Toys — MomStart

Marvel’s Avengers Masks, Avengers Wallpaper & Avengers Toys at Walmart

March 20, 2012 By Momstart 20 Comments

I warned you earlier this year that I was going to be talking up a storm about The Avengers didn’t I? Just in case you missed it I’m warning you again with my complete excitement. Marvel’s Avengers is my summer movie must see and I hope you make it yours too. Iron Man, Captain American, Thor, which one is your favorite? And what do you think about Loki? He’s an amazingly terrifying bad guy with a sick sense of humor. Oh and Nick Fury he’s one tough good guy.

The Avengers comes out May 4th just two days before my birthday and I’m making it a date night. Now I’m pretty sure it’s not appropriate for my kids but anything that’s loud isn’t appropriate for my kids. However you might have kids that are dying to see it because they love action heroes. Who doesn’t love action heroes? Even my kids love action heroes they just want the action heroes to be quiet. LOL. My son had his birthday yesterday and my daughter bought him a super hero mask to wear.

And where’s a great place to find all things action heroes? One great place to find Marvel’s Avengers action heroes, super hero masks is Walmart. And if that wasn’t enough for you. Walmart is including some freebies. You can download an Avengers wallpaper for your computer.

And you can download some free crafts. You can make Avengers Masks with your kids. They can color their favorite super hero and then wear it around the house fighting bad guys just like my little guy loves to do.

Plus I have all these Avengers Character Banners/posters you can feel free to download too.

Remember to prepare for the movie by shopping at Walmart with their everyday low prices.

I was compensated for this post. “This promotion is solely sponsored by Lunchbox and has not been endorsed or approved by its subsidiaries or affiliates.

Filed Under: Movie review Tagged With: Avengers character posters, Avengers toy, Avengers wallpaper, movie announcement, The Avengers, Toys

Holiday Round Up WowWee Toys The Whole Line Up

December 13, 2011 By Momstart 4 Comments

When I was at the Time To Play Holiday Showcase one of the brands there was WowWee. And WowWee they are amazing. They sent us a box of toys to share with all our friends I’m amazed at their product line. They cover girls, boys from age 3 and up. We’ve played with their Paper Jamz before and loved them. Now the Paper Jamz has a Pro series and it’s sure to bring twice the fun if not 3 times the fun. So from chords to strings and even a drum set.

The one thing I didn’t like about Paper Jamz was that it only played chords along with all that rock music. Paper Jamz Pro has chord ability making it much more like a guitar than originally. Plus, this may sounds like something odd to write about but I love the new packaging. The packaging on the Paper Jamz pro makes the toy guitars look like a more expensive toy in a way that makes me want to buy them.

My husband has a great time checking out the drum set. With the drums you can freestyle by creating your own killer drum solos or lay your own rocking beats over your favorite songs. You can also put it on Beat Machine and remix beats on the fly Of course you can also customize your drums by adding your favorite music with the free Paper Jamz Pro app And use the 3 built-in kits to change drum sounds or download new ones. Miles could play with this for hours, he loves music and making noise by banging on things. He has since birth.

Lite Sprites use color and light to express their moods and feelings. Each Sprite has her own personality and domain in the natural world. The Sprite Sisterhood includes: Prisma, Astra, Meadow and Brooke. Bleak, the naughty Sprite, rejects color and uses her powers to eliminate or disrupt color in Lite-Topia.

There are now five different play sets in the Lite Sprite line. The Swing Playset, The Windmill playset, the Waterfall playset, The Flower playset and now the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Lite is the place where the Sprites hang out. Scaled to interact with the rest of Lite-Topia, the Tree of Lite is alive with color, lights, sparkle and sounds. Visit Litesprites.com to explore the world of Lite-Topia!

The Sprites cast and catch color and light from their Sprites friends and play sets to express their emotions. Of course the girls love them. Zoe thinks they’re adorable. And the wand, oh my goodness, our neighborhood is full of little princesses and a wand is often in their hands. The Lite Wand is the “heart” of the play experience it’s the keeper of the colors. Which adds to the play time because the Wand is the medium for sharing color throughout Lite-Topia.

