A big Thank You to Galt Toys for donating some of their fabulous toys, games, puzzles and kits for Lil H’s school fund raiser*.  As a Cheshire girl I used to go to Galt Toy Shop which had a big play centre in it as a child, we are going back *cough* a few years here!  I played with Galt Toys and I love the fact that my children love playing with Galt Toys too.  Here are some of our favourites.

From being about 1 year old Diva G has loved this Pop Up toy, there has not been a child visit our home who hasn’t played with it either! 

Lil H was given these Paper Planes for his 4th Birthday.  We love them.  We take them on holiday, easy to pack, hours of fun and great to share.  They are my number one favourite birthday party gift for Lil H’s buddies I always have a few in my present box.

Drawing, painting, colouring, stickers are all mega popular with my little Diva.  In a morning when Lil H is doing his phonics and writing practise she sits colouring and drawing on this first colouring pad.  Lovely clear outlines and great quality paper so there is no “show through” from one page to the other.  This mum enjoys a bit of colouring in and I can’t wait for my 2 year old budding artist to stay within the lines! 

Galt Toys Jungle feely floor puzzle Lil H’s most popular puzzle, there pieces create templates to add the scaly, furry, fluffy animals, 24 large pieces it is this jigsaw that captured Lil H’s attention to really give Jigsaws a go.

Also in my present box for the little girls in Lil H’s life are Galt Toys Sparkle Puzzles and I love Galts kits for older girls check out the Girl Club on their website, craft, fashion, stationery and puzzle gifts perfect for other 8+ young ladies like my God daughters! 

You can buy Galt Toys online http://www.galttoys.com/
Join the conversation on Facebook  
Follow Galt Toys on Twitter @GaltToys

* In exchange for the donation I offered an ad on my site which ran over the last three months.  I wanted to also write this post as a further thank you to Galt Toys for their support, the event raised enough to fund some great new outdoor play equipment for the children.

The bedroom in our new house is VERY 1980′s with fitted wardobes, cupboards over the bed but no bedside cabinet/shelf/table thingys.  Add our Super King Sized bed  and ours from Lancaster Towers don’t fit.  The has resulted in a growing stash of books, magazines, chargers, alarm clocks and glasses of dusty water on either side of the bed.  Glasses of water are a great idea when you are going to bed but when you add small children to them in the morning they are a terribly bad idea.

To be honest I wasn’t that fussed by it, on the list of things to do at Villa Lancaster it was low, like page 2-3, but Mr L decided to “make something” and a jolly good job he’s done too!  Off he popped into his new, his first and most favourite place in the entire house, his garage.  Returning and installing these two child-proof, glass-of-water-protecting bedside shelves.

What do you think?  I was impressed?  Then I looked down – I was less impressed!

Luckily I had the  Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum given to us at The Lowry on our Dirty Stinky Day.  We have been putting it through its paces and Mr L initial declaration that it was “a nifty bit of kit” still stands.  I put it through the mammouth challenge of removing two weeks of beach from the car – it met that challenge with brushes, suction and passed the test.  The car is now a mess again but that is a reflection on my family and not the Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum.  I regularly use it after meal times mostly around Baby G’s Tripp Trapp and the wake my husband leaves from his lightbulb moments of genius!

We like the convenience of the Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum, its affordable price at £59.99, its rechargaeable, wall mounted and ready to go.  On the downside we found got a bit blocked up when we used on new carpets – its brushes are very good so to be fair I would say probably user error there!

Anyway – back to the bedside shelves – what do you think?

In my new pad home building quest I am finding flowers help, but then again flowers always help don’t they? Look at this beautiful bouquet Interflora sent me, they remind me of my wedding bouquet and are now arranged in the living room where I’ve been enjoying them for over a week now.

If you’re looking for florists in nottingham, Flower delivery in Manchester, anniversary gifts or any other kind of occasion you can get beautiful flower gifts head over to the Interflora website.

Once in a blue moon I get a PR invite that makes me drop everything.  When we were invited to check out the latest in vacuum technology by Dirt Devil and to see the scratch and sniff theatre production Mr Stink at The Lowry I literally hung off the side of a cliff in Cornwall to get signal to reply “YES, please!”

I’m not a natural when it comes to housework, I won’t lie I hate it and it was refeshing to hear that the Dirt Devil team got that, recognising it was a dull chore and producing tools to make it quicker and easier.  Whilst Lil H and his BFF Lady A headed off to the The Lowry workshops for an arts and crafts hour with their packed lunch the Brazen PR and Dirt Devil team kicked off their first Mummy Blogger event.

