Cowabunga Dude! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are back again courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment in 4 fabulous DVD's showcasing some of the very best episodes from the original series.




I well remember the turtles arriving on UK TV back in 1987 - my little brother was only 8 at the time and thought they were amazing - we'd never seen anything like it. They took the UK by storm and were so different from other children's TV that traditionalists were a bit worried - the name was even changed to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles because it was seen as too violent for children to be called 'Ninja' - oh how we've changed now!


Of course the show has a retro feel, but it stands up very well even though it's now 27 years old and it really isn't cringeworthy like some old shows. My 4 and 5 year old boys love it, as do my 16 and 20 year old boys - who used to watch it themselves when they were little. Awesome.

Awesome - pizza!

If you want to be taken back to 1987, or if you want to find out just what we were all watching back then, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 'The Best Of...' DVD's are available now from all good stockists, priced at around £6 each.

April was never happy to go out until she'd watched Corrie

Lionsgate have kindly offered 2 DVD's as prizes for my readers. 2 winners will each win a DVD from the collection (sorry, but you can't choose which, it will be random). Entry is by Rafflecopter below. The first entry is mandatory and should be answered as a comment on this blog post. Extra entries can be gained by completing additional tasks. The giveaway will end at midnight 27th June when no more entries will be accepted. Please see additional T's and C's at the bottom of the Rafflecopter form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Because my partner got Tonsilitis we were really behind with getting the LEGO Simpsons minifigures, but with huge thanks to our LEGO collecting mate Brett - who bought several boxes and sorted through them for many hours - we have a full set of 16.

I have already posted that I'll be travelling down to London in a fortnight's time to go to Britmums Live, and now I'm absolutely delighted to be able to announce that I have a sponsor for the event, and they're a company I'm very proud to be associated with. My sponsor is the games and magic sets manufacturer Drumond Park - the UK’s biggest, best and friendliest independent games company!


This is a company I've worked with for the last 8 months, and in fact it's the only company that I have ever contacted myself out of the blue and asked if I can review for them - so I guess I must have done an okay job!

We are big board game players and we very often get some snacks in on a Saturday night, switch off the TV and all play together as a family. Everyone here has a favourite Drumond Park game, so we're delighted to be increasing our relationship with them.

We've reviewed quite a few games for them now, my personal favourites being the original LOGO and LOGO: Best Of TV And Movies - both of which get regular airtime in our house. My younger boys' preferred game is the Magic Tooth Fairy Game, but our favourite review so far is for Gross Magic, which is designed for children aged 8+.  Although he's only 5, the 2nd youngest member of our family was completely smitten by it, and so we let him do the review himself....


I think he did an excellent job, and he entertained anyone who came close enough for the next couple of weeks. He's determined to get the sleight-of-hand tricks perfect, so I think it's likely we may revisit this set on the blog when he's a little older!

I'm going to be looking at more Drumond Park games in the future, and I have a giveaway currently running for the latest game that we have reviewed for them - Don't Laugh! the Electronic Board Game.

If you will be at Britmums Live and you want to know which games would suit your children - you're more than welcome to come and have a chat, it'll be great to meet you!

Our Drumond Park Reviews

LOGO - Best Of TV & Movies
Gross Magic
The Magic Tooth Fairy Game
LOGO Billionaire
Wordsearch Junior
LOGO
LOGO - What Am I?
Catch Phrase TV Board Game
Don't Laugh! Electronic Board Game

Everyone loves Bahlsen Biscuits, right? But how many have ever used them in baking rather than just eating them as a biscuit? I know I hadn't until this week, when I was one of the bloggers taking part in the #bahlsenbakeoff.

I'm going to start by saying how much I love these books. My 4 and 5 year old boys love these books. They're brilliant, they're only £5.99 each. That's the most important bit of the review out of the way, I'll move on to the rest....


We've been sent Pirates Ahoy! and The Land Of The Dinosaurs to review from The Wonderful World Of Simon Abbott series of books. They're published by Ticktock Books and especially recommended for young readers aged around 5-7 years old .

