Star Wars CrocsLights and Crocband Jaunt Rain Boots from Crocs #review

When I was contacted by Crocs to try out some of their range, I was surprised to see that the brand offers so much more than just their famous range of classic clogs. In fact, they sell sneakers, boots, wellies, loafers, flats, flips and sandals too, in a host of colours and designs. There are classic Crocs for kids featuring favourite characters from Star Wars, Minions, Frozen and The Avengers. There are also some great wellies and boots that would see them through the colder weather. There is an extensive men's range too.

Freddy was sent a pair of Kids CrocsLights Star Wars Darth Vader Clogs. The black clogs feature a red strap with the Star Wars logo on the back. A permanent Darth Vader Jibbitiz charm decorates the front of the shoe. Other Star Wars themed Jibbitz are available to purchase to add further intergalactic decoration, attaching to the holes in the front of the shoe. Around the sole is a funky light up light sabre, which flashes red when the shoe is stamped on the ground. The effect delights kids of all ages who will feel that the force is with them!

Star Wars fans will adore these shoes. They are sturdy, lightweight, comfortable to wear and easy for kids to put on and take off independently. Freddy likes to wear his when he has his swimming lessons because they are so easy to manage: he can go sockless and they don't get soggy!

Freddy says "My Star Wars Crocs are amazing and I love them! The light saber is really cool on the side." So that's a definite thumbs up from him. He has been demonstrating the flashing lights to everyone he meets. I'm willing his feet not to grow for a while yet, because he will be gutted when they are too small.

The Star Wars light up Crocs are £39.99 and available in sizes up to size 3.

I received a pair of women's Crocband Jaunt rain boots in navy, the perfect welly style boot for the wet weather we've been having recently! They are made from fully moulded Croslite material, which is waterproof, lightweight and durable. They have a stylish retro stripe running around the sole and at the top of the boot are two reinforced holes for pulling the boot on. The sole has good grip, perfect for being out in the rain. There are two holes at top of the boot for attaching Jibbitz charms to personalise them if wanted.

Wearing this boot feels very different to ordinary rubber wellies, They are so light and bouncy underfoot and the moulded Croslite is stiffer and feels more sturdy. The fit is roomy with good width and are spacious around my calf.

These boots are going to be great for the garden, winter walks or for splashing in puddles with the kids. They keep your feet dry and warm.  They can be easily rinsed off after being worn keeping them looking good for the season.

The Crocband Jaunt Boots are £39.99 and available in a range of colours. They are available in sizes 3 to 9.

Find these and the rest of the range at www.crocs.co.uk

Halloween Fun with Aldi Specialbuys

We love Halloween here Inside the Wendy House! So we are very excited to be testing out a range of goodies available from Aldi this October. As ever, the Aldi products are great value for money meaning you can enjoy Halloween without worrying too much about going over budget.

Spooky dressing up costumes such as witches, vampires and skeletons are just £3.99. Perfect for parties, fancy dress discos or Trick or Treating. A Halloween tutu set with skirt and wand is just £1.99 and Halloween boppers, to add a scary twist to any outfit, are just £1.79.

When it comes to parties, Aldi has a superb range of tableware starting at just 89p. 12 packs of paper plates, bowls, napkins, cups and loot bags come in two spooky designs and will make any party table look the part. The Boo and Trick or Treat designs are both very appealing and colourful. Quality serving bowls and drinkware are also available, and will be sure to impress your guests. Metal Trick or Treat buckets are just £1.79 and come in four designs. Filled with sweets and treats, they will make a lovely party favour or table decoration.

Decorating the house is easy with Aldi's range of Halloween themed novelties. LED tea light holders and battery operated lights will add an eerie ambiance to the house. The LED tea lights come with batteries included and the flickering light looks lovely. Spider's webs, gel stickers, dancing skeletons and inflatable characters will help set a spooky scene. To surprise Trick or Treaters, Aldi have some fiendishly fun door knockers and musical door bells that will interact with anyone who comes to your door. At £6.99 they are great value and very cool. The kids will love them and they turn your home into a proper haunted house.

When it's bedtime, the Halloween fun doesn't have to end. Aldi has a range of brilliant kids' bedwear for just £3.99. Your little monster will be able to snuggle up in a choice of two designs of pyjamas. Freddy received the glow in the dark Booo! pj's with a friendly ghost design on the front, green cuffs and spooky eyes on the trouser legs.  A spooky DVD before bed might be fun for little ones and a selection are available in Aldi at just £3.99. This would make a fabulous family fright night in!

