Spinmaster’s Magic Dance Hat!

Interested to hear what you think about this product.  You put the hat on and when you move, you hear the music. When you stop, the music stops (there is a little delay).  The glasses also come with the set…

I was wondering if my sons could wear this while they are also playing Rock Band…

Recall of LeapFrog’s New My Pal Scout

Just got word that My Pal Scout has been voluntarily recalled by LeapFrog due to a problem with the paw decals. For more information, go to www.leapfrog.com/recall. The new version will have embroidered paws.

Just in…The Comfort Crab

With all of this continued rain in the NYC…we’re all a bit crabby…which is why we laughed when the Comfort Crab arrived this morning. The removable gel pack makes it possible to make the center of the crab cold or hot–depending on your child’s needs. You can also add lavender  for a little aromatherapy. It’s so grim out, I’m almost tempted to test this guy out.

Henna Body Art for the 8 & up crowd

Move over face paint–that’s so old. Crayola is rolling out a new line of Henna Body Art for kids.  Thoughts?

Save the Penguins…

I just came across a game for preschoolers called the Penguin Rescuer Game. I haven’t played it but here’s the game play…your goal is to save the penguins. The catalog copy reads: “The family of penguins lives happily until the temperature increases from effect of global warming, resulting from irresponsible activities of people in the cities. Icebergs begin to melt, leaving penguins with no place to stay out of water.”

This is a cooperative game meant to introduce kids to the concept of global warming. Thoughts?

Checking our list…

Hard to believe that we are thinking about our holiday award list…but this is when we start looking at our tentative lists…looking at the feedback, checking our list..you get the idea.  When we first started we had twenty toys on our top list–now it’s close to 50 with all the ties. It has more to do with us not wanting to fight it out anymore. We have both relaxed a bit…but only a bit. Today, as I was going through all the press materials to make sure that we weren’t missing anything–my mother was reviewing children’s books. Hearing her running commentary is always really entertaining—it’s peppered with “this is charming” to “you have to be kidding, you have to read this!”

We have so many water toys that need testing…but it hasn’t been warm enough here to ask anyone to get wet!  This whole “let’s pretend we live in Seattle thing” is getting a little tired.

Alphabet toys for kids…Yacht

Maybe the new alphabet toy we just received was designed before the current economic downturn…but do you really think the first “y” word your kids needs to know is yacht?

Reading books together

Ok–so was a little cranky. It’s raining….again.  We’ve been listening to audio all morning…painful.  My mother just came in and handed me the new Dumb Bunnies book to read. I said “no”….so she started reading it to us.  Complete with all of the voices she always uses when she reads out loud.   It’s one of those moments when I realize how lucky I am that I have a mom who will still reads to me….

At last…Outdoor Toy Segment on Today Show

The third time seems to be the charm for this segment that bumped around a bit…here’s the link.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/31185741#31185741

Pick of the Day: Crayola’s Glow Dome

Our testers enjoyed trying this new activity toy out where you can decorate both the outer dome and the inner stand.  What I really liked about it–it’s really an open-ended drawing opportunity.  Yes, there are suggestions and print outs for tracing, but the sky’s the limit on what you can draw.  If you don’t like what you’ve designed it’s really easy to wipe off your creation and start over with the six glow markers. What is also really cool–the dome spins and lights up- making this a super night time decoration.  There are several settings for the type of light show you can display. The only downside–the motor is pretty loud as the dome moves.