JJ Cole Picnic Blanket

Although it's been raining, it's officially Summer! Don't get me wrong, I still love my snowy, cosy fire Winter, but the last autumn/ winter/ spring seemed awfully long and miserable! After the first sunny (and hot!) week, I have been constantly checking on the weather report for more opportunities to go out, let it be for a day out somewhere or simply to enjoy our newly tidied up garden.

During one of the warm weekend, we went to have a barbecue at my brother's, and my sister in law took out some picnic blankets for the children to sit on. Why did I never think of that? It would have been perfect for the kids to enjoy our garden, sitting on a picnic blanket, just like they would in the park! However, the picnic blanket we've got has taken up permanent residency in my hubby's car, and it was a pain to pack it up, especially in this "I'm going to rain on you any minute" kind of weather.

TOMY's PR, like a genie, seems to know my problem, and has sent me one of their posh JJ Cole blanket to try out. I love it when someone spoils me when I needed it!

TOMY JJ Cole is a collection of convenient and stylish children's transport products. The picnic blanket is fashionable and I'm more than happy to carry it on my shoulder. It is waterproof (I even did a test for it!) on the inside and durable on the outside, easy to clean and much easier than other blankets to fold (it has a sewn-in guide to help with the folding and a Velcro strap to keep it together). It is padded to make it really comfortable to sit or lie down on, yet it did not feel clumsy nor heavy to carry on the shoulder. The picnic blanket is quite large (5ft x 5ft) and can easily allow an adult and a child (or 2) napping on it at the same time.

The picnic mat is retailed at £29.99, although they are on offer now in several stores. I'm going to keep ours at home for those picnic in the garden days!

Disclosure: We were sent a picnic mat for review purpose; all opinions are honest and our own

Cheshire Oaks Wagamama Summer Menu Tasting

Having reviewed 2 of Wagamama's branches (Manchester Spinningfields and Manchester Printworks) and had mostly enjoyable experiences, we were glad to be given another opportunity to review their Summer Menu 2013. We were also interested to find out how the new ramen and soup are taking on since the Autumn menu update, and what the service and food quality are like in the Cheshire Oaks branch.

The Cheshire Oaks branch was very spacious, though being a Sunday evening, it was slightly quieter. It was to our favour as we were provided with one of the better service a restaurant can give. It's bright, well ventilated and we were really comfortable. Service was quick and responsive, and food was fresh and warm when served.

Hubby went straight for his favourite Ginger Beer, unfortunately they ran out of apples, so we couldn't order the Summer menu drinks - Mango, Apple and Orange Juice or Strawberry, Apple, Orange and Mint Juice. So I went for my usual Iced Peach Tea, which I think was tastier than I remembered, and Abby the Orange Juice for kids. She hadn't finish her juice for the first time at Wagamama, so I guess she preferred the Orange and Apple juice combo hehe.

As I wanted to try their Summer menu on top of our favourite dishes, and of course it being Fathers' Day, we again ordered plenty of food like we've been starving the whole day. It was good that the portions was just right so we only took a box of leftovers home.

For starters we ordered Beef and Chicken Summer Rolls, and the Beef Lettuce Wraps, all part of the new Summer menu. The Chilli Squid was for Abby, which was her Wagamama's all time favourite, and even though she's been saying how spicy it was, by the time I finished taking pictures of the continuously arriving food, there was only 3 pieces left on the plate!

The Beef and Chicken Summer Rolls were both cold dishes, equally refreshing and tasty with the dipping sauce, although there were too much fresh coriander to my liking. Hubby is a coriander fan so it didn't bother him, but I really think that it was overpowering the rolls. I tasted more of the other ingredients after removing some of the coriander. The "skin" was thin and bouncy/ chewy, which to SE Asian standard was perfect.

The Beef Lettuce Wrap is a spicy dish. It was spicy even without the sauce, but you can easily remove the chilli from the wrap to drop the heat. The wrap was really really tasty and every mouthful was packed with flavour. Although served with lettuce it went really well with a cold fizzy drink.

