My 2 young children are pretty good eaters and will try most things, but they draw the line at "seeds". If it looks too healthy they'll moan and tentatively lick one corner before declaring it poison. But even without trail mix, cereal bars or home-made pots of interesting yogurty stuff, picnics and snacky hand foods don't actually have to be all bad, and maybe the kids won't notice...

Before we get to food let's consider drinks. We all function better when we're properly hydrated. Exerting yourself, being out in the wind and the (rare glimpses of) sunshine all steal our fluids. Water is great. Available everywhere it has no fat, no sugar, no allergens.


If you like a bit of flavour in your water it can be hard to find something decent add to it. We are not fans of Aspartame here (the taste and what it does to you) so we avoid it. Unfortunately, in an effort to keep calories low, most juices and cordials contain it. Not so with Stur. Sugar free, and with no artificial sweeteners, flavours or colours, it is sweetened using Stevia.

Smart Eggs are a brand new toy brought to us in the UK by Esvedium Games. A 3D puzzle in the shape of an egg, and all you have to do is guide a barbell-shaped wand through the maze inside the egg, from the top to the bottom.


Smart Eggs come in a range of difficulties, and for the more advanced puzzle-solvers there are even 2-layer eggs. We were sent two single layer eggs - Techno (level 7) and Lava (level 8).

Well, it isn't every day you get an email from Carol Smillie asking what size pants your daughter wears, and that alone was clearly enough for me to do this review. Carol wanted to know because she's one of the two figures behind Diary Doll Pants, a unique new pant with special features. It won't make you Wonder Woman, so blokes, you will probably have a better time if you go and read about Sprukits or Bacon Sandwiches or the Ventura Powerpack with Jump Start.


The packaging is really nicely thought out. When you order online they arrive in a little button fastening fabric pouch which is ideal to pop in your bag. These are expensive knickers, so these little touches make it more of a gift, and something you can see is different to normal.


Diary Doll pants have a hidden waterproof layer. They're super handy if you have heavy or irregular periods, or want to wear white trousers or an Elvis Presley style jumpsuit with confidence any day of the month.

Tiggly are a company making award winning educational apps with supporting tech toys for children aged around 2-8. Tiggly Shapes, Words and Maths are all designed to be fun to play with while your child learns, and will work on Kindle Fire HD, and most IOS or Android tablets.

The Tiggly apps and supporting toys work directly with the tablet touch screen - no batteries, bluetooth or anything else is required.
Tiggly Shapes is for younger children aged 2-5. Featuring 4 toys and 3 learning apps this set for younger children teaches shapes and strengthens fine motor skills and creativity.
Learning using shapes isn't just as simple as learning square, triangle etc. Tracing around (and inside) shapes helps with fine motor skills, and it teaches children that different shapes have a different name and different meaning, which is a tricky concept to grasp, but is essential if we want them to go on to learn letters and words.

I don't often review books for grown ups because it's incredibly hard to find the space in my day to read for myself, but I found a little extra time when the married co-writing team Carole and Nadim Saad asked me to make a look at their parenting book 'Kids Don't Come With A Manual'.


Kids indeed do not come with a manual, and I like the title, it implies this book is going to be a little chatty and less formal, and actually it is. The style is very friendly and understanding, with lots of personal anecdotes and examples of when the couple themselves didn't agree about how to handle a siutuation, and how they worked together to come to the best solution for all. 

We're keeping busy this Summer and one of our busiest weekends will be the Just So Festival on 21st-23rd August near Congleton in Cheshire. An invitation to come and camp and join in the fun really was the email that made my week.


We'll be taking 3 of our children to Just So Festival - our 5 and 6 year old boys, and our 15 year old girl. None of us have been before, so we're really intrigued as to what will be there and how it will be laid out. The boys haven't had much experience of festivals, and probably none that they can really remember, but my daughter is a pro - she thoroughly tested the kid's fields at her first Glastonbury at 2 years old, and has been to a ton of other UK festivals too.

Hopefully my daughter won't want a shoulder ride this year!

The Tale Of City Sue is a really quite cute and charming story which has been commissioned by the Irish dairy company Kerrygold. It's a story about a city cow, Sue, who goes to live with the free-range country cows and discovers a whole new way of life. At first she's a bit scared of some of the crazy things they do - like eat grass - but she soon realises it's actually a pretty good way to be.


