Ever watch WordWorld on PBS? If so, this word magnet set makes perfect sense. If you have never seen the show, the best way I can describe it is that is a cartoon.  The characters in the this cartoon look like what they are like a bee.  However, their body spells what they are.  You can see what I mean by looking at the image on the right.  This is for kids three and up.  However, I found that my 18 month old loves it too (I just need to keep an eye on him, so he doesn’t try to eat the pieces)!  You get 7 3D word magnets, 5 flat magnets, and a 2 sided fold and go play mat.  The kids love the magnet aspect of it.  I love that this doesn’t require batteries.  It requires my kids to use their imaginations and make up stories.  I also love that it has its own carrying case, and that the magnets have their own spot in the play map.  This has been a hit in my house, and I can definitely see it being a hit in yours.

As many of you may know, the majority of my friends and family live about four hours away from me. That means, that it is a long distance phone call for me to talk to them. When I found out about Tokbox, I was pretty excited to try it out.   Now, this is super easy to use.  I tried it out with a few people, and they were all impressed with the clarity of both the image and the audio.  I’ve tried other programs before (**cough**yahoo messenger **cough**) that the video was choppy.  When you’ve got little kids using these programs (which I have Madison talk to her cousins with it), they don’t understand the choppiness.  Mom doesn’t really care for it either.  However, there was no choppiness, no lagging, and really I have no complaints about Tokbox.  It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up for the service and get a chat started with one of my friends.  Now, the coolest part is that you both don’t even need to have a webcam (though the person initiating the call does I think).  Once you have your account set up, all you have to do is hit invite, and it will give you a link to pass onto the person you want to talk to.  You can even put this on your blog and/or social network profiles.  Then your visitors can click “Push To Talk” and connect to you in real time.  I’m not adding it here, because I really don’t think you want to listen to screaming kids which is usually how my day goes.  You can even record a video and email it someone too!

If you are looking to connect online, TokBox is the way to do it.  The clarity of the video and the audio can’t be beat, and it is so easy to use!

Ever hear of Olive Sandwiches? If not, you are missing some of the funniest things out there. They offer a broad line of retro-humor products for women of all ages. Seriously, there is something for everyone, and you don’t have to have a weird sense of humor like me to enjoy it (or even to find it funny).  I recently tried out two of their products (actually, at the same time too!).  First, I tried out the bath salts.  They smell good.  I also locked myself in the bathroom, so I could truly enjoy them and give an unbiased review (now, the hubby didn’t believe that, but I still locked myself in there).  You know you have a great bath salt when it makes you laugh at the packaging.  I included the image that I thought extremely funny.  For my bath, I tried out the brown sugar fig and truly enjoyed it.  While I was enjoying my bath without interruption, I also tried out some of Olive Sandwiches Chocolates.  These too have funny sayings on them like I taught Santa Everything He Knows and Visions of Sugar Daddies Danced In Her Head.  These organic chocolate bars taste awesome.  Now, you don’t have to eat them while you are in the tub like I did, but I got to enjoy some alone time with chocolate, relaxation, and humor.  Thank you Olive Sandwiches!

I know, its been crazy here.  I’ve written reviews on a lot of great Christmas gifts.  However, I am finding that people are having a hard time navigating some of the older reviews, so I thought I would be a roundup so you know what to buy for Christmas! I’ll be doing a couple more of these between now and Christmas to help you with your gift giving! Each image links to the review and/or giveaway I am doing for the items.

Baby:

Books:

Cards:

CDs/Music/Audio Stories:

Clothes:

Electronics:

Food/Beverages:

Home:

Jewelry:

Pets:

Software:

Sports:

Toys:

Image via Wikipedia

Best Buy is one of my most favorite stores.  Usually.  However, last night was an entirely different story (and this review is actually going to be more like rant instead).  On Sundays, Best Buy closes at 7.  I personally thought I had plenty of time.  What I didn’t know was that out of the three people in the computer department, 2 of them were new.  Interesting times, let me tell you.  In the amount of time it took me to get waited on, I could have seriously taken a CDL training course.  The other thing is that I went looking there for a desktop.  This weeks ad had a ton of them in there.  Surprise, Surprise.  Of all the desktops that had in their ad, they had 1 in stock.  Yes, 1 in stock.  They had some not in their ad but the CPUs along were over $1,000.  Ummm, no thanks.  I ended up walking out of Best Buy at 8:00 pm — one hour after they closed due to their employees having no training!

/rant over