Don't Laugh! is the latest board game we've been sent to review by Drumond Park. Aimed at young people aged 8+, the winner(s) will be those who manage not to laugh!


The game is played on a board with up to 4 players or teams of players. Every time it's your turn you take a joke card from the centre of the board, read a joke and try to make your opponents laugh.


You also have the option to press buttons on the dummy microphone to make crazy noises, depending on where your counter is on the board. The noises include laughing, farting and my favourite - saying silly phrases.


There's a timer on the microphone, and for anyone who laughs or cracks a smile (depending on how strict you are), you move a space forward. The first person or team to reach the final space on the board is the winner.


We've played in teams and as individuals, and I prefer teams. The more people who play, the easier it is to get a contagious laugh and score well. The game is open to variation, which is excellent. We've played with 8 players in 4 teams and scoring a 6 really boosts your points!


Don't Laugh! is not my personal favourite Drumond Park game. As an adult you have to be in the right mood to play, or it can fall flat. There are 200 joke cards with 6 jokes on each, and they are Christmas Crackerish and by my age I've heard a lot of them before.


I think Don't Laugh! will definitely work best with young groups of friends, and having pre-teen children playing who haven't heard any of the jokes before really is a bonus. The suggested age group of 8+ is right, and it's 8-12 year olds who will get most from this game, and those who play with them. As children reach that stage where they really understand the concept of jokes is absolutely ideal to buy them Don't Laugh!


We found that with teens and adults most of the really big laughs came when a card was read wrongly, a 'deadpan expression' made someone look daft,  or a joke was so bad that someone complained - but however it happens, a laugh is still a laugh!

Don't Laugh! has an RRP of £19.99 and, as with all Drumond Park games, is available from a multitude of toy retailers including Amazon, Tesco, ASDA, Entertainer, John Lewis, Smyths, WH Smith, Toys R Us and Toymaster.


Entry is by rafflecopter below. The first question is mandatory and should be answered as a comment on this post. Extra entries can be gained by completing more tasks. UK entries only. The giveaway will end at midnight on Saturday 21st June when no more entries will be accepted. More Terms and Conditions are shown at the bottom of the rafflecopter form.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We have a huge family really, there are 9 of us, so birthdays come along pretty often. Today is the turn of my partner, and we were out today at a fabulous picnic organised by Roberts Bakery (more about that later), so yesterday was a baking day.

I made a simple sponge (weigh your eggs, take the same quantity of sugar and butter and cream together, add the eggs, add the same quantity of self raising flour, 20 minutes in the oven at 180C), but I used dark brown sugar and golden caster sugar and added plain chocolate chunks because these are things he really likes.

Then I let 3 of the children loose to decorate it....one of our 16 year olds is quite the artist, so she decided she wanted to 'draw' her Father, our 14 year old girl wanted to make chocolate whipped cream (add 1 teaspoon of liquid chocolate syrup such as Choc Shot or 1 teaspoon each of cocoa and sugar per 100g), and our 4 year old boy wanted plenty of sprinkles......


Job's a goodun....

And I bought him a lovely Game Of Thrones t-shirt for his birthday with absolutely no idea that the print on the front completely gives away what happens in the book he's only just started - doh!

Thankfully he has forgiven me....although I'll never live it down!

Chicago Town recently invited me to an amazing day out to promote their Take Away Pizza range - and it included a sky dive! With great regret (and a bit of relief) I had to turn down the sky dive because I have a shonky leg, however they offered to supply pizza for my family by way of commiseration.

Our local big Morrisons had 4 varieties of Chicago Town Take Away Pizza - so we got them all....and as we had everyone together at tea time today we decided tonight was the night.

Let's Bake is a lovely fat cookbook written by Cathryn Dresser, the 2012 Great British Bake Off contestant. Aimed at new young bakers to work with an adult, or in our case a teenager, it has 52 easy and interesting recipes and is full of hints about how to do the basics, and tips to improve your baking.


We decided to make something savoury and something sweet, and we started out with Cheese And Marmite Helter-Skelters (page30) from the Spring section of the book.



