Mummy and Me June 2018

So another month goes by, I have been super super busy this month and I have no idea where it has flown. I have only just realised that its nearly the end of the week and this is my only blog post I have written.

We have had some fun opportunities this month for photographs but somehow I have not managed to get any pictures of me and Lily again. Just a few selfies and on one I am barely in it. 

So this months mummy and me photo's we have a good morning selfie. I do love my morning snuggles! And we have one from a fair where Lily was watching a magician and finding it hilarious. 

The sun is out and it is about to become summer holidays so I plan for many more trips out with Lily. Hopefully the perfect opportunity for pictures. 

Here are this months mummy and me pictures.

Hope you got some great mummy and me pictures this month. 

My Sunday Photo 24/06/18

My Photography Post June

I am delighted to say that last month I actually managed to get out and about and do some photography that I love shooting. 

One of my favourite things to shoot is events and so I decided to head over to the Haworth 1940's weekend to shoot the events that were happening. You may have seen in my Mummy and Me Photographs that I attended the event dressed up on one of the days. But I also attended it on one of the days with my camera to get some photographs.

I mostly like to photograph people and so that is what I ended up taking pictures of the most. I took so many that I love, and can't place them all here so I have had to try and choose my favourites for you.

So here are 10 photographs from this years 1940's Weekend. 

1. The girl on the Bike 

2. MR Winston Churchill

3. Lady of War 

4. 1940's Beauty

5. Happy Family 

6. We Sell Knickers in the Street 

7. Taking a Break 

8. 1940's Performance 

9. Home Guard 

10. Little 1940's Girl 

Which of the pictures do you like the most? 

A Review of One Dog, Ten Frogs, By Orchard Toys

Wonderful News! We have another amazing game from Orchard Toys to tell you all about. 

It is called One Dog, Ten Frogs, and is a super fun game revolved around counting. 

We were sent one to try out!!

Lily as usual could not wait to get playing this game, she knew it was Orchard toys as soon as she saw the box and asked to play it straight away. She is always playing her Orchard toys games so she thinks it is brilliant when she gets a new one to play. 

The game comes with 30 circular cards. On the cards are the numbers 1 to 15 and there are 2 of each card. As well as having the number on it, it also has a picture of animals, so number 1 is a red dog, and number 10 are ten green frog. It also come with 2 jigsaw pieces that when you put them together creates a number board showing the numbers 1 to 15 with a picture of an animal next to it. 

There are 2 ways to play, you can either lay the cards upright so you can see what is on them, or you can lay them down face first so then you can't see which is which. 

We decided to lay them down so we didn't know what we were picking up.

The idea behind the game is that you pick up one card, then you count how many animals are on the card. You then need to pick up another card and count the animals on that to see if they are a matching pair. If they are, you collect the 2 cards. If not you place them face down again. 

After you have collected all the cards together, the winner is the one with the most matched pairs. You then can get the number line and place all your matching cards in order.

So here is what we thought to the game. 

Firstly, as usual, the quality of the game is brilliant. Hard cards which aren't easily bent, and also designed so colourfully with friendly characters. 

We then also found the game really simple to play. Which is nice if you want something quick to get out and play.

Lily really understood how to play the game, she understood taking turns and also understood that she had to turn 2 cards over at a time.

But she did get a little bored with the counting, as when she picked one up, she was very eager to pick another one up and quickly noticed they wern't the same. So although she enjoyed the game, she didn't exactly enjoy playing it how it was meant to be played with the counting aspect. 

But I do think it is still a great game to help with numbers, as playing she will start to recognise numbers and when she does decide to do some counting it will really help her with that.

What she did really enjoy, was making her own number line. She mostly matched up the animal characters but as I was helping her, I was pointing out the numbers being the same as on the number line and she counted with me.
I would count the ones we had done, 1, 2, 3... and then ask her what number is next to encourage her to think. 

Overall its a really nice game if you are looking for a game to help teach your children how to count. 

The game is aimed at children 3+ and there can be up to 4 players involved. 

The game is £10.00 and can be bought from the Orchard Toys website. 

What do you like about this game ? 