For mains, we ordered a Mini Grilled Fish Noodle for the kids to share, which comes with a delicious Amai sauce that obviously Abby loves as she's been dipping her noodles one by one in the sauce before slurping them up. The Summer menu main includes Tom Yam noodle soup, Bean and Glass Noddle Salad and either Chicken or Salmon Miso Salad. I'm not a Tom Yam person, but their salads are certainly interesting, so we ordered the Salmon Miso Salad and our favourites, Wagamama Ramen for hubby and Teriyaki Beef Soba for me.

Hubby was especially happy with his Ramen as we were both led down in our previous visit. The noodles were cooked properly and the soup's seasoning was how it should be. The Teriyaki Beef Soba was delicious, although the beef was a touch on the chewier side. Being soya sauce lovers, we still added a touch of soya sauce on our dishes to make them extra yummy!

The Salmon Miso Salad (or even the chicken) would be a great substitute to any usual salads. The creamy miso salad dressing was delicious and goes perfectly well with the grilled Salmon. The seaweed, spring onions and sesame seeds added a lot of texture to it, making it much more interesting than a leafy salad. Just make sure that you give the salad a good stir before digging in as I believe it was drizzled over and around the salad after it was plated up. Love the presentation though!

We were really stuffed after our mains and had to ask for leftovers to be packed away, but I wanted to see their dessert menu (how pretty is it?!) and one thing let to another and I ended up ordering a Mixed Frozen Yogurt to share (did someone mention that dessert stomach is a separate stomach?!). The frozen yogurts were really special, Strawberry with Five Spice was baffling but works well together, Citrus Yuzu (Japanese Pomelo) was refreshing and had a hint of ginger flavour in it, and Passionfruit was lighter and not as tangy (in a good way) than expected. It was an easy to eat dessert after a heavy meal and cleared our palette well. It's  low in fat and pro-biotic as well so it was good for the tummy!

Our experience in Cheshire Oaks' Wagamama was by far the best experience we had out of the 3 branches we have visited. Great food, great service and overly satisfied bellies. The Summer menu is refreshing, choosing flavours that will enhance your appetite and are light to eat on a hot day. I definitely recommend it for either lunch or dinner.

Disclosure: We were subsidized for out meals, but all opinions are honest and our own.

Recycle Week with Canimals

When we were in Taiwan, Abby went on a shopping spree and bought a notebook with Mimi from Canimals on the front cover. She really likes Mimi, so when we were invited to participate in a Canimals Recycling Week challenge, we were quick to say "yes please!" (well, also because it's such a fun challenge to do!).

The kind PR allowed Abby to choose her favourite character Mimi for the challenge. What's the challenge? Well, we were to make something for Mimi using safe recyclable materials. I didn't have any ideas until Mimi arrived. I had a cardboard box, so I thought we should make a house for her. Then ideas started flowing - a shower, bed and swimming pool (fancy that!). I also found a big stack of chocolate wrapping papers (we so did not eat them all in a week) we saved up for crafting purpose, although I was expecting the result to be a bit more appealing, like with coloured cellophanes.

Anyway, I immediately started working on the house. The door and window with a window sill first, when Abby asked for another window. The next morning when it's half "wall-papered", she requested for a fire escape (she just learned the word from a book she read the previous night).

"What does she need a fire escape for? It's a bungalow, she can just jump out of the window."

"(testing Mimi jumping out of the window) But she will fall on the floor if she jumps out! See?! She falls!"

So Mimi has a fire escape as well. As I needed to attach the swimming pool, and I was just sent something that came with a flat cardboard box, I made a garden for the house as well. It wasn't a WOW! craft, in fact, I never do WOW! crafts. But for some reason the kids couldn't resist it (I couldn't understand why but I was of course filled with joy!). Half way during the making, Clay was already throwing tantrums so he can play with it.

Obviously bits and pieces fell out because of how wonderful PVA glue dries. After a few adjustments, we've finished Mimi's chocolate wrapping paper house.