Light Strike has four possible teams, hold down the team color change button to change teams, very brightly colored, huge hit with the boys. I actually love how colorful it is and if you think it’s colorful like I do just wait until you turn it on. Then all the lights come up and the gun makes lots of fun sounds that the kids will love. Of course, it does make sneaking up on your opponent a little difficult.

This is a photo of the I.T.S. (Intelligent Targeting System). I had fun shooting it and watching myself get to the top for my team. You can play with others and team up for Capture the Flag matches with the I.T.S. The I.T.S. rotates for added challenge which is pretty cool. and it has multiple built-in games that reward winning team with strategic advantages.

Sentry mode: I.T.S. scans for enemies and blasts them
Medic mode: I.T.S. regenerates health
Bomb mode: I.T.S. sends out explosive burst of damage to enemies
Interactive lights and sounds that put you on the battlefield

Check me out playing the the laser gun.

SAVE MONEY:

This code blogpromo5, only valid at WowWeeToyShop.com

There is so much to say about all the toys. We had a great time exploring them and I know that your kids will love them too. Lights and sounds seem to make all kids happy, And WowWee is great at putting the two together in a none annoying way.

We donated all of the toys to a local charity at the end of this review. It was an amazing collection of toys and I thank WowWee for allowing us to have such a fun experience testing them out and giving them away.

Filed Under: review Tagged With: holiday toys, lazer tag, light strike, lite sprites, Paper Jamz, Paper Jamz drums, Paper Jamz pro, Toys, tree of life, WowWee

Do You Have Time To Play? Holiday Showcases and Prizes

November 30, 2011 By Momstart 2 Comments

It’s certainly the Holiday Season now and time to get something for everyone on your list, or to give a toy to someone in need. Back in September, I couldn’t get into the holiday spirit, but Time To Play was ready. I attended an outstanding event and I’ve mentioned it a few times here in there in different toy reviews. The Time To Play Holiday Toy Showcase is THE EVENT to attend if you review toys. They announced their top picks for toys this holiday season and all the brands showed us the whole kit and caboodle. I LOVED this event and hope more than anything that I get to go back next year. Here are my highlights and toys you need to consider:

At Time To Play you’ll find anything and everything toys. Buying advice, how long the toys last will the kids go back and play with them time and time again. You can watch the toys in action, and find out just about anything you wanted to know. It’s an amazing resource you should go and check out.

PLUS

Time To Play Live Twitter Party Every Week.

As for Time to Play parties, we have two weekly initiatives:

· #TimetoPlayLive: a weekly Twitter game show where participants answer toy trivia for the chance to win prizes; every Wednesday 1 PM EST

· Time to Play with Jim and Chris: a live web television show on www.TimetoPlay.TV where Jim and Chris (and the occasional special guest) highlight what’s new in the toy world. Viewers can enter to win prizes by participating and answering questions in the chatroom; every Friday 12 PM EST

Types of Questions:

Letter Play – Similar to hangman, players must fill in the missing letters of a toy, character or children’s entertainment word or name. Asterisks (*) denote a space between words, e.g., T_me*t_*P_ay (Time to Play).
Web Play – Using existing knowledge or the internet players must answer a toy industry or TimetoPlayMag.com related question.
Name Play – Several clues will be provided and players must guess the identity of the toy or children’s character.
Final Play – Common Thread – We will provide a series of short clues that all have something in common. Using existing knowledge or the internet, players must identify what ’common thread’ ties these clues together

So let’s review, at Time To Play you can win toys, find toys, learn about toys. It’s your one stop for everything toys. If you need help finding the perfect gift for the little one in your life, be it, boy girl, daughter, son, niece nephew, or grandchild, Time To Play has the information you need to make the best toy decision.

Time To Play covered my travel and expenses to spend the day in New York for the Time To Play Holiday Showcase.

