For Kids - 2015 Christmas Gift

I say it every year, but each year it becomes more apparent than the last. Leo's understanding about Christmas grows, his excitement about the event he is now counting down to is more poignant than ever before. The innocent shine in his eyes, the magic flickering across his face is really a wonder to behold.

At 4 years old Leo cannot wait for Santa to arrive, and I myself am on the count down to him breaking up from school so that we can go on some festive adventures. I have been scouring the internet for some fun gift ideas, and I thought it would be nice to share what I have come up with so far...

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

Advent has grown in the market place since I was a little girl. I remember opening my pictured calendar back in the day... It was a nativity themed calendar with a image of Mary, Jesus or fitting image relating to the deeper meaning of what Christmas is really about. These days there are so many new calendars to help count down the days. Playmobil  have a lovely range, and Leo has been loving the Fire and Rescue advent calendar to help him mark each day on the run up to Christmas.

The Playmobil Fire Rescue Operation Advent Calendar has 24 doors and behind them are 4 Playmobil figures and accessories. As you open the doors up more of the scene is revealed showing the hard working fire-fighters putting out the fierce blaze taking hold of a stack of tyres. Featuring many accessories including a water hose, a fire extinguisher, a stack of tyres and lots more there is plenty to keep you entertained. The set includes 2 Playmobil fire-fighters, a passer by and a boy with cat, matching pairs card game and many accessories. Leo has been particularly smitten with this as his Daddy happens to be a firefighter!

RRP: £19.99 but at the point of writing this gift guide: £14.10 at Amazon.

Christmas has so many reasons to be celebrated, of course we have to honor the traditions, but today is holds a place in the heart of children on a magical frontier, and to me that is so important. I want Leo to grow up and see magic in a world that sometimes seems anything other than magical, and I will nurture that with all that I am. The Irish Fairy Door is exactly how I choose to do that, and Leo is in awe of the fairy who lives within this little door. He has never seen her... but he knows that she is there and sprinkling her magic all around him. 

Things to do over Christmas...

I like to make plans with Leo as a general rule of thumb, but even more so with Christmas around the corner. Date nights usually include a meal and a trip to the cinema, our local being Cineworld. A must watch for us over the festive season has to be the new Disney smash hit The Good Dinosaur. A great gift idea for a film fanatic would be the Cineworld Unlimited Card that provides holders:

- Unlimited Film

- 10% retail Discount

- Exclusive Previews

- Event Cinema Savings

- Premium Upgrade

Stocking Fillers

We love to read, and now that Leo is learning to read for himself, books we can enjoy and read together are top of the Christmas list. The Little Boy who Lost His Name is a personalised book like no other.  It is wonderfully written and illustrated throughout, you personalise it with your child's name and every name creates a different story.

The book follows a child who loses their name – and heads off on a marvelous, magical adventure, to track down the missing letters. Along the way they meet lots of weird, wonderful and wise characters, who all help in the search.

Now a brand new book from the people behind The boy who Lost His Name is on the scene - The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home is the brand new personalised book by David Cadij-Newby and Pedro Serapicos. 

The story follows a boy (or girl depending upon how you personalise it!) who gets lost in space. The aim of the game is to find your way back to earth again. Back home. Of course along the way they meet so many wonderful characters who all help out and point him in the right direction – to the Solar System, Earth, to their country, region – all the way to their street. This is where the book gets really impressive. When you create the book online, you use satellite imagery and map your house out. So you really do end up back at your house. 

To say Leo has loved these books is a understatement. They are firm favourites and I have to recommend them to anyone looking for a new book to really capture your little one's attention. 

You can order both books here for £19.99 each.

PLAYBULB Rainbow is a Bluetooth Smart LED colour light bulb that would make a great stocking filler, think little one's bedroom! it is controlled via PLAYBULB's free mobile App and the unique bulb allows you to freely create your own coloured ambience throughout the home whilst the built-in Bluetooth chip allows you to manage brightness control and colour changing effects at your fingertips via the free PLAYBULB X App. With LED lights in red, green, blue and white, PLAYBULB Rainbow opens doors to a whole range of colour fading options.

Playbulb Rainbow retails at £39.99.

On Leo's Christmas Lift

Leo and the great big boo from Bespoke Verse is the original and wonderful poem written by Joanna Miller. It tells the story of a child who meets a mysterious creature called The Great Big Boo and together they have an adventure swinging over exciting oceans and far off lands, before returning safely home when the sun goes down. This version has been perosnalised with Leo's name to make it truly special and it now resides in his bedroom, and we love nothing more than reciting it every night before bed. 

The print is personalised throughout and prices start from £24.00.

