I think it’s next to impossible to be a parent these days and go without seeing a child being pushed around in a Step2 buggy.  When Kayla was around a year old we acquired the first Whisper Ride Buggy and took it everywhere.  It received quite a bit of love and abuse from Kayla and is now living it’s days out entertaining one of our friend’s little boys.  

A little while back I told you how I am now a Step2 Test Drive Mom and how we’ve had a lot of their products take up residency in our home over the last four years of Kayla’s life.

So I was delighted when I heard that Step2 was sending the new and improved Whisper Ride II Buggy over for me to check out and see what I thought.  When I found this box sitting on my doorstep, I knew I would have an excited child when she came home from preschool.  As you can tell, even though Kayla is nearing the maximum age limit for this cute car I couldn’t keep her out of it!

What set the the old Whisper Ride apart from other ride-on kiddie cars was a lack of the deafening crunch of plastic against concrete or pavement because of its cushy tires and its crucial yet often overlooked seat belt.  

You’re probably wondering how difficult the assembly is on this buggy and if you ask me I’d rate is somewhere between easy and medium difficulty.  Most of that depends on the assembler.  If you’re like my husband and can’t stand putting things together even if they only require an Allen wrench, then it’s medium.

If you’re the one in the family who has been putting together baby bouncers, swings or nursery furniture like moi, then this is easy and straightforward.  Look, even Kayla was getting in on the action which usually means that I’ll be missing a screw and everything takes five times as long as it should, but we had the Whisper Ride II together in about 20 minutes.

So what do I like about the new Whisper Ride II?  Let me start by being selfish and say I love the parent cup holder which is located on the push handle.  Just having a cup holder would have been enough for me, but this one actually swivels to accommodate bumps in the road and keep your drink from spilling on you or your precious cargo below.  Now, where is this feature in my Toyota Highlander, which is supposed to be the ultimate mommy-mobile?

Okay, okay, now something for the little one.  How about this anti-finger-smushing trunk?  I’d personally like to thank the Step2 employee who thought of this because I cannot comprehend why there aren’t more products with features like this?  By just leaving a little gap between where the hood and body meet, many toddler-tears will be eliminated.   If you have a slightly older child then you know that as toddlers they close things on their hands constantly.  If you’re a first timer, trust me – this is good stuff!

If your child is anything like mine then they are constantly in need of a snack and a drink.  I love that the Whisper Ride II also has dual cup holders for your little one.  The old version only had one.  Plus those super smart baby engineers over at Step2 thought to add drainage holes to the cup holders.  Kayla didn’t spill a ton as a toddler but what she did like to do was try to fill the cup holder up with sand and then I got to flip the car over to get it out.  Problem eliminated.

Without question, the single most important upgrade in the Whisper Ride II for me was the folding handle.  You can see it folds right up under the buggy.  Instead of having to completely unscrew a 2 to 3 inch screw you just need to give a few firm turns to the red knob to release the handle.  This makes stowing it in a trunk for a trip to Grandma’s, the park or the mall (where I see more and more of these in use) very fast and easy.

And of course the original reason that so many people chose the first Whisper Ride buggy, the special extra quiet tires still applies to the Whisper Ride II.  As a parent who has pushed around more than my fair share of these ride on toys I honestly can’t imagine choosing to bring home one that lacked this feature.

If you liked what you saw you can head over to Step2 and take a look at the Whisper Ride II  which comes in this cute pink color and of course in a very manly blue.  It’s recommended for ages 18-48 months but I think it’s an unbeatable first birthday gift.  There are also lots of other products there which are favorites of mine like their adjustable sand and water table.

If we didn’t already have a toy kitchen both inside and outside our home I would be prepping my husband for the fact that I’d be purchasing this amazing Toys R Us exclusive play kitchen this holiday season.  If you have any questions about the Whisper Ride II I’m happy to answer them, otherwise happy shopping!

The other day as Kayla and I were walking into her school we saw a ton of snails in the flower beds outside the preschool.  Whenever we see cool bugs, crazy plants or animals on the go I usually try to snap a picture of them for her with my phone so she can revisit the memory later.

After school Kayla was still interested in the snails and was begging me yet again to “do art” so I told her she could make her own snail, a noodle snail.  Do you remember making things like this at school?  I do!  I’m sure somewhere in my parent’s attic there is a box filled with project like this one.

I did my best to draw a quick snail outline with a small excited person hovering over me.  I grabbed an old half-used box of pasta from our pantry ( I knew I was saving it for a reason!) and let Kayla glue away!  This kept her occupied for a good 15 minutes which feels like an eternity as a parent.  While she was doing that, I was able to do all the prep work for dinner and then join her to play with the leftover pasta.

This is one of those moments where you can go in a bunch of different directions like:
– counting the pieces
– tracing them
– talking about smooth vs rough textures
– seeing how many pieces lined up are equal in length to some other object
-see how many it takes to fill certain items
-letting your child cook you a very nice meal in their toy kitchen.  We have this Hape kitchen and I love it!

I’m sure there are a thousand more things you could do too.  This Noodle snail is getting mailed to Grandma and Grandpa and I’m pretty sure they will love it.  Have a good idea for what we should make next?  I’d love to hear it!

