I'm a Gurgle Girl!

After I had been nominated for a Gurgle for Best Funny Mummy Blog I kept in touch with Gurgle, reading blog posts every now and then and reading Tweets here and there, but had a lovely surprise when they wrote to me via email asking if I would be interested in becoming a Gurgle Girl, if I was up for the challenge!

I did think this was a great opportunity and I don't tend to back down from too many challenges so I accepted and you can read all about the rest of us Gurgle Girls (I'm not the only one!) on the post at Gurgle.com.

And because I know that you are all as nosey as me, and possibly as lazy here is a nice list of everyone that is involved in the Gurgle Girl Project at the minute. I am sure that you will see that there are plenty of people that you already know and maybe a few new friends too.

Leanne from Second Time Mum
Pippa from A Mothers Ramblings (That's me!)
Emily from Baby Rambles
Hoi-Tse from Tea with one sugar Please
Hazel from Hot Cross Mum
Holly from It's a Mummy's Life
Erin from Jolly Old England
Laura from Are we nearly there yet mummy
Peggy from Perfectly happy Mum
Jen from The Madhouse

If you want to join in the fun on Twitter, then use take a look at the hash tag #gurglegirls and if I get any incriminating photos of the rest of the gang as and when we meet up, then I will make sure that I let you all see them first!

Bob The Builder - A Toys R Us Toyologist Review

Do you remember I told you that Top Ender and Baby Boy had been asked to be Toyologists by Toys R Us? Well we have tested all the toys to the best of our extent from our first parcel and the first review we are posting is a Bob The Builder Dancing Bob toy which retails at £19.99.

The Dancing Bob sings and dances to a song which is turned on and off by pushing Bob's hand and for the first week, we only ever got the intro to the song as Baby Boy loved that he was able to control it by squishing Bob's hand! As soon as we got Baby Boy to realise that there is a dance associated with Bob's song then we managed to get Baby Boy to dance along.

So I present to you Bob The Builder, with backing dancers (who are actually in the foreground) Top Ender and Baby Boy and a guest appearance from Geoffrey the Toys R Us Giraffe!

If we get enough requests, we might even post the video of Daddy and I dancing along...

Booktime for your School or Library!

Earlier this year I won a Twitter competition and got to nominate a school to have a book parcel delivered to for them to put into their School Library. I of course choose Top Enders school and when the parcel arrived at the school, I got my name in the newsletter and everything! Now is a chance for you to have some similar fame at a school of your choice.

This autumn, 680,000 copies of Eric Carle’s story book “ 'Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,' Said the Sloth" will be given to children starting reception in England courtesy of the charity Booktrust who have the programme Booktime (in partnership with Pearson and the Department for Education).

Now here comes the bit with the possible fame for you; To celebrate, Booktime are offering primary schools and libraries in England the chance to enter a prize draw to receive an exclusive artist’s proof from the book signed by Eric Carle. Anyone (that's you) can nominate a primary school and a public library in England (full terms and conditions will be on their website once the competition opens). From today until the 31st October 2010. All you have to do is visit the Booktime site at http://www.booktime.org.uk/ and find the school or library you want to nominate.

If your school or Library is chosen and really generous you might get a wing named after you or I am sure that like Top Ender's school it might be something a little less expensive...

By the way, the Booktime website also has games and resources inspired by all the books that have been given away in the past, and they are on twitter too!

Top Ender Giggles - Growing up

The other evening we decided to have some unhealthy but very tasty Burger King for tea. Whilst waiting for the full meals to be passed to us Daddy stole a chip from the bag.

"Wow! That's hot" he stated still happily chewing away "In fact it was so hot I have one word to say that starts with  'F' and ends with 'uck'"

He paused for a second and I remember thinking that the children were in the back of the car when he carried on;

"Fire Truck!" and then giggled (it was a very manly giggle)
"I thought you were going to say Furck!" said Top Ender from the back seat

I am so glad that Top Ender needs to do some work on her pronunciation!

Club Lego Lego Magazines

When I look back on this summer I think that my overall memory is going to be this was the summer of Lego for my family. Baby Boy discovered Duplo and has been busy making buildings, cars, rockets and what ever else his imagination comes up with and Top Ender and Daddy brought a tub of Lego from the Lego store that has grown since our visit to Legoland and has also been turned into so many different creations I wouldn't know where to start in naming them.

When Lego Club asked if they could send us some Lego magazines to review we said yes, especially as if you belong to the FREE Lego Club, you get the five magazines sent to you throughout the year. Seeing as most children enjoy Lego, I figured that a review of the two magazines (Lego Club for Top Ender and Lego Club Jr for Baby Boy) would be useful. After all you don't just sign up to something just because it is free.

So we got two magazines, Lego Club Jr which is actually aimed at ages 4-5 and Lego Club Magazine which is aimed at ages 7+. Both magazines are brought to you by a MiniFigure called Max, who if made real would be a children's Breakfast TV presenter.

