Two Lego Reviews - Boys VLOG

Lion decided he wanted to do a Lego review on his new Lego set.  I filmed it on my iPad, and once it was done Dragon decided he wanted to do one as well.  I filmed one on the iPad but didn't upload it.  About a week later Dragon wanted to try again, so this time we tried setting things up a little better and used a proper video camera.  He was pleased with the results.

-Enjoy, Wolf McT.

Video 1: Lions Lego Review - Chima Raven Set.

Video 2: Lego Frog Rush Game Review.

A Very Happy Un-Birthday To ME!

Sadly I only get 6 un-birthdays this week but I do get 1 birthday to make up for it.  It's a big week for birthdays around here.  REALLY big.  My father-in-law's was on Sunday.  My sister-in-law's (Mum-me) is on this Sunday and mine is on Thursday.  You'd think that was enough excitement.  Then you go a little further out and you find out that my cousin was born on my 3rd birthday so his is also on Thursday and we were both born the day after our Grandad's birthday, so although he's not alive anymore we will still remember his birthday on Wednesday.  See what I mean it's a big week.  But we aren't the only ones celebrating this week.  Walt Disney Studios is having a little bit of a celebration too... they are releasing the 60th Anniversary Edition of Alice in Wonderland!!!

I LOVE this movie.  I loved it as a kid, I have loved it as an adult and I loved this new, remastered and fancified version too!  But before I start raving on about Alice let me tell you something...

When I was a kid we didn't have our own VCR.

I'll let that sink in for a minute...

What? What's a VCR?  Um, well, it was a big box thing that you plugged into your TV and you shoved these other boxes inside it that were kind of like a big cassette tape and... what's a cassette tape?  oh, uh, never mind.

Anyway, we had no way to see anything that wasn't on the 2 or 3 channels of free to air TV.  Now don't even get me started on the time when we only had a tiny black and white TV and the sound was shot so we had to watch ABC so we could tune in the radio to be able to hear it... talk about deprived childhoods!

So, on the holidays dad would borrow a VCR (remember, that's a movie player thingamabob) from whichever school he was teaching at at the time and we'd be able to go to the video shop and hire some movies.  We also got to watch movies at our Grandparents on the weekends.

Now, I'm not sure if it was at my grandparents or if we just always got the same movies from the video shop but we ALWAYS seemed to end up watching Disney's Alice in Wonderland.  LOVE IT.  But the thing about Videos was that once the tape got a little stretched everything on that section of tape got a little stretched too... so you can just imagine what the sound was like.  Hooooboy, I can not believe how beautiful this new 60th anniversary edition sounds!  I heard every word... when I could get the kids to stop talking over it "Shhhhh, mummy's reliving her deprived childhood".  Also, I'm not usually a fan of all the talkey talkey "bonus" stuff they put on DVDs but I was HOOKED.  I loved hearing about what Walt Disney went through to produce this movie, I especially loved hearing from the lady that was the voice of Alice... LOVED IT ALL!

They are releasing it as a DVD & Blu-Ray value pack!  We don't have a Blu-Ray player so I couldn't watch all the bonus stuff that was exclusive to the Blu-Ray version but if you do then you get to see even more exciting stuff.  If you want a taste of what it's like you can check out the official trailer...

But ya wanna know something?  It's not available yet.  Not until Wednesday June 8th.  So, how have I seen it?  Well, the lovely folk at Porter Novelli sent me a copy on behalf of Walt Disney Studios.  Sweet, aren't they?  But the even more exciting thing is that they want to send one of you a copy too!  How sweet is that?

So if you want to WIN your VERY OWN copy of Walt Disney Studios Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Special Edition then you'd better enter my little competition.

It's easy to do, all you need to do is tell me in the comments who your favourite character is from Alice in Wonderland.  If you haven't seen it just tell me your favourite Disney character from any movie.

Mine is Alice, no, no, uh, actually it's the March Hare... or, uh, maybe it's the crazy White Rabbit... but sometimes I can really associate with the Queen of Hearts...

Well, I don't really know who mine is, but I'd love to know who your favourite is so get commenting.

*Official stuff that I need you to read starts here*

• One entry per person.
• Australian residents only.
• This requires no skill, the winner will be randomly selected from all valid entries.
• Please make sure I can find your email address easily either in your comment, on your blog, in your profile... just put it somewhere, please!
• Competition ends Midday Sunday June 12th.

