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Devon Duvets Three Fold Wool Pillow (Review)

March 5, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 1 Comment

Last year we started going away for weekends or short breaks a fair amount with The Boy. Most of the time we stayed in a Premier Inn where the quality is guaranteed and consistent; the beds are always of a certain firmness, the duvets are warm, the pillows are plentiful and varying in thickness.

However, there were occasions when we stayed in non Premier Inn accommodation and then the one thing that is guaranteed to give me a good night's sleep was inconsistent; pillows. I'm a bit fussy with my pillows, I like two, one of which must be hard-ish and thin and one which must be fluffy. In getting one of both types then I can usually get them the right way around somehow to suit my head that night! What I can't bear is one pillow that's too flat, or two really fluffy pillows where I end up feeling smothered. I'm getting fussy in my old age.

A few weeks ago, I was sent a soft pillow made with 3 fold wool made by Devon Duvets. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I read that it was a small travelling blanket that folds up into a pillow, something not soft and fluffy though.

travel bedding

Inside the box was a thick fluffy pillow encased in 100% cotton which was soft and comforting to lay on. It's a standard size pillow (measuring approximately 48 x 74cm) which means it could comfortably be used on a bed normally. The Boy was very intrigued to discover the fold of fabric and quickly undid it to discover a duvet style blanket (approximately 74cm by 130cm). Obviously this is not big enough for an adult to sleep under, but would be perfect to use in the back of a car to keep passengers warm, or on a single bed for a child.

The wool used as the filling is not bleached or chemically treated during any stage of its processing. The aspect of this pillow that I find comforting (apart from it's softness) is the hygiene; the natural properties of wool resist dust mites, making these pillows suitable for allergy sufferers. This is also good to know as I could easily use it as The Boy's main pillow on away trips, meaning he has a consistent pillow to sleep on with no dust mites. And it's easily cleaned using a machine wash on a wool settting.

Ever the eco-warrior, I also find it reassuring that Devon Duvets wool pillows are sustainable products; the sheep is reared solely for its wool and returns to the pasture after shearing.

At £69.00 it's not a cheap option for a pillow in comparison to the average polyester filled alternatives. However, it's not comparable because of the filling, and because of its dual use.

I was sent this product for the purpose of this review, my opinion is honest and unbiased.

'Scooby Doo: Mask Of The Blue Falcon DVD' (Review)

March 5, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe Leave a Comment

Scooby Doo is one of those timeless characters that reaches across to both children and parents alike with his madcap capers and craaaaazy, cunning, conundrums!

ScoobyDooMaskOfTheBlueFalcon

Scooby Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon is a brand new adventure for 2013 and tells of the goings-on at the 'Mega Mondo Pop Cartoon-a-Con with celebrated comic book characters headlining at the convention. However, all goes dramatically wrong (in pure Scooby fashion) when Mr. Hyde unleashes monster bats, howling hounds and sinister slime upon all the revellers. It's time for Fred, Daphne and Velma to help out Scooby and Shaggy to tap into their inner superhero to prevent the convention from being a wash-out.

Included in this disc are bonus vintage cartoons (Comic Book Caper, Reflections in a Ghoulish Eye and The Scooby Coupe), alongside the opportunity to stream and download the movie onto computers, tablet computers and smartphones using Ultraviolet technology. Ultraviolet is such a clever piece of technology and makes it perfect for out and about entertainment by being able to download it onto a mobile device.

Scooby Doo: Mask of the Blue Falcon is available from Amazon priced at £9.99.

I was sent a copy of this disc for the purpose of this post.

'Justin Fletcher: The Best Of Friends' CD (Review & Giveaway)

March 4, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 88 Comments

Imagine the combination:

'Reach for the Stars' + 'Justin Fletcher' = ?

To me that equals one of the best things I've heard in an awfully long time!

There is something so intrinsically right about Justin Fletcher and the way he makes children and adults smile, that listening to his CDs has the same effect. And while the songs are certainly not the latest Goyte chart-topper, they do introduce children to a diverse range of different musical genres and classic songs in a non-patronising manner.

The Boy has passed the stage of listening to nursery rhymes and wants to listen to music, but finding suitable music is hard as so much of what is in the charts has unsuitable lyrics or themes for children. Justin Fletcher has taken a great selection of older and well-known songs and covered them in a child-friendly manner to suit the 21st century. The 'Best Of Friends' CD includes:

Rockin’ Robin
This Old Man (Nick Nack Paddywack)
Reach
We’re Off To See The Wizard
Zip A Dee Doo Dah (The Boy's favourite on the album, I keep hearing him singing it as he's playing)
Let’s Go Fly A Kite
If I Only Had A Brain

along with the title track ('Best of Friends') and many others.

Justin will ber performing the title track on his new Justin's House tour this Easter, and I'm very excited as we're going to be seeing this in Cardiff (thanks to securing tickets months ago!). I just know that The Boy is going to love it.