Both Magazines have glossy covers, although the Lego Club Jr Magazine has matt pages on the inside. The Lego Club Jr magazine had lots of activities that kept Baby Boy amused and a how to build a Sports Car feature that kept us all amused trying to build the most perfect sports car. There were plenty of pages that kept Baby Boy amused, even if they weren't being used in the same way as the makers of the Lego Club Jr Magazine intended! The Lego Club magazine, let Top Ender have a good read and she found out a lot about different Lego sets and was most excited to find a LegoLand voucher giving her free entry if she takes an adult.

I haven't explored the Lego website too much, but I have been told that;

"On LEGOClub.com there is exclusive content like ‘Buildits’, ClubCodes, the LEGO Club Show and a chance to sign up for monthly email newsletters of the latest LEGO news"

Once I have had a good explore, if there is anything that I think about the above that is untrue I shall let you know! All in all I think that the Lego Club magazine is a great extra for any Lego mad children/adults and we will be signing up for the club as soon as I get five minutes!

Guest Post: Back to School - The time is upon us.

I love saving money and being frugal and because of this I have a lot of websites in my favourites that I can rely on to help save me some cash. One of my most favourite sites is Moneysupermarket.com because of the fantastic vouchers that they have and when they asked if they could guest post here I agreed as I would love for everyone to save money with me!

Back to school can be an expensive time of year especially since it follows the summer holidays and 6 weeks of entertaining the family. A study has found that parents can spend on average £106 per child to kit them out for the new school year. So here are some last minute ideas of how to reduce the cost of this time of year and in turn hopefully reduce the stress.

VouchersUnless you have to go to a specific outlet to obtain your child’s uniform there is a huge number of retailers that sell school uniforms. Due to the recession many of these retailers now offer a huge array of discounts on products and savvy consumers are making the most of these offers to reduce their costs. Remember to look online to see if there are any discount codes and vouchers available to take with you when buying the uniforms for the approaching school year. The vouchers do not just apply to the uniform but also for the stationary, computers and books that your child may need.
Shop Around
This time of year the high streets will be packed with parents trying to kit out their children for the approaching school term. Avoid the crowds and look online; many stores offer online shopping that will deliver to your door. This also allows you to compare the prices from many retailers all in one go without having to traipse from store to store. This will also reduce the stress of having to entertain the kids whilst queuing for the tills. Most websites also offer size guides allowing you to ensure that you are selecting the right sizes.

Make it yourself
Again, unless you have to go to a specialist outlet for your school supplies making certain aspects of the uniform yourself may be an option if you have the time and ability. The Internet is filled with sewing patterns that can be used for school skirts. Simply download this and obtain the fabric from a haberdashery. This way the skirt is unique and will fit your child perfectly as you have taken their exact measurements. If you’re feeling more adventurous you could try making the school trousers.

You could also make their pencil cases; get the children involved by getting them to pick out the fabric that they wish to use. As the size of the fabric needed will be small you may be able to get an off cut of fabric to use. You can further personalise the pencil case by adding badges, novelty buttons, ribbons or sequins that your child has picked out.

Swap shop Chances are that as a child is growing they are going to outgrow their uniforms fairly quickly meaning that the cost of re-buying uniforms can continue to add-up. In addition to this it means that you are left with barely worn high quality garments that are of no use to you. However, these may be of use to other parents, therefore setting up a swapping scheme with the other parents at the school may be beneficial to avoid wasting this clothing. This is not just limited to clothing; revision guides, Yorke Notes and text books can also be exchanged as it is unlikely that the syllabus or new addition of the text book will change year on year.

A Back to School article by Rhian Gillam of Moneysupermarket.com

A Magic Package, two bars of chocolate and nobody is pregnant

Over the last few days the doorbell has hardly stopped ringing with deliveries of one sort or another and yet even though the packages are addressed to me they were all for Baby Boy and Top Ender. I was starting to think that nobody loved me as I hadn't even had any junk mail or even the dreaded bills!

Then came the magic package with my name on it. A magic package that made me excited because it was for me and me only. So excited that after having opened it I tweeted;

I got a lot of guesses, 54 guesses (I miscounted when I said 53 on Twitter). And out of all of them only one hit the nail on the head.

Congratulations Kate, a bar of chocolate will be on its way to you this weekend! The best answer was from Laura who sent two very quick tweets, but I ended up deciding that the hash tag #pleasecanihavesomechocolate really did deserve a reward!

The reason I was so excited was because the magic package that I had opened contained my dress and new undies that I am going to wear to The MADs!

A few weeks back I started talking with Simply Yours, about underwear to wear to The MADs and they very kindly agreed to send me not only a fab bra for the event and some for everyday wear, but also a dress from sister site Simply Be.

I was looking at the fantastic pages and pages of dresses and underwear and started enlisting help in the form of family and friends and ended up choosing what I think is a beautiful dress. Now I know that you want to see the dress, but I want to keep it a bit of a surprise for a bit longer and so I have written a blog post and scheduled it to post just as the MADs awards starts... so come back on the evening of the 13th September to see a picture of me in my dress!