Merry

Lego Unimog Maddy Heaven : Review

July 10, 2013 by Merry Leave a Comment

The best thing in the entire world about having a blog that gets offers of reviewing products is that quiet and unassuming people like Maddy sometimes get to review things that I wouldn’t be able to justify spending money on at anytime that wasn’t a birthday or Christmas.

And even then it would be a stretch because much as I love Lego and love everything it does for my kids, £150 is a proper sized present, not an impulse buy, in this house.

You have no idea how much pleasure and joy Lego Technic brings Maddy. (The picture may give you a clue). I absolutely do not, in any way, see the appeal. For me, Lego isn’t about building things that move, it is about making pretty things…

(Please ignore the mini Minifigures my children thought it was funny to add to that.)

When I was little, to my Mum’s despair, I just made model dogs, horses, stables and kennels and twittered away to myself for hours in my own little Lego world. But for Maddy and Max, this model epitomises everything they love about Lego… they can talk hydraulics and pistons and… erm… you know,m stuff like that. They can spend hours fiddling about with tiny gears and bits that move and in the end… hurrah… they have something that looks like this!

I also have a video clip of it in action but as I used Instagram’s newfangled Harry Potter style video clip thing, I can’t embed it… so you will have to go and look.

Clearly, judging by the fact that Maddy and Max had their heads in this together to a good £15 hours or so, I’d say this is a good kit. Good value for money. Cleverly made and enough techno babble floated around for me to assume it does engineer-y things. (Technical term). They liked. It’s in my lounge. I’m thrilled. etc etc. 😆 I’ve asked them if it is value for money and both said they would be thrilled with it as a main present. So I reckon that is a yes 😆

It’s about time someone asked me to review either a tummy tuck or something pretty. I REALLY need a new kitchen.

Disclosure: We were sent this Lego kit free of charge to review for Idealo a comparison site which helps you find the items you want at the best price. Looks pretty good, I’d say 🙂

Review: Josie reviews the me&i Angel Blouse.

May 17, 2013 by Merry Leave a Comment

Being the youngest of 4 girls does mean a variety of good and not so good things. One is, big people to show you the way. Another is lots of clothes handed down in a mix of styles. Another is NOTHING.NEW.EVER.

So this week Josie has struck out a bit. Firsat of all she has made the decision to go to school, making her the youngest Raymond to ever decide such a thing. I think she felt in need of a new challenge and was worried that, with all the big three off to school permanently in September, home would be a bit lonely. (And I might make her work harder!) Since the school Fran and Amelie have gone to as year 6’s is full, it looks like Josie may well end up going somewhere no one else from our family has been. Wow. No big sisters beating the path for her. Big stuff. (I’ll wibble about this some other time).

And her other show stealer was nobbling the review clothing item from me&i, a Swedish clothing company ‘for cool people’. She was very pleased to get to choose an item and went for the Angel Blouse, a cute khaki number with an angel on the front and a pair of wings on the back.

Excuse the fact I appear to have taken a photo of her with tulips growing out of her ears. I’m sure it didn’t look like that at the time!

Josie took a little while to get used to the sleeve length as it’s 3/4 and elastic and she gets a bit sensory about these things, but she loves the design and the fact that it is pretty and cute but combined with a colour that feels modern and rough and tumble. She decided it is not an under a coat dress but perfect for cool floating about and over jeans or leggings. (I can’t get my girls to wear skirts).

I loved the feel of the fabric, which is a nice t-shirt feel but really cotton-y and it washes well, is fit to wear after without ironing (very important, irons are for Hama Beads) and the logo stayed nice.

Over all, a very cute top and the rest of the range looks quirky and fun too. You can also host me&i adult and child clothing parties, which might be worth looking into if you have local friends (which I don’t think I do but actually these days I probably almost do do!)

Disclosure: we were sent one top from the me&i range for the purpose of this review.

Review: Hoops & Crosses by Walkers Crisps

May 13, 2013 by Merry 3 Comments

My children always like the opportunity to review food. Frankly, it doesn’t come round nearly often enough 😉 So they were delighted at the prospect of reviewing some healthy crisps from Walkers, since we almost never have crisps at all. Their enthusiasm was only slightly dampened by only getting a one fifth of a packet each – but the monkey made up for a lot 😉 He’s called Gibber; ten points if you can guess who named him that and why? (Edit: my sister texted me the answer first. She might give you 2 points if you are next).

