Mummy & Moose
clapping, napping and yapping our way through the day

Half Term – The Ordinary Moments

Half term seemed to creep up really quickly and then be over just as fast! I mean, ok Moose didn’t actually start school until the third week of September so it was a really short half term for him but still!

I made absolutely zero plans for this half term holiday and usually I hate that because it leaves me often feeling guilty for not providing much entertainment for the children. Bored children (as any parent knows) doth not a happy half term house make.

Luckily my sister, Jo from The Knight Tribe did the same thing. This meant that our children got to catch up with some of their cousins!

We didn’t go very far afield. The beauty of having cousins to play is that they basically entertain themselves. We spent days playing at Jo’s house, we ventured to soft play on one day and we took them all to our local country park on the last day.

We brought along our Beagle, Fudge and Jo brought their Labrador, Rosie. Despite Fudge usually being a very grumpy old lady (she is 13) she seems to get along really well with Rosie and we had a lovely day!

It’s so important to me that my children grow up with a good relationship with their cousins. My siblings are all people who I love dearly and watching our children play together is one of my absolute favourite things to do.

My sister and I managed to have 2 sets of babies quite close to each other

Bess and Leo were born 9 days apart and Moose and Emily were 18 days apart. Both pairs have always been really close. During that first half term of school Moose really missed Emily so he was really excited to spend lots of time together over the holiday.

So, although our half term didn’t really include any expensive activities or a lovely beach holiday (maybe next year, MrG?), we spent it doing something valuable. Taking time to reconnect with each other.

I am thankful for the family my children have around them and I am grateful that after such a lovely day we made it back to the car before the rain started to fall!

 

 

The Ordinary Moments

Meal Planning W/C 29/10/2018

A few weeks ago a chat about household spending with a few friends inspired me to add up the amount we spend on food per month for our family. I am not ready to tell you the exact amount yet but suffice to say that it would make us a firm candidate for that Greg Wallace show where they “surprise” a family in the supermarket and then force them to make their own baked beans and such.

Since MrG has zero interest in appearing on the BBC anytime soon, I have made it my mission to be more careful with our food budget by planning most of our meals each week. KatyKicker has a fabulous blog all about helping people to save money so from now on I will be following her lead and every Friday I will be planning out my meals for the following Monday to Friday. I might include weekends but to be honest it’s almost always Pizza on a Saturday and a Roast on Sunday.

So, that’s the plan. Katy will be my Greg Wallace (but with more hair) and hopefully sharing my meal plan with you will make me take notice of where our budget is going. I am also hoping it will help me not to veer away from eating healthily!

I would love for you to share your favourite family meals in the comments!

Meal Plan

Monday

Breakfast: Fruit and coffee.

Lunch: Chicken burger and chips

Dinner: Tandoori Chicken Skewers with salad (pictured)

Tuesday

Breakfast: Porridge with honey and raisins and coffee

Lunch: Jacket potato with beans

Dinner: Vegetable noodles with Aldi Pork Fillet (pictured)

Wednesday

Breakfast: Porridge with fruit (pictured)

Lunch: Slimming world Banquet rice

Dinner: Steak with roasted vegetables

Thursday

Breakfast: Breakfast wrap and coffee

Lunch: Soup and chicken skewers

Dinner: Mexican style hash with egg (pictured)

Friday

Breakfast: Porridge

Lunch: Tuna and veg pasta (pictured)

Dinner: Jerk Chicken leg with Jacket potato and salad

Pin it

 

Katykicker

RainboCorns Sequin Surprise Review

I don’t know about you but I cannot move for unicorns and sparkle at the moment. It’s everywhere! When we were asked to review a RainboCorn Sequin Surprise I suspected that Moose would love it!

What is a RainboCorn?

The RainboCorns are a very colourful, very cuddly collection of different magical characters. Each RainboCorn has their own personality and very fluffy mane.

There are 12 different RainboCorns based on six cuddly cute animals (Puppycorns, Kittycorns, Hamstercorns, Bunnycorns, Unicorns and Monkeycorns) and every animal comes in two fun, funky designs.

There is a great little series of webisodes to go with the toy which are available to watch on YouTube. We especially enjoyed episode two:

What’s in the box?

There is no box, your RainboCorn comes in an egg which is part of the play (I really liked this) which is then secured in clear plastic wrap. Moose found this a little tricky to get into by himself so I helped. On the front of the egg is a sequin heart. You brush the sequins to see what your RainboCorn loves. Our one loves cherries!

 

Once the wrapping was off the egg, Moose gave it a big hug and POP his RainboCorn was revealed.

Moose was thrilled to find a HamsterCorn inside his surprise egg. Pixelle is his name. He has rainbow coloured hair and little pink wings and Moose says he loves his new friend.

Moose was happy to see that the sequin heart from the egg fits onto the front of his RainboCorn. When he looked inside the egg after removing Pixelle he was really excited to find a second, much smaller surprise egg!

Each RainboCorn comes with a little Boo-Boocorn – a tiny collectable baby Rainbocorn hidden in a secret egg.

Moose loves how cuddly Pixelle the RainboCorn is and finds him a great choice to snuggle with while watching his cartoons. With 12 RainboCorns to collect I definitely think this will be on his Christmas list for Santa!

My thoughts on the RainboCorn

From a parental point of view I thought initially that £24.99 was perhaps a bit steep for a surprise toy. However, it is very high quality and will, I suspect take a good amount of play without any seams giving way. I really liked that there were 3 surprises in the opening of the toy and the fact that it is a lovely quiet toy which does not require assembly (well, aside from slotting a heart into place) or a volume switch makes a very viable candidate for an excellent gift choice! Encouraging imaginative play is great for children and you don’t get much more imaginary than a winged hamstercorn which loves cherries!

