Big man fancied some science today, so I got out my copy of The Little Giant Book of Science Experiments and had a look for some egg ones. As you can hear by my reaction in this clip, I was a little shocked that this first experiment worked!





So here are our egg-periments for Easter. I was in my element. Sorry, I couldn't help myself with those two! Have you got any good egg experiments that we could try?

Reasons to be cheerful this week:

The Easter holidays are nearly upon us and once again, I am trying to remind myself not to believe everything I see on the internet. At half term I was sat at home with a poorly baby man, feeling bad that big man wasn't at the beach. Yes I am talking about February half term, but it seemed that all my facebook friends were out and about having fun in the freezing cold weather. I'm sure they did have fun, but I am sure it was cold too. Did big man feel bad that he hadn't done loads of exciting things? Nope he was pleased that he got to play Super Mario.

Like anything in life, people show you what they want you to see. Everyone can smile for a posed shot - and this may be why I favour natural shots these days.

The other problem with the internet is that it is full of ideas. This is great, but I am the kind of person that sees things, likes them and decides to do them without a second thought. I laughed at peoples stories about trying to make the massive ice marbles in the recent snowy weather. Balloons popping over the kitchen floor because they hadn't frozen in the garden. To be honest, it was lucky that I was too side tracked by my igloo building that I didn't have time to do these myself.

When big man came home with his school newsletter saying he could make an Easter Garden or decorate an egg for a school competition, I headed straight to the internet. Easter gardens seemed to involve making tombs and going outside to collect sticks and stones. It was cold and snowy so I started blowing some eggs. I asked big man if he would like to make chicks or a solar system. He chose the latter. What was I thinking?????

He is 5 and not at all crafty. He likes science. I had just shown him an exciting solar system consisting of 9 eggs!

That's a lot of scrambled egg!

Bless him, he did really well, and even when his Earth was slightly attacked by a wet orange painted
venus, he remarked "ah that is sand." He insisted that he used some black felt for the night sky, and decorated every egg himself. It has taken nealy a week to make, and I really am wondering why I thought it was a good idea. Maybe I should have given him some glue, feathers and some googly eyes and just left it at that!

Big man enjoyed making his solar system and is proud of it. If nothing else he has learnt about the names of the planets. Was it a lot of work, mess and egg eating for nothing? Well like the igloo, I think it is a one time only thing! Don't get me wrong it is a great idea and maybe when the boys are older I will change my mind and do it again, but getting all that glue, paint and paper out with middle man and baby man wanting to join in too was stressful. And my biggest worry - tomorrow, I have to get it in school in one piece.

One of my constant moans at the moment is milk being dripped over the sofa. I have found that a lot of the "no spill" cups are too hard for baby man to get anything out of, so he tends to have it out of a cup that he just spills everywhere. I was therefore really interested in reviewing the Munchkin Insulated Flip Straw Cup. The cup is aimed at children over a year, and once you have turned the lid so that it clicks it is leak proof.

I must say I was pretty impressed. Whilst you could shake it and get a few drops of water out, it was much better than the cups we usually use. Unlike other cups we have tried it was easy enough for baby man to suck as well. I was pleased that it could be taken apart and put in the dishwasher. The only problem with this type of cup is that if you don't put it back together straight out of the dishwasher, it is easy to lose the parts in your kitchen.

Don't forget that we currently have a Munchkin bath toy giveway running, so enter now.



We were given the product for the purpose of the review, but the opinions here are my own.

Recently, the boys had fun doing a twinkl winter treasure hunt. When Twinkl asked if they could design some resources tailored to big man, I asked his teacher what would be helpful. She advised me that he needed help with writing and learning tricky words. As big man is a kinesthetic learner, I asked for some easter egg shapes with tricky words on. My hope had been to hang them up around the garden and shout the words out for big man to find. I had thought the weather would be warm and hadn't realised that I would be facing snowy weather still!

When I was sent the resources, they were even better than I had hoped. I had mentioned that big man used cursive writing at school, and you can choose to download this option. I printed off a few eggs. Some with words I knew he could read and some I was pretty sure he couldn't. First up big man wrote over the words on the eggs practicing his writing.