Walkers say: “We understand kids can be cheeky monkeys when it comes to eating what parents put in their lunchboxes. Which is why we’ve created new Walkers Baked Hoops & Crosses – a great-tasting, low-fat and fun way for kids to boost their wholegrain intake.“

I admit I was dubious, since healthy does not equal delicious nearly often enough. Bene was very taken with the hard back book that came in the box and I now have to read it daily to him, pretending it is in fact a story and not a series of facts about why baked crisps are better for you and why having a helping of wholegrain is so important. I even know that 56% of kids don’t get enough wholegrain *whispers in the style of a footnote* and some don’t get any at all…

Anyway. The crisps are yummy. I liked the flavour and texture and all the kids came back for more. They reminded me a little in texture of a type of snack which is is often pickled onion flavour 😉 and you can put on your finger. I like the non-greasy, light puffed corn feel and the flavour was strong but tasty. The shapes are a bit novel – noughts and crosses – but you probably wouldn’t play a game with them as your brother would eat your pieces.

All in all, yes, I’d buy them. And healthy. So good 🙂

Disclosure: We were sent the above pack for the purposes of this review. Edit: oops. Forgot. And I’m being paid too.

On yer bike.

May 3, 2013 by Merry 2 Comments

Max and I don’t do a brilliant job of switching off from work; our weekends usually involve something, either sat at a computer in snatched moments between dancing runs or stock uploads or sorting out something or other while passing the unit. I work partly every day if I’m home in the week and even if we decide to do a days work together from home, it can be a bit unsatisfactory, snatched between working and doing family stuff. We both work a lot of hours, whether at the unit or from home and we don’t leave enough proper switch off time. When you add 4 of 5 weeknights taking kids to things, all Saturday driving to dancing and gym and back and Sunday involving rugby training (seriously), we don’t get enough quality family time. It could be far worse but I do miss a day out together. Or even a day in!

Anyway, yesterday we decided that the 5 homebirds would have a proper day off, once the business essentials were done in the morning.

We decided to do this. It’s been ages since we all went on a bike ride together. For ages I would use it as an excuse to work while Max and the girls went and then there was pregnancies and then Bene and all in all, we haven’t. But a few weeks ago we got sent the bike seat you can see for review and that’s made it possible. To start with Max just took him out with the girls, but yesterday we all hopped back on our bikes and went off to Ferry Meadows.

We are lucky to have a long, flat, road free place to run and cycle right by us and so a quick trip out with a picnic is far more possible than we regularly achieve. Granted I don’t really like it, it’s all a bit moanufactured and new, but it is there. While I was taking Bene for his jabs, Max and Joey got a picnic ready, Maddy grabbed a ball and when we got back, off we went.

Having been out on it a few times, Bene has really fallen in love with riding. He brings us his helmet all the time and chunters away excitedly when he’s in the seat. We stopped for picnic lunch and to play with a ball but basically he just wanted to be off again, as you can see.

He rides with Max as I’m just not confident enough to have him on mine (I never have with any of them) and just loves it. I must admit I was really dubious about a front carry bike seat, it just felt wrong, but having seen it now, I’ve completely changed my mind. Back is more conventional but truthfully, if there is any chance of an accident, wouldn’t you rather be curling yourself around you child in that split second than hoping they survived behind you?

He’s even fallen asleep in it and Max could hold his head gently with one upper arm.

We had such a nice couple of hours, really restorative. Goodness I’ve missed the sun.

I hadn’t really intended to do the review in this post but since I’ve waxed about the guppy seat anyway, I’ll finish off. We love it. It’s freedom, it feels companionable and safe, it is incredibly easy to slot on and off the bike on the front (and will fit on the back too at a squeeze, there wasn’t masses of leg room on Max’s bike) and because it is light and quite upright it doesn’t take a lot of space to store either and at £50, it feels well worth the money and will take him till he’s 2 1/2 stone, which should be when he’s around 3 I think.

He was pretty tired afterwards too. All that riding and thinking you are in charge takes it’s toll 😉 And we all had smiles on our faces. It was one of those perfect family moments we’ve not had enough of recently.

Disclosure: We were sent 1 Polisport Guppy Bike Seat and 2 helmets for the purpose of this review.

This post first appeared on Patch of Puddles.

How not to eat a large box of chocolates.

March 6, 2013 by Merry 5 Comments

You might have seen these pop up on my instagram feed?

Hotel Chocolat very kindly sent them too me to review. I was very grateful (very hormonal, very over tired and so VERY grateful!)

The children were thrilled. They really like chocolate. Very much.

But.

Erm….

I like it more.

And I was VERY hormonal.

So I ate them. Quite a lot of them. With Max's help and I did save four for the girls.

But… Well, it was a Mother's Day selection.

For mothers.

With blueberry chocolates and some salted pralines and an extremely nice champagne one.

Not really child chocolate. Would have been a shame to waste them on minors.

UNFORTUNATELY…

Two of the girls have instagram accounts.

And so I got busted.

Big time.

…

I even ate the four I saved.

And told Facebook.

Oops.

Ps. You absolutely HAVE TO TRY THE LEMON ONE.

I was sent these chocolates free for review. All social media bloopers in regards to my daughters lost innocence about their mother and her sweetie greed were my own. As are my views.