Why I'm not Pinterested.

I know, I know. It's the new big thing.

It's amazing, it's beautiful, it's fun, it's popular, it's.....not for me.

I've tried it. Look I even have a 'Follow me on Pinterest' button over there ---------->

Although not for much longer of course. Because to be perfectly honest I've been finding it a chore. Something that I 'ought' to keep up with because everyone else loves it. But the truth is I'm just not feeling it.

Mother's Day - Looking for unique gift ideas?

Ah Mothers Day.

Each time it rolls around I live in fear of Mother's Day treats such as 'breakfast in bed', which usually consists of an apple, a thick slab of butter with some bread mashed into it and half a glass of water delivered on a plastic tray at 6am.

This year my husband will be away at a perfectly timed stag do, so I won't even have anyone on hand to stop them.

However I don't mind so much, because I also know I will be getting this:

Tucked away in a corner of my daughters bedroom, courtesy of the very lovely Merci Maman, lies this little beauty. A bracelet of gold plated hearts inscribed with my children's names. Pretty special huh?

The site has loads of different colours and styles to choose from and accept orders for Mothers Day up to 14th March.

So if your kids are already planning on making you breakfast in bed this year make sure you tell their Dad that you want one of these on the tray alongside that bruised apple.

And to help persuade him Merci Maman has kindly offered a 10% discount to readers of Kate Takes 5 which is valid until March 7th. Simply use the code 'Katetakes5' at checkout.

Happy Mother's Day!

Disclaimer: Merci Maman specialise in personalised gifts. They kindly sent me this bracelet to review, however all words and opinions are my own. Bracelets retail at approx £30 for a single charm. 

There are two types of people in this world. . .

There's a great comedy sketch by a guy called Jon Richardson where he talks about there being two types of people in the world - putters and leavers.

A putter quite clearly 'puts' things where they belong. They are organised, efficient, successful human beings.

A leaver is so busy running around doing stuff and enjoying life that they don't have time to put things in their place - so they 'leave' them where ever they happen to fall.

I am a leaver.

Unfortunately my husband is a putter.

What this means in real terms is that our house is a constant mess and he walks around in a constant state of disbelief that I can actually live like this.

So this weekend I attempted to change my status from leaver to putter. I scrubbed, cleared, wiped, washed, shined, dusted, sorted and decluttered to an inch of my life until tah-dah!! - the house was clean, organised, calm.

I then cooked the dinner, gave the kids their baths and took a well deserved break.

This morning after the school run I came home and looked around. The dinner and breakfast things were scattered all over the kitchen. The dirty clothes from last nights bath were all over the bathroom floor. The kids pyjamas lay on the landing, a trail of odd socks and bits of discarded uniform behind them. The floors which had been lovingly cleaned just 24 hours before were awash with cereal crumbs, cars, books, nappies and shoes.

I then realised that being a putter for one day only doesn't cut it - you have to remain a putter every moment of every day.

So I came to the conclusion - being a putter sucks.

Long live the leavers!

Listography - Week 52.

Name That Tune #2

If you missed week one of Name That Tune you can pop to my previous post to see the boy singing Maroon 5's 'Moves like Jagger'.

Yes really.

Well kind of anyway.

This week it's the same deal. Listen to the video clip below and then pop over to my Facebook Page to Name That Tune.




Impressive stuff huh?

Kiddy GuardianFix Pro - A Review

With three kids and two cars in the family I like to think I know a little bit about car seats.

Sometimes maybe a little bit too much.

Many's the time family members have rolled their eyes as I've gone out to their car to check and double check that the car seats have been properly fitted before they whisk my kids away somewhere. But that's the thing about car seats - there's no point in buying the most expensive, top of the range one if you're not going to read the instructions and learn how to fit it properly is there?  (Hey - stop rolling your eyes).

So when Kiddy asked me to review their new GuardianFix Pro I thought I could probably do a good enough job. Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that we have had one of our car seats for seven years and after three grubby kids there are crumbs so far down the crevices they will never return and stains so suspect that I'd prefer never to learn what they are. Nope, nothing to do with that at all.

So on to the car seat.

