooms, in a safe environment with no free text chat, or display or exchange of personal information, giving parents complete peace of mind.

Superbia is the latest addition to Disney’s successful raft of digital environments – which includes BAFTA-nominated Club Penguin.

Superbia Activity page

by jo

What On Earth Is Aussiemite?

I was in my local Waitrose on Thursday and got to my favourite yeast extract section (I have a fine selection of Marmite, often referred to as ‘the archive’ in the cupboard, as well as Vegemite to keep Shaun happy), when I stumbled across a classy looking tub of the black stuff; Aussiemite.

Aussiemite

I’ve never heard of it, so had to buy it for that reason alone, primarily for Shaun to try out and share his opinion, but also because I bet he’d never heard of it either, and well, he’s Australian you know – I like to help him feel less homesick.

It’s quite pricey – £5 (where Marmite and Vegemite are much cheaper), but needs must so off I trotted to the till and duly paid.

So – the taste test. It reminded me of Promite (which I’ve not yet been able to find in the UK) – a fruitier taste than Marmite, and less dull than Vegemite (I’m not a fan, though the song is good) – if you can afford it, I’d recommend you try it.

The big plus points? It’s GM-free, gluten-free and vegetarian too – also the nutritional information is identical to Marmite and Vegemite. (I’m not so sure about the website’s claim about Australia pioneering yeast based spreads, as Marmite came first, I thought? So Vegemite was a response? But that’s me thinking too much) Anyway, more importantly of all, Aussiemite is Australian-family owned and they want it to stay that way. Aussiemite has been sold in independent shops down under for around ten years, and was relaunched last year as a gourmet spread. It’s also not to be confused with a new spread launched by Dick Smith last year, for the record. Okay?

Anyway, it’s available over here now in all Waitrose and Selfridges stores so I’m officially going to declare it posh. It’s pretty yummy too, and gets the thumbs up from us – could it be the middle ground in the battle of the yeast extract in our house?

by Karen

Teething Bling – Smart Mum

As a result of his teething my son has suddenly started biting me… it currently feels as if I’m being followed around by a little vampire! Due to this, when the chance to try Teething Bling, an item of jewellery designed for teething babies, came about I jumped at it!

Teething Bling comes from a company called Smart Mum, who knew that a lot of mums don’t wear jewellery as it would no doubt get pulled, hurt baby or possibly get damaged. They wanted to find a solution that would keep all parties happy and this is how the necklace came about. I had heard of the product not long after Jacob was born, but having been bombarded with thousands of different baby products I was a little sceptical so decided not to buy. All I can say is that I wish I had as this has turned out to be a very useful little product!

Teething Bling by Smart Mum

The necklace itself is very pretty, it looks like normal adult jewellery, and could go with many different outfits. The teething part of the necklace is very unusual, it looks as if it should be made of a hard material like stone but on touching one finds that it is rubber and bendable. I have already had compliments from friends, who were very keen to find out more about Teething Bling.

Jacob was very curious about the necklace, fiddling with it and enjoying chewing it. I have to admit that it hasn’t stopped him biting me completely though the necklace has proven to be  a really handy distraction. I think that Teething Bling would be wonderful for younger children and only wish that I had gotten into this sooner. The material of the necklace is very secure and I reckon it could go through a lot of punishment from little one! What I especially like is the safety release at the back, which goes to show that the design of this item has been very carefully thought out.

The necklace costs £12.95 from the website, which I don’t think is bad at all, especially considering it could be worn out without little one and not just necessarily as a teething ring. The company also have other items for sale such as bangles available at £8.95. The website is clearly laid out, very user-friendly and is definitely worth a nose.

I was sent a necklace for the purpose of review – all opinions are my own!