2016 Holiday Gift Guide

Holiday Gift Guide – Once Kids Playhard Heroes

December 19, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

When you are thinking about holiday gifts you want one that is durable and will last. Once Kids has created toys that will last for a long time but also are built to play with too. I was sent the Playhard Heroes Action Figure Series 1 – Sycamore #1. This toy is tough and built to handle any chaotic and over-encroaching situation with ease and even has an optimistic smile!

Built strong with superhero-worthy materials and packaged in equally tough laser engraved wooden boxes, complete with chalkboard painted interiors, the Play Hard Hero Action Figures are a brilliant alternative to the tradition of plastic.

Articulated action figures made entirely of strong, heavy-duty wood
Encourages imaginative play, storytelling, communication skills, appreciation for the environment
A brilliant alternative to the tradition of plastic action figures
Action figures each fully articulated – Parts connected by elastic string and metal hinges
Packaged in sturdy wooden boxes with chalkboard-paint interior
Pack comes with only one Play Hard Hero Action Figure
High quality, hardwood materials for lasting durability, strength, and safety

Sycamore #1 was very durable and high quality and I was very impressed with the articulated limbs which move very easily and allow the action figure to be posed in any way that you would like.

The action figure comes in a very nice wooden box that holds the action completely. It even allows you to display the action figure if you are not playing with it.

All-in-all if you are looking for an amazing toy that will last for years to come, Once Kids Playhard Heroes is an amazing toy to check out for yourself!

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Holiday Gift Guide – Hess Toy Truck

December 18, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Holiday traditions are some of the best and most memorable parts of this season, and when it comes to gift traditions, the Hess Toy Truck has been a celebrated tradition for families along the East coast and around the country for the 52 Years.

Never heard of the Hess Toy Truck? I was so surprised to find that they have been creating a new truck for the past 52 years. This year the 2016 Hess Toy Truck and Dragster is one of the hottest toys online this year, available exclusively online at www.hesstoytruck.com. The Dragster is the biggest accompanying vehicle in Hess fleet history, and as a two-in-one toy with Energizer batteries and free shipping included, the Hess Toy Truck is a great value toy for families looking for the perfect holiday gift for any car and truck enthusiast.

In receiving this I can attest that this is a HUGE vehicle. I can also attest that it is very well built and with all of the bells and whistles you and your kids can have a blast playing with this, or even just displaying it as it is a work of craftsmanship too!

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Kano – Giving The Gift of Technology & Education

December 15, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

I know that in today’s world, knowing about computers is SO important. With the rate at which technology is changing, educating my daughters on current trends, but also providing them with the skills to build this technology for themselves is something that I strive to do. To do this I have tried to start to teach them some basic coding skills, but I know there is more that I can do and Kano is a great gift that takes the questions out of this and makes learning coding fun for all ages.

You see Kano allows you to work together, or individually, build a computer. Yes, I said build a computer! It is not as hard as you might think. My daughter and I built our own computer using the screen kit and computer kit that Kano provides and we found that in less than 30 minutes we had a working computer.

While this was fun, the power in Kano though is what it does after you build your device. The interface and applications are built around the premise of teaching people how to code. Once our computer was built we started to explore the story mode of the Kano, and in this you can learn a lot about technology and how computers, sound, circuits and more work. There are also connections to other applications within the story mode and in these you are taught how to code in a step-by-step incremental way.

Kano is a London-based company that empowers people of all ages to make, learn and play with computing, with its system of kits and open coding platform. Its first “computer anyone can make” has shipped to 86 countries around the world to people, ages 6 to 81, who have used it to make PCs, screens, radios, artwork, music, games, Minecraft hacks and more. More than 19 million lines of code have been shared in its online community, Kano World, where anyone can try out Kano’s apps for free. Kano was founded by Alex Klein, Yonatan Raz-Fridman and Saul Klein and has raised $19 million in funding, from its initial record-breaking Kickstarter campaign to investors that include Jim Breyer, Marc Benioff, Martin Sorrell, Index Ventures, James Higa, Troy Carter and Shana Fisher, among others.

