Snuggly Rascals Children’s Headband Headphones review

A team of dads, all of whom have small children, set out to design a set of headphones that their kids would love, would be comfortable to wear and, even more importantly, would protect their ears – the Snuggly Rascals headband headphone was born and it's just launched in the UK.

We received the cat one to review and it made me laugh to see that 12-year-old Juliette thought it was the coolest thing ever !

It's a simple but clever idea. The headband is made of a soft fleecy material with a Velcro fastening so you can get the perfect fit for your child's head. The speakers can be removed and the headband popped into the washing machine so sticky fingers will never be an issue and parents can be reassured as the volume is limited to below the recommended 85 decibel level. This means that children’s hearing, which is more susceptible to noise induced hearing impairment than adults, is fully protected and Snuggly Rascals even muffle external noise, offering additional protection.

Juliette loves wearing it as a headband even without the headphones to keep her hair out of her eyes and keep her ears warm. She said it's really comfortable to sleep in, if she's listening to music on a long car or plane journey, and it's great for lying on her bed listening to music or youtube videos if she wants to block out the noise of the washing machine or her little brother being noisy !

There are eight cool character designs to choose from, ranging from a penguin or a giraffe to a monster or a plane. There's even a unicorn, which is sure to be an instant hit ! Kids can even vote online on which Snuggly Rascal they would like to see next.

Parents have the added benefit of knowing that by buying a Snuggly Rascals headphone for their children, they will also be helping other children who may not be as fortunate as their own. The team at Snuggly Rascals felt strongly, as parents themselves, that they would like to support different children’s charities each month and for every headphone sold, 10% of the profits is donated to the charity.

Snuggly Rascals can be purchased from www.snugglyrascals.com for £14.99 and are ideal as a gift this Christmas or for Santa to pop into a stocking. Suitable for children aged three and above.

Disclosure : We received the product in order to write an honest review.

#MySundayphoto #SundaySnap 29/10/17

(witch's finger biscuits recipe to follow)

Picture book review : It's A Bright World To Feel Lost In by Mawson

One of the hardest things to do when you are a bear (or a child) is find words to express your feelings, especially the ones that cause you pain, such as grief, loss and loneliness. Luckily, Mawson, the big-hearted, soul-searching teddy bear, is here to help. Despite his existential ponderings, he won't find all the answers, but he will give you lots of heartwarming one-liners to soothe your soul.

My favourite line from the book is : "That squeezy bit in the middle of a hug? That's home." There are many others that made me stop and think though, that look at what it means to find The One (in the book, this means the bear's special owner, but you could adapt it to to suit all manner of complicated real life situations, such as waiting for an adoptive parent, splitting up with a boyfriend/girlfriend or a best friend moving far away) - "You can hear all the things they don't know how to say." "A Poem. Now I'm me. Instead of us. And it's still grand to be a bear." "You can almost hear the sighs of someone hurting."

It's a book that can be read on a number of levels, so it will appeal to a very wide audience. Children will fall in love with the cuddly bear and the funny advice he gives to his soft toy friends (and readers), while adults will see the wisdom behind his words and realise that he's a very intelligent bear.

The accompanying photos, showing Mawson the bear and his cuddly friends in a wide variety of situations, from sitting on a shelf waiting to be chosen by a new owner to looking up words in a dictionary, exploring new places by boat or balloon and writing everything from poems to "wurry lists", are sure to make you smile, whatever your age. They will also help children to engage with the words, as they might feel a bit bemused by the lack of a structured story.

It's a lovely book for children and teddy bear-lovers of all ages, especially those in need of a few words of wisdom to put some brightness back in the world . It's a small book packed with big emotions.

• Paperback: 50 pages
• Publisher: Publisher Obscura (22 Jun. 2017)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1922200441
• ISBN-13: 978-1922200440
• Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 0.4 x 16.5 cm

Disclosure : We received the book in order to write an honest review.

Awesome Little Green Men review

I've been seeing lots of Awesome Little Green Men at The Madhouse this week, but don't worry, I'm not hallucinating and we haven't been invaded by aliens - we've been discovering the latest collectible craze set to take the UK by storm.

Despite the name, they're not all green - you can collect characters from both the green and the blue army.

Inside the funky army truck-shaped packaging of the series 1 Starter Packs, we discovered three recruits on show and one mystery soldier hiding away in a blind bag. When the plastic packaging had been discarded, I collected it up and thought it felt heavy - it was lucky I checked because there were some dogtags tucked away inside the driver's cab part of the box which the Madhouse kids hadn't even noticed.

The product description says that "they may be small but their characters are larger than life and they're serious about the mission ahead". They have cute and totally unique facial expressions that really add to their appeal. Our favourite recruit was Major Attack, on the left, in his armoured vehicle that really rolls along. but we also love the determined look on Private Bolo's face, on the right, with his machine gun.

