Review for Kiwi Mummy Blogs: Kellogg’s Coco Pops Favourite Family Recipes

A review for Kiwi Mummy Blogs, who sent me a tea towel for Coco Pops as well as a small recipe book Favourite Family Recipes. The book features eight recipes which contain Kellogg’s Coco Pops.

We don’t buy Coco Pops usually so receiving the book to review was a great excuse to buy a box of the childhood favourite cereal. With it currently being school holidays here in New Zealand this book is perfect if you want to do some baking that won’t take too longer and taste great. Plus, all the recipes are child friendly, so it’s great to get the kids involved.

I was tempted too make the Chocolate Crackle Balls but my three year old daughter requested the Chocolate Crackles, so we made those instead.

The recipe said it would make 36 mini chocolate crackles, we didn’t really need that many so I decided to half the recipe. I had all the ingredients I needed in my pantry, except for Kellogg’s Coco Pops and Kremelta (vegetable fat shortening, made from hydrogenated coconut oil. It is popular used in Australia and is used for a lot of children’s foods). I hadn’t cooked with it before so I was quite intrigued as to how it would work out.

Little Miss loves to bake, and is always requesting to do so. After looking through the Favourite Family Recipes book, I thought that Little Miss would be able to make these herself, with a little of my help and supervision.

The recipe was very straightforward and didn’t take Little Miss and I long at all to mix everything together and spoon the mixture into mini paper cases. These are a quick, easy and tasty treat for kids and adults.

Even though I made half the recipe we still had 32 mini paper cups filled with Coco Pops mixture. The recipe suggested adding sprinkles if you wanted something colourful for a kids party, which I thought was a good idea.

Along with the Favourite Family Recipes booklet I also received a tea towel. I think it is so nice I don’t want to use it to dry my dishes, don’t think it would look better hanging on a wall in a frame?

NB: The recipes featured on this blog post can be found via this link

Review for Kiwi Mummy Blogs- Tama the Kiwi

I was sent two books to review by Kiwi Mummy Blogs Yay!!! The first review is Tama the Kiwi

We love books in our house. Little Miss (aged three), loves story time (as I’m sure most kiddies her age do) and it is cool seeing her pointing to some of the words in books and asking what the word is. My husband and I both enjoy to read, so I’m sure the kids will follow. Mr Happy, (aged 19 months) will often take himself down to the bedroom, sit on the floor with books all around him and look through books for ages. He chats away to himself as he is reading and points at the pictures, its lovely to watch and listen to him enjoying this time to himself and seeing him grow and develop.

We were sent Tama the Kiwi, by Beks Bongiovanni, Illustrations by Laker. This is the first book in a series, the next one is planned to be released mid 2016. I already can’t wait! I was really impressed with how it arrived, I could already tell it was going to be a hit. Just look how lovely it was packaged, I felt like a kid at Christmas opening it!

Couldn’t resist a photo of the awesome packaging

About Tama the Kiwi

This book features Tama the Kiwi as he goes on a Tiki Tour throughout his homeland of New Zealand. The books have been created to inspire travelling and hopefully have some great adventures within New Zealand. I was looking forward the reading this book to my children, just flicking through the pages it was lovely to see bright and colourful illustrations, quite a few New Zealand towns and landmarks are mentioned, as well as words that jumped out at you and would be easy for my children to read in the future.

Beks Bongiovanni, the author was really struggling to find books for young kiwis whilst living overseas, so she decided to create her own. The illustrator, Laker is her Brother-in-Law and there was also a lot of help from her sister Steph.

Front Cover

Back Cover

Thoughts

I think this book would appeal to very young children, it would make an ideal baby shower gift as well as being an excellent Christmas and birthday present for preschool and older children. Due to the big, bold printed writing I feel it would make a good book for children starting to learn to read and building their confidence in the world of reading. My three year old and 19 month old have been really impressed by it, I love being able to read and teach them about the country where we live. The illustrations are beautiful, colourful, bold and appealing to all ages. I have read it several times and so has my husband and it gets the thumbs up from both of us.

