We have been privileged and were given the chance to review the new Barny bear-shaped sponge snacks last week. Not only that but because we were among the first 50 mummy bloggers to sign up for the Adventure Challenge(I guess all that early morning email checking pays off!), Emma received a Discovery Explore Bug Barn that took us on wonderful adventures this weekend!
Many thanks, BritMums and Barny!
With a small girl who has a VERY sweet tooth I am always on the lookout for snacks that are filling, nutritious but not necessarily unhealthy. I dose the treats carefully throughout the day, encouraging her to eat loads of fruit alongside/instead of sweet snacks and chocolate. The Barny snack meets my mummy criteria for a treat as it has 118 calories per serving and is enough to meet Emma’s daily sugar cravings(meaning she gets one of these little yummies a day and no more :-). The Barny snack definitely meets my little one’s criteria and she has already a preference for the “one with the chocolate inside, mummy!”
Delicious!
Now, for our Little Adventure Challenge days. We received our wonderfully packaged Barny parcel last Thursday and Emma got seriously excited about ” a present for me, mummy, for me??”
I had my worries about the Bug Barn as she is generally a proper Miss and classifies toys into “girls’ and boys’ ones” but she totally surprised me by revealing a new facet I hadn’t seen before: Emma the explorer! She took to it with gusto and in no time was practicing bug catching with small, plastic animals in the living room.
Passionate explorer!
As our Barny parcel had a book on bugs as well, we decided to spend a wee while reading about ants, bugs and butterflies and Emma was particularly fascinated with the page that illustrated the butterfly life cycle, as you can see below.
The culmination of the whole experience that evening, which was a total success for a budding explorer, was when, on our way back from town, Emma spotted a spider in the hallway, begged hubby to get her “explorer kit” out and scooped the poor thing into her special insect jar. She instantly named him Murly and insisted that he slept in her room that night!!
A proud little girl and a very frightened Murly 🙂
Since the exploring bit inside went so well on Thursday we decided to continue our adventures out on Saturday morning. We headed off for the Seaforde Exotic Butterfly Farm in Newcastle, county Down since Emma had shown so much interest in them on Thursday. We spent a glorious morning observing the butterflies, collecting leaves and exploring the grounds.
Mesmerised by butterflies eating
Are these baby flowers, mummy?
Aaah, these are really tickly, mummy!
Sunday was a bit windier but again, that didn’t deter us from furthering our adventures. We spent the afternoon in the Ormeau Park in Belfast, learning even more about nature and having a brilliant time together.
Look what a found, acorns!
An acorn’s life cycle at various stages of development
Thank you, Barny, we truly appreciated the snacks and the prompt you gave us to get out and explore the nature! We have thoroughly enjoyed the experience!
As stated above, this post is an entry for BritMums’ “Little Adventures Challenge” in partnership with Barny, the bear-shaped snack providing a little discovery in every bite. Find out more about Barny here.
Mama's Haven 
Barny sounds delicious, and i love your out and about pics! 🙂
It is yummy, indeed :-). I suppose my pics reveal how much fun we had with this 🙂
Your photos are amazing. You are great with that camera, Oana ! The story could easily be called Emma’s little avdenture. Lovely 😉
Thank you, Iva. Yes, she enjoyed it immensely but so did we :-).xx
lovely adventure!
Thank you, we had loads of fun with it!
#MagicMoments
Indeed, they were 🙂
yeeeeeuuuucccchhhhh gross at the spider. Lots more adventures to be had by the sound of it
I know, Elaine, my sentiments exactly but hey, she is becoming her own wee person and I need to encourage that 🙂
This looks like an amazing adventure! I am slightly ashamed to admit she beats me in the bravery stakes there is no way i would of taken that spider to my room!! bless her
thanks for linking up with #MagicMoments x
Oh, I’m on the same page with you regarding the spider! I was VERY surprised when she adopted him with such bravery as I am not at all insect friendly :-).
Your linky is great, will pop back again. Which day do you post it on?
its so lovely to have you linked up. The link up goes live on a monday morning around 6am 🙂
Great post. There is something special about bug-hunting. Commenting for myself and on behalf of BritMums and thanking you for taking part
Thank you, Kate, for taking the time to stop by. We really had a wonderful adventure thanks to Barny and BritMums.
Oh she looks like she is having so much fun with her bug barn, we got one too and my girls have loved using it. The Barny challenge was great fun wasn’t it and I sneaked a few of them myself!! I love the big Red Hot Poker flowers, they are gorgeous. I’m in Northern Ireland too 🙂
Yes, Nichola, she really did! Oh, we should keep in touch then, I don’t know many mummy bloggers in Northern Ireland :-).xx