Reviews Archives - Page 20 of 24

Travel must-have for kids: The LeapPad3 learning tablet

My kids are pretty awesome travelers for the most part. They can handle short flights like pros and are the best road trip buddies on long car rides. But, as it turns out, they are pretty awful redeye international travelers. Go figure.

When I look back now, I can’t help but ask myself what I was thinking taking two small kids on packed overnight flights that included 4 airports, long layovers, no meals, and a trip through customs. Oh, and did I mention I am very pregnant and have a hard time getting comfortable in even the plushest digs?

Seriously. What on earth was I thinking?! Having taken dozens of flights with them before, some of them international and some of them redeye in which they handled themselves perfectly, I was clearly going into things far too cocky considering the itinerary and their ages.

Thank goodness our friends over at LeapFrog realized that even good travelers could use something to pass 14+ hours of travel and they sent us their newest tablets, the LeapPad3 to use on our way to #BeachesMoms Social Media on the Sand conference. I spent the night before our big trip loading up on learning software, TV shows, and music to put on the tablets in addition to our collection of software cartridges from our original LeapPad, and I’m so glad I did. This awesome show? This was my view during one of our shorter flights. Would you believe that she is rocking out to the old classic "Do you Know the Muffin Man"? Someone download this girl the Frozen sing-a-long, stat.

Hello, phablet! Nokia Lumia 1520 16GB from AT&T

Remember my beloved Nokia Lumia 920 Windows phone? It met its untimely demise after the screen was crushed at Disneyland last April, which is after it was revived after it took a swim in the kids’ bath, and after it had been dropped a bazillion times while juggling kids. I was so distraught about ruining my phone that I simply couldn’t retire it and kept on using it even with the cracked screen and the odd thumping noise it made when it would get shaken. But, then the Nokia Lumia 1520 with Windows Phone 8.1 arrived and I happily ditched the 920 in a pile of paperwork until it could be recycled properly.

Friends, meet my upgrade, the Nokia Lumia 1520. Part phone, part tablet, the Nokia Lumia 1520 is best described as a phablet. With a huge 6” HD 1080p display, this is quite possibly the biggest phone I have ever seen, which I honestly wasn’t sure was for me before now.

Power your devices anywhere with the Rayovac Mobile Battery Power Pack

My electronics are constantly dying just when I need them the most. Whether it’s my phone while I’m at blogging events or traveling, my tablet as I’m finishing a post for a deadline, or my camera at a big life event, I find myself often wishing I had a way to charge things on the go. Take a look at any airport lounge or all day event and you will see people crowded around any outlet they can find – some going as far as camping out in bathrooms or hallways just to get a little more battery life.

That used to be me.

But, now I know I’m covered no matter what with the new Rayovac Mobile Battery Power Pack that I can keep right in my purse and don’t require any outlets of electricity.

Create your perfect pillow with the Naturepedic Trio organic pillow system

Before I was a parent, I didn’t know how much difference a good night’s sleep really makes. Even though my kids {for the most part} sleep through the night and even allow me to sleep later than them some days, I have a horrible habit of staying up too late and then waking up too early. To add to the problem, I’ve also found that I seriously dislike all of the pillows I’ve bought in the past few years and seem to go through pillows like most people do groceries trying to find one that won’t keep me up at night tossing and turning.

Call me Goldilocks, but I have a stash of pillows that have been deemed too soft, too hard, too thick, or just plain too uncomfortable, and I’ve been searching for the elusive “just right” for years and years now.

Thank goodness for a chance encounter with Naturepedic at Gearapalooza Seattle because I finally got to talk to a pillow expert who was able to identify my problem and help me find something he thought might work for me. While I’ve been a fan of Naturepedic for years now and have their mattresses on my wishlist after reading more about what goes into traditional mattresses and the care that Naturepedic takes to ensure their products are the highest quality, I honestly had no idea that they carried pillows at all.

Laundry room re-do with Blinds.com

When we moved into our house almost 7 years ago, I was so excited to finally have a laundry room. It seemed like a pretty nice upgrade from our “laundry closet” of our rental house and an awesome improvement over our “laundry kitchen” at our past house.

But, then I didn’t quite know what to do with the room once I had it. It was an awkward, L-shaped space that came complete with an ugly Utilitub, a useless wire shelf, and no good place to put the washer and dryer. Thank goodness I found Blinds.com, because it gave me the inspiration I needed to finish the space and create a separate and functional room that is truly fun to enter.

Our Groovy Girls Sweet 16 Tea Party

We all want our daughters to grow up in a world where they are only limited by their own imaginations. Even in our fast-paced lifestyles, such a place still exists and it’s within the world of Groovy Girls. These colorful soft dolls are full of personality and spunk with a message to girls to be true to themselves.

This year the iconic Groovy Girls from Manhattan Toy Company are turning 16 and they are as big of a hit now as they were when they first arrived in toy stores all those years ago. In fact, Groovy Girls just won the prestigious Parents' Choice Award this year!

Looking for fun on your trampoline? Look no further! This is the ultimate list of insanely fun activities and ideas you can do on your trampoline for kids and adult. From workouts and collaborative games to learning activities and creative play – there’s something for everyone!

Build a fort as big as your imagination with Fort Magic

You may remember how much I adore Fort Magic fort building kits that make it easy to create amazing forts for the kiddos without an engineering degree, but now that the kids are older, I love it even more. Since our last post we’ve made huge forts in our living room, our family room, and even took the Fort Magic kit with us while on vacation so the kids could build an outdoor hideout for cousins only, complete with added satellite dish.

Haven’t heard of Fort Magic before? The Fort Magic fort building kit contains everything you need to create your own fort as big as your imagination. The 382 piece kit contains all different shapes and sizes of rods, connectors and accessories that allow you to build a fort – anywhere, anytime.

Acrylic photo gifts make your photos pop

When we moved into our house 7 years ago, I went out and spent a fortune professionally printing pictures and then getting them framed and matted. Then we planned out large photo designs and hung them gallery-style across our wall. And we haven’t done much else since.

But, recently my walls got quite the shakeup when I was given the opportunity to create an acrylic mounted print that doesn’t require a frame. A relatively new medium for displaying photographs, acrylic photo gifts are turning photo displays on their heads.

Unlike what might first come to mind, photos on acrylic aren’t just a standard printed photo laminated or incased in acrylic sheets. Rather, the photo is printed directly onto large acrylic sheets {think plexiglass} via a flatbed printer. I would describe the end result as like hi-def television, but in a photo.

Karmin G3 Salon Pro hair dryer makes styling quick and easy

While some people complain about how their hair takes forever to dry, I’ve always held the record for the fastest hair drying, ever. We’re talking less than a minute and my hair goes from dripping wet to perfectly dry and I’m ready to style. Of course, this is awesome on the days that I don’t have time to spend drying my hair but don’t want my hair dripping for the walk to school with my daughter, but I never really thought about what all this super high heat did to my hair until I tried to grow it out.

My hair is now longer than my shoulders for the first time since elementary school, and now I’m seeing all the effects of years of high heat – damaged, frizzy hair, split ends, and flyaways galore – that make me want to drip dry my hair every single day. Or at least I did until I got my hands on this:

The Karmin Professional G3 Salon Pro Hair Dryer makes me ridiculously happy. And, not because it cut down the time to dry my hair… but because it now takes longer.

Say what?