Four great books from Candlewick press for toddlers!

It is never too early to start reading to your child, they absorb a lot even before they begin speaking and reading. Candlewick Press recently sent me four great books to check out that are perfect for reading to your infant/toddler or with them as they begin to read. Two of them are perfect for when they are learning new sight words and the alphabet, and the other two are just fun to read with them.

100 First Words By Edward Underwood (Retail $9.99)

This book has an assortment of easy to learn words, most are words used on an everyday basis such as spoon, fork, bowl, etc however they also include items found on farms, at the store and more. To help make the book more entertaining and help keep your toddlers attention you'll find several fun flaps to explore within the book. The thick board pages are sure to withstand your toddler putting it through quite a bit.

Alphabet Street By Johnathan Emmett (Retail $17.99)

Candlewick Press offers a ton of neat books that offer unique ways of reading and I think this is one of the coolest books I've reviewed with them. The Alphabet Street book helps your child learn their alphabet while seeming almost like a game. The book not only has interactive flaps through out the book, but it also unfolds like an accordion with illustrations and information on both sides of the pages. Instead of each page having a single letter and an image or two of words that go with that letter, the book is set up so that each page has an entire scene with multiple words to go with each letter.  Each page is full of color and creativity, I wish I had this book for my kids when they were younger and first practicing their alphabet.

Guess How Much I Love You By Sam McBratney (Retail $24.99)

This book is a classic and it is celebrating it's 25th Anniversary with a gift set that includes a hard covered copy of the book, a thick case and a beautiful print of the cover art that can be framed and hung up. I enjoy reading this adorable book and reading about how much the baby and mama rabbit love each other as it reminds me of my own mother and of my children as well. We enjoy playing a similar game with our children, one of us will ask "Guess How Much I Love You?" and then after that person asks how much we will give them an answer such as "I love you a billon times every grain of sand in the world". This book is a great addition to any collection.

The Little Snowplow Wishes For Snow By Lora Koehler (Retail $16.99)

This story follows along with a cute little snowplow who loves plowing snow. It can't snow all of the time so during the spring and the summer when there is no snow he keeps busy happily helping out the other work equipment around town as he enjoys being helpful. Although he enjoys helping out everyone he really wishes it would snow, because he loves when it snows. The weather starts to chill but there still isn't snow, so instead the little snowplow concentrates on having a good time with his friends for his birthday. It finally snows on his birthday! So he rushes off to go plow the snow and then head back to enjoy his party. We all thought this book was cute, and enjoying to read.

Along with these four wonderful books, Candlewick Press also offers dozens of great books for kids of all ages.

♡ Which of the four books do you like the best? Do you recall any books that were a favorite of yours when you were a child?

Disclaimer- The products mentioned above were provided by Candlewick Press for the review free of charge no other compensation was provided. However, no product compensation will influence the outcome of any review. My honest opinions are used in all reviews, they are solely my own & they may vary from others. My reviews are posted for readers in order to provide an informed decision before purchase.

PaRragon August Book Buddy Box!

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by PaRragon for the review free of charge.**

It has been about two months since I've been able to share a book buddy box with all of you so I am excited they sent out a new box to review and share with all of my lovely readers. This months box is themed "Back To School" and features a number of educational books to help prepare your toddler for Kindergarten and beyond. All of the books are from a line called The Learnalots and they are a lot of fun.



The Learnalots Let's Learn Preschool, Kindergarten, & Second Grade: I was a little surprised they didn't include first grade and put second grade instead but I think that is because they sent a little 500 questions first grade book in place of the bigger book. Each of the Learnalots books has 256 page along with two pages of rewards stickers (50 stickers per page). Each book goes over different subjects that they would be going over for that grade level, for example the Preschool book goes over ABC's, 123's, Shapes colors and more. My four year old is great with his colors, shapes, etc so the preschool book is a breeze for him and helps keep his mind sharp and the others will help with the things he doesn't know or just needs more practice on like reading and writing.

I like how bright, crisp and clear each page in this book is all the characters and colors help hold his attention and they don't put in anything overly complicated for the age range that the book targets. Along with practicing their skills each book also has a number of fun games that feature the different subjects they are learning about. I like how big each book is, it is the perfect size to put up on the counter and work on together with my son.



                

Get Ready for Preschool & Kindergarten Learning Packs: Both packs come with five 32 page paper back books and each one has a page of stickers as well. Each book goes over the same subjects that are in the bigger learning books but these are easy to bring with on car rides, to doctor appointments,etc and they can all be put back into the handy carrying case when you are done with them. All of the characters in these books are well designed and are pretty darn cute, my kids have a blast looking at all of them.



