Santa - Father Christmas Arrives at Ruxley Manor

Santa's Big Day at Ruxley

08 NOV 2014  (11AM )

Join Ruxley Manor on Saturday 8th November at 11am as Ruxley welcomes Santa to Ruxley Manor!  In keeping with their 50th anniversary celebrations, this year Santa will travel via a classic open top Routemaster bus from Stephen James garage (adjacent to Ruxley) to the garden centre! This way Father Christmas will avoid any traffic queues and will be on schedule to arrive at Ruxley 11am Lapland Time. 

Santa will be joined by his party of elves on the top deck so everyone sees him!  To make him feel at home we've arranged some snow showers too! Don't miss it... the Rock Choir and our elf stiltwalkers will be entertaining everyone while they wait for Santa to arrive at his own 'Wonderland Bus Stop'... it's where the magic begins!

Emma in Bromley xx

Bargain Spotting! 3 in 1 Balance Bike, Wooden Food and Play Kitchen by MaMaMeMo

Brilliant 3 in 1 wooden balance bike by MaMaMeMo with a choice of three positions for your little one to choose from. Starts as a three-wheel balance trike, then re-assembles to become a two-wheel balance bike and finally the frame is turned as the child grows taller. Ages 2 up

Normally £110 on offer at £65.99 until 3rd November 2014

I'm a fan of MaMaMeMo - we have quite a lot of their wooden play food -

Also on offer - with lots to choose from such as this lovely Strawberry Breakfast Set - Includes: cereal box and cereals, two bowls, two spoons, two cups a four piece rip-tape apple, a yoghurt and milk carton

Normally £25 on offer at £19.99 until Monday.

And this brilliant MaMaMeMo Wooden Play Kitchen! 

Let's play house! This colourful wooden kitchen comes fully-equipped with a hob, a sink, an oven and plenty of shelf storage. With plenty of accessories to play with too, your budding chef will have hours of fun.

Usually £120 on offer at £74.99 until 03/11/14 comes in green or pink

Emma in Bromley xx

Halloween Decorations from Poundland

Adding on to my earlier Halloween blog post - http://emmainbromley.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/family-halloween-party-halloween-2014.html I wanted to share some lovely goodies from Poundland! 

Check out the lovely little pumpkin and ghost felt buckets

Paper lanterns in black, green and orange - you get two per pack.

Brilliant masquerade style mask.

Cream based face paints - including fake blood!

And window clings - I have two sets - hand prints in blood and glittery trick or treat letters!

Emma in Bromley xx

Free Halloween Storytime Sounds App and Leona Ford Story

 I do love a good freebie and I'm delighted to share Not On The High Street's free Storytime Sounds app with you - this is brilliant, there are different themes and buttons which represent different sound effects for the story you are telling.

There's a new Halloween theme tab with Halloween sound effects which you can use to accompany a special Halloween story launched this week called "The Little Witch Who Couldn't Be Scary" by Leona Ford - which you can find here:

http://blog.notonthehighstreet.com/2014/10/21/a-halloween-story/

We've enjoyed using the app as we read the story and we've also had heaps of fun making up our own stories and pressing the sound effect buttons - Blake - my five year old son is particularly find of the Lost World theme full of jungle sounds and scary roars! Meg, my 3 year old daughter likes the Fairytales sound effects. My children both enjoy this app and find it easy to use themselves - they use it to create their own stories, sound effects whilst playing a game or looking for the right button when I'm either reading the "The Little Witch Who Couldn't Be Scary" http://blog.notonthehighstreet.com/2014/10/21/a-halloween-story/ or making up a story on the spot! 

Currently there are 6 different story theme sound boards, each with 9 sound effects.

Halloween

Fairytales

Lost World

Pirates

Space

Monsters 

Emma in Bromley xx

Halloween Circus at Ruxley Manor

John Lawson's Halloween Circus!

27 OCT 2014 - 02 NOV 2014  (10.30 - 4.30)

£5 - Tickets available for 1st and 2nd November - Ruxley Manor

Join Ruxley Manor this October half term for a truly ‘Spooktacular Circus’!  A fun family show with just a hint of spooky fun (don't worry, there won't be any REALLY scary routines or costumes, we hide behind cushions at scary movies too!).

Ringmaster Attila Endresz returns with an awesome  show that features The Tysko Family’s incredible foot juggling routine, a ‘Bubbilicious’ act by Diabolo, Ross on the Rola Rola (John Lawson's very own James Bond - watch as he performs stunts on varying amounts of boards and tubes that even Daniel Craig would struggle with!).

 

Miss Jencia on the aerial silks, and for the first time at Ruxley Nimmo the Clown (complete with ghostly fun!).

