Posts tagged reviews

The Land of Sometimes Review and Competition

115
1 month ago
by DawnieBrown in , ,

We’ve been sent a copy of The Land of Sometimes to review, The Land of Sometimes is a CD which combines a story and songs aimed for children 2+. It tells the story of twins Elise and Alfie as they go on a journey to the Land of Sometimes.

“Over the ocean, far away, there is a magical place called ‘The Land Of Sometimes’ where four seasons pass within one day, and everyone who lives there has a song…”

“As the story unfolds, children all over the world will be enchanted by this collection of deliciously eccentric characters and their original songs. Catchy, melodic, somethimes hilarious – ranging from reggae to disco, Irish folk, poetry, New Orleans jazz and just simply beautiful tunes, these songs have a universal appeal and are a mesmerising introduction for children of all ages to the eternal power of music and story telling”

I originally put this on to play to myself before letting MissB listen to it. It really is great to listen to. I love the story telling element in between each song and the songs are varied and enchanting. I particularly love The Ballad of The River Slouch Sling and Mr Smaller Than Smaller Than Smaller Than Small Thing.

I’m not usually a huge fan of childrens’ music (let’s face it what parent is?) but this is actually quite easy to listen to and draws you into the story too. MissB who doesn’t have the greatest concentration span in the world (well she is only 2!) did like listening to the CD, I’ve been putting it on in the car whilst driving around and it makes her smile (after a couple of plays I end up singing along to the songs which MissB finds hysterical :) ) MissB loves The Chant of The Chameleon Catcher :)

Pop over to The Land of Sometimes website and meet the characters and listen to clips of some of the songs. The Land of Sometimes CD Booklet package can be bought on Amazon for £10.97. The CD case is in the form of a booklet with beautifully illustrated images of the characters and songs.

I’ve been given a copy of The Land of Sometimes to give away to one of my lovely readers and here is all you need to do to enter:

You can do all of the actions below or just 1 of them but please make sure you leave a separate comment for each action you take or your entries will not be valid & please make sure you leave a way of contacting you either email or twitter, Thank you x

* Leave me a comment telling me you’d like to be entered

* Like Me on Facebook http://facebook.com/kneesupmotherbrown (there is a link on the right sidebar!)

* Follow me on Networked Blogs – see link on the right sidebar!

* Tweet the following “I’d like to win a copy of The Land of Sometimes @dawnie_brown in this lovely giveaway at http://wp.me/p2dS23-1cw “

* Subscribe to the blog via email (form is over on the right sidebar!) – please note if you were previously subscribed to the blog you will need to subscribe again as I lost you all when I transferred to self hosting :(

Good luck! UK entries only please. The winner will be drawn by random.org on Sunday April 22nd at 8pm x

My Beauty Bundle Review

1
2 months ago
by DawnieBrown in

I was contacted by My Beauty Bundle recently who asked if I would like to receive one of their bundles to review.

My Beauty Bundle is a new company which sends out beautifully packaged bundles each month to subscribers. Each Beauty Bundle is designed to help mums-to-be and new mums discover new products for mum and baby, whatever stage of pre or postnatal pregnancy they are in. The My Beauty Bundle team have hand picked a selection of products for both mum and baby for use during pregnancy and motherhood.

“We know that you don’t always have the time or the energy to go shopping, so let us put together the perfect pamper package and deliver it directly to your door.

Simply let us know babies due date or birthday on subscription and leave the rest to us. Baby has already arrived? Don’t worry! The bundle keeps on giving even after you are a parent & will include some surprises for baby too!”

When the box arrived through the post, I was impressed with the packaging, the tissue paper and ribbon give the package a special touch which is always a nice.

My bundle contained the following items:

Weleda Skin Food (30ml) worth £4.95 – a deeply nourishing cream for the hard working mum, which smells and feels lovely. I have really dry hands and use loads of hand cream so it’s always nice to try some new ones.

Vital Touch Natalia Baby Bottom Butter (15ml) – an organic shea butter and camomile butter for soothing babies bottoms. I’ve used this cream before and love the smell of it. This can be purchased on the site for £5.

Madara Moonflower Tinting Fluid (3ml sachet) – this cream has a light tint which illuminates and moisturisers your face and neck. I did like this product but found the 3ml sachet a bit of a disappointing sample size to be honest! Though I did find it on the site for £20.99 for 50ml.

Lavara Mango Milk Shampoo (30ml) worth £1.50 – a shampoo which smells of Mango and has the added bonus of colour protection.

Each bundle costs £15 including postage and you can subscribe on a monthly basis or buy bundles of 3,6 or 12 months. Maybe as a gift idea for a baby shower or to treat a new mum?