Learning is a really big part of the thought process for gifts this year, and the Miniland Animal Lacing provides children aged 3 and up fun animal silhouettes to sew. I love this as it is going to encourage Leo in his development and growth. It encourages children to sew using the provided cords, and when the figures are not being used for sewing, they can be templates for drawing and colouring. 

The You Explore It Human Body from Smart Lab over at DKL Toys is a hands-on kit that allows kids to enter the weird and wonderful world of the human body, complete with removable squishy organs! This has gone down a treat with Leo and we have had some amazing conversations about the human body, and because he can explore with his hands, he is getting a great basic understanding.

Leo loves construction play, so the Hape Crane Lift has been a firm favourite in recent weeks. It's a working crane crafted out of solid wood, and exactly what you need on a building site. Leo has spent hours at the helm of the crane and has even incorporated the Hape Dumper Truck into the game. It's been a joy to behold, and these timeless toys make great additions under the Christmas Tree. The quality is there in each and every way you look at it, from the over all play value to the materials that have been used to construct them.

 All Hape products meet or exceed all applicable quality and safety standards by using natural materials and water-based paints making every Hape toy an investment kids will love and parents can trust. 

The Hape Crane Lift retails at: £34.99

The Hape Dumper Truck Retails at: £24.99

The new Spearmark Headlight is a three-in-one light in the shape of a DJ head complete with headphones and flat cap. Leo adores it, and it boasts a noise activated light in it's mouth that bursts into action at the sound of a beat and has two light settings in his cap (white and changing!).

Head Light brings some serious light action to any party, whether Leo is dancing about to his favorite song or has a few friends over to play. Head Light's mouth flashes bright green when it hears a sound:, and you can clap, shout or stomp for the light to pulse in time to sound vibrations! 

Light-up flat cap with 2 setting choices, with either a colour changing light that will make his cap glow from purple to pink to red to green, blue and back to purple again, or a White light colour way that looks vibrant and works well as a bedside lamp. 

The Spearmark Headlight retails at: £18.74

Moochies for Kids are a wrist worn mobile phone for kids, if you were to just glance at the wrist of a child wearing one, you would immediately assume that they were wearing a watch. Leo has been using one for the last few months and you can read our full account here.

Moochies are suitable for children as young as 3 years old, they are simple to use and most importantly they are safe. You program the phone through your own smart phone and the Free App that can be downloaded through the Apple and Android stores. The app allows you to program the phone with 2 phone numbers (i.e Mum and Dad!) that can then be called via the two buttons on the right hand side of the watch. 

Moochie Features:
- SOS button in case of emergency
- GPS Tracking
- Controlled calling
- Pay as you go

Moochie retails at £79.99.

We seem to have stumbled into Minecraft a little earlier than I ever thought we would, but with Leo's 14 year old Aunt showing him the ropes it was pretty much inevitable. The new Gameband + Minecraft is a a wearable that enables you to play anywhere, anytime-on any computer!

The stylish, high-tech band means that you can take your entire Minecraft experience everywhere you go, by simply plugging Gameband into the USB port of any Windows, Mac or Linux computer, launch the Gameband App, and then enjoy endless fun creating and playing your favorite game. This wearable is perfect for those who don't want to be tied down to playing on a single computer! 

 The Gameband + Minecraft retails at: £69.99

Sometimes I can't help feeling like I should have been a child in 2015, especially when I see the Heelys X2 fresh. Shoes that are also known as skate shoes. They look like your average pair of trendy trainers, but they are actually fitted with two wheels that provide the option of rolling along! Leo has been giving this pair a trial run recently and he is completely smitten. The 2 wheels are perfect for beginners and he has taken to them like a duck to water. They boast a waffle grip that means you don't need to skate if you don't feel like it, and it keeps your trainers firmly gripped to the floor!

The Heelys X2 Fresh retail at: £44.95.

I am very pleased to have teamed up with Skates.co.uk to bring you this exclusive giveaway in time for Christmas! One lucky reader will WIN a Grit Atom Scooter of their choosing worth £64.95! Won't that make a great gift to wrap up!?

Terms and Conditions:

Please only enter this giveaway if you live within the United Kingdom. A winner willl be chosen at random on the condition they have completed the entry form honestly.Once a winner had been chosen you will be contacted via email, if you do not respond within 48 hours another winner will be picked at random and the original winner's notification will not be valid. 

All you have to do is enter using the Rafflecopter form below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good Luck and Merry Christmas!

Disclaimer: I was sent the above products for the purpose of this gift guide. Prices correct at time of publishing. All views and opinions expressed are my own.

Moochies For Kids

Kids these days are growing up a lot quicker than they did back in my day (Yup I said it!). The world is a very different place in 2015, and it couldn't be more apparent. If I cast my mind back over the years and look at the freedom that my own parent's allowed me in comparison to what I provide Leo, it is a very different state of affairs.