  

Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of the DVD courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment via Digital Parents. No financial payment was offered nor accepted for this post. All opinions expressed are purely my own.

Reviewing Handy Manny - A Very Handy Holiday... and a GIVE AWAY

Have you met my mate Manny?  He's a handy kinda bloke to have around and my kids think he's great!  To add to his awesomeness... He released a Christmas DVD this week!  "Handy Manny - A Very Handy Holiday" arrived in our mailbox not long ago for three small boys to review.  They took their job VERY seriously and watched it over and over and over and over and... well, you get the picture.  So, they watched it and offered me their deepest thoughts on it's Christmassy goodness...

We'll start with Dragon.  At four years old and male, he is pretty much the target audience of Handy Manny, I expected big things from his review.

Mummy McT: Dragon, did you like the Handy Manny DVD you just watched?

Dragon: yep.

MMcT: Do you want to tell me something you liked about it?

D: I liked watching it.

MMcT: Is there one part you liked more than the other bits? Maybe how they helped one person or how they fixed something?

D: I just liked watching it, Mum. Just all of it was good. *said with 4 year old attitude*

MMcT: So all-round good viewing?
D: Do you have some chocolate?

Okay, so Dragon's review is just a general thumbs up.  Perhaps Lion with his six year old ways would give me some more to work with here...

Mummy McT: Lion, did you like the Handy Manny DVD you just watched?

Lion: Yeah, I did.

MMcT: Can you tell me one thing that you really liked about it?

L: It snows for Handy Manny's Christmas.  It doesn't snow here, it melts before it hits the ground so it's just rain.

MMcT: What about something Manny and the tools did in the DVD?

L: Yeah they did lots of stuff.

Well, that was going nowhere.  One more kid to try...  He didn't watch it all, it's a bit beyond his 14 month old attention span of 5 seconds but he may have gleaned something from it since he was in the room the whole time...

Mummy McT: Monkey, did you like Handy Manny? *holds up the DVD*

Monkey: ooooOOOOoooooohhhh *tries to grab the DVD*

MMcT: No, sweetie, that's for mummy to hold, you can look at the picture...

M: ooOooooOOOooooh.... oooh. *tricks me with a pointing finger and at the last second, grabs for the DVD*

MMcT: Hey, that's just for looking at... I need a review... Someone tell me SOMETHING... ANYONE???

Ugh.  Only one thing to do...

Mummy McT: So, Mummy, did you like the Handy Manny - A Very Handy Holiday DVD?

Mummy McT: Yeah, I did.  It kept the kids interested for the entire length and they learnt a bit about other cultures celebrating Christmas and it really pushed the message of serving others at Christmas.  I like that, the serving others thing... that is common to all Christmas celebrations, no matter what cultural background you're from.

MMcT: What was your favourite part of the DVD?

MMcT: My favourite? That would have to be the genius that is Disney FastPlay... You chuck the DVD in and it starts the feature... no skipping through trailers and worse, the trailers that they wont let you skip through... FastPlay just plays straight away.  I can get on with stuff.

MMcT: So you didn't watch it 50zillion times with your kids?

MMcT: Are you kidding? I watched it once so I could make sure I knew what was going on and then I got on with stuff I had to do.  After all, what I love most about Manny is what he can do for me.  He can keep my kids entertained long enough for me to get some twitter... facebook... blogging... cleaning time.  Isn't that why you love Manny?

So there you have it.  Handy Manny - A Very Handy Holiday was released this week on Disney DVD and it's good.

__________

Now for the giveaway...

The fantastic folk at Porter Novelli and Disney DVD, as well as giving us a copy of Handy Manny's Christmas DVD to review, have given us a copy of quite possibly my favourite Christmas movie EVER to give away.  This is on my "must watch every year" list.

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Join Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy and all the hilarious Muppets as they relive Charles Dickens' classic tale, A Christmas Carol. 

If you would like to win this fantastic DVD for your family this Christmas then all you need to do is leave me a comment on this post.  If you are on twitter you can get a bonus entry if you tweet about it with a link to this post and leave another comment here with a link to your tweet.

Entries close 7pm (AEST) Friday 12 November.  Entry is open to Australian residents only. Then again, I guess also anyone who wants to gift it to an Australian resident could enter, because lets face it that would be a nice easy Christmas present taken care of.  But the point is, I can only post it within Australia.