Win 4 Tickets to Legoland Windsor Courtesy of Cuthberts Toys

Win 4 Tickets to Legoland Windsor

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Cuthberts Toys  in St Albans and I have written about their excellent customer service on a couple of occasions.  I’ve known Kirit, the owner, for a few years now and he’s just a genuinely nice guy with a great sense of humour.

(A recent tweet from @cuthberts_toys)

Cuthberts Toys St Albans Herts

He runs a great local business, which was much needed in our city centre, selling all the top ranges of children’s toys including Lego, Playmobil, Orchard Toys and Micro-Scooters.  He’s now taking this local business approach online.

To celebrate the launch of his new e-commerce site Cuthberts Toys is offering one of my readers a chance to win 4 tickets to Legoland Windsor.

Win 4 Tickets to Legoland Windsor

To enter simply use the Rafflecopter form below.  Full Terms and Conditions can be found at the bottom of the form but in short it’s open to UK residents aged 18+ and closes on Fri 28th Feb 2014.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This competition is listed on Loquax, Prize Finder and Competition Hunter.

Win a Plus Plus Mini Basic 1200 Interactive Building Kit from Toyella

I hear you ask ‘What is it?’

Plus Plus are an a building kit from Denmark with a difference.  The simplicity of the design,  two plus symbols stuck together,  provide endless opportunities for creativity.

Interactive Building Kit for Kids

I was thrilled when Toyella resurfaced on Twitter and we reconnected.

‘More time has allowed me to break out of my Twitter coffin Kill Bill style.’ via @toyella

I’ve run competitions for them in the past and genuinely love their stuff.  Carl, AKA The Head Honcho, is offering 5 prizes to my lovely readers!

First Prize: 

Plus Plus Mini Basic 1200 piece set

4 Runner Up Prizes:

Mini Basic 100 Piece Sets

To enter simply use the rafflecopter form below.  Full Terms and Conditions are at the bottom of the form.  But in short UK residents only 18+.  All times quoted are EST and competition closes on the 25 May 2013.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Photo Credit:   The photos are not of the actual prize.  I have ‘borrowed;’ the photos from the Plus Plus Facebook Page.  I hope they don’t mind. ;-)

This competition is listed on Loquax, Prize Finder and Competition Hunter.

Top 5 Christmas Presents of 2011

Overall, I think we did fairly well on the present front, not too much tat. In a way, we are lucky that my family is overseas and posting presents is extortionate.  So they, tend to send money for me to buy presents for our daughter.  I really like this as it allows me to control what she gets and I tend to know what she needs/would like.  We did our best not to spoil her but in hindsight she did get a lot.  Here are her top 5 Christmas Presents.

Number 5

A Princess Tent from Santa, as a family we were torn on how to handle gifts from Santa.  Too be honest, we didn’t want him taking all the credit for our hard work.  At one point we were just going to have him bring the stocking, but in the end we decided one main present from him would be good.

The Princess Tent is designed for the garden but for the time being, we are going to keep it inside until the spring.  At first, I was a bit worried that it would be too small for her but boy was I wrong!  At the moment, it’s dominating our rather small lounge.  It was fairly easy to put together and you can feel the quality, the canvas cover is robust and the wooden frame is sturdy.  At the moment we haven’t secured it with the screws as we may want to put it up and down.  As you can see it’s gorgeous and I’m sure her and her friends will have fun playing in it.

Number 4

Kerplunk – a game that I loved to play as a child; it’s changed a bit but still great fun.  We’ve really been enjoying playing it as a family, but we’ve noticed that my daughter has a very competitive streak and likes to change the rules as we go along.  I think she gets this from her Grandmother who is fiercely competitive when it comes to games.

Number 3

My daughter’s main present, after a lot of thought, was a Puppet Theatre, but what I really like about this one is when you turn it around it turns into a shop.  At the moment she tends to prefer the shop.  We spent the evening playing Toy Store; however, I find her shop very expensive as everything costs £50 and she doesn’t take IOUs!

Number 2

Prior to Christmas, I tried to ask her what she wanted for Christmas and I really struggled to get something sensible out of her.  The last time I asked she said she would like a yellow dress, red handbag and pink bunny costume.  Luckily, a friend of mine who has a penchant for Prada and the colour red jumped in and offered to sort out the red hand bag. Phew!

Number 1

To go with her Puppet Theatre we bought a collection of Hand Puppets from the Puppet Company. As she is currently in a Princess phase we opted for Fairytale Characters.  As you can see they are absolutely gorgeous.  Mummy and daddy could use some work on their puppetry skills, but we are getting the hang of it.  Last night we did renditions of ‘we’re off to see the Wizard’, ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, ‘if you want to be a Prince stand up tall’ and ‘I’m a Little Princess’ sung to the tune of I’m a Little Teapot.  We’re looking forward to many more productions.

Wishing you all the best in 2012!

 Disclosure:  For the record Santa did not bring the Princess Tent.  It was a gift from the company.

 

 

 

Bath Toys

I was contacted by the people at Boon, I’ve bought a load of crap for Madame but one of the best things I ever bought for Madame was the Frog Bath Toy Scoop, we use it everyday, so I was happy to do a review for them.   They sent me four Odd Ducks and some Water Bugs.

I’m really lost for words, what can you say about rubber ducks, they’re really cool, colourful, PVC Free and they float???  Madame loves them.  Errrrm? Oh they don’t have holes so they don’t fill with water and start to grow that horrible black mold.

And me being me, the first thing I did with the Water Bugs was fill up the kitchen sink to see if they float and I can happily report they do.  It’s so nice to have some new bath toys as we were getting bored of ours.  I think the Odd Ducks would make great gifts.

So, I thought I’d take you down memory lane.  How many of you watched this as a kid?  I did.  Take a minute to watch and smile.

Wooden Toys

We were sent these beautiful wooden toys from the lovely folks at The Wooden Toy Shop.  Madame immediately set about trying to set the cakes out exactly like how they were on the box.  I think she did a pretty good job.  However, after a few minutes it dawned on me that I don’t actually know what a few of the cakes are.  I blame this on being a foreigner.  I’m okay with the fairy cakes, donut and Bourbon Biscuits, as it has Bourbon written on it but what are the other four??

My other big dilemma; Do I teach Madame that it’s Zee or Zed?  Is it a Zeh-bra or a Zee-bra??