Mila And Pheebs are a new company offering children's stationery and activity boxes for children on a monthly basis by subscription. I get asked to review a lot of these sort of subscriptions, but this one really caught my eye for having incredibly good quality contents, with well-thought out projects and activities.


Mila And Pheebs name is inspired from their 21 month old  twins Milena and Phoebe.

"We create themed stationery and activity boxes for kids. A new box is released each month and includes items such as stickers, notebooks, pencils, word searches and a collectible iwako eraser". 

The boxes are aimed at children of Primary School age, and my 6 and 7 year old boys fit that bill nicely. We were sent the May box - this has a Wonderful Woodland theme, and is a really small box, but absolutely crammed full of goodies...

I was recently asked on Instagram if I'd like to review for Cheerz, and I thought it would be quite nice to see some of my favourite Instagram photos turned into good old-fashioned photographs you can hold in your hand. Cheerz make a nice range of different gifts and have some novel ways to display your pictures. They're perfect for a proud Dad on Father's Day.


I chose the Cheerz Box. 30 prints in a nice 'letterbox' sized box. They're crisp and clear and the colours are very true. The border colours on these are lovely. The photos are cropped to square, and you can reposition them, resize and also add captions if you want. It's actually a fantastic way to save memories that you think you'll know forever, but time steals some of the information. I've labelled a few with dates, and I chose some of the very best smiles.

My 7 year old has a voracious appetite for reading, but also for writing and puzzles, so he loves interactive and activity books. KOOB: The Upside-Down Book which is released on Thursday 2nd June is perfect for him. 144 pages of puzzles and activities that are a bit different from the norm!


Written by Anna Brett and illustrated by Rebecca Wright, KOOB 2: The Upside-Down Book is the follow up to the very successful KOOB: The Backwards Book, and is published by Carlton Books. When you open the book, the very first thing you read lets you know this is going to be different...

If you haven't heard of Smiggle then somewhat unusually I'm well ahead of you. The Australian-based stationery company have recently opened a branch in the Manchester Arndale, and now they're spreading out further with branches in Bury, Bolton and Bradford opening in early June.


Smiggle is dedicated to creating original, fun and affordable stationery. The products are focused on bold colour, quirky graphics, good value, innovation and most of all – giving fans the tools they need to have fun. A pencil at Smiggle is not 'just a pencil'. It might be smelly or furry or liquid chalk or disguised as a wild animal, but it isn't 'just' anything.

Today we were up bright and early to go to the Trafford Centre to LEGOLAND Discovery Centre and be among the first people to see the brand new LEGO NEXO Knights 4D movie, The Book Of Creativity, which launched this weekend.


It was a great opportunity for me to complete the photos for my post showing what's inside LEGOLAND Discovery Centre, and if you haven't been before, then it should give you a good idea of what you will find when you arrive.

If you are looking for a book to share with your child that is a bit different and will engage both of you equally, then Race Point Publishing may have just the thing. On May 1st they released 2 new books for you to 'Draw, Colour and Connect' with your child.

In today's busy life it's too easy to rush around and not spend time with your child, and when you do, it can be hard to get them to put down their screen and actually have a conversation. Draw With Me, Dad! and Colour With Me, Mum! hope to solve that problem by giving you something calm and active to do while you chat.


Draw With Me, Dad! by Jasmine Narayan and Chad Geren takes adult and children's colouring books and mashes them together with a surprisingly effective and beautiful result.

Simbrix are fairly new, so you may not have heard of them before. A very different sort of toy for children aged around 5+, they describe themselves as a 'Craft Toy', but that doesn't begin to cover it. We've been sent some Simbrix to review, and if you follow me on social media you've probably already spotted them in my photos because they are constantly covering my table...


All Simbrix kits come in a cloth bag - this is genius. They're tiny and arrive in multiples of 850. A cotton drawstring bag in which to store them is perfect. It's beautifully made and a really nice size too, so can store partially made models as well as loose Simbrix.

The full title of today's cookery book review is Let's Cook Spanish, A Family Cookbook: Vamos a Cocinar Espanol, Recetas Para Toda la Familia by Gabriella Llamas. I think the title is a pretty good description. This is a book of Spanish recipes ideal for cooking with your children.


This is a  hardbacked cookbook which is written in English and Spanish, with introductions for the children in the family, and the grown ups. It takes the stance that cooking should be a fun, participatory event. I can't disagree with that. It also introduces Spanish into the English pages of the text, and my boys liked trying to pronounce the foreign words.

My 2 young boys love Alvin And The Chipmunks,  and were more than happy to preview the upcoming DVD release of their computer animated Nick Jr TV series Alvinnn!!! And The Chipmunks. Volume 1, Summer Of Sport, will be released on DVD on June 13th and contains the first 14 episodes from the show.


Summer Of Sport features all of the regular characters, including the guys - Alvin, Simon and Theodore, the Chipettes - Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor, and their long-suffering carer David Seville.  The total runtime for the 14 episodes is over 2 1/2 hours, making this a pretty hefty DVD, but it is broken into short bites and universally rated, so it works for any child, whatever their attention span.

Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang have been entertaining children and adults since 1950. 20th Century Fox's computer animated 'The Peanuts Movie' is the first full length film featuring Charles M Shultz's world famous characters, and it's available to buy from 30th May 2016 on digital download, Blu-ray and DVD.


I watched the movie with my 6 and 7 year old boys and we all enjoyed it. The storyline is easy to follow for younger viewers, but there is enough going on to interest the more mature film fans - and their parents.

In the movie Charlie Brown and his friends cope with the arrival of a new girl in class, they manage to score a win over the kite-eating tree, and they generally just have fun being kids and playing with their friends. Snoopy meanwhile battles his arch-nemesis The Red Baron, including some great aerial action in his biplane and goggles.