Hasbro card games are great for family time!

We are headed on vacation next week to Chris's parents house on the Ozarks. It's almost a tradition that nights spent at the lake are dominated by movies and card games. Though I'm quite terrible at classic card games such as poker I can really get into the Hasbro card games as I grew up like most kids loving Uno!

Hasbro release three new card games this spring perfect for family vacation, game night, or just anytime you want to spend some real quality time with the family and friends!

Sorry! Revenge takes my childhood favorite game and turns it into a fun card game that everyone at your table will really enjoy. Sorry! was one of my favorite games as a child and this card game is a fast action version of the board game. The point is to get your pile of cards to 21 without going over. Once you hit 21 you get to move one of your pawns to home. The problem is there are those pesky Sorry! floating around and you can use them to steal each others wins! Easy to play, no reading skills required for the little ones, but being able to add fairly quickly is key. Good for 2 to 4 players which is a bit of negative if the whole family wants to play. You can pick up your own Sorry! Revenge on Amazon!

Mille Bornes is similar to Sorry! Revenge in the fact that your attempting to get a certain number to win. The point of the game is to get enough cards to equal 1000 (1000 miles).In your way are these nasty things called road hazards that other players can use against you, your car can break down, or you can even run out of gas! You need an even number of players either two, four or eight players to play. As well you will need a bit more reading skills as there are several types of hazard/gas/ect cards and addition skills are a must. They recommend this game for ages 8+ but I think a younger child with decent math/reading skills would be fine. You can pick up your own Mille Bornes on Amazon!

Yahtzee Hands Down reminds me a lot of the original Yahtzee game as its all about making combinations such as three of a kind, four of a kind, straits ect. I'll be upfront with you guys right now, these sort of games confuse me to no end and I have a feeling that's why I'm so terrible at poker. I'm fine with the whole three of a kind ideas but straits, full houses, and Yahtzee! just confuses me to no end. If your a poker player or love Yahtzee! this is a great way to introduce the idea to the younger players in your household. Great for players 8 and over and up to six players. You can pick up your own Yahtzee Hands Down on Amazon!

You can check out the rest of the Hasbro card game selection on their website!

Looking for the perfect toy to distract little ones on cold days?

My hat goes off to Alex Toys for creating quite possibly the best little play set to distract preschoolers and younger children on those days when its just too cold to play outside. Alex Toy's Monster Play All Day set is really three toys in one that comes with its own really fabulous carrying case as well!

Included in the set is the Moody Monster's matching game on a really heavy duty cardboard pieces. We've already had several pieces get wet and you can barely tell so I'd say they are pretty toddler/preschooler friendly. It's basically a standard matching game with monster faces except each of the monsters in the set is displaying an emotion which is printed on the card as well. We actually play this game face up at this point as Connor isn't quite old enough to play it face down. He matches the cards based on moods and faces quite well at this point! I can tell him to find me all the sad monsters, ect.

The second game in the box is the Monsters Mix and Match Game. This game comes with four monster cards and a bunch of cards that allow you to build your monster. Though it comes with instructions for several different types of game play at Connor's age level we just play it similar to the matching game and allow him to match the game pieces to the board all face up. Once he is a little older we can play it with multiple players and play by the standard rules where you take turns getting pieces and the first player to build their monster correctly wins.

The third game in the box is really for older children and is as much fun for adults as well. The last set is a Monster Card game. These over sized playing cards come with four sets of instructions so you can play four seperate card games. Super cute cards with moody monsters on both sides. Not as sturdy as the other two games in the box so if you have younger preschoolers set them aside and use them later. If your a card game family you'll really appreciate having a card game that smaller players can enjoy!

You end up with three sets of games for around $35 with a carrying case. Not a bad deal seeing as the Moody Monsters Matching Game alone sells for $12. The Monster Play All Day set is the perfect take along set for play dates, going to the grandparents house, or just a really attractive and fun way to store your monster cards!

Visit Alex Toy's website to buy your own Monster Play All Day set and check out their other great games!

I feel a little bit like we've gone to the fair!

