When I heard that DanDadDoes was looking for dads to review toys for his upcoming holiday guide, I jumped at the chance. The first of my two reviews just went live so please hop on over to Jamming with The Paper Jamz Guitar (by WowWee)- Real Dad Product Review to see just how NHL, JSL and I liked it.
Oh, and as a special treat, here’s a video of JSL and NHL rocking out using Paper Jamz (and another toy guitar):
I love playing board games with my kids. Unfortunately, too many games rely solely on luck to win. Did the spinner land on 3? Did the die roll go your way? Did the card you just drew match what you needed? Thankfully, there are games out there that depend on brainpower instead of luck. Mastermind Animal Towers is one of these games.
In the “grown-up” version of Mastermind, one person is the code maker and one person is the code breaker. The code maker chooses 4 pegs out of 6 possible colors and arranges them in a spot hidden from the code breaker. The code breaker then tries to guess the code in 10 attempts or less given the minimal information of how many pegs were the correct color and how many were in the correct spot. (Specific information like “Green is in the right spot” isn’t given.) Obviously, this takes a keen mind to figure out. Simply tossing pegs onto the board and hoping luck will be with you isn’t a winning strategy here.
The same is true for Mastermind Animal Towers. Of course, the game play is simplified for kids. In this version, both players are code makers and code breakers. You each get a series of tiles with animals on them and a “tower” to put the animals in. When the animals are in the tower, the opposing player can’t see them. Both players also get a second set of tiles representing their opponent’s animals.
Play involves trying to figure out just how your opponent has stacked his or her animals. You ask “above or below” questions such as “Is the Lion above the Giraffe?” As your opponent answers your questions, your estimation of their tower becomes more and more accurate until you guess it correctly. Of course, your opponent is also asking questions and trying to guess how your tower is arranged and will try to win by guessing correctly before you.
During a family get together, NHL played this game against me and some other family members. He immediately got the concept and went right to work trying to guess the arrangements. While he wasn’t always successful (my training in computer science led me to use an effective sorting technique for my guesses), he did have a lot of fun. Even JSL and his cousin S, both of whom were too young to really understand how to play the game, had fun pretending to play or helping out (e.g. helping to choose my initial tower arrangement). This is definitely a game that I would recommend to help build your child’s problem solving skills.
Giveaway:
Thanks to Pressman Toys, one lucky winner will receive Mastermind Animal Towers. To enter, simply leave a comment below answering this question: What board games do you like playing with your children or did you play growing up?
You can also earn bonus entries by doing any (or all) of the following items. Just be sure to leave a separate comment for each item that you complete. (Don’t just leave one comment listing everything you did.)
To enter, please follow the rules above within the comment section. Contest starts today, November 4th and ends at Noon EST on November 18th, 2010. You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but must leave a valid e-mail address for me to contact you for mailing address once the giveaway is over. I will select the winner using random.org and contact you via e-mail. You will have 48 hours to claim the prize. If there is no response, another winner will be selected. Open to U.S. only.
Disclosure: I was given this game by Pressman Toy for free to review and I get to keep the game at the end of my review period. No other compensation was given. The opinions expressed above are my own. Pressman Toy is also providing the giveaway item to my readers.
It’s no secret that I love to eat. However, while I like the occasional sweet treat, I like to keep my foods as healthy as possible. So when I heard that Barbara’s Bakery was looking for people to review some of their foods that contain no artificial flavors, artificial preservatives, trans fats , or high fructose corn syrup, I jumped at the chance. Soon enough, a big box arrived at my doorstep containing these goodies:
For the record, that’s Puffins multigrain cereal, high fiber cranberry cereal, baked cheese puffs, Snackimals and a stuffed puffin. Of course, the stuffed puffin was the item that my kids initially loved.
I had to convince them that the review wasn’t about stuffed animals, but about food. Luckily, they were easily convinced to try the Snackimals. After all, what kid wouldn’t want to try animal crackers with chocolate chips in them? The boys split the bag almost in half with B and I snatching a precious few cookies to try. They were very good. You could definitely taste the molasses (most likely used to replace high fructose corn syrup or another not-so-good-for-you ingredient), but it worked nicely in the cookie’s taste. There were definitely no complaints from the boys (other than when the bag ran out of cookies).
The boys weren’t as enthusiastic about the high fiber cranberry cereal. Then again, this is high fiber cereal. Not exactly the kind of thing kids rush to! I, however, really liked it. The cranberries gave a nice, sweet/tart flavor and the high fiber cereal, of course, was very nutritious. I could definitely eat a bowl of this for breakfast (and, in fact, have done so).
