“Hey, guys,” I said to my kids this morning, “who wants to do a science experiment?” As teachers keep telling us, it’s important to encourage learning at home.
I must have sounded pretty excited because they all agreed they’d love to.
“Great,” I beamed. “Well, take your shoes and socks off then meet me outside.”
Being approached by a company you already know, use and love to run a promotion is a good thing. A great thing. So when I was asked to run a little something on my blog for Stubbies I was pretty happy.
Thing I love about Stubbies is they’re well made to last the distance. This is especially important with school uniforms.
But going the distance with this family doesn’t mean riding out the time until your little pre-schooler goes up a size. I don’t know enough about fabrics and clothesmaking to know if it’s the cloth or the stitching or whatever which makes them last, but those black size 4 skorts we originally bought Miss9 have only done two of the four girls through Prep so far – Master8 wasn’t so keen to wear them, even when I tried to pass them off as a kilt – but as we’ve come to expect from Stubbies, they’re all still in good shape.
So when Tracey and I sat down at the computer to select a few items from the Stubbies Schoolwear online store, we were a little excited. I’ve been embracing the online shopping phenomena for years (by which I mean I buy stuff on eBay) and the stores on some sites could qualify as IQ tests.
Registering on the Stubbies site took barely a minute and then we were into the products. Another quick minute and we’d flicked through the store and seen everything they had on offer – shorts, skorts, skirts, pants, shoes, hats, jackets, jumpers, shirts, polos and raincoats. Basic stuff, but that’s what you want for school clothes. Now for the fun part: picking some stuff to trial.
“I don’t care what else you buy,” I told Tracey, “but I want those raincoats.” There may have been a glint in my eye.
She vaguely agreed to order them but was more focused on clicking back to the shoe page and its selection of Grosby school shoes. Miss6’s school shoes had a blow out a few days earlier and needed replacing.
The site has a 30% discount off winter school wear at the moment. I’m a little cynical so I did some investigating and pulled up the Grosby website. Happy to say the same Pencil shoes selling for the recommended retail of $49.95 on the Grosby site were knocked down to $34.97 on the Stubbies online shop, so the discount is genuine. All that and free shipping.
I pointed out to Tracey if we bought three pairs of school shoes I’d have saved enough money to buy a carton of beer. She didn’t seem as thrilled as me.
The whole process was quick and easy: find a product, pick a colour and size and add it to the cart. By the time we’d finished our cuppa we’d completed our order. The check out was just as simple and straight forward. I hate sites which confound you with pointless steps. Online shopping is supposed to be easy: this was.
The box of clothing arrived two days later (how quick is that!). In a household where the girls outnumber the guys five to two this can only mean one thing – fashion show.
“I love them!” Miss6 cried out when we pulled her new skorts from the box. “Now I’ll just go look in the mirror to see if they look good enough for me to wear to school.” Fortunately she liked what the mirror showed her. This is a good thing because it’s a battle to get Miss6 to wear anything she doesn’t like. We recently presented her with a pair of warm tracksuit pants for school and she responded with, “Oh, I’m sorry. But they are not my style.”
Style? In grade one?
Another person who loves their new school clothes is Miss9, although I didn’t realize how much until Saturday morning when she arrived home from a sleepover at Grandma’s.
“Aren’t they your new skorts?” I asked her. They were. “Didn’t you wear them to school yesterday?” Grandma is slipping, I thought. No baths? No change of clothes? I worried she was losing it. And I mean really worried. After all, she does a lot of babysitting for us.
But I needn’t have worried.
“Yep,” said Miss9. “I asked Grandma to wash them last night so I could wear them again today.” How’s that for an endorsement!
Then, this morning, I ran my own little product test.
“This is for science!” I yelled at Miss9, Master8 and Miss6 as I turned the hose on them.
It wasn’t, of course. There was absolutely no reason for me to do this other than I just wanted to point a hose at my kids. And can I just say, drenching your kids is just about the most fun you can have outside a petri dish.
Pleased to say, even after I handed over the hose and generously let my kids wash the car, Miss9’s dress was dry enough under her raincoat she didn’t have to change.
That’s a win for the clever people at Stubbies, I’d say. And science in general, of course.
This giveaway has been drawn 🙂 Congrats to K Bourke.
Why are Stubbies so durable? – CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT
Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his ‘BIG FAMILY little income’ Facebook Page
’raising a family on little more than laughs’
Love your take on reviews Bruce!
You might not have noticed but I don’t have a clue what I’m doing 😉 Story of my life.
My twins wear them to school,
They feel great and look so cool.
UV for sun,
Means more outdoor fun.
Thanks Stubbies, your Number ONE.