We've seen a lot of board games many of which can be tailored to young players but none of which is as easy and as exciting for the youngest of players as Quackers from International Playthings! International Playthings sent us our own Quackers game to try out!

Quackers reminds me a bit of a game you'd play at a fair. Six little ducks sit on a spinning game board and under two ducks there is an egg. The challenge of the game is to find the duck that has the quacking egg and not the rotten egg. Even the youngest of players will be able to participate as all you need to play is a good ear and a little bit of memory skills. You put the eggs in the game board under the ducks and then spin the board. The quacking egg will quack as soon as you start spinning and when the board stops you must then guess which duck has the quacking egg. If you guess correctly you get a Quackers card. Whoever ends up with the most cards wins.

For two to four players and for ages three and up it's sure to please any preschooler in your household. Though it may be a bit too simple for the older kids it certainly pleases my little man and its the one game he can actually play solo even without another player as he finds it just as entertaining just to try to find the right duck as he does playing with another player at this point. Secretly I really enjoy this one as I can just place the egg, spin, and supervise and not be forced to play myself. Which is great when I'm looking for a good activity for us to do to wind down in the afternoons before nap time. Connor also easily can place the egg himself and play solo while I work on homework or catch up on emails. It's also a great game to bring out on play dates as it really doesn't require any explanation especially if you opt to play without the cards and it has virtually no setup or breakdown time involved as the board is all one piece and it only takes just a second to put the egg in and put the ducks on.

In the end Quackers is absolutely one of the best choices we've seen for preschooler's in the board game category though it may not be as exciting for players over the age of six. You can pick up your own game of Quackers on the International Playthings website!

I have an extra Quackers game to give away to one very lucky reader!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Just check out the selection of games on the International Playthings website. Tell us which is your favorite other than the three that we've reviewed in the last few days.
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
  • For an extra entry :
  • Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
  • Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
  • Let people know about the giveaway on Twitter with a link to the giveaway!
  • THREE extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
  • This contest will end Dec 31th at midnight!

Pizza and board games? Count me in!

Poppa's Pizza Pile-Up from International Playthings has to be hands down the cutest game we have reviewed to date. A super chubby Italian baker holds up a pizza crust which then players must stack toppings on without knocking everything over. Depending on the difficulty level you can play with Poppa on or off his "feet" or base which without using the feet causes him to be very wobbly.

Players roll a dice that shows the type of topping they must stack. No reading or math is required so its a great game for players of all ages. Since our munchkin is at the very bottom of the age range we opted to play the game turn based without the dice and just put one topping on each. Though older children will really appreciate the added challenge of using the topping dice. The player who lasts the longest without knocking off the topping wins.

Though I absolutely recommend this game for all ages I found it to be almost a bit too challenging as the toppings have a tenancy to slide off a bit too easy especially for the little ones who may drop their toppings a bit too roughly. A small solution I found to that is to make a little cardboard circle to rest the crust on to give it a little more stability for the younger players. Older players and adults will really appreciate the fact that it really does make you really think about where you place those toppings. The whole game play, though very simple, can be as challenging or easy as you like and can be tailored to your players. Rated for ages 4+ and certainly easy enough to understand for even younger players I'd say this game is best suited for school aged children only from a motor skills standpoint as placing the pieces takes a steady hand.

On a side note, Connor also enjoys just playing with the pizza crust and the toppings as a play food item once we are done playing as well. heh.

You can buy your own Poppa's Pizza Pile-Up from International Playthings directly on their website! While your over there check out all the great games available from International Playthings as well!

Board games, still in my opinion one of the best gifts to buy!

Connor squeals with joy every time I even mention playing a board game. Mind you he's not exactly old enough to play most of them, at least not by the rules, but the magic of board games is the one on one time they really force you to spend with your kids or the other players. Board games are also by far my favorite gift to give friends and family who have multiple children as they are one of those gifts you never outgrow and are always appreciated. Some of my best memories as a child were spent over board games.

