The Dream Pillow Day Dreamimals Sharkie - Review

[AD/Gifted product - We received this item free of charge for the purpose of this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

Back in November, you might remember we reviewed the Dream Pillow with E and she absolutely loved it - she still sleeps with it every night changing up the "dream" that she puts inside regularly.

As well as the original Dream Pillow, they also do a range called Day Dreamimals. These are smaller versions of the Dream Pillow on a keyring style loop. C was very excited to receive a Sharkie character Day Dreamimal as he liked the idea of E's Lamby.

The Day Dreamimal works in a slightly different way to the Dream Pillow. With Dream Pillow, you get a little cloud shaped block of dream cards to write down what you'd like to dream about that night and pop in inside before you go to sleep. With Day Dreamimals, it is to be used at the start of the day, writing or drawing your positive thoughts for throughout that day or what you'd like to daydream about. It is sort of like manifesting for the duration of your day. The Day Dreamimals come with a mini sized block of dream cards so they are perfect for travelling or taking with you on the go. 

C has decided to keep his Sharkie attached to his schoolbag. He does get anxious at school so he likes to write something positive inside before he heads off and I feel like the idea of what he's written being so close to him throughout the day helps him to have a better day with less worries. He talks about what he'd written that morning when he gets home so it definitely seems to me that he is liking having Sharkie with him every day.

The Day Dreamimals are super cute and soft and perfect for snuggling. As well as the Sharkie design, you can also get Lamby and Pinkie. They retail at £8.95 from the Dream Pillow website.

UniVerse | Slimy Unicorn Collectibles - Review

[AD/Gifted products - We received these toys free of charge for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. If you click through to buy anything through a link on this page, I will earn a few pennies at no extra cost to you.]

My daughter E is like any typical five year old girl - unicorn obsessed! Add slime into the mix and you've got the perfect toy.

UniVerse are emoji-themed clouds that need to be submerged in water to reveal a surprise inside.

We filled our bowl with slightly warm water and E set to work dunking a UniVerse cloud inside. After a few seconds, the cloud disintegrates and the water turns into slime! As a parent, I am not a fan of slime at all but E loves it. She wasn't too fussed of the texture and smell of this one though, I think it does depend on how much water you use and what temperature it is - maybe we used too little!

The slime/water turns a different colour, for each cloud this gives you a clue as to which world the UniVerse unicorn is from; orange for Sweet Treats Landing, yellow for Pet Party Peak, Red for Nummy Bay, Pink for Glam-a-Ganza Land, purple for Superstar City, blue for Funtasyland and green for Mist-terious Land.

You will then find four blind bags ready to be opened. Inside, you'll discover your unicorn, some accessories, a best friend for your unicorn and a card with more information about your new unicorn such as what their favourite food is, their likes and dislikes and how uni-que or rare they are. These work like scratchcards and it is recommended to use your unicorns horn to scratch them off but we found the hoof worked better.

There is a collector's sheet that comes with each cloud so you can tick off who you get and you will also find a key that tells you if they are special in any way. We managed to get a good variety in our UniVerse clouds with unicorns from a few different lands as well as a translucent one and a glow in the dark one! My personal favourite was definitely my namesake - Bun Appetit Becca! 

As much as I disliked the mess, E absolutely loved the idea of UniVerse as they are a little bit different. The unicorn characters are great as they have their own little personalities and can be used in lots of different types of play.

UniVerse from Spinmaster retail at around £9.99 each but are available from Smyths at £4.99 at the time of publication.

Blume Dolls Baby Pop - Review

[AD/Gifted - We received this item for the purpose of this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. If you click through to buy anything through a link on this page, I will earn a few pennies at no extra cost to you.]

We received the original Blume Dolls a little while ago and absolutely loved them so we were very excited to hear about the new addition to the range that will be available in selected Tesco stores from December 26th - Baby Pop!

As the name suggests, instead of full size dolls like the original Blume Dolls, inside Baby Pop you will find babies! These work a little differently but come with a whole host of features that are super fun.

Firstly, you will see five different plants growing out of the top. You simply pull these out and you'll hear a pop! Twist the plants counter-clockwise and see what's hiding inside. Will you get 3, 4 or 5 babies?!

In the first couple, we found some cute accessories for the babies like sunglasses and a pizza slice but then we found three babies in the next three! They are super cute wearing little swaddles and each have a different expression on their face so you know their mood. You get a collectors sheet so E was very excited to match up the dolls with the image to see if they were rare or common.

It might look like that's all there is to the Blume Dolls Baby Pop but if you pull the bottom off the container, you'll find a hidden nursery! E was very surprised by this and was even more surprised when she opened the toybox and looked underneath the beds to find even more items - cuddle toys for the babies, another swaddle so you can mix and match them, a highchair and even some stickers to decorate the nursery!

