Celebrate with Winning Wenlock

I don't know about you but I cannot wait for all the fantastic sport this summer!

Although I wont be going to London, I shall be watching it on the TV and it's highly likely that I will become obsessed with it ..... advance warning for you all! I will, of course, be supporting Team GB every step of the way.

It's an exciting time for people old and young alike, and a great chance to get your kids interested in sport.

This week we started the ball rolling by introducing Jonny and Sophie to Winning Wenlock, the official mascot!

Winning Wenlock isn't just a cute cuddly toy - he also dances to the official mascot song "On a Rainbow". With bendable arms and a cool medal, Wenlock is set to capture your child's imagination.

Jonny instantly loved Wenlock...although was somewhat confused that he only has one eye. Apparently this is actually a video camera so that he can record everything that he sees. In fact a lot of thought has been put into Wenlock's design. The "W" on his forehead reflects London taxis and the three spikes on his head represent the podium where winners will collect their medals.

Jonny soon got the hang of how to make Wenlock dance and play music (you push a bit on his leg) and before long both he and Sophie were dancing along.....it was really cute I wish I'd had a video camera to hand.

Jonny and Wenlock "going on their holidays"

They took him out into the garden where he played in the tent ... in fact he didn't leave their sight all day...a definite hit!

Personally what I like about Wenlock is that he's really good quality AND he comes complete with batteries...I loathe products that don't come with their required batteries. I love the way he rocks the Union Flag, very patriotic and very cool too.

I think Wenlock will be doing a lot of singing and dancing over the next few months...and hopefully he will spur Team GB on to victory!

Winning Wenlock is available to purchase from www.goldenbeartoys.com with an RRP of £39.99 and is suitable for children from age 3+. A great momento as well as lots of fun.

A sample was received for the purposes of this review. No other reward, financial or otherwise, was received in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are entirely our own.

Lunchtime by Rebecca Cobb

I ADORE books! As a student I used to work in a book shop and my favourite thing was unpacking all the new books and having a wee nosey at them. I think it could actually be bordering an obsession. Personally I love giving books as gifts, especially to kids. What better way is there to instil a love of literature than by starting them young?

Liz has a very similar attitude when it comes to her kids and Jonny and Sophie do enjoy a good book. So imagine their delight when a new book arrived for review - Lunchtime by Rebecca Cobb. Over to Liz....

Jonny (my three-year-old) and I had a son-mum moment when we read the first two lines of this book: ‘At lunchtime Mum said, “Eat up.” I said, “No thanks, I’m a bit too busy”.’ We just looked at each other and laughed. ‘That’s like me’ said Jonny, and he was totally right. In fact, everyone who Jonny has read the book with has remarked it sounds exactly like him. In fact he thinks the book has been written about him and so the little girl is now a little boy (even though she is wearing tights and a dress…).

The story goes on to tell of the little girl/boy sitting at the table refusing to eat her lunch while her mum goes off to do something else (I imagine her sitting with a lovely glass of wine in the garden). Eventually a crocodile, bear and wolf come and eat her lunch for her. Obviously mum is delighted when she returns to find the food gone and the girl goes off to play again. Throughout the afternoon her tummy begins to rumble and gets louder and louder until its dinnertime and you’ll have to read the book to see what happens.

Lunchtime is a great book with lovely illustrations and not much text. Quite often we read it through once and then just go through the illustrations and tell the story in our own words (the book makes an excellent crocodile mouth to snap Jonny’s fingers too). As it is relatively short our one-year-old doesn’t get bored when we read it together. Therefore I use the book both as a quick read to fill a couple of minutes or as a much longer read when time allows.

This is one of those stories that is so simple but it is definitely one of Jonny’s favourite books and I can recite it by heart. He absolutely loves it and finds it hilarious. Well done Rebecca Cobb!

Lunchtime is widely available in Hardback with a marked price of £10.99.

A review copy was received for the purposes of this review. No other reward, financial or otherwise, was received in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are entirely our own.

Celebrate Summer With Ben & Jerry's

Could it be that summer as arrived? The weather has been absolutely beautiful this week - a perfect excuse to indulge in some ice cream!

Liz and family have embraced the hot weather and set about reviewing one of Ben & Jerry's latest ice creams from their The Core range.

There are three flavours to choose from and each contains two flavours in one tub as well as a core of sauce running through the middle! 