Finding board games that Connor can play is really the challenge. So it really comes down to looking for games that are fun to play regardless if you understand the rules, but will have a lifespan well past the preschool age range as we always look for toys that will have as long as a lifespan as possible in the household. International Playthings, one of our FAVORITE toy companies may not have been your first thought when it comes to board games but let me tell you they have some really awesome and fun options! Most of which are very unusual and attention getting even for the smaller players.

The first game we tested out for International Playthings is called Oopsie Daisy. We've actually had this game a month or two and Connor likes to refer to it as the "raindrop game" and I have to say it's actually a ton of fun and really quite challenging. The game comes with a plastic white daisy flower set on a spring and clear marble raindrops. If your playing this with younger players the only thing you need to be worried about is them putting the marbles in their mouth. You take turns putting marbles on the daisy attempting to get rid of all of your marbles. The only problem is if your not super careful putting the marbles on the daisy will tip sending the raindrops flying and you then inherit all those fallen raindrops. You can play it with or without the daisy chance cards which does require a little bit of simple counting skills. We opt to play it without for obvious reasons and just take turns putting one marble on each. As Connor gets older we can up the skill level but incorporating the cards which would then tell the players how many raindrops to put on each turn. I almost hate to admit this, but Connor is way better at this game than I am. Though honestly he actually likes it most when the raindrops fall as it makes a cascading sound that sends him into fits of giggles. Even Chris gets in on the action with this game as its really quite challenging but without being overly hard for even the little ones. You never really know which way the marbles will lean the flower. I highly recommend it especially for households who have children that span age ranges as it's honestly as fun for me as it seems to be for Connor! You can check it out for yourself and pick up your own Oopsie Daisy at International Playthings's website!

I have several other International Plaything's board games to review, check out the following posts for more games as well as a cool giveaway!

Who said it was unfair to play board games with preschoolers?

I think every parent is convienced that their child is smarter than they are, but seriously when it comes to board games it will be short lived that I can beat him especially at some of the great options available to preschoolers these days. Actually one of the biggest promises I made to myself when I had Connor was that as soon as he was old enough we'd make a weekly game night. I think that in the digital age we live in we loose track of family nights and though he's still a bit too young to really grasp the concept of a game night we try to do a once a week movie night where everyone its down and watches a movie together. Even with that said there is no replacement for a board game where the family is not only forced to physically look at each other, but interact, laugh, and just play together! Some of my fondest memories as a child were spent over board games.

Haba one of my favorite toy makers of all time, what I didn't know is that the really cool online children's store Maukilo is also owned by Haba! (This explains so much, heh as Maukilo really does have an amazing selection of Haba toys and other cool stuff as well!) What you really have to check out though is the massive Haba board game collection, if you've never experienced Haba or have never had the pleasure of owning one of their board games you really have to check them out. Haba makes some of the most creative and unusual board games on the market most of which are as entertaining for a four year old as they are for an adult. They are just down right beautiful as well using both wooden and cardboard pieces in many of the games and unusual concepts such as a memory game where you have to help the bears clean up their house!

I was really excited when Haba offered us one of their fabulous games to try out for ourselves. Wiggling Cow arrived in the mail and I immediately groaned as I'm fairly sure Connor could beat me at this game right now. heh. It's really a super simple concept that reminds me a lot of those stacking block games where you have to try to pull out a block without sending the whole thing tumbling over, except only simpler. The set comes with a really adorable little wooden cow anemd Elsa, a game board which is basicaly just a square cardboard meadow, a little wooden pitchfork, and 18 cardboard tiles or "hay bales". You sort of stack the hay bales on the meadow and put poor Elsa on the top of the stack. Then you take turns attempting to take hay bales off the stack with the pitch fork without sending Elsa toppling to her doom. To save her any major head trama the game is over once Elsa falls three times. The player with the most hay bales wins. No reading required, no math other than counting the hay bales which a parent could do, and its a fabulous way to work on those gross motor skills! It says four and up but with supervision I'm positive a three year old could easily master this game. Really the only danger is the wooden hay fork which though I wouldn't let Connor run around the house with it I certainly have no issues with him playing the game. He's not quite three and were still working on the rules but he's absolutely fascinated with Elsa and we've been practicing without the fork for now. What i really absolutely love about this game is how compact it is.. I've been building up quite the collection of board games and the issue is always where to store them all. The entire Wiggling Cow game fits into a box that is basically an 8x8 square and less than two inches tall. The box is also very sturdy which is fabulous as I can't tell you how many board game boxes we've had to throw away and attempt to find something else to store the pieces in!