Aldi also stock lots of great value confectionery ready for any trick or treaters who come knocking, plus they have everything needed to host a spooktacular party: food, soft drinks and alcohol, all at low prices.

These are the Halloween Specialbuy products available in store while stocks last:

Halloween Inflatable Characters £12.99

Dancing Skeleton £7.99

Halloween Serving Dishes £6.99

Musical Door Knockers/Bells £6.99

Children's Dressing Up Set £3.99

Children’s Halloween Pyjamas £3.99

Halloween Battery Operated Lights £3.99

Halloween Berry Lights £3.99

Halloween DVDs £3.99

Halloween Drinkware £2.99

Girl's Halloween Tutu Set £1.99

Children’s Halloween Boppers £1.79

Led Tealight Holders £1.79

Trick Or Treat Tins £1.79

Pumpkin Carving Kit £1.49

Children's Halloween Tights £1.29

Assorted Partyware  £0.89

Halloween Gel Stickers  £0.89

Halloween Spiders Web  £0.89

From costumes to tableware to decorations to DVDs to character inflatables, Aldi has got Halloween covered! Aldi's Halloween Specialbuys will be hitting stores on October 1st and will be available while stocks last, so make sure you don't miss out.

Netflix and Chill - what I'm watching this month #streamteam

This month, we have discovered a new show, enjoyed some great films and revisited an old favourite on Netflix. Here is my pick of the Netflix crop.

Mockingjay Part I

Jennifer Lawrence is back as Katniss Everdeen in this installment of the Hunger Games. Battle weary and traumatised from her explosive participation in the last games, Katniss is living in District 13, while Peeta and the other surviving tributes remain in the Capital, prisoners and political pawns of the regime. Under the guidance of President Coin, Katniss becomes the Mockingjay, the face of the revolution, inspiring other districts to rise up against the Capital. A daring rescue and a fierce battle ensue as the revolution gains momentum. A shock ending leaves us on tenterhooks.

I am so looking forward to Part II and the final chapter of the Hunger Games. It's great to see the films on Netflix and Kezia and I have enjoyed watching them together. They are great family films to watch with older kids.

Sons of Anarchy

After we finished watching Breaking Bad, Ian and I were on the search for something new to watch together in bed. We have just discovered Sons of Anarchy and that is filling the Walter White sized hole in our life!

Sons of Anarchy stars the rather gorgeous Charlie Hunnam as Jax, a member of the outlaw motorcycle club in the town of Charming. Since becoming a single dad and discovering his own father's journals, his loyalty becomes tested as he questions the increasing lawlessness of the Sons of Anarchy and how the club is run. The group run a lucrative illegal arms dealing business and keep drug dealers out of town, usually with violent consequences. Jax's mum and stepdad, who is president of the Sons of Anarchy, like to keep things old school and the conflict between them impacts upon the club and their personal relationships.

We're not very far into the first season (the first of seven!) but already we love the way it's filmed and think the characters and scripting are excellent. Jax is a tough but likeable character who takes no nonsense and fights for what he believes in. His mum is a formidable character that you both love and hate, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. How she treated Jax's ex wife in the first episode was utterly shocking!

I am looking forward to seeing how the show progresses. I've heard such good things about it.

Skins

I've been revisiting the series that spawned the successful movie actors Nicholas Hoult, Dev Patel and Jack O'Connell. Skins started in 2007 and ran until 2013. The exploits of the years 12 and 13 teenagers, feature some controversial storylines including teen pregnancy, mental illness, eating disorders, suicide and family breakdowns, fuelled by a cocktail of drink, drugs and sex. It's hard hitting stuff, superbly acted and emotionally charged, with some great comedic moments thrown into the mix. The characters are both believable and likeable and you laugh and cry alongside them.

Every two years the cast changes, as the characters leave school and new kids start year 11 at the Bristol college, The series has seen some fantastic breakthrough performances from the cast and the scripts are powerful.

Skins is a series that gave older teenagers and young adults a drama that they could really relate to, but even at my age I enjoy the gritty realism of the show. A number of top British actors including Peter Capaldi and Harry Enfield guest star and it's always fun to spot them make an appearance!

The Evolution of Nana Wendy

If I'm honest, I've never been much of a baby person. Yes I admit, cuddling a newborn baby is a precious experience and they do smell delicious, but they also seem so fragile and they basically sleep for most of the time. If they are not sleeping, they are feeding or pooping or crying. There may be a few magical moments in between but mostly a little baby does what little babies do 24/7. I've always preferred the toddler stage. Toddlers are feisty, interactive, robust, cheeky and full of fun. They can chatter to you, understand you and they choose if they want to spend their time with you or not! You get to see their developing personalities and build a genuine relationship with them, where love and trust will be nurtured and grown into something genuine and beautiful.

