On a grocery store or supermarket shelf near you, there are freebies for the taking! There on the top of this Summers special Nutella jars are free kids tickets for Legoland. A great money saving deal (over £30!) for families and one worth knowing about – here’s me with mine, sorry, Lil H’s. You can use the offer to enjoy the thrills and fun at LEGOLAND Windsor or LEGOLAND Discovery Centre Manchester with free entry for kids this holiday but as the offer runs from now until November 6th you could squeeze an October half term trip in, too!

Find out more at www.wakeuptonutella.co.uk and www.LEGOLAND.co.uk

Just me spreading the word! Cx

I was invited along with Lil H and Baby G to Stockley Farm by Nutella during February half term - Nutella, Stockley Farm and Child Care during half term … you had me at Nutella!  The whet our appetites literally Nutella sent us us an amazing basket of breads and a jar of Nutella. 

We arrived and Lil H was off with his blogging posse from previous events enjoying a morning of party games and goat racing.  Mummies, daddies and the babies and toddlers settled down to discuss the challenges of feeding little people nutrious balanced diets.  Things we discussed:

• A love of eating Nutella with just a spoon
• A love of eating Nutella with just your finger (come on, I am not the only one that does this!)
• Nutella is NOT a chocolate spread
• Nutella is a HAZLENUT spread (the clue is in the name NUTella – I was shocked too!)
• Is Nutella bad for you
• Is Nutella good for you
• Ways of handling childrens eating challenges

My take on the session was that Nutella is better than some breakfast options, worse than others.  If it is a vehicle to get a child to eat wholemeal toast rather than white bread toast then that is a better dietary choice.  Kate over at The Five F’s Blog wrote a great and very thorough post about the nutritional content of Nutella definately worth a read.  Its not chocolate spread – that was news to me I’ll be honest, in fact there’s only a dash of cocoa in a 15g portion and its the hazlenuts which are the dominant flavour and give Nutella its colour.  Be honest didn’t you think it was chocolate spread?  I stand corrected! 

You can make loads of lovely things for breakfast with it not just spread it on toast.  We made smoothies, here is Lil H putting the PR and his very lovely “I have this because I don’t have children” suit through its paces!  Thanks for all your help Scott x

Here’s the receipe for Nutella Super Smoothie if you want to have a go yourself, it will serve 6-8 depending on glass size.

Ingredients

• 6 tbsp nutella
• 1 large pot (500g) low-fat vanilla yogurt
• 110ml skimmed milk
• 568ml/1 pint mixed fruit, frozen (tip into measuring jug)
• 1 large banana, cut into 2.5cm/1-inch pieces

Method

1. Put all ingredients in a blender or put into bowl if using hand held blender and purée for 2 minutes or until smooth.
2. Pour into glasses. Garnish with fresh berries.

Tip: experiment with different fruit such as an exotic mix or mixed berries

We also made very delicious nutella breakfast roll ups which are a tortilla wrap spread with nutella, rolled around a banana which is then cut into thick disks – yum!  Replacing the tortilla wrap with pancakes was how was ate ours on Shrove Tuesday – nom, nom nom!   My personal recommendation is to stir a teaspoon into a milky coffee for a hazlenut latte start to the morning. 

Then we were off out to meet the animals, enjoy the great adventure playground and enjoy a tractor ride to finish off our day down on the farm.

We were so lucky with the weather, it was seriously the best day of the year we’d had so far and we had a great day.  Thank you so much to Nutella for putting on a great event and Stockley Farm for hosting – we had a brilliant day.

We spent the day with familiar and new friends who blog.  You can read their posts about Nutella and the day on the links below:

It’s pancake day and across the UK frying pans will be heating, batter will be made, some will be ruined, others successfully tossed, fillings will be piled on and fun will be had.  But … they wouldn’t taste very nice without the egg would they?  They wouldn’t be pancakes, would they? 

I was going to post our favourite receipes for fillings and then last week I heard a radio interview with a mother talking about how she has to send her child to school with pancakes made of just flour and waterbecause she can’t afford the egg or milk.  This family doesn’t live in Africa, they live in Manchester.  Please just spare a moments thought for the 1.6 million children in the UK that live in severe poverty, getting by on less than £134 per week.  That made me want to dedicate this post to all those who eat pancakes because they are cheap not because its pancake day.  All those who eat pancakes made from just flour and water where ever they are in the world because they have no choice. 

Are we having pancakes?  Yes we are and yes we are putting an egg in the batter.  In fact we are filling them most probably with ham, cheese & spinach then nutella, banana & ice-cream pancakes for dessert.  I am also giving time to reminding others that there remains a severe child poverty issue here in the UK.  If you want to do the same with your pancake post that would be amazing too, feel free to use this content with my pleasure. 

You can get all the links to like on Facebook, follow on Twitter or get a Twibbon & be like me here

To find out more about the many Save the Children initiatives in the UK click here

No child is born to die, but 8 million lose their lives needlessly every year. You can help at www.savethechildren.org.uk/bornto

So on Monday I turned the page in my diary there it was.  A little sticker on today’s date … “Schools Out!”  How?  How can it be the middle of February?  How?  Well here we are February half term is upon us.  As a result this has consisted of me power working all week to cover everything off to allow a full time mummy week with Lil H and Baby G.  We’re not going away but have lots planned…

Starting off with a tweet up with bumpalicious Jordan, a chicken pox jab for Baby G, several playdates, a matinee movie – either a second viewing of Tangled or Yogi bear (anyone seen Yogi?), a blog event with Nutella at Stockley Farm, should it rain I’ll be over at Red Ted Art’s Blog for craft inspirations and last but by no means least, a day trip to London for the Save the Children Born To Blog Conference. 

If I had a a few more days I’d jump on a train and check out Wizard Week at the National Railway Museum at York. They sent me a choccie frog which Lil H ate whilst I read all their Wizard Week which looks like a lot of fun you can ride the Hogwarts Express steam train from the Harry Potter films from 19 – 27 February 2011 with extended hours from 9:30am all week so if there are any mini Wizards out there waning a spell-binding half term of magical performances there are owl displays and craft activities its worth checking it out here.  For more half term idea’s check out Ten Fabulous February Half Term Day’s Out over at Ready For Ten.

So what are you plans for half term?  Also what do you think, do I go for a second viewing of Tangled with Lil H or give Yogi Bear a go?