Want prime time summer fun? Try Prime Time toys!

Coming from Michigan, it's a whole new world here with Arizona summers. "Cool" is 90 degrees! So when I was asked to take a look at the new Prime Time Toys Water Toys, I had to say yes.

Prime Time offers four new styles for different age groups: The original Max Liquidator, the Critter Blaster, the Monster Blaster, and the Blaster Board, as well as a variety of other styles. After looking over the recommended age ranges, I decided to try out the Critter Blaster for some friends with older kids. J and G were more than happy to cool off in the name of a good product review, and their mom Jill reports that the Critter Blasters are a perfect way to burn off some energy and beat the heat!

I'm hoping Prime Time still has this one available (or even a newer version!) when Buttercup hits the recommended age of four years and up. And as a mom who wants to teach her child to respect the difference between real and pretend weapons, I'm extremely pleased that the company got creative with their product naming and avoided the word "gun" in their titles.

The Critter Blasters are nicely priced at $5.99 a piece, and come in fun designs like a dolphin or a hermit crab. I'm thinking I may order a few of these as birthday gifts for the summer parties Buttercup already has on her social calendar.

My only complaint is that in order to view the company's online catalog, you need to sign up for a password and wait 24 to 48 hours in order to get going. But a quick look on Amazon and you've got every imaginable way to help a good old-fashioned water fight get going right at your fingertips.

Wanna make a splash? Check out Prime Time Toys!

Go on a Poingo reading adventure!

Check out my vlog review of the Poingo Reading System!



The set I reviewed retails for $34.99, and additional books are available for $9.99 each. Poingo is available at Target, Walmart, Toys R’ Us, Costco, Sam’s Clubs, and BJ’s Wholesale Clubs, and at www.mypoingo.com. Your readers can also purchase the product at Amazon.

And just in time for Christmas, I've got a great contest for on lucky reader to win the same Poingo set I reviewed! To enter to the contest, please visit My Poingo and then leave me a berrie (read: comment) telling me which additional book you would most likely buy for your child to supplement the starter set if you were selected as the winner. You have until midnight, EST. on November 30 and the winner has four days from the announcement date to respond. U.S. entries only, please.

Additional extra entries are also available if you:
* subscribe to my RSS feed and comment letting me know you did so.
* Blog about contest and link to this post.
* Non-bloggers can email three of their friends about the contest at berriesweet.info (at) gmail (dot) com and CC me on the email. Girl Scout's honor that I will never bother these sweet people. I promise!
* Grab my Berrie Sweet Picks button and place it on your blog page. I'll check!
* Follow me on Twitter! (nickname: berriesweetest)
* Tweet the contest and leave a comment with your username telling me what you said to your "tweeple"! Please note all entries MUST include a valid email address to be considered for the drawing! That means that well, all entries must include an email address to be considered valid. Simple enough, right? ;)

Get green and cheeky with Cheekeyes wooden toys

There's just something extra special in the simplicity of a wooden toy. No bells and whistles and batteries and flashing lights--just add a little imagination and magic begins to happen.

And when those wooden toys are made from eco-friendly rubberwood, that's just taking the power of green to a whole new level.

Buttercup and I have had the great pleasure to take an up-close-and-personal look at the sweetly simple Cheekeys Farm Animal set from Oompa Toys. And I am in love. The sheep, cow, horse, goat, and pig are easily recognizable in shape, smooth to the touch, and just plain cute. One thing I love about the Cheekeyes is that they are handmade and only partially painted, making each figurine unique.

Dutch designer Rogier van Zijp created his line of dinosaurs and forest, African and Arctic animals with a unique red cheek and painted eye (which is, of course, reflected in the Cheekeyes name.)

And if my opinion isn't enough to get you to order a set for every pre-schooler on your Christmas list, then how about the knowledge that the 2009 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio honored the Cheekeyes line with its prestigious Platinum Award for one of the year's best preschool toys?

The animals sets retail for $29.99 and are geared for children ages three and up. For added fun and imaginative open play, we added the farm fence and tree sets, sold separetly at $16.99 each.