My daughter loves to make art through coding and after creating her masterpieces she is able to share them virtually for all users to see. The fun part of this is also that it challenges the user to not only follow their instructions to create the art, but also to experiment and change the art after they are done to see how slight changes in the code will change what they are creating. While my daughter may not be aware that she is learning, she definitely is, and I can tell that she is having a blast doing it too!

If this sounds like something that you or someone else that you care for would love, for the holidays, Kano is offering a special promotion on the Computer Kit for $124.99 (save $25), and a Computer Kit Bundle for $259.99 (save $40), available online at kano.me. Also available on and through Kano’s retail partners Toys “R” Us and Barnes and Noble for $149.99.

To learn more about Kano, please visit: http://kano.me.

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Holiday Gift Guide – Lionel Disney Mickey Mouse Express Ready-to-Play Set

December 12, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

About the Train

All aboard the , featuring iconic characters dressed in their Christmas best! Help with Mickey’s special delivery and join Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck and Goofy spread the Christmas spirit in this present filled Disney set!

A perfect set to run under the Christmas tree, bringing a dose of holiday cheer and providing families with an annual tradition that creates cherished memories.

Set Includes: Battery powered general-style locomotive driven by Mickey, present filled tender with Donald Duck, boxcar, center-cupola caboose, 24 curved and eight straight plastic track pieces, and a RC remote control. (Ready-to-Play is not compatible with Lionel G-Gauge systems)

Locomotive Features: Highly detailed, sturdily constructed general-style locomotive, authentic train sounds, including bell and whistle, working headlight, requires six C cell batteries (not included)

Freight Car Features: Fixed knuckle couplers, opening doors on boxcar

RC Remote Control Features: Designed for easy use, clearly marked buttons release product- specific announcements, allow the train to go forward and reverse, sound the whistle, and ring the bell, requires two AA batteries (not included)

MSRP: $119.99
Recommended Age: 4+

My Take on the Train

I know that growing up I always had a train, especially around the holidays. It was always a special treat to get this out and use it. It also was a ton of fun to get together as a family around a good movie (usually a Disney film) to spend time together and build memories at the same time. Now that I am a parent I am trying to share these experiences with my family and I am extending the tradition to my new niece who is experiencing Christmas at an early age this year.

We know that she is a HUGE Mickey Mouse Clubhouse fan and she also loves trains, so we decided to give her the new Lionel Disney for Christmas this year. This new train set was perfect as it had all of the characters that she loves and with all of the extra details and add-ons this train is very functional and also allows you to experience some great characters along with the train action too.

We were very impressed with the controls and even though our niece was too young to control the Lionel Disney Mickey Mouse Express Ready-to-Play Set yet for herself she was mesmerized by the action and train itself.

All-in-all the Lionel Disney Ready-to-Play Set was a fun set with all of your favorite characters. This is a must have this holiday season!

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Great Holiday Gifts – Skylanders Imaginators

December 10, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Over the past month my girls and I have been exploring the new game. Thanks to the great people at Activision, I received the set for my WII-U and the nice thing is that this set comes with everything that you need to get started. The other nice thing is that being a fan of the other Skylanders games from the past we have other characters that we have collected over the years and these will work on this game too!

As we have been playing this we have been learning some great information about the game itself. One thing that we did learn is that once you set the battle class that for your characters it is permanent so you have to make sure to select the right battle class from the beginning! Once you set the battle class of the Skylander Imaginator it is permanent. So, I’ll be using the little stickers to set the proper battle class. I wasn’t going to but now I’ve learned about that permanent feature. What I am doing is making sure that each element has all different battle classes. If you are not aware of the battle classes you have 10 classes to choose from including:

Bazooker
Bowslinger
Brawler
Knight
Ninja
Quickshot
Sentinel
Smasher
Sorcerer
Swashbuckler

If you want to learn more about the battle classes click here to read and view more information!

My daughters also love to use the Creator App that is also connected to the game. One thing to keep in mind here is that the characters that you have in the game can be tr

The power of this version of Skylanders is that you can create new Sylanders yourself and as you are playing you can get new new gear while playing the game to modify the ones that you create. The game has a lot of gameplay and there are a lot of twists and turns so you will not be beating the game quickly which makes the game even more fun.

