Toy Story..

Toy Story has become a classic film hasn't it, it is one of them films all children love, its friendly characters that come to life is what every child imagines their toys to do.

There is a huge selection of Toys Story toys available, and we were lucky enough to be sent a Toy Story Buzz Lightyear to review as part of the toys R us toyologist programme.

This Buzz is The  Andys Toy Collection Space Ranger Buzz, it is one of the more expensive Buzz lightyears but you do get alot of features for your money. He retails around £49.99

He stands around 12 inches tall, and has amazing film accurate details, he has 2 modes of play, toy Buzz and Space Ranger mode.

He also has pop out wings, an opening command panel on his arm, laser and working helmet.


You select through the modes by pressing the buttons on the front of Buzz. In Toy buzz mode (small red button) Buss will say a select few statements, and his features make set noises.


However when you activate the Space Ranger mode (blue button) Buzz comes alive. In this mode he moves his head and talks in the real movie voice. He also interacts with all his features, making various statements depending on what you do, for example he will say thank you for closing his helmet, or tell you off for opening it! He will ask to go on an adventure when you pop out his wings. But whats more in Space Ranger mode he will also listen to you, and respond when you speak, if you shout at him he will tell you there is no need to raise your voice! There are so many features to this Buzz lightyear and he comes out with so many different phrases it really does make him seem real!

Another great feature is  in Space Ranger mode when you pop out his wings they light up, and he makes a special flying noise as you move him around, he can tell when he is flying or when you stand him up. My youngest loves this feature!

The box that Buzz comes in is a cardboard box, it does come with two cardboard wings, however I did not attach these myself as I thought it would be rather flimsy, but if you wanted to you could add these and turn the box into a spaceship which I guess is a nice feature. There is also a certificate of authenticity which comes with this Buzz which is a lovely added touch.

Buzz comes in a Demo mode, so when you receive him you have to remember to switch him into the ON mode which is found under his body section. If you don't select the full ON mode you won't benefit from all his features.

He takes 3 x AA batteries but they are already installed and should last a good while


This is a really great Buzz lightyear, and although he is one of the more expensive Buzz toys he certainly has plenty of features to keep you entertained and occupied. He cane be purchased now online at Toys R us here: Buzz Lightyear


heres a video review.

Red Rover

We were sent Red Rover to Review as part of the Toys R us UK Toyologists. Red Rover is a great game for preschool children to help teach them the basic colour, shape and number recognition.

He is a cute Red dog, who asks you to bring him certain bones, rewarding you with funny phrases when you do.

The Idea of this game is a simple one but it is sure to be a hit, there are several ways you could play this,

The concept is to spread out the bones on the floor white side up, so you can not see the letters, colours or numbers on the bones, then Red Rover calls out what he'd like you to bring over to him, the players all have to turn over the bones until someone finds the correct bone, which they then take to place in Red Rovers mouth, and he'll say if it is correct or not, then after a few seconds he'll call out the next bone he wants you to find.

There are two programmed modes, puppy and big dog, the only difference between the two is that Big Dog incorporates the full 12 bones, where as in Puppy play mode Red Rover will only ask for numbers 1, 2 and 3, and letters A, B and C.

Because there is only 12 bones this is really best suited to the younger children, but for older ones you could use it more as a memory game and only allow them to turn over one bone each turn so they have to try and remember where the bones were originally set.

Because of the very cute nature to this it does appeal to all ages and because you can adapt the game to suit the age of the children it is a perfect game to add to your collection.

And when you have finished Playing with Red Rover all his bones fit neatly into his backpack, which is a great feature keeping them safe and tidy whilst not in use.

Priced at £19.99 Red Rover would make a lovely present for any boys or girls this Christmas and is a sure way to get the whole family playing together. you can buy him online at Toys R us now here: Red Rover

Heres our video review.

Silent Sunday

 

I took this when participating in Photoboxs 24LIVE great fun heres my other photos that I managed to enter

Saturday is Caption Day!

I've just spent a good chunk of the past 24 hours participating in the amazing Photobox 24LIVE event on their facebook page, and how fab it has been really made me think about my photos and was such fun watching others attempts at the challenges and trying to come up with something in the one hour time slot.. I went to bed around 2.30am cutting short the 24 hour stint, but well done to anyone else who completed all the challenges!!

Anyway Saturday is caption day, and seems as I have a nice selection of photos to use now thanks to photobox can you help me Caption this?