Filed Under: Announcement Tagged With: blog trip, event, holiday showcase, time to play, timetoplaylive, Toys

Get Ready For Baby with VTech Toys

May 31, 2011 By Momstart 311 Comments

Planning a Get Ready For Baby Party began with cleaning my house. After Cleaning, we set up the house with a few party decorations, balloons and party favors. My kids had a great time making the party balloons themselves.

Mommies love to talk over food, I’m not sure I’ve ever been to a baby shower that didn’t have food. So we had to work on having enough snacks, chocolate covered strawberries, veggies and dip, and in our house you can’t have a party without cake. We were very busy the day before.

The Get Ready for Baby party was sponsored by VTech; they sent us a very large assortment of toys to check out with my family and friends. They also shared some really important learning tips from Dr. Lise Eliot, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at the Chicago Medical School of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science. Dr. Lise Eliot says it’s never too early to start infant development and learning. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you are getting ready for baby:

Parents Play a Key Role:

For babies, parental interaction is their whole world, so moms and dads play a pivotal role in influencing a child’s cognitive language, motor and social emotional development. Through repeated, positive experiences, parents and other caregivers have a lasting positive impact on brain development.

Nurture Language and Sound:

The nurture of language and sound is critical in the first few years. Engage your baby in face-to-face interaction so he can hear language spoken, read aloud, and object association with words. Music is also a great way to help babies because of the memorable context with sounds. Singing is a great way to stimulate your baby.

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind:

Movement is crucial to a baby’s ability to learn. From the third month of life onward, a abyab’s limb movement increases significantly as she begins to crawl, stand and walk, so make sure she has a safe place to move and age-appropriate toys to grasp, push and pull.

Eyes on the Prize:

As anyone who has ever looked into those big, wide eyes knows, babies are very visual, especially beginning around four months of age. As your child grows and discovers the world around him, he’ll start to recognize different colors, textures, designs and shapes. Help him along by surrounding him with bold, vivid examples that engage these new optical abilities. One great time to do this is during bath time. VTech introduced a full line of bath toys that engage baby with sound, colors and numbers and make bath time more fun.

Repetition Drives It All Home:

All of these tips work together to become part of a routine you can incorporate into your baby’s daily life. The mind develops through repeated experiences, and the earlier you begin, the better. Find ways to make these tips fun for you and your baby, it’s a lot easier with a happy motivated child.

So we used the materials sent to us from VTech and had a play date and as always the play date was chaotic to say the least so we don’t have a lot of photos, but my son Miles made sure that his friends played with his favorite VTech Toy out of the bunch, the Vtech learning laptop. The Baby’s Learning Laptop is for ages 6 – 36 months, and older kids will like it too. Miles just turned 3 and he loved playing with it. I think developmentally he’s beyond it but it’s a laptop he’s allowed to play on, so I see why he likes it so much. The colorful keyboard interacts with a bright light-up screen to teach shapes, common objects and feelings. The sound effects, melodies and a movable mouse round out the fun of this electronic learning toy. It retails for 15.99

The Peek At Me Bunny was my favorite out of the toys we received from VTech. He was soft and cute and cuddly and still great for baby’s development. The bunny is geared for 6 – 36 months and retails for 14.99. There are two playful sensors creating an interactive play experience. The sound sensor activates peaceful sounds, endearing phrases, and short tunes in the “night” mode. The light sensor engages infants in a game of peek-a-boo in the “playtime” mode.

The other toys we received:

The Submarine Learning Boat:

Bath time is much more fun with a toy!! The VTech Submarine Learning Boat’s dolphin captain teaches children about colors, numbers, animals, animal sounds and animal characteristics. The dolphin also likes to play hide and seek, asking toddlers to help find his animal friends. Each press of a button on this electronic learning toy is rewarded with a squirt of water from the submarine’s spout. Two different intensities of squirting add to the surprise and fun of this submarine bath toy. Equipped with a water sensor, this little submarine knows when it’s diving into the water for some wet and wild fun or if it’s reached dry land for a little quieter play time.