I do like the idea of receiving new and interesting beauty products every month but I did think £15 was a little expensive for the 4 sample sized products I received. The value of products I received in my bundle was £11.45 not including the 3ml sample of Madara Moonflower Tinting Fluid so you get pretty much what you pay for in the bundle including postage costs. Personally I would feel a bit extravagant buying the bundle for myself each month but if I was given it as a gift then I’d be very happy to receive it! I particularly liked that 3 of the products in the bundle were for ME though and only one was for baby, it’s nice to feel pampered as a mum occasionally and get something for myself rather than everything being about babies :)

Graco Nautilus Car Seat Review

0
3 months ago
by DawnieBrown in ,

As you may know, we’ve been looking for a Group 1+ car seat for MasterB for a while now as he was fast becoming too small for his infant car seat. With thanks to my lovely sister over at Mummy Loves who is a Graco Ambassador, I received a Graco Nautilus car seat to review. The Nautilus is great as it is Group 1, 2 and 3 (9-36kgs) – so this is the only car seat that we will ever need for him now!

Graco Nautilus – The Details

Safety

  • Side impact protection
  • 5 point harness
  • Lock-off mechanism
  • Group 1 Stage: 9 to 18 kilos with in-built harness and harness protect
  • Group 2, 3 Stage: 15 to 36 kilos – please remove harness and use with a seat belt
Ease of use
  • Direct-access recline handle
  • Intuitive belt routing
  • One-hand adjustable head support
Comfort
  • Height adjustment (grows with child)
Convenience
  • Machine washable cover- Integrated cup holder
  • Storage compartments

My first impressions on receiving the Nautilus was that it looked lovely and spacious and extremely sturdy looking.

MasterB's first time in the Nautilus

MasterB certainly seemed very happy in his new seat though he was a little perplexed with suddenly being able to see forwards.

When it came to fastening the car seat into the car (we use it in a Kia Sorento) I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to install. With all the media going on about how so many car seats aren’t correctly fitted, it is nice to find a car seat which really is easy to fit and doesn’t move an inch when I test it.

I also like the fact that it has a drinks holder and a couple of handy storage compartments in the arm rests. Now MasterB is a little young for having drinks in the car yet but I know from experience with MissB how annoying it is trying to pass drinks back to a toddler and trying to reach for dropped cups.

MasterB in his big boy seat

I have to admit I’ve not quite figured out the recline feature yet as it doesn’t recline quite as much as I like but at least it has one, the seat we have for MissB doesn’t have a recline and I always feel sorry for her when she falls asleep bolt upright. MasterB at least has a little recline to make his snoozing easier.

The Graco Naultius can be bought from various places, the cheapest I’ve found this morning was on Amazon for around £125 here >> Graco Nautilus Group 1/2/3 Car Seat
which although it seems expensive at first, considering it will be the only car seat I need from now on, it’s not a bad investment.

The Graco Nautilus also comes with a FREE childrens play centre ;) – as you can see from the following photos, the box provided hours of entertainment for both MissB and MasterB lol

So MasterB gets a car seat and I get a new den - great!

Plenty of room for me and all my toys in here!

Travelling with Children – Toddler Backpack and Reins Review

1
6 months ago
by DawnieBrown in , ,

We have recently been sent a toddler backpack and reins set to review from Travelling with Children. With two children under 2, I’m always willing to give anything that might make life a little less stressful a try and as MissB now prefers to spend more time out of the pushchair than in it, it was an ideal product for us to test out.

The backpack comes in red, blue, apple green and pink. We were sent a red one which is great as it means I’ll also be able to use it when MasterB starts walking as well ;) The backpack fastens on easily with a simple 3 way harness and then all you need to do is clip the lead rein onto the bag and your little one is safely attached :) We do have a set of normal reins but find these a bit restrictive as the leads aren’t very long and MissB gets frustrated as she doesn’t have much freedom but with the backpack MissB has more room to explore without feeling “attached” to us and she loves being able to fit her teddy and a drink in her bag.

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An excellent feature is the emergency grab handle on the top of the backpack which means if you needed to stop your child quickly for any reason then you can grab hold of it rather than pulling on the reins. It also has a bright reflector on the back so your little one can be seen in these dark and dreary winter evenings.

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If you need it (which we don’t as none of my two use dummies) there is a handy loop for attaching dummies/soothers to on the straps of the backpack so your toddler can always find it.