 

and then pop on over to Mammasauras and see the other great photos to caption!

Breaking Traditions?

In one weeks time it will be the start of Advent, December 1st, the count down to Christmas.

Children everywhere will be getting giddy with excitement as they wait for the arrival of Santa Claus, singing carols in school, dressing up for the school performance, mums and dads will be bustling around desperately trying to make sure everything is sorted and ready.

The preparations for many has already begun, as I walk to school I can already see Christmas trees appearing behind the net curtains in some of the windows, as I walk through the town center the Christmas lights are hanging off the shop roofs, the stores playing Christmas music and staff piling chocolate selection boxes on the shelves, and today I was drawn into the spirit and came home with these cute critters.

well it is only 1 week and we will all be officially on the run upto Christmas, always marked with advent calenders, children up and down the country will be opening up a door on an advent calender, the shops are selling the chocolate calenders in their hundreds, you can get Character ones, festive ones even dog treat ones for the beloved pet!

It gets me thinking though, when I was growing up I never not once had a chocolate advent calender, my Gran always brought me and my sister a picture calender, each year a different scene sometimes it would be a traditional snow scene, or others a cute hedgehog in a Santa hat, but either way there wasn't ever any chocolate, I remember going to school and all the children sharing what chocolate token they had woken up too, I do remember thinking I wish I had a chocolate advent calender, but it was never overly important, I did love to see the pictures appear on the traditional calenders my Gran brought us, and as the years went on they become a real tradition for us as a family, I remmeber my friends mum buying me a chocolate advent calender for the first time when I was a teenager,  when I left home and had my own children I didn't know which way to go, for the first few years when they were young I didn't really have any advent calenders at all, my mum tried hard to find paper calenders but they seem increasingly difficult to find, then my neighbour brought my children Chocolate advent calenders one year, they were only young maybe 3 or 4. They were delighted. The following year again I resisted purchasing a chocolate advent calender but on the 1st of December my son came home from school asking why he didn't have a chocolate calender so I quickly scurried off to try and find one, not wanting him to be the odd one out, and the years since I have always gone with the flow and brought them chocolate ones.

This year my mum has found out my grans hand made felt stockings, which I am going to string together to make a fabric advent calender, However I have also been persuaded into buying a chocolate cadburys calender for my three, by my youngest whos learnt the art of pester power down to a tee, and I struggle now they have had them in previous years to change that, so the wonderful tradition of having only paper calenders has sadly been lost.

I loved the fact my Gran stuck hard and fast to the paper versions never deviating and no matter where she had to go to find them she would always get them, we may have secretly wished at the time that she hadn't and we could have nagged our mum into getting us an 'ordinary' chocolate variety, but now looking back those paper calenders are a huge part of my Christmas memories, and maybe I should have tried harder to stick to my Grans NO CHOCOLATE rule and continue the tradition.

What do you use to count down to Christmas? do you always give in to the pester power and have a chocolate advent calender? or do you have another family tradition on the run up to Christmas?


There are some lovely calenders around like this wooden tree from Next,  which could become a lovely new family tradition, do you think the children would be happy with that or do you think they would still long to have the same as so many of their friends?

Poppet!

Poppet reminds me of something a kind old lady says, but to the youngsters of today Poppet may be better known of the little pink monster from the new playground craze Moshi Monsters.

I have heard of these little monsters, quite a while ago my children started to get interested in them after their school friends were all talking about them, So what exactly is Moshi Monsters? well Moshi Monsters like most childrens playground crazes are collectible cards.

Which you can purchase from several newsagents  or high street stores, these packs of cards are pretty much like all the other collector card series that seem to pop up on and off and our children just have to have!

You can purchase a pack of  MoshiMonster trading cards for about 80p and for that you get 6 cards, you never know for sure what cards you will get so like with most trading cards you always end up with multiple cards, and children get upset in the playground when they loose the majority of their 'good' cards in a poor trade!

But Moshi Monsters is more than just a playground card trading series, there is so much more to these unusual little monster characters, they have their very own virtual world, where your child can adopt their very own moshi monster, and play online games to earn rox which is the in game currency used to purchase additional items for their monster, it is a free to play game but there are certain features that need a paid membership to unlock (very much like Club penguin) and if thats not enough to satisfy your childs hunger for these little monsters there is loads of other merchandise, like with the trading cards you can get 'moshlings' which are collectible miniature figures, these are priced around £2 for a pack of 2, and again like the cards you are never quite sure what figures you will receive in the pack.