I then cut out the eggs and big man helped. This is also important in developing fine motor skills and big man loves cutting.


I stuck the eggs around the playroom. We then timed big man to run around and pick the correct eggs when I called out the words. He even managed to beat Daddy when I called out a word that was too low down for Daddy to easily see!



When the weather warms up a bit, we are looking forward to doing a spring hunt. We have really enjoyed reviewing the twinkl website. I love that big man can tell me what he is doing at school and I can log on the computer and pick resources that are tailored to the curriculum. With many of the resources being free, it really is worth having a look for yourself.


We have been given premium subscription to the twinkl site for the purpose of reviewing it. All the opinions contained here are my own.

If your household is anything like mine, the kids will get more chocolate than they can possibly eat at Easter.

If you are anything like me, you will need the chocolate removing from the house, before you end up eating it all yourself when the kids have gone to bed.

So why not get them cooking and bake some yummy cookies. You can use any chocolate you want, crush up some Easter egg shells, crunchies, mini eggs - just get experimenting. Middle man helped me make these, using some left over chocolate from baking cakes for big man's school cake sale.

I have just realised that tomorrow I have been blogging for a year. I still class myself as a Newbie blogger. Some people prepare their blogs before they start, know what they are doing and have posts written to be published. I have just naively stumbled my way through learning as I go. Some of my earliest posts are still my favourites. If you haven't read dog, cat or pickle monster please have a look. I am still unsure which middle man is!

My blog has enabled me to do many things that I wouldn't have normally have done. Most of all, it has kept me sane when my husband has been working away. I once hated Twitter and now it is my best friend. I love that there is always someone there to speak to. The only downside to blogging is how addictive it is. I don't have time to do the things I want to do. My boys will only be little for a short time, and I must make the most of them while I can, and therefore, for now, my blog is focused on them. We enjoy doing  reviews and running competitions, but without a doubt it's the memories of the little things that keeps me blogging. The white lies I have told, our high hopes for big man, and his endless questions make me smile when I read them. And after all the effort, my igloo needs a mention too!

Recently I was nominated in the MAD blog awards. Thank you to everyone that voted for me! I didn't make it to the finals, but fear not there is another blogging award at Britmums. This will be my first blogging conference, and I get to spend a night away from the boys! I am pretty sure this is only the third time in 5 1/2 years that I have done this! If you would like to wish my blog a Happy First Birthday, please vote for me in the Family award (number 11 on the list). As they say "blogging is cheaper than therapy" and my blog is certainly my therapy! You might also consider the Fresh Voice or Laugh category.

To help you out you can even copy and paste these details:

Blog Name: A Strong Coffee
Blog URL: astrongcoffee.co.uk
Bloggers twitter ID: @astrongcoffee1
Bloggers e mail: [email protected]

Then there are couple of questions to answer:
Why do you feel this blogger deserves to win the Family award?
URL of your favourite post from this blog - you don't need to fill this in, but I am kind of hoping that if you are kind enough to vote for me, you probably enjoy reading my blog so pick whatever you please.


16 people in each category will then get shortlisted to go through to votes. I am hoping that now my husband has subscribed to my blog by email, he might even remember to vote this time too! Thank you for reading and here's to another year with lots more Strong Coffee x

Middle man is off to pre school for his first taster session tomorrow. Not having him around will be strange. Big man went to nursery when he was little as I worked part time, but middle man has been around me ever since he was born. I wont lie though, it will be nice to have a couple of hours without having to split a fight up between him and baby man.

When big man started preschool, I remember talking to him about it. "It will be a fun place where you will make new friends and do new things. Mummy will drop you off and it wont be long until she comes to get you again. I will miss you lots."

This morning I found myself giving middle man some information about pre school. It wasn't quite the same. "You know you are going to pre school tomorrow? Don't push people and do what the teachers say."