Here's a very brief overview of how it works:


The real difference between this car seat and any other that I've used is that there are no straps - which in my book is a MASSIVE plus. Instead they use the Kiddy Impact Shield which is recommended from 9 - 18kgs, or approx. 4 years. The only negative that I did find with this is that my 3.5 year old (approx. 16kgs), who had never used one of these before decided he didn't like it so refuses to wear it. However I would imagine that if the child had the seat from a young age the impact shield would be accepted as the norm.

3.5 year old with Kiddy Impact Shield.

Other things I like about the car seat:

- Easy to install - which is a huge plus when you're swapping seats between cars a lot.
- Easy to expand. On most seats I've used you have to remove the seat from the car to expand it but the GuardianFix Pro has a one-pull \ push mechanism at the back to expand and retract the size.
- No straps. Worth repeating! For anyone who has grappled with trying to change the height of these as your child grows or has had to wrestle a tantruming child into the straps and then close the confusing buckle thingy with two hands - you'll know what I mean.
- Booster cushion that fits on \ off easily with two 'popper' buttons.
- Leg-rest extension feature.
- One seat required from baby (9kgs) to 12 years of age.
- It has Isofix fittings but the use of them is optional.

Saefty-wise it's a far cry from the journeys I took as a child with my four siblings - all packed into the boot of my Dad's beloved Morris Minors!

I love our new (very clean) GuardianFix Pro, however of course all this comes at a price. The seat currently retails at approx. £250. However as long as you don't inadvertently blow it up it'll be the only seat you'll need.

If you're in Ireland and have had trouble getting hold of a Kiddy Car Seat then good news! Kiddy have teamed up with Bluebear Nursery, who are specialists in quality nursery products and accessories, to make Kiddy products more widely available to Irish parents.

And what did the kids like best about it all? Well I think you can probably guess.

Update (28/06/12):  Possible safety issue when the Guardianfix Pro is used without the Isofix setting and with a 3 year old test dummy using the safety bar: (NOTE: Issue has been rectified with latest edition - Guardian Pro 2)

"It has come to our attention that a testing house in Germany, ADAC, has recently had a poor result in one out of sixteen advanced crash tests with the Kiddy Guardianfix Pro.  We would like to clarify that in the other fifteen tests, using a variety of dummy sizes, and the isofix fittings, the seat passed with very good  results.  However when tested with the 3 year old dummy, without the isofix fittings, but using the baby insert cushion folded over, it failed.  This has led to a report  that suggests the seat is unsafe when used specifically with these one-off criteria.

The problem is easily rectified by removing one half of the foam in the baby insert cushion.  This is very simple to do.  We have put a demonstration on youtube  as well as on the website where you will find a video showing how it's done.

The test in question was repeated by Kiddy, at the same testing house, on the 29th May with the adapted insert cushion in situ.  We are pleased to announce that it passed convincingly.

Therefore, we can say, categorically that the Kiddy Guardianfix Pro has excellent safety standards when used in conjunction with the isofix fittings, and is entirely safe for use without isofix providing the baby insert cushion has been adapted as advised.

We apologise for any concerns that you may have and please be assured that Kiddy take the safety of your children very seriously.  If you have any questions, please post below and include your contact details."

Disclosure: Kiddy kindly supplied the Guardianfix Pro to me for free for the purposes of this review, however no payment was received. 

Social Media Explained.

Original source: Three Ships Media http://instagr.am/p/nm695/

Listography - Top 5 things that make me happy.

I know I know - Listography has staged a coup and taken over my blog.

I've lost count of the number of mug related posts that have been published this last week.

I nearly skipped this week but decided to focus on some good stuff instead - enough of the mugs!

This one will be short and hopefully sweet. Join in if you're not sick to death of me and my usurper.

Listography - The Winning Mugs!

So mugs huh? Who'd have thunk it.

Last week's Listography on mugs was the most popular one I've done so far - just beating Top 5 Keyword Searches  by one last entry! 

And of course there are prizes.

Galaxy Hot Chocolate, When I was a Kid, Mary Poppins, and NameArt all put up fabulous mugs for the winners. If you haven't had a chance to look around their sites yet make sure you do - they are all full of gorgeousness.

You can see the prize mugs themselves on this post.

And now to the winners.....

Name That Tune #1

You may remember at Christmas I did a feature called 'Name that Carol' that saw my youngest attempting to get to grips with some popular carols.

Well good news - it's back!! Although this time with popular songs from the charts.

Dare you take it on?

All you need to do to join in is watch the video below and if you think you know the song leave a comment on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/katetakes5

Good luck (you're going to need it).