I am never over kean on this sort of collection like with the lego mini figures, they are pocket money priced but always seem to be a slight waste of money, as you are just not sure which figures you will receive, and for this reason I don't actively encourage the purchase of these figures, but have surcumed to the pester power a few times and ended up purchasing several of  both the cards and the moshling figures, all of which now get left mainly untouched on Chloes Bedroom shelf.

However there is a huge selection of other various sized toys to go along with the Moshi Monsters Brand, which come in various shapes and sizes but at least with these toys you know exactly what you are getting before you purchase them, and thats where Poppet Mosh and Chat, comes in, we were sent Poppet to review as part of the Toys R us UK  toyologist program.

Poppet is one of the more popular Moshi Monsters, a Pink cute looking monster, Unlike the trading mini figures, Poppet Mosh and Chat is rather large soft and quite cuddly, for any Moshi Monster fan I'm sure they would love to add her to their collection.

Poppet talks, she can say her name, but other than that its all moshi language, which to your or me is gobbeldygook! 

Poppet takes 3 x AAA batteries which come supplied, and the box has simple instructions on the base,

I was abit unsure about her ability to actually respond, she seems to randomly butt in when your talking, She also has a room guard mode, which is activated via pressing her tummy, however because you also activate the giggle sound when pressing her tummy it can be abit tricky to get her in the room guard mode. Once in the room guard mode, she does seem to pick up movement quite well.

Chloe liked Poppet she is cute and soft and cuddly, and a familiar character which will appeal to a good percent of school aged children, but other than that I found her difficult to control and was never quite sure which mode she was in, the chat mode or room guard mode, but maybe that was me not understand her moshi language!

Priced at a little over £20 this is obviously one of the higher priced Moshi Monster toys, and I'm sure a fan would appreciate her however I'm not sure if it would be worth purchasing this for someone who was not interested in the rest of the Moshi Monsters range.

Imaginext Batcave

When we received the Imaginext Batcave in our Toys R us toyology box My boys were thrilled, I have heard of the Imaginext range by Fisherprice but never brought any for my boys.

Imaginext is a range of bright coloured plastic role play toys, aimed at children aged 3 and over, there are several themes in the range including space shuttles, fire engines, and super heros!

One of the features of this range of toys is the figures all have the same shaped legs which fit into the various activation points. Once on the set points the figures can be turned to open doors, lower lifts and really expand the play.

Because the toys are solid plastic they are sturdy and don't have lots of individual pieces which will get lost or broken.

The new 2011 Batcave is a great design, it has so many interactive features, doors that open, an elevator, a functional telescope and a firing missile to name a few.

The main batcave is one solid plastic piece which is an impressive size, standing at about 60cm tall it is a perfect size for young boys with plenty of space to maneuver the figures around.

In the set you receive two figures, Batman himself and his famous sidekick Robin, you also get a batcycle, which Batman doesn't really fit in but Robin does, however neither figures reach the handle bars.They do however have grippable hands which can hold the supplied weapons.

There is also a batman logo which lights up on the front of the cave which is a nice added feature, this takes 2 x AAA batteries, which come supplied and has an automatic turn off feature after just a few seconds so the batteries are likely to last for a long time.

This really is a lovely set, the recommended age range is 4 and above but really this would be perfect for any age, I'm sure the younger children would get alot of enjoyment from this and with its quality it is bound to be a toy which lasts years.

There are also lots of additional characters and play sets in the Batman Imaginext range including the bad guy Joker and various Batmobile cars to further your adventures.

This is a lovely set, and although it is quite pricey you do get an impressive toy which has so many features it really does keep everyone happily entertained for hours.

These Batcaves are proving to be hugely popular but Toys R us have some stock today 25th November online found here : Batcave how long they will remain in stock however I can't say...

here's a video to give you  a closer look.

The Gallery - I'm proud of..

This weeks Tara over at Sticky Fingers has given us a great blog prompt of 'Something you're proud of'

I have sat n pondered this for the last half hour, I could go with the obvious things my children I am proud of them obviously, I am proud of how they coped when we had to move, leaving everything they knew behind, I'm proud of how they have made new friends and how they try there best (well most of the time) I'm proud of them for being themselves and being such great individual characters.