The 'Justin Fletcher: The Best Of Friends' CD is available to buy from Amazon, iTunes and all good retailers. For more information on the CD, please visit Justin's Facebook page.

However, I'm lucky enough to be able to offer a copy of this CD to one lucky reader. Please fill in the Rafflecopter form below for a chance to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was sent a copy of this CD for the purpose of this review. My opinions are honest and unbiased.

Orchard Toys: 'Big Police Car' Jigsaw (Review & Giveaway)

March 4, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 160 Comments

The Boy is getting to the point where he comfortable completes 35+ piece jigsaws, using the image to help him identify the correct pieces. He's got the tricks of finding the edges and corners first, then working out the different sections of colour, quite practised and enjoys piecing jigsaw puzzles together.

We were recently sent the new Orchard Toys Big Police Car jigsaw to review, and although it has fewer pieces than he's used to (30 pieces) it actually offered him quite a large challenge due to the nature of the design.

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Country Kids: Castle Explorers In Caerphilly Castle

March 3, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 12 Comments

At around lunchtime this Saturday, the sun started to break through the clouds and the temperature rose to a balmy 5°C. This could only mean one thing: pack a picnic and time to turn into explorers!

Wales is famed for its castles and we're very lucky that we've got a good selection near us. We've taken The Boy to Castell Coch (where we got married) and to Cardiff Castle, both of which he loved. However, neither are ruined enough to really go clambering on. As a result we headed over to Caerphilly Castle, which is somewhere that I only went to a few times as a child.

Built in the 13th Century by Gilbert de Clare (Lord of Glamorgan), Caerphilly Castle is the second largest castle in Britain after Windsor Castle. History websites inform me that it is 'a double-skinned fortress surrounded by large-scale water defenses', i.e. it's got an inner and an outer moat, with lakes on two sides as well. It's also the first castle in Britain to have been built with the concentric ring system, changing the basic template of future castles.

However, the most intriguing bit about Caerphilly Castle is the leaning tower.

country kids caerphilly castle 1

The south-east tower is astounding. Every child in south Wales will have a photograph of them trying to push the tower back up to vertical. It was during the Civil War that the damage to the tower happened, which means that it leans at 10° (greater than the Leaning Tower of Pisa) with the most gigantic crack, wide enough for The Boy to stand in!

The greatness of Caerphilly Castle is marred by the fact that it was never able to fulfill it's destiny as a large castle or fortress. The threat of invasion (which had seen its building) passed quickly, and it had one last fleeting chance at being an active castle in the 14th Century. Then it fell to ruin until the Bute family acquired it in 1776, the third and fourth Marquesses cleared and restored it in the 19th century and the lakes were flooded by the state in the 1950s.

country kids castle explorer

What it's meant is that there are a plethora of ruined walls, towers and spiral staircases to explore. And even better is that CADW (the organisation in charge of maintaining it) hasn't roped every section off, allowing for little children to practise their knightly deeds and to defend the honour of south Wales!

country kids castle explorers 2

The castle is full of passages in the thick walls, spiral staircases, great halls and doorways to scamper through, as well as the most phenomenal view over the town and beyond into the Rhymney Valley. It's a definite site for visitors to the area, and I think this was the first of many explorations!

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365 #9

March 2, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 18 Comments

Heading into the third month of the year, the weather is improving as the days get longer, the sun stronger, and with that comes the promise of more outdoor play and better photographic opportunities. Having spent the afternoon exploring a (mostly) ruined castle, the photographs have virtually taken themselves.

We're coming to the first wall in Project 365; the novelty has worn off and taking photos has become a little tedious. Don't give up, it's such a rewarding project to do and you'll be amazed at seeing all that you've achieved at the end of the year. Keep snapping away, we all have rough weeks.

Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
If you can spare five minutes to comment on a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!

Days 55-61 of Project 365

March 2, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 42 Comments

55-61 of 365 55. 'Hello! Anyone there?' (We went exploring in the woods and had a great time squelching through the mud and finding our echo.)

56. 'Spiderman' (This cargo net is always the first thing he heads for in a local park, it's a bit of an ongoing challenge for him as it is designed for infants and juniors, having different size nets as well as different sized ladders. He likes to measure his progress by how easily he can get over the bigger gaps, but has yet to attempt climbing up the sail of the 'boat'.)

57. 'Can' (He's been using a Reading Eggs app called 'Tap The Cat' to practise his reading, spelling and writing, and under my site's host's recommendation I bought this pen for him to use with the iPad. He's finding it so much easier to overwrite and it's better than finger tracing for the development of his writing skills.)

58. 'New teeth' (He finally got stuck into the chocolate Gruffalo we bought him for Christmas and relished eating various parts of him to make him less scary!)