Does your husband have old clothes that he refuses to part with?  That just makes him a man I suppose.  Me?  I can’t get rid of old worn-out stuff fast enough.  I’m speed dialing Goodwill while cleaning out the drawers.  My husband, not so much.

Not everyone knows this, but we’ve got a pretty big age gap.  He’s about a decade older than me and I think many years of being a single man have left him  allergic to change set in his ways.  Now don’t get me wrong, he IS actually a pretty stylish guy on the outside but there are 2 things about the way he dresses that just kill me.

1) Despite his fairly stylish ways and affinity for Hugo Boss shirts he refuses to part with these awful baggy plaid boxers.  I mean seriously?   These boxers are what I envision a 70 year old man wearing with his tube socks out in the yard to retrieve the newspaper.

2) You know the tube socks I mentioned?  He likes those too.  Sigh.

I’ve tried to encourage him to get with the times and get rid of these plaid monstrosities before with little to no success.  I’ve even gone as far as full on vandalism and cut giant holes in the back of his most hideous pairs to render them unwearable. (bad wife!)

It’s actually kind of a funny story. One night when I had forgotten about my prank where I slipped the holey pairs back in his drawer several pairs down, he came into our home office and with a truly concerned look said ” I think we have moths.” He then showed me the 12″ hole in the back of the boxers.  Dang! Those would have had to be rhinoceros sized moths!  I admitted my guilt and we both had a good laugh.  He’s an awesome sport as evidenced by him pinky swearing not to divorce me even though I am writing this.

A good friend recently told me about the new Mario Lopez underwear line MaLo.  Yes, that is Mario Lopez, AKA A.C. Slater, AKA cute dimpled guy from E! So I decided what better time to experiment with getting my husband to upgrade his choices in undergarments without having to shell out the big bucks for a brand like Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren in case Señor Stubborn refused.

It turned out that MaLo was available at Kmart near me so I headed there to see what it was all about and figure out if it was a viable replacement for the old man underwear.  First I saw briefs  and some brightly colored boxer briefs and got a bit freaked out.  There was no way he’d go for that!  But then I found a neutral colored pack of boxer briefs and grabbed those.

I’m not gonna lie when I opened the pack my first observation was that they seemed more “Euro” than I expected.  By that I mean  the leg area was pretty short making them seem almost like what a boy short would be in women’s underwear.

Much to my surprise he was a more willing participant in this move toward change than I ever anticipated.  He picked them up, examined them carefully and said they were very soft and liked the clean look of them. Then he decided to try them on.  He did and came out looking kind of sheepish.  My worry about the short leg area was right and it was definitely a tough conversion from baggy old man boxers.

I had a moment of guilt and told him that clearly he was not ready for these!  Baby steps I guess.  If your husband is a little more “evolved” in the underwear department than mine is he will probably love these.  I’m going to need to find something that’s more of a middle ground for now, but at least I now know that change is possible for this guy!  Now I need to work on the tube sock situation…

What’s going to happen to the #MaLoUnderwear in our house?  Well I’ve already taken them to add to my pajama drawer.  Quite frankly they are the softest, comfiest pajama shorts I’ve ever found for less than $5 pair.  So I have to ask – Mario, when will you come out with some stylish boxers or more traditional boxer briefs?  Then I’m pretty sure you’d have a customer for life…you know, besides me.

Just so you know I am a member of the Collective Bias™ Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and MaLo #CBias #SocialFabric but as always everything you see here is my own picky opinion

Did you know that the Blu-Ray and DVD release for The Avengers is this week?  I didn’t get to see it in the theatre because Kayla is a little too young for it and it’s rare that we spend a date night at the movies.   By the time you add in the cost of a babysitter you’re looking at a $100+ evening so we usually wait for the Blu-Ray release.  Total laggards, I know.

What is Kayla old enough to do?  Run around like crazy with her bestie who is a 5 year old boy and addicted to super heroes.  They go to the same school, hang out together every weekend and can often be found chasing each other around clad as a multitude of different Marvel characters from Iron Man to Spider Man to my favorite The Hulk so I knew she would still be excited to have an Avengers night at our house.

The last couple of months have been very hectic around here so when I heard that The Avengers was being released and that Walmart was going to offer it with a bonus limited edition graphic novel I decided I would treat my husband and I to a laid back, very un-fancy and relaxing date-night-in.   I figured we’d then give the movie and the graphic novel to Kayla’s buddy to pass on the enjoyment so he and his dad could have a movie night too.  Plus I know he will LOVE the graphic Novel.  A couple of neat scenes from it are above.

I decided to take Kayla with me to pick up The Avengers and we actually had a lot of fun because as it turned out there was this neat Avengers app I could download for free that had different features you could trigger by stopping at different areas throughout the store.  When I’m shopping with Kayla, anything I can do to create entertainment is welcomed so I took full advantage of it.

We were able to activate the Avengers app by scanning the Blu-Ray/DVD & Graphic Novel Combo Pack.  I still have no idea how this technology works but I can say it’s uh-mazing!