I'd like to thank Oompa toys for offering my readers a chance to win one Cheekeyes set of choice! Perfect timing for Christmas, right? To enter to win a pair, stop by the site and then leave me a berrie (read: comment) telling me which wooden toy set you'd choose if selected the winner. You have until midnight, EST. on November 29 and the winner has four days from the announcement date to respond or an alternate will be chosen. U.S. entries only, please.

Additional extra entries are also available if you:
* subscribe to my RSS feed and comment letting me know you did so.
* Blog about contest and link to this post.
* Non-bloggers can email three of their friends about the contest at berriesweet.info (at) gmail (dot) com and CC me on the email. Girl Scout's honor that I will never bother these sweet people. I promise!
* Grab my Berrie Sweet Picks button and place it on your blog page. I'll check!
* Follow me on Twitter! (nickname: berriesweetest)
* Tweet the contest and leave a comment with your username telling me what you said to your "tweeple"!

Please note all entries MUST include a valid email address to be considered for the drawing! That means that well, all entries must include an email address to be considered valid. Simple enough, right? ;)

Race Thomas to the finish line!

Even before I entered the Land of Mom, there were a few things I was plenty aware of.

Sleep is for the weak.

Spit-ups happen at the worst possible moment on your last clean shirt.

And Thomas is king when it comes to kids and trains.

So of course I jumped at the chance to review the new "Thomas' Great Race" boars game from Briarpatch. It's the first Thomas & Friends action game, and is sure to be a hit with the preschool set!

I must have never really grown up because the prospect of sitting down with my kid to play this game actually makes me smile. But since she's too young to understand the concept of a board game just yet, I'm going to be playing "Review Fairy" with my 4-yr old neighbor and wish her a happy birthday tomorrow afternoon!

I'm sure she is going to enjoy learning her numbers to earn enough coal to power the engines of Thomas, James, Percy, and Molly all the way to the finish line. Along the way, B's also going to get hands on practice with sorthing, counting, and color matching skills.

And what's B's mom going to like even more about Thomas' Great Race? I'm going to bet it's the fact that the oversized game pieces were manufactured with safety in mind.

Thomas' Great Race retails for $24.99 and is designed for kids three and up and includes a Great Race track, 24 question cards, 30 coal blocks and game rules. Just bring it along to the next play date for some educational fun or even better, add it to the Christmas shopping list and set it under the tree for your own little Thomas the Engine fan!


For more information about all Briarpatch board, puzzle, card and travel games, click on www.briarpatch.com.


So who wants to win a board game for themselves? To enter, visit the Briarpatch site and leave me a berrie (read: comment) telling me which game you'd like reviewed next. Contest ends at midnight, EST, on November 16 and is open to US and Canada only. The Winner will have four days from the announcement date to contact me or a new winner will be selected.

As always, extra entries will be available for those who:

* subscribe to my RSS feed and comment letting me know you did so.
* Blog about contest and link to this post.
* Non-bloggers can email three of their friends about the contest and CC me on the email. Girl Scout's honor that I will never bother these sweet people. I promise!
* Grab my Berrie Sweet Picks button and place it on your blog page. I'll check!
* Follow me on Twitter! (nickname: berriesweetest)
* Tweet the contest and leave a comment with your username telling me what you said to your "tweeple"!

Please note all entries MUST include a valid email address in the body of your comment to be considered for the drawing! That means that well, all entries must include an email address to be considered valid. Simple enough, right? ;)

And that's it! Good luck to everyone who enters.

Away in a manger...

It's November 1, the day after Halloween, and the official start of the crazed Holiday season. Gone is the boring old elevator music piped into the malls. It's been replaced with endless rendtitions of "Jingle Bells" and enough Old Navy jingles to drive a sane woman off the deep end.

But amidst all the hustle and bustle remains a solid core of treasured memories of childhood Christmases with tons of presents and lots of laughter.

