I'm a full-time mummy

When I saw the press release of this app, I immediately checked out for more details on it and what got my full attention was the beautiful illustrations in this app. I had initially thought this app was more like a story book where you page through and read some story about a dog or something, until I realised you get to find the many many hidden objects on each page as you travel a long with Mitzi, the spotted dog with a red collar. Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Mitzi's World
* Price: $3.99
* Category: Books
* Released: Jul 25, 2012
* Version: 1.0.0
* Size: 198 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Auryn, Inc
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 4.3 or later.

Description from the product page:

"In Mitzi’s world, every detail is worth seeing. Young readers will enjoy following Mitzi, the spotted dog with a red collar, through all four seasons of the year as she explores the towns, farms, and countryside of America, vividly brought to life by author Deborah Raffin and folk artist Jane Wooster Scott.

Along with Mitzi there are plenty of other objects to uncover, whether they are candy canes in winter, sail boats in spring, sand castles in summer, or pumpkins in fall. Children will be introduced to counting concepts, seasons, and colors, while the entire family can enjoy the highly beloved folk art form with its colorful and accessible scenes. Mitzi’s World is a part of the Auryn line from Auryn Inc. and is based on Deborah Raffin’s book by the same name. "

What's good?

* The illustrations is just simply amazing and breathtaking and there are some cute little animations and awesome interactivity in this app!

* I love the 15 folk art illustrations and the details are simply amazing!

* I like that when you exit the app and resumed back later, those objects which you have found earlier are still indicated as found (as there are some apps which make you look for the objects all over again!) so you just need to continue back your search for the hidden objects.

Room for Improvement?

* Perhaps make it easier for us to locate the hidden objects when we clicked the Hint option? Blinking the objects would be cool hahaha!

You can purchase the "Mitzi's World" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

Ever since I could remember, I love reading books! When I was young (less than 12 years old), I remembered going to my eldest aunt house and got mesmerised by this giant Disney book - all short stories and rhymes about princess, animals and fairy tales and the colors are so fascinating and beautiful and it slowly became a habit of mine to read and read and read.

In highschool, I'd borrowed books after books from the school library. And also rented books as well.

When I started working, a portion of my salary goes to books and magazines.

Now that I'm a mother of 2 kids, I'm still reading. Of course nowadays, I'd prefer e-books anytime since I can read it using my iPad at night after my kids went to bed. But that doesn't mean I've given up reading paperbacks. Just that nowadays, I only buy paperbacks if it's a good book worth keeping and also those crafts and activities books for my boy.

And since I'm a SAHM, I don't have much luxury to go out and browse around books for myself or my kids, so what else but to buy them online? In fact, I actually love buying things online as I get to compare the prices and read other people's reviews on the products before making a decision to buy.

For books, the first website I go when I want to buy books are of course: The Book Depository

What I love most about them is they offer worldwide shipping FREE!

OK, if you take a look at their books and compared them to Amazon, of course you can clearly see Amazon's prices are cheaper but because I'm living in Malaysia, a lot of books are not allowed to be shipped to Asian countries (like Malaysia!) and even if Amazon do ship over to Malaysia, the shipping fees is very very high! There are times when the shipping fees cost more than the books itself!

This is definitely the website I go to and I've bought loads and loads of books from them. Delivery takes from 3-4 weeks time and so far I've only experienced one time where my delivery was lost in transit and happy to note, The Book Depository honors my purchase and promptly resend a new set of books for me free in charge!

If you have never try them before, do give it a try!

When I saw this app being available for review, I thought it would be nice for my 3 years old boy to have a feel of camping since the closest he gets to camping feel is watching the 'Up' movie hahaha... So here goes our review after trying out this app:

* Title: Happy Campfire
* Price: $1.99
* Category: Entertainment
* Released: July 12, 2012
* Version: 1.0
* Size: 14.5 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: David Carson
* Rated: Rated 9+ for the following: Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 4.0 or later

Description from the product page:

"Happy Campfire allows you and your family to experience the great outdoors when the elements get in your way or when a camping trip just isn't in the cards. Bring the great outdoors with you wherever you go! Think you have to cancel the family camping trip or campfire because of rain? Not if you have the interactive experience of Happy Campfire!

 Perfect for kids, Happy Campfire brings an interactive camping experience to the car, the hotel room,  or inside the tent during a rainy night on a camping trip with these features:
~Roast the perfect marshmallow
~Jam on classic campfire instruments
~Listen to campfire songs and sounds of the great outdoors
~Create your own constellations
~Switch into Ghost Story Mode and tell a spooky story...BOO!
~Learn fire safety (Don't touch the fire!)
~Retina Display graphics for the new iPad."

What's good?

* I like the "Learn fire safety (Don't touch the fire!)" feature where it goes 'Ouch!' whenever we touch the fire and I use this opportunity to teach my boy not to play with fire and that it is dangerous to do so!

* I also noticed my boy enjoying and happily tapping along on our iPad screen to create stars and pictures (he said he's making Spiderman!) in the "Create your own constellations" game.

* The "Roast the perfect marshmallow" is a cute game where we have to make sure the marshmallows are roasted perfectly! (teaches us to be patience!)

Other Things to Note...

* I didn't try the "Ghost Story Mode" with my boy, maybe it's just me but I do not want to introduce the concept of ghost to him at such a young age.

* In summary, this is a fun app to play and pass time with!

You can purchase the "Happy Campfire" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"