There was quite the selection of Avengers merchandise in the store.  My personal favorite were these giant Hulk Smash Fists. I also have to admit that the jokester part of me was temped to buy one these Avengers muscle costumes, probably Thor to wear for Halloween.  Ridiculous – but probably pretty funny!  If you want, you can take a look at all the neat Avengers things we saw.

There were a bunch of different locations around the store that had trigger points to allow you to do different things with the Augmented Reality app like in the electronics department, the costume section, the toy section etc.

This is one of those moments where the Avengers app was very cool.  I think any school age kid would flip over this.  Here I am  grabbing those Hulk Smash Fists with some scary green virtual Hulk hands.  Kayla was confused at first and then begged for her turn.

In keeping with my laid back theme I decided I would not be cooking dinner.  Instead I picked up an Avengers Pizza.  We went with the Captain America Pepperoni and I promised Kayla I would take off the pepperoni on half of the pie.  A pizza delivered near us runs about $25, no joke.  I was shocked when I saw that these Marketside pizzas were $8-$10 and massive.

As soon as we got home I just popped it in the oven while I sat down to color with Kayla.  Walmart doesn’t mess around.  I was not kidding when I said the pizza was massive.  It barely fit in my full size oven!

Since I try to find easy but creative things for Kayla to do I decided I’d turn some  heavy weight paper plates I had leftover from a BBQ into Captain America Shields.   All I did was download a star outline off the web, print it and use sharpie to trace it so it would bleed through a bit to give me an pattern to follow.  After that I just grabbed 2 different sized bowls from the kitchen and and traced them  for the rings.  If you have a child that would appreciate an Avengers mask to color (and what child wouldn’t) you can download some awesome #MarvelAvengersWMT templates from Walmart.com

Since I’m relentless in my efforts to push vegetables I made another ridiculously easy yet Avengers themed creation.   All I did was slice up some cucumbers and use a little star shaped cookie cutter on baby carrots to make these little veggie shields.  They were well received by Kayla!..

First we colored the Captain America shields.  Halfway through Kayla decided she liked mine better and took it to finish coloring…that’s my child!  These were probably not what Marvel had in mind but they were colorful and cute in the end.

And before we could finish coloring Kayla declared that hunger had struck and I was glad I had my veggie shields ready.  Naturally she had to pick the stars off each one and eat them separately.  3 year olds…

We had gotten so into coloring and checking out the graphic novel that I almost forgot about the pizza and luckily I reached the oven just as it was starting to brown.  It looked yummy and there was silence at the table for a few minutes so Kayla must have agreed.

After that it was time to get pajamas on, brush teeth and say goodnight 3 different times before Kayla went to sleep so we could relax and watch The Avengers.

Then it was movie time!  I don’t want to do any spoiling of the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet, but I will say it had some awesome action scenes.  The graphics and special effects were pretty incredible too!  I can’t wait to give this combo pack to Kayla’s little buddy.  He is going to LOVE it!!

Are you a San Diego local?  Then you’ll be excited to know that The Avengers characters will be making a special appearance at the Walmart on Shawline Street, Store # 5338 this Saturday 9/29 from 3-6pm.  Have fun!

I’m realizing that half the battle of parenting is how you pitch things.  A little while back my husband was flying home from a “work event” in Las Vegas.   Normally I’d consider picking him up from the airport to be just another chore requiring me to confine a rambunctious Kayla to her car seat.  But while she was at school I reconsidered the scenario and decided that I would turn it into a “field trip to the airport” since so much of dealing with kids and chores is how you pitch it.

I didn’t tell Kayla we were going until I picked her up from school.  I packed a bag with some kiddie essentials like snacks, story cards, some little animals and a homemade “airplane spotter” which is a fancy name for a brightly colored toilet paper tube made very official with a Sharpie.

I just used an old gift bag leftover from a Target dollar section 2-pack and put a little construction paper label on it letting Kayla know that this was official stuff in this “Airport field trip” bag.

We parked and Kayla was immediately amused by the Smartecarte dispenser.  Yup, the things that kids find entertaining never ceases to amuse me.

Watching the taxi line from the skybridge – also very exciting….less so for me!

Then we saw a plane landing so she got out the official airplane spotter AKA the toilet paper tube…that killed another 5 minutes easily.

We sat down near the area where I knew the arriving flight would let out, right before the security check and started playing with the story cards.  There were 2 pilots next to us and they were chuckling at her little bag of fun.

And then finally Daddy came through and the two were reunited.  He was only gone for a couple of days and I think some of the people in the waiting area thought my husband must have been coming home from a military deployment because I was taking pictures and Kayla was super excited, but oh well.  I guess we were “those people” yet again.   At least my child had fun and was kept busy the whole time!

And of course Kayla had to show her daddy how she flies like a butterfly with her new wings.  Remember those wings?  We’re getting a lot of use out of them!

That’s it.  This was a good exercise in me remembering that almost anything dealing with kids is what you make of it.  If I had been grumpy and stressed and treated this like just another thing we had to do, I bet Kayla’s mood would have echoed that.  But instead it was like a choose your own adventure book and she loved every minute of it.