As we played this we all agreed that we liked this more than the last version of Skylanders, that is . In this game you really only have the ability to have one-person gameplay and a second person has to wait around. In this game you have many more options and with the fact that you have the 3 creation crystals in the starter set you have everything that you need to get started.

Imaginators does depart sharply from Skylanders tradition in one way: you don’t actually have to use any of the new toys to play through the main story. You could earn all three completion stars on every chapter with a Series 1 Spyro toy if you wanted to. The overworld map also has elementally locked “Sensei Realms” that require a Sensei toy of the corresponding element to unlock, but these mini-levels are not part of the main story.

Overall, this game was a ton of fun and I’d highly recommend it if you liked the previous skylanders games.

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Holiday Gift Guide – Monitoring Teen Online Activity Is Easier With Roqos

December 10, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Roqos was a very unique device as it looks at security in new ways. This is a Wi-Fi router that is super simple to set up – easy enough for anyone to set up! Second, Roqos is set up to provide parents with a system that lets them pause the Internet at the press of a button, and also give filtering and blocking controls – controls you cannot get in other ways. Third, Roqos provides a cloud-based cyber-security system that monitors all network traffic through Deep Packet Inspection.

The Roqos easily connects to your modem and comes with additional Ethernet LAN ports.

The Roqos is price effective. The initial hardware costs $19 which is reasonable. On top of this costs you also have to be willing to pay for the one-year subscription to the security service which will costs $17 per month (with a full-year subscription up front). So wteruhileo the cost is less for the equipment with the subscription you are paying about the same you will pay for other routers but with a lot more safeguards for your family.

In setting up the router itself I do have to say that it was super simple to set up and I can see wrhy they state that it is one of the easiest to set up. Once set up I downloaded the Roqos app and found that it allowed me to change many of the internal settings of the router.

The Roqos is fast. It works on an Intel Atom processor (quad-core 64-bit, 1.91 GHz cores), 2GB of memory and 8GB of storage. There’s four additional Gigabit Ethernet ports that you can use for wired networking or additional LAN support. On the wireless side, the device offers 802.11ac wireless with 3×3 on the 5GHz frequency, and 2×2 802.11n on the 2.4GHz frequency. There’s also a USB 3.0 port if you want to attach an external storage drive.

The second goal of the device is around parental controls. As my kids get older I want to have more controls over what my kids can or cannot see. With the Roqos network set up, you can use the app to create user profiles for your family members and then attach specific devices to those profiles.

All-in-all I have been very impressed with the Roqos and I think you will be too!!

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Holiday Gift Guide – Playmobil Adventure Tree House

December 6, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

Explore life in the great outdoors with the Playmobil Adventure Tree House. Located in the heart of the forest, this house is surrounded by all sorts of wildlife. Watch as a mother bear and her cub fish for their dinner while a fox family plays nearby. Just beware of the weak spot on the bridge or you might fall through! Both a bald eagle and owl have made a home in the branches above the tree house, giving kids an up close and personal Playmobil nature experience.

The adventurers can use their equipment to learn more about their animal friends and help protect the environment. Use the pulley system to lift some of the heavier supplies up to the house. At the end of the day, keep wild visitors out by pulling up the stairs. Set includes two figures, tree house with grass platform, bears, geese, foxes, owl, bald eagle, bird with nest, rock caves, fish, fishing pole, snake, walkie talkie, computer, supply boxes, and tons of other accessories.

My Take on the Play Set

This was an amazing Playmobil set. I am always so impressed with the breadth and depth of the detail that is painstakingly put into the creation of these sets and this set was no different. From the ferns coming out of the rocks to the pulley off the tree house and more, this set comes with so many different small touches that makes the experience real and allows your childs’ imagination come alive because of the the ability to turn a playset into part of a world of possibilities. My daughter has loved this set and simply adores using this alongside of some of the other sets that she has. She truly enjoys using this set with sets that seemingly would not go together, but when she does bring them together she has hours of fun!