Bless him, he just nodded. I felt bad after I had said that. I am setting him up to fail. Knowing my luck he will be there tomorrow morning thinking - ah yes mummy said something about pushing people. I should probably go and knock that little girl over.

I therefore approached the subject again this evening. I told him about all the friends he would make and the fun he would have. How I would leave him there, but not for long. And how I would be excited at coming to collect him. I then turned to big man and asked him what he thought middle man should know about pre school. "Don't be naughty or you will get put in time out. Don't push or bite it isn't nice. Oh and try not to wee in your pants."

So tomorrow is a big day. For me more than middle man. It is the first step in letting my middle man grow up and fly the nest. Although after his impression of a bird tweeting and flapping on the edge of the sofa last night, I don't think my little birdie will be leaving my nest for many years to come.


What words of advice have you offered your little ones when they have started nursery, preschool or school?

I have written before about how I can become quite side tracked about making birthday cakes. I wish I could walk into a supermarket and buy one, but I can't. I look at the price and think - I could do that - and it would be cheaper. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, but at least I can say that I did it.

This year we decided against a big party for middle man and instead had a family trip to the Legoland Hotel. The scary thing is that it was much cheaper than having a party! We had a fantastic time and you can read about it here. As we are regulars at Legoland, and have watched their pirate stunt show a million times, I decided that I would need to make middle man a treasure chest cake with golden lego bricks. I must have had this in the back of my mind as I bought a Christmas Lego bauble with golden bricks in before the park shut for the season!

I then trawled the internet for ideas and pictures of treasure chest cakes before embarking on my own. As I found other peoples blogs really useful in this, I decided I would blog about mine as it may help someone else. So here is my guide for a treasure chest cake.



Then it is just down to singing Happy Birthday and tucking right in. Hope this helps someone, and please leave a comment if you have given it a go.

My boys love bathtime and long may this continue! They splash around pretending to be dolphins and water goes everywhere. They were rather excited when we were sent some Munchkin bath products to review.

I was really pleased with the grippy dots. Now baby man has started walking, he thinks it is ok to do this in the bath. It is slippery, and these grippy dots are designed to prevent toddlers from slipping. There is also the added benifit that the orange and red dot will warn you if the water is too hot. With three little men running around the place this is a great reminder. The only downside of the dots, was that middle man decided to pull them off and stick them on the side of the bath when it was his turn to get in.


I was surprised how well the monster truck was received by middle and baby man. They were very excited that they had a car for the bath. It was something different to the other bath toys we have. It can be rolled on the edge of the bath and also floats on the water. It has some tools inside it which give it a rattle effect.


We were also given some bath letters and numbers. With big man learning to read and write at the moment, any way of getting him interested in spelling is great. The letters float in the bath and can stick to the tiles - they do sometimes slip a bit. They are made of a type of hard foam, so I believe that these should last longer than a softer foam letter that baby man would instantly chew. As you can see big man is currently learning to spell some three letter words.


We really enjoyed reviewing the Munchkin bath products. You can view these and the rest of their range by looking at the Munchkin website. However, they have also kindly given my readers a chance to win this bath bundle for themselves. If you would like a chance of winning please enter the using the rafflecopter below.



a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you regularly read my blog, you will know that I have been trying to potty train middle man for some time. Middle man has not been in the mood for it and was happier playing tricks on me! Last Saturday however, middle man decided he was a big boy and potty training commenced on his terms.

He has been amazing! Yes we have had the odd accident, but on the whole he has been doing really well. I have a PiddlePad on the car seat, which hasn't even needed a wash! It turns out that middle man knows exactly what to do, he was only going to do it when he was ready. Unfortunately, I fear that he is as stubborn as I am. The more we pushed him to potty train, the more he resisted. When we left him, in the hope that he would turn round one day and potty train himself, that is exactly what happened. This reverse psychology is likely to bring us many more challenges in the future!

So what have I learnt? Every child is different. We had a totally different experience with big man. I expected middle man to be the same. You should ignore others who put pressure on you to potty train your child. A mother should know her own child better than anyone else. I knew middle man wasn't ready, and when I gave up and left it, it seems to have done the trick. Lastly, praise praise praise. Middle man loves to give me a high five after he has "done it!" I love giving him a high five as I am actually really proud of him!