I'm proud of  how me and my other half have stuck together through good times and bad, I'm proud of my photos, my digital scrapbooks I make and yes I'm proud of this blog.

I'm proud of being apart of Homestart, being apart of something that is such a huge benefit to so many people.

 I guess you could say I'm proud of myself.

I don't have perfect hair, or good fashion sence, I don't wear makeup or earn thousands of pounds, but I try my best, I hope I'm instiling good morals in my children and creating memories for them to be happy with. I don't get things right all the time but thats fine too. Yes, I'm proud of just being myself - so this is my Gallery Picture this week...  me, as I am most days, no straightened hair, or posh clothes no fancy air brushing, just myself.

Silent Sunday

Big Fun - Big Games Great Christmas ideas!

As Christmas approaches we all start to think what could we get the children that will look impressive on Christmas morning, but also be well loved and played with through out the year. Well I think BigGameHunters could make that decision a little easier!

We were contacted recently by Playhouse.co.uk asking if we'd like to review a princess play tent, after agreeing we were sent confirmation of order and delivery emails keeping us right up to date with the order process and delivery expected date.

Big Game hunters are a dedicated team who are passionate about providing outdoor family fun in a large way!

They stock so many wonderful items such as Giant garden games, Trampolines, wooden play houses and play tents to name a few, the products are all ergonomically designed to give the user the maximum quality and durability, and are thoroughly tested to ensure only the best quality items are stocked.

So we received the Princess play tent, it is a simply beautiful tent, and the quality is truly exceptional, the frame is made from a series of wooden poles which fit together perfectly there are also screws to secure which come supplied but if you are planning on moving the tent then you do not need these, as it is definitely sturdy without.

The outer canvas of the play tent is a thick pink princess design, with beautiful flower details, a door and two windows, with Velcro fastenings so the windows and doors can be shut or opened,  perfect for every princess wanting her own little hiding place!

This tent is large and covers approximately 125cm square on the floor and is approximately 175cm high

The canvas is waterproof so it is perfect to set up outside in the summer months and will withstand the showers, but it isn't recommended to be left out all through the winter.

This is truly an exceptional play tent and as far as quality goes this is top of the range, far superior to the cheaper play tents on the market, and if you are after a tent which is sure to last years and be a favourite place for all little princesses then this is definitely one to keep in mind, and if you have little boys then BigGameHunters do amazing WigWams too!

We have given Our Princess PlayTent to my nieces who are 4 and 5 and at that age when they love role play and making secret hiding places, I will get some Photos of them in it as soon as possible and share them then, it fits beautifully in their pink and purple bedroom and their mum is over the moon with it!

If you are looking for that one special present this Christmas then I would take a look at the wonderful range of products from big game hunters found on their website here:
BigGameHunters : Gardengames.co.uk
 I think a play tent for the little princess and a wigwam for the boys would certainly be loved and played with by all children inside in a playroom or outside in the summer, priced between £49.99 and £79.99 these would make that perfect special Christmas gift which certainly are impressive and would make any childs eyes light up with joy if they saw one of these set up on Christmas morning!

Or if you are looking for that something abit special for the older ones this Christmas This amazing Giant Chess set has caught my eye my eldest has just taking a great interest in Chess and this looks like a great set which the whole family could enjoy!

(we were supplied the princess play tent, but were not told what to included in this post and as always my opnions and thoughts are my own)

Saturday Is Caption Day

Saturday is Caption Day! So why not join in what would you caption this photo with?

Then pop over to Mammasauras Blog and see all the other photos this week!

Being Creative.

Christmas is everywhere, everyone seems to be starting to get festive, Christmas TV adverts, Christmas displays in all the shops even Santas coming to local towns to visit the children.

Today a friend of mine asked me if I could edit her a photo for her to print out on her Christmas Cards, so I opened Paint Shop Pro for the first time in months.

For those who don't know Paint Shop Pro is a great editing program and with it you can do a whole manner of things. Over the past years I have self taught how to make graphical designs and digital scrap pages, or tags/signatures as some people call them, but recently I have neglected this and haven't spent any time on it at all.


I have always loved the wonderful designs both real and virtual scrapbooks create and I could spend hours looking at the wonderful designs that others make, although I have never actually tried to make a real scrapbook with paper and scissors.


However I have loved making digital scrapbook pages over the years, so it was a real nice change to spend some time in Paint Shop Pro this evening happily editing away.