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NES Classic Edition Brings Back Classic Nintendo Game Play and Games!

November 12, 2016 by dadofdivas 1 Comment

The system is a miniaturized version of the groundbreaking NES, originally released in 1985. Just plug the NES Classic Edition into your TV, pick up that gray controller, and rediscover the joy of NES games.

What’s in the box?

NES Classic Edition system
One NES Classic Controller
HDMI cable
AC adapter
30 pre-installed games

Play NES games the way they’re meant to be played—with a full-size “original” controller. The included NES Classic Controller can also be used with NES Virtual Console games on your Wii™ or Wii U™ console by connecting it to a Wii Remote™ controller.

My Take on the System

As someone that grew up on the NES system in the 1980’s the system was an amazing throwback to the games that I loved growing up. There were some of the games that I loved most in this system as a part of the 30 games that were included such as Kid Icarus, Metroid, Castlevania, Mega Man and many more! This is a system that I have been waiting to be re-released for a long time and now the wait is over. This is a must have for anyone that is a Nintendo NES fan and something that would be a great gift for any gamer!

See below for a few more of my thoughts!

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Lionel Mega Tracks Provides High Flying Action!

November 6, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

I grew up with Lionel trains. Their high quality train sets are ones that I still have in my home today. This holiday season we will be pulling out our train set but we also will be pulling out something brand new from Lionel! Lionel is expanding beyond model trains with the introduction of Mega Tracks, a revolutionary rail system where kids can use their imagination to design and build their own race courses!

My daughters love to create their own worlds and this has been the case since they were very young and with this very cool new system, Lionel Mega Tracks allows kids the ability to build track layouts virtually anywhere using the clamp and construction system, and can also create their own stunts by twisting the TwisTrack™, a new flexible track system.

We did this in our own home and found that once you have it built you can then send theMega Tracks vehicle into high speed action, using a handheld RC controller to adjust the speed of the vehicle and keep it on the track.

You get quite a bit of track and this allows you to build many unique things. With the set you get 20 feet of TwisTrack™, 55 construction pieces to build customized track layouts (including track clamps and connectors), Rail Racer vehicle and charger, handheld RC controller. Is this enough? Yes, you can build some things, but depending on your kid you may want additional to expand your track.

My daughters loved that they were in control of the vehicle bu also that they could also control the design of the track itself. It seemed that part of the fun is using your imagination to build over and over again!

MSRP: $99.99 (for master set)
Recommended Age: 8+

Here is some thoughts on the Lionel Mega Tracks system! Enjoy!

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Kent’s 20” MT20 Mountain Bike – Perfect For The Holidays

November 6, 2016 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

The gives kids all the advanced features of an adult mountain bike at a size that’s right for them. This was perfect for my daughter as she is getting older and her old bicycle is getting much too small. Also, she is getting to an age where having different gears helps.

This holiday season we wanted to look into a bicycle that was well made but also one that was perfect for her style and for the type of riding that she wanted to be able to do. I also wanted a bicycle that offered comfort too. The Kent MT20 hardtail mountain bike performs and delivers on all fronts and with a MSRP of only $79.97 this bicycle is a great buy!

The Kent MT20 hardtail mountain bike also offers you a tuned travel front shock that absorbs the bumps while the sturdy steel frame keeps the bike straight. This bike features industry leader Shimano shifting with a seven-speed drive train. The padded seat can be adjusted without tools to grow with its owner.

While we tried out the girls’ version Kent also offers bicycles for boys.

One of the things that I appreciated was that this bicycle comes partially assembled so the amount of time that it takes to get the bike ready for use is minimal. Just pull the bicycle out of the box and you are almost ready to go!

When my daughter saw this she was ecstatic and now she does not want me to put this away for the winter. She told me that it was very comfortable to sit on and even better fun to ride.

If you are looking to not break the bank this holiday season and want to give a high quality bicycle to your own kids, definitely place the Kent MT20 hardtail mountain bike on your shopping list!

The Kent MT20 hardtail mountain bike is available online

Walmart

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