Smoby Tefal Super Chef Kitchen

One part of Macy's birthday present was a play kitchen.  We saw one in Early Learning Centre with a really good discount and it started us thinking and looking!  We decided we didn't want to spend any more than £100 as it seemed a waste to spend any more than that.  Our other criteria was that it needed to look realistic, a bit more classy and modern - a lot of them are really 'toy' looking if you see what I mean.  We didn't want anything like that.

 So we came across the Smoby Tefal Super Chef kitchen.  We would have liked a kitchen with a proper fridge freezer, storage drawers, oven, hob etc but for under £100 we couldn't find anything that did tick all the boxes.  This ticked a good majority though and really it was the look of the kitchen that made our mind up, it just looks fab and Tefal is a 'real adult' kitchen brand so it really does look the part.  We came across it on the Argos website who had it on offer at £90something reduced from £129.99.  However after a bit of googling we found it on the Smoby website at £79.99.  Although it promised next day delivery and we didn't get it till 3 days later which was a bit disappointing!

Anyway putting it together wasn't too difficult as it didn't require any tools, just simply clicked together.  So it's easy enough and didn't take too long, it comes with various cutlery bits and pieces as well as pans, toaster and food so that kept Macy busy while we put it together!

Items in the fridge shown here aren't included with the kitchen

 Pros

• Comes with play food, pans, toaster, cutlery so you don't have to buy extra like you do with most other kitchens
• Hooks for storing utensils
• Good amount of worktop space for 'food preparation'
• Toaster
• Coffee machine
• Oven, hob and grill pan
• Fridge
• One hob ring makes noises

Cons

• Fridge door doesn't close very well, as it is curved it sort of bends as it shuts and even then doesn't close well
• Sink and tap is a bit flimsy and ends up getting knocked out of place a lot - could do with being clipped in, I don't want to glue it as it is good to be able to remove for cleaning purposes

All items shown are included with the kitchen

So all in all it is a fab kitchen, Macy loves it, I don't know whether it is good enough quality to justify spending £129.99 on it as it is a little flimsy, but certainly the £79.99 we paid for it makes it a good buy :)  See our video review below:

Happy 2nd Birthday Macy!

This year I decided to use balloons spelling TWO for Macy's birthday photos.  I did think about doing another chalkboard but I think that just using it for her first birthday leaves it as something special.  The balloons, they were a nightmare and I don't know why I had the silly idea lol.  It was so windy they just kept flattening despite being helium filled.  So Mark ended up putting them into the wind and tying them back on themselves so they floated.  A real nightmare, Mark is always there to come up with a solution and sort it out for me, wouldn't be without him!

 

  

West Midlands Safari Park

It’s Macy’s 2^nd birthday on Monday and as she will be at Nursery and us at work we thought we would take her out for her birthday treat today while the weather was nice.  It turned out to be the hottest July day on record, when we got back into the car at 4pm it was still reading a whopping 32 degrees C!  Anyway she loves animals, so what better way to spend a day than to go to West Midlands Safari Park.  Under 3s are free but adults are £19.99 each however it does include a free return so really it’s £10 a visit – we are only 40mins away so it’s local enough to return again.

I was grateful to be in an air conditioned car round the safari otherwise it would have been too hot!  We bought a box of food for the animals for £3 and started off on our safari feeding some sort of deer.  It would be nice to have the different animals listed in order by the map as not all of them are.  Macy thought it was funny having a deer put its head through the window!

Then onto some cheetahs who we caught a glimpse of as they were hiding in the shade.  Some buffalos were cooling down in the water and some rhinos were in the same enclosure.  We couldn’t find the lions, they must have been hiding somewhere but we saw the white lions and the white tigers.  We didn’t see the wild dogs either, again they must have been hiding in the shade somewhere. 

We drove through the Zebras which you could feed and they were lovely, put their heads right through the car window and Macy thought that was funny!

On to the Elephants and we were in for a treat as there was a baby elephant playing ball in a pool, it’s mum came up to it to make sure it was okay, so sweet.

Finally onto the giraffes and we had saved some food for them.  They didn’t seem overly comfortable eating from the window with their big long necks so I decided to open the sunroof for them!  Macy thought this was hilarious and it was brilliant!  Such a fantastic experience, we loved that and Macy will talk about it for ages.

We even had two giraffes through at one point, you can only just see the nose of the other one behind the one.  The one giraffe loved it and kept following us to poke his head in lol.

We finished the safari just in time for the sea lion show which was great but we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t get splashed as the screens are too high, would have been nice on a hot day but I guess we don’t have many hot days.  There also wasn’t anyway shaded to sit so Macy did get a bit hot and grumpy so I can't say she enjoyed it that much - quite a few people with children left as they must have had the same problem.

Finally we had a wander round the rides and there was a little area with rides for the younger ones, there were probably about 10 rides for 0.8m and above.  When they get to a metre there is a lot more choice as to be honest quite a lot of the toddler rides are the same sort of thing - just different variations of things to sit in going round in circles.  I don't know whether she will make a metre before we go back but it would be good if she does as it means she can go on a lot more such as the log flume and rapids.  I hate rides that go round in circles as it just makes me feel dizzy!  You also had to pay extra for the rides so it could work out an expensive day, we bought 4 rides for £6 and you can buy wristbands which probably works out cheaper when she is older.

I was a little disappointed in the food choices, there was a restaurant that did sit down meals but it wasn't air conditioned and although there were fans in there it was very hot so we ended up eating burgers outside.  It would be nice if they had somewhere doing paninis or something like that - something a bit healthier than greasy food.

Here's a little video of the giraffe!