You really have to check out the entire selection of Haba board games for yourself. You can visit the Haba website for more information or see the selection at Maukilo! Pick up a Wiggling Cow game for yourself as well!

Hasbro Game Night!

September 23rd was the official National Family Game Night hosted by Hasbro games! Though Connor is not quite old enough to officially participate in a family game night we did what we could by playing some simple flash card games, which Connor for the most part made up his own rules for.

I do however think it's really important that families get back to basics somewhat. So many of us spend all of our time in front of our computers, watching TV, playing video games, that we rarely have any face time with the rest of our families. We are even guilty of this in our household, and yes I mean especially me, as I spent a good amount of time working on emails, studying and doing bloggy business daily.

With all that I have made an official promise to myself that once Connor is old enough to play board games with us, we will have a once a week family game night where everyone in the family is required to sit down at the kitchen table and play at least one round of the chosen game for that night. We played board games when I was a kid, not nearly enough, and some of my favorite memories are of me sitting down with my cousins at my grandmother's house playing Trouble. I've been told that I was a terrible cheater, this fact I don't remember, but what I do remember was how much fun and how close I felt to them when we played.

Hasbro sent us a great gift package of awesome board and card games to get our little stash started. Included was some of my favorites Candy Land, Clue, Uno, ect... but what really got Connor's attention was the newly redesigned Connect 4x4. Yes I said that right Connect 4x4!!! Its a new twist on an old game. Basically instead of having one slot to drop you have a double sided grid and the Connect 4 can happen on either side. I really hate to tell you guys this, I'm fairly certain that Connor even at his age could beat me at a standard game of Connect 4, but I already know I have no chance in the world of winning a Connect 4x4 game. I am really excited about a new twist on an old game and Connor was absolutely fascinated by the entire game board.

We also received a copy of Clue Secrets and Spies, another twist on an old favorite. Basically instead of your game of Clue taking place in the notorious hotel you and the rest of the players are top secret spies!! You complete secret missions to win the game and you can even get texts to your cell phone, actually texts to your real cell phone, to help or hinder the game. We've not tried it out yet and really the only thing I can say that holds me up about the whole thing is I'm not sure every little kid has a cell phone to get texts to. It's certainly a cool feature though!

I'd really love to share some of this gift pack with one of my readers. So we have decided to give away two Hasbro card games to one lucky reader! It will be a surprise as to which two you get, but I promise you will love them! They will make for some great stocking stuffers too!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Visit the Hasbro Game Night website and tell me which game you'd most like to own and why.
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
  • For an extra entry :
  • Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
  • Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
  • Let people know about the giveaway on Twitter with a link to the giveaway!
    
  • THREE extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
  • This contest will end Oct 30th at midnight!

Thomas... slow down already.

The Thomas The Tank Engine games over at Briarpatch got us excited. Connor is slowly becoming a huge Thomas fan and I am a huge board game fan so between the two of us I knew we had to add one to our collection. So when Thomas Great Race Game arrived from Briarpatch I was pretty excited. Connor is still a bit too young to play but thankfully I have an endless supply of willing board game players here and I have to say of all the board games we have tried out this year this particular game looked a bit boring from the outside to me, and I have to tell you it totally surprised me as being my favorite game of the year from an educational value and just plain good fun all in one.