Learnalots 500 first grade questions & Coding and computers book: The 500 questions book is specifically designed to help both the parents and child have fun together while learning. It covers a number of subjects and comes with an array of cute pictures and bright colors to help your child stay focused and get their attention. Some of the questions are silly and fun such as "Is a slumber party a sleepover with friends, or a party where people cut trees?" and "Does PB&J stand for peanut butter and jelly or pickles, bacon and juice?" and it also has more serious questions such as "What animal helps to pollinate flowers: a bear or bees" and " Which is larger 1/4 or 1/6". The only thing I don't like about this book is the size/shape it is hard to keep it to stay open you really have to bend the spine back in order to get it to stay otherwise it wants to close the entire time you are reading it. While flipping through this trying to look at the pages a small section of the pages actually fell right out of the book which was a bit disappointing.

The coding book is a lot of fun for older kids, it helps teach kids about computers and the coding that helps keep everything running smoothly. It has 48 pages of information and comes with over 300 fun stickers to make learning coding fun!

Diono Review!

**This was not a paid post. My honest opinions were used, they are solely my own & they may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Diono for the review free of charge.**

Like most children my kids think long car rides can be pretty boring without something to do, and my son likes taking naps on car rides so I want my kids to be as happy and comfortable as possible. When I hear Diono I always think about their car seats but what I didn't know is that they offer a range of car accessories as well and I was lucky enough to receive a few of them for a review.



Pop-up Trash Bin; I will 100% admit that my car can turn into an absolute disaster, mainly because there is no trash can so anytime the kids have something they want to throw away I have them just put it on the floor. Nasty I know! I do clean my car out once a week if that counts for anything though. This Pop-up trash bin helps solve all of those problems, it is a small can made from water resistant fabric. It takes "bag it" bags also sold by them but I just use grocery store bags, they fit perfectly and I have a ton of them so it is win-win in my book. This bin helps keep the car looking a lot nicer! Retail Value: $7.99



Seat Belt Pillow; This is something not only my son was excited about but his dad and I were pretty excited as well. My son falls asleep in the car often, he is four so he doesn't take naps daily but when he is tired he won't admit that he is thus won't take a nap but as soon as were in the car for more than three minutes he will pass out. We are always worried about the weird angles he gets into when he falls asleep so we knew this would be a big help to prevent his neck or head from being stiff when he wakes up. He loves this pillow, he even tried getting me to bring it into the house to use as a regular sleeping pillow because the cover is so soft. It has a Velcro strap that goes over the seat belt and then a piece of cloth sits over the belt to protect the childs face and neck. The pillow is 11" long and is pretty thick so it is as comfortable as possible. Retail Value: $8.97

Travel Pal; Even if we are only running to the store for a quick trip my kids always insist on bringing some of their stuff with us for the ride but they know to leave stuffed animals and such in the car (electronics get placed in my purse). Toys can sometimes end up on the floor and be forgotten, crayons get placed onto the seat for safe keeping until they need that color but Oh no! they forgot to pick it back up before getting out of the car because they didn't see it in the seat crack. This travel pal helps keep all of their belongings picked up and kept in once place, it even has drink holders in the front and pockets both on the outside and the inside so you can store all kinds of goodies in here.

How does it stay up on the seat while driving? It has a sturdy flap in the back that gets tucked into the backseat of your car that helps hold the basket in place while you are driving. My kids love having this between them and I love that it helps my car stay a bit neater. This retails for $9.08

The best part about all three items is that they can all be purchased for less than $10 and can all be found on amazon along with a dozen other helpful products.

OnandOff Giveaway & Review!

****This was not a paid post and my honest opinion was used. The opinions are solely my own and may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by OnanOff for the review & giveaway free of charge.****

We love spending time together as a family, even if we are wanting to do different things we like being in the same room together. Sometimes this can get pretty noisy so I've been looking into headphones for kids which is when I came upon Onanoff who sells a headphone line for kids called Buddyphones. I was sent the inflight model which includes three modes: Safe flight mode, safe kid mode and safe toddler mode.

    

My four year old son was slightly bummed the set we received was purple as he was hoping for a green or blue pair but he said he isn't picky and doesn't mind using them anyways. He is such a cute kid! The ear piece has a cushion lining which helps protect your child's ears from being rubbed raw due to the plastic, it also has a small piece of fabric over the speaker to further help protect their ears. On one side of the headphones you will find a knob which allows you to switch between the three settings, I find it is easiest to use my palm to gently push down on the dial to switch it. They are adjustable enough that not only do they fit my four year old perfectly but they fit on my head comfortably as well. It comes with a carry bag, decorative stickers for the side of the headphones,an airplane adapter plus a buddy cable that allows you to dock a second set of headphones to the first so more than one child can listen to the device at the same time. We also received a hard shell case to keep the headphones stored in when not in use.