The end result has a shower/ bath that's filled with bubbles and has a shower curtain, a bed with a pillow, a wardrobe, carpet, window sill with flowers, door that can be opened/ closed, a slide fire escape instead of stairs (easier to make and more fun for the kids), swimming pool filled with water, and grass in the garden with plenty of flower bushes.

Recyclable materials used includes:

Card board boxes (house, garden, bed, slide)

Chocolate wrapping papers (wallpaper, door paint, window sill, bed, pillow, grass, swimming pool water)

Magazine papers (Slide cover)

Fabric scrap (shower curtain and pillow cover)

Jelly pot (bath tub)

Sandwich spread tub (swimming pool)

Plastic Bag (carpet)

Bubble wrap (bath bubbles, pillow)

snack boxes (wardrobe)

And some craft materials including pom pom balls, gems and glitter glue.

Clay has shown some really good imaginative play here, walking Mimi through the door and climbing out of the fire escape. Abby loved the slide so she's been playing "my house is on fire!" scene over and over again! Then of course there is the fighting over playing Mimi because she's so cute and squeaky and other figurines, even Clay's favourite, just won't do. I had plenty of fun making the house, and although it's not as beautiful as those made by craft bloggers (far from it!) I felt proud that my kids loved it.

Hopefully Mimi loves her house too!

As mentioned before, this week is Recycling Week, why don't you and/ or your child join in and make something fun out of recyclable materials in the house to celebrate?

Disclosure: We were sent a toy for the challenge; all opinions are honest and our own

LeapFrog: Learn Numbers and Shapes DVD

Lately we've noticed that Clay has picked up quite a bit of skills. Take counting for example, he used to say "huh" for each number when he counts down from 5, but today I actually heard him saying "Teh (for ten)... Eigh (for eight) ..." out loud. And we also noticed that he can put his baby puzzles together too by looking at the shape and consider whether it matches the piece of puzzle he's holding.

We don't normally stimulate our children to learn, but they do pick up a lot from watching CBeebies (I'm still very impressed with the channel!), and for Clay, his sister as well. There is a limit with what they can learn from the TV of course, but at the toddler's stage, I'm not too fussed.

Having said that, when we finished reviewing LeapFrog's 3 in 1 bumper pack DVD - Learn Numbers & Shapes, I thought that it's worth buying (rrp £9.99 for 1.5 hours worth of entertainment and education, value for money!) for the kids to watch, and the learning comes as a bonus for us.

The bumper pack comes with 3 episodes, following Scout (the green puppy) and his friends (I was sure Tad was the original character) on their adventures while learning how to count and recognise numbers and shapes. The cartoon is colourful and songs are catchy, while the adventures are exciting and funny as well (5 years old Abby was afraid of some parts from the Numbers Ahoy episode!). By teaching Tad and Lily how to count, it gives toddlers an idea how they should be counting as well, which I was really pleased with. I can see how a toddler can learn numbers and shapes by just watching these episodes. Each of them last for a good half an hour, so the children can really get something out of them. Even Abby enjoyed the shows too.

The LeapFrog Learn Numbers & Shapes DVD will be out on Monday 17th June 2013, which you can pre-order now.

Disclosure: We were sent a preview disc to review; all opinions are honest and our own

Fathers' Day with ASDA

The lovely PR from ASDA has kindly sent me (well, hubby) a surprise parcel for Fathers' Day. Thank you!

I have always found their gift range impressive for a company that focus on money saving. Seriously, you can always find something lovely and worth buying in their seasonal section, some branded on lower value than others, some their own brand but most likely as good as the branded goods. I know there are quite a lot of people who think that ASDA means cheap, but we found that more and more of the good stuff (Carters Root Beer and Walkers Ruffles Crisps for example) are only available in ASDA!

So why don't you give ASDA a go if you haven't already? Your husband/ dad might just be glad that you have saved them some money enough for another bottle of beer! And if you are already shopping with them, don't forget to check out their Fathers' Day gifts, especially from the larger stores for more choices.

Hubby is already eyeing on the bottle of ale, while the kids have helped themselves with the chocolate balls. I might as well take a bite off that precious Gold Medal!

Disclosure: I was sent a selection of gifts to review; all opinions are honest and my own