When Drumond Park asked if we wanted to do another review before Christmas I really couldn't have had any idea of the treat I had in store. We liked Logo Billionaire, but we absolutely LOVE Logo The Best Of TV & Movies! I'm shattered today and that's because I was up until 2am playing this game with my family. It's brilliant and totally addictive - I can see why it was No.4 in the Family Board Games charts last year (its first year on the market).

Unusually I'll start with what we liked best - everyone has a pretty much equal chance of winning. This is a general knowledge quiz board game which is so carefully arranged that the teenagers and adults all played on a pretty much even level. No-one got frustrated or felt left out, everyone found their own strong areas.


Gameplay is really simple and easy to master. For the individual game everyone takes turns to be quizmaster and asks questions of the other players, always offering the chance to answer first to the player on their left. You travel along a coloured pathway, moving each time you answer a question correctly until you reach the winning zone when you need to answer 2 successive questions or 1 green question correctly to win the game.


There are 3 types of question cards - pot luck, picture cards and theme cards, and the themes are as diverse as Dad's Army, X Factor and Johnny Depp's Hats. The questions aren't all easy, even an expert will struggle to answer them all, but that's half the fun because each card will also have questions that are 'guessable' or really obvious.


Logo The Best Of TV & Movies is recommended for adults and young people aged 12+ and I feel that's right. It's a game for 2-6 players that can be played in 2 ways, individually or as teams. We played as individuals last night, but intend to play as teams tonight with one adult in each team as the mix of younger and older players will make it much more competitive - there'll be someone in each team who knows the answer to most questions!

We clearly loved this game. We're usually in bed much earlier and don't let the teenagers stay up past midnight without reason. We were playing with 6 and each game took around 2 hours. It was so lovely to play that time just escaped us. I'd recommend this game as perfect for inter-generational play. Grandparents, parents and older children can all play together and no-one has a real advantage.


Logo The Best of TV and Movies proved so popular that Drumond Park have released a Mini Version which has a very low RRP of £4.99 and so is an ideal stockingfiller.


The full game of Logo Best OF TV And Movies has an RRP of £29.99, contains around 400 different cards and is available nationwide from a multitude of outlets including Tesco, ASDA, Amazon, John Lewis and Argos. All retailers are listed here. The Mini Game retails at £4.99.

Drumond Park offered two of my readers their own copy of Logo The Best Of TV And Movies - the first prizewinner won the full sized game and the second winner took away the mini version. That giveaway is now closed.

I always had an artificial Christmas tree until I met my partner. He always had a real tree. I didn't like the idea of cutting down something so beautiful, but after looking into the ecological impact of real trees, I agreed with him that it does the Earth no harm as long as you do it right - in fact it can be beneficial because young trees synthesise more Carbon Monoxide than older trees and th old trees can be used for mulch and woodchippings, rather than burnt or buried like in the old days.

Every year we've all wrapped up and gone to choose our tree. This year we couldn't take everyone because we could only take one van and we need to have space for the tree on the way home, so we took the youngest 2 and off we went...

We love Orchard Toys and when they asked if we had a specific game or puzzle we'd like to review for Christmas it was quite tricky to choose. My 5 year old already asked for Shopping List in his lovely letter to Santa, so I thought maybe Pop To The Shops would be a great idea.


Pop To The Shops is a game for 2-4 slightly older children, with a recommended age range of  5-9. It includes actual play money, which is a new thing for my children and they were very excited when they saw it in the box.


Gameplay is, as usual with Orchard Toys, relatively simple and easy to get to grips with. Each character has a home base which is their family shop, where you return after every purchase. You pick a card from the upturned cards on the table and have to go out to one of the other shops and buy the item you picked and put it in your basket.





My 3 year old is too young for this game, so he helped me and looked after my money. Even so, both boys really enjoyed it and loved the 'money' aspect. My 5 year old has always been encouraged to handle cash and understand how paying works, and this game is fantastic for that. It teaches real life skills that are really quite tricky concepts to grasp.

Within around 3 turns each my boys both understood they had to pay for their item and wait for change. My 5 year old was beginning to get to grips with adding in tens and both boys now know what a 10p, 20p and 50p look like.


This is a great game for developing number and counting skills and learning about dealing with money and shopping. It's ideal for encouraging social interaction and giving a child confidence.

Pop To The Shops has an RRP of £9.50 and you still have time to buy before Christmas. Orchard Toys have free delivery on all orders over £20 and there is a free gift with every order.

