A couple of days ago we reviewed the Stickibox Cardboard Car Kit, and our children love it. There really aren't many things that are better at bringing out the laughter and imagination in children than a cardboard box vehicle. Today I have the chance for one of my readers to win one of their own.


Easy to put together and your child can personalise their box however they want. Stickibox take it all to the next level with turning wheels and reg plates, lights and a steering wheel. You can see our full review of the Stickibox Car Kit here...

Mister Chef are a brand new company selling kitchen equipment in the UK. Their range is varied and very modern. They specialise in silicone bakeware and some of the more gadgety equipment for kitchen, baking and sugarcraft. They recently sent us a bundle of products to take a look...


The first product that caught my eye was a little gadget that I didn't recognise at all! Looking like a little single axle car, with whirling blades inside. Luckily it was listed as a Garlic Chopper.

We love a good cardboard box car here, but somehow they are always missing something. Stickibox hope to fill that gap by supplying Cardboard Car Kits for the young explorer in your house. Luckily we have just the chap living here, and we've been sent a Cardboard Car Kit for review.


The box arrived and along the edge is a sticker with a message from the creators, Pip and Kerry:

"Each Stickibox Kit enables a child to express their creativity and helps support key developmental skills. Once built, this simple box can transport your child on a journey of adventure.
Build, Design and Jump Inside."

I like that. It's a nice ethos. Open your box, and you find, unsurprisingly, a box! Flat-packed and really simple to construct.

Yeah, okay, I'm a day late. I'm not even sure how that exactly happened, but I was really stunned when I realised today was not the 15th. It's got to be a good sign. It's also an indicator of just how busy we are at the moment - we're getting out more. It's definitely a good sign.

Life is becoming more normal, we've had some amazingly successful trips out this last month and one of the big differences is we've begun to 'last the day', rather than wanting to go home after an hour to the safety of our own surroundings.

I've always known life has to carry on, it has to be good for the little boys. They have a right to enjoy the things the big kids had. My teenagers have to be teenagers, they have to do normal teenage stuff. Sitting down and giving in would be so easy at so many points, but then what? Nothing. You can't lie down and give in, you have the rest of forever to consider.

There are some amazing new LEGO sets this Spring, and one of the ones we were most excited about was the LEGO CITY Airport Air Show. Comprising a huge hangar, 3 planes, service car, tool wagon and an impressive 6 minifigures, it's a collectible for enthusiasts and a play set that really promises value.

This post is written by Michael Todt...


Who’d want to be a father-in-law these days, huh? The costs of weddings have soared in recent years, and with venue, contractors and planners alike looking to capitalise on our innate desires to make this once-in-a-lifetime occasion as special as possible, budgets tend to go through the roof. In fact, some recent research suggests that the average cost of a UK wedding is now an eye-watering £24,000!

According to Martin Lewis, possibly the most trusted consumer champion in the UK, one of the biggest causes of divorce is debt and financial worries. So while you don’t want to sacrifice too much for your big day, you also don’t want to leave yourself financially crippled in the future as a result of it. I remember our big day very well. I also remember all the stresses of planning it! But it was all worth it in the end, and we managed to keep the budget down to what we found acceptable. I thought that, based on our experience, I’d share a few tips which I picked up along the way…

I love the fact that my 6 and 7 year old boys want to read all kinds of different books, and now that they are becoming competent independent readers a whole world is open to them. "You Wouldn't Want To Be...." is a series of books detailing the kinds of historical jobs that you probably wouldn't have wanted, mixing humour and history and really giving an insight into the lives of people in the past.


You Wouldn't Want To Be a Shakespearean Actor is written by Jacqueline Morley and illustrated really fittingly by David Antram. It shows us the less-than-glamorous side of treading the boards back in the 16th Century.  For starters actors nowadays might complain about costumes, but they have it easy..

This Father’s Day Egmont Books have treated the Dad of our house to some of their great new Star Wars mini-build books. They are exactly the type of the kind of gift he would buy for the boys – partly because he wanted to have a play and a look at them himself…


We've been sent Star Wars: Battle Stations: Activity Book and AT-AT Model and Smuggler's Starship: Activity Book and Millennium Falcon Model. We chose to give my partner the Battle Stations AT-AT model book for his birthday a couple of weeks ago, and we will be giving him the Smuggler's Starship Millennium Falcon book on Father's Day this Sunday.

