I have been so busy this week that I haven't been able to do any writing on the blog.  I have a lot on in work plus Rebecca and the usual housework to do which all has to come first.  

Our YouTube channel has been getting quite a few hits lately (thank you if you have subscribed and watched our videos).  I've just been online to update a few links on the about us page and we currently have 374 subscribers and just over 174,000 views which is crazy.  

I enjoy making the videos altho I am planning to change them slightly over next year as I want to show more about the places we are at and record more reactions to rides and show etc.  I also want to do some more top 5/10 videos from all the parks we have visited again for the memories etc so I have a bit planned it's just getting the time to sit down and do it!
​

Who doesn't like Christmas right - food, music, family time.  What could make it more magical - a trip to Disney of course.

Now we went in November 2017 for 5 days/4 nights and stayed the Hotel New York in the Empire Club level Room.  I had never been to Disney Park during the Christmas season before so wasn't sure what to expect.  

Above:  The Castle                                                                        Right:  The tree near the entrance.

On that note, I will leave this here.  We are heading back to Disneyland Paris for Christmas again this year.  We are taking my parents and staying the in the Disneyland Hotel this time so we are all very excited.

Rebecca loves nothing more than watching LOL surprise opening videos on Youtube.  Of course she then wants them.   

Now each set has around 36 to collect and if we assume you are really lucky and get all of them first try that's a total of £1008 on small plastic dolls.  We made it very clear to her she can't collect them but we would let her have some.

Now as I type this Series 4 has been released.  The little sisters and the pets are the same price and pretty much the sames as the series 3 balls.  However, the big sisters have changed and are now £15 each.  I have made it clear to Rebecca that she can have 3 from wave one and 3 from wave 2 and that is it as they are way to expensive.  (They only release 12 dolls in the first wave and the rest are released in Wave 2, along with some of wave 1 becoming unavailable).

Why do we buy them if they are so expensive I hear you ask?
The first time we bought one we thought these would end up being ignored like all the other blind bag toys Rebecca has had in the past however we were quite surprised when Rebecca started playing with them, a lot.  This lead us to buy a couple more which we gave to her for doing well in school.  

She plays with these dolls more than her Barbies and Playmobil that she has. 

I sat down one evening and thought about these dolls and the benefits that they do offer to children who actually play with rather than the collect them.  The biggest ones is the imaginary play - these dolls have done simple things like have party, been swimming plus more exotic things such as going on lots of holidays together and even meeting Disney characters in meet & greets (Rebecca has a few disney store play sets).  The ideas that Rebecca comes up with amazes us sometimes.  
Leading on from that is vocabulary - learning new words and their meanings from the dolls names.  Rebecca and I have had a few conversations about the doll names and what they represent.  This had then lead to research on the internet to find out more information.  

To be honest I never thought about them in that way before.  Whilst, yes they are really expensive Rebecca is getting a lot from them so we will buy them, just not in large quantities.