This week's Toys R Us reviews

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Baby Born Interactive Star

This is the latest incarnation of the Baby Born series.It has moved on from the original version that my step daughter had about 10 years ago.



She comes with one outfit, a dummy, a potty, nappy, bottle, feeding bowl and spoon. There are also some bits of jewellery which are child sized. This means that you can either give her water through the bottle or special food with the spoon. Then you can put her on her potty to do a "poo" or she can do a wee when you press her belly button.Just make sure you have tightened the valve on her back before putting water in her or she leaks as granny discovered! Even though this is 3+ toy my 9 year has loved being her mummy. She is a very cute looking baby whether asleep or awake:





What is good compared to the early Baby Born is that you can put this baby in the bath as its waterproof and has no electronic parts. She is well sized so that a 3 year old wouldn't have much trouble holding her.For a first real doll she would be ideal as if my daughter is anything to go by your child will get years of fun with her.



Smasha Ballz Ninjaaah

This toy is very much designed to appeal to boys with its Ninja look and the fact that the packaging says:

• Smash 'em
• Chuck 'em
• Slam 'em

My son was very keen to chuck him around, I wasn't so keen as we have a small house! He makes proper Ninja sounds when he is thrown or whacked. Here is a little video showing some of them with me operating him:

Apparently the more you whack him the more noises he makes. This is obviously an incentive to do it more and more! If like me you discourage your children from chucking stuff around the house then this is not the toy for you. It does also respond to patting and dropping too which reduces the danger issue.

My son periodically goes back to this for short periods but it hasn't grabbed him that much after the initial excitement. Maybe other children would enjoy it more and it would do better in a home where it could be really thrown around!




Pokemon Electronic Pokedex

We have only ever watched Pokemon on YouTube so I wasn't sure what my son would make of his pokedex. In fact I was surprised at how much he enjoyed it!

The pokedex has information on 45 of the Pokemon characters plus a trivia quiz. My son seemed to manage to work out how to use it without any instruction which is more than I did!

Here is a video showing some of what the pokedex can do:

It is a very simple black display but it seemed enough for my son to see what he was doing. If you have a big Pokemon fan then I'm sure they will get even more out of it than my son did. I remember my now teenage step sons being heavily onto Pokemon at his age!

A pretty basic electronic toy but if my son is anything to go by a popular choice on Christmas Day!



Zoobles Family Day - Jump Rope

The Zoobles Family Day jump rope set will be available soon on the website. We have had a few Zoobles in the past which my daughter loves so it was nice to get a new addition. The nice thing about this one is that it actually does something rather than just allow the zooble to pop open on the magnetic pad.

Here is a little video of me making Zippy skip:

We discovered she skips much better when closed though she can pop open on occasion! All of my daughter's Zoobles can skip on the jump rope as they are close enough in size and weight. There are perching points for up to 3 Zoobles on the play set too:

And they can all share in the cardboard picnic. Not sure how long the picnic will survive before getting lost or ruined but the rest of the set is well made.

A nice addition to a Zooble fans collection or a great first piece to start a collection.

My blog year in review: Part 2

Time to finish off what I started in Part 1 with the second part of the year from July to December 2011:


July


This was the month I spent an awful lot of time getting my benefits re-instated after they were incorrectly removed! I made good use of my MP Tim Farron to get a resolution - eventually... In contrast to this my children had some ideas for a future new husband for me. I also got a chance to showcase my grandparents in The Gallery.


This was the month of the first Cumbria Twitnic and I hope to repeat it again. There was a brief foray into a Saturday Recipe Swap and I ought to try that again. I also joined in the Love a Read Book Group a few times over the year. 

View from Loughrigg

Tuesday Review: Zoobles

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I was one of the lucky bloggers picked to receive a Zoobles toy for review on my blog. My daughter's face was a picture when she saw what I had been sent as she has seen adverts on the TV for these but hadn't been given one. This particular Zooble is called Unga and she has a baby called Bunga. When they come out of the box they look like this:

Having seen the adverts my daughter knew that she had to place the closed Zooble on the magnetic platform on its Happitat and then she would pop open to reveal her baby:

Whilst my daughter was playing with Unga and Bunga there were several grown-ups watching as I had visitors round. One was a young lady in her 20s who was quite jealous that she was too old to have one herself! The older generation were impressed that the set is quite a compact one and self contained. 


My daughter has been quite happy to play with her Zoobles and they aren't taking up a lot of space in house! She got excited about discoveries such as the fact that the Zoobles have feet that pop out. Since she got Unga she had looked into getting some more to start a collection. There do seem to be quite a variety of sets available from around £5.99 to £24.99. 


They are designed for girls aged 4-9 and have only recently been launched in the UK. Most of the major retailers and toyshops already seem to have plenty of choice. With TV adverts on most commercial channels they are probably going to be the latest pester toy for parents of girls of this age. It's a very girlie toy and with its colours and design its bound to appeal to many.