Basically what digital scrapbooking is, is where you cut out photos in a editing program such as paint shop pro, and you place elements around the photos in the same sort of way as you would with real life scrapbooks.

So here is the first Digital Scrap page I have made in far too long, I am hoping to try and dedicate abit of time each week to get back into digital scrapbooking as I do really enjoy it.

Credits: Kit I used is

"The magic of Christmas" by Thaliris designs.

From Digital Crea

Name a Moose!

Everyone with Children will have at some point come across Sudocrem, it is one of them products that is a household name, everyone will have seen it at some point and used it more than once.
It's been helping to sooth and relieve nappy rash for nearly 80 years so its not surprising it is a household name!

But next year the Sudocrem range will include a brand new product and with it they have a new mascot and need your help to give him a name.

So everyone meet the Sudocrem Mousse!

Sudocrem want every ones help in finding the perfect name for their new mascot, and as a thank you for helping name the Moose they are giving away £500 of Toys R us Vouchers in time for Christmas and a Personalized Santa Sack worth £150

So what are you waiting for get over to the Sudocrem Mousse Facebook page now and Name that Moose!


Instructions on how to enter:
It’s simple all you have to do is ‘Like’ the new Facebook page and then enter your suggested mascot’s name. One lucky winner will be picked on the 21^st December 2011 and receive their prizes shortly afterwards.
Competition Start Date– 18^th November 2011
Competition Finish Date– 17^th December 2011
Competition winners announced– 20^th December 2011
The Prize: £500 worth of Toys R Us vouchers and a personalised, handmade Santa sack worth £150.
Competition found on; http://www.facebook.com/SudocremMousse

School Holidays - love or loath?

This morning as I rushed around manically trying to find the school uniform (must start to organize things the night before) and gather up book bags BBC breakfast was on in the background and It was talking about school holidays and how the long 6 weeks summer holidays may be shortened.

I stopped for a minute and tried to concentrate on what was being said  the lady (sorry cant remember her name) from Netmums was arguing that the 6 weeks is great, the bloke on the show (again cant remember his name (well it was early and I did have breakfast bowl to collect up and uniform to organize!) was arguing that the 6 week break is indeed too long and can create a larger rich - poor class divide.

 I do genuinely LOVE the long summer break, it doesn't seem to drag and I am always happy for it to start and reluctant to accept its coming to an end when they have to be all back in school love having lazy mornings and not having the struggle of doing homework in the evenings. I love being able to go places and do things on a whim rather than having to plan everything into the weekends. I love letting the children just be children!

I understand having such a long summer break gives working families a difficult time trying to organize and arrange affordable child care, and I'm lucky that we work from home, but I  also understand that children spending a long time away from education means they can forget and thus means the first few weeks back into school the teachers are doing catch up bringing the children back upto speed again, and I'm not too good at making sure the holidays are filled with educational benefit, more so we use them to just unwind which is probably making the problem of  them 'forgetting' certain things all the more present. So I really do sit on the fence with this one. Personally I probably would be abit sad to see the end of the six week school summer holidays, but if it meant having longer off in the winter, well then I guess it might make things better all round

I know I wouldn't say no to a longer Christmas break I have always thought 2 weeks at Christmas isn't long enough. The cold dark winter mornings never make me excited to be jumping up and get the children packed off to school.

So what do you think of the long Summer holidays, Love them or Loath them?

Win Great Orchard Toys Family Games!

As you will be aware we're coming to the end of our Toys R us Toyologist 2011 journey and we've had the most amazing time. 

And to celebrate the end of the year and as it's coming up to Christmas we're running a competition for you to win not 1 but 2 fab Orchard toy Games, 

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes on sale from Toys R us here

 and Pirate Snakes and Ladders on sale from ToysRus here

Orchard Toys make such amazing Quality games which are such to be a massive hit for everyone in the family, these two great games give you something suitable for the younger ones and the older children alike. The bright colourful designs of Orchard toys make them a firm favourite.

And especially over the winter months its lovely to have some games to occupy the children.

If you would like to have these under your Christmas Tree or to give to friends and family this year then all you have to do is  Pop over to the Toys R us Facebook page found here: ToysRus UK and my facebook page found here: Thisisme- Sarahmumof3

then return back here and leave me a comment saying you have done so.

Please ensure there is a way to contact you in your comment, or alternatively email me Sarahdazjc@aol.com

Want an additional Entry or two?

