Category: Netflix

December 14, 2015

The Month of #NetfliXmas:Baking,Family Time and Netflix

It is hard to believe but it is almost time for one of our favourite family holidays – Christmas! The month of December for us is always busy but to make things fun we try to do family activities like baking, hiking and spending time watching movies on Netflix. What better way to get into the Christmas mood with #NetfliXmas theme movies?!

Besides how easy it is to use Netflix (one button on our Smart TV and wham – Netflix is there!), one of the best features of Netflix is the crazy amount of holiday favourites which includes films that I enjoyed from my own childhood!

So while our Elf, lovingly named Captain, terrorizes our home with his silly pranks (I have to admit I prayed that an Elf would never visit our home – I sure am happy to have this one in our home!) and we practice our baking skills with popular recipes such as Amaretti cookies and chocolate dipped snicker doodles, we are getting in the #NetfliXmas mood with some very popular titles that includes Christmas with the Kranks, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Santa Paws.

Looking for more #NetfliXmas spirit makers? Why not check out these titles: Caspers Haunted Christmas, My Little Pony: A Very Minted Christmas, The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Swan Princess Christmas. There are many titles to help you make the holiday movie night a hit!

To help you and your family get into the #NetfliXmas spirit, Netflix Canada is giving two of my readers a six month free subscription to Netflix! Pretty awesome, right?! My Canadian readers, eighteen years of age and older can enter via the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Premiering December 24th is DreamWorks Dawn of the Croods, get a small preview now!

Disclosure: I am a Netflix #StreamTeam member and receive perks with this affiliation. All opinions expressed are my own.

August 13, 2015

DinoTrux Are Here and Ready to Build! #StreamTeam

Dinosaurs are strong, powerful and oh so popular. Dinosaurs captivate our imagination as we try to imagine just what these powerful creatures would have been like. What better way to capture these fantastic creatures then in an animated series by DreamWorks called DinoTrux?!

DreamWorks Animation brings to life the popular and award-winning children’s book series by Chris Gall. DinoTrux features imaginative characters that are hybrid dinosaurs and construction vehicles (awesome, right?!). The series follows the unlikely friendship between Ty Trux, a massive Tyrannosaurs Rux, and his tiny friend Revvit, a razor smart Reptool. Together the DinoTrux build a bigger and better world. All of this is threatened by D-Structs, the biggest and baddest DinoTrux, who is determined to ruin all that they make.

Netflix and DreamWorks have done it again with a fantastic new children’s series that not only your children will love but you as well! The DinoTrux are adorable, funny and unstoppable. I especially fell in love with Tiny Tool, he is just too cute! I would not mind having a little friend like him at all.

With the summer coming to an end (hard to believe but the weather is already cooling!) this new series will arrive in perfect time to keep your children entertained on those long rainy summer days as the series is set to launch this week on August the 14th. I can definitely see this new series becoming a quick family favourite loved by all.

Check out this fantastic trailer of this new hit series set to launch August 14th on Netflix:

Disclosure: I am a #StreamTeam member and receive perks with this affiliation. I was granted early access to this series in order to facilitate this review. All opinions expressed are my own.

July 21, 2015

Imaginative Play Outdoors with Dragons and Netflix

Summer is meant to be spent outside and since we have such a short summer it is even more important to get outside while we can. Especially for our kids! Playing outside and using their imaginations is important for their growth.

Putting together an outdoor play box will help encourage your children to get outside, get active and have fun!

Here are some tips to get outside and get started on creative play:

Create costumes and masks to encourage creative play. We were given these fantastic Dragons masks from Netflix to celebrate the release of the new Dragons,Race to the Edge series (which by the way is a Netflix original series!). We had so much chasing each other around the park pretending to be dragons and of course both kids had to be Toothless! But in all honesty how can you not love Toothless, he is a sweetheart!

Chalk! Sidewalk chalk never goes out of style! You can spend hours creating pictures and designs up and down the street. You can create hopscotch patterns, draw animals, create epic battles and write words (the best was when my kids made me a Welcome Home sign for after surgery!).

Picnic time! When the weather permits, pack up your lunch and head outside. There is nothing more adventurous and fun then eating outside with your children. Pack a nice big blanket, all your lunch time favourites and find a shady spot outside to get comfortable. Even if you are only sitting in your front yard, it still beats sitting inside and following your regular routine.

