13/05/2015 by jo

Plasticine

I’m a child of the seventies, and for a large part of that time my creative play revolved around plasticine. Seventies plasticine was the kind which didn’t mix into nice colours, and just went brown. Thankfully, things have changed. We have been sent a selection of Plasticine goodies to see what we think.

Plasticine brings back so many memories for me – I remember getting pots full of various colours back when I was young and making loads of things until you couldn’t use the stuff any more. These days things have improved.

The first, most important thing is that Plasticine does not dry out! I wish we’d had some when some friends stayed over earlier this year. Our friend made an elephant head with that similar other stuff that begins with P, but after a week it was crusty and dry – and eventually it had to be thrown away which was sad.

The second thing which is also very important, you can blend Plasticine together really easily to mix colours. We put this to the test when H made a Squidgems Donatello Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle model (rrp £1.49) – which came with really easy to follow instructions. Mixing the brown and green for the shell brings out a great shade – see the pictures above.

Next we put the Plasticine to the test with an Animal Creations kit (rrp approx £4) – you add various colours to parts of the plastic legs, tail and head, then blend what is left to make the body. We got a dog and H really wanted to copy the picture on the box – it could have done to be a little bit bigger (my poor eyesight there), but H still got on with it and was pleased with the results.

The thing which appeals the most to me about the Plasticine range we were sent is how affordable it is. H enjoys doing crafty things and liked trying out the range we were sent. We still have some packs to work through, but I know she will have lots of fun – the Fluro (rrp £1.99) looks bright and good for working with, and the Basix range (rrp £0.99) is a perfect pocket money price and a good starter point.

Something we weren’t sent but that caught my eye was this fabulous Morph plasticine kit – after all, who wouldn’t want to make their own Morph? That’s the beauty of Plasticine – there’s such a big range you can make whatever you want!

We were also sent the Funtubulous (rrp £6.99) – a tub full of Plasticine and some cutters – we haven’t played with this properly yet, but I know it’s something H will enjoy playing with a lot – probably to make me all kinds of ‘delicious’ food… I like that the kits come with tools which help with modelling. H is rediscovering her love of making things!

We were sent a fine selection of Plasticine products for the purpose of review. All opinions are our own.

10/05/201510/05/2015 by jo

Petits Filous Magic Squares

Today was the ‘Rainbows Go Global’ day for our county Rainbows group, one which has left H and I exhausted. When we got home our food was made for us, placed in front of us and we opened our mouths at the correct time to eat it. Tired would be an understatement. When it came to pudding, H insisted on having ice cream. I was having none of it as I didn’t want to load her up with sugar. Which is where I patted myself on the back at my foresight – I made some Lego Lollies using Petits Filous Magic Squares!

Petits Filous Magic Squares are new, available in Strawberry & Vanilla and Raspberry & Vanilla flavours, with a square of each in each corner. We’re a yoghurt loving family, so when it gets to this time of year I tend to get the lolly moulds doing what they’re meant to. I’ve found fruit juice isn’t playing ball at all right now, but yoghurt works a treat.

Which is where the Petits Filous Magic Squares come into it. One scoop of pink for the feet, a blob of yellow for the trousers, pink for the top, and yellow for the head, then expect a bit of a merge of colours in there somewhere – it’s inevitable. I’m not *that* tidy.

So actually, when H demanded ice cream, I offered her a Petits Filous Magic Squares ice lolly, and that was quite possibly the best option of them all.

“you’re the best mummy in the world!” she said, as she bit the Lego Man’s head off.. I’ll take that!

Available in two delicious varieties, Strawberry & Vanilla Flavour and Raspberry & Vanilla Flavour, the unique quadrant shape of the Petits Filous Magic Squares range creates a new eating experience and allows kids to mix up the magic. Whether they taste one flavour at a time, experiment with a mouthful of each, or totally mix it up, kids will love exploring the delicious new flavours. Not only is it great tasting, Petits Filous Magic Squares provides calcium and vitamin D for strong bones. Fresh dairy products contain calcium, but not all of them have Vitamin D, which helps absorb the calcium. Petits Filous contains both calcium and Vitamin D which help build strong bones.