I should add that there's no prizes - but you never do know how these things pan out...

Listography Mugs Update - we have prizes!

I write this with a mixture of bemusement, delight and shock - but it seems that the Listography Mugs linky that I put on on Sunday has taken on a life of it's own.

Men swooned, women wept and one even peed herself little bit. Mug porn is alive and well in the blogosphere it seems.

The entries have come thick and fast, 34 at last count.

And to match the level of interest from you all a few wonderful people have put up some prizes from us.

So far we have wonderful Mary Poppins who has promised us a Cath Kidson vessel of some description*.

*Not the actual mug on offer!

We also have this amazing Twitter Addict mug courtesy Charis from NameArt:

Cupcake not included.

Another Twitter Mug from the ever lovely Paul at When I Was a Kid - one of my favourite sites for buying presents ever.

 And finally Galaxy has offered us not one but two chocolaty love mugs along with a jar of delectable Galaxy Hot Chocolate.

To enter just join in the Linky on this weeks Listography (with your own mug post obviously).

Prizes will be given for:

- My favourite mug

- Worst collection of mugs.

- Most entertaining post.

- Mugliest mug

Oh, and judges decision is final.

Beware out there. It's going to get mugly.

We don't do Valentines (I think)

A number of years ago the husband came home from work declaring 'We don't do Valentines do we?'

I thought for a split second before replying. 'No. We don't do Valentines. I hate it'.

'I hate it too' he went on. 'All that fake 'love' shit. Besides, I don't need Valentines Day to buy you flowers'.

'That's right' I agreed, whilst pausing to think back unsuccessfully to a time when he had bought me flowers.

'So you won't be disappointed if I don't buy you something?'

'Of course not!' I proclaimed full of superiority at those losers who played the Valentines game.

Listography - Mugs

Ok I realise that this Listography is completely ridiculous and will probably have zero entries but I've wanted to do it for awhile and since no other light bulbs went off above my head this week we're stuck with it.

I'm not sure if I'm a bit weird in my love of mugs, but seeing peoples response to Him Up North's call for pictures of eggcups I'd have to say not that weird.

So I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

(I should add here that I am also quite particular about time of day used and beverage held in these vessels.)


Ok maybe a bit weird after all.

Morning Cuppa - preferably in bed and made by someone other than me.

Elevenses. Black coffee with something chocolate on the side.

Bad day = afternoon coffee. Small to limit caffeine

Evening cup of herbal tea. 

Espresso. Anytime.

I'm going to put the linky in here, although I fully expect it to stay empty. Don't feel bad for me. Embrace the weirdness I say.

*UPDATE: So it seems that this Listography has touched a nerve. A weirdness nerve. We even have prizes up for grabs. Go to the Prize Mug post to see the lovely selection on offer.   To enter just linky on up! 

A Disorganised Mother's Guide to School.

It's not nice being the most disorganised mother in the school. 


I can't imagine it's much fun for my kids either.

Each week sees me wheel spinning in the car park to get back home, grab the forgotten lunch bag and make it back to the school before the doors close whilst one of my children roll their eyes and look admiringly at Sophie's Alpha Mummy. Or else I'm furiously chasing the bus to the swimming pool because I've forgotten my daughters swimming kit for the sixth time this year. (There's been six classes so far). Or I could be apologising to the teacher because I forgot that I was supposed to be helping out with the Junior Infant activities. Or I'm frantically avoiding the headmistress because I forgot the PTA meeting again. 


Last week I hit an all time low as I raced in late to the class to bring my son to the school nurse for his immunisations. The other children had been primed and readied, mothers stroking down hair and giving prizes for being brave. I, on the other hand, had found the crumpled letter in my handbag when I was paying for my cappuchino and nearly inflicted third degree burns on the poor waitress as I rushed for the door. 


As I walked my son down the corridor he skipped along beside me holding my hand. Innocently he looked up at me with wide eyes .


'Where are we going Mum?' 


'Erm, eh, well, you're going for your injections darling' I said, giving him a quick side-long glance.


'Oh. Yay!' he replied. Clearly the preparations had been somewhat neglected.


In any case, every week I resolve to do better, and every week I fail. Which is why I need something like Parent Mail. The idea is so brilliantly simple that I'm surprised someone hasn't thought of it before. Or perhaps they have but I was too disorganised to notice...


