Disney Crossy Road toys

Disney Crossy Road Minnie Mouse, next to a daisy, to show the size

Just the other day Eddie was telling me with sadness that one of his class mates was making fun of his love of Mickey Mouse. According to that mouthpiece of primary school wisdom, only babies like Disney. I said "Wait a minute, a lot of grown-ups love Disney, especially Mickey and Minnie".
"Why don't we go to the toy shop and ask them?" Our local toy shop Denton's has a very friendly staff. There are three young people who know all about the latest toy crazes and who are happy to show us their latest cool toys like fidget spinners etc.
Eddie's been much taken by a brand new minifigures' range called Disney Crossy Road (available at Character Online) and we have taken an insert with a list of all the range to show at Denton's and ask if they have it.
And so we chatted to the guys and showed them our list. To Eddie they are all an epitome of coolness. He was much reassured when the guys at the shop said they knew of Crossy Road app, but haven't heard of the toy range. I think Eddie was on cloud nine that he has got toys that even the toy shop doesn't have yet.
He also appreciated the fact that they think Disney is awesome.

When I was asked to review this new range, I confess I haven't even heard of Disney Crossy Road. But my 6-year-old knew perfectly well what I was talking about.
If you're as ignorant of apps as me, Disney Crossy Road is a popular game app, with lots of Disney characters you can win or buy. I had a quick look at the reviews, and apparently the visuals are very impressive and the game is entertaining. I'll just have to take their word for it, as I have no plans to try it myself.

Image credits: Disney Crossy Road

And now Disney Crossy Road fans may rejoice as the new range of collectible toys has been launched.
Each character comes with its own rarity status, ranging from rare, epic, secret, legendary and limited edition.
There are 40+ characters to collect including Mickey and friends, Toy Story, Big Hero 6 and Lion King.

Disney Crossy Road range includes both minifigures and bigger plush toys.

You can anticipate that these new collectible minifigures will be the latest craze -collect, swap and play with your minifigures.
Eddie already cannot wait for the new range to hit the shops to spend his pocket money on adding to his collection.
Choose between plush figures, mini figure packs or mystery figures.
A mini figure pack has 4 toys (£10.99), three of which you can see through the plastic, while the 4th one remains hidden. Mystery figures (£3.49) are exactly that, basically pot luck, as you don't know and cannot guess what is hidden inside a small box.

Crossy Road items are available at Tesco, Asda, Toys R Us, Smyths and Argos.

Disclosure: We received a selection of toys for the purposes of reviewing. All opinions are our own.

LEGO Disney Moana's Ocean Voyage

You have probably seen the meme doing rounds on social media which says "It's been a long three years but I'm glad "Let it go" is finally out of my head. - You're Welcome". I'm sure many parents nodded their heads in agreement. You're Welcome is one of the most popular earworms these days (I'm humming it as I'm writing this post. Sigh.)
Eddie and I enjoyed the film, we've seen it both in the cinema and on DVD at home (don't ask how many times). We love the plot and the main characters. The animation is wonderful, and there are a couple of "really cool" songs. Apart from "You're welcome", there's a catchy tune "I'm so shiny".
To coincide with the release of the latest Disney blockbuster, LEGO has produced two Moana sets.

Just before Easter I saw that LEGO Disney Moana's Ocean Voyage was offered at 40% off. There is no way I would have paid the full price of £39.99, but the offer looked very tempting, and knowing how much my son loves LEGO, I couldn't resist buying it.

This play set includes a big outrigger sailing canoe with minifigures of Moana, Maui and chicken Heihei, an island of Te Fiti and a little raft with two aggressive coconut warriors.
Moana holds a little printed tile with a fish hook constellation map.
Chicken Heihei looks grumpy, according to my son. Don't know if it's a slightly "off" chicken that we got, or whether that was an original design, but it does look cross rather than just silly.

Maui is pretty huge for a minifigure. He doesn't have as many tattoos as the character in the animation, so that's a bit of a disappointment. He holds his magic hook, which is plain white and again not quite the same as you see in the film. Perhaps a couple of stickers would have helped.

The canoe is well-designed, with two parts. I don't know any sailing lingo, so won't offend you by naming its parts. There is a small trapdoor with space for food storage and hiding Heihei.

You will find the "kind of cute" and scary Kakamora, nasty coconuts whom Moana and Maui encounter during their voyage. Their raft is tiny, it might be the remains of their big vessels. The Kakamora's raft has a small catapult to launch the attack.

I think a Kakamora ship could make a splendid separate LEGO set.

Te Fiti is a goddess who has powers to create life. When Maui has stolen her heart, she turned into a demon Te Ka, a creature of fire and magma, a symbol of destruction, the opposite of what she used to be. To take revenge on Maui, she is seeking to punish the humans by turning their world into a dark and inhabitable place.