Now it's not that I am an wrapping Leo up in cotton wool, and it's not because I don't want him to have the experiences that I had as a child, it's because we are all so much more aware to the goings on that are splashed over our newspapers and timelines each and everyday. I couldn't relax knowing that Leo left at breakfast and didn't return until dinner time like I did as a young girl in the summer holidays. I would be on tender hooks from the moment he left until the moment he returned. That's if I could resit the pull to go out, find him and make sure he was ok...

This brings me on to my next point...

How do we feel about children with mobile phones?

It's not un-common to see children as young as 10 with a mobile phone of their very own today. I know I was much older than this when I managed to get my hands on my first phone, and it was nothing in compassion to what the tech savvy kids of 2015 have in their hands. Now I don't foresee Leo having a mobile phone for many years to come, but the fact has to be highlighted. If we did have a means to stay in contact with our little ones in the instance that they ever wandered off, or if we were out in a busy place and got separated, or heaven forbid that he was taken... Would we not want that additional method of contact?

I know what my verdict is. It's a resounding YES.

Now I am not saying that I am going to hand Leo and iPhone because I quite frankly think that it's ridiculous and it's most definitely not appropriate for a 4 year old. However I am saying that I would and I have... Handed Leo his own Moochies for kids.

Moochies for Kids are a wrist worn mobile phone for kids, if you were to just glance at the wrist of a child wearing one, you would immediately assume that they were wearing a watch. I recently went along to the press preview in London, and I have to admit that before I saw them in the flesh I was a little skeptical, but during the demonstration I fell in love with the concept. 

Moochies are suitable for children as young as 3 years old, they are simple to use and most importantly they are safe. You program the phone through your own smart phone and the Free App that can be downloaded through the Apple and Android stores. The app allows you to program the phone with 2 phone numbers (i.e Mum and Dad!) that can then be called via the two buttons on the right hand side of the watch. 

Those are then the only two numbers that your child will be able to call. It's a quick easy process and as it is a Pay As You Go system (Yup there is a sim card in there!) it means that you can manage everything directly.

You may be worried about outside callers getting hold of your child's number and calling them, but that has been completely covered, and using the app you simply program the numbers that you want to be able to call your child. So of course, Mum, Dad, Granny and Granddad and only those people who have a real reason to call them. So that means no spam calls, no strangers and no one that shouldn't be calling. Anyone who does call outside of that safe number list, will just go straight through to a answer machine and will never get through. 

What I really like about Moochies for Kids is that it has an SOS button in case of an emergency. So in the instance that something has happened but they can't call you, they can literally just press one button and it will automatically record a 15 second sound clip that will come through to your phone. This will give you an idea of what is going on, and if it really is an emergency you can act quickly, or if it was just pressed in error, you can rule out any horrific incidents right then and there.

If something had gone awry and you need to find out exactly where your child has wandered off to, then there's a feature for that too. Let's imagine that you have gone on a family day out to a theme park. There are people everywhere, it's a busy summers day. Your four year old is right next to you... And then out of nowhere they have vanished. 

This is something that I am paranoid about, I make Leo hold my hand everywhere we go, especially when I am trying to navigate him around London and on and off the tubes. It would be so easy for him to just slip out of sight, and the thought turns my stomach. 

The Moochies device has a built in GPS, and from your smart phone you can get an idea as to where they are. Put yourself back in the theme park on that busy summers day. There are people everywhere, but your child cannot be seen in any which way you turn. Your heart sinks. You need to start looking but it's like looking for a needle in a hay stack. With your little one donning one of the new Moochies phones for kids, you just need to open up your App and use the GPS to get a location of your little wanderer. 

The GPS may get mixed responses from some parent's but I personally think it is amazing. In fact on those days out the entire device is going to prove invaluable. 

During the demonstration I got to have a real play with this innovative new phone. The phone is used like a hands free device so that your child can make/receive a call and just talk without having to actually do anything other than answer the call. 

We have just started using Moochies with Leo, and he thinks it's absolutely amazing. He has been after his own watch for a while, and we were actually thinking about one as a stocking filler this Christmas, but now he is up and running with so much more than just a watch. 

I don't let him wear it to school as there is no need, but he has been enjoying wearing it on weekends, and if we go out, I will make sure that he has it on. Just in case. 

I will be writing an update in the next few months to let you all know how we are getting on, but I have to say that I absolutely love the Moochies concept and think it is a realistic way to keep in touch with your child. and make sure that they are ok, or even reunite you with them should they inevitably wander off.

Moochies for Kids are on sale now for £79.99 and would make a fantastic Christmas gift this year. There are 4 fun different colour ways available: Black, Pink, Blue and Orange. 

What do you think of Moochies for kids? 

Disclaimer: I was invited along to the press preview and provided with a Moochies For kids Phone for Leo. All views and opinions expressed are completely honest and my own.