We also got Sgt Dealt-It with his gas mask (I love the tongue-in-cheek humour of the names, which probably goes straight over the heads of younger fans) and Lt Brave, who can barely see out of his helmet, despite handling a rocket launcher and lots of ammo.

In the blue army, we got our first female recruit - Sgt Pow, with a big bushy ponytail and a duo of pistols. We also had Capt Quiver, from the Special Forces.

Finally, we discovered Major Nerves, with an expression to suggest he's just about pooed his pants, and Corporal Frontline, who looks much more confident than his lily-livered comrade.

Pierre was delighted to see that Major Nerves comes complete with a parachute. He was slightly less delighted when he threw him out of the window so that he floated down to Sophie, standing on the pavement below, only for his legs to snap off on impact. Oops ! Maybe he should be renamed Major Casualty !

The dog tags are a handy way to keep track of which recruits you have in your collection. Pierre also liked wearing them around his neck, although he really couldn't understand why they are called dog tags when they have nothing to do with dogs !

You can also tick them off on the enclosed collector sheet, which has the blue army on the back. 

There is also a game guide, which explains how you can play with your Awesome Little Green Men. You can also read the online game guide, which is actually much clearer than the black-and-white printed version. It all sounds quite complicated (to me at least !), but you basically line up two armies to go head to head, trying to attain the opposing team's goal (for example, an apple or a small soft toy that they need to protect). Players take turns to decide on an action - march or attack. If marching, you flick a slider (for example, a coin) down the table and the recruit marches to wherever the coin stops. If the coin falls off the table, he stays put. If he marches into another soldier, he takes a hit point. To attack, you put a coin next to your soldier and flick it at another soldier from the opposing army. If you hit him, you deduct a certain number of hit points. Where it gets complicated is that they all have different strengths and different numbers of hit points that they can withstand before being captured (nobody dies in this game). To make things even more complicated fun, you can add obstacles (that can be printed on card) and use bandage stickers (sold separately) to keep track of hit points. It's actually great fun and is a madcap mixture of Subbuteo, shove ha'penny and Platoon !

There are already 100 unique characters to collect in Series 1, including four super rare figures in the green army and the blue army. They're great as collectibles but the added game play makes them even more exciting than many similar mini figurines that just look pretty on a shelf.

Awesome Little Green Men are available in starter packs, which include four soldiers, blind boxes  including one solider, a dog tag with chain, and a new recruit poster, a battle pack with game piece stickers and a deluxe battle pack which includes three rare vehicles.

for more information : https://awesomelittlegreenmen.mgae.com/

Disclosure : We received the products in order to write an honest review.

What's Cooking at The Madhouse? menu plan 27/10

As we're on holiday, I gave the kids their choice of takeaway and they opted for kebab - I'm not sure if that will replace the Saturday morning burger joint or be an addition some time during the week though. Also, as it's my birthday tomorrow, we also have a meal planned at the eat-all-you-like Chinese buffet, but again, I'm not sure which day we'll go. 

Saturday

lunch - Time for the traditional KFC/Burger King/McDonald's option

dinner - birthday meal at the Chinese buffet?

Sunday

lunch - roast dinner, probably chicken

dinner - leftovers from lunch or fridge grazing

Monday 

 lunch - chicken pie, mash & veg

dinner - curry & rice

Tuesday 

 lunch - tacos or fajitas

dinner - cauliflower cheese

Wednesday 

lunch - Denver omelette

dinner - Tom Kha Gai soup

Thursday 

 lunch - Beijing beef with noodles & Chinese veg

dinner - grilled salmon with creamed spinach & rice

Friday  

 lunch - spaghetti carbonara

dinner - kids' choice : kebabs

***Click on my Menu Plans tag to see all my other weekly menu plan blogposts.***

Join in with the weekly meal plan bloghop !

An InLinkz Link-up

Giveaway #656 : Win 2 x Megableu Creepy Hand game - closed - winner Beky Clare

Are you ready for Creepy Hand, the scary take on Truth or Dare? Place the Creepy Hand in the middle of the players and wait as it turns and points to its next victim. Players must then choose a card – truth, dare or forfeit!

Look out for the Joker cards – players can pass up their challenge and make another player carry it out!

Featuring 100 truth/dare cards, including 6 ‘Joker’ cards.

RRP : £24.99

For more information, visit the Megbleu website and the Trends UK Facebook page

I have two copies of the game to give away to lucky Madhouse Family Reviews readers. Fill in your entries via the Rafflecopter widget below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

UK only. Closing date : 10/11/17

T & C's : Entries close at midnight on the closing date. Winners will be selected with a random number generator and announced on facebook and in the giveaway post subject line. Please note, you will be contacted by email and/or twitter and if I haven't heard from you after 28 days, I'll have to pick another winner. Prizes will be sent out by the companies or their PR directly to winners. Madhouse Family Reviews cannot be held responsible for any prizes that go astray ! Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. The winners' personal contact information will be passed on to the PR / Brand responsible and used only for delivery of their prize. 