Then follow ToysRus on twitter found here: @TRUToylogists and follow me found here: @sarahdazjc

then Tweet the following (copy and paste it into your Twitter tweet box):

I've entered to win some fab family games with @TRUtoyologists and @sarahdazjc

So why dont you too:  http://bit.ly/vfctPH

Closing Date will be the 28th November 2011 winner will be picked at random and  notified the next day I will require delivery address as soon as possible after I contact you to ensure speedy delivery before Christmas


UK entries only please 


Thank you and Good Luck

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you like this competition then be sure to check out the other Toyologists who have great competitions running right now:


TheBoyAndMe <--Orchard game
PreciousMemories <---moon dough and orchard toy
Inside the Wendy House<--crazychef game
James Spence<--Patchy Doll
The Crazy Kitchen<--Orchard Toys
Adventures of an English Mum <--Pinypon set

Ring ring - Don't get the phone!!

I am not really a fan of phones, I don't overly like talking on them, and much prefer emails to a phone conversation, and as such our house phone gets very little use, and my mobile looks like something out of the ark, with its broken scratched screen and battery compartment that keeps flipping out, it doesn't receive voice mail messages very well and does nothing fancy which would make me want to use it more often, it literally only accepts incoming calls other than that it is all round useless but thats fine because everyone I need to contact can be done via the good old Internet.

So when our house phone rings I normally ignore it, not many people have the house phone number, and we have caller display and a answer machine should anyone important ring I can see and ring them back.

Annoyingly the house phone rings most often with a 02084 number which leads to a survey marketing company wanting me to part take in market research of some form or other, another common number is 019 or 020 numbers such as 01902670716 and 02030266482 now to me these phone numbers get no answer and no response, however yesterday I received a phone call which I did answer.. from my Grandad, upset and confused.

My Gran and Grandad are in their late 70's and struggle with certain things one being their memory is not that great. My gran is one of those sort of extremely nice people, who will try to do anything for anyone, and unfortunately this makes her abit naive. My Gran and my Grandad both have a laptop, my Grandad is actually pretty good and can do all sorts of things with his, however my Gran just isn't that interested so she never switches hers on. So yesterday my Grandad had been outside for a little while, then came back in to find my Gran on the phone.. and her laptop, confused he asked her what she was doing, she replied a man had rang up saying they had a problem with there computer! Luckily my Grandad took the phone off my Gran and asked who it was, and what they wanted, the Indian man replied he wanted to fix their computers as they had error reports from Microsoft or something to that effect, my Grandad told him that he would not follow the instructions when he tried telling him to go onto his computer, and put the phone down. Thankfully that prevented my Grandads laptop from having any problems, my Gran however being more trusting had followed this mans instructions and in doing so has managed to download corrupted software on her system which is now telling her she has x y and z virus and she needs to purchase additional protection... which is exactly what the Indian man wanted to happen, by following his instructions you have allowed access to his program, which now loads and tells you of these virus' the scam is they hope then you pay them to clean your system.. which was of cause completely virus free before the phone call! The other worrying thing they do is add tracking software to your machine so that after you follow their instructions every time you use your computer you are sending them your information so if you go into a website and say pay for an item, then you have sent them your card details...

It makes my blood boil that these people target the elderly and vunerable, those who are the most kindhearted and trusting. So if you know of anyone who may be easy persuaded to believe what they say please please tell them that Microsoft will NEVER call you with problems with your computer... and if you receive any calls from anyone saying please switch on your computer and follow these instructions please please tell them you'll do no such thing and put the phone down!

Of cause its not just this sort of scam that is targeting vunerable people, the standard cold callers who will charge you an arm and a leg for something potentially useless that you did not want, target those most vunerable, and I will do another post about my experience with one such company!

Most people have caller display the easiest option is simply not to answer calls from numbers you do not recognize, however again the elderly and vunerable are the ones who most often will not follow this advice, My gran has caller display but I don't think she understands and as she suffers with arthritis her movements are slow so it often takes her long a while to reach the phone and by which point stopping for extra time to look at the number (and with her sight not being too good either) she normally doesn't bother checking the caller display, so it is really important those who do not check the caller display are made aware of this scam. I later rang my mum to tell her what had happened to my Grandad and she had also received a call from an Indian man saying similar things, luckily she also put the phone down, but how often do people believe them? Lets make everyone aware of this.