Liz and co. opted for the Berry White and here are their thoughts...

Bring it on! Reviewing ice cream is obviously a very serious job and so we did our best to taste it, taste it again, then again, and again just to make sure we were in a position to fully review it. The beauty about the new Core range from Ben & Jerry's is that there are two different ice creams and a truffle ‘core’ so it was important to taste every combination possible.

First of all, what a great idea! Although my family are more than happy to eat our way through a tub of the normal Ben & Jerry's flavours; this one certainly led to lots of conversations – especially from our three-year-old son. When you open the lid it looks great; one side is rich raspberry ice cream with pieces of raspberry in it; the other side is vanilla ice cream with chunks of white chocolate in it; and in the middle is a dark brown truffle which goes right the way to the bottom of the pot.

 The ice cream is totally gorgeous and totally up to the normal Ben & Jerry’s standard. I would have happily eaten the whole tub sitting in a cupboard so Jonny (my son) couldn’t have any. Unfortunately I was shamed into sharing. The raspberry was everyone’s favourite by far, but mixed with the vanilla and white chocolate was also very tasty. Lovely and creamy with lots of berries and chocolate to keep your taste buds tingling.

I thought, being a chocolate lover that the truffle core would be my favourite part and I would probably end up eating all of that pretty quickly, but was actually surprised to find it was my least favourite part: Still tasty, but nowhere near as runny of chocolatey as I would have liked. My husband’s comment was ‘the ice cream is very nice but the truffle bit gets in the way and detracts from the other two’. As much as I hate to say it (partly because I really wanted it to be gorgeous and partly because I hate to actually write in black and white that my husband is right) I have to agree with him.

Two other flavours are available – Dough-ble Whammy and Karamel Sutra which it would only be fair to try in the near future. Well, I feel it’s now necessary to go and try just a little bit more to make sure all I’ve said is true… 

The new Ben & Jerry's Core is available from supermarkets nationwide with an RRP of £4.99 - if you give it a go let us know what you think!

A sample was received for the purposes of this review. No other reward, financial or otherwise, was received in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are entirely our own.

Ginger Rhubarb Muffins

Rhubarb is a food that causes a divide in our household - I absolutely love it...Jonathon hates it! I remember as a kid just munching raw rhubarb....occasionally dipping it in sugar. The thing is that when you grow rhubarb you end up with sooo much of the stuff! I tend to freeze it so we can stew it and make a crumble. Never before had I thought about making muffins with it. So if you are up to your ears in rhubarb this season consider digging out the muffin tray and getting baking!

The following recipe was provided by Tefal. Although Jamie Oliver is in the photo it's actually not his recipe, just his bakeware that is being used. Enjoy!!

Ginger Rhubarb Muffins

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups All-purpose flour
2 teaspoons Baking powder
1 teaspoon Baking soda
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 tablespoons Crystallized ginger, finely minced
3/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup Sour cream
1/3 cup Vegetable oil
1 Egg
1 cup Rhubarb stalks, finely chopped

Method

1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees (that's about 205 deg C)
2 In large bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt and crystallized ginger
3 In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, milk, sour cream, oil and egg
4 Stir in rhubarb. Add to dry ingredients and stir until just blended
5 Fill each muffin cup three-quarters full with batter. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, approximately 15 minutes
6 Cool in pan for 5 minutes on cooling racks, then remove and enjoy!

Monkey Music Charity Single

I know it's a shock...two blog posts in a week from me! I've been struggling a bit recently but I really wanted to spread the word about a fantastic new charity single out on Friday 18th May 2012.

Monkey Music - the UK's premium music group for pre-school children - has recorded a charity single performed by young children aged 7, 8 and 9 to celebrate an amazing summer of sport. The Day Is Here has been written specially for Monkey Music and tells the story of a running race.

This new song will be sung in Monkey Music classes across the UK and will be available to purchase online as of Friday.

What's more, Monkey Music are intending to raise funds for music therapy charity, Nordoff Robbins through the sale of this single.

Nordoff Robbins is a national specialist music charity.  Their qualified music therapists visit schools, hospitals and care homes to help people with a range of challenges, including autism, dementia, mental health problems, stroke, brain injury, learning difficulties, depression and in some cases clients have life threatening or terminal illness, such as cancer.

Personally I think this is a great opportunity to help a fantastic charity as well as getting your child excited about this summer's sporting events and to fill their life and the lives of others with music!