Ingredients (makes 12)

2 tablespoons Marmite
15g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon plain flour for dusting
1 x 375g pack of ready rolled puff pastry
150g cheddar cheese, grated

My small boys don't like the taste or smell of Marmite and refused point blank to include it. I didn't want to just make Cheese, so we substituted our Marmite with tomato puree.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas Mark 6
Line baking trays with parchment

With an adult, melt the Marmite and butter in a small saucepan over a low heat until runny. Leave to cool for a minute or two. Meanwhile, lightly dust your surface with flour and lay out the pastry sheet.


Using a pastry brush, spread the butter mixture all over the pastry, then sprinkle cheese over the top 2/3.

Fold the non-cheesy bit of the pastry up so that it covers 1/2 the cheesy section, then fold the last 1/3 over the top so you have a neatly-folded rectangle of pastry.


Roll out the pastry again so that you have a rectangle roughly the same size you started with.


Cut the pastry into 6 equal strips and then cut each of those in half, so you have 12 long, pointy triangles. Take each of the triangles in turn and twist from the pointy end.

Put your twisted pastry on the prepared baking tray and ask an adult to put it in the oven. Bake for 20 minutes until golden.


They may not look beautiful, but they were exceedingly popular with my entire family - in fact we make another batch for tea so that everyone could have 2 more - and it only takes 10 minutes.

I really do feel the opportunity for letting your children explore with this recipe is huge. We added a little garlic to some of the later ones, and I think I can convince them to try adding some herbs to some next time - and maybe even some Marmite....

The sweet recipe we chose to try was Cat's Cookies (page 190) from the Winter section of the book.


Ingredients

150g unsalted butter, softened
75g soft light brown sugar
75g caster sugar
25g dark soft brown sugar
1 medium free-range egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
200g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
A pinch of salt
100g plain chocolate chips
100g milk chocolate chips

Instructions

Line 2 baking trays with parchment. Preheat the oven to 190C/170Fan/Gas Mark 5

Beat together the butter and the sugars in a large bowl using a wooden spoon or electric hand-held mixer.

Add the egg and vanilla and stir. Then add the flour and mix thoroughly. Finally add the chocolate chips and stir through. The mixture should be sticky and not too stiff. Put the dough in the fridge for 10 minutes to make it easier to work with.


Spoon heaped tablespoons of the mixture onto your trays and flatten with your hand or the back of a spoon. Your cookies will flatten more and spread while they are baking, so leave plenty of room between them.


Ask an adult (or teenager) to help you put the cookies into the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes. They will look pale in the middle and golden around the edges.

Give the cookies a minute or two on the tray to harden before transferring to a cooling rack. Use a palette knife to move them while they're warm or they'll bend and break.


The cookies looked really pale - these were the darkest of ours - but don't be tempted to leave them in the oven any longer because they are cooked just right. They're really tasty, crammed full of chocolate chips and the biscuit itself is just the right levels of chewy, crispy and melt-in-the-mouth.

It was incredibly quick for my children to make these recipes following the book themselves, I didn't need to interfere or explain anything - all the information they needed was there.


I thought this looked interesting before it arrived, and I'm not disappointed. The recipes are really varied, but very appealing to children and should encourage a love of cooking and understanding what goes into food. I really like this book and we'll be using it again before very long....sorry, THEY'LL be using it again before long....

Let's Bake by Cathryn Dresser is published by Orion Books and has a recommended retail price of £12.99. It's a full-colour hardback book with over 220 pages and an absolutely ideal purchase for a new young baker. Highly recommended.

We went to Knowsley Safari Park (between Liverpool and Warrington)  a little while ago and took part in one of their Family Workshops - my blog post is here. It makes a fantastic day out, we had a brilliant time, yet we didn't even go on the safari drive.

As well as driving around the park visiting all of the wild animals, and having to make the decision whether or not you drive through the monkey enclosure, Knowsley has lots of other interesting animals to discover.

During our Family Workshop we fed the bats, meercats and giraffes, but we also saw lots more and didn't get a chance to tell you about it, so here are the insects, snakes and reptiles, birds, hogs and sea lions.