59. 'Underwater lights' (Kara from Innocent Charmer recently recommended this underwater bath light to me, which arrived this week, and has brought a whole new level of fun to bathtime!)

60. 'National Pride' (St. David's Day!)

61. 'Lean' (We've been exploring Caerphilly Castle today in the most gorgeous Spring sunshine, and in one half of this photograph you can see the leaning south east tower of the castle. More on that in this weekend's Country Kids post.)

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Honest 'Reevoos' (Sponsored Post)

February 28, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 2 Comments

Each week there is a certain television programme that Mr. TBaM insists on watching. I groan and pull faces galore about it, and then agree under duress stipulating the condition that we 'fast forward through the boring techy bits'. It's a ritual that we do this, it's also ridiculous because we both enjoy Top Gear for what it is; the opportunity to laugh at three middle-aged men having a midlife crisis and playing with cars. That's not necessarily a negative thing, it speaks to the petrol head in all of us, and even the 'boring' bits are interesting sometimes.

My favourite part of the entire thing is the 'Star in the Reasonably Priced Car', and this series the car that they are using is the Kia C'eed, which is proving incredibly popular with the stars and producing good times around the track. Messrs. Clarkson, Hammond and May have run a thorough test on this car and it actually comes out with a really good review.

But like I said, they're (past) middle-aged men and not the average car owner. And while the Kia C'eed performs well on the track for their guests, it's hardly the everyday circuit of shopping, the school run or family days out. Which is why it's more important to actually have an opinion from people who know what it's like to drive Kia cars in 'real life' situations. This is where Reevoo comes in useful.

Reevoo is an impartial reviews website which has teamed up with Kia to host a plethora of independent reviews on Kia cars; genuine, unbiased reviews written by real car owners. All reviews are independently verified and written by real customers and Kia car-owners which provide the low down on what's good and what's not. This helps to simplify the car buying process, making it easier to find the best Kia vehicle for the customer's needs. Consumers nowadays are interested in real opinions, the hits I get on my blog for children's toys are testiment to that, buying a car is an even bigger commitment than a children's train set and clearly needs more research. I can't think of a better place to go and find out about a car that I'm thinking of buying than to read honest opinions all housed under one site.

This kind of commitment to customer satisfaction is exactly why Kia was named Car Manufacturer of the Year 2012 by Which?.

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'Fun Food For Children' Pinterest Collaborative Board

February 27, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 11 Comments

A little over a year ago I sent a desperate plea out on twitter for some assistance in trying to get The Boy to eat his food. He was messing around at mealtimes and doing as much as possible to avoid eating. I soon discovered that it was a control issue as well as partly boredom. Time to start getting creative with his meals!

Since then I've had to use this technique every so often to engage him in his meals and get him eating properly. It helps and if I'm honest it's quite fun trying to come up with new ideas.

However as I'm not very inventive with 'food art', I've started a collaborative Pinterest board where members can 'pin' fun and engaging presentational ideas to entice our children to eat.

If you'd like to follow the Pinterest board, you can find the link here. If you'd like to join the board and help create a catalogue of presentational ideas on 'Fun Food for Children', let me know in the comments below and I'll add you. The ideas don't need to come from your own blog, they can be pins from other sites or repins internally.

Let's get those children eating!

Gardening Play Table

February 25, 2013 by TheBoyAndMe 27 Comments

Before The Boy was born, I was a keen gardener (albeit slightly lazy on the maintenance side) and I'd achieve good results. Unfortunately I haven't grown any vegetables in three years now, but this is the year to change this as The Boy is so interested in where fruit and vegetables come from and how they grow. Understanding 'the world around us' is a part of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework and I'm keen to give him activities for contextual and experiential learning as much as possible.

With this in mind, and because it was freezing and I didn't want to stand in the garden in 1°C, I set up a gardening play table for him in his seconded water table.

We used:

seeds (carrot and peas)
soil
plastic pots (I've used the degradable compost pots before but they never seem to work very well and these are reusable)
a range of tools (I always provide a range of equipment whatever activity so that he learns which are the best tools for the job)
paper markers and a pencil (writing opportunities)

children's gardening

He was so keen to get to work and plant the seeds; we had a huge discussion about the differences between a carrot and a pea seed, why the carrot seeds didn't look like a carrot when the pea seed looked like a pea, how the plant would grown, where the vegetable would grow and how big they would be. I can't wait to see his face when the pods start to grow on the pea plants. I've always found pea plants quite high maintainence for very little result, but the look on a child's face when they pop open a pod and see the peas nestled inside is worth it.

One of the things that I was very pleased with was seeing him write the labels for the seeds. I wrote one out so he could see how to shape the letters, but as he hasn't practised many letters outside of his name before I wasn't sure he'd manage it. He studied how I wrote the letters, followed my instructions and wrote them really well. This is a great excuse to get some pre-literacy mark-making practise in without him even realising!

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