Thank you to EVERYONE who entered my Lego Treasure Hunt Competition - it's only fair to let you know the answers....

All answers can be found on the Lego related pages on this blog.

1. Who didn't buckle up the child in his vehicle?
2. What was reviewed in the second ever post on The Brick Castle?
3. How many people from our family went to Legoland?
4. How many people are wearing glasses in the photo at the Chima 4D movie?
5. Who was adamant the minifigures all stayed in position on our table to watch the Lego Batman movie?
6. What is my 1st extra rule for how to survive a horror movie.
7.What is Lego set 70001 called?
8. What is the name of our Lego Minion?

1. The answer was Batman and was found here. Not "your other half" thankfully!....hilarious an answer as that was....

2. The second ever post on The Brick Castle was a review of  The Hobbit: The Goblin King Battle set 79010. I accepted Hobbit Lego or any other similar answer.

3. 11 people went to Legoland in Billund - myself and my partner, our 7 children and my partner's parents.

4. Everyone who gave an answer except one got this right - 2 people were wearing glasses to watch the Chima 4D movie and another person was only holding them.

5. Everyone got this right. It was indeed my 5 year old who insisted the minifigures 'watch' the Lego Batman movie with us.

6. This Horror Movie question seemed to confuse people and accounted for around 1/3 of the wrong answers. My first extra rule is not the killers extra rule....as far as I'm aware I've never been an axe-wielding horror movie bad guy....you definitely needed to say Don't wear a matching bra and knickers!

7. Everyone got this right, it was indeed Crawley's Claw Ripper

8.Everyone who answered this question also got it right - our Lego minion is Carl

Once again a huge thank you to everyone who took part. Plenty of the entrants got every answer right and I gave you all a number, put it into a random number generator and the 2 people out of the hat were Tracy P first, and Susie W as runner up - both of you should have emails. Please get your address details to me and I'll send you your prizes as soon as humanly possible!

Have a great Christmas!

 





I think this is an excellent selection box for older children and children who don't like chocolate. The price is excellent, not at all like a few years ago when you'd pay twice as much for the equivalent sweets because they were in a festive package.  We did have one complaint from several of my children though - no ice cream flavour Chewits!





It has samples of 5 different bakery products - the pancakes and crumpets were gone within moments! They've been giving them away on their Facebook page and while they won't last until Christmas, they're really quite hilarious and got everyone in my house very excited over who was having what!

If you're looking for books for a child who is 5-8 and doesn't like girlie stuff then Horrid Henry is great. Designed for Early Readers the language and layout is simple and not intimidating at all. Very short chapters and natural breaks are throughout the book, so it's easy to stop when your child has had enough. They're perfect for reading together and for a  more independent reader to read alone.

Horrid Henry's Christmas Play

This is the story of the 'Nativity' at Henry's School. He decides his part as Innkeeper just isn't big enough and expands it, with frankly hilarious consequences. My 3 and 5 year old boys spent half of this book with their hands over their mouths stifling giggles.

My 5 year old played the Innkeeper last week in his nativity, so it's ideal and he thought this book was brilliant!

This book is designed for Early Readers and the pictures that accompany the story are great and really descriptive of the story, assisting the reader in setting the tone and working out some of the more tricky words.

Horrid Henry's Christmas Play has 80 pages and an RRP of £4.99. 

Horrid Henry's Royal Riot

This is a big book. It's a full 208 pages and it's hard back. As soon as you open it though you get the familiar easy-to-read layout of Horrid Henry books, with plenty of interesting pages where the text is in different fonts and formats.


Royal Riot is actually a compendium of 4 different books - Horrid Henry's Thank You Letter, Horrid Henry Meets The Queen, Moody Margaret's School and Horrid Henry's Sports Day. Each book is broken up into short chapters exactly as in the original smaller books.

The stories in here include the day when The Queen visited the school, and Henry's plan to be helpful and rich by starting a business writing thank you letters for other people - because the task is so dreadful and boring. Needless to say none of his plans really work as he expects and it all goes a bit awry in a very funny way.

Horrid Henry's Royal Riot has 208 pages and an RRP of £12.99.

My boys both love Horrid Henry books, although obviously for now my 5 year old gets far more from them than my 3 1/2 year old. My 5 year old is enjoying the fact he can join in with the reading with me. They're absolutely ideal for Early Readers and encourage a real love of books and thirst for being able to read.