Awesome illustrations

Love this book

Where you can find Tama the Kiwi

Website: Tama the Kiwi

On the website there is information about Tama, awesome photos to look at, as well as details on how to purchase the book.

You can purchase a copy $17.95 and this includes FREE postage to throughout New Zealand and Australia.

Facebook: Tama the Kiwi Facebook page

What are you waiting for? Order your copy today!!!!

NB: Photos used with kind permission from Tawa the Kiwi website, I was sent this book to review and thoughts expressed are entirely my own.

Mr Happy is growing up.

Another week has gone by and soon we’ll be saying goodbye to September and hello to October. For those who are in New Zealand and Australia it is Spring, (although the weather wise the past few days, it feels like winter again!). And for my lovely family and friends in England, it’s Autumn for you. I would say I have adjusted to the seasons being at different times of the year, but I don’t think Christmas in the summer will ever seem right to me.

The night before last was another night we had Mr Happy in bed with us. He isn’t very good at settling at bedtime and quite often he will want to snuggle with me on the couch and fall asleep. I love the snuggles with my boy, so I’m not complaining. After all the days of falling asleep on me are dwindling.

At some silly time last night, around 2am, when I was either being used as a pillow or kicked in my back, (nice!). I thought of this blog post. It’s good when the ideas start flowing and I just hope I can remember everything I want to write the next day.

Since Mr Happy appears to have been unsettled at evening bedtime, we thought it could be the cot. He has always enjoyed sitting and sleeping on our bed and likes to sit on Little Miss’s bed for stories and to sit on it reading stories. My hubby came up with idea to take one of the cot sides off. It isn’t a cot-bed cot, but we thought lets give it a go. Needless to say, it didn’t really work. Afternoon naps were also starting to becoming a challenge……..

We decided it was time to say goodbye cot, and hello bed. We planned to buy bunks and seperate them and continue with Little Miss and Mr Happy sharing a room. We told Little Miss our plans and she was excited when we went bed shopping this past weekend. We let her have a go at trying to climb the bunk ladder and she did really well.

Little Miss & Mr Happy trying out new duvets

The finished bunks with a sleeping Mr Happy at the bottom

On Monday the bunks were delivered, assembled and the kiddies went to sleep. Ok, so Mr Happy fell asleep with me again in the evening and he came into our bed, but early days though right?

He has gone down for his afternoon asleep no trouble yesterday and today. I put him on his back, and I lay down on the floor next to him, (on the cot mattress) and within minutes he turned onto his side and went to sleep! WINNING!!!! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Mr Happy rolled onto his side and went to sleep.

So it’s the end of an one chapter for Mr Happy and now he begins another. He has said farewell to his cot and is embracing his big boy bed. He turned 17 months last week and is certainly a little boy/toddler these days. We can see his personality started to really develop. He is such a caring, social boy. He loves books, exploring and being outside. He is often in a flood of a tears and I have witnesses a couple of mini meltdowns when Little Miss leaves for Preschool and Daddy goes to work, he is beside himself for a couple of minutes. I usually give a him a big cuddle but he will struggle in my arms, a little distraction helps too. Usually toys, the promise of more toast usually does the trick and then I finally get a cuddle.

I am surprised I am not more upset about the cot being dismantled, it’s the first time since 2012 that there is no one using it or planning to use it. What will we do with it now? I think for now it will just be packed away. Its funny I have been excited at the prospect of the kids using bunk beds. I think their excitement rubs off onto me. It was lovely to hear the excitement in Little Misses voice asking when would the bunk beds be here, and Mr Happy wanting to play peek-a-boo with his new duvet.

Mr Happy upset he doesn’t get to go with Daddy & Little Miss

The kiddies are growing up, I’m not sad today but one day it might hit me. I know that we as a family have a lot more things to look forward to and more memories to create.