Reviews Revisited February 2013-2018 2/2 - Yoda, Mixels, Aardman, Books and Space

We've been sent hundreds of items for review over the past 6 years - here are a few which stood the test of time and are still being enjoyed, used or fondly remembered now. I'll be posting a couple of these revisits a month throughout 2019. We reviewed all of these items during late February from 2013-2018...

February 2016 saw my second most popular review ever - my Gary The Cat review. I knew nothing about cats at the time, other than that I didn't like them and couldn't understand why people would choose one as a pet. Left on our doorstep when he was ill, I'm a soft touch and couldn't leave him to suffer or be put down. He's taught me a thing or two over the past 3 years - mainly just how much people on the internet love cats! I've written about him a few times now - Gary the cat posts.

Back in early 2014 my youngest had a Star Wars themed birthday party thanks to Perfect Party UK (now bizarrely renamed B-loony Party UK). I did share photos of his party the following month, his face was brilliant. I loved this because it was so affordable and brilliant quality. He was so happy with all of it and we still have Yoda.

By 2015 both of my young boys were learning to read and write and we reviewed some early writing materials from Stabilo. I still love these specially shaped pens, they're ideal for little ones as the grip guides them perfectly. The highlighters were eventually put to proper use by my College student big kids...

In 2016 I reviewed the WD My Passport Ultra External Hard Drive. I take thousands of photos and loads of video, so my laptop is constantly out of space or needing to back up, and I have to store it all somewhere. I actually have a few WD external Hard Drives and (touch wood) they've not let me down yet. The My Passport Ultra allows me to back up everything on my laptop while I do other things at the same time, and I still use it regularly.

In 2017, while we were visiting to review their Christmas show, we spotted that Waterside Arts in Sale, Manchester, had an Aardman Animation Exhibit. You'd have to keep an eye out for it touring near you, but it was such an amazing bonus to our evening. This exhibition space often has something awesome, we also caught the Cosgrove Hall Film Exhibit last year.

I love Hexbug Nano. They're so incredibly inexpensive and do all kinds of things once you put your mind to it. They can be used to create mazes and teach children about physics, engineering. electronics and robotics. The Hexbug Nano Space range is my favourite, so I particularly enjoyed the Hexbug Space Discovery Station review we did last year, as did my children. It's very popular and played with a lot. They have all kinds of different sets and change them every couple of years.

We all love literacy here and reading is something we've really encouraged the children to love, so I snatched a chance to mention some of my own favourite children's books, magazines and other reading material in a post about Encouraging Reluctant Or Less Confident Readers. It's something we struggle with our youngest over, as he lacks the confidence to read illustration-free young fiction books, even though he is more than capable now...

Goodbye, we'll miss you....

Back in 2014 we became LEGO Family Bloggers and our first job with LEGO was with a new pocket-money range. It is still one of my favourites because some of the pieces included are awesome, but sadly now all 27 models are retired. If you want to create your own models and monsters, LEGO Mixels are brilliant and well worth seeking out.

We were originally sent most, if not all, of the items in this post free of charge for review. I have included them in this post purely on merit, because they deserve to be here. I have not been given any incentive to include anything shown on this page...