One of the reasons I started my blog was to remember funny things the kids had done. It is so easy to forget. I forgot the obsession small children have with washing machine. Baby man loves the washing machine. At every available opportunity he is having a look at it, and putting stuff in and out of it.
In the last few days this is what I have found.

The only problem is that I am a forgetful Mummy. I may have a photo of baby man putting things in the machine, but I am not sure if I took it all out before I put the wash in! I suspect that half a green egg shell is whirling around my washing machine as we speak!

What is the strangest thing that you have found in your washing machine. Do your children stick things in their pockets and you find them in when it's too late? Big man thinks that baby man just wants to clean his toys, but I am not sure how that explains the small piece of sandwich that is there with the plastic potato!

This ice cream is seriously good. The downside is it must have a serious number of calories! The recipe came with January's Kopi Coffee Club and has made me wonder why I don't make more coffee flavoured food! I have adapted it slightly as I am still none the wiser about what corn syrup is. I googled it and it told me that golden syrup would be fine. So here is what I did:

Ingredients:
50g Kopi Java Jampit ground coffee
150g granulated sugar
600ml whole milk
350ml thick cream
1 1/2 tablespoon of cornstarch
3 tbsp cream cheese
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbsp golden syrup


1. Whisk salt and cream cheese together in a bowl
2. Mix 2 tbsp milk with the cornstarch and put to one side

If anyone had told me 5 1/2 years ago that I would be as over the moon as I am at the moment, I would have looked at them very strangely. Most Mums would like breakfast in bed, a nice gift, and a a hand made card for Mother's Day. I don't care if I don't get any of these tomorrow morning. Middle man has just given me the best present I could wish for. After much refusal to want to be a big boy and get rid of his nappies, he has just gone and used his potty! I did not push him, or remind him. He just decided he didn't want to wear his nappy this afternoon and then walked over to his potty and did his business. After the last potty incident, we were concerned it was another trick. But now, he has FINALLY decided that he will use a potty. Let's hope that this now means that middle man has turned a corner, and has decided that he will do it on his terms rather than mine. Thank you middle man for the best Mother's Day present I could hope for.

Big man is very excited about his special Mother's Day gift for me. Above is last years masterpiece. He told Daddy that he didn't need to go and get me anything as he already had something VERY SPECIAL. His excitement led him to spill the beans that he's making me a card with a teapot and sprinkles on. I think he means glitter. Whilst this is priceless, I was also very excited when I learnt of a shoppertunity which involved creating a Mother's Day wish list at Boots and then purchasing myself a treat!

So off I went to our local Boots store to view their range of gifts. If you would like to see what made it onto my wish list then please take a look at my Google + album.


It got me thinking about how little I actually treat myself. As a busy mum of three and wife of one, I spend a lot of time running around after other people. I hardly have time to buy myself new clothes let alone something more indulgent. Somehow, in the last five years I have lost a little bit of me. The only pamper products I really have are gifts from family. I am pretty sure that a lot of Mums can identify with this.

After much searching, I decided that a fragrance would be my choice of treat. It's something I wouldn't really think of buying myself and often too expensive to ask for as a gift from others. So how do you chose the right fragrance to buy? Well if you are a bargain hunter with two hungry boys that want to eat the sandwiches and crisps that you have put into your basket, you quickly head over to the Mother's Day fragrance displays.




I narrowed it down to two fresh floral scents that both had good discounts. In the end I asked middle man to chose for me!



As my husband was working away I asked big man what he thought of my choice after he had finished school.



How do you treat yourself? Do you put the rest of the family first and forget that you can have the odd indulgence? Have you compiled a gift list for Mother's Day to give your other half or children a helping hand?Is it the special homemade gifts that make your Mother's Day special? I really am quite excited to see big man's card creation. At the end of the day, that is what I will remember years down the line.



I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community. This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® #CBias #SocialFabric. As always the opinions contained here are my own.