Amazing! The new magazine for 7+ readers that teaches the curriculum in a Horrible Histories style! Plus Give-away!

Buffer

 Kids love disgusting! 

"Uuuurrrrrrggghhhhh!!! That's DISGUSTING!" were the first words from Princess Peppa, my 9 year old. (I may need to rethink her blog pseudonym now she's waaay past loving Peppa Pig). "That's COOL!" was the response from Little Miss George, the 7 year old. 

They couldn't be more different, but they both laughed, giggled, and uurrrggghhhed their way through our sample copies of Amazing! Magazine. From how to make your own edible bogie's; Yes; Really. To a guide to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; (it's not limiting itself this one); the magazine takes a fresh look at information we want our children to learn and presents it in a fun, clever, humorous and yes, quite frankly often disgusting, way. 

It's designed to link to the primary curriculum. Want to know if you'd survive as a Roman gladiator? Find out in the Ancient Romans edition. Want to learn where and when the first false teeth are made? Check out the Human Body edition.

I've lost 7 lbs in 1 month. Want to know how?

Summary

This blog post is a summary of my journey over the last 7 weeks during which I have lost 10.5 pounds in weight.  It's an ongoing journey.  I hope it is at least helpful if you are trying to eat more healthily.  So settle in with a glass of water instead of a cup of tea (healthy choices start here), and a biscuit (instead of three).  It's a slightly longer post than usual - but I hope it's worth it.

For more tips to lose weight you can also check out my earlier post Get Fit and Lose Weight for Summer.

Original Sprout: Shampoo and Conditioner review

Original Sprout's Tahitian Family Collection

The problem with trying out new shampoos is that, if you get it wrong, you look like a scarecrow. Not so with Original Sprout. My hair has never been as glossy nor as healthy looking.

I had been using the John Frieda range for coloured hair. Perfectly suitable, but my hair always felt a little fly-away, and it was difficult to style. Certainly it was difficult to run a brush through it, even after using the John Frieda conditioner.

So it was with great delight that, after two days of trialling the Original Sprout range, my hairbrush glided smoothly through my hair and it felt light, soft and controllable. I kid you not when I say this was an entirely new experience for me!

 

About Original Sprout

Inge Tritt founded the company after struggling to find suitable hair and skin products for her baby's bath time.

"Our founder delighted in her newborn daughter's thick hair. Wanting to use the safest bath products led to her trying natural baby shampoos. To her surprise, all the shampoos wreaked havoc to her daughter's hair and sensitive skin. To remedy the problem Inga created the first of it's kind, ultra moisturizing natural baby bath & styling products. The benefits of being a master stylist with professional experience & a mother with real life experience culminated into Original Sprout, a globally trusted natural family brand."

Ted Baker flip flop favourites

I only have a quick post today, and it's pictorial.  After all, these speak for themselves.  What lovelies..... Yummy.

Boxdelux

It's only in the last couple of years, since Internet shopping really took off, that I heard about subscription boxes.

To start with it was 'fruit and veg' boxes, for those healthy eaters too busy to get to the local supermarket. Then came more refined meals in a box, for those of us watching calories and not trusting our own cooking. 

More recently it has been Beauty boxes. A great way to sample a selection of new beauty products, with the lovely advantage of a) the contents each month genuinely being a surprise and b) actually getting mail through the door, which, regardless of email, Twitter and Facebook, we all still get a kick out of. 

But what if you fancy trying more than just beauty products? What if you want a bit of beauty and a bit of luxury foods and, well, just a bit of a luxury surprise. 