You may also like to enter my other giveaways :

Giveaway #652 : Win a Teletubbies Big Hugs CD - closing date 28/10

Giveaway #653 : Win a Milkshake! Brand New Besties dvd - closing date 2/11

Giveaway #654 : Win Drumond Park Shark Bite game - closing date 11/11

Giveaway #655 : Win 2 x The Canterville Ghost on dvd - closing date 13/11

Madhouse recipe : Chocolate and Love Salty Cookies

In honour of Chocolate Week a couple of weeks ago, Chocolate and Love sent through a selection of their scrumptious chocolate bars, along with a couple of recipes to try out. As well as using the highest quality ingredients in their award winning bars, they also produce  Fairtrade chocolate, which makes a big difference to the lives of farmers and small business owners in places like Ghana and the Ivory Coast who work hard to produce cocoa. (If you want to see why buying Fairtrade chocolate is such a big deal, head over to the Fairtrade website.)

For this recipe, created by CPH Good Food, I needed two and a half bars of Chocolate and Love Sea Salt Chocolate, available at Waitrose and Ocado, which is utterly delicious. As were the cookies. I say were because sadly, they disappeared faster than I could cook them !

Chocolate and Love Salty Cookies

ingredients :

160g organic butter, softened

275g brown sugar

1 organic egg (60g)

250g plain flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. ground cinnamon (optional)

½ tsp. salt

100g “Sea Salt” from Chocolate and Love, chopped into big chunks

100g walnuts, coarsely chopped (or nuts of your choice)

A pinch of sea salt to sprinkle

Using an electric mixer, whisk together the butter and brown sugar for about 5 minutes, until white and creamy. (I did this by hand and it worked just fine.)

 Add the egg and continue mixing for another 2 minutes until combined and smooth. 

Break the chocolate into chunks - you can see the flecks of salt in there.

I didn't have any walnuts so I used some granola nuggets for extra crunch.

In a bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, chocolate and walnuts.

Stir the flour-mix into the whisked butter/sugar, little by little, until just combined. Don’t keep stirring.

The cookie dough now needs to rest between 4-48 hours in the fridge. Either shape the dough into a roll and wrap it in a piece of cling film or simply cover the bowl and place it in the fridge.

Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC (175ºC for fan assisted). Cut the cookie roll into 1cm thick slices or just press a scoop of dough onto a baking sheet in the desired thickness. Make sure you leave a little space between the cookies, as they can expand a little during baking.

If you’re fan of salty treats, why not sprinkle a small pinch of flaky sea salt on every cookie.

Bake the cookies for approximately 15 minutes or until golden around the edges, while still soft in the centre. Leave the cookies to cool down for 5 minutes before serving.

The great thing about leaving the cookie dough in the fridge for up to 48 hours is that you can make two batches on consecutive days - yum ! We got twelve big cookies but you could easily go for twice as many smaller ones.

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up a bag of granola clusters that had been lurking in the snack box for ages.

DVD review : Diary of a Wimpy Kid 4: The Long Haul

Wondering how to keep the kids entertained this October half-term? Look no further ! Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul arrived on Digital Download on 9th October 2017 and Blu-ray & DVD on 23rd October 2017.

In Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, The Heffley family road trip to Meemaw’s 90th birthday celebration takes a wild detour thanks to Greg’s newest scheme to attend a video gaming convention. Based on one of the best-selling book series of all time, this crazy, cross-country adventure turns into an experience The Hefley’s will never forget.

This is the fourth Wimpy Kid film, but it's the first one that we've watched. Apparently, they've switched actors because the ones from the original three movies have grown up too much. This didn't bother us in the slightest though, as we weren't familiar with the originals. Juliette is a fan of the books so we loved the very start of the film, where the illustrated characters from the book morph into the real life actors so that you can see who is who.

The story is predictably silly and full of action - it reminded me very much of the Home Alone movies, which the Madhouse Family kids all love. Even as an adult, I found it an enjoyable way to while away a rainy half-term afternoon. Most of my giggles came from watching the kids' reactions to the madcap gags and slightly naughty humour (think weeing in bottles, farts and being pooed on by seagulls), but I also found it funny that the mum sometimes reminded me of myself. In fact, I might have had to sing along with The Spice Girls at the end too !

It's rare to find a family-friendly movie that appeals to kids of all ages, but this one was a hit with all three of the Madhouse kids, ranging from 8-16 years. It won't be winning any Oscars but it'll certainly raise a few smiles, and quite probably create a few new quotes - the Madhouse kids picked up on "butter my butt and call me a biscuit". You have been warned !