The single shall be launched on Friday 18th May 2012 so check out www.monkeymusic.co.uk that day and support a great cause!

No reward, financial or otherwise, was received in exchange for this post.

Reading with Thomas & Friends plus Discount Code

For the past few weeks Liz and Jonny have been working their way through a pile of  Thomas & Friends books and magazines from Egmont. Egmont have been publishing Thomas & Friends books and magazines for 12 years and this year they will be publishing fifteen new collectable Thomas & Friends story books!  Jonny was sent their first five to review. As a massive fan of Thomas Jonny has had a ball!

Check out the bottom of this review for a fabulous 15% discount off Personalised Books from Egmont.

Here's what Liz had to say...

The wonderful world of Thomas and his friends! Our three-year-old son, Jonny loves everything to do with trains and adores Thomas so this was the perfect review for him. Thomas has gone through some major changes over the past few years but every new phase works really well although the originals are still my favourite. Jonny quite happily watches an original programme and then the new animated version and enjoys them equally. This is the same for the books.

We received five books; The Tall Friend, Belle’s New Friend, Busy Engines, FireEngine Flynn and Thomas’ Crazy Day. The books tell of Thomas and his friends adventures which generally end up in them getting into trouble and then trying to fix things. These books are based on the updated, animated version of Thomas. The stories are very readable and Jonny really enjoys them. Personally I don’t think they are as good as the original but maybe that’s just me harping back to the old days. The illustrations are very clear and bright and there aren’t too many words on a page so Jonny is kept entertained.

We also received two magazines; Thomas & Friends, and Thomas Express. Jonny was totally thrilled to receive these as he rarely gets bought magazines and when it does it is from his auntie. Although they do entertain him, I’d rather buy books that last a long time rather than spending £3.50 per fortnight or £4.00 per month respectively. That’s a lot of money per year! Saying this, if we were richer I’d love to treat him to magazines as they’re very exciting for children. They love the ‘free’ gifts (a farmyard set in ‘Thomas & Friends’ and binoculars, a magic slate, stickers and crayons in ‘Thomas Express’) even though I spend most of my time stopping my eleven-month-old from trying to eat them. Certainly as a parent I'd appreciate one toy of better quality but he loves the gifts.

‘Thomas & Friends’ includes lots of activities including counting, writing, colouring in, trivia questions, stories, drawing, mazes, fact files, and targeted information (for example, introducing a farmyard).

‘Thomas Express’ includes generally the same concepts plus Spot the difference, telling the time, spotting differences, a huge poster, a race game, and opposites.

To be fair to the magazines they are full of activities and promote education in a bright, colourful medium and allow for hours of fun individually and with parents. They are certainly better than sitting the kids in front of the television for long periods of time and they were excellent to take on holiday with us. There is obviously a lot of work goes into the magazines and although we won’t be subscribing to them I really do like them. If we had spare money we would. Maybe a subscription could be his birthday present…

Of course, the best things about the books and magazines is that they kept Jonny still and quiet for a long time without watching television and that is worth its weight in gold.

Egmont don't just specialise in Thomas, the have a whole range of characters that are hugely popular with kids. What's more they also offer Personalised Books. As a child I remember being delighted with a personalised book I received, particularly as the name Rhoda isn't exactly overly common, I felt it was such a special book and absolutely cherished it. Egmont have very kindly offered Rhoda Reviews readers a 15% discount on their Personalised Books. Simply enter the code U12-POD15D at the checkout to receive your discount, but be quick this offer only lasts until 1st June 2012!

What's more for a limited time only they are offering free delivery on all personalised books - a great chance to get birthday and Christmas presents bought for the year ahead!

For more information about Egmont and their products visit www.egmont.co.uk.

This new range of Thomas books is aimed at 1-3 year olds who are most familiar with the TV show and are priced at just £2.99 each - a bargain! As for the magazines, standard issues of Thomas & Friends retail at £2.45 and are available every two weeks.  Thomas Express retails at £3.99.

Samples were received for the purposes of this review. Thank you to Egmont for offering readers a 15% discount. No other reward, financial or otherwise, was received in exchange for this post.

Blade & Rose Leggings

Hope you are all having a good Bank Holiday Monday! It's pouring outside here so I thought it was the perfect time to sit down and tell you about Blade & Rose.