Visit a splash pad. Refresh yourself after an active day outdoors at your local splash pad. Some of our best afternoons have been spent at a splash pad, myself included – forget the bathing suit! Sometimes running through in your yoga pants and shirt is just way too much fun and a fantastic way to cool down.

Make sure you check out Netflix this month to catch up with Toothless in Dragons, Race to the Edge, you will not be disappointed.

How do you like to get outside and encourage creative play with your kids? Do you pretend to be characters from your favourite shows?

Disclosure: I am a Netflix StreamTeam member and receive perks associated with this affiliation. All opinions expressed are my own.

June 18, 2015

Four Things I Miss From My Youth

Time flies and it is sometimes hard for me to believe that I was a child of the 80’s! Even harder to believe that I just admitted to that on my blog!!!

There are a few things that I wish I could pass on and explain to my kids how much I loved them (or dreaded) that they may never even know.

First, let’s talk about the electronics, where do you even start?! We had a giant television in our family room and not giant screen but giant big wooden box with a small screen in the left hand side and dials (no remotes here!). The kitchen television with its antenna that only picked up certain channels and even then it was full of static. Or the worst (which I am reminded of every time my child complains about the poor battery life of his iPod) – Walkmans. How hard was it to go for a walk with those, trying to listen to your jam and the cd kept skipping?.

Then it is the cartoons, oh the cartoons in the 80’s and 90’s were incredible! Let’s talk Ninja Turtles, Garfield and The Smurfs. I learned all my best terminology from these shows and not to mention my super ninja powers. How many of you spent hours watching cartoons especially on Saturday morning? These were some of my fondest moments and as the toy industry increased production of branded toys we could play out the cartoons together after the show was over. Which my Mom kept so it has been pretty awesome comparing our old toys to my kids newer versions.

And then there was the slang! Ace, airhead, cowabunga, jet and so many more. I still find myself dating my age when I use some of my favourite sayings.

Oh, the fashion. And the hair. Well, I don’t really miss the hair to be honest, all those pictures of mile high hair with hairspray, I can leave those in the past. But I miss the bright fun colours, ability to choose and be who you are. My favourite t-shirt was my off the shoulder, ‘Don’t worry, be happy!’ number that I would wear all the time.

Netflix did a recent study on Canadian Dads (and since Father’s Day is coming up, had to give them a mention!) which looked at how they felt watching cartoons with their kids and what were their favourite cartoons. There were some surprising answers in there:

65% of Dads watch cartoons when streaming with their children
76% of Dads feel like a kid again when watching cartoons
79% of Dads watching cartoons with their kids are re-watching cartoons of their youth
48% of Dads says their kids love watching movies with them as this is an important bonding time

And their favourite shows to watch? Scooby Doo, Spiderman, The Smurfs, Transformers and Alvin and the Chipmunks! All of which are now streaming on Netflix (woot woot!).

What do you miss from your childhood?

Disclosure: I am a Netflix #StreamTeam member and receive perks with this affiliation. All opinions expressed are my own.

May 21, 2015

Celebrating Our Unique Family with Netflix #StreamTeam

When my husband and I were married, we joined two very different cultures and backgrounds: Italian and Zimbabwean. Over the years this has meant adjusting to different attitudes towards aspects of the home, meals and even language! I still remember driving the car with my husband and him yelling at me to pay attention to the robots. So of course I looked around the intersection scanning for robots, but what he meant by robots was the traffic lights (oops!).

Eleven years and two children later, we are still growing stronger, becoming accustomed to each others cultures and preferences and blending this into our children. Our children attempt to talk like their Daddy (with the accent) and use his unique words. The only thing I can’t quite get used to is some of the food items he loves! I dislike meat on a bone (don’t ask it is truly a personal thing that even I don’t understand!) and he loves his meat (ox tail!).

Each family is unique in their own way and while our family brings to it a blended culture many other families bring their own twist on the traditional nuclear family – think same-sex parents and step families. There is no longer the ideal perfect family and this is what makes each family perfect in their own unique way.

Netflix is celebrating your unique family this month with some popular hit shows that includes: Party of Five, Raising Hope, Gilmore Girls and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

For the younger kids, Netflix celebrates their uniqueness with films that include: Alvin and the Chipmunks, Despicable Me, Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

What makes your family unique? How do you embrace this uniqueness?

Disclosure: I am a Netflix #StreamTeam member and receive perks associated with this affiliation. All opinions expressed are my own.