Please pass this on to all your friends and prevent these scammers getting money out of your vunerable friends and family.

Time flies when your having fun!

aint that the truth! It hardly seems like two minutes ago when I wrote this post : Yay!! We made it!
way back in May... a whole 6 months ago and what an amazing 6 months its been.

Back on the 16th of May myself and several others waited patiently (or not so patiently as I seem to remember!) for Geoffrey and the Team at Toys R Us to announce the news of who the 2011 Toyologist would be. Whilst I sat there on that Monday Morning I didn't know what was about to start and the journey we have been on in the past 6 months has been truly amazing.

Being apart of the Toys R us Toyologist team gave me a reason to stick with this blog, and gave us an a perfect opportunity to spend family time together giving new toys a good thorougher testing!

Not only that, but being apart of the Toyologist team has meant I have got to know some other amazing bloggers, and also given me the chance to pass on toys to friends family and neighbours.

It's been amazing and now I can't wait to give the latest and last box of Toyologist Toys a good testing to help with all those Christmas decisions.

I will also have a Competition posting within the next few days to win not 1 but 2 amazing family fun packed games! So keep your eyes peeled for that!

A great big THANKS to all the Toys R us Toyologist team we have had the best time!

Laughing Dog

As you will all be aware we have a beautiful 1 year old Boxer dog - Jackson, who is a huge part of our family, he is the one who is always around when you need a hug, the one who wakes up with a smile on his face and no matter whats happening in the world he is always pleased to see you and appreciative of your attention, and its these reasons that dogs become much more than just pets and hold such a huge space in our hearts.

 Jackson is the sort of dog who needs to see whats happening, he is the one who leads the children into the muddy puddles and makes them laugh so much as his ears flap along as he bounces down the woody footpaths.

Of cause with him being such a huge part of our family he is always trying to get involved in the reviews we do, you may often catch a glimpse of his tail in the background of the photos, or even see him in the background of a good majority of the videos I post, he is always there keeping his eye on what we're upto giving everything we are sent his seal of approval as much as the children do.

So when Laughing Dog said they would send us some of their range to test Jackson was understandably happy!

There are so many dog food brands, so many different styles of food, back when I was younger we had dogs, and I can't ever remember my mum wondering what to feed them, it was always the same. Always a tin of slimy meat that smelt horrid!  Now however you see dog food everywhere there is all sorts of different styles and types, different treats and flavours, The cans of meat obviously are still there but there is a whole range of other styles your dog can enjoy, and like with our own food dog food can have the added benefit of being made in England, sourced locally and cooked in various ways to add to its flavour.

Also, as with humans,  dogs can have allergies and be sensitive to various things, My friend has recently discovered her dog has an allergy to practically everything except Fish and Rice. With us all having such a connection to our dog its not surprising really that more and more care and attention is being put into making sure companies produces better and better food for them.

So I was interested to read that Laughing dog food is all sourced in England on a farm in Lincolnshire, using all naturally produced ingredients grown on the farm. Whats more Laughing dog food is baked which adds to its flavour.

The first thing that struck me when we opened the pack of Adult Complete Chicken food was that it was a selection of roughly cut up pieces, not at all like the majority of dry dog food which is all perfectly regular pieces, these irregular pieces mean they take that bit longer for the dog to eat, so if you have a greedy dog who tends to hardly taste the food because they bolt the food down, then this is great, it increases the need to chew and thus help with the dogs digestive system. The other great thing with Laughing dog food is that it has been  Oven baked, to make sure that the maximum amount of flavour and goodness is kept in the food.

Jackson is however not a greedy eater, and tends to pick at his food anyway, with him being an only dog we leave his food down and he eats it throughout the day, he really enjoyed Laughing Dog so it obviously tastes good!

Laughing dog also do a whole range of treats including :Cheese Oats  and Dental Oaties along with a range of mixers all of which are produced to the same high standards I would expect from this great family ran business.

But not only that Laughing dog have a whole host of great information on their site and also run brilliant competitions so us owners can get involved. They have a photo contest running at the moment where you can win a 15kg bag of Laughing Dog so you can see the exceptional quality for yourself,  its well worth popping over to their website and taking a look they have a lovely community of dog lovers which includes a great Facebook page found here: LaughingDog and a twitter account here : @reeflaughingdog
So lots of ways to interact and get involved with this great company the food they produce is a really high standard and is supreme quality, getting the big Paws up from us!