Brooke's Treehouse Bloomers (review)

Brooke’s Treehouse is a shop run by a mom who had little chunky baby that needed custom fit clothing, but she loved the older style clothing (in her words, “Heirloom quality”). After discovering a love for sewing and designing these clothes, she has since opened Brooke’s Treehouse to offer these clothes to everyone.

Despite how it sounds, this is not a sponsored post. In fact, the owner of Brooke’s Treehouse doesn’t even know I have a blog (though I have a feeling she’ll figure it out after this post)! I was scouring the internet for “bloomers”, “pantaloons”, or “pettipants” for Squiggle for her Halloween costume. She’s going to be Ponyo.

A still-frame from the movie Ponyo.

I kept finding white diaper covers or adult pantaloons, but I finally found some that looked perfect, and were actually the most reasonably priced, too. Those were at Brooke’s Treehouse. I actually found the Brooke's Treehouse shop through amazon.com, but after ordering realized I might not have them in time for our party (a little over a week from placing my order) because there is a hurricane making landfall right now, and it’s sort of a big deal. I decided to look up where the seller was from, found them on FaceBook, and saw that they were, indeed, in the south. 

After a message to their shop, I was surprised to hear back so quickly… it hadn’t even been an hour! I had explained my concern with the weather and my sort of last-minute ordering on a Friday night (so them not arriving on time seriously would be all my fault!), and they assured me I should have them Tuesday or Wednesday. The earliest shipping estimate had said the following Friday at the earliest. They arrived the following Tuesday!

A front and back view (having her lift her costume a bit to show the fit) after our little party. The party, of course, means chocolate on everything near her mouth.

Our little Ponyo with a $1 bucket from the party store, and an adult jacket (thrifted) cut and sewn to resemble a dress. It isn't a perfect costume, but it was good enough for her! And of course she had put her shoes on the wrong feet.

And, as you can see, they are perfect for the costume! I ordered a size 5 since Squiggle is a chunk, but Amazon didn’t have the size chart shown on the actual store front page. I wish I had seen the store page, first! Still, they fit great and will get lots of use. I'm glad I ordered up. They are good quality, decently priced, and the customer service is great. I definitely recommend Brooke’s Treehouse if you’re looking for some cute, old timey clothing.

For some more cute outfit browsing, check out Brooke's Treehouse on Instagram & Pinterest, too!

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. The bloomers featured in this post were purchased by me. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

I SPY Eagle Eye Find-it Game (review)

University Games also sent us I SPY Eagle Eye Find-it Game for review. I was super excited about this because I'm sort of awesome at searches (word puzzles, image searches, you name it!) and I knew this would be my sort of game.

It's a very simple game to explain, there is no reading required to play, and the instructions suggest numerous ways to play including different ways to score and tournament style playing. Since Bobble and Squiggle are so young (5 and 3), I opted to not keep score at all. I mean, let's be honest: I was going to win, right? I figured that I'd just take a few seconds to remind them of the instructions, and take pictures for the review before I started searching.

The first time we played, I helped them, explaining that everyone gets one board piece (a big, cardboard card), and everyone gets one little card that has images on it. Each tiny card has 8 tiny pictures on it, but it only has one item on your game board. The game boards are 2-sided, so you technically have 8 boards. There is a bell that you place in the middle and when you find the item on your card on your board, you hit the bell. (If you are keeping score, you hit the bell and yell first; simply hitting the bell would imply you should all switch boards because you couldn't find anything.)

Honestly, I figured my 5 year old would be decent, and my 3 year old would get frustrated. This is because my husband played with us the first time and we quickly learned that there are lots of little "almost" images. By this, I mean the same item as on your card, but tilted a different way (for example, instead of a toy pig on its side, it would be standing upright, or a truck that is identical but a different number). It's actually pretty challenging!

The second time we played was about 2 weeks after first introducing them to the game. Squiggle abandoned her building activities to play, leaving the mess behind her (explaining the background in the pictures). I was a bit cocky in thinking I was going to own them at the game, apparently, because Squiggle (who is only 3, mind you) quickly put me in my place! Look at that smug face!

She found the first 3 legitimate items, first try, and very quickly. I thought she was finding near misses, or maybe simply excited to ring the bell. Nope... she was simply ruling the game. I had another image that showed her pointing out what she found on the card and on her board, but I don't want to give anything away, so I opted not to share that one. I will, instead, share an extremely up close image of part of a board to show just how detailed they are.

That being said, the game suggests ages 5 and up. I know these are suggestions, but I didn't expect a 3 year old to actually be good at it. I was going to recommend this for kids that were about kindergarten age, but I am now going to suggest that if your child (or the one you are shopping for) has an eye for detail, get the game regardless of age.

Bobble leaning over to see if Squiggle really did find something again. She did.

Despite only having 8 board images, we have not succeeded in memorizing a single thing. Each board has so much detail and there are so many cards to search off of that we've never played through all of them in one game, and many times we don't even find the items on the card since you get a new card when someone finds an item. It's really set up to keep it challenging for a long time.

