I love children's artwork, I've examples from the past 10 years all over the walls, noticeboards and fridge in my house. The way children draw people is fascinating to me, and I spent a lot of time looking at that rather than actually studying when I was at college doing Child Language Acquisition.


I've even gone so far as to have one of my children's drawings embroidered onto a bag, and I've posted my children's pictures on my blog regularly with a huge degree of pride and a big smile.

I'd heard great things about Bill's, so when we were given the opportunity to review I was really pleased. The Trafford Centre want the children's opinions about the food there, so on this occasion it was my 6 year old who was giving his view. He was really on form...thankfully when we arrived they offered to seat us in a booth...



The Children's Menu was easy for my Year 1 boy to read himself. Full of recogniseable food that children will know and understand - children aren't often as keen on surprises when they eat as adults are, so this was great. He was especially impressed that dessert was Chocolate Brownie AND Ice Cream.

Father's Day this year falls on Sunday June 19th - so you still have more than 10 days to choose that perfect gift. Here are a selection of my favourites from what's on offer this year...


Memories are precious to Dads, and they can be emotional, hilarious or just make him proud. Cheerz have an awesome range of gifts including their letterbox sized Cheerz Box which starts at £16 for 30 beautifully packaged prints delivered. We also reviewed their Retro Magnets at £17.50 for 12 awesome magnetic prints delivered to your door. Our Cheerz photogifts review is here...

We've been playing Loony Quest for a couple of months now, and this very different 'board game' has proven a massive hit in our house. Just as much fun for my 7 year old as it is for the teenagers and adults, it plays through levels like a platform video game, beating the bad guys and collecting bonus points as you try and survive to the end. All the best video games have expansions to give you a little bit more, and so does Loony Quest.


We've been sent the Loony Quest: The Lost City Expansion. This is an add-on pack, so you need the original game (here's our Loony Quest Game Review) in order to play the Lost City levels.

The Liberty Trading Company Limited are a company who specialise in great gifts, and they sent me a couple of things for my partner to review. He handily has a birthday 2 weeks before Father's Day, so we got the chance to judge his reaction when we wrapped them and gave them as real presents.

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.