Tickets £5 per person, under 2’s FREE.

45 minute performances daily at 10.30am/12.30pm/2.30pm and 4.30pm

Please click here to book tickets.

 Emma in Bromley xx

Silent Sunday - Halloween Cakes

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Emma in Bromley xx

Doc Mcstuffins Walk n Talk Mobile Doll Review

One of the wonderful toys I we had to play with at the recent #Doctober Doc Mcstuffins twitter party was the wonderful Walk n Talk Doc Mcstuffins Mobile by Flair.

This lovely dolly can be played with independently - or you can press her magic tummy button to lock her arm into position holding onto her mobile clinic.

The mobile clinic pushes Doc along so she's walking and buttons on the clinic sing the theme tune, make siren sounds and say Doc phrases.

The wagon clinic has a little seat for the included Lambie to sit on and ride too.

There's also important medical equipment which Doc can use to treat poorly Lambie.

The wagon mobile clinic has a little open up compartment at the back too

Oh and Doc's hair is super soft and shiny and her shoes sparkle!

http://www.flairplc.co.uk/brands/Doc_McStuffins/

Emma in Bromley x

Dont Rock The Boat - Pirate Penguins!

Next week will be half term and with the way the weather has been, I'm planning for a few indoor play days!

I received a wonderful game to play and review - Don't Rock The Boat by University Games. My five year old loves it because it's penguins - his favourite animal, pirate-y and absolutely loads of fun!

It's a great "fine motor skill" game because it's all about balancing and small movements.

You take turns balancing the little penguin pirates on the pirate ship without making the boat tip!

The game comes in a few pieces but only takes a few minutes to set up and after only a few goes, my five year old can set up the game himself. 

There are 16 of these sweet little pirate penguins and you all start the game with the same number of penguins (any left overs can be set to one side) 

Starting with the youngest player - you each place one penguin on the boat.

There's lots of fun little places you can balance your penguin such as in the crows nest or dangle him by his bandana knot!

If the boat rocks and penguins fall down but remain on the boat, keep playing but if at least one penguin falls all the way off the pirate ship, then the game is over! 

With a pirate ship and little penguins, it's really easy to come up with your own little games too - my youngest is three and couldn't quite manage the official game so we played a few variations so everyone could join in! ... We also used the little Penguins for working out our maths number sentences and making up little stories!

All the contents fit back in the original box and - good thinking - on the game rules there is a photo to show you how all the bits fit back in the box - brilliant! - partly because the kids were so excited when we first got the game out that everything was out of the box before is had a chance to see how it all fit in! 

"Ahoy, mateys! Arrrrr ye ready to set sail on a rockin’ adventure with a crew of 16 pirate penguins? Take turns balancing the pirate penguins on the ship without making it tip! Be ever so careful, if you rock the boat and send the penguins overboard, ye might have to walk the plank! A fun balancing game for all buccaneers!"

recommended for 2-4 players age 5 up

Emma in Bromley xx

What Happened at the Doc Mcstuffins Doctober Twitter Party?!

I was a host for a twitter party recently! It was the second one I'd com been chosen to host and I was really excited because Doc McStuffins is one of my 3 year old daughter's favourites - it was the theme for her 3rd birthday back in June - her favourite character depends what day it is! ... not only is my daughter a big fan but my five year old son also enjoys watching! He really likes Chilly the snowman and Stuffy the Dragon! 

Twitter parties are chaos and when I tell people about them I get one of two reactions -

1. Ohhh cool I love a good twitter party, I'll be joining in and hoping to win something!

2. What's a twitter party?

So what is a twitter party? Well, during the set party time - I have an actual party going on along side lots of twitter interaction - the point is to introduce something new to followers, get the hashtag trending - this event had the super fab hash tag of #Doctober and the objective for followers is to win an awesome prize!

So, yup! At the same time as being glued to twitter, I'm also hosting an actual real life party in my living room! I'm so grateful for my grown up guests for helping control the party while I was busy tweeting! 

We had a party, with lots of games and lots of lovely food and CAKE but most importantly, we got to play and see the new Doc Mcstiffins toys from Flair!

I'm just going to let the photos speak for themselves because this was absolutely loads of fun and total chaos! 

Doc Mcstuffins Doctors Bag Set

Doc Mcstuffins Carry Along Clinic 

Doc Mcstuffins Role Play Set

Doc Mcstuffins Walk n Talk Mobile - I'll be reviewing this one in a separate blog post

What did the party achieve?
Lots of playing with new toys!
Lots of Cake!

Lots of mess!

Lots of fun!

On twitter there were 15 blogger hosts including me and during our two hour twitter party we managed get #Doctober trending and reach over a million people! That's amazing isn't it! 

Emma in Bromley xx