Jen Walshaw | Mum In The Madhouse

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Author name: Jen Walshaw

Mum-in-charge Jen Walshaw runs the UK’s top parenting blog Mum in the Madhouse, and she describes herself as a “fat, feisty and over 50” Northerner. Based in North Yorkshire, she’s mum to young adults and a big believer that family life is messy, creative and fun. In 2009 a double mastectomy gave her the nudge to start blogging; with two boys under three she needed an outlet and a digital scrapbook to capture their chaos.Jen’s posts are a mix of crafts, kid‑friendly recipes and honest parenting, peppered with northern humour. She’s happiest when up to her elbows in tea, fabric and pizza dough – sewing and making homemade gifts – before sneaking off to write about it. As a proud Northerner she warns PRs that a “quick pop down to London” isn’t quick at all. Her blog has earned her a stack of accolades, including the Cision #1 Mummy Blogger title in 2024  and consistently topping Vuelio and Tots100 parenting‑blog charts. Whether she’s advocating for diversity and body neutrality or sharing tales of parenting teens, Jen keeps things chatty, real and refreshingly down‑to‑earth.

Playmobil Top Agents Review: Exciting Adventures and Spy Fun

3 Comments / Review / By

One of my favourite things about Playmobil is the fact that it is not licensed and that way it seems pretty timeless. A car is a car and an agent is an agent, which with my boys minds means that it could be James Bond or any other person, which is great for creativity and longevity. Playmobil also is top quality and seems to last forever and the boys have some vintage people that belonged to MadDad.
We were loaned the Robo Ganster Truck (4878) along with the camera and remote control pack, which can be added.
We liked:

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Easy Bubble Wrap Painting with Kids: Fun and Creative Art Project

9 Comments / crafts / By

Maggie over at RedTed Art set a challnge to do an art project based on a story from Fly Thomas Cook’s travel stories. We read both of the stories with the boys and asked them what they thought we should make and they decided that they wanted to do something about water, as this is what they assocaite holidays with.

So we decided to do a sea scape. The boys used bubble wrap to make the sea and then cut out and decorated fish to stick on to it. I drew the fish shapes on the paper and they cut them out themselves.

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Easy Egg White Cake Recipe: Light and Fluffy Dessert

7 Comments / baking / By

Whenever I make Spagetti Carbonara, I am always left with 4 egg whites, so I have been looking for a receipe, other than meranges (as MadDad doesnt like then) for quite a while.

Finally whilst looking through some old books came across one that I wrote down an age ago (when I used to rip out pages of magazines and buy food magazines, which means it was pre children). I do not know the source of this recipe, so can not quote it , sorry.

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How do you write?

20 Comments / blogging / By

One of the things that came out of blogcamp Manchester for me was the fact that it is key to develop your own voice or writing style and to stick with it thorough out your blog.

It made my day to listen to two strong, unique and inspirationsal women discuss why they blog and how they developed their writing style. Neither was apologetic for the things they did. Muireann from Bangs and Bun is a funny, feisty and unforgettable powerhouse of words. She isn’t afraid to use them and share the outcome of them with her readers. I love the fact that she doesn’t police comments on the blog and acknowledges that people can have differences of opinion.

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Win a Tidybooks Bookcase

60 Comments / competition / By

We love books in the Mad House and I have blogged before about encouraging reading in boys and so when we were offered the chance to review a Tidybooks bookcase I was intregied to see how it would fit in to our home.

First Impressions:
The Tidybooks bookcase is self assembly, but it is so well designed that even the boys could help. No small tacks to hammer in the back, everything was fastened with an allen key and it was super fast to put together. MadDad and Mini managed to do it in about 30 minutes and without the help of little hands I am sure that he could do it a lot faster. I was also suprised at how tall the bookcase is (it is taller than Mini at 115cm).

We like:
I love the fact that this bookcase is very slim in depth and is designed so children

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