Horrid Henry books are written by Francesca Simon and illustrated by Tony Ross. They are published by Orion Books.

We were very, very late. We'd set off with nearly an hour to spare but unfortunately an accident on the M60 meant we had to crawl to where we could escape and then drive through Manchester to get there. Our booked slot was 6.45pm to see Santa and we arrived at 7.10pm in a panic in case we'd missed him completely.







And there he was - the special man himself - Father Christmas, or Santa as my boys know him. He was on very fine form. He chatted to my boys for ages about Monsters Inc and Transformers and guessed their ages almost perfectly. He was very knowledgeable. His favourite Transformer is BumbleBee (true fact).


I absolutely adored that his grotto was decorated all over with children's letters and artwork. I wished I'd drawn him a picture, I know he'd have pulled out some tape and put it up and told me it was great. I actually felt like a child again. So much so, it was great to all pose for a photo - you can tell by the smiles that we all knew something magical was happening.







  



My boys haven't really met Santa very many times, but they're already discussing how the Santas in shops can't all be real. It seems they were very happy to believe that Santa would be happy to turn up to speak to children at Chill Factore because it's cold and he likes cold, it's like his home.

The Chill Factore had made such a huge effort with decorations and to make this a really special occasion, and the staff are so incredibly lovely, that I just can't fault it. It was absolutely fabulous.

With 7 children we've had headlice in the house on many, many occasions, so I have a comprehensive post full of all kinds of real life information about headlice and nits, photos and even a video. You can find it by clicking this link...


My household has been nit free for a few months now, so it was a bit of an 'arggghh' moment when I spotted my 5 year old scratching his head during his nativity play. I wasn't sure if it was just his Innkeepers head gear, but on inspection that evening I found a live louse and a handful of eggs.

We've been sent Lyclear Treatment Shampoo, so it was the perfect time to try it.

I couldn't see anything on my 3 year old, but as they play closely together all of the time it's proven sensible to treat them both together. Lyclear Treatment Shampoo works in 2 ways - by suffocating and dehydrating the lice, and doesn't contain any insecticides, so it's perfectly safe to use on anyone over the age of 2.

The shampoo has a really nice smell and looks just like a regular shampoo. You add it to dry hair,being sure to coat all of the hair to the root and then leave for 10 minutes before adding water, bringing it to a lather and then rinsing out as you would with any shampoo.


After you've rinsed the shampoo comb with the enclosed fine comb. I liked this comb as it's a fairly standard 'nit comb', but it has a larger hand grip than some.

It's been nearly a week now and I inspected my 5 year olds head last night with the comb and couldn't find anything other than a couple of eggs. I will repeat the shampoo treatment in a couple of days just to catch anything that I've missed. After a week any missed eggs (nits) should have hatched and should be killed off by the shampoo.

I'm happy with this shampoo. It's very easy to use, smells clean and fresh and a little sweet. It left my children's hair clean and fairly smooth and appears to have killed any live lice.

Lyclear Treatment Shampoo costs around £14 for an 8 application bottle, which is a fair price and it's very effective, so overall should work out cheaper than products which require repeating several times. With my sons very curly hair he hates the combing, so if I can keep that to a minimum he's much happier.

Lyclear have created an information page about headlice which you can find on their website.

All being well....

This time next week...

I'll be going to bed the night before I get my knee operated on! Yeeeay!

I can't believe I had to wait 8 weeks for a MRI and it's results, and then I only had to wait 2 1/2 weeks for an operation! I did get in due to a cancellation, but it's so incredibly perfect I can't believe it'll happen.

Because I've a large family to look after and no relatives nearby it's very hard for me to take a break. I have school and nursery run, and 7 or 8 hungry people to feed. Since I broke my leg the teenagers have been really helpful, but there's still loads to do.

Being given a date of 18th December for a knee operation is probably most people's idea of hell, but for me it's ideal. My partner and the teenagers are off for 2 weeks from 3.30pm 19th December, so I really should be able to relax. I won't have to walk to school, I won't have to chase after my 3 year old, I won't even have to be the one who gets up and flushes our ridiculously stupid and cantankerous toilet after my 5 year old has been.

I am DETERMINED I will not even be the one standing in the kitchen for a couple of hours cooking tea....

I should however be the one on Christmas Day who has a working knee and can actually sit down on the floor with my children and play with their toys....