My four sisters and I may have been spoiled rotten, but we were spoiled with a true sense of respect for what the holiday actually stands for.

My family has always begun our Christmas celebrations on the eve of the holiday with a family dinner and then a round of birthday cake for me, my sister, and my cousin (all with birthdays swallowed up in the days before and after Christmas). Then it was hours of movie-watching, hide-and-seek, naps, and getting ready for the passing out of gifts at when the clock struck twelve.


The piles of presents spilling out from under the tree may have called to us, but thanks to a strong family faith instilled into each one of us by my parents and our large enxtended family all scrunched into the same room, we knew that Christmas was really about baby Jesus. And because it was his birthday we we all celebrating, his delicate little body had to be placed in the manger to signify his birth.

Then a prayer was said. And the gift giving would begin.

As the oldest, I was lucky enough to be allowed to handle my Tia and Tio's (aunt and uncle's) delicate Nativity set which they had brought with them from Mexico. And I cherish my own set, which was also brought back for me on one of their recent vacations.

And while it is important to me to teach the same respect for the holiday to Buttercup, you can bet she isn't touching my breakable nativity set for years and years and, well, years!


This is why I was so thrilled to review the Deluxe Nativity Set from Leaps and Bounds. It's gorgeous and definite heirloom quality, but I won't be having heart palpitions each time Buttercup gets into a 20 foot range of it.

It's all made of wood, so there's no screaming "Don't Touch!" And I can breathe easy while I pass my own family traditions on and create a new set of memories for Buttercup. With this set, she can play and learn the Christmas story, and I couldn't be happier!

The Deluxe Nativity set comes in a keepsake wooden storage box either personalized for $44.95 or plain for $39.95. Seriously, people, just grab your credit cards and buy it! It is that beautiful!

You really have a week to think about it, since that is how long the contest is going for! One lucky readers gets to walk away with her own Deluxe Nativity set! To enter, just visit the Leaps and Bounds site and leave me a berrie (read: comment) telling me what other item you'd love to see reviewed on my blog. Comments will be accepted until midnight, EST, Nov. 8 and the winner will have four days from the announcement date to contact me or an alternate winner will be selected.

As always, extra entries will be available for those who:

* subscribe to my RSS feed and comment letting me know you did so.
* Blog about contest and link to this post.
* Non-bloggers can email three of their friends about the contest and CC me on the email. Girl Scout's honor that I will never bother these sweet people. I promise!
* Grab my Berrie Sweet Picks button and place it on your blog page. I'll check!
* Follow me on Twitter! (nickname: berriesweetest)
* Tweet the contest. To be eligible, you must use "Berrie Sweet Picks" in your tweet and leave me a comment.

Please note all entries MUST include a valid email address to be considered for the drawing! That means that well, all entries must include an email address to be considered valid. Simple enough, right? ;)

Good luck and Merry Christmas!

What a star!

Buttercup has major movie star potential. Call me an overly-proud Momma, but the girl has a huge Drama Queen Quotient and already sings and tries to snap her fingers while jammin' to her favorite tunes.
And that high note she hits?
Fuggedaboutit.
But no matter how much I might dream of my lil' princess taking the world by storm when she is older, I am perfectly content to cuddle up with her and just bubble with pride as we watch one of her fave DVD's, the too-cute-for-words MeMovies BEE AND ME DVD!
Launched by husband and wife team Stephen Ray and Kristina Zill in 2005, each MeMovie is customized with your baby or young child’s picture and their name. It sounds simplistic, but when you receive the 30-minute long DVD in the mail with your child’s smiling face and top billing as the “Featured Co-Star,” I'm willing to bet you are more excited than your kid is going to be. (I know I was.)
And it gets even better when you and your child hear their name pronounced correctly many times throughout the adorable cartoon. MeMovies customizes “BEE AND ME” for baby’s and toddlers through four years of age with a colorful background sure to capture their attention.
It's cute, it's fun, and I can't wait to post a review of COSTUME PARTY, which is designed for kids four and up.
Stay tuned!