New competition is up online (yes, we know, it’s been a while, but fret not, lots of new ones lined up with some great prizes).The latest one is from Steadyco, the company who brought us the multi-award winning Steadycup® (see Fionas review here)

We have FIVE Steady Table Sets from Steadyco to give away – simply click on the title to go to the comp page. Closing date is Friday 18th July – and don’t forget to specify which colour you would prefer., or your Dinosaur-mad boy will end up with a pink plate!

Myriad, one of our very favourite traditional toy stores is TEN years old! Happy Birthday!!! We reviewed their little red sailing boats for them (still absolutely family picnic and holiday essentials), but to celebrate their birthday in style they are offering 10% discount on all orders placed during June!
(To receive your 10% discount quote the code “Happy Birthday” at time of ordering)

They specialise in top quality traditional toys – environmentally friendly, supporting imaginative play and creativity… honestly do visit and browse. I dare you to leave without at least one oooh!, and getting something for the smalls!

Happy Tiny Babies have a Sale on! They are running special offers for June - up to 30% off HOTMILK and Emily B Maternity Lingerie and Sarah Louise Summer 2008 Baby clothes.

Order today and wear it tomorrow!

Happy Tiny Babies are your online shop for your Premature Baby up to Toddler. They stock a wide range of items, including organic toiletries, feeding equipment and maternity lingerie. Most especially they are one of the best places online who stock a wide range of premature and specialist neo-natal care clothing.

They also offer Free Postage on all orders over £50.00

Our review of the Dr Brown’s baby feeding bottles and toddler training cups is now available here. Thank you to Kelly, Lily and Jake and to Alex and Anna for their help.

What a tricky one review for Pink this was. Small, utterly soft, perfectly formed, lusciously coloured, go-with-anything ballet wrap. How does she manage? ;)

Oooo-kay. Stellina Baby’s 100% cashmere ballet wrap. How to review? What do I say to convey it in words for you?

How about “GOOoooOOORGEOUS”? That probably just about covers it.

‘Course you could go with beautiful, lovely, special, stunning, surprisingly practical, oh so pretty, just plain yummy…

In all honesty, I have to admit I have always been dubious about cashmere for babies, and more especially toddlers. It’s not that I don’t love cashmere, it’s just the sheer practicality of a hand wash only, treat-me-casually-at-your-peril item of clothing on a small person who uses her fists for feeding baked beans to the cat.

But when the parcel arrived I was forced to admit defeat. The wrapping was gorgeous, and as soon as one hand had touched the glorious velvety softness of the cashmere, and taken in the delicious raspberry/cherry red, I was lost.

This ballet wrap is just too pretty for words, and despite my severe intentions for saving it for best, Ella wears it a LOT. It’s just so handy – it rolls into the smallest of balls if we’re going out to have as the ‘just in case’ warm top. It smartens any old pair of jeans into cuteness. And worn over a dress it just looks too adorably angelic for my not-so-angelic adorable one.

But it’s okay that she wears it a lot. Because, being natural wool, it keeps surprisingly clean. It really doesn’t need washing too often (though I do remove it at mealtimes, I don’t think it would like to share the baked beans). And if there’s one thing I hate it’s the sheer waste of clothes for children that sit around and get worn three times before they’re grown out of because they’re ‘for best’.

The colour options are all deliciously strong – we got the cherry red, which is actually closer to a luscious raspberry colour. But the tangerine and turquoise look equally yum, very versatile – and amazingly and brilliantly not an obligatory sweet girly pink in sight.

The one and only downside is that occasionally it can be tricky to get on – Ella doesn’t like waiting around for the tie to be threaded through the small hole to be tied at the back, so a little tussle ensues as soon as her arms are in and she thinks she’s Good To Go. But its surprising how quick you become at tying that bow on the back around a Wriggling One ;)

Oh, I really do love this wrap. Can you tell? And yes. “GOOoooOOORGEOUS” just about sums it up ;)

Katy and I (well, Ella & Jacob) have been reviewing the merino wool childrenswear range from Three Bags Full. You can see the full review over on LittleStuff , but thought we’d share a few pics of the tops in action – this is Ella on a walk recently, enjoying the flowers (SUCH a girl!)

and earlier this year at the Eden project:

We’re back from a weekend at Centre Parcs, reviewing their new Woodland Style villas. Review to come shortly on the main site, but here’s a few taster images from the break:

This is Joe and Toby as they leave the kids club – where they had a complete blast (though Toby drew the line at having his face painted for the clown theme!).
A rather tired Toby and Ella on the last morning, enjoying the tv without big brothers about

First nights dinner at The Grand Cafe – which was a late night for the smalls, but worth it !

One of our supremo testing team Kathryn reviewed the new twin pushchair from Mamas and Papas – the Duette – for us. This is what she thought:

When we unpacked this tandem buggy and assembled it, we christened it “The Limo”. It seemed a lot longer than standard tandem buggies – in fact, once assembled, it took up most of our hallway! I tested the version with buggy seats (you can use it with two car seats too, which would be invaluable with newborn twins), and although it was simple and quick to remove the seats, stack them, and collapse the frame, it would still require quite a large place to store it. On the other hand, because the buggy was so easy to collapse it could probably be stored in a family car.

This buggy is really versatile – the seats can be arranged as forward facing, rear facing, or with both children facing each other. I have a 2-year-old toddler and newborn so we started off with the toddler in a front-facing seat, at the front of “the limo”, and the newborn at the back, also facing forward, but with the seat in a reclining position. This seemed to be the most suitable arrangement for us. Our toddler wasn’t at all happy at being demoted to the back seat where she couldn’t see, and she certainly wasn’t interested in a rear-facing arrangement looking at me so she remained at the front in the “driving” position. We tried the newborn at the front in the reclining position, but this made the buggy seem even longer so we abandoned that. The flexibility offered by the Duette is fab though, and I’m quite sure there would be an arrangement to suit everyone.

So once the children were arranged to their satisfaction, I set off on several outings. I was surprised by how easy the buggy was to steer and quickly got used to the “steering wheel” function. We had a few problems getting up high kerbs and couldn’t tip up the front of the buggy to do this. We also got stuck going through some safety barriers and had to keep reversing as the turn was too tight. I also only ventured into supermarkets with wide aisles as I wasn’t sure I would be able to manoeuvre the buggy round a smaller shop without crashing so it is probably not a buggy for the city (public transport would be almost impossible). However, all of this is par for the course with a tandem pushchair – they are simply not built for nipping about in.

When it comes to comfort, our toddler was most impressed and our newborn was very cosy and comfy. The seats were padded and well designed. It would have been nice if the front bar of the seats had lifted up, and the lack of a cup-holder and a tray on the seats for toddler’s essential snack of raisins (also no tray/cup-holder for the buggy driver/pusher) was protested a little. The shopping carrier underneath the buggy is good and large but it didn’t open very easily for sliding items in. You could pop items down between the seats quite easily though.

Overall I was very impressed by the buggy and it certainly looks very good! The biggest consideration is the size – even for a tandem pushchair it is quite large. However, if you are looking for a quality model that you will use for a while, this is a good bet.

The Duette is currently £674 from Mamas & Papas.

has been covered by one of our crack team of Mums, Kathryn – with the aid of Lucy (5), Erin (2) and baby Joe (3mths). The Mamas & Papas Duette Toffee is a limited edition tandem pushchair, only available on their website. Kathryn doesn’t have twins, but with Erin only just being two, she still likes to ride and was fighting baby Joe for buggy space – read what Kathryn though of the Duette tandem buggy in her main review.