The 2-in-1 Discovery Table from V-Tech incorporates learning and art in an easily adaptable table.  The desk-themed learning side features gears and buttons with light, sound and color for your child to explore. When you flip the table over, there is plenty of room to draw, doodle and paint.

More about the 2-in-1 Discovery Table:

The 2-in-1 Discovery Table from VTech is an innovative electronic learning toy that easily adapts to your child’s various activities. When your baby is feeling artistic, they can sit at the drawing desk and doodle to their heart’s desire. When they want to play with more guidance, the table easily converts into an activity center featuring a piano key ruler, book, clock, shape buttons, gears, and a turning pencil cup that make sounds and light up with your baby’s touch. Your child will learn about colors, counting, numbers, shapes, and more!

It seems the favorite features of the table are the musical book and piano.  It’s amazing how a 1-year old can find so much amusement in flipping a book back and forth!  The bright colors and sounds definitely attract the attention of young children while teaching shapes, colors & counting.

As a parent, I like that the 2-in-1 Discovery Table minimizes excess toys.  The ability to combine 2 toys is a great feature.  It’s fantastic that once children have gotten bored with the activity center, the table just flips over allowing their artistic side to shine.

The variety of interactive buttons and switches provide learning that lasts for hours!  If you’re still looking for a Holiday gift, the 2-in-1 Discovery Table would make a great gift for a young child.

**The 2-in-1 Discovery Table is best for ages 12 to 36 Months.

You can purchase the 2-in-1 Discovery Table online from V-Tech or Amazon.

Disclosure:  I received a 2-in-1 Discovery Table to review & keep.  Any factual information was obtained from the company website.  All opinions are 100% my own and may differ from others.

 

 

Are you looking for that perfect Holiday gift?  Do you need gifts for friends, family or co-workers and have no idea what to get them?   Gourmet Gift Baskets has gift baskets for everyone on your List.

I fell in love with the chocolate chip pecan cookies from the Standard Christmas Gift Basket .  I don’t recall ever tasting a cookie that good, ever!  My kids couldn’t get enough of the sweets and (to my surprise) loved the raspberry honey mustard pretzel dip.  It was a gift my entire family enjoyed!

The gift basket also includes gourmet snacks such as chocolate covered cherries, dark chocolate bar, chocolate chip cookies, almond clustered popcorn, raspberry honey mustard pretzel dip along with pretzels and so much more!

You can’t go wrong with giving a Gift Basket from GourmetGiftBaskets.com this holiday season!

 

Do you have blog?   Consider participating in the Military Donation option.  To participate,  just write a review of the selection of Christmas Gifts, http://www.gourmetgiftbaskets.com/Christmas-Gift-Baskets.asp, on your Blog.  The topic of the Blog Post should discuss the Christmas gift selection and how they can be a great gift for someone.  Gourmet Gift Baskets will donate two care packages for every Blog Post written about their Christmas Gifts selection!

The Military Donation Blog Posts should be posted between November 21st and December 9th.  Please email me the URLs of your posts by December 14th to make sure all the Care Packages being donated can reach the soldiers in time for Christmas.  I will forward the list of posts to Gourmet Gift Baskets.

Disclosure:  I received a Christmas Gift Basket to review.  All opinions are 100% my own and may differ from others.

 

I’m back to tell you about another recent wine I reviewed – flip flop Moscato!

The Moscato is a 2010 vintage from California.   It is definitely a sweet wine.  I found the wine to pair well with dessert. Although officially, it is said to pair well with Pad Thai, Chinese chicken salad or Vegetable curry.  I would assume that the spiciness of the Thai food would go well with the sweetness of the Moscato.

One feature about flipflop wines that I think everyone should be aware of is that for every bottle of flipflop wine purchased, Soles4Souls will distribute a pair of shoes to someone in need.  Up to 100,000 will be pairs in the first year.  That will make a significant impact on people in need.

The suggested retail price is $7; however, I often see it on sale at my local stores for only $5.  This budget friendly wine will not only benefit your wallet but Soles4Souls as well!

I previously had the opportunity to try the Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir & Riesling varieties.  You can read my review of those wines on this post.

Flipflop wine has proven to be a delicious, budget friendly wine that I can enjoy on any occasion.

Disclosure:  I received flipflop wine to review and keep.  No other compensation was received.  All opinions are 100% my own and my differ from others.

Have your kids been asking for the new Nintendo 3DS?

The moment advertisements started for the 3DS, it was on the must-have list for my 7-year.    He even started saving his allowance to purchase one – granted it would have taken a year or more to purchase on what he makes a week 😉  Luckily, Nintendo gave us the opportunity to try it out!

The new Nintendo 3DS is awesome!  I can’t think of a better way to describe the hot new gaming system.

Everyone has enjoyed playing the Nintendo 3DS, even myself!  The kids have to set a timer to limit their playtime and to know when it’s time to trade.  My husband even gets in on the action and likes to take a turn each evening.

A few of the great features:

• Play games in 3D without glasses! The ability to play the game in 3D absolutely amazes me
• 3D Depth Slider lets your determine how much 3D you want to see
• Ability to turn off the 3D mode for young children (3D not advisable for children under 6 years)
• Play DS games in the 3DS (in 2D)
• 3D camera to include merging 2 photos into 1 & many more effects
• Internet access
• Pedometer to track steps
• Mii MakerTM application
• Watch Netflix
• See additional features here

We als0 reviewed the Pilotwings Resort & Nintendogs + Cats: Toy Poodle and New Friends games.  I would definitely recommend the Nintendogs+ Cats for a little girl.  It’s easy for her to play and works well with the 3D option turned off. Surprisingly, Monkey even enjoys playing the Nintendogs+ Cats game.  It provides enough of a challenge to keep him entertained while featuring cute and fuzzy cats and dogs.

