Stabilo are incredibly well-known for their huge range of writing and drawing equipment, we've all used their products before, and they are consistently good quality, reliable and long-lasting.


Stabilo have a range called Early Writers with pens and pencils for beginners and our two youngest are trying them out. Included are a red Woody 3in1 pencil crayon, a yellow 'Trio Scribbi' felt pen, a Trio Thick pencil crayon,  an EASYgraph pencil and a worksheet.



Woody 3in1 pencil crayons are really great. They're a colored pencil, watercolor and wax crayon all in one, so your child can really stretch their imaginations and ideas as their abilities grow. They have super fat lead that is as thick as 8 standard pencils and so very difficult to accidentally break, and they are available in 18 different colours.


Trio Scribbi felt tips have a triangular shape, which helps children to hold correctly. It has a genius tip that really impresses me no end. When you press too hard, the tip goes inside the pen, but then springs back out. Fantastic for children who are only just learning because they generally press too hard with felt pens because they're used to pencils and ball points.


Trio Thick pencil crayons have the familiar ergonomic triangular design and are available in 18 colours and 2 lengths. The colours are bright and bold and go onto the page well, so the artist can see that what they are doing is working


EASYgraph pencils again have the triangular shape to encourage children to get a good handshape, and they also have staggered grip zones, which will never be in the 'wrong place' as you use the pencil because they occur all the way from one end to the other. Importantly for me and my family, they are available for left and right handed children. There is a distinguishing letter and colour at the end of the pencils - yellow for left-handed and red for right handed.


We were really impressed with all of the range we tried, and the boys really enjoyed having a go at the worksheets.


It was lovely to see that the shaped pencils and pens really did encourage both of them to hold correctly and they didn't become frustrated with the pencils at all, because the 'lead' is really quite soft and very easy to draw and write with.


They both particularly liked drawing the caterpillar, adding circles to form the body and, in the case of my 5 year old, adding some snails...







I really like these pencils and pens. I know that it's a great thing to encourage children to hold correctly from day 1 as bad habits are hard to break, and I really think these products will help with that. My boys enjoyed using them and had great fun with the worksheets.

Stabilo have a whole section of their website devoted to Early Writers with loads of resources, advice and information. It's well worth a look and it features free printable activity sheets that you can put together yourself using a range of different elements that suit and interest your own child.

I last saw a Doctor about my leg on 26th September, when I was told the break was healing nicely, but the fact my knee was swollen and tender wasn't good, so I've been waiting all this time for an MRI scan. My scan date is now tomorrow and I am incredibly nervous. I've only ever seen them on the TV, and it all seems a bit scary on House!

I know I won't find anything out straightaway, but I do feel as though I've been in limbo for the past month and it'll be so nice to 'unpause it' as my younger children say...

It's now 17 weeks since my partner developed Meningitis, and last week I finally managed to convince him to go to the Doctor and talk about his ongoing leg and arm pain. The Doctor didn't have many answers but a quick examination and he was a little concerned about the level of sensation my partner has in places in his legs. We have no idea if this is to do with the Meningitis, but all of the symptoms started with the onset of Meningitis, so it's either the cause or the catalyst.

The Doctor has little experience of Meningitis, this is something we've found everywhere, no-one ever seems to know what happens afterwards. He sent my partner off to the Hospital for a range of blood tests and we should get the results from all of those on Friday. He's also going to do some probing on my partner's legs and see how extensive the loss of sensation is.

It's kind of a nervous week, but there is a real sensation that an impasse we've been tolerating for the past few weeks has broken and we're at least going somewhere...

I'm not sure if this is reflected in what my partner did tonight....









He's going to really feel it doing that in November though! I think bobble hat might have to be on his Christmas list....

The Brio Clever Crane Wagon is one of the add-on sets for the Brio Train Track and we've been sent it to review by The Toadstool Online Toy Shop, along with the Remote Control Railway Set which we reviewed in this post.

Brio Clever Crane Wagon

Included are a crane wagon and truck with a shaped top for the chassis which holds the load, and a very heavy and convincing boulder.


This is a lovely little wagon and goods carriage. The cab of the wagon  turns 360° so it's really easy to line up with the rocks (or the canisters and other items from other sets) and pick them up magnetically. The arm of the crane raises and lowers with a simple turning mechanism at the back of the cab.

Here's my 5  year old with a 50 second video to show you how it works and explain about how it 'magnets on'...



The colours are lovely - brown, orange and green and the plastic colours match the wooden painted ones very well indeed.It's a very attractive little vehicle.

The magnets are good and strong and have no problems lifting the loads or pulling the carriage. The wagon does occasionally tip over with a heavy load held out to the side, but it's not really an issue and doesn't affect play as you're usually right there holding the wagon when it overbalances.


Surprisingly although the 'engine' and cab are wooden, all other parts are plastic or metal including the body of the carriage. I don't think this spoils the toy, it makes the movements smoother, but I do think it maybe indicates a swing towards more use of plastic.

This is a fantastic toy for encouraging imagination and story-telling and learning about the world and how pulleys work. When either of the boys play with it they're making noises and chattering to themselves and develop a whole storyline.


This has a suggested age range of 3+ and I agree. Both my boys can 'work' the crane and understand the magnetic aspect perfectly.

We love this crane. It's really not an expensive toy at all and should last forever, and when used as an addition to a larger set it really does add an awful lot for your money.

This month sees the start of  ToadTest Parties (toy talk & reviews) and they're kicking off in style with Brio wooden train play.

Join in the conversation on Twitter (7th Nov), Facebook (12th Nov) and Google+ (18th Nov) from 8pm-9.30pm to learn more about Brio, read reviews of the Brio range, have your questions answered and even win prizes.