You can purchase I SPY: EAGLE EYE for under $20 at Areyougame.com, and at various retail stores. Don't forget to check out Areyougame.com for games to suit all sorts of occasions!

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is was sent this product in exchange for a review. This did not sway my opinion in any way. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Spin & Seek ABC Game (game review)

Another character favourite is looking to be a favourite game for your little ones, only this time it's one of Eric Carle's characters! A family favourite recognized almost everywhere: The Very Hungry Caterpillar!! 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Spin & Seek ABC Game by Briarpatch (University Games) is geared towards the younger game-playing crowd, this game focuses on letter recognition for both uppercase and lowercase letters.

Character piece choices

The set up of the game is pretty easy. The players can choose one of 4 Eric Carle characters to be their playing piece, the cards are spread out on the floor to be visible, and you spin the spinner to determine how far you move.

There are two cards for each letter: 1 uppercase, 1 lowercase. In the example above, you can see that the letters are both the same colours, regardless of case (so both A cards will have a red A, both C cards will have a green C, etc.). This is identical to the representation on the game board to help with identification. To further assist identification, all lowercase letter cards are bordered with a blue line, and all upper case cards have an orange border. The backside of the cards show an example of a word that starts with that letter (same for both cases).

So everyone picks a character, the cards are spread out image side up (i.e. bear -- you know, opposite of what I did above... I'll get to this), and everyone is ready to go, so you spin the spinner!

You can choose to move the number of spaces shown on the spinner (in the above case, 3 spaces), or you can move to the next space with a BIG or little letter as indicated in the outside ring of the spinner (above case would be BIG letter). This is beneficial if someone just landed on the space 3 ahead of you, but 1 ahead of you was a BIG letter not yet snagged!

Bobble moving his piece

Now you may notice that I separated the lower case letters from the upper case letters in the picture above. This is not suggested in the instructions, but since Squiggle doesn't recognize most letters (unless they are in her name), I thought it would help her to have the lower case on one side and the upper case on the other. As she gets better at the letter recognition, I plan to mix them all up. 

You may also notice that, contrary to the instructions I mentioned earlier, I have the letter side up instead of the image side up. This is specifically to benefit Squiggle, as she doesn't know her alphabet, or sounds. Image side up would be more challenging for Bobble because he would see a train before he paid attention to the top of the card that said "little t", and he might think of the sound and associate with a letter that way. Since Squiggle is so new to letters, however, he obliged us in playing the "easy way" to help her learn.

When you move to a space, you have to find the image card that matches that letter, and it must be the proper case. If you land on the BIG B, you cannot select the little b card. If you select a wrong card, the card is put back down the next person gets to go. If you land on an space that someone already got a card from, you can spin and move again. If you land on an space that someone guessed incorrectly on (so they are there, but the card hasn't been taken), you may share a space.

The game ends when all players reach FINISH. The player with the most cards wins (ties result in more than one winner). 

The kids liked it so much, they insisted on playing again before bed! To make it a little more challenging for Bobble, we mixed up the upper and lower case letters.

 
What I love about this game is that you can alter the play to accommodate the skill level of the child(ren) playing. For Squiggle, she needs to just see the letters as she starts learning, but we always flip over the card to show the image and say what it is and what sound it makes. That usually sounds like, "B. Bear. Buh-buh-bear. Bear starts with the letter B!" As her letter recognition improves, the cases will be mixed up

As letter recognition improves, mixing the letters will help her

For someone like Bobble who knows his letters and sounds really well and is just starting to read, the image side is great. It encourages letter recognition coupled with sound recall, and also helps learn to spell/read as they see the word spelled out on the card.

The only thing I don't like about the game isn't actually an issue with this specific game at all, so much as an issue with any game with cardboard pieces that slide into a tiny plastic stand:

With young children, they get ruined quickly. Bent, ripped, you name it. We made it a household rule (...that never seems to be followed, of course) that you always leave the base on the pieces and they will be stored that way to prevent things like the above from happening. Of course, you could also just put a bit of tape around the bottom before putting it on the base. I'm sure that would help too!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Spin & Seek ABC Game is a great choice for an emerging reader or young preschooler. This game can be purchased for around $15, making it a fun, educational, and budget-friendly gift for any occasion. Be sure to check out Areyougame.com for this game, and many other great games!

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff was sent this product for review. This did not influence my opinion of the game at all. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Perfect Pancakes Recipe

Pancakes are one of my favourite breakfast foods due to their versatility. You can pair them with a variety of fruits (incorporated into them or fresh cut on top of them), add other sorts of mix-ins (chocolate chips, anyone?), or serve them plain. Real maple syrup is always a winner in our house, but sometimes my husband likes to use plain pancakes as the outside of a sandwich, adding some eggs, cheese, and bacon or sausage between it.

Better yet? They freeze really, really well. Make extras and freeze them in a huge gallon freezer bag, and you can pull some to toast or microwave for a quick, yummy breakfast some other time! For easier storage, put pieces of wax paper between the pancakes and don't freeze them until