Boxdelux has it covered. The June box arrived in a gorgeous black box, tissue paper-lined, with the following surprises:

Revitalash sample – worth £30

Ultrasun lip balm – worth £6

Ultrasun Factor 30 15ml – worth £2.85 (£19 per 100ml)

Aden Cosmetics Nail varnish – 3 pots in varying colours – all 3 are worth £7.50

Aden Cosmetics Lip Gloss - £6

Nakd Bar x 2 – 85p each so worth £1.70

We Are Tea tea bags x 2 – worth £2 together

Propercorn (varying flavours) – worth £1

Monsoon Polly Print dress review

Polly Print Dress from Monsoon: £69

This is a great dress. It's a size 14* which fits me brilliantly, despite the Monsoon size guide suggesting I need to measure 38/31/40 (Bust/Waist/Hips).  I actually measure 37/34/40.  But there is enough room in this dress for my larger waist.  

It's not very obvious on this picture, but the material wraps over at the waist and gathers at the left hip.  There is a fold of material that hangs, beautifully disguising my mummy belly!

The material is soft and silky to the touch, but is surprisingly 100% polyester, so it's washable, which is always a bonus!  It's also fully lined.

I absolutely recommend this dress from Monsoon, but there is a caveat.  

Don't wear it whilst out anywhere with children.  If you have to lean forward, which you do often with young children as they are naturally at a lower height than you, you will find that the sleeves dig into your arm at the front.

I have had dresses before that do this.  They are fine when stood or sat straight.  The sleeves even look roomy.  But somehow, the second you try and put your arms out in front of you, the sleeves dig in.  

Birthday cakes by post - A great novel idea for someone hard to buy for.

I live a 40 minutes drive away from my parents. It isn't too far to visit easily for an afternoon, but it is too far to pop in for a cuppa after school pickup, or pop round on the off chance that they are in, for a chat.

It is far enough to require actually planning, logistics, pre-car toilet trips. You get the idea.

So I can't always pop and see them on special occasions. When I was given the opportunity to try out a new "letterbox cake" from BakerDays.com to send to my dad for his mid-week birthday I jumped at the chance.

It is a real cake. It is delivered by the post man. It is posted THROUGH the letterbox.

This ensures you can surprise your family and friends with a gift delivered by the postman and not worry about someone needing to be in to accept delivery, which is often the case when you send flowers and chocolates.

Apple products: I have well and truly crumbled

Two years ago I said that I 'absolutely' wasn't going to buy any Apple products.

 I loved my Samsung Galaxy Wonder (The Ace's paired down cousin). And, quite frankly, if there's something that absolutely everyone else has or wants, (an iPhone is a case in point) then I am less likely to want to get it.  It's an 'individual' reaction. I was taught to go my own way, to not worry what everyone else was wearing, doing or listening to. In short, I was taught to want to be different.

So whenever there is a product that hits the mass market, be it the Ford Focus, One Direction or Corrie, I, by default, will hate it.

So how did Apple products manage to infiltrate this barrier?

My husband got an iPad. He let me have a play on it. He popped a couple of films on it. And then he added a couple of children's apps. He let me surf the web on it. Before I could frenzily shout "get that mass-market crowd-pleasing over-hyped product out of my house" I found myself addicted to iPad online surfing.

Mensa Academy: A review

Do you know your Mensa score?

With the success of brain training games over the last few years, it comes as no surprise that Mensa have released their very own computer game; Mensa Academy, available on Nintendo® Wii™ and 3DS™, Windows PC platforms, and in the near future for mobile and tablets.

I was lucky enough to try it out on an iPad at the Britmums 2012 event in London.  It's great fun on the iPad.  Click the correct picture to complete the pattern as fast as you can, click the right shape, numerical answer.. etc....There are 100+ mini-games, puzzles and challenges with play, test and coach modes.  It was very easy to use and I immediately saw how much fun it would be for the whole family.

But it's not available for mobile and tablet yet, so when I was offered the chance to try out the PC version, I jumped at it.

Unfortunately I was a little disappointed by the PC version.  The games are the same, but have been designed with touchscreens in mind so using a cursor slows down your response times considerably.  Not only that, but the cursor doesn't seem to function well on the game.  It bunny hops across the screen despite our cursor usually working fine.

