Review - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Jigsaw

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been popular since the 1980's it has had peaks in its popularity throughout my childhood and now it is popular again.

The fun story of mutant turtles fighting crime is one that appeals to children from all generations, with lots of toys and themed products to match the new release of TV episodes which are currently showing on Nickelodeon. Its easy to see why children love these turtle heros.

We were sent a Ravensburger Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Jigsaw puzzle to have a look at.

This puzzle is aimed at children aged around 8 years old, it has 200 pieces and once complete is approx 36 x 49 cm which is a lovely size.

The picture depicts all four of the turtles along with the baddies including Shredder!

This puzzle is great quality like all Ravensburger jigsaws and it really is a perfect boredom buster for those horrible rainy days.

My 6 year old enjoyed having a good go at completing this puzzle and managed with my help, but the age of 8 is about right if you want them to complete this alone. The pieces are around 2 cm each and there is a large dark area on this puzzle making it slightly harder than some others in the ravensburger range.

If you have a Turtle fan this would be perfect present, something that will be enjoyed and after you have finished you could even glue it and hang it on the wall.

We really loved this puzzle and its one we have redone several times. Why not pop over to Ravensburger Puzzle club to see all the other puzzles being reviewed. And Follow Ravensburger on Twitter to be kept upto date with new releases and competitions.

Silent Sunday

Blogging...

Today I was supposed to be at Birmingham Blog Summit, with lots of other wonderful bloggers,  meeting new people, getting to know the real people behind the blogs and learning new things too.
 
But then sometimes things don't go to plan, this week has been full of sickness first Jake then Mikey and then this morning myself too. So I haven't been able to attend the Tots100 blogsummit.

Not being able to attend and listen to those in the know got me thinking. What was I hoping to gain from the Blogsummit anyway? Of course I wanted to simply be there to see what it was all about, to meet up with those who I interact with online but have never actually met face to face, but also I was quite looking forward to learning a thing or two as well.

Blogging is an amazing hobby, it's the one thing I love doing, I love reading other blogs, I love taking photos to share on my blog and reviewing products making videos and of course the perks from the paid posts too.

But I quite often feel like I have no idea what I am doing!

I don't think I'm an amazing writer, yet blogging is based heavily on the written word, so I do want to try harder and write more.

But thats hard, my blog  is openly read by a whole manner of people, strangers as well as those nearest and dearest. Not only my family but people who I pass in the street, the childrens school friends too, so I do sometimes struggle to write openly about the ins and outs of life.

So what else can I write about?

I want to grow my blog, I want to forget about how other people blog and just do what I enjoy. But I want to be more consistent with posting, so that the people following my blog know what they are going to find when they come over here.

Although this may just be a wishful theory, in a hazey sickness filled mind, I want to try to organise myself, and what better way to do that than try to write up some form of a plan.  So to start the planning heres a bullet point list of where I would like my blog to go:

• I want to get back into Digital Scrapbooking, which I love but have left to the sidelines recently, I was thinking of hopefully posting up a Scrapbook Layout every Saturday.

Hopefully posting a digital scrp layout like this one above, with a photo taken that week, and a meaningful quote.

• I want to write more, so I thought maybe writing about something in the news that caught my eye might be a good way to do this.  One of the main things I seem to loose hours doing sometimes is flicking through various news stories, I mean to be getting on with more important things but then a story will catch my eye on my email homepage, or a link someone posts to facebook and then I'll find myself clicking from one news story to the next. I thought if I choose just one each week and write about it, it could be a national headline or just a local story, funny or thought provoking. Just whatever catches my eye. I hope this gives me a chance to  write  more, without having to worry to much about over sharing my personal life.

• I want to take more photographs - The main consistent thing I guess to my blog is the photos, I love taking photos, and I want to dedicate more time to actually taking really good photos, so I think I will join in more with photo linkys, maybe MacroMonday, or Wordless Wednesday and obviously get back into Silent Sunday posts, as over the past few months I have been slacking with everything blogging related and not stuck to posting my Sunday photograph. I also want to go back and visit some of the very inspirational photo blogs that I found a while ago but then never really had much time to join in with. Now with my new camera I really do want to focus more on getting better at photography.