We were supplied with vouchers to buy the Petits Filous – all opinions are our own! One pot of Petits Filous Magic Squares made each lolly.

This post is an entry for BritMums #MagicSquaresPlaydates Linky Challenge, sponsored by Petits Filous.

03/05/201501/01/2019 by jo

Football For Everyone

We were invited to a training session at Petts Wood FC near Orpington with Casey Stoney, the Arsenal and England footballer. It was the launch of McDonalds Football Mum of the Year – there will be a proper writeup to follow, but H has rediscovered her love of playing football thanks to Casey.

Football Mum of the Year is a chance for you to vote for a mum who you feel inspires you, who helps the game of football happen – be that driving a child to matches or just washing their kit. I’ll write up more about this, but right now I’m slightly emotional – as this morning H rediscovered her love of playing football, after swearing blind she hated playing the game, something I suspected wasn’t true.

We used to do football lessons with a local team – H really enjoyed going, and didn’t seem too fazed that she was the only girl there. Things were going well and everything was good – but then they changed the coach to a more shouty one, her school friends all stopped going and it wasn’t quite so much fun for her.

H decided from that point onwards she didn’t like playing football any more. She would happily watch it (and we would have gone to England v Germany Women at Wembley had she not been unwell) but actually playing games wasn’t happening any more.

That was until Saturday; something reawoke in H. Once the ball was at her feet she got on with it – and did really well. Despite not having had any classes for a long time now she played and had confidence. It made me SO happy! I’m wondering if it was because she was one of the older children there so wasn’t as shy about things.

Afterwards I interviewed Casey Stoney (which will appear in the full writeup next week). You can see how passionate she is about the game – and how much she enjoyed encouraging the young ones to play. It was a different style of coaching to the kind we’d previously experienced and it worked for H. I felt like she had a little more spatial awareness and any initial shyness she had felt was gone quickly – she wanted to join in.

Women’s football is getting popular – and rightly so. But most importantly of all, the games are affordable. We’ve just bought three tickets for Wembley for the FA Cup Final for £25 with postage. I don’t care who is playing, we’re going to have fun and help introduce H to the fact that women can play football and they do it well. After all, it was H herself who told me once that a boy said “girls can’t like football” – I’m not sure why they thought that.

This is where the McDonald’s Football Mum of the Year comes in. If you know any mums out there who encourage their children, who support them, who make it happen, you can vote for them. This isn’t about women’s football, or men’s football – it’s just football – for everyone. How it should be – and celebrating the mums who help make it happen. Casey Stoney is also on the panel who will judge all the entries.

This afternoon once we’d had some lunch, H turned to Shaun. “Daddy, can we go and play football in the park?” – I think something has been reignited in her love of playing football. I’m going to find a local group which has plenty of girls in there, where she can just turn up and play.

You can vote on the McDonalds Football Mum of the Year over here.

We were given a goody bag to attend today, all opinions are my own.

23/04/201524/04/2015 by jo

Box Garden Challenge

School gave us some Home Learning for the Easter Holidays – to make a Box Garden. So we decided to use a few bits from our craft tub to make it look like a garden. So far, the most fun thing has been the cork bees!

Cork bees are ridiculously easy. All you need are some corks (handy if you drink wine), some paint (black and yellow), a pipecleaner and some play doh to stand it up – and a couple of googly eyes.

First of all we painted the corks yellow and left it to dry overnight. We used Tiger Stores paint which covered the print on the corks really well. In the morning it was still a bit tacky, so I used a corn on the cob holder while we painted the black stripes onto the cork. After that they were left to dry overnight again. Get some googly eyes and stick two to the front of the bee. Then all you need to do is create the wings.

This is where the pipecleaner comes in – this is where I had to help H the most too. Wrap it around your fingers twice – these loops are the wings. Criss-cross them on themselves so they look kind of wing-like, and then just wrap the two ends of the pipecleaner around the cork, making sure there’s enough to create a stand. Then all you need to do after that is put it in some playdoh to stand up. It’ll now wobble around a bit like bees do, and looks jolly cute!