• Actors: Jason Drucker, Owen Asztalos, Charlie Wright, Alicia Silverstone, Tom Everett Scott
• Directors: David Bowers
• Writers: Adam Sztykiel, Jeff Kinney
• Producers: Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson
• Language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Classification: U
• Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: 23 Oct. 2017
• Run Time: 91 minutes

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID IS AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY™ AND DVD NOW, FROM TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Disclosure : We received a copy of the DVD in order to write an honest review.

Putting the grind into Curry Week ! Chicken Curry with Whole Spices

To celebrate Curry Week a couple of weeks ago, Braun got in touch and asked if I'd like to try out their new Multi Quick 3 hand blender, which has a snazzy coffee and spice grinder attachment, to help make our favourite curry.

As you'll know if you're a regular reader of my blog, I run a monthly #KitchenClearout linky, inviting people to join me in trying to clear out the things that have been lurking in the larder, taking up valuable space. I'm now a dab hand at turning leftovers and over ripe fruit into tummy fill rather than landfill, but one thing that I have had trouble incorporating into my cuisine is my rather large collection of whole spices. As I've been a long time subscriber of a globe-cooking box, I've amassed lots of jars and tins of spices that, quite frankly, I have no idea what to do with. Just a quick glance through my overcrowded spice rack threw up whole cumin, cloves, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, curry leaves, rocou seeds, whole peppercorns, cardamom pods and dried chillies and I know there is more hiding away at the back (star anise, cassia bark, lemongrass stalks, ...). I definitely need a spice grinder in my life !

The MQ 3126 Hand Blender (RRP £79.99) comes with a multitude of attachments - the hand blender with SPLASHControl technology (definitely a good thing when I'm making soup !), a chopper with a 350ml recipient (which chops meat, hard cheese, nuts, herbs and carrots in seconds), a beaker and whisk attachment (which doesn't appear on the product description that I just looked up on line - strange !), and the all important spice and coffee grinder.

There are several features that I instantly spotted and really like - the easy click on-off attachments (really easy click, not just in name, like my current hand blender !), the soft grip handle, the 11 speeds and turbo button and, my favourite, the protective sheath for the blades - something I always thought was lacking on my old hand blender.

It's dead easy to use and very intuitive so I didn't even need to read the instructions. I gaily started flinging a bit of everything that vaguely resembled a curry ingredient into the pot ...

... then gave it a quick whizz and instantly had my own totally unique spice blend that smelt amazing and had my kitchen smelling like a Moroccan spice market. I've never smelt such vibrant, fresh, full-on fragrance from ground spices, even when freshly brought, so I knew that this would be a game changer in the finished dish. Here's the recipe I used, but it was just a case of using what I had in the spice rack.

Chicken Curry with Whole Spices

ingredients :

2 whole cumin

6 cloves

1tsp cumin seeds

1tsp coriander seeds

1tsp mustard seeds

2 curry leaves

2tsp rocou seeds

1/2 tsp whole peppercorns

4 cardamom pods 

1/2 dried chilli

glug of olive oil

3 onions

1 large clove garlic

5 chicken breasts

20cl crème fraîche

pinch of salt

Heat the oil in a large pot and cook the onions and garlic on a low heat for about 15 minutes, until they have gone soft and started to caramelise but not burn. You need to take this slow and easy for the best flavour to develop.

The bad news (or so I thought at this stage) was going to be the washing up - look at all the stuck-on caramelised bits !

After giving the spices a whizz in the blender, add to the pot along with a pinch of salt and give it all a good stir.

Chop the chicken into chunks and add to the pot, tossing everything so that the onions and spices are evenly distributed throughout.

Something magical happened when the chicken cooked - every last scrap of caramelised onions/spices was absorbed into the chicken, making washing up an absolute breeze. Definitely a bonus ! Not to mention all that extra flavour going into the meat.

Ten minutes later, the fragrant spices were making the whole kitchen smell great so I had a taste - it would be a perfectly decent (not to mention low calorie and low fat) curry at this point, but I decided to add a liquid ingredient (either a can of chopped tomatoes or a small carton (20cl) of light crème fraîche) so that we had some sauce to go with the rice. 

We loved the freshness and the vibrancy of the spices and I'm looking forward to working my way through the whole spices in my spice rack now. Recipes involving grinding nuts and spices have always been a nightmare in the past, with bits pinging all over the kitchen, despite my best efforts wrapping a tea towel around the hand blender and the bowl to prevent it happening. The Braun hand blender does the job perfectly and the spice grinder is definitely my new favourite kitchen gadget !

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it helped start to use up the whole spices in my spice rack.

Disclosure : I received the hand blender in order to take part in the Curry Week activity. For more information, head over to the Braun website.