We were sent a batch of Dora and Friends products to review, to celebrate Nick Jr’s Sing Along Summer event, and this phone was one of the items. In the TV show, Dora has a trusty smartphone to help her on her way. This toy lets your child have a phone “just like Dora’s” complete with a lenticular changing screen effect, and a variety of sound effects and phrases.
We were invited to try out the Wicked Uncle online gift shop, to buy some presents for our girls and share our thoughts on the site. Wicked Uncle gave us a £40 voucher to spend how we liked, and we had fun choosing gifts for Georgie and Lydia.
Rather than sort toys by category, Wicked Uncle let you choose the gender and then age of the child you are shopping for, and then display everything they stock that is suitable for that child.
For our final Play Patrol mission, we were given a budget, and permission to choose whatever we wished from the Bigjigs range to review. Lydia enjoys being creative, and loves flowers. Toys that involve building, sorting, and stacking are among her favourites, so I thought that this Build-a-Bouquet toy would be ideal for her.
We were sent this riding arena for Georgie to test out, and have been really pleased with the quality of the toy. I’ve seen a few Schleich products in the shop before, but this is the first we have had as Georgie has just come into the age range for this type of toy. The play set is simply packed in a cardboard box, with bubblewrap protecting it inside, and small plastic bags containing the smaller parts. The pony had a bit of cardboard in with it to provide extra protection, which was nice to see. Not too much packaging, and a lot of it recyclable – so that’s good.
It is Thomas & Friends’ 70th birthday this year! To celebrate, we have been sent this Rattling Railsss Take-n-Play set to review. Georgie and Lydia were excited as soon as it arrived – they are both huge Thomas friends, and we have lots of the books and toys. Reverend W. Awdry was actually living about a mile from where we live at the moment, when he published the first Thomas book, back in 1945!
Lydia has been in love with her Ewan the dream sheep practically from birth; it has always helped her to settle, and she uses Ewans (both big and small) as her comfort when she goes to bed, or whenever she is hurt or upset. It was a no brainer to then get a Russell the sheepdog – after all, she needs a sheepdog to manage her flock of Ewans, she now has two dream sheeps and two snugglies!
We took this toy along with us on holiday, and got it out as a treat for the kids while we were having a bit of time to chill out in our lodge. The toy is packaged well, nearly all with recyclable cardboard & paper string materials, with just a little plastic to through away. Following our review of the Stack, Pour, Post n Play hunny pot which is still played with every week by Lydia, I was looking forward to seeing how she would react to this.
Georgie loves to bake with me so when we were sent this baking set to review she was over the moon. The Bigjigs Toys Young Chef’s Baking Set includes child size versions of almost everything you need to bake cakes or biscuits, including a tiny oven glove which is utterly adorable.
Fisher-Price offered us this toy to review, knowing that Georgie is a big Thomas fan, and enjoyed the new Tale of the Brave film. Part of the huge Take-n-Play range, the Roaring Dino Run features the Sodor quarry and museum, complete with a large dinosaur skeleton.
We we were offered a Hide & Seek Holly toy to review I was quick to respond with an enthusiastic “yes, please!” Georgie and Lydia both enjoy Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, and Georgie is very into playing Hide & Seek at the moment – usually trying to rope a slightly confused Lydia into the game.