Thomas Great Race comes with two plastic board pieces that snaps together in the middle forming a hill that the tanks must race up. The board will allow anywhere from two to four players and the engines are color coded. Once you have decided how many are playing you just slide the tanks into the track before you put the two pieces of the board together and your ready to rock. The players are given cards which have questions on one side and the answers on the other, no peeking! The cards show a picture on one side with a simple question such as "How many yellow tracks are there?" The card will have a picture of four tracks and in this case there are two yellow tracks, the player then names how many yellow tracks there are before turning the card over to see if they are correct. If the number the player says matches the number on the back of the card (Its always anywhere from one to three so the number skills are pretty basic.) then the player then is allowed to insert "coal" a tile with the same number as the answer into the board under their train. These tiles then are what moves the train to the finish line. That alone was one of the coolest features of the game if you ask me as I can't tell you how many times we have had arguments here over who accidentally moved who's piece where or if the players moved the correct number of spaces. Pretty much other than answering the questions and inserting the correct tile the trains on Thomas Great Race move themselves.

I love the fact that the game makes the players use basic counting, colors, and number skills to play but its not so hard that a preschooler can't handle it if they have at least minimal reading skills or have a parent to read them the questions. Connor is getting pretty good with his colors so hopefully by this time next year we will be playing together. Actually the only unfair part about the game is that if a parent is playing a child obviously the parent has an unfair advantage by being able to answer all the card correctly, but with that said depending on the luck of the draw of cards anyone can win as one person could draw all three cards and the other could draw all one cards and if the player with the larger cards answers correctly they will move faster than the other. So even unevenly matched players in skill still end up battling it out with the luck of the draw as much as they do having to worry about correct answers.

Briarpatch is one of our favorite game makers and I highly recommend you go over and check out their entire collection of games including Thomas Great Race.

Briarpatch has been cool enough to give us one copy of Thomas Great Race to give away to one lucky reader.

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Check out Briarpatch's selection of games and tell me what is your favorite board game or card game they offer.
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
  • For an extra entry :
  • Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
  • Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
  • One extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
  • This contest will end Jan 15th at midnight!

Chaos couldn't be more fun.

The new game Hyper Jump from Wild Planet games reminds me a bit of a super chaotic super high paced game of Simon Says.

The Hyper Jump game consists of a control unit with four color coded numbered triggers that branch off of it sort of like a big X. The middle unit is the brain for the game and you can select the type of game play you want including a solo play for one to four players or a team play where players of two group up into teams and up to eight kids can play. Then you can set your difficulty level which seems to be a going feature in the Wild Planet games to allow you to set how hard the game will be or set it approprately for the age of kids playing. On level one its fairly slow paced and a good way to get warmed up as it really helps you get a feel for the game. Most five and six year olds will find the first setting difficult enough to keep them entertained but as your child improves at the game you can up the anty and speed up the game approprately. On level four however even parents may find themselves getting a bit dizzy at the speed of commands.

The game plays out sort of like a game of Simon Says. The game will let you know which player is up and then once you signal the game to start by pushing any target it will start barking off a series of commands. "Red, 3, Yellow, ect" and you must touch the targets in order. You can use your hands, feet, or whatever you need to to get the targets down in the fastest time. The color commands are fairly easy but when it starts throwing in the numbers on top of the colors it gets a little tricky! The worst part as the levels progress it starts to ask simple math problems, gives complex commands like criss cross where you must jump on opposite sides, and hyper jump where you must jump on all of the targets.

If you have some really high energy kids its a great non destructive way for them to get out a little extra energy on a gloomy day. It can be played alone as well so even if friends are not available they can work on beating their high scores. Its a pretty good workout too for mom's who want to get a little exercise in before the kids come home from school... don't worry I won't tell them that you used their game. heh.

You can learn more about Hyper Jump over at Wild Planet games and pick up your own Hyper Jump for someone on your christmas list over in their online store!

UNO in the nick of time!!

I don't think I ever took the class on how to play card games as an adult. Spades, Poker, Euchre.. I have no clue how to play them and I've watched and I'm still totally confused. However when it comes to UNO I have that under control. Though the new UNO Flash game from Mattel will have even the most seasoned UNO player begging for mercy.

UNO Flash can be played with two to six players though its best with at least three players as sometimes the random can get suck on one player unfairly if played with just two. You still follow the same UNO rules you would play with the regular stand alone card game with a few extra suprises.