My 6 year old daughter was excited about playing the games, but got more and more frustrated with the lack of decent cursor control until eventually, after about 6 separate game session across a couple of months, she gave up and hasn't asked to play it since.

I've had more of a play, but am similarly frustrated with the PC version.

So our advice: get this for a touchscreen, be it a tablet or phone.  It really is a great game, but is spoilt by it's clunkiness (I don't care if that's a proper word or not; it works) on the PC.


A copy of the Mensa Academy computer game for PC was provided free for the purpose of this honest review. 

Mensa Academy is developed by Silverball Studios and Barnstorm Games and published by Square Enix Europe

The Looney Tunes Big Faces Collection on UltraViolet: A review

I am delighted that the lovely folk over at Warner Bros. have asked me to test out their latest DVDs using a new method of storing and watching... Ultra Violet (UV).

If you've never heard of UV, let me explain. 

Imagine you buy a DVD.  You pop it in your DVD player and watch it on your TV.  But you don't have time to finish watching it before you have to run out and catch a train.  You take your mobile phone, or tablet, with you.  Sit on the train, click a couple of buttons and you are watching that DVD again.  You haven't downloaded it, (you can if you like but it's not necessary) you are watching it live, streamed from your UV account.  It's like having a virtual video store.  Not only that, but if you pause on one device, and then start watching on another device, it knows where you got to and plays from the correct place.  Honestly.  

All you need to do is buy an DVD with a UV voucher code in the box, enter your code on-line, and voila, your latest purchase is added to your on-line UV collection. 

Warner sent over Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny from The Looney Tunes Big Faces Collection for us to test out.

I followed the instructions on the voucher found inside the box.  You need a UV account and a linked Flixster account, both of which take a couple of minutes to set up and link together – it talks you through it and if I can do it, anyone can.  The UV account stores your films in a cloud and you watch them through Flixster.  There's a Flixster app for iPhone, iPad and Android, so once you have the Flixster app on your device and are logged in, there are your films! 

The advantage of UV is that we now have Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny available at home on the DVD and on my phone and on our tablet.  I could access it on a laptop or frankly any device with an Internet connection if I chose to.  It's helpful when we go to swimming lessons for the elder, but the younger has to sit and watch.  She gets easily bored normally.  But now she has the option to watch her favourite cartoons.  Even in a public place Tom and Jerry is perfect – as who needs sound?

One potential downfall is that, if you don't 'download' in order to save storage space on your individual devices, then you are watching over the Internet.  Whilst the streaming so far on the tablet is fine, it has buffered a couple of times when watching on my phone.  You are at the mercy of the strength of the Internet connection I think.  I'm sure any techie people can tell me if I've understood this incorrectly!  Obviously, those you've downloaded to the device will be fine and you can watch those without an Internet connection; good for long journeys in the car.

However, a great advantage is that you can control which titles in your UV collection children have access to; so there's no need to worry about the little ones starting to watch age-inappropriate material.  And you can set up to five different users to access your UV collection, each with their own log-in and passwords, and each able to customise which titles they see.  The family DVD collection is suddenly accessible anytime, anyplace, as long as it's UV!

The best thing about UV is that it enables you to future proof your film collection, so if discs get scratched, snapped or drawn on by little ones, you are still able to watch the film again and again.

The kids love having access to these DVDs on my phone.  My only problem now is that they want their own iPods or iPads so they can watch themselves!  At 4 years old and 6 years old I'm sticking to my guns and NOT going down that route yet!

And what about the titles?  I've lost count of the number of times Bugs Bunny has said "what's up, doc?"   It's safe to say that our daughters have discovered the delights of the Looney Tunes characters that we grew up with.  From my point of view the cartoons are just long enough, but not too long.  So I can say 'just one more', and they get advance warning that TV time is nearly over, yet get another episode, and I don't feel like I'm letting them watch too much TV.  In short; they love them. 


We were sent two titles from The Looney Tunes Big Faces Collection for the purpose of reviewing the DVDs and UltraViolet.  This is an honest review of the products.

