When I was a little girl (not to be confused with “back in my day…” because I refuse to go there), I absolutely loved Polly Pocket. I have several Polly Pocket playsets, and I can still remember the hours I would spend fixated on the pocket-sized environments and teeny tiny Polly Pocket dolls that were about the size of my pinky fingernail. Because the Polly Pocket dolls and accessories that came with each playset were so small, they were difficult to play with. Polly and her friends couldn’t spend much time in a particular room before they were suddenly falling out of it, past the playset entirely, and landing somewhere on the floor. Obviously, they had a tendency to get lost quickly.

It turns out that as I grew up, so did Polly Pocket, and she has been revamped for a new generation of children who love playing pretend with their dolls. We recently received the Polly Pocket Hangout House Playset and Stick N Play Patio Room, and the changes made to the new Polly Pocket toys really make all the difference.

While the original Polly Pocket dolls were so tiny that a child’s fingers could barely keep hold of them, the new Polly Pocket dolls are about three inches tall and a lot easier to hold, play with, and keep track of. The dolls can still fit inside a small pocket, but the playsets have also been expanded to include a lot more room for imaginative play.

In addition to the size, the new Polly Pocket toys have suction cups! If you have ever played with–or watched a child play with–small playsets that have dolls or action figures, you know the frustration involved in putting something somewhere only to have it come falling out mere moments later. Nearly every piece in the Polly Pocket Hangout House Playset and Stick N Play Room has suction cups on the bottom–from the bathtub to the refrigerator, even the dolls and their accompanying pets have suction cups attached to the bottom of them. This not only makes it really easy to place accessories into the playset and keep them there, but it was really fun to see my stepdaughters hanging the Polly Pocket dolls from the ceiling and generally just getting a kick out of being able to attach the pieces to pretty much any surface on the playset.

What’s really cool about the Polly Pocket Hangout House Playset is that it is expandable. The Stick N Play Patio Room that we also received easily connects to the main house just like a puzzle piece. When this was realized, I was immediately asked how many other rooms could be attached to the house, what they were like, and if we could get them. I really like that there are other attachable playset rooms available because it prolongs the life of those toys for your child and their personal attention span. When you can make a toy exciting all over again, that can only be a good thing. Plus, each additional playset comes with a doll and pet, which is great for when both of my stepdaughters want to play with the playsets and they can each play with a doll of their own.

When the Polly Pocket Hangout House Playset and Stick N Play Room first arrived, I knew that Rylie, my youngest stepdaughter, was going to love it. She’s 6 years old and very into dolls and solo, imaginative play. As soon as she saw the playsets sitting on the kitchen table when she came into the house, she could not wait to get them open and ready to play with. To my surprise, however, her older sister Lydian was also quite taken with the playsets. She is 8 years old and hasn’t really been into dolls for a while now. Granted, the playsets only kept her occupied for about a half hour before she got up and moved onto something else, but I was glad that she was able to have some fun with them.

My assumption about Rylie, however, was spot-on. The first day that she played with these playsets, she hardly got up to do anything else. At the end of the day, she had managed set up both of the new playsets, along with another Polly Pocket toy she received for Christmas two years ago, throughout the dining room. Polly Pocket had an entire world to play in that day! Numerous times throughout the day she told me that she really liked these toys and couldn’t wait to get more rooms for the house. At about $9.99 each, I definitely see more rooms for the Hangout House in her future, especially considering that every time she comes here, she always eventually makes her way up into her bedroom to play with her Polly Pocket toys. She absolutely adores them, just as I did when I was a kid. Regardless of how the world of Polly Pocket changes over time, it seems as if every generation can appreciate and become mesmerized by everything that Polly Pocket has to offer.

I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Mattel Polly Pocket. I received product samples and a promotional item as a thank you for participating.