Our latest review for The Toadstool Online Toy Shop is a real classic. We've been sent the Brio Remote Control Railway set. Whenever you think of toy trains it's almost impossible not to consider Brio. All of my children have at some point received at least one Brio set, and fortunately some was not given away between having the bigger lot and the two little ones, so we've enough to make an impressive layout now.

We've been sent the Brio Remote Control Railway Set and the Brio Clever Crane Wagon to review. Our review for the Clever Crane Wagon is here.

The Brio Remote Control Railway Set

Everything is neatly packaged in the box, and there are no small parts, so there's no worries about losing anything before you start.


There are various bits of track , a road sign, a traffic light with moving parts, the remote control and the train itself with 2 carriages.


The track makes a good sized layout with plenty of scope for play and is fantastic quality with completely smooth edges and lovely wooden parts.




The train looks gorgeous. It has 2 trucks, one which can carry the canisters of liquid rolling stock and one which has what looks like a cement mixer on the back. The mixer turns as the train wheels turn, which delighted my boys.


I love the attention to detail. The engine and one set of wheels on the mixer truck have chunky grippy tyres and the train doesn't slip at all, nor does the mixer stop mixing!


The remote control is infra-red, so the controller needs to be able to 'see' the train in much the same way as a TV remote needs to 'see' the TV. It's incredibly simple and intuitive to use and my boys needed no tuition at all, they both got the hang of it instantly.





There is a track piece with a large storage silo and there are also 2 smaller canisters that form rolling stock for the train, but we aren't told what is in them, so this leaves loads of scope for different role play and encouraging the imagination.

The set includes a traffic light which you can move to show red or green and a 'caution' sign. I'm incredibly impressed with the sign as we've had literally hundreds of road and trackside signs over the years and they've nearly all been trodden on and snapped. This one is rubber and bends, so not only won't it hurt when someone treads or sits on it, but it shouldn't break during normal use.


My boys love this set and have played trains non-stop since they opened it on Saturday morning. They have created long and complicated storylines around what is in the tanks and where the train is going.

We brought out the rest of the track and my 15 year old spent hours with them designing layouts and playing with the Remote Control Train...I don't think you ever really grow out of train sets...


The Remote Control Railway Set has a suggested age range of 3+ and I think that's right although I believe it to be better for 4+. My youngest child is 3 years 8 months and while he can manage the controls just fine, I've always found that at times younger ones mess about and find fun in setting powered vehicles off across the room randomly without even paying any attention or letting them run off the table. It's annoying at best, uses up the batteries to no end and abuses the toy. My 5 year old is well past that stage and carefully makes a track before he even thinks of starting the engine.

This is a really good starter set because it has a full track and loads of scope, and you have plenty to fire the imagination. Train sets are brilliant for hand-eye co-ordination, problem-solving and learning about friction, speed and how vehicles move. They're brilliant for making up stories and learning about the world and this one has everything to encourage a child to start thinking and asking questions.


This month sees the start of  ToadTest Parties (toy talk & reviews) and they're kicking off in style with Brio wooden train play.

Join in the conversation on Twitter (7th Nov), Facebook (12th Nov) and Google+ (18th Nov) from 8pm-9.30pm to learn more about Brio, read reviews of the Brio range, have your questions answered and even win prizes.

After reviewing the new Lego Batman: DC Superheroes Unite movie our appetite is well and truly whetted for next year's full length The Lego Movie.

Due to be released on 14th February 2014, The Lego Movie tells the story of a minifigure called Emmet, who is mistakenly picked up by a group of strangers who think he is the most extraordinary person in the world and key to helping them in their quest to stop an evil tyrant and save the world.

The movie has a fantastic cast including Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks and two of my absolute favourite voice artists - Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson.

I don't think it'll surprise anyone when I say that Lego is incredibly popular in our house. I knew about my partner's love of Lego early on because we'd both bought Lego Clickits Advent Calendars for our girls in a big Manchester branch of Woolworths the first year we were courting. It wasn't until we moved in together that we discovered just how big a collection we both had.


In the intervening 7 years we've seen our children progress from Clickets and Lego City through Spongebob, Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars. We've had the 2 little boys and they moved swiftly past Duplo because they had the bigger children to influence them. This year Santa has requests from our family ranging from The Battle Of Hoth game and Monster Fighters Crazy Scientist to 'more wheels' and a Lego City Garbage Truck.

We don't believe Lego is just for children here, not in any way. Lego is for everyone. For the last 3 years my birthday present in November has been that year's Lego Creator Winter building, so now we have a really impressive display that it's become tradition I spend days putting together - and I love every minute of it. It's our first Christmas decoration to go up each year.


My favourite Lego memories though are those that we made together as a whole family in the Summer of 2011. We took all 7 of our children, and my partner's parents, and travelled up through Belgium, France and The Netherlands and went to visit the original Legoland in Billund, Denmark. It was a real holiday of a lifetime and took a lot of planning and arranging. We didn't have a lot of money and we camped en route and managed to do the whole trip on just over £3,000 including staying in the Legoland Village Family Hostel for 3 nights. Not bad for 11 people.

We were all smiling even before we got there....

3am and some of us were trying to sleep before the 6am ferry

The Family Hostel was absolutely lovely

Waking your nearly 3 year old up in the morning and asking him "where are we?" and the answer is "Legoland" really is priceless...

Legoland really was magic...

Legoland was our first real experience of a Sealife Centre...

We walked into town past the Lego Headquarters - can you imagine what goes on in there?! There was a great display in the window of Lego through the years, and a very special memory for me - Lego people that I used to play with when I was little....