For the base of the Box Garden we got tissue paper and crunched it up, then found flower stickers, feathers, covered toilet rolls in sticky backed plastic and basically went crazy with decorating. We also added a caterpillar by threading beads onto a pipecleaner, putting a head on him and bending him to look sort of like a caterpillar crawling. It worked pretty well anyway, even if I say so myself!

In the middle is what makes it a garden – Tiger Stores had little basket type things for sale, and I picked one up a while ago. Inside the little basket is enough space for a shallow dish, which we put cotton wool in, and sprinkled some cress seeds on top of! Fully sprouted it looks like a very cute little crafty box garden – and while I’m sure we won’t be winning any prizes for our creativity, I LOVE THE CORK BEES!

Box Garden

So that’s our Box Garden done!

22/04/201521/04/2015 by jo

Legoland Windsor

We visited Legoland Windsor last Easter (2014) when it was fairly busy. Since then we’ve had Merlin passes bought for us as our family Christmas present so we decided it was time to revisit.

Legoland Windsor is an extremely popular theme park, as you’d expect. It has been open this season for just over a month now but we have reason to go back another time.

We wanted to try and get to some of the areas we hadn’t been able to get to last time as well as revisit some places we liked. We were meant to go over Easter but H was ill, so we ended up going a week later – and this actually was a much better plan. It was pouring with rain as we left home, the kind of rain that would put anyone off going anywhere, especially an outdoor theme park. The rain was due to stop between 10-11am, and turn into a pleasantly warm day – so it was worth risking.

We made it to Windsor in just over an hour, there were no queues into the park and we got parked up and inside really quickly. Once inside I activated our free Wifi in an attempt to follow the Lego Movie trail (we only found Emmett and Benny, though Shaun thought he spotted Wyldstyle) heading straight to the Imagination Zone which we had enjoyed last time. We decided to aim towards Lego City, which was pretty rammed. In fact, most things seemed to have long queues in this area so we decided to try another time. Instead we headed to Atlantis, mainly as the queues had been so prohibitively long last time we wanted to see if it was do-able. It was – we were on the ride within five minutes!

H loved Atlantis too – we all did, being in a submarine-like vessel going “underwater” amongst sharks and various fish, as well as Lego models. The ride was quite short, but it was good being so close to everything – it got a big thumbs up from us!

After Atlantis we decided to head towards Squid Surfers – with a quick detour to Dino Safari which H and I went on, again queueing for no longer than ten minutes. Squid Surfers was my favourite ride last time, mainly as you get to press buttons on the outside and squirt the riders – or more often than not, yourself! Once we got to Squid Surfers Shaun and H decided to go on there, and this was probably the longest queue of all the things we decided to go on, at around 20 minutes. Shaun and H got on the ride while I stood squirting them. Whoops. They were drenched. I didn’t realise I was THAT bad.. Afterwards we stopped for a burger and chips before heading down the street that is now Heartlake City (from Lego Friends) – which makes sense as most of the range seems to have shops and places to eat… no plastic croissants or bagels though.

Last year there was an area you could drive diggers (which H enjoyed) which is now being made into Heartlake City. H LOVES Lego Friends – so we know we’ll be going back at some point when it opens (currently May – it’s all boarded up at the moment). This also meant the little train that goes around Legoland Windsor isn’t working as the station is being done up as well.

H was still pretty wet, especially on her feet so we needed to buy her some new socks (using our Merlin Passholder 10% discount) – the stores at the entrance had a decent enough selection. None of the shops in Heartlake City had them – which is kind of weird as it’s next to a lot of the water rides.

After that we wandered towards Land of the Vikings and Knights Kingdom, where there were more rides to go on, and a play area which gave us a sit down while H climbed all over it.