The Puffins cereal was another favorite of NHL’s. He kept asking for more and would eat half of each puff just to sneak a peek at it’s hollow center. I loved this too. It was quite sweet despite the low sugar count on the nutritional label (6 grams for a 3/4 cup serving). I think NHL would be quite satisfied with having this for a snack instead of some high sugar treat.
Finally, there were the baked cheese puffs. Cheese puffs aren’t something we typically have around the house so this was a rare treat for the boys. They both enjoyed these as did I. They were light and airy with a good crunch. I could definitely see buying these for the boys. (My only disappointment with these was that they weren’t kosher like the other products. That happens often when one deals with foods containing cheese, though.)
All in all, we loved the Barbara’s Bakery items and will definitely be on the lookout for more of their products the next time we’re walking through our supermarket’s organic aisle.
Disclaimer: This post was written for Family Review Network & Barbara’s Bakery who provided the complimentary product for review in exchange for my honest review.
This past weekend was definitely a weekend of firsts. We had a date night (more on that in a later post), trick or treating (again, another post) and even tasting of new foods (Nutella… yum… ‘nuff said). The biggest of these firsts, though, was our first pumpkin carving.
I posted previously of how we purchased a large (22 1/2 pound) pumpkin for under $5. Well, it sat patiently waiting on our porch until this past weekend. I had bought a pumpkin carving kit a few days prior and photocopied one of the design templates. Can you believe I’ve never carved a pumpkin before? I mean it. Never. As a kid, I don’t remember ever doing it at all. So I decided that we would start with a simple pattern. Just eyebrows, eyes and a mouth. I also looked up carving tips online but those pretty much repeated things I had figured out on my own (like cutting the top at an angle so it won’t fall in when you put it back on).
For the actual carving, we went to B’s parents’ house. Their table-over-a-floor is much more conducive to carving than our “table-over-a-rug-and-hard-wood-floors.” I envisioned pumpkin carving time as B, NHL, JSL and I gathered around the pumpkin taking each step together and eventually smiling together as our creation came to life. Yeah, please remind me that my life isn’t some Norman Rockwell painting. NHL decided that he wanted to play on the computer. JSL stayed for a few minutes before he got bored with how little he could do that didn’t involve touching “icky” pumpkin goop. Luckily, B stayed with me, if only to take the photos.
First, I laid out the victim… I mean pumpkin and my tools.
Next, I took a big knife and made my first incision. Can you tell I was enjoying myself?
Some slicing later and the pumpkin had a pop-top lid!
Then, I scooped out the guts. JSL tried to help with this, but in the end he just didn’t have the strength to scrape it out and didn’t want to get too dirty.
I had no such problems.
Then, I traced the pattern.
The little wheel tool that came in the kit I bought punched little holes into the pumpkin that I could follow. You could probably do the same with a toothpick. Of course, the kit came with a nifty little knife that I could use to carve out the features.
Soon, our Jack-o-Lantern came to life. Is it true what they say about Jack-o-Lanterns looking like the people who carve them?
Wait, or was that pets and owners? Oh well.
At various points, we would call NHL in. He would be impressed with the progress and then go back to playing online. When we called him in for the final result, he was definitely impressed. And then he went right back to the computer. Man, does he take after me… I mean, what’s wrong with the boy? Is he addicted to computers or something?
The seeds were separated from the general pumpkin goop. The former were saved for roasting while the latter was tossed.
Then came the test lighting. We had decided that we didn’t want to light a real candle in the pumpkin. Too much of a fire hazard for our tastes. So we had gone to the Christmas Tree Shop and bought a set of LED flameless-candles. These little guys (which somehow escaped being photographed!) look like normal, white, bowl-shaped candles. You flip a switch on the bottom and a “flame” (yes, it is flame shaped) light bulb inside flickers. We turned the lights down low, stuck the LED candle in and it worked! I tried taking some photos of it in action during Halloween night, but, obviously, the low light conditions made this difficult. This was my best of the batch.
Note that you can see the candle in the pumpkin’s mouth in this photo but mainly because the flash lit up the surrounding area so much. During real-life, night-time conditions, all you saw were glowing eyes, eyebrows and mouth on the pumpkin. Spooooky!
Now that I’ve had my first pumpkin-carving, I feel like doing more. It was quite enjoyable and I’d like to try to tackle some of the more intricate designs and set-ups that I’ve seen during my travels.
Hmmmm, I wonder if pumpkins will be on sale now?
