Two Top Titles (Book Review)

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The Boy is developing in his taste for reading material and we're starting to stray away from board books into the realms of paper books. Which is excellent because we've just been sent two new titles from the fabulous Top That! Publishing.

'Time For Dinner' by June Morley

As with all Top That! books that I've come across, the illustrations by Marina Le Ray are as enticing as the spider's web adorning the cover of this book. Time for Dinner is a comical tale of a riot of animals who are a little bit hungry leading up to dinner time, with the pecking order defining who might end up on the menu!

This humorous book tells the tale of a spider who tries to persuade a fly to rest in his web while he trots off for a nap, a bird who tells the spider that it's ok to rest in his nest, and so on. The clever twist at the end of tale makes it a pleasure to read time and time again without being boring for little one. There is plenty to look at in the vibrant illustrations and the pages are thick, quality paper making it ideal for pre-schoolers.

'Time for Dinner' is available for £5.99

'Only Nooglebooglers Glow In The Dark' by James McKnight

'Farmer McDoogle has a very unusual farm. On his farm he doesn't keep chickens, cows or pigs. On his farm he keeps monsters!' And one of these breeds of monsters is called the Noogleboogler. The Nooglebooglers are special because when they eat difflebug leaves, they glow in the dark!

Aimed at slightly older children than The Boy, this clever, fantastical story introduces you to the wonders of life on Farmer McDoogle's farm and the special 'talents' of all the different animals that live there. The scene is set for the annual party in the barn when suddenly there is a powercut and Diggle (the farmhand) has a cunning idea to save the day.

With humour and all the necessary ickiness associated with monsters that pre-schoolers love, along with beautiful illustrations by the award winning Mark Chambers, this is another winning title by Top That! This book is also part of a growing series of titles about life on McDoogle's Monster Farm.

'Only NoogleBooglers Glow In The Dark' is available for £5.99

Both titles are currently available for the reduced price of £5.39!

Snowflake Cookies

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I've made a fair few cakes with The Boy now, and we've turned our hand to pizza, but we haven't tried cookies yet, and we haven't tried gingerbread. When I saw a recipe for polish spiced Christmas cookies (basically gingerbread) on The Crazy Kitchen, I decided to give it a whirl: everyone is always making it, it can't be hard surely?

Wrong! Well, that is if you're not using an electric mixer which it turns out, everyone else did. I only have a handheld mixer, which I am wary of using with The Boy, and so we mix everything we make with a good old-fashioned wooden spoon! Gingerbread ingredients are quite tough to mix together.

Anyway, here we go!

Ingredients
110g unsalted butter
110g soft, dark brown sugar
6 heaped tablespoons runny honey
1 egg
450g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon powder
2 tablespoons mixed spice
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
100g icing sugar

  • Melt the butter, sugar and honey in a small pan until the butter has just melted
  • Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl, stir together
  • Add the egg and mix well
  • Add the melted butter/sugar to the dry ingredients and mix until a dough forms
  • If the mixture is too dry add water 1 tablespoon at a time until it comes together
  • Roll out on a floured surface to an inch thick
  • Use cutters to cut out the shapes and place on greased baking trays
  • Bake in 200 degree (C) oven for 7-8 minutes
  • Cool on a wire rack

Then we decorated our snowflake and jigsaw piece cookies with drizzly white chocolate and sweeties!

We used these fab cookie cutters from Cox & Cox, excellent quality and durable.

I was sent the cookie cutters to review. I pinched Helen's recipe. Both are great and my opinion is honest and unbiased.

A Free Mia Tui Bag

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The ever so generous Charlotte from Mia Tui has an amazing offer on at the moment, consider it her Christmas present to you hardworking mums out there:

A free brown or black Grace bag with a purchase of any other bag!

These beautiful and practical bags (which can be used as either a messenger bag or an under-arm bag) normally sell for £29.99 but if you order another one of the fabulous range of Amelia, Ava or Grace bags at the moment, then you can order it for free by using the codes: FREE BLACK GRACE or FREE BROWN Grace at the checkout.

Treat yourself, it's Christmas!



ShowOff ShowCase: The One About Christmas

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As a final acknowledgement to the festivities, the theme for ShowOff ShowCase this week is:

The One About Christmas

Link up your posts, new or old, about your festivities or preparations and share the blog love.

Don't forget to add the badge to the bottom of the post so people can revisit the linky easily, and please take the time to visit some of the blogs linked (or it doesn't really work very well!)

ShowOff ShowCase

 

Our Best Christmas Ever!

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It occurred to me that I haven't blogged about our Christmas Day yet. It's not going to be of interest to many, but is to me.

Normally, Mr. TheBoyandMe gets up first with The Boy and gives him breakfast as this is part of his time with him. However, Christmas Day is special so while The Boy and I played with the iPod and books in our bedroom, Mr. TBAm showered and dressed. Then he took him downstairs for yoghurt while I showered and dressed. I pegged it downstairs and we sat and ate yummy pastries while opening our stockings, all three of them from Father Christmas. The Boy was fascinated that the big man himself had indeed eaten most of the mince pie, but there was disapproval in his voice when he discovered that not all the milk had gone!

Traditional presents in his stocking

Following this, and having had the titbits to keep us going until our proper cooked breakfast, we went into the dining room and his face was a complete picture when he saw the tree and all the presents!