The 3-in-1 Learning Zebra Scooter:

All the kids love ride on toys and push toys. Our neighborhood is out almost every afternoon riding and pushing things across the cul-de-sac. The VTech 3-in-1 Learning Zebra Scooter converts easily from push walker to ride-on scooter. Kids can discover their wild side as they move with the zebra and explore new territory with the scooter’s walkie-talkie, compass and flashlight. The zebra’s mane features five light-up buttons that teach colors, animals and destinations. This learning toy also features a fun horn button with a volume control switch.

Enter to Win:

3-in-1 Learning Zebra Scooter ($44 Value)

To Enter:

Tell me which of the toys mentioned above wins your vote as the best toy for your child.

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This giveaway ends June 20th. All rules can be found under giveaway rules.

Disclosure – A product was provided to me free of charge by the manufacturer or representing PR agency for the writing of this review; however, opinions expressed are my own.

Filed Under: giveaway Tagged With: Get Ready For Baby, giveaway, Toys, vtech, VTech Toy Party

Get everything you need for Christmas in one stop at Borders New Toy Department 100.00 #giveaway

November 17, 2009 By Momstart 886 Comments

As part of a new blogger program, Borders gave me 100.00 to spend in their store. I was overwhelmed by the kindness the manager showed me. I showed up expecting them to already know I was coming and my lifeline known as my phone was accidentally left at home. So when I showed up and they looked at me like I was crazy, the manager let me use one of their computers to get on the internet. I was able to find the contact information of the PR rep that set everything up for me. We called her and everything was taken care of in seconds.

Huge thanks to the manager of the Redmond Borders; because if she had told me no, I would have either had to go all the way home or to the library to print off the information I needed. I didn’t tell my husband this story because he would have laughed at me for not taking all the information with me in a hard printed out copy.

You know, it’s hard enough to get out of the house with the kids, diapers, snacks, wallet, without forgetting my brain.

My husband’s gift was the easiest. I knew exactly what I wanted to get him and I”m not going to post it on the off chance that he takes a look at this post. He said he wants to be good since it’s his only present.

I spent the rest on the kids even though, I could have picked up a few things for other family members. I’m trying to go though my family members and make sure I have what each one needs.

Sister 1 Movies

Sister 2 Movie Theater Gift Card

Sister 3 Husband took care of it (she does read my blog so I can’t say)

Mom and Dad 1 – gave them a laptop (so they don’t get anything else, maybe a photo book)

Mom and Dad 2 – photo book,

The kids were hard because there was so much to choose from at Borders. The above photos are what you might expect before they added an entirely new toy department.

With about four aisles of toys to choose from Borders has become a toy boutique. The employees upstairs were not quite as helpful as the manager and the cashiers. I really could have used some help carrying my load downstairs to the only register. I feel like if I had been at a boutique that they would have carried all of my stuff to the register for me. It was hard to corral my kids, with my arms full, but other than that the experience was great. I mean the price difference makes carrying my own toys to the register worth the struggle.

In addition to so many name brand toys and books to choose from (all of them being learning and education aids for all ages) They have a table set up where kids can read and on the other side of the tower there was a play table for children. That is a lifeline to a mom that has to do her shopping with her children with her.

Many of the items I purchased were on sale. They had buy one get one half off of all Melissa and Doug items and their clearance was buy two get one free. So I was even more attracted to their clearance than all of the new toys they had. I came home with quite a hall of goodies. Knowing me, we’ll donate half of it. We’re going to have to empty out my closet before my surgery and figure out what is getting donated and what is going under the Christmas tree. Christmas might be upstairs in my bed this year.

Borders was kind enough to not only pay for my shopping experience but they want to provide one for two of my readers.

To Enter:

## Required### Visit Borders Kids Toys and Games and comment back with the toy or game you remember playing with as a child and why it’s still a good choice today

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Follow Borders on twitter and tweet out your toy choice @borders.

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Advertise this giveaway on any giveaway site and tell me where you advertised it. 10 Extra Entries
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