The island of Te Fiti is smaller in size than the canoe, but it is well designed. It is easy to build, with bits of greenery and tiles for the beach.
The main part of the island has two faces to spin around. One is the dark side - Te Ka, the other is Te Fiti with a green heart and pure soul. The heart of Te Fiti is a small printed round tile.

This colourful creative playset will amuse all the fans of Moana. Eddie now asks me to buy the second set in the range. Well, we'll have to see...

Do you want to build... a cupcake?

Do you want to bake some cupcakes?
It doesn't have to be the cupcakes...

Frozen cupcakes

Eddie and I had a quick baking-singalong session today. I ventured into the 99p shop the other day, looking for some plant supports, and a Frozen cupcake kit has found its way into my shopping basket. We're all big fans of Frozen, despite me being the only girl in the house.

So, what do we get in a box? A small pouch of icing sugar, a bag of cake mix and edible decorations as well as cupcake cases.
I added 1 medium egg, zest of 1 orange, 50ml of milk and 2tbsp of melted butter to the cake mix, and Eddie mixed all the ingredients enthusiastically.

12 minutes in the oven, and the mini cupcakes were ready. We didn't wait for too long before decorating them. They were still warm, when Eddie spooned the icing over them (mixed with the lemon juice) and added the edible image transfers with Frozen characters.

Ta-da, Mummy!

Eddie pronounced them to be delicious. Sasha gobbled a couple but peeled the decorations off (well, he's a teenager now and has a full right to "disapprove" of kiddie stuff). With a few additional ingredients, I think the cupcakes were actually pretty good, for a princely sum of 99p.

Eddie was very proud of his baked goodies, and I tend to agree with him, he did a great job.

The importance and art of storytelling

"Laughter is timeless. Imagination has no age. And dreams are forever" (Walt Disney)

When I was a child, my parents didn't read books to me at bedtime. That doesn't mean we had no books at home, we did, and later my Mum was teaching me how to read, but I don't have memories of us sitting on the bed with Mum reading to me. However, Mum has always been a great storyteller, and she used to weave the tapestries of the fairy tales, when I was little. She encouraged me to read books, and retold the whole novels to me. I later discovered these books myself: Jane Eyre, Consuelo, Wuthering Heights and many more.
The storytelling in Russia has always been an art and a custom. Old peasant women in particular, most of them illiterate, have been the treasure troves of the old Russian folk stories and fairy tales.

Now Mum tells her wonderful stories to her granddaughters, Sasha and Sonia, and they often ask her to tell them another story. My older niece is a good reader, and she loves books, but she still enjoys evenings with my Mum. And the little one would climb on her grandma's lap and ask for a particular story. Mum would say: But I have told you this story so many times. And Sonia still demands it.

I have recently come across a very interesting report on the importance of storytelling. I was invited to an event in London - a lunch with Disney's Nancy Kanter, which sadly I couldn't attend but I asked if I could read the report later.

I don't have space to reproduce the whole report, but instead I am offering you a few highlights.
I hope you will enjoy reading them:

"At face value there are many benefits to storytelling: it provides quality time with a child; it is a safe activitu with little chance of bumps and bruises; and by allowing both teller and listener to venture into a fantasy world, it provides a degree of escapism from everyday life."

"But as research shows, the true benefits of storytelling run much deeper, aiding learning and development by helping children to understand complex social and behavioural situations and to explore ideas such as morals, respect and relationships with others, which ultimately help shape their views of life and define their persona"

And of course, you could turn watching the movies together into a lesson of storytelling.

"It’s incredibly beneficial to be able to sit there and have a conversation with your child about something that they’ve just seen, answer questions, pairing up connections that there are in your own lives to what is on the television screen. Those are, that’s really the way that kids learn from television. It’s being able to see something on television and then have a discussion about it. And so we make shows that are watchable for moms and dads, where they think you know I don’t mind watching this one with my kid”, says Nancy Kanter.

“All of our stories do have themes and have messages, it’s one of the things when we write our scripts. In fact on the cover page we ask the writers to sort of outline what is the theme of this story so that they have it in their mind, we have in our mind. So every episode definitely has a theme and a message for kids".

"Disney has always been famed for the use of characters and storylines that are rooted in literature and timeless fairy tales, lessons and characters which are timeless for a reason. These evergreen tales are the social lessons relating to cooperation, team work, self-control, respect for self, and respect for others that stand the test of time and are as relevant today as they were 80 years ago."

P.S. Just in case you're wondering about the photo at the top, it has nothing to do with me or my family, this photo was taken at the beginning of XX C, and I thought this must have been one of the babushki, entertaining her grandchildren with the fabulous fairy tales.

P.P.S. This is not a sponsored post.