Let's talk volume, while we want to be able to cut back on some noise from tablets, dvd players, etc we also don't want to harm our kids ear drums so I tested these out first to see how they are. I tested these out by plugging them into my cell phone and turning on some music at full volume, the headphones themselves prevent anything from being too loud even if you try turning up your device as far as it will go the headphones will only go up to a certain volume. The volume is the perfect amount, you are still able to enjoy what ever it is you are listening too but it also allows you to hear when someone is talking to you. This is quite handy because we all know how sucked into the screen kids can get so you still want to be able to get their attention without shouting at them. The toddler setting lowers it a bit further but your device is still audible without causing harm and the inflight mode tunes it just slightly higher than the child setting. According to their website researchers who study hearing loss have found that a person who is exposed to noise levels above 85 decibels for a prolonged period of time is at risk for hearing loss. Many devices go up quite a bit more than that so the headphones have a set decibel for each setting which are 75, 85 or 94db.

These headphones sell for $49.95 each, they are pretty durable and for me completely worth the price for something comfortable and safe for my child.

PRIZE ALERT:
One reader is going to win their very own set of Inflight Buddyphones.

This is open to US/Canadian Residents! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email!
 
Giveaway winners are announced on FACEBOOK, If you would like to see who won my latest giveaways please visit and like my facebook page.
 
Giveaway entry question: Which color of headphones would your child like? (link on rafflecopter form)

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Janiebee Review & Giveaway!

****This was not a paid post and my honest opinion was used. The opinions are solely my own and may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Janiebee for the review & giveaway free of charge.****

My son is four, he is at the stage where he doesn't need to take a nap every single day but naps can still be useful when he is being extra cranky due to going to bed late the night before. During the week I work a full time job and he stays in the care of a relative while I work, it is a bit of a pain to get him to nap anywhere but home so I wanted to test out a nap mat to see if it would help. Janiebee is a company that sells comfortable quilted nap mats, I was drawn to them because they offer several mink mats. My son is obsessed with soft blankets and pillows so I figured getting a mink nap mat would be a huge hit with him and boy was I right.





For my review I selected the "Samuel nap mat" which is a mat that has a Navy Mat top/bottom with a Platinum blanket and pillowcase it also includes Red ties straps and name plate with navy thread. The mat measures 21" wide and 53" long which is the perfect length, the blanket is just slightly wider than the mat by about two maybe three inches. The mat itself is padded and a pillow is included, the mat is completely washable and the pillow is removable for when you wash it. My son uses this nap mat for everything, he insists on it being on his bed at night and in the morning when it is time to go for the day so I can work it gets rolled up and brought with us so I've washed this a few times and it is still soft as can be and looks brand new.

The mat has a carry strap which makes it easy to transport when it is rolled up, above you can see how my son enjoys carrying this he thinks of it as his soft backpack and has rolled stuff animals up in it to go along on the journey. This mat has helped improve naps both in the house and out because he wants to lay on the soft blanket and mat. I adore this mat and I am so happy my son enjoys it as well. Along with mink mats Janiebee sells a number of other material mats, backpacks, lunch sacks and more. The nap mats can be purchased for $119.99 or you can get a promo mat for $89, or you can enter below for your chance to win your own nap mat of choice.

PRIZE ALERT:
One lucky winner is going to receive a mat of their choice (under $131.99) you can add a customized name.

This is open to US Residents ONLY! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email!
 
Giveaway winners are announced on FACEBOOK, If you would like to see who won my latest giveaways please visit and like my facebook page.
 
Giveaway entry question: Which mat would you select if you won?

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Sleeping Baby Giveaway & Review!

****This was not a paid post and my honest opinion was used. The opinions are solely my own and may vary from others.The products mentioned below have been provided by Sleeping Baby for the review & giveaway free of charge.****

I enjoy being comfortable while I am sleeping, if I am too hot during the summer or too cold during the winter it is difficult to fall asleep and I know it is the same way for my kids. I enjoy looking for sleep ware that helps keep them comfortable to give them a good nights sleep. A company called Sleeping Baby sells an assortment of fun and functional onesies and pajamas for infants, babies and toddlers. For a recent review I was sent a Little Monster Flying Squirrel Pajama set in a 4T/5T. They are made from a stretchy and breathable fabric that is perfect for kids to help keep their body temperature regulated.