Strawberry flavoured straws to make strawberry milk: Brilliant!

Packing for your holiday?

Wondering how to take a little piece of home with you to comfort the children? 

Our two girls have always loved milk. When you are breastfeeding it's easy enough to take your supply on holiday with you.  But when you are bottle feeding, or they've moved onto full fat cows milk, taking milk that they will drink on holiday makes for a heavy set of cases.

When the younger was 10 months old we took her and her older sister abroad for our summer holidays.  Because she was still drinking follow-on milk we took cartons of it with us along with bottles, sterilisers and bottle warmers. I survived with the smallest collection of clothes you've ever seen and actually had to wash underwear whilst on holiday.  I hate that.  The things you do when you have children!

And now; when the two girls are 6 and 3 years old respectively, I find myself packing strawberry flavoured straws, because recently they have moved onto milk with additional strawberry or vanilla flavouring added.  Just like you can add blackcurrent cordial to water, you can now add strawberry, vanilla or chocolate flavouring to milk. My girls love it.  At home it comes in bottles, just like cordial, so I didn't intend to take any with me.  But then, my husband discovered these straws.

He found them in Sainsburys.  They are plastic straws that have been pinched at each end; just enough to hold in small pink balls of flavouring; but not enough to stop the ability to suck milk through the straw.  So you simply take a straw out of the packet of five, pop it in your milk and drink through it.  The milk picks up the flavour as it passes through the straw.  I have no idea what ingredients are in them and I strongly suspect it's not the healthiest collection of ingredients ever.  But I'm under no illusions; these are a treat.

Very clever; and a lovely way to bring a little piece of home to our holiday breakfasts.  They don't take up much room in the case either! More room for maxi-dresses!


This is not a sponsored post.  It is purely me, sharing the products I love!  I have received no benefits or payment to recommend this product.

Baby kit I just can't do without!

There's one particular gadget that we just can't do without in our household.  We have two of them (one per child) and I'm tempted to purchase another two (one for the bathroom and one for the landing).  Each one is branded with whatever your choice of current favourite TV show might be (we have "In the Night Garden") or a particular range (and "Farmyard friends".)  They are very child safe.  Can be dropped on numerous occasions and still seem to work.  They are chargeable, but then wireless.

Has anyone guessed yet?

They are torch-style night lights.  Or night lights that transform into torches?  Click here to see an example!  Essentially they are chargeable cone shaped torches that sit, upside down, on a round base.  The light is low enough to be perfect for night time, but bright enough to facilitate a nappy change should one be required.

Because they are completely portable you can put them anywhere, and the kids can pick them up and move around safely at night.

Genius invention.  So I thought I'd share.

Discovered another one this week too.  Little straps to hold babies socks on!  Too late for me, but enjoy!

Baby Products - The Best Twin Buggy? A Phil & Ted

I'm still completely in love with my Phil & Ted buggy (with doubles kit!), and I'm starting to mourn it's inevitable loss. My daughters are growing up so fast, I'm fairly sure I won't be able to use it for both of them much longer. I still keep the back seat attached, even when I don't need it for a second child, because, quite frankly, why carry your shopping when it can sit in a seat?

The buggy is our third one. The first was a travel system. Detachable car seat, various seat settings. It was Mothercare's Trenton Deluxe, with glove compartment and temperature gauge. I kid not. It was fantastic. The second was a lightweight basic buggy (for holidays - Mamas n Paps). Then we had a second child, when the first still couldn't walk for very long without lifting her arms up to be carried; have you noticed that they stop even asking to be picked up; they think the arm gesture is enough; and we looked for an appropriate buggy.

The Phil & Ted was the only buggy system for siblings about 2 years apart. A twin buggy, without the twin buggy wheelbase. In fact it's no bigger than most singles.

I love it.

Do you think I could still use it when both of them are too big? Maybe sit a doll in the baby seat and pretend, just so I have space for the shopping!?