• And Finally, I want to focus on videos. Now this one scares me slightly, and might not be one I tackle straight away, but it is something on my todo list. I do love my youtube channel, but in a love hate sort of way. I love that I am getting lots of views over there, but I am under no illusion that my videos are in anyway amazing, and I really really want to do more, try harder get better. I am not quite sure what on earth I want to make videos about, but I want to try to make more videos, something that isn't a review video... I'll still make reviews too, but I want to try to be more confident in making other videos as well.

Then obviously I will continue to blog the sporadic bits and bobs in between, still continue to review anything that catches my eye and post about the family moments I want to store and look back on.

Thats it, a bit of a plan maybe.. Lets see how it turns out.

Wholegrain Crisps from Walkers

Finding Healthy Snacks for children isn't always easy is it?  Like most children my three all have very different tastes and likes, and although they all are good eaters its sometimes hard to ensure they are getting a variety of everything they need.

With a huge amount of information around about what is and isn't good for you these days its often hard to find what really makes a healthy snack that children will actually want to eat with out too much fuss.

We recently received a packet of new Walkers Hoops and Crosses to review, which are a brand new baked whole grain snack, my three couldn't wait to tuck in so we took them along with us on a picnic with our cousins, however with 7 children the hoops and crosses were all ate before I even had chance to grab my  camera, every child loved them.

Luckily we were also sent an information booklet and a rather cute Monkey which I could photograph, so all was not lost.

Hoops and Crosses are made with  56% Wholegrain, which is recommended by experts as part of a healthy diet, but a staggering 27% of children in the UK don't actually get any at all.

Lots of products which children like such as white bread, pasta and white flour contain refined grain, which don't have the same health benefits of antioxidants found in the wheat germ. So its great to see a snack which children happily eat contain wholegrain with all the added benefits.

Because my three monkeys devoured the review sample we were sent, I sourced out more in my local Morrisons. Which has 6 packs of Hoops and Crosses available for £1 A real bargain,  so I topped up our snack cupboard and had a chance to try them myself.

As the name suggests they are shaped in Hoops and Crosses, I guess you could use them to play your very own game of tic tac toe, but really playing with food isn't always that practical, and bedsides these baked snacks are too morish to spend time not eating them!

They are very much like Monster Munch in texture. With three flavours to choose from Beef, Salt and Vinegar and Prawn Cocktail.

The flavours are quite strong which some children may not like as much as others, however all three of my children liked the Beef variety.  The Pawn Cocktail was not as popular with my younger two who are not kean on salty products generally but loved by my eldest (and dad!)

Overall  I really like these crisps and think that these wholegrain healthy snacks are great for lunchboxes or afternoon snacks at home so do look out for them in a supermarket near you especially when they offer great value at less than 20p a pack (although I am not sure how long the £1 for 6 pack offer will be available at Morrisons for )

We were sent one packet of Hoops and Crosses beef flavour to review along with Monty monkey and I received a payment to post on my blog - but all views are my own and we really do love them which is why I went and brought more myself!

Messing about in the River

For once the May Bank Holiday was gloriously sunny, in fact the whole weekend has been lovely weather which really does make a change British Bank Holidays are notoriously WET!

Saturday being Mikeys 6th birthday we spent the day opening presents eating cake and making up Lego.

Sunday we headed out with the cousins to Elvaston Castle.

We had a lovely day riding our bikes around the grounds, Elvaston Castle is a beautiful place. Keeping all 7 children entertained was somewhat of a challenge with only 5 bikes, which meant someone always was left behind!

But we managed to have a lovely day filled with ice cream and kite flying.

Then on Monday we headed for a walk down the river.

The sun shone and the temperature soared.

We had so much fun skimming stones, and paddling in the water.