It was around now it struck me – Legoland Windsor was so quiet that nobody was really using Q-Bot’s – their paying queue jumper thing which winds me up every time I see someone using it. It was really pleasant. Everyone got on the rides quickly, and everyone who works at Legoland is cheery and asks how your day is going, sounding like they geniunely care (rather than because they’re being told to say it).

There was a small table to build a Lego Robot for £3.50 which H did on her own and enjoyed, we found a coin squashing machine to add another coin to her collection, we got lost in the maze, and finally persuaded H to go into the Lego Star Wars area, as well as the Viking’s River Splash (again, a five minute wait at the most, and a handful of Q-Bot users by then who were probably cursing wasting their money on them).

It was a really enjoyable day – and we got a lot of rides we hadn’t done before out of the way. There are still a few we haven’t done, but I was pleased we were able to do quite a lot. We’ll be back at the end of May once Heartlake City is properly open unless we get an exclusive Merlin deal (I doubt it) – H is super excited to go, and I’m hoping it’ll be open then!

21/04/2015 by jo

Decluttering – an Update

It all started off so well, with good intentions. We were going to get rid of EVERYTHING and I was inspired – except I wasn’t. It was depressing, I was getting rid of the things I was keeping just in case H had a younger sibling, a dream which is never going to happen.

Once I’d got over having to get rid of things, I started to remember what we actually have. We have a lot.. too much, in fact. Things that need to go. Fortunately we have some good local selling sites, and I know a few new mums and childminders around here, so I set up a photo album on my profile at Facebook. This got rid of a few bits quickly, which in turn got me inspired to get rid of things we’ve bought that have lived in the loft. I listed loads of things on a local Facebook selling group, and they’ve gone quickly.

So it’s farewell to H’s bike which was too small from over a year ago, farewell Trunki, farewell Moover Pram, toodle-pip Bumbo, be off with you slide and sandpit, and so many other things. The old baby clothes were overwhelming to the point I couldn’t face looking through them but had to make sure the Joy Division babygro I’d had specially made would survive. Shaun took several bags of clothes to the local Cash for Clothes place and came back with our first money.

After that, things have been selling. People want our things! Still nobody wants the Ozbozz scooter which H rode on outside for one WHOLE minute preventing me from taking it back to the shop and getting a larger one (it was too small for her). It has lived inside the box since we bought it over two years ago now. This must change! I feel like this week is the week someone will buy it.

I’m being really sensible about it too – H wants a trampoline, and so any money made is for the trampoline fund – I just need to work out how big we can go. Our current fund we’ve made so far is just under £150 which is pretty incredible – especially when you consider the amount of things I’ve given away for nothing.

So yes, the decluttering is coming along very well indeed. At last.

10/04/201510/04/2015 by jo

Keeping It Local

Sometimes when it’s warm and it’s a Friday and you’ve spent the week recouperating, working, being at holiday club or whatever, you don’t want to venture too far. Especially when you’re wearing your Elsa dress over shorts and a t-shirt.

So when I got home from work today we wandered up the road to the Honeywood Museum as they’ve just opened a new cafe. On the way to Honeywood is the Sutton Ecology Centre – a fab area in Carshalton which has nature information, allotments, a pond and plenty of things to learn about as well as making good use of everyday things (like tyres – I love how they’ve based a garden around them). Our trip was just a short cut as I was fairly sure the cafe closed at 5pm (I was right) and we made it with five minutes to spare.

The Honeywood Museum is at Honeywood House on Carshalton Ponds, and is a lovely old house dedicated to the history of Carshalton as well as the people who have lived in the house and life there through various times. There’s a war room which H found really interesting and lots for kids – including dress up and an activity area – and it’s free. The cafe is new to the house and serves Movenpick ice cream – and a fine selection too! We grabbed a table right next to the ponds and enjoyed our cones.

The daffodils are still in full bloom, and the area around the ponds looks lovely – though people still seem to throw their rubbish in there. I have no idea why people would do that. Madness.