The UNO Flash board is pretty easy to set up. Just put your draw and discard pile in the middle, selection how many seconds you want each round to be on the dial underneath and turn it on. Each player will push his or her button that is infront of them so the UNO Flash board knows how many people are playing and where they are sitting and then you hit the play button. This is were it gets really intresting. Instead of going clockwise or counter clockwise or in whatever order you would normally play UNO in the flash board decides who goes and when. This means you could go twice in a row, even so you really have to keep your eyes on the board. If that is not enough to send you into a panic each turn is timed and you have until the board stops to complete your turn. This makes it intresting as instead of knowing you have three people infront of you and you can relax and plan your next move you litterally have seconds to decide what card you want to play. You can set the timer for four, six, or eight seconds but regardless its quick! There is also an extra "wild" card called SLAP that when played all the players must hit their buttons as fast as they can and the slowest player is forced to draw extra cards. heh.

My only complaint about the game is the size of the board. If you have a large group of people and a big table you will find it hard for some of the players to reach the SLAP button in time giving players sitting closest to the board an unfair advantage.

Its dirty, its fast paced, it will get your heart pumping, its UNO like you've never seen it before!

UNO Flash is available right now from most major retailers or you can pick up your own at Amazon!

You'll be decorating like Nancy in no time!

You know its times like these where sometimes, just sometimes, I kinda wish I had a little girl to share things with. I love Fancy Nancy, how can you not, she is the the classic little princess that every little girl and woman insides yerns to be regardless if they admit it or not. My "Fancy Nancy" side comes out now and then but if you asked me I'd claim up and down I was a tomgirl. heh.

Briarpatch games has a brand new Fancy Nancy's Posh Bedroom board game out which is bound to appeal to all those little girls out there and you may just be able to talk the brothers into playing too as long as you don't tell their friends. heh.

The game is actually the most complex Briarpatch game we have played thus far making it really best for players five years and older and their first few rounds they may need a little help from mom. Each player gets her own bedroom game board which works a bit like a flip book. On the surface Fancy Nancy is standing in one very sad looking plain room and as you play the game you flip down each panel slowly revealing Nancy's new accessorized room.

To flip down the panels on the gameboard you have to play the correct cards which you get at the beginning of your turn in order and roll the color coded dice to decide which panels you can flip down in what order. There is not a whole lot of reading required but the gameplay system is a bit too advanced for a toddler and its a great introduction to more adult oriented card based games later. Overall its actually really ingenious I don't think I've ever seen a board game like it and really its only limitation is in the number of players that can play at once as you only get four game boards.

Fancy Nancy's Posh Bedroom and other Briarpatch games are available for purchase directly from the Briarpatch website!

I have a Fancy Nancy's Posh Bedroom board game to give away to one lucky reader!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Check out the entire line of Fancy Nancy games and puzzles available from Briarpatch and tell me which one you'd most like to have!
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
• For an extra entry :
• Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
• Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
• One extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
• This contest will end Nov 30th at midnight!

Careful angry Rhinos ahead!

I grew up on board games, one of my first memories playing with my cousins was actually playing Sorry on the floor of my grandmother's living room. Its actually one of the few memories I still have of her house sadly and to be honest I can't even remember who I was playing with though I'd assume it was with one of my younger cousins but the color of the carpet, the game, the way my grandmother's house always smelled like something was on the stove is all still very real. That's half the reason why I wanted to include a good sampling of board games in our holiday reviews, if your on a budget board games are one of the cheapest toys to buy as they stay entertaining as I still get just as excited to play some of my old favorites today as I did when I was 12. It's really not the game so much as spending time with the people you love. Now with that little walk down memory lane let me introduce you to Rhino Rampage.