Heck are well known mainly for their incredibly special meat sausages, so it was a real surprise to me to discover they have launched a vegetarian range. Knowing how much care and effort Heck take over their meat products, and their reputation for real food with excellent quality ingredients, it was something I was very excited to try, as were my family - veggie and non-veggie.


There are 3 products in the Heck Meat-Free Vegetarian range:

Super Greens - Veggie meatballs made from made from quinoa, spinach, kale and ginger.

Nuts About Cheese - Veggie sausages made from cashews, two cheeses, flax and chia seeds, and a dash of chilli.

Gourmet Goat's Cheese - Veggie burgers made from quinoa, goat's cheese and caramelised onions.

Regular readers may remember I don't really enjoy cooked cheese, so for reasons of fairness the rest of my family insisted they also sampled the products.


Heck Super Greens are the only one of the 3 products that are vegan. 9 balls in a pack with an rrp of £3. They have a quite solid consistency and are quite dense, and drier when raw than I anticipated.

Very similar in texture, shape and size to Falafel, they are mainly chick pea and quinoa, but the taste is very different indeed. These are more herby, not spicy at all, but very strong tasting. It was also evident straightaway that they are a little heavy on the Coriander (always a risky move).

Considering the density they cook very nicely, with a crispy shell and are soft, but not mushy inside.


We nibbled on them the first time to test them, but I think because they are so strongly flavoured, you don't need any more than 1 or 2, and a couple of my family really don't care for Coriander, so they struggled with them.

I've since used the Super Greens Balls in a burger bun and in a wrap with salad, which works much better and makes a nice alternative to a sandwich or burger. Good, but don't overdo them by attempting too many at once or you'll spoil it, and if you aren't a fan of Coriander then approach with caution.


Heck Nuts About Cheese Sausages are a nut and cheese sausage that otherwise has more subtle flavours. Sold in packs of 4 with an rrp of £3. These are the most 'realistic' looking vegetarian sausages I've ever used, and have a thin skin which means frying them results in a lovely glossy golden sausage.

The ends do escape a little during cooking as the cheese melts and the sausage contents heat and expand, but there is no excess fat to escape and they keep their shape nicely. They're great for adding to recipes because they do keep shape better than a lot of other 'real food' veggie sausages, even when chopped.


The Nuts About Cheese Sausages were deemed 'very cheesy', so I avoided. The general consensus is that the cheese taste is rich and delicious, and these sausages were very different to any usual sausage whether vegetarian or not, but different in a good way. When I cooked them again I had no trouble emptying the plate, although my little boys didn't like them for being 'too weird'. Definitely worth a try, especially if you like cheese.


Heck Gourmet Goat's Cheese Burgers were the stunner of the show. Two burgers per pack with an rrp of £3. Not as cheesy as you'd think, I even had half and was very impressed. Mainly quinoa, but with a large proportion of nuts, they have a fresh, nutty taste above any other flavour.

They may fall apart a little during cooking, but give you a crispy, delicious burger with a lovely texture. Fabulous in a bun, but maybe a bit risky on a barbeque, cook them in a pan or on a tray. I cannot imagine any vegetarian being disappointed by these.


These burgers are now my partner's favourite burger ever. He adores them. He isn't vegetarian, but says he'd rather have these than any other burger he's ever tasted. I honestly could have served them up 3 times over and they'd have been eaten. DEFINITELY worth trying.

In all it's a very impressive range of products that doesn't disappoint. You can taste the quality, the ingredients all have a clear role and add to the overall effect, in the case of the balls maybe overdoing the Coriander, but in the burgers hitting perfect spot on. Full of flavour and each unique in it's market, they are a tastier and more decadent product than your everyday burger, banger or ball. 

We've reviewed Num Noms before, children's scented collectible toys that are designed to look like Cupcakes and Ice Creams, and we thought it would be a fun idea to try and recreate them for real. I think we may have cracked it...


Num Noms all have a particular smell, and there are tons of different flavours (my review of the Num Noms Cupcake Party Pack). We actually bought several flavours of ice cream to try and recreate them, some were more successful than others!