We walked around the ponds, crossing into Grove Park which has a cut of water from the ponds which leads further down, turning into the River Wandle (which then runs into the Thames) – and where there are many ducks and even a heron. It’s one of the few places locally that I love and go back to as it has a great sense of calm. It feels safe too – I can let H wander ahead and she’s happy, whether it’s chatting to squirrels or just wanting to get to the play area at the top of the hill.

Her favourite things in the park are those dizzy-inducing spinny things you sit in that I can’t even look at, and the fireman’s pole.

We stayed for a play for a while and for the first time H was able to almost climb to the top of the castle in the playground. She’s grown.

We walked past the Carshalton Water Wheel which has had the main hut area restored recently. It doesn’t say what they’re doing there, but there is something going on. Intriguing…!

After a busy afternoon playing we popped into The Sun pub, our local which is right by The Grove, H was super happy as we got the little cubby hole area to sit in, and Shaun joined us.

I do like living here. As I’ve said on The Adequate Parent, it’s a lovely place. It’s just annoying our rent situation is set to change, though fortunately the landlady isn’t selling (she’s just increasing our monthly rent by £280 a month). The rent hike means we can still do all the free things, but helping the local businesses exist by having a quick beer or stopping for an ice cream might be something we have to do without. That makes me sad. I like to spend money on things which help other people locally.

06/04/201501/01/2019 by jo

A Cheaper London – Transport Museum and Sheep

On Saturday we headed out into Central London, a fairly easy journey for us as it’s around 25 minutes from Carshalton. We decided on a trip to the London Transport Museum as it’s somewhere we’ve wanted to go for a long time, and as well as that the Shaun in the City exhibition of Shaun the Sheep figures is happening around London right now.

The London Transport Museum shows the history of transport in London; in case you hadn’t guessed. There’s plenty for kids there, and with it being in the heart of Covent Garden, there’s enough for adults too. Your entry gives you an Annual pass to the museum so you can keep going back, which is a really good deal too at £16. All under 18’s get in for free.

A Zone 1-6 travelcard costs £12 each, which has gone up rather a lot since the last time I bought one – so we decided to use the 2 for 1 deal to get our Transport Museum tickets, which requires a rail ticket to qualify(Oyster cards don’t count). With a Transport Museum ticket at £16 we’d still be in credit. The downside of this was we didn’t read the small print, and the free ticket has to be a day pass – fair enough, they’re a museum and had we done then we wouldn’t have done the deal, so bear in mind when you go!

There was loads for H – dressing up, trying out vehicles, sitting in old carriages, learning about London’s history – and quite a topical one, there’s a small area made to feel like a tube station but set up with seats and bunks like an air raid shelter. I insisted H sat and watched the video, and she was asking lots of questions and really engaged by it. At the start of the trail everyone gets a stamper card – you look for numbered signs along the way and stick your card into it, press the stamper and you’ll have a shape cut out or stamped upon it. There were lots of activity cards at the entrance as well which we took a few of to do in our own time.

As well as the Transport Museum, there’s the Shaun in the City tour happening right now in Central London. We downloaded the app to find them as we’re the kind of people who walk right past things without seeing them (this has happened several times) – so having something which shows us the direction and whereabouts of each sheep was helpful. You can get the app for Apple and Android phones, and it costs but with all money supporting sick children in the UK – so we didn’t complain!

We managed to find seven of the 50 in London at the moment – starting at Buckingham Palace (we got the train in to Victoria), we found one in St James’s Park, walking up The Mall to Trafalgar Square there are two further ones there, then head towards Covent Garden for another two. (then we had a break and went to the museum)

Waterloo Bridge has them at either end, so another excuse for a sit down (or in H’s case a game of Duck Duck Goose outside Somerset House) before we finished at the London Eye, using our Merlin passes to have a sit down for 30 minutes, the lure of any further sheep long gone as it was nearly 7pm!

It was a fun day out, it didn’t cost us too much money and we got to walk around rather than relying on public transport. Had we realised we’d do so much walking it would have been cheaper to get a London Terminals return ticket (approx £8 for us in Zone 5) – so if your child enjoys walking distances (this was approx 5.5km) then it’s worth considering if you’re doing the 2 for 1 deal and need a railcard.