Anyway, what Parent Mail allows you to do is use one account to track school activities, nursery payments, important dates (like immunisations maybe..) as well as being able to pay for school trips, buy school products and even partake of 'cashless catering' - which allows children to pay for all their school dinners etc by a card that they top up, instead of having to search down the back of the sofa for that lost 50p.


Clever eh?


There's tons more stuff that it does too - which you can see for yourself if you're interested.


Now if someone could just invent a website that schedules a time for me to sign up to this type of thing I'll be sorted. 


Maybe next week...

*This is a sponsored post, however all words and parenting inadequacies are my own. 

The Happiness Project - What Makes You Happy?

My wise old pops used to say that a happy life was a successful life - the underlying moral being that a larger house, new car, big job etc doesn't in fact equate to success because having them doesn't really make you any happier in the long run. And happiness is really our ultimate goal in the acquiring of these things in the first place.  

I've been reading quite a lot about 'Happiness' in recent months and everything I read bears out this simple truth.

Studies done on Lottery winners shows that their 'happiness level' on learning of their win does a sharp incline, which then falls gradually back down to the level it was at 'pre-win'.  On a smaller level we've all been guilty of pitching our happiness at losing that extra stone, buying that expensive dress or going on that once in a life time holiday - but rarely achieving those things brings any lasting happiness.

So the question is What does make us happy?


And the answer is....well I don't actually know.

And that's the problem. As adults our view of happiness is so clouded from years of being told that 'things' make us happy that it's hard to see past that. Of course as parents if any of us are asked the question 'what makes you happy?' our first answer is 'our children' - but are we just giving the answer we're supposed to give by saying that? What about the people who have children but aren't happy?

So, my response to this conundrum is to bring it back to the kids. Yesterday I asked each of mine individually, without prompting, the question 'What makes you happy?'

Here are their responses:

So to sum up, their responses included nature, family and food, which to me sounds like a pretty perfect summation.

What I'd love you all to do now is do the same with your children. Go on, ask them right now what makes them happy and jot down the answers.

I've decided to run this as a Blog Hop so we can save all their wise words together. If you want to join in you can add your link with a thumbnail picture to the Blog Hop linky below.

And I defy any of you not to feel just a little bit happier looking at all the lovely answers :)

3D Movie Review - Legend of the Guardians & Cats and Dogs

Since getting our 3D TV the other week we've been testing out everything from 3D football to 3D documentaries to 3D Movies. It's impressive stuff.

The two movies I'm going to talk about here are both by Warner Brothers...

Legend of the Guardians

And Cats and Dogs.

Both of the movies are aimed at children, but naturally we wanted to show off our new kit at any available opportunity so when the in-laws came to stay last week we put on Legends of the Guardians just to give them a sneak peek of what it was like.

97 minutes later we watched the credits roll having got entirely sucked in by it. And not a child in sight I might add.

The story follows Soren a young barn owl who is kidnapped with his brother by the 'bad' owls who take them  to a secret hideout where they brainwash other kidnapped owlets with the view to turning them into soldiers. Whilst Soren manages to escape in a bid to get help his brother turns to 'the dark side' and the story of good versus evil, brother against brother begins.
A bit like Star Wars with owls, as my husband helpfully noted.

Anyway, we all loved the film, though I think the 3D had a lot to do with it. As movies go this one was made for 3D. Impressive flight and fight scenes coupled with amazing close ups had all of us literally 'wowing' out loud.

Hard to fault. I'd give it 5 stars and a big thumbs up.

The second film we're reviewing is Cats and Dogs.

I didn't actually watch this one myself but it kept the 7 and 5 year old quiet for the duration so it gets a nod of approval from me for that alone.

But I'll hand over to Kaya who will tell you what she really thought of it:


So there you have it, another thumbs up:

I've got to say here that not all the 3D films we watched were of as good a quality as the two Warner Brothers ones. A Turtles Tale - rented from the local xtra-vision left us all feeling a bit headachy and a little woozy. The 3D was so extreme in parts that quite often it looked like it just wasn't quite right. So choose your 3D movies carefully.

Next month I'll be reviewing Yogi Bear and Dolphins Tale starring Harry Connick Jr. Yep that's right - Harry in 3D...one for the Mums methinks.

Disclosure: These movies were sent to me free of charge for the purposes of this review.