After opening the presents from Father Christmas, we settled down to eat a hearty breakfast. I'd even been to the butchers' and bought proper sausages and bacon for Mr. TheBoyandMe. We wolfed it down, and then all finished opening our presents from each other. I was rather chuffed to discover Mr. TBAM has bought me a voucher from Photobox so I can make a 365 photobook! He also generously gave me a digital photoframe (as I've wanted one for years) and, this is the best bit, a waffle-maker! (I'd harped on two months ago about one but he seriously vetoed it, little did I know what he was planning!). I bought him an electric razor, the usual Private Eye annual, lots of other bits and pieces and a new digital camera (his had broken a few months ago). We normally set a £50 limit, but I suspect we both blew it quite seriously!

The Boy had great fun opening the rest of his toys and hasn't stopped playing with them ever since!

We had a rather scrummy lunch of: deep fried brie for starters; four-bird roast/asparagus & craberry risotto filo parcel, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, mashed swede and sweet potato, brussel sprouts, roasted carrots and parsnips, creamed spinach; followed by christmas pudding two hours later.

Presents from Nana and Grandad followed, a little kip for The Boy, the Queen's Speech, a kip for Grandad, dishwasher loaded, cheese and biscuits on table, groaning bellies, bed for The Boy, more washing up, television, playing with 'toys' and finally bed.

The look on our little boy's face at every moment throughout the day was magical. It has been, without a shadow of a doubt, the best Christmas ever!

The People Who Make It Easier

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It was about 5pm on Friday evening in late October. I was in my classroom alone; the headteacher, deputy headteacher and caretaker were the only other people in school, as we had just broken up for half-term. It was dark outside but I had all the lights on in the room, and I had just finished my English marking and was preparing to cut out some letters for display when my phone rang. Glancing at the screen, I saw my mum's mobile number and answered it with a smile.

The smile quickly faded as she told me news I'd never expected to hear; dad had bowel cancer. I found out exactly what had happened, where they were and when I could see them and then hung up. I packed my cutting out away, took the books back to my cupboard and as I opened the door and was temporarily hidden from the world, I burst into tears and sobbed hysterically. At some point, I managed to phone my husband and he came and retrieved me from the cupboard where I was still hiding, tears pouring down my face.

That was five years ago and he is in remission from that cancer, although last year he had an operation for liver cancer which he had successful surgery for, and is in remission from that too.

I was so shocked by the diagnosis because he is not the parent that I'd expected to hear this news about; having lost every adult in my mother's family to some form of cancer, it was her that I had steeled myself for. Not the hulking man who is my father. Luckily, it was caught early and thanks to the wonderful treatment he received in our local hospital, he was out within a month. The nurses and doctors on his ward were amazing and dealt with everything, even the consultant would roll up his sleeves and muck in. None of us could ever say or do enough to thank them, but I hope they know how much their care was appreciated.

For my father we luckily never needed the help of the wonderful bunch of nurses who had previously nursed, cared for and provided advice during my nan's illness. Macmillan nurses do an amazing job caring for those suffering from cancer and their families, giving practical, medical and financial support.

For those who they help, there are not enough words to thank them.

This is a sponsored post. I have donated half of my fee to Macmillan to help them continue to do their work.

Snap Happy!

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I'm a little obsessed with cameras; my own camera of choice is a Canon EOS 300D purchased eight years ago when I was in my final year teaching in Reading. It's taken some amazing photos over the years of many different locations and the difference between that and a standard digital is astounding. We've got a couple of 'point and shoots' in the house, and therefore it was only going to be a matter of time before The Boy wanted to start taking his own photos. He's played on the iPod Touch but the camera on that is quite frankly a bit pants.

Therefore when The Boy was sent a child-friendly camera to review, he was very excited and my DSLR breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief.

The VTech Kidizoom Twist is an improved version of the Kidizoom with a rotating camera lens to face conventionally, angle it through 180° and finally face the photographer to take self-portraits. This in itself makes it a big hit with The Boy who is fascinated with taking pictures of himself and frquently pulls faces at the camera while taking a series of photos. (Just to avoid confusion, the flash is where there is conventionally a lens. Obviously this doesn't work when facing the photographer!)

His ability to take photographs is improving as he remembers to frame the subject in the good-sized screen on the back. There are two ways to take a photograph. Either by pressing the button on the top (in the normal place) or by pressing the 'ok' button. As The Boy's hands are only little, he can't quite reach the main button and therefore happily presses the 'ok' button which rests just above his thumbhold. The camera doesn't react straight away and it's taken a little while for him to understand that he needs to wait until he hears the shutter sound before moving the camera away.

One of the other features of the Kidizoom Twist is the instant photo-editing function. There are a variety of frames and special effects which can be previewed on the screen before taking the photo and they made us chuckle.

The technical bit:

  • 2 mega pixel camera with twisting lens
  • 4x digital zoom
  • 256 MB of storage and SD card slot for memory expansion (necessary with The Boy as he snaps away and 60% are of his forehead, feet or blurred)
  • built-in flash
  • Also features video taking, voice recording and 5 built-in games
  • Connect to the TV or edit and view photos linked to a PC
  • Dual viewfinder in addition to the digital viewfinder (screen)

Other functions on this incredibly cool camera are: a sound recorder and audio manipulator (The Boy is too young to understand this properly yet, but I've recorded my voice and then slowed it down or sped it up and it made me chuckle like an eight year old); and five games (again we haven't explored this yet).

The Kidizoom Twist is robust and sturdy. The big grip handles eitherside are rubberised, which a) make it easier to hold, and b) mean if it does drop, it bounces. In fact, everything that protrudes from it, and could get damaged (lens, viewfinders) are rubberised. Clever designing there.

My only negative on this camera is the slight time-delay between pressing the button and the photo being taken. Other than that, this is pretty much perfect.

We were sent the VTech Kidizoom Twist for the purpose of this review. Our opinions are honest and unbiased.