My grandson Ted is getting close to his third birthday. He is now at the age where I can really enjoy him as a little person in his own right, and not just as an extension of his mum and dad. As a baby, I saw him as my son's child, delighting in the new role my son Joe was embarking on, which filled me with such immense pride. My own connection with Ted was through Joe, and amazing as that was, I felt slightly on the periphery, looking in on this miracle unfolding in my son's life. We live too far away to have been able to be a permanent feature in Ted's early days, so my grandparenting was done remotely rather than being hands on. Every time we visited, I'd look for a sign that he remembered me or knew who I was, forever hoping that the family bond would grow even in my absence.

I spent this weekend with my son Joe, his fiance Jade and my grandson Ted. We visited Alton Towers and had a fab time. Our favourite ride was the River Rapids, with all us in one of the round boats getting splashed and squirted as we whizzed through the water. It was so much fun watching Ted experience these things for the first time. On the Sunday morning I was woken up by Freddy and Ted bashing me with foam swords (little monkeys were being egged on by Joe of course!). Then at lunchtime, we all sat around the table to enjoy a family roast dinner together.

These are the days I have been waiting for, ever since the day I found out that I was going to be a gran. Ted is full on, energetic, boisterous and funny. He makes me laugh with his antics and leaves a trail of toddler-made destruction in his wake as he runs around, a little boy on a mission to explore, learn and play. He is everything I imagined and hoped my grandson could be. He may look just like his mum, but his personality is so much like his dad's in so many ways!

When he squeezes his chubby little hand into mine so we can walk along together, or when his little voice calls me Nana Wendy or he calls Ian 'Guitar Grandad', or when he says 'I love you', I just melt. He knows exactly who we all are. He enjoys being with us and his laughter and smiles are infectious. Ted told me stories, played lots of fighting games with his Daddy and his Uncle Freddy, enjoyed dressing up and having his face painted as a skeleton and generally made himself completely at home with us. He is comfortable here and he understands that we are family and we love him. This is how I dreamed grantparenthood would be and for Ted, he now knows and understands his place in our family, and realises just how adored he is.

I am honoured to be his Nana Wendy.

Halloween and Autumnal Crafts from Baker Ross

We really enjoy receiving arts and craft goodies from Baker Ross and our latest delivery of Halloween and Autumnal craft kits has provided Freddy and the friends, with lots of creative fun!

We received  the following selection to try out:

Top Hat Craft Kit  Pack of 3 £2.70

Day of the Dead Foam Stickers Pack of 105 £2.99

Scratch Art Haunted Houses Pack of 8 £2.95

Woodland Animals Cross Stitch Pack of 5 £3.49

Hedgehog Cushion Sewing Set Pack of 2 £4.70

Year of the Monkey Stained Glass Monkey Decorations Pack of 6 £3.96

Wooden Trophy Magnets Pack of 8 £2.79

The Baker Ross craft kits contain almost everything required to create some lovely crafted pieces. With impressive end results, they allow children to feel confident in their creativity and help develop their skills. Freddy really loves to invite his friends over to share the fun and help him to test out the Craft-it! sets. Having a Craft Party is a great idea for entertaining children, and the Baker Ross sets lend themselves perfectly to this.

The first activity they enjoyed was the Scratch Art Haunted Houses. The pack includes 8 black house shapes and the tools for scratching away the top surface. Underneath the black is a shiny holographic style, silver design, which contrasts really well giving a striking effect.

The top layer scratches away really nicely so you don't damage the under layer when creating your design. Once completed, the houses are made free-standing by slotting in semi-circular cardboard feet. This was a little bit fiddly as the slotted feet are quite easily ripped, but with an adult's help the display of Haunted Houses made a dramatic and spooky Halloween scene!

This year is the Chinese Year of the Monkey. The Stained Glass Monkey Decorations are a lovely way to celebrate that fact. The set comprises of 8 pre-cut monkey shapes in black card, with push out, pre-cut holes. There is also a bag of coloured cellophane squares in assorted colours and some ribbons for attaching to the hanging decoration.

You need to use glue to attach pieces of cellophane to the back of the monkey shape, which show through the holes in the design. The boys enjoyed doing this, but it was very messy with glue going everywhere! They made some very colourful (and very sticky) monkeys that look very pretty hung in front of a window with the light shining through.