Is it for boys or girls?

I think you can see from Moose’s face that the RainboCorn was definitely a hit with him so based on that I would answer a solid BOTH.

Where can you get one?

Rainbocorns are priced at £24.99 and are available from Argos, Smyths, The Entertainer, Asda and B&M. Monkeycorns are sold exclusively in Argos. You can find out more about RainboCorns here: www.rainbocorns.com

 

We were given this product in exchange for a review but all opinions are honest and our own.

 

What’s That Smell? Review and Giveaway

As the parent of three darling children ranging in age from 4 to 17, “WHAT’S THAT SMELL!?” is something I can often be heard to exclaim. Who knew though that this was all good training in anticipation of one day putting my ninja nostrils to the test playing a family table top game from WowWee.

Inside the box you will find
  • 4 STANK cards & scent-barrier bags
  • 48 mystery whiff cards
  • a sheet of whiff strips
  • 6 cardholders
  • scorepad
  • Instructions for 2-6 players ages 14+

The premise of the game is really simple. You are each given a card. When the timer starts you are supposed to scratch the card and sniff. You then write down on the scorepad what you think you can smell. Points are given depending on the accuracy of your answer. For example if you have a coffee card and you guess Coffee you would receive 5 points, If you guessed a vaguely in the ballpark answer like Mocha or Wood you would receive 3 points. You would get 1 point for guessing that the category it is in is “smoke factor”.

What did we think?

This is a great game for us as we have 2 older children who enjoy playing and me who has zero patience when it comes to setting games up. If it takes longer to set up than it does to play then I lose interest and wander off.

We loved the danger aspect of not knowing whether the card you were about to sniff was a lovely smell (like grape) or something pretty gross.

All of the cards seemed to have a faint chemical smell which I presume is there to contain all of the different scents in the cards and after a while of playing I must admit that the scents did start to merge a bit.

The winner of each round is declared the Nose-It-All and is allowed to choose a player to suffer the Whiff of Shame! This part of the game almost made me lose my lunch so I would encourage not to play this one on a full stomach!

Tips for cleansing your sense of smell

  • Smell the crook of your elbow (or any other non-perfumed area of skin)
  • Sniff something made from pure wool
  • Have a bowl of coffee beans nearby for players to sniff. I don’t know why it works but it really does

There is an app for the game.  We chose to play it without the app this time but I have it downloaded for next time. When you play with the app you are able to easily time the rounds, keep score and record Whiff Of Shame moments. Whether you use that footage against your family members, well that’s entirely your call..

We will definitely be playing What’s That Smell? again. I think it would be a great game for Christmas or New Years Eve when you could even play as teams. If you are brave enough!

GIVEAWAY

We are happy to be able to offer you the chance to win your very own What’s That Smell? game which retails for £24.99 at Amazon, Smyths and Argos.

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  • ONE winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter and announced on this page.
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Win A Warwick Castle Family Pass!

Get a frightfully good deal this Halloween with a special sale from Warwick Castle.

Book online by 23 October for visits until 4 November and save up to 40 per cent.

or you can enter below to WIN Family Ticket for some spooky half term fun!

Dare to be scared?

Lure your friends and family to experience the ‘Haunted Castle’ with entry from £15 per person for eerie evening escapades or from £16 per person for dastardly day-time fun. Enhance the scare factor by adding a visit to the Castle Dungeon for an additional £5 per person for evening visits or £6 per person for day visits.

For a truly scary experience, the Haunted Castle will be open until 10pm on selected dates during the Halloween season which runs from 20 October until 4 November 2018.

For Scaredy Squires

Youngsters flock to the Haunted Hollows each Halloween to scamper along the spooky woodland trail, giggling as they go, and to weave their way through the Horrible Histories maze.

 

Dead Centre Stage (open from 11am) offers live-action performances, stories and shows throughout the day. While back at the castle, Witches Tower replaces The Princess Tower. Hear firsthand from a cast of horrid hags who tell tales of ghosts and the unexplained. Just don’t ask them what they did with the princesses…

Daring Dukes

New for 2018, the Escape Room – an actor-led attraction set within the medieval gaol – challenges friends and strangers to work together against the clock on a quest to save a tortured soul from the Wars of the Roses (additional £5 ticket required).

Venture into the castle, the centuries-old walls exuding a sense of foreboding, to find the new House of Wax scare maze. Skirting the ghostly glare of the lurking wax figures, their sallow eyes piercing the disorienting darkness, be prepared for a gut-wrenchingly grim finale…fire and wax don’t mix!

 

Fire jousting returns, promising an awesome display of horseback heroics. Out on the battlefield on River Island, fearless knights wield their flaming lances in a skillful showdown.

 

Brave Knights (over 10 years only; parental discretion advised)

Outbreak 1369 drags pitiful plague victims from their medieval resting place in the fetid bowels of the castle to torment the living. Stomach churns and teeth chatters – punctuated with screams of terror – are to be expected.

Try to keep calm in The Castle Dungeon, a live-actor experience that plunges victims into the deathly darkness of the Middle Ages, when the people of Warwick were at the mercy of the plague, malevolent monks and unscrupulous ‘surgeons’.

The Halloween Spooktacular Sale runs until the clock strikes midnight on 23 October so book quickly! Visit www.warwick-castle.com to reserve your ticket.

Enter our Giveaway to WIN a Family Ticket to Warwick Castle at Halloween – for use during Halloween – 20 October until 4 November 2018

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