The Tale Of City Sue is actually a little deeper and more intelligent than children might realise, and it points out all of the differences between free-range and indoor factory farmed animals. We're very lucky that the majority of our large UK livestock does live outdoors, and it's something we here at The Brick Castle feel very strongly about.

If you're a parent of a 16 year old about to decide which path they'll be taking next September, how would you react if they told you they wanted to go to college to study Games, Animation and VFX Skills?

This year our 4th teenager has completed their GCSE's and is moving on to further education, and next year our 5th teenager will reach this point. But what comes next? Traditionally for students who do well at GCSE A Levels were always the next step, but this is a completely different world to the world of 1951 when A Levels were introduced, and education is beginning to change in an effort to try and keep up.


When I left school it had always been expected I'd do A Levels, and I didn't give it a second thought. University didn't seem to be an option to me when I left College as I had a house and mortgage, and I went straight into a full time job which actually required no qualifications. In the 27 years since, the vocational qualifications I have gained after I became an adult have all proven far more useful to me, and gained me more work, than my years at College studying A Levels.

Traditional learning often just isn't as relevant as it used to be. Which is a better life skill for a 16 year old in 2015 - memorising case studies and dates, or being able to separate fact from fiction when you do a Google search?

On 15th July the LEGO Creator Ferrari F40 set 10248 became available to LEGO.com VIPs and my partner's order arrived on Saturday morning. He's been looking forward to this large scale expert level model since he first saw it, and really has not been disappointed at all with the build, the size, complexity or design.


Recommended for builders aged 14+ the LEGO Ferrari F40 has an amazing 1158 elements, making a model 14cm x 27cm. This gives you an idea of just how dense this model is going to be, even with a higher percentage of smaller pieces. At £69.99 and with Ferrari branding and gorgeous design, this model (just like the 3 Speed Champions Hybrid Supercars) represents an excellent value LEGO set.

This month has been hard. We are reaching all of the milestones and events that make up our last weeks with Elspeth. Summer, like Christmas and birthdays, presents us with a million snapshots and  memories.

The exams and the revision was hard. Prom was very hard. Thinking about arranging a holiday is incredibly hard. All I can think of is the lovely holidays we had when the children were small. 5 little people bobbing around excitedly and us constantly head-counting to make sure we hadn't mislaid one. Parking near the cheapest ice cream van to save ourselves a fiver, and always looking for the nearest toilet. Dreading them deciding to rockpool because someone always fell in, or skinned their knees and had to be carried back to the van, still clutching a bucket with 15ml of water and some poor 5 legged crab who was probably already dead when they picked it up, but we hadn't the heart to tell them.
 
The hardest bit is the never going back. Never undoing, never having a second chance. But never being sure of what we could have changed if we had.

Knowing that we are about to mark our first full year is hard. It doesn't seem possible. Even with all that my ridiculous hernia has put us through, there's no way it seems like 11 months. It seems like minutes. I still expect her to come running downstairs and slip on that last step, like she always did. I still have to work out how many people we have for tea. Her little brother still mentions her casually in conversation, then suddenly pauses, and I pause, and we look at each other, but now we smile at each other and we can carry on with what we were saying.

This month I went to Britmums, and I read Dear Elspeth (you can see my croaky attempt here), and I utterly exhausted myself. I knew it would be hard, and it really was emotionally much harder than I expected, but I was so well looked after. I couldn't have done it without all of the help from my friends - they made it possible - and I came back to Manchester no worse off physically than if I'd been at home.

Another event which was harder emotionally than we expected  was acting as support team for Sim while she ran the Race For Life. We had been so busy working out the best place to park for the least walking for me, and whether we should take scooters. Really we should just have been discussing tissues. Seeing all of those people with names of loved ones who have died, or been through hell and come through the other side, really was more than we were able to deal with unexpectedly. Should have thought that one through and been more ready for it.

It's been a hard and very emotional month and I know we have hard times ahead, but we've tried to fill the next month with things to keep us busy. I am beginning to get back into household tasks and well into recovery from my Hernia operation now - something that pleases my partner greatly! The fact I'm much more well than I have been for months has removed a lot of the stress and pressure on the entire household.

We are still finding the smiles, and this last month marked an important milestone. It is exactly 2 years since my partner became ill with Meningitis. He is still here, and aside from small memory problems, a limp and leg pain, he is now just who he used to be.

Here are the smiles I've collected this month....