Rhino Rampage is yet another no reading skills necessary game that the whole family can enjoy. Each player up to four players gets a set of little plastic birds. There is one diamond shaped dice which each player rolls in turn and then moves their bird that many moves around the Rhino. The goal of the game is to get your birds onto the Rhino's back which seems fairly easy enough the only issue is that if someone rolls a Rhino you push the Rhino's tail and he totally freaks out knocking some or even sometimes all of the birds off the playing area. Heh. Its kind of like watching a train wreck when you know its coming. For the most part its totally a game of luck as you really never know when or how the Rhino will strike as his movements seem to be fairly random and even just how high the birds are stacked can mean they fall off or not.

Kids will love it as what kid does not get overly excited about a "novelty board game", a game that quite simply has a cool factor just in the way its made. I remember growing up that game for me was Rock Em Sock Em Robots it was loud, plastic, and again a game that's is pretty chaotic and involves a lot of luck and a little bit of skill. As a parent you will love the fact that all of the playing pieces on the game are really sturdy. No paper money that could get wet, eaten by the little people, or thousands of little pieces you could loose as really its only the rhino and the birds and dice to worry about.

Rhino Rampage is available at most toy stores, department stores and of course you can get yours on Amazon!

Time to get the baby ready for bed!

Getting a toddler in bed is much harder than it looks, when it comes to Connor its pretty much a wrestling match to see who wins the night time battle. Mind you we have a routine and he's pretty easy to get to sleep its just rounding him up and getting him bathed, changed, dressed, teeth brushed, and finding his pacifier and then of course getting him into the bed as he's a runner.

Maybe he can learn something from our new board game. Beddy Bye Baby is a awesome new board game from Briarpatch games. Designed specifically for the preschool set there is no reading skills required and children as young as two can play if that is you can get them to hold still long enough to play it through.

It actually reminds me a lot of a very very toddler friendly and simple version of the Game of Life. You start out with your baby and you roll the dice to progress down the board. The dice does not have any numbers so counting is not required just colors and you progress to the next space with the color on your dice roll. I secretly wish that adult board games used the same method as I can't tell you how many times I've played adult board games into the wee hours of the night with friends at parties and had problems just keeping track of the dice. heh. With Beddy Bye you just roll the single die and if it rolls pink you move to the pink space, ect.

As you go along you collect items to put the baby to bed but if you are unlucky enough to land on a spot where the baby gets fussy you will have to sacrifice an item to calm your baby down so you can proceed. The object is to make it to the finish line with all the bedtime items you need.

Beddy Bye Baby is a fairly quick game to play depending on how many players and their comprehensive level your looking at 10 to 30 minute game play which is actually great as preschoolers only have a limited attention span! Briarpatch games are available direction on their website, head on over there and check out Beddy Bye Baby right now!

I have one Beddy Bye Baby game to give away to one of our readers!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Check out the Beddy Bye Baby game and tell me which other Briarpatch game looks cool to you!
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
• For an extra entry :
• Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
• Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
• One extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
• This contest will end Nov 30th at midnight!

Connor can you find the Giraffe?

It is so hard to find a family game that not only your preschooler will love but can be played with older kids in the family. Animal Scramble is a new active game from Wild Planet. An active game reminds me of a board game but instead of having pieces and dice the players do all the work.

Animal Scramble comes with four animals, or "targets", and a giraffe which calls out the directions for the game. The giraffe calls out instructions to the player holding him and keeps track of how long it takes for the player to complete the round. There are actually five levels to choose from going from just simply animal names to animal sounds, colors, letters and then finally attributes so Animal Scramble actually grows with the child and you can set the difficulty level depending on your player's skill level. You can also adjust the difficulty level by setting up the "course" smaller or bigger depending on the kids playing. You can keep the targets close together for smaller children or spread them out all over the living room for bigger kids. We started off with the animals arranged in a circle around us as Connor is not old enough to play competitively but it is still a good learning tool. As the giraffe says the name of the animal we need to target you run to the animal and cover it with the giraffe.

Other than just skill levels you can also choose which sort of game you would like to play. You can just play a single player game or you can compete for the fastest time, treasure hunt which is basically hide and seek, and a memory game where you must target the animals in order.