Their is a lovely shallow weir too which the children thought was great being able to slide down the flowing water.

But then the fun ended as I dropped my faithful little camera into the water as I reached out to grab Chloe as she swooshed passed to prevent her going into the deeper river section.

I plucked it out of the river and quickly removed the battery and memory card and hoped for the best.

We dried ourselves and headed back to the park for a bit leaving my camera to dry out in the sun.

When we got home I tried the memory card in the card reader of my computer but it didn't read, I was gutted that I might have lost the photos and had little faith in the camera suddenly springing back to life.

My friends on facebook suggested leaving the camera and memory card in a bowl of rice for a few days, which I did. Thankfully this morning the memory card is working again, the camera however is still not coming on at all.

Being without a camera is like loosing my left arm! The camera I dropped was a little Olympus point and shoot camera which I got a couple of years ago for my birthday, it is a lovely little camera and I get some cracking photos on it, but I had been debating getting another camera for a while anyway.

So yesterday I looked through the offers in Argos and decided to treat myself to the Nikon CoolPix L810  Bridge camera.

It may be one of the simplest bridge cameras available but budget doesn't stretch to much more right now, Nikon gets great reviews plus it has a super zoom and from what I have seen so far I am impressed!

Here are a few photos I have taken so far just testing it out.

 

Learning about Nature with Living World Sets

We love being outdoors and love going on bug hunts and taking a close look at nature.
Being outdoors is so beneficial for children in so many ways, all the obvious fresh air, vitamin D and exercise but also there are so many things to learn and explore outside.

It doesn't matter if you live in the country or in the city you can still find lots of bugs and beasties to investigate, and if you are not sure where to start then why not take a look at the Living World sets.

These great box sets are designed for children and created by Nature expert Nick Barker. There are lots of different sets to choose from including ants, spiders, ladybirds and snails.

We were asked if we would like to review the Snail world.

Included in the set is a small clear tank with lid, a collection pot, tweezers and pipette to help with collecting your specimens and a field microscopic lens enabling you to see the creatures upclose. Everything you need to go an a real bug hunt in your garden.

Also included in the set is an information booklet. This booklet is full of child friendly bite sized bits of information. Beautifully illustrated with photos. The information is set out in a clear way with question and answer sections and diagrams of a snails anatomy. This is one of the best information booklets I have seen in a childs set and is something which all the children have enjoyed reading even before we set off to find out snails.

I have in the passed had an Ant World, and we had a bit of trouble with them, finding and keeping hundreds of ants inside your childrens bedroom isn't always so fun especially if the Tank gets knocked over!

But I do like Snails and we often find them in our garden and I enjoy watching them. I know snails can be a gardeners pest but I really do find them interesting and rather cute!

So as soon as the sun shined we set out into the garden to find some snails to join our tank.

We prepared the tank following the instructions in the leaflet and got some salad leaves for the snails.

The children quickly found a couple to take up home in the tank and spent a happy afternoon watching them.

This really is a great kit priced at £9.99 it would make a great gift for any budding naturalist, the extras are great and can be used for other species too making this a reusable set and good value for money. Once you have studied the snails you can set them free and go on a hunt to find other insects.

If you are looking for something to encourage children into the outdoors then check out the range on Interplays website : My Living World Then get outside and go on a bug hunt!

Growing up

6 years ago Mikey my youngest was born.

Joining our family making it complete.

In 6 years he has grown from a tiny baby into a lovely little boy.

He has took his place as the Joker of the family with his cheeky smile and constant on the go attitude

 yet he has a quite reserved side too.

He makes everyone laugh with his daredevil antics, fearless and energetic Mikey is always the one who is climbing and jumping off of the highest thing he can find.

6 whole years have passed it almost doesn't seem possible, I constantly look at my three children and wonder how on earth they got so old.

Now my youngest is 6, no longer a baby, nor a toddler not even a pre schooler. All three of my children are growing up and I love watching them find their way in the world.

Happy Birthday Mikey