Review: Amazing Animal Facts Postcards

Based on Maja Säfström's delightful book The Illustrated Compendium of Amazing Animal Facts, this collection of 50 collectible postcards is the perfect way for animal lovers and art lovers to share and collect Maja's charming illustrations.

Housed in a keepsake box and arranged, much like a recipe box or card catalog, in tabbed sections (air, forest, sea, etc) this posctard box lets the user share all the curious knowledge and amazing artwork that makes Maja's book so special. From the Otters (they hold hands when they sleep in the water so they don't float away from each other!) to the elephant (mother elephant pregnanices last two years!) each postcard presents a unique look at the animal kingdom that will delight and astound. 50 postcards; 25 designs repeating, printed on toothy uncoated stock, with the animal's biological classifcation on the back.

My Review:

These were so cute.  The facts were a bit simple, but great for a short and sweet postcard.  The pictures are wonderful.  You can definitely color them in, but they are great alone also.  I love that there are two of each because I might not want to send them if there was only one.  I can't wait for my kids to pick out which ones to send to family members.  Definitely love and definitely recommend!

I received these postcards for free in exchange for my honest opinion.  

Game Review: Punderdome: A Card Game for Pun Lovers

From the daughter-father duo that created Brooklyn's beloved live pun competition comes Punderdome, the "Punderful card game [that] will replace Cards Against Humanity at your next party" (Mashable.com).

One part game, one part conversation starter, you don't need to be a pun master to master Punderdome: the goal is to make bad jokes and have fun along the way.

A player (the prompter for that round) draws two prompt cards from the deck, and then reads the prompts to the rest of the group, who have 90 seconds to create a single, groan-worthy pun that combines the two prompts.     

When time is up, pun makers share their puns with the prompter, who awards the prompt cards to the player whose pun he or she likes best. The winner then draws the next pair of prompt cards and the process repeats. Players win by obtaining 10 pairs of cards.

Every Game Set Comes With:
·         200 double-sided cards (100 White and 100 Green)
·         2 Mystery Envelopes with fill-in prize slips
·         2 80-page pads for drafting puns
·         1 instruction card and 1 pun example card
·         A stu-PUN-dous time for 3 or more players

My Review:

This game sounded like lots of fun.  It definitely is if you are clever.  I am the person who thinks of great come backs days later.  I am not a clever person in that way.  The game was fun to watch, since I am much better at observing this game than playing.  I am planning to gift this game to some people in my family who are all pretty "pun"tastic.  It would be a great game to play at a party!!  It may be just what your holiday party needs!

I received this game for free in exchange for my honest opinion.  

Adventures in Odyssey Cut and Fold Activity!

Summer is officially here! Don't let your kids' boredom run rampant. Adventures in Odyssey is here to save the day. Below are some must-try ideas for summer fun! Want even more summer fun? For the month of June, you can join the Odyssey Adventure Club for only $5! More details can be found here.

Summer Activities

As a parent you are probably a big proponent of reading. Encourage your kids to dig into a book or two this summer with Adventures in Odyssey's On Your Marks Summer Reading Challenge. Bonus points if YOU create a reading challenge for yourself as you read along with your kids!

Looking for something hands-on? Create Matthew in 3-D! Invite a few of your kids' friends over for a play date, print off the activity sheet, and let them have at it for the afternoon (with the promise of cookies and lemonade once they've finished constructing Matthew).

Maybe your kids aren't into reading, but they love math. If that's the case, have them solve Eugene's Sudoku!

The laundry needs to be done; the dishes need to be put away. But your kids are begging you to take them out to the zoo. Let them take a whack at Matthew's Decoder in the morning, then make an agreement that if they figure out how to use the decoder, you'll take them on an afternoon adventure. That'll give you the morning to finish up your to-do list!

My oldest daughter is 10.  Like many other 10 year olds she is super into Minecraft and Legos.  This activity was very much like both.  She really enjoyed putting it together.  It was challenging, fun and educational all at the same time!  She is very excited to try the other activities!

I am receiving membership to the Odyssey Adventure Club for free in exchange for several honest opinions on certain aspects of the program.   

Doodle Dice Review

We LOVE this game!!!  Santa actually brought it this last Christmas and we never really played it until a couple weeks ago when my sister was here.  We played it maybe 8 times while she was here and have played it several times since. 

Now, obviously I do not have a very "followed" blog yet so people/companies are not knocking down my door to get me to review products.  Neither did JAX, the makers of Doodle Dice.  I contacted them.  I wrote a note, just a simple comment, last night telling them how much we loved their game. 

This is part of what I wrote:

if you have any coupons for other JAX games I would love to use them and/or if you would like to send me any other game to try out and review on my blog I would love to do that also.  Writing that part of the note was really intimidating to me since I am never really upfront about asking for things, but I figured 1) I would never get a response back, 2) it really doesn't matter since I will never meet them and 3) that I have heard people say to just ask and many will send you coupons.   

So when I got up this morning I assumed that a reply email from the company was just saying that they would get back to me within 24-48 hours, blah, blah, blah.  But!  It was an actual email, from an actual-real-life woman, who thanked me for taking time to thank them for their game.  Her email was really sweet and she said that a package of their other games was going to be sent out to me today!!  She never mentioned one thing about my blog, but just said thanks for sharing our love of the game with others.  How awesome is that?!?! 

I was going to write a review whether I heard from JAX or not because we really do love the game!  But now in addition to having a great game I know that they have awesome customer service as well!

So the game... (is great)

Ages 6 and up.  It's said to be for 2-6 players, but since you can steal cards from other players I don't see why you can't play with as many players as you want.  You roll the dice 3 times... alot like Yahtzee... and try to make a doodle.  The above has some of the cards... there are lots of the purple cards which are the hardest since they take all 6 dice.  There are only 6 orange cards, which only take 1 die to make.  You need to collect one of each colored cards in order to win.  You draw a new card each time (we dealt out the cards to each player).  We also put them in order of color to make it easier visually.  There are extra roll and block a turn cards also to make it a little more fun.   

Simple but so fun!!

These are some of my favorites... Singing in the Rain, Pine Tree, Flower, Hot Soup, Twins, and Squiggle.  The names and doodles are really creative and cute.  Kassidy had lots of fun making her own creations, too!

This is one of my other favorites... an elephant.  My cards also show Spanish and French (?) translations.

What are you trying for?!?!

We played as soon as she woke up hence the crazy hair (there is a Bed Head card!!) and pjs.

Final thoughts:  Your family would LOVE this game also.  I looked for the cheapest way to buy it on several different sites and every single one had the full 5 stars given!  That's impressive to me!  My sister and I switched it up and made it a little more competitive by having to collect two different colored cards and on each turn you could collect more than one card.

I am actually buying another Doodle Dice game today for my little sister, who will be turning 7 in a few weeks.  Here is a link to Ebates, which is an awesome company that simply because you click through their site to get to a store will give you a percentage of your purchase back in cash.  Just check it out!!

http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=hmLyh9xaWvPqnoPZRSez7g%3D%3D

Here is a link to Target's site, who has the cheapest Doodle Dice when you add in the shipping costs.  It is $13.98 total!!  Great game and great company!!! 

http://www.target.com/s?keywords=doodle+dice&searchNodeID=1038576%7C1287991011&ref=sr_bx_1_1