Blade & Rose provide innovative, funky and high quality baby leggings. They have some really cute designs! Liz and Sophie were lucky enough to be sent a pair of these gorgeous leggings to review - Daisy Leggings!

Image from Blade & Rose.

Here's Liz's review...

Very, very cute indeed. These leggings are a quality piece of children’s clothing and can be used under dresses or just on their own. We were sent some blue leggings with little daisies on the lower legs and a big daisy on the bottom! Sophie, although I admit to being slightly bias, looks so adorable and let’s face it, there is only a short amount of time it is socially acceptable to wear a big daisy on your bum.

Sophie rocking her new leggings!

I love the fact these leggings are footless – so much better than tights – which gives a number of different ‘looks’ (although I use the word advisedly as Sophie is slightly less than a year old). Whereas tights with feet in them never seem to fit properly, going from Nora Batty to them being far too small in a very short amount of time. They are so much easier to put on and take off during nappy changes than tights. Even the waistband seems to ‘fit’ perfectly and the elastic, although sturdy, does not dig in at all.

They are 75% cotton and really do feel so much softer than other leggings and tights Sophie has. You can see and feel the quality as soon as you take them out the very nicely packaged parcel. Plus you can wash them at 40 degrees which is great if you want to wash them hotter than 30 degrees for stains such as poo and sick (both of which we have tested…). After washing they have kept their shape and really are just like new. The leggings are so gentle on Sophie’s skin and I’m quite jealous of them to tell the truth although I may get some strange looks on the high street.

"ahh, these are so comfy"

Gorgeous design and texture. I’d recommend these as a present without hesitation. These have obviously been designed by a mum who experienced a problem and solved it! There are numerous different designs and sizes to choose from and we’ll definitely be investing in more. Just brilliant!

Blade & Rose leggings are available in four sizes and are available to buy directly from the Blade & Rose website for £10. 

A sample was received for the purpose of this review. No other reward, financial or otherwise, was received in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Olive Branch Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sorry I've been a bit quiet for a while, my body and mind haven't really been cooperating! Anyway, here I am with a review of Olive Branch olive oil for you .... it's scrummy!

Olive Branch is a 100% natural Olive Oil that is cold-pressed solely from Koroneiki Olives on the island of Crete. I have to admit that it was this fact alone that made me desperate to try this oil - people in Crete have on of the highest life expectancies anywhere in the world....could this be down to their olive oil rich diet?

Over the years I have become somewhat of an olive oil snob, yes I admit it! I love the flavour of good quality olive oil and the tones that it adds to dishes. Truth be told I could just sit with the some fresh bread and good quality olive oil and be quite happy. I think it's one of these things that you don't really appreciate until you've had some really great oil (maybe like wine?). As a student I would buy the cheapest available but as time went on, and budgets weren't so tight, I branched out (pardon the terrible pun) and tried different oils.

The acidity of olive oil can be an indication of the oil's freshness. Standard olive oils tend to have an acidity of around 0.8% however Olive Branch has an acidity of <0.3%, demonstrating its freshness and making it more palatable too.

So what about did  I think of this oil then? Well the first thing I have to say is that it has a really cool label! It's eye catching, simple and I think that reflects the product within - simple but delicious.

As for the flavour, I don't think I've ever tasted an olive oil that was quite so fresh. I don't wish to get carried away but I felt like I could have been in Crete, under one of those olive trees when I first tried it. It has a very distinct, zesty flavour which actually turns almost peppery in the mouth. I was instantly taken by this product and couldn't wait to set about using it.

We first used this oil with asparagus. Having cooked the asparagus we just tossed it in some Olive Branch Extra Virgin Olive Oil with lemon zest and parmesan cheese. I have to say it was absolutely delicious, the flavours went so well together.

If you are stuck for culinary ideas, check out the Olive Branch website. They have a bundle of recipes in their Recipe Tree from celebrities, chefs, nutritionists and food lovers across Britain. You can even share your own recipe with others.

Olive Branch Olive Oil is exclusively available from independent delicatessens, fine food stores and online. It comes in three sizes, 250ml at £4.99, 500ml at £8.99 and 1litre at £14.99.

I think this is the perfect Olive Oil for summer ... go sit outside and pretend you are in Crete - that's my plan!

A sample was received for the purposes of this review. No other reward, financial or otherwise, was received in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.