My Sunday Photo 17/06/18

Hatchimals CollEGGtibles Series 3 Review

Lily has always loved the larger Hatchimals, but her new love has to be the Hatchimals CollEGGtibles. she has always loved collecting things and so these little cuties are just a nice new thing to collect.

Hatchimals CollEGGtibles series 3 is now out and so we were lucky enough to be sent some from Spin Master to review. 

We were sent a brilliant bundle witch surprise packs and larger packs with 12 Hatchimals inside. 

Lily was super happy when she saw the bundle. She just could not wait to open them up. She has had a few surprise bags before and so knew what they were all about. The surprise bag was the first thing she wanted to open. 

The one single surprise blind bag is £2.99 and you get one Hatchimal inside an egg. Lily ripped it open straight away to see which one she got. 

After she has opened it and found a cute little Hatchimal inside, she wanted to open more. So I gave her the large dozen egg carton, which is £24.99 and has 12 Hatchimal inside, and also gave her the mini 2 pack egg carton which retails at £4.99.

I love that these come in egg cartons, its such a nice way to be presented and Lily loved opening them up to reveal the eggs inside. 

Inside, there are 10 eggs and 2 little extra Hatchimals that aren't inside eggs. Each egg has a cute little Hatchimal inside and also each egg is covered in coloured speckles and has a heart on the front. 

The different coloured speckles are to show which group the Hatchimal inside belongs to. So you could have purple speckles for the Jungle set, or you could have a pink one from the Garden set. You can find out which Hatchimal belongs to which set by looking on the little collectors leaflet that comes with each set. After seeing which set the Hatchimal comes from its then time to open it. 

First you need to rub the little heart on the front, you will soon see that it changes colour. When it has changed colour this means your Hatchimal is ready to hatch and you press in the little heart to crack open your egg. Lily did struggle with the initial first crack of the egg, so I did this for her, and then she pulled off the rest of the egg to be able to pull out each Hatchimal. As she did this, her face was brilliant and she said "wow", and "awww" to each on she found. 

I then let Lily have the last lot of eggs. This was a 2 pack with a nest and a 4 pack with one bonus character. The 2 pack is RRP £4.99 and the 4 pack with bonus character is £9.99. Lily was super pleased she had even more eggs to open!

Inside the eggs, you also have a chance to hatching Twins and there may be 2 little Hatchimals in one egg. We were really lucky to find some that had 2 in one egg which Lily was delighted to see. 

After you have opened all of your Hatchimal, you can then check them against the check list on the little leaflet that comes with. Under each picture of the Hatchimal there is a little wings symbol, and the wings symbol colour determines if the Hatchimal is common or rare or ultra rare or limited edition. We ended up getting some rare ones and a limited edition one which we was very impressed with.

The Hatchimals are so cute and the little nest that comes in one pack is a great place to sit your Hatchimal in. Lily's collection looked great when we put them all together.

My favourites were the really colourful ones, and some were also just so adorable too. 

Then there is even a FREE app to download, where you can hatch new hatchimals over at Hatchtopia which has different areas to explore! Then when you’ve hatched them, you need to look after them, keep them happy, and play with them. It sounds great fun!

These toys are aimed at 5+ but Lily absolutely loves them and wants more. They can be bought at most toy retailers and if you want to find out even more about them then head over to the Hatchimal website.

Would your child enjoy collecting these?

Painting with String

Something I haven't done on the blog for a while is write about painting with house hold objects. We have painted with quite a few different things over the years and there is a list of some I have blogged about here. 

So today I decided that we would find another thing around the house we could paint with and I found some string. 

This is such an easy activity to do and also so effective. With house hold painting it is always a gamble to if the objects we use will work, and this worked quite well. 

So, choose your paints, get some string and away you go. 

I placed some paint on a plate for Lily so then she could dip her sting into the paint. She dipped different parts of the string into different colours, and then we wiped the string a long the card. It created a really nice streaky pattern.

Lily preferred to dip the ends of the string into the paint as this was easier for her. After the had done this with a few different pieces of string, we had created a really nice pattern on the card. I think it was very effective. 

Then after you have finished the painting, keep hold of your colourful pieces of strong as these will definitely come in handy for other activities. 

So, here are a few photographs of todays activity. 

Would your children enjoy this activity?