*please note – when we visited the London Transport Museum they were getting back to normal after the powercut on Kingsway. We’re more than aware of it as it affects Shaun’s work. When we went they couldn’t serve hot food and had a limited supply of sandwiches. Some people had shouted at staff which is a bit rude and unfair – they’re doing the best they can given the circumstances. Hopefully things will be getting back to normal now for them anyway.*

23/03/201526/03/2018 by jo

BuddingSTEM – A New Kickstarter Project

A friend posted a link to BuddingSTEM on Facebook, and I was intrigued. Imagine if you will, a world where girls like dinosaurs and science, space and all the rest. That’s our world. But yet, if H wanted a t-shirt with a dinosaur or a rocket on it, then we’re looking in the boys section. This is where BuddingSTEM exist.

BuddingSTEM was started by two mums in the US, and they’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign recently as well. Their girls wanted train design pants, but in shops only boys versions existed. This is where the seeds were sown and BuddingSTEM was born – if you can’t buy them in the shops, then make them yourself!

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – all things H is interested in – and this forms the centre of what BuddingSTEM is about.

The Kickstarter campaign has many options. The last campaign we backed was the Lammily doll, and this one grabbed me as you don’t get many t-shirts which are girly without being too girly. I like that the prints are big and bold – a five year old or a ten year old could wear the t-shirt and neither would look odd. I like the Apatosaurus collection, though the space range is fabulous too.

Much as I tried to squash out too much pink in our lives, H’s two favourite colours are blue and pink – and both are colour options with BuddingSTEM, as well as yellow and green. Seeing their Kickstarter page I could see H in the clothes – she’s like me, a jeans and t-shirts kind of girl when she’s not at school, and I think these shirts are fabulous colours. They ship worldwide too.

She’ll often say “I can’t do that as it’s for boys” and I hate the fact she feels things are that way. I do my best to convince her otherwise, but it’d be so nice if children can just be what they want to be without thinking there may be problems. If you’ve heard of Goldieblox and like what they do, BuddingSTEM sits nicely alongside it.

I pledged $25. They’re $2,000 short of their target with 17 days to go, so I think it’s fairly safe to say it’s going to happen, which is brilliant news.

BuddingSTEM’s website is here

The Kickstarter campaign is here

BuddingSTEM can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

18/02/2015 by jo

Mummy Pig Gifts for Mother’s Day

When we went to Peppa Pig World, one of our most favourite things in the shop was the range of things for grown-ups. Actually, almost all of my friends who have been have said exactly the same – they’re brilliant, funny and different – and what better excuse to get some Mummy Pig gifts with Mother’s Day on the horizon (15th March, in case you weren’t sure).

The Mummy Pig gifts range in price and size – and are the kind of thing your child might want to choose you, rather than something you’d choose yourself, if that makes sense? H chose Shaun a few bits from the Peppa Pig World shop and he still wears and uses them – because they have a bit more meaning to a random present bought by me on H’s behalf. You know that they’ve been chosen.

Asda have some Mummy Pig pyjamas which at £13 don’t break the bank and look quite fun! Available in sizes 8-22.

There are also some ‘Mum in a Million’ slippers again available from Asda, fits sizes 3-8 and has a RRP of £6.

How about some matching ‘Mum in a Million’ socks? Again, Asda has them, with a RRP of £2.50.

There are some books and a weeble character available too, although I don’t think they’re quite as much Mummy Pig gifts for mummies as for your little ones! They’re available from all good bookstores and toy stores.

Speaking from experience, and from having spoken to many of my mum friends after they’ve been to Peppa Pig world, someone always comes back with a keyring or a pair of socks, so actually having the Peppa range available for Mother’s Day is a good idea.

You can order the Peppa nightwear range online from Asda.com or find them in-store in the George clothing section.

Peppa Pig – The Golden Boots is in all cinemas now for half term – the perfect chance to take your littlest ones to the cinema for the first time!

Mum Friendly

the things we do, the things we like

Category / Feature