If you do buy this product, don’t expect a big backpack that you can fit lots into, it is only for a toddler to carry and so the capacity is only 2.5 litres which we find is just enough for a toy and a drink and a snack. Though to be honest we don’t put anything in it when MissB is wearing it as then she wants to keep taking it off to get her drink out :rolleyes:

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The backpack sells for £15.99 on the Travelling with Children website here which is quite expensive considering you can pay around £6-7 for a set of normal reins but I think it is worth the price as MissB enjoys wearing it so we avoid toddler tantrums when it comes to putting the reins on and anything which avoids tantrums is always worth a bit more money ;)

As well as the backpack, we were also sent a set of Disposable Sterlising Bags. As we are almost out of our sterlising and bottle days nowadays I can’t say we have been able to test them out but they look ideal for people who are going camping or anywhere they can’t conventiently plug in their steriliser. Each bag is a totally self-contained steriliser unit lasting up to 24 hours and will hold at one time a maximum of 4 standard or 3 wide neck bottles. They are safe to use with foreign water and each sachet has clearly printed instructions to enable use without carrying the main pack with you. The pack contains 7 days supply and sells for £12.99 on the Travelling with Children website here.

As a thank you for reading this post, Travelling with Children are offering readers a 15% discount of any Lodger products on their website. Just enter the code “lodger” on checkout to receive your discount :)

You can find Travelling with Children on twitter @twchildren or on their facebook page here

Crayola – Colour Mix-a-Roo Game

0
6 months ago
by DawnieBrown in ,

We’ve been sent a great game to review from University Games, it’s Crayola Colour Mix-A-Roo and I think it’s fab!

Colour Mix-A-Roo is a game for ages 4+ so it’s a little old for MissB really but I’ve been having a good play around with it and I’m impressed – it’s very clever and I’m a little baffled by how it works so if I am then any child will be too :)

The game is aimed at pre-schoolers teaching them about mixing primary, secondary and tinted colours – without any mess! Players turn over cards to find out which secondary or tinted colour they need to create. They then dial the correct combination of primary colours into the cleverly constructed Colour Mix-a-Roo wheel and open the revealer door to see what colour they have created. The player with the most matches wins the game. It really is a nicely simple game to play and the colour mixing wheel is great though I’m a little baffled by how it works exactly. You dial the colours you’d like to mix and then resulting colour is revealed behind the little door! I also like the fact that the cards are thick card ones and so unlikely to be bent, ripped or destroyed by pre-school excitement ;)

This really is a fun little game which will keep children entertained for hours (hopefully) and I can’t wait until MissB is a little older so we can all play it together :)

I’m sure you can buy Crayola Colour Mix-a-Roo in most toy shops or you can get it online at Amazon for £9.99 Crayola Colour Mix-a-roo Game which I think is a great price for a stocking filler this christmas :)

Supernanny App Review

0
8 months ago
by DawnieBrown in , , , ,

I was recently asked if I would like a copy of the Supernanny Iphone App to review. I absolutely love watching Supernanny on TV and as I’m a bit of an App addict I of course said I’d love to. The app is only £1.99 which is a great price for what you get.

The first thing you do when you download the app is to complete profiles for you children. This then enables you to set up reward charts for them.

MissB and MasterBs profiles

Once you have set up profiles you can then set up reward charts for each child based on what works for each child, the app is great as you can take photos of what each reward is so that your child can see what they will get.

You can tailor the rewards to each individual child

You can then create your list of rules which each child needs to stick to, there are a list of rules already included but you can again tailor these to suit your child.

You can edit the rules to suit your child

You can then set up a reward chart using various themes such as Space, Under Water, Fairies and Cats and Haunted Castle. Once this is done you are then ready to go.

Under Water Reward Chart

The app is really simple to use, you just add or remove reward stars depending on your child’s behaviour and if they are misbehaving there is a time out feature which counts down the time out for you. For those who aren’t familar with Supernanny, time out and the naughty spot is a common feature in the routine which teaches about consequences of misbehaviour. Now I know that if I needed to do a time out I would never have a handy stop clock with me but the app can do this for you.

The length of timeout is based on 1 minute for each year of your childs age

Aside from the rewards, rules and timeout features of the app, there are also some other features which include a guidance section which tells you how to deal with different sections and includes videos explaining how to go about implementing each of Supernanny’s techniques.

The advice section

There is also a games section on the app which has a slide puzzle game and a spot the difference puzzle on it which is always handy when you are out and about and need to keep the kids occupied for 5 minutes.