Older children would be able to take more time and cut smaller pieces of cellophane to make a more multi-coloured and neater effect. But even when done by a 4 year old and a 6 year old, the end results are still pretty good!

The Day of the Dead range of products on the Baker Ross website is absolutely brilliant. I love the colours and the designs. The set of self adhesive Day of the Dead foam stickers are lovely. There are 35 assorted designs including skulls, guitars, hearts, flowers and maracas in each pack of 105 stickers. They lend themselves to a whole host of crafting activities from card making to decorating jewellery boxes or photo frames.

The boys used them to decorate some cool Halloween Top Hats.

The Top Hat making kit comprises of pre-cut, thick black cardboard pieces that are glued together to make the rim and the top of the hat. There was no way the boys could do this unaided so the adults stepped in!  Given time and a good glue and something to hold everything together while it dried, I think you could make a pretty good and sturdy top hat. However, trying to get it done quickly so the boys could get sticking with their Day of the Dead stickers, meant the end results were not as good as they could be. This is not an activity to be rushed.

The materials themselves are good quality and well cut. In hindsight, I think using glue dots would have been a better way of assembling the hat. The hats would be a good addition to a Halloween costume and can be personalised using any decorations you like.

Freddy and his friends decorated their hats with the Day of the Dead stickers and they looked pretty cool and ready for a Halloween party! The foam stickers have a peel off back making them easy to stick on. They are such good quality and give an impressive effect.

As ever with Baker Ross, I was impressed with the quality and the designs of the finished crafts. I love that everything comes pre-cut or pre-punched and ready to use with minimum preparation needed. Almost everything you need is included, we just used our own glue and scissors to complete the crafts. The activities are quite straightforward and can be completed by children with varying degrees of skill. Even the youngest children will be able to participate in many of the crafts with supervision, while older kids can unleash their creativity independently and put their own artistic spin on the finished results.

Baker Ross products, including the ones we tried out, can  be found on their website at www.bakerross.co.uk.

Hazelnut Coffee Yankee Candle #review

Summer appears to have bid us its final farewell and our first steps into the autumn have begun. To welcome in the season, I have a wonderful Hazelnut Coffee large jar candle from Yankee Candle, which burns with a glowing warmth, giving out a lingering fragrance of sweet scented coffee shops. Autumn is definitely the time for Hazelnut Lattes and this candle embodies that aroma perfectly.

The Hazelnut Coffee candle is a full-bodied blend of Java coffee beans suffused with macadamia nut, vanilla and cocoa bean. With up to 150 hours of burning time, this candle will fill your home with its rich, warm fragrance for days. It makes my living room feel so cosy and smell so good!

The scent does not smell overly strongly of coffee, it is more sweet, rich and nutty. Freddy says it smells like chocolate brownie and ice cream. I love the colour of the candle and the classic style of the Yankee Candle jar is timeless. The fragrance is good when the candle is both lit or unlit, so simply by leaving off the lid my room is delightfully fragranced.

The Hazelnut Coffee candle is only around for a limited time so grab one while you can. It is one of a number of candles making a special appearance in the range. The large jars have an RRP of £21.99.

Find this and the rest of the Yankee Candle range at www.yankeecandle.co.uk.

Win a Joynormous Surprise with Cadbury #surprisejoy

Cadbury are giving away 20,000 Joynormous surprises to UK and ROI customers who buy a promotional Cadbury bar. Inside the wrapper is a unique code that you need to enter at Cadbury.co.uk (or Cadbury.ie for Ireland), which will give you a virtual scratch card online. Reveal five symbols for a Joynormous surprise created just for you worth up to £10,000 or four symbols for an amazing surprise worth £500. If you reveal up to three symbols, you are entered into a prize draw to win one final bonus surprise worth up to £5000.

You can enter two codes a day, with winners of the main prizes notified instantly on screen and the prize draw winner within ten days of the closing date. Promotion ends on November 30th 2015. There is a further Wrap-Up Draw that is open between December 1st 2015 and April 30th 2016. Codes entered within this period will be in the prize draw for a further £5000 surprise.

Each surprise will be specially tailored to individual winners based on their likes, dislikes, dreams and joys. So maybe we should all start planning what our ideal prize would be!

Even if you aren't one of the 20,000 lucky winners, you will still get to enjoy a yummy bar of Cadbury chocolate - so in that respect everyone's a winner!

Find out more at Cadbury.co.uk.