Today is the infamous #forcefriday and we were given the opportunity to take part by LEGO, who have sent us 2 of the brand new Star Wars buildable figures sets to have a play with - 75112 General Grievous and 75111 Darth Vader.

 

Darth Vader has 160 pieces and is recommended for age 9+. Inside the box are the instruction leaflet, 3 bags of bricks and a fabric cloak.

We are lucky in that we have a big garden. Most of the wildlife are very welcome - we have a hedgehog and an owl (who poos consistantly over my van wherever I park it), we've lots of birds and butterflies and occasionally we have a squirrel or two. Unfortunately we also have a huge amount of slugs.

I love growing edible plants and I think it teaches valuable lessons to children. Growing your own food teaches about the life cycle, and the amount of effort required to make food. It encourages your children to try new tastes, and have pride in their own achievements.

With only potatoes and onions surviving outside, plus wild berries and herbs, we are bored of disappointment and do the most we can to help our plants survive, including starting them off inside and growing them inside on a windowsill.

Smart Eggs are a great new puzzle which is as beautiful to look at as it is to attempt. Each egg is designed very differently and offers a unique 3D labyrinth puzzle experience. The much larger 2-layer Smart Eggs are considerably more challenging than the single layer, but all are a tactile puzzle that fidgets and whittlers will adore.


We recently reviewed the single-layer Smart Eggs and now we've been sent a 2-layer Smart Egg to try. There really is a world of difference between them, and the (recommended age 10+) 2-layer puzzles make the single layer eggs look like a training model.

That first day at school. I've been there a good few times now, and you would think it would all be old hat. After 17 years of taking my little one to school that first day in September, you'd think I'd be able to saunter in there and casually drop off my child with a flippant wave and a quick 'hiya' to the teacher.


Errrrrr.....no. Actually I'm way too soft for that. Nope, I'll be the one who won't look you in the eye and is desperately hopeful no-one tries to sympathise with me. I'll be the who sheds a little tear on the way home (I've always managed to hold it in until they're in the door at least) and frankly I won't even be able to adequately explain why.

Vamousse are relatively new to the UK market, launching last Summer 2014. They aren't only about treating headlice once you have an infestation, they're also trying to prevent your child having to suffer in the first place.


I know a thing or two about head lice. I've previously written a very comprehensive post which pretty much covers everything you need to know about headlice, including photos and a video showing a headlouse walking. Raising 7 children has made me somewhat of an unreluctant expert,and I'm always more than happy to try any new product as long as it doesn't contain chemicals we know to be harmful to humans.

If you follow The Brick Castle on Instagram or Twitter then you may have noticed we're having a bit of fun this Summer using the #MysteryMachineOnTour hashtag, taking photo's of our LEGO Scooby Doo Mystery Machine and Shaggy, Scooby, Fred and the Zombie. We did lose part of The Mystery Machine in the process, but it's been well worth it.


If you missed my review of The Mystery Machine, that went live just before we went on our holiday to the Isle Of Wight. It's the perfect handbag sized model to take on tour..

The Spellbound Forest

I love festivals, my family love festivals. We've been to a fair few between us and we thought we had a good idea of what to expect. We underestimated. It's absolutely brilliant back-to-basics simple fun. Just So Festival is like taking the best bits from the kids field at a grown up festival and multiplying it by 73.


Just So is about playing battleships and pillow fights, balancing stones and plates and people. It's about passing pirate training in the morning and learning the ukelele in the afternoon. Just So is making faces from clay and drying them on trees in the sun, finding fairy houses in the woods and making 3D monsters to scare your brother. Just So is about song and story and magic and music. Poetry and chants and tribes. Just So is about being allowed to be a child.

Autumn will see the return of the Disney On Ice UK tour. The Worlds Of Enchantment Tour will run from 25th September, arriving in Manchester on October 14th. This year for the first time characters from Frozen will be included in the show, alongside Cars, The Little Mermaid and Toy Story.


To celebrate Frozen joining the show we were invited to join some other blogger and journalists and their families and we were asked "do you wanna build a snowman?". It turns out snowman building on a rooftop in Manchester in August is even more fun than it sounds!

It's August, barbeque season is in full swing. Up and down the UK there are people who haven't created anything more complex than 'toast for 2' in the last year, attempting to sufficiently cook a full meal for 30 in the pouring rain, using nothing more than a small fire, a large fork and a comedy apron. But somehow, it's always good...


Drumond Park's Barbeque Party thankfully has weather-resistant plastic food - which isn't burnt to a crisp on the outside and raw in the middle. The barbeque itself is also somewhat cuter...

The latest series of Power Rangers is Power Rangers Dino Charge and the first episode will air on POP on Monday 31st August. In Dino Charge the Power Rangers have to protect the Earth from intergalactic bounty hunters searching for the ancient Energems that were left in the care of dinosaurs. When an asteriod wiped out the dinosaurs the Energems were lost, and it's up to the Power Rangers to find them first. We've been sent some of the new Dino Charge toys to review.

Bandai sure know how to make a parcel look exciting - and although I knew they were sending us Power Ranger Dino Charge Toys to test, I couldn't help but be excited myself when I saw the box....I wasn't quite as excited as my 2 young boys though when they saw it!