Happy Halloween

Happy halloween, Macy & I have enjoyed baby yoga!

Bio flow Magnetic Dog Collar

My old shepherd cross collie (Dizzy) has worn one of these for years and I remember a time not long ago when mum said she seemed to be a lot worse on her back legs. I then remembered I had taken her collar off to wash her, always wondered whether it was still making a difference and it obviously was.

Recently Cas (my rescue collie) had started to get really stiff on her back legs and on a couple of occasions they collapsed from under her, she is almost 14 now. So I ordered her a bioflow collar, she has been wearing it for 2 weeks and the last week she hasn't lost her legs and seems to be a lot less stiff. They are an amazing product and would recommend to anyone :)

Nipper Clipper & Timmy Tickle

We were asked by Mumsnet to review the above nail clipper developed by inventor Tom Pellereau.

The idea is that you download the Timmy Tickle app to distract your baby whilst cutting their nails with the Stylfile Nipper Clipper.

I found the actual nail clipper a bit big and bulky, I have a baby nail clipper which is a lot easier to use. The Nipper Clipper has a spy hole which is designed to make it safer. However I couldn't actually see anything through the spy hole, as the clippers are so bulky & I regularly clip my babies nails so they aren't stupidly long, they got lost under the bulk of the nail clipper. I also thought looking at the design they wouldn't be able to catch her skin but I still did - someone needs to invent clippers where you aren't able to catch their skin.

The app is a great distraction, I downloaded it on my iPhone and iPad and found the iPad better as it is bigger and I can stand it up in it's case.  There are different settings where you can have it on auto or you can have it so it responds to gurgles or even so that it responds to words. 

The app is an octopus who changes into a pirate, vampire, strawberry and more. There are gurgles and music to accompany it. My 14 week old found it interesting enough for me to be able to do one hand at a time, normally I wait till she is asleep! I do worry however about the amount of time she spends in front of the tv or iPad, so she doesn't normally watch the iPad ever. There is a warning under how to use about not letting them watch it for more than 20 minutes, I do think this warning should be more obvious and be shown at the start of the app.

All in all I probably won't use the nail clippers until she is a big bigger, however I will probably use the app as it's only going to be once a week she watches it and it isn't for long. The app is free.

I am a member of the Mumsnet Bloggers Network Research Panel, a group of parent bloggers who have volunteered to review products, services, events and brands for Mumsnet. I have not paid for the product or to attend an event. I have editorial control and retain full editorial integrity.

Dairy Milk Pebbles

We were asked via Mumsnet to test these out and to decorate a cake with them.

Well I made a millionaires shortcake tart and had planned to decorate with a pumpkin face, however I ran out of yellow pebbles to fill in the gaps and this was the result lol!

I wasn't overly impressed with them as they were only yellow, purple and brown. As I generally make chocolate things the brown ones aren't really of any use as they don't show up!

In terms of how they tasted, well they are the same concept as Minstrels but Minstrels are much nicer! Quite a few were chipped as well so didn't look great.

Overall if I wanted something like this to eat I would much rather have Minstrels and if I wanted something for cake decorating I would buy Smarties. Not something I will be buying.

Hovercrafting at Hoverdays

I bought an hours experience a while ago and finally got round to booking it. I have always wanted to have a go on a hovercraft as I thought they looked great fun!

We were at Hoverdays in Shropshire and had booked the hour's experience which normally costs £79 per person if there are 1-3 people, but if you have a group of 4 or more it goes down to £40 pp.  We had 4 laps each which doesnt sound like much but actually it was plenty.

I hadn't realised that you actual knelt on them - I assumed you just sat down and turned the handlebar to steer.  That isn't the case, it's all about your bodyweight and you really have to lean into the corners to turn them, as I am not that heavy, I really had to throw my body about!!

We had 2 laps and swapped over and then had our other 2 laps, this was plenty as unless you were pretty fit it killed your legs!!  They were great fun, not easy to steer - I ended up in the long grass on quite a few occassions!!  However if you couldn't control it, you would just run into the long grass which brought the craft to a halt, you then just jumped out and could easily bring the craft back onto the course. 

I would recommend it to anyone (as long as you don't have weak knees), it's great fun and I should imagine once you have the hang of it they are even better fun!  Here's a short clip of Mark, we took Macy with us so didn't get anymore as she had a bit of a whinge at this point!!

Macy's First Holiday

To Spain, we were all full of cold - typical!!

She didn't cope too badly on the plane, struggled with the landing as must have hurt her ears - she had had her bottle when we took off.

The pool was too cold for her to swim in which was a shame but towards the end we realised we could drop the temperature of the hot tub and use that as there weren't any chemicals in it. She really started to kick her legs and enjoy it - she's a bit of a show off and likes an audience!

Her favorite part of the holiday was a trip to the fair as she loved all the pretty lights in the dark, daddy tried to win her a toy but didn't succeed.

Here's her 3 month birthday picture!