I'm a full-time mummy

(** Article first published as Book Review: Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory & the Ice Cream Castle by Sarahjane Funnell on Blogcritics.)

I came across a Tweet message by the author asking for bloggers to review her upcoming book and as usual, I will first check out what the book is about and then browse around the website and author's info. The first thing that struck me when I landed on her website was:

Purple

I LOVE ALL THINGS PURPLE!

And seriously... ICE CREAM?!

How can I say no to purple colored things and ice cream?! And look at that adorable and cute little girl? I immediately replied the Tweet message with my interest to review it and to my surprise, the author was prompt and soon enough, the book arrived at my doorstep oozing with cuteness and oh my, oh my.... just read my review for the "Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and the Ice Cream Castle" book below, OK?

Title: Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and the Ice Cream Castle
Author: Sarahjane Funnell (Author), Amie Bilsby (Illustrator)
Publisher: Gibson Publishing (26 Mar 2012)
ISBN-13/-10:  978-0957081130 / 0957081138
Paperback:  32 pages
Dimension:  27.4 x 20.4 x 0.4 cm

Description from the product page:
"Phillipa loves ice cream. She loves ice cream almost as much as she loves her pet cat Little Miss Whiskers. Little Miss Whiskers is her fluffy white cat with a purple collar and bell. She doesn’t like ice cream at all but loves nothing more than to curl up into a ball and fall fast asleep on the end of Phillipa’s bed.

One day Phillipa Knickerbocker Glory and Little Miss Whiskers embark on a deliciously exciting journey. Through a secret tunnel, they enter a magical dreamland where they find the Ice Cream Castle and discover every flavour of ice cream imaginable. The Ice Cream Castle seems like a dream come true but will it be just how Phillipa imagined? With all that ice cream, will she and Little Miss Whiskers ever want to go home? Find out just what happens in this deliciously delightful adventure… "

'Fun, fun, fun!' is all I can think of as I flipped through this book! Each page that I turned just got me more excited and anxious to see what's coming up next and boy oh boy, the pictures included in this book is just gorgeous and droolworthy! 

Although Ben is into boyish stuff (robots, trucks, cars, soldiers, ninja those sort) this book manages to capture his attention because of:

ICE CREAM!!

He sticks around long enough for me to read the book and we oohs and aahhs over the gorgeous pictures. My girl on the other hand is still too young to understand the storyline but I'll definitely be keeping this book and introduce it to her again later.

The book is not too thick and I love the paper quality and as for the storyline, it is about a girl named Phillipa who loves to eat ice cream and enjoys looking forward to Saturday which is a special treats day where her mum will make her the Knickerbocker Glory ice cream which is made of all different kinds of ice cream and toppings.

One day as Phillipa was having a hard time deciding which colors and flavours to try on her Knickerbocker Glory ice cream, she decided to close her eyes and when she opened her eyes, she was in this magical place with all kinds of colors and flavours and she found herself standing in front of the Ice Cream Castle.

I'll not explain more of this book, you should go get it and find out yourself what happened to Phillipa at the Ice Cream Castle!

In summary, this is an easy to read book with beautiful illustrations that will capture your child's heart (Ok, ok, even mine!)

You can get this book from Amazon or at http://www.phillipaknickerbockerglory.com/shop/.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! TWO of you lucky people are going to win this awesome book! SIGNED! You will absolutely love it! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book by the author 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 book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

I came across this wonderful product while I was surfing around the Net looking for pictures on potty training (I was in the midst of writing up a blog post about Ben's potty training) and immediately decided to ask whether they are OK with international bloggers, and my oh my, they are happy to provide me a product of my choice from their website for my review!  So here goes my review for the "Potty Target - 12 Pack":

Description from the product page:
"Our goal at PottyTarget.com is to make the world cleaner one bathroom at a time. This simple product helps kids to go where they are supposed to and creates laughs along the way. Give them something to aim for and you will be amazed by the results. "

I requested for the Potty Target 12 packs for my review. It has 3 of each: Boat, Duck, Tree, and Target Decals. The stickers came with an easy to understand and follow instructions to apply the stickers.

The designs are cute and eye catching.  

At the moment, Ben is still using potty and has yet to migrate over to using toilet seat. I am not in a hurry to rush this process as I am trying to train him to hold his pee longer and in the meantime, look out for a suitable and sturdy step stool so that he could stand on it when we decide to let him try peeing into the toilet seat.

So this review is based on the application of the decals on Ben's plastic potty. Ben immediately chooses the Target design (maybe because he likes red?) and he is excited with the idea of trying to pee to hit the target sticker!

On a few occasion, I caught him peeing into his potty and trying to aim hard at the Target sticker. Normally he pees into the potty and look elsewhere. So far there has been very minimal incidents of him accidently splashes out some minor trickles but I think the idea of a sticker in his potty for him to practise his aim is good!

I will be keeping the rest of the sticker and try it out on our toilet seat when we are ready for him to use the toilet seat later.

You can get these stickers at Potty Target's website.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! FIVE of you lucky people are going to win this awesome product! You will absolutely love it! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

Please note that this giveaway is only available for US and Canada residents. (apologies to the rest, please don't get mad, OK?)

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the product by Potty Target 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.

I received an email from Olha, the marketing manager of this fun app as they were looking for ways to spread the word about their wonderful mobile application for kids. I replied that I would be delighted to review the app myself if they don't mind since Ben is not into spelling stage yet. Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Smart Speller English
* Price: The free version comes with 1 puzzle category (Vegetables), full version for iPad app: $2.99
* Category: Education
* Updated: 06 February 2012
* Version: 2.1
* Size: 29.7 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Lemberg Solutions Limited
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.Requires iOS 4.2 or later

Description from the product page:

"This simple to use and effective interactive learning game was created by parents for parents to help their children learn to correctly pronounce and spell words and letters. Thanks to its three levels of complexity (with hints, without hints and with extra letters), SmartSpeller will be exciting for kids to complete over and over again, moving to the next level as they grow up and learn. "

Although Ben is not into spelling stage yet, I am delighted to review this app because I am a bit of a spelling nuts fan and love games that require puzzle solving! Hey, at the end of the day, I keep all the good educational apps on my iPad so that I can let Ben use it when he's ready!

The app comes with 80 original pictures across 7 categories (numbers and colours, fruit & vegetable, vehicles, farm animals, shapes, body parts) and the game is played by tapping a moving object and then completing a word puzzle.

What's good?

* I love that we can also touch the objects on the screen and the narrator tells you what it is!

* I like the difficulty levels which correspond appropriately. Easy level allows you to see the spelling of the word, Medium level test you on the spelling without any hints and the Hard level has an additional letter to test and trick your knowledge to see whether you are confident with your answers.

* Upon solving each category, you will see the colors for the category appearing as rainbow so it gives you something to look forward to as a reward for solving all the categories.

* There are different language versions of the Smart Speller app! (FYI, there are 10 language versions available on the AppStore and 13 language versions on the Android Market)

Room for Improvement?

* I would love it if the letters being spelled out (upon solving) to have other colors instead of the current darker brown which is not so eye catching.

* I wonder whether it is possible to animate out the object image after spelling correctly, for example after spelling the word 'one' correctly, the app can animate out 1 ball bouncing around the page or something.

You can purchase the "Smart Speller English" app from the iTunes App Store.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! FOUR of you lucky people are going to win a copy of this awesome and educational app! You will absolutely love it! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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"