The key for me about all the Dirt Devil vacuums was they focused on high power, easy cleaning and all those the little things that get the job done in the quickest possible time so you can get on with your life.  A couple of extra bonuses I liked were the Microban 24 hour protection, that replacement bags have the web address and phone number printed on them for easy reordering and their affordability.  The Dirt Devil Reach cylinder vacuum costs just £69.99 and the Dirt Devil Pure upright vacuum just £79.99 and here is me (on the left) and Cara modelling the Dirt Devil Pure – I feel our future as catalogue models remains bright.

I’m between houses at the moment with the house move, my mind still thinks about what was practical at our old town house where we had lots of stairs and three floors and the Dirt Devil Reach and its 13m cleaning radius would have served me well at Lancaster Towers where my current cylinder cleaner has required plugging and unplugging throughout the house.

Having checked out the vacuums the children rejoined us and we all headed into the theatre for Mr Stink armed with our scratch and sniff books we were ready for some stinky good fun.

The show was fantastic, a great tale of doing the right thing, not judging a book by its cover and the scratch and sniff element was a lot of fun.  Lady A and Lil H loved their scratch and sniff books, can you spy the lunatic blogger in the background?  There’s always one isn’t there?  We all love Nickie!

I left armed with a Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum which Mr L has already declared “a nifty bit of kit” I will be tackling the inside of my car following an outbreak of Beach visits and Pom Bears and let you know how I get on.  I also have a note to get tickets for the Christmas shows at The Lowry as Wind in the Willows and Scrooge are headed there this Christmas.

Thanks so very much to Brazen, Dirt Devil and The Lowry – Lil H, Lady A and I had a great time.

Here are the Twitter links so you can follow Dirt Devil and The Lowry

I was offered a Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini pro phone to try and thought why not, is there life outside of the iPhone I wonder?  It made me think about all the phones I’ve had over the years.  I started with Nokia 5.1 – a brick with an extendable aerial – woo, get me!  I bought it in 1997 and I still have the same number and my best friend bought hers at the same time and we have the same number apart from the last digit and she still has hers too – aw, cute!

Remember when phones just for calls oh and playing snake?!  I moved from Nokia to Sony Ericsson for quite a few years when colour screens and cameras were a must as they were the leaders in phone cameras. Then came the iPhone nobody can deny it was totally different (and in a good way) touch screen, user friendly and comfy in your hand.  It had Angry Birds.  Oh and Angry Birds The Seasons! 

First thought was that it is small, really small, look …

I thought it might be too small but its not.  On the first day I thought my fingers might be too big but you quickly get used to it.  The keyboard is small, just like the phone but surprisingly useable.  It’s nice the way this phone fits easily into one hand and can be completely navigated through with just your thumb. 

This was my first experience of a piece of android kit and phone has apps for everything, I almost snobbishly thought there was nothing like the choice of apps in the Apple Store – wrong – it is basically the same choice from my perspective as a user.  I was wrong.  There wasn’t an app on my iPhone I couldn’t get for this, Angry Birds?  Check!

The thing for my that was my favourite and really impressive is the camera, I always have my phone in one hand and used to take lots with my phone in the days before my iPhone (I have a iPhone 3G by the way) but have given up a lot because the camera is pretty rubbish on my iPhone – but this is great, really great 5megapixels -  see my on the hoof Silent Sunday post and I have even printed some new moo mini card with shots taken with the Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 mini pro.  Never mind Hipstamatic – this bad boy has a FLASH!  Also as its android it links through your Google account so you can upload straight to Picassa and beyond – I *heart* this function a lot!  

One great app already on this phone was Timescape, if you love social networking *cough* who me? or just communicating with friends through more than just by phone calls this gives you everything in one place as text messages, calls, Twitter and Facebook updates all scroll across this phones touch screen in one at a glance page.

• I love, love, loved the camera and its FLASH!
• I really liked its easy connectivity with Google
• I liked that is was different to the majorities iPhone
• I was impressed with its price at round about £200 – free with a contract on most networks
• There is room for improvement with the screen resolution, very occassionally things stuttered
• Overall this is a great little phone very small but very useable. 

You can check out a video demo of the phone here:

By the way Sony Ericsson sent me the Xperia™ X10 mini pro to try and return which I have.