Smiling Mom

Some­ti­mes being a teacher is just too much fun! (No the heart and bear are not attached.   And yes, I did for­get to put makeup on today…oy.

I was recently sent a pretty cool item to review, 57 Piece Parents Bristle Blocks Spin­ners.  Ini­tially I was hesi­tant to open this pac­kage, as I’m kinda a scrooge about having toys in my house with mul­ti­ple pie­ces.  It dri­ves me crazy when pie­ces go mis­sing or are put away hapha­zardly, which in my house hap­pens ALL.THE.TIME!!  In the end, I deci­ded to bite the bullet (and let go of some con­trol) and open the package.

My kids were thri­lled.  We spent some time on the ground attemp­ting to rec­reate some of the cool cars, swings, and pla­nes that were mode­led in the pamph­let that came with these blocks.

First we put together the swing set.

The pie­ces were sur­pri­singly easy for a 4 year old to put together on his own.

And fun to play with.

With much help from me, we were able to clo­sely repli­cate the toy air­plane that was dis­pla­yed in the manual.  Unfor­tu­na­tely this air­plane was a dis­play only… once we pic­ked it up off the ground, it fell apart.

The Pros:  The bristle blocks come pac­ka­ged very nicely and are pretty colors.  There are a lot of moving parts which pro­ved to be inte­res­ting to my kids.  They also have cute cha­rac­ters.  And the pie­ces are easy for young chil­dren to con­nect.  My kids are drawn to this toy.

The Cons:  I was sorely disap­poin­ted that the buc­ket the items came in was too small to re-fit all the pie­ces.  Shame on you Parents!  I now have to go out and buy an addi­tio­nal bin to store this toy set.  This is one of those moments where the pac­ka­ging decei­ves you.  The items come in a large plas­tic bin, so you natu­rally think, “Great!  I have a sto­rage case!”  Wrong.  This buc­ket is mis­sing the top lid and does not fit the 57 pie­ces.  Boo!

In addi­tion, I was bum­med that the pie­ces fall apart rather easily.  The little yellow guy on the above swing that my son made con­ti­nued to fall out of the swing attach­ment.  And when the item that has been crea­ted is a bit heavy, it falls apart as it’s pic­ked up.

My sum­mary:  Although I like this toy, I pro­bably wouldn’t spend the $36.99 kno­wing that I will have to spend an addi­tio­nal $5-$7 to buy a bin to house it.  But if it was given to my kids as a gift, I’d think it was pretty cool!

First we wrote the num­bers 1–38 on pie­ces of paper.  Then we cut them up and put them in BC’s fire hat.

Then my son mixed the num­bers around and pulled out one.

And the num­ber he pulled was…

#22 Con­gra­tu­la­tions Jean @ workingmomma247! who said:

I would love to win this for my older boys. Yes even Hanna Montana…It would make for a great joke gift for them. I’m cruel like that and we always tell them we’d be glad to buy them a girl toy of some kind. For some rea­son they aren’t falling for it.

Sounds like a mom with a great sense of humor!!  I’ll be con­tac­ting you momen­ta­rily.  Thanks for pla­ying everyone!!

Today is my dad’s birth­day.  He and my mom mean so much to our family.  We talk with them almost every sin­gle day.  To cele­brate his life, we made a pod­cast for him.

Dad, happy birthday!!

happy-birthday-grandpa1

For the rest of you, my Didj con­test ends tonight.  I’ll choose the win­ner and post it tomorrow!