Slide puzzle game

Spot the Difference game

and of course there is a shop section of the app where you can buy the latest Supernanny products

Supernanny shop

Now admittedly MissB is still a little young to understand the rewards technique and naughty step at the moment but it is something I intend to start with her when she is a little older so I think this app will be great. Lets face it I’ve about a dozen books on the shelf but I never have time to sit down and read them so having advice to hand on my phone is a fantastic idea and at only £1.99 for the app I think it’s a bargain. :)

Robe Around Review

0
1 year ago
by DawnieBrown in

As you are all no doubt aware I am now 32 weeks pregnant and starting to resemble a weeble. About the one activity I still manage to do and look forward to each week is taking MissB to waterbabies on a Friday.It is something MissB loves doing and I want to keep going as long as we can :)

When I was offered the chance to review a Robe-Around from Sporty Bump I jumped at the opportunity. The Robe-Around is a wrap-around pleated toweling robe which fastens with velcro and has a pleated section at the front which is ideal for covering growing bumps.

Now if anyone has ever experienced a waterbabies class where we go you will have noticed a few things:

1) Classes are full of mums and dads with their children, which is fine but when you are 8 months pregnant you don’t necessarily feel at your most comfortable wobbling around in a skin tight swim suit in front of other people. The Robe-Around is ideal for this as you just pop it on whilst waiting for your class and you get to keep warm and not feel like a beached whale :)

2) The logistics of getting changed afterwards are always a bit of an issue, I like to get MissB dried and dressed first so I can sit her down with a biscuit and drink whilst I can then get changed. This works well but it does mean that I end up standing in a wet swimsuit leaning over the changing tables dripping everywhere whilst trying to get MissB changed and not get her wet again from my swimsuit. The older she gets, the wrigglier she gets and the more difficult this task becomes, combined with me getting bigger, the logistics are becoming pretty impossible. The Robe-Around was an absolute godsend for this, I simply wrapped myself in it and was able to get MissB dry whilst not dripping everywhere, not getting cold and not flaunting my whale like body to everybody else in the room.

I absolutely loved this product and wish I’d found it earlier in my pregnancy but it will certainly make the rest of my waterbabies classes a lot easier to manage. Of course it doesn’t just have its uses for waterbabies classes, it will also be ideal for pregnant ladies who like to go swimming, aquanatal classes, on holiday or even if you go to the gym (well I’m sure some pregnant ladies do somewhere :) ) I imagine it would also come in very useful for those pregnant ladies who are planning a water birth and want a bit of coverage when they are getting in and out of the birthing pool :)

You can buy the Robe-Around for £20 from the Sporty Bump website HERE definitely a must have for any pregnant lady who loves swimming :) Big thumbs up from me for this one :)

Dyson Air Multiplier – Is it worth the money

2
1 year ago
by DawnieBrown in

OK so yesterday our lovely dyson air multiplier arrived. We have been looking for a solution for our super heated bedroom for a while as sleeping in temperatures of around 29C was proving difficult.

Well the air multiplier certainly looks interesting – I’m not sure whether you could call it beautiful or stylish, it reminds me of the Stargate but rather than using it travel through wormholes in space to different planets I was hoping it would just cool our room down a little.

Well the cats were certainly interested in it, Izzy attempted to use it for jumping through whereas Indie thought it would make a good scratching post (bad kitty). MissB was fascinated by it, in a way that only a 7 month old baby could be. At least she won’t be able to get her fingers trapped by spinning blades with this fan.

The noise – I have to admit the dyson is noisier than I expected it to be, even on low settings but after a while you kind of tune out from it. It’s a low consistent hum which to be honest is actually quite a soothing sound compared to the whirring noise you get from traditional fans.

The air – now this is where it gets hard to describe, with a normal fan you feel the breeze but with this one the airflow is really gentle so it doesn’t really feel like a breeze, you can feel it but its more refreshing if that makes sense. It’s certainly a lot more comfortable sitting in front of the air multiplier than a normal fan. It also seems to cover a wider area than normal fans, we didn’t have it rotating and it still managed to cool both myself and my husband lying in our super size (7ft) bed.

The lack of blades – this is certainly an advantage, especially when it comes to little baby fingers and cleaning it. I hate having to clean normal fans, taking off the cover, wiping all the blades, putting it back together again etc, with this one I can just wipe it with a duster and job done.

And so nightime fell and the big test began – ok so last night was actually cooler than most so we couldn’t test it in extreme conditions but it certainly felt lovely. It was pleasant, the air felt nice and comfortable without feeling I was being blown away. The noise certainly didn’t interupt our sleep at all and when I woke up this morning the room felt lovely, I assumed it meant it was a cold day outside until I went out of our room and down the hallway to realise it was actually hot and sticky out there.

The big question however is, is it really worth the RRP of £199.99 – hmm its a tough question to answer. I like the fan a lot and it certainly does the job, but could I have just lived with a normal fan and paid a fraction of the price – probably!

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