Once you've removed the swaddles from the babies, you'll see that they are each wearing nappies. If you dip them in cold water, the nappies will change to either pink or blue, depending on gender. All of our babies were boys, much to E's dismay.

The fun doesn't stop there! The lid of the Blume Dolls Baby Pop toy turns into a swimming pool so you can fill it with water for your babies to have a little splash in. You'll find a hidden ladder, in two pieces, hooked inside the main part of the container which slots onto the lid/pool for extra fun!

E has had so much fun playing with the new Blume Dolls Baby Pop and I think it's great that they have put so many different aspects into the toy. E hasn't yet got bored with it and even uses the dolls and playset with her existing larger Blume Dolls too.

The Blume Dolls Baby Pop will be available to buy from selected Tesco stores on December 26th.

Thames & Kosmos 'The Colour Monster' Game - Review

[AD/Gifted - We received a copy of the game for the purpose of this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

When we were offered the chance to try out the new 'The Colour Monster' game from Thames & Kosmos, I jumped at the chance. It is based on the popular children's book of the same name and although we aren't familiar with it (although I'll definitely be buying a copy now!) the premise of the game really appealed to me, especially with having an autistic child who sometimes struggles with emotions.

The Colour Monster encourages discussions of emotions and how to help children understand them. 

Inside the box you get:

• a game board
• dice
• Monster figure
• child figure
• 2 x shelves
• 8 x jars
• 5 x colour tokens

Before you begin, you need to build the two shelf units and place the jars circle side facing out. The Monster and the girl figure will both begin on the pink splash of colour on the game board and the colour tokens will go on the relevant splashes. Each colour represents an emotion; pink is love, green is calm, blue is sadness, yellow is happy, black is fear and red is anger.

Each player takes turn to roll the dice and they can the move the Monster or their friend (who is there for support) across the game board. 

Once you have stopped on a colour, you must tell everyone something that makes you feel that emotion then you pick a jar to put the colour token into. Each jar will have a colour on the back so you have to guess the right one to get a match. Three of the jars have mixed emotions. If you get the right jar, you slot the token in. If you get the wrong jar, you must put the jar back. If you choose a jar with mixed emotions, you must turn it around so that the colours are on display. If all three end up being turned around during the same game, the Monster will be confused and overcome with emotion and need to go to bed. You win if all the tokens go into the correct jars without the Monster becoming confused.

Both C and E absolutely love this game and have even been asking Daddy to play it with them while I've been at work. It's not like any other game we have played before and it is so nice to encourage a discussion. It made me realise that I very rarely talk about my own emotions with the kids so doing that for a change was refreshing and it is lovely to hear their thoughts and feelings too - some of which did surprise me a little.

The drawings are stunning and it's just a lovely family game that will grow with us and be played a lot. It's recommended for children aged 4+ and retails at £38. You can find out more about The Colour Monster at Kosmos Games.

We're Off To Find a Unicorn - Book Review & Blog Tour

(AD/Gifted - We received a copy of this book to review and take part in the blog tour. All thoughts and opinions are my own.)

I am so excited to be taking part in the blog tour for We're Off To Find a Unicorn by Eloise White and Cory Reid, published by Owlet Press.

Our house is like a library but I couldn't resist saying yes to the opportunity to read and review this wonderful story - mostly because E is unicorn obsessed.

Synopsis: 

We've hunted for bears, elves and eggs... now we're hunting for everyone's favourite - unicorns! But readers will not only enjoy looking for the hiding unicorn in the pages, they'll also learn about our world's endangered wildlife along the way.

We're Off To Find a Unicorn is loosely based on E's favourite story of all time - We're Going On a Bear Hunt. The language is repeated throughout and by the third or fourth time, both children were able to say it along with me.

The story follows a mixed race family with one member of the family in a wheelchair; both things that we don't usually see in books so I thought that it was brilliant to see a little diversity. We see it in real life every day so why not have it in the stories that we read? They are on the hunt for a unicorn but what do they come across instead? 

The family explore lots of different environments and stumble upon a few endangered animals, ones that wouldn't usually be included in the books we've read in the past, such as a pangolin and bush baby. I felt that this was great conversation starter for us as the children had a lot of questions about the animals and I could explain more about how animals become endangered. 

E quickly discovered that as we read, she could see the unicorn hiding in each page with the family none the wiser! The imagery is beautiful and really captivated both C and E.

We're Off To Find a Unicorn is a lovely little book for young children, being both fun and educational.

You can purchase a copy for £7.99 directly from Owlet Press. 

Don't forget to take a look at the other blogs taking part in this blog tour too.