The Pilotwings Resort game is also a hit.  The jet pack and hang gliding seem to be the favorites.  Pilotwings Resort is different from most of the games my children own which seems to make it more appealing.

Overall, we have been thrilled with the new Nintendo 3DS.  I would definitely recommend the game system.  Christmas is coming up, so I would expect to see sales to help you get the new 3DS for even less.  The current price is $169.99 but includes a significant amount of features for the price.  I foresee the 3DS lasting many years as my children grow.

Can’t see the video? Click here.

*This is a video from the perspective of a 7-year.

Disclosure:  I received a Nintendo 3DS and the games mentioned above to review and keep.  No other compensation was received.  All opinions are 100% my own and my differ from others.

 

Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time 3DS is a funny game that takes advantage of the unique 3D feature available with the new Nintendo 3DS.  My 7-year old son as well has my 4-year daughter have both enjoyed playing this game.

In Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time 3DS, the Rabbids jump over obstacles, kick enemies and break blocks as they move through 3D jungles, deserts and castles.  You can even clothe your Rabbid in a variety of silly outfits, including cowboy and Roman costumes (this entertained my 4-year old quite well).  Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time 3DS game includes more than 60 levels helping to make this a great game for entertainment and value.

More about the game:

The Rabbids are about to change the course of human history in their first platform-adventure game! Rabbids are bwaaack and this time they have an infallible plan to invade the human world: CONQUER HISTORY in the new Nintendo 3DS! When the Rabbids stumble into a history museum and discover time travel through their Time Washing Machine, you can bet that human history is about to become a major mess.

Want to view the Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time 3DS game from the perspective of a 7-year old?  Watch this video.

Thank you to Ubisoft for sponsoring this UbiChamps blog post. Please click here to learn more about Ubisoft. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Fooz Kids for providing me with an All-In-One pack to review. The opinions I’ve expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint.

As parents we are always striving to protect our children from the outside world.  We want to keep them safe by knowing who their friends are, where they are and what they are doing at all times.  The Internet is a valuable tool but it also creates a hole in our safely net.  Children are vulnerable online.  It let’s the outside world into our homes.

Aside from the stress of not knowing who your children are chatting with;  there are advertisements, games or videos that are inappropriate for children.  It’s so easy for a child to type in a web address and play a violent or inappropriate game or watch a video geared towards 10 years old children, when your child is only 5.  That is why I jumped at the chance to review Fooz Kids.

Fooz Kids allows parents to choose which games and content is acceptable for their child to play while also providing mom or dad a way monitor their activity.  After setting up my children from the Parental Dashboard, I choose which websites they are allowed to visit.  I then moved on to games and videos that I deemed appropriate.  Let me tell you, there are a lot more websites and games than I was aware of!

In addition to the game and website access, my kids loved creating and changing their own avatar.  Fooz Kids allows for a lot of customization for your child to great a little “mini me” or their idea character.  Creating their own room was also a blast for the kids.  It reminded Monkey of Webkinz which was a huge plus for him.  LuLu was impressed with the selection of crafts available for her favorite TV characters since she is my little artist.

As a mom, I loved the security Fooz Kids provides.  I am in complete control over what my children can access on the Internet and I can change it at any time.  It was also important for me to be able to add a few of their favorite website’s, so they can easily access sites that I had preappoved.

The University is another nice feature on Fooz Kids.  Kids can learn skills geared from Pre-K to 5th grade while parents are able to track their progress after they have completed a task.  It also provides parents with a report on trouble spots to help you learn academics that your child needs to improve upon.

If you would like to check out Fooz Kids for yourself, try it FREE ($11.99 value) with my unique referral link..  While this is the first parental control site I have tried with my children (other than standard web content blocking), I believe Fooz Kids to be a great way to allow children to explore the Internet and give parents control and peace of mind.

If you have tried Fooz Kids, I would love to learn your thoughts.

Please click here to learn more about Fooz Kids. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own. #cleverfooz

Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss is a new, all-natural dairy creamer. It’s made with only four simple ingredients –milk, cream, sugar and natural flavor.  There are 3 tempting natural flavors to choose from: Vanilla, Sweet Cream & Caramel.  My favorite, natural vanilla flavor, is extracted from real vanilla beans after they have been allowed to dry in the sun.   Get the taste of real vanilla without all the extra junk.  Additionally, Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss is Kosher and Gluten-free.

I have been moving my family toward eating more natural foods & using eco-friendly cleaning products.  A few years ago, we cut out soda and focused on water as the beverage of choice in our home.  We eat a lot of fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables and try to avoid the preservatives that come in a lot of canned foods.  More recently my children started drinking only organic milk, and I became more conscientious of preservatives and additives in our foods.  A majority of my children’s snacks are now purchased natural without all the unnecessary additives.

Here are a few tips to move towards more natural products:

1. Start small and make changes one at a time.  You will be more likely to stick with the new lifestyle.
2. Stay within budget by allowing a few extra dollars per week or month to purchase all-natural or eco-friendly products.
3. Use coupons to help lower your out-of-pocket expense.
4. Purchase items in bulk to save money and time when applicable.

If you want to give Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss a try, head over to the website and sign up to get a $1/1 Coffee-Mate Natural Bliss coupon!  Let me know what your favorite flavor is.

Now you can enhance the coffee flavor you love with Coffee-mate Natural Bliss, a new all-natural dairy creamer made with only milk, cream, a touch of sugar and pure natural flavor. Flavors like sweet cream, vanilla and caramel add just the right touch of sweetness and delicious flavor for your perfect cup every time.  Like us on Facebook for offers, news and more!

Disclosure: Compensation was provided by COFFEE-MATE via Glam Media.  The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative of the opinions or positions of COFFEE-MATE