Good for 1 to 6 players and though its rated for ages three and up though on the one player mode some children as young as two with supervision will find it pretty entertaining. If your looking for a family game that will entertain all the kids in the house and your preschooler can play too its a great game!

You can learn more about Animal Scramble on the Wild Planet website as well as buy your own Animal Scramble at the Wild Planet Store or Amazon!

Ispy a airplane!

I've mentioned several times that Connor's daddy graduates from the police academy this month and we couldn't be prouder but I'm starting to get a little nervous that Connor may want to follow in his footsteps one day... which I'm not saying is a bad thing but I think I'm already starting to worry a bit.

In the meantime finding toys and games that allows Connor to identify at all with his dad's job is awesome not to mention fostering memory skills is something even I need to work on. Ispy Private Eye from Briarpatch games is a fun way to work on your memory recall and have fun as a family as well. Its rated for children 5+ and up to four players but personally I think a younger child could understand this game as long as they have decent language skills.

The point of the game is really simple and no reading is required which is a plus for the younger players though its more than complex enough that adults may find themselves challenged as well if they don't pay attention. The game comes with a domed "shaker" that holdes the nine dice that pretty much are the center of the game. You shake up the dice remove the lid and hit the timer located on the very top of the lid. The players have thirty seconds to check out the pictures on the dice and then you put the lid back on and hide the dice from view. The player who's turn is up picks up a card from the deck and turns it over on the front side is a bunch of little pictures from the dice and the player must identify which items on the card that were just seen. If another player thinks that they are wrong then they can challenge them and then name what they think they saw on the dice. The player who is right gets to keep the card, the player with the most cards at the end of the game wins. Pretty simple eh? ... It's harder than it looks!

You can modify gameplay for younger children by obmitting the challenge option and obmitting the timer. Its also a great way for a younger child to learn about some new objects as its alot of fun to talk about each item that you see inside the shaker. Hey and observation skills may just be important to Connor one day.. who knows he may just be a little detective in the making!

You can check out and buy your own Ispy Private Eye over at Briarpatch!

I have an Ispy Private Eye to give away to one lucky reader!!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Check out Briarpatch and tell me what game from their Ispy collection you would love to have in your collection.
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
• For an extra entry :
• Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
• Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
• One extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
• This contest will end Nov 15th at midnight!

The laundry is out to dry!

Welcome to game week! This week we will be featuring games as with budgets getting tighter and tighter I know I find myself debating on what to buy Connor and even more so what to buy my friend's kids. I love to give presents but I'm feeling the burn like everyone and many of my friends and cousins have multiple kids and its just too painful to buy each and every kid a present. However "board" games are not only a great gift but its wildly appealing to everyone in the family.

The first game of the week is Clothespins! by Briarpatch games. Clothespins! is basically a matching game built for a crowd. Built for children 5+ and up to 4 players its actually really easy to understand. I tested it out with a group of four kids ages 5 to 9 and though our first attempt we didn't read the rules all the way through so the game didn't go as smooth as it should but after a quick re-read and getting the kids to sit still for just a few seconds its actually a really simple game.

Each kid gets a starting clothespin board and the goal is to match clothing by color or type to complete clotheslines. Once everyone has their completed clotheslines you add up the points to find the winner. You can really throw a wrench in someone's line by stealing items with bird cards.. heh. It really makes the game interesting and gets the competitive juices going. The game is easily simple enough that our youngest player had no problems and our oldest player (not including myself) was not bored at all.

I was actually really impressed with the quality as well the cards come on a very heavy card stock so even with the abuse of little hands your game will hold up well for quite a long time. There are also no words to read so younger kids can play regardless of their reading skills. If you are playing with particularly young readers you can also forgo the bird cards to prevent stealing which may be too much for the younger players.

Clothespins! is available directly from Briarpatch for $12.99! I think that's actually really reasonable for many nights of family fun and a good price for a present as well!

I have a Clothespins! game to give away to one reader!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Check out Briarpatch and tell me what game from their entire collection you would love to have in your collection.
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
• For an extra entry :
• Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
• Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
• One extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
• This contest will end Nov 15th at midnight!