Listography - Top 5 Phrases That Drive Me Crazy

This weeks Listography is Top 5 Phrases That Drive Me Crazy.

Why? I hear you ask.

Well partly because I am a bit pissed off today and partly because the very lovely Anne from Domesblissity gave out to me last week for doing another blogger \ techy type one. Well that told me. (Note that she still joined in though...)

So without further ado (which in itself could be one), here we go (another?)

1. 'At the end of the day.'
At the end of the day could you just stop saying 'at the end of the day'?

2. 'There's nothing worse than *insert something mildly annoying*'
'There's nothing worse than running out of sprinkles when you're making cupcakes', 'There's nothing worse than setting the Sky+ to record something and it doesn't work'. Really? How about your house burning down and you discover you forgot to update the insurance?* Slightly worse?
*This didn't happen to me btw. Although I may have 'Update House Insurance' on my to do list.

3. 'Just bear with me a moment.'
Firstly - because I use to say it about a million times a day when I worked in a call centre and secondly, and I kid you not, my husband said this to me the other week. Seriously. And we're still married.

4. 'I'm not being funny but....'
I had a work colleague who said this constantly - 'I'm not being funny but I never liked her', 'I'm not being funny but I don't think he knows what he's doing'. 'I'm not being funny but she'd be better off in the post room' WTF? No, you're not being funny, you are being mean. So shut it.

5. 'He started It'
Ahhhhhhh.

So that's my lovely, hate-filled list for the week. Strangely cathartic I must say. In fact I feel better already, and at the end of the day that's what's important isn't it? Because there's nothing worse than waking up in a bad mood and having it hanging over you all day is there?

Now it's your turn. You'll be surprised at how many you have once you get started.
To join in just write your post on your own blog with a link to Listography and then come back here and add it to the linky below. Then visit some other entries and maybe find some new sites you haven't visited before.

3D TV - What's it all about anyway?

In my last post I explained how we were lucky enough to be sent a 3D Home Entertainment system in order to review some of Warner Brothers' 3D movies (I know!!)

Now I must make a confession. Prior to receiving it I had zero knowledge of 3D TVs and what was involved with watching 3D movies at home. Can you watch non-3D programs on it? Do you need to wear glasses? Will the movies work in a normal DVD player?

I better take a picture of this - just to make sure it's real...

It's a bit like when Sky+ came along advertising the ability to pause live TV and we all looked at each other with confused faces, secretly wondering what would happen to everyone else if we paused the 9 o'clock news seven minutes in.

Anyway - I am here for the clueless - to answer your questions (which were my questions) and to let you know all that I have learned in the week since we got our package.

So, first question - What do you need in order to be able to watch 3D Movies at home? 
Answer: A 3D TV, A 3D Player, 3D Glasses and a HDMI cable.

Does the TV work normally too?
Absolutely - you can switch between 2D and 3D with the remote control.

Do you need to wear 3D glasses?
Yes. In fact the glasses should be matched to the TV you are using. We have Toshiba TV and glasses, if your TV was Sony then Sony glasses would be recommended. This is because there is no industry standard across the board yet so different makes use slightly different technology.

Can you use the glasses that they give you at the cinema?
No.* The glasses used in cinemas are 'polarised' and work with the projection that cinema uses. Home 3D glasses use 'active shutter' technology. The glasses that we were supplied with are lightweight, rechargeable ones - they're fabulous for adults although a little on the large side for the kids.
*Update: See comment from Aly below re. inactive and active TVs. 

How does 3D work?
Well, in a very simplistic explanation....the scenes are filmed from two different angles and then amalgamated together. The technology beams one image to one eye and another to the other eye giving the 3D perspective. (This is my very basic understanding of it - feel free to correct me here!)

Are all 3D movies the same quality?
No. We've tested out a number of films on DVD and also programmes on the Sky 3D Channel and the standard has varied quite a bit.  I'm delighted (and a little bit relieved!) to say, hand on heart, that Warner Brothers has come out on top for us so far.

My next post will be a review of some of the Warner Brothers movies we've seen so far and how they compare to the other things we've watched.

In the meantime if you've any burning questions that I've missed feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer it for you.

Disclaimer: As stated I was provided with a 3D home entertainment system by Warner Brothers for the purpose of reviewing Warner Brothers 3D Movies. All words and opinions are my own.