My son is just outside of the 5T size range but I figured I would try these out anyways and if they didn't fit my godson is much younger than my son. When they arrived I was a little shocked at how big they were and knew right away they would in fact fit my son, they were tall enough I laughed with my fiance that I could probably wear them.The design of the pajamas are unique, they have extra material under the arms and along the sides towards the legs. If you were to stand with your arms and legs spread out it would give you the appearance of being a flying squirrel or sugar glider. The wrists and ankles of these are tighter to the body to give them a perfect fit feeling while the rest is a bit loose which gives you a good nights sleep. One of my favorite parts of this PJ set is that the neck area has extra material for the zipper to tuck into so the zipper doesn't rub on your childs neck or cause irritation. They are zippered PJ's and do not have a back flap for the bathroom so your child will need to pull them mostly off before being able to use the bathroom. Each pair of flying squirrel Pj's sells for $36.95 each and come in an assortment of designs for both boys and girls. They also sell nap mats and other kid friendly products.



Prize Alert:
One lucky winner is going to receive their own pair of Flying Squirrel PJs for either a boy or a girl.

This is open to US Residents only! Please remember if you DO NOT leave a comment on this blog post as your mandatory entry into the giveaway then all of your entries will be void. Doing the Daily entries will increase your chance of winning. Winners have 72 hours to respond to the notification email!
 
Giveaway winners are announced on FACEBOOK, If you would like to see who won my latest giveaways please visit and like my facebook page.
 
Giveaway entry question: Which pair of Flying Squirrel Pj's do you like the best?

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Meeno Babies Giveaway & Review!

****This was not a paid post and my honest opinion was used. The opinions are solely my own and may vary from others. The products mentioned below have been provided by Meedno Babies for the review &  giveaway free of charge.****

When it comes to babies and teething one thing is for sure, it is unpleasant for the baby and for the parents. A website called Meeno Babies wants to assist your baby with a teether toy that is both functional and adorable, they offer a Billee the goat Teether Toy which comes in light blue, yellow or pink and sells for $19.99. Meeno Babies also offers a Training Walker, clothing,  and car seat/stroller cooler liners.





My children are now past the teething stage but my godson just started teething so he is my little reviewer for this product.The Billiee the goat teether toy is made with rubber from the hevea tree and is all-natural + BPA free. The bright colors on each of the toys is paint free so you don't have to worry about harmful chemicals in your babies mouth, the website states "The color is added in the pigment of the teether toy (much like a toothbrush)". This teething toy offers a number of different textures, part of it is smooth, the feet have rings around them and the neck is bumpy, the entire toy is very soft and squishes easily which makes it easier to chew on. Over-all I am pretty satisfied with this teether toy it has everything I would look for in a teether and it is easy to clean. As you can see from the photos below my Godson is pretty happy with it as well.

Prize Alert:

One lucky winner will receive a product of their choice from Meeno Babies!

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TinySoles Giveaway & Review!

****This was not a paid post and my honest opinion was used. The opinions are solely my own and may vary from others. The products mentioned below have been provided by TinySoles for the review & giveaway free of charge.****

Tiny feet don't always stay so tiny, and when that happens you have to go out and look for a new pair of shoes and finding cute shoes isn't always that easy. A company called TinySoles is here to assist you in finding cute, comfy and affordable shoes to protect your little one's toes. TinySoles offers 31 shoe brands all in one place it is your one stop shoe shop for kids.






With so many shoes it was hard to decide which pair I wanted to get my son, I ended up deciding on the Kai by See Kai Run - Tucker once I spotted the snazzy looking pair of red and black shoes I knew my son would love them. When our package arrived I thought the wrapping was so cute I almost didn't want to open it but I had to in order to get the shoes out, the box also included a lolly-pop with the shoes. The shoes fit comfortably and my son has room to grow in them, and they look wonderful, they are on the pricier side at $42.50 a pair but TinySoles does offer cheaper shoes starting at $14.40 in the sales section, they also offer clothing and socks. I am very pleased with these shoes and have had a pleasant experience with TinySoles, looking at their site they have some pretty cute clothing so I am sure I will be stopping by again sometime in the future.

Prize Alert:
One lucky reader is going to receive a E-certificate for $50 to TinySoles to purchased the shoes or clothing of your choice. Shipping is free on all orders over $20.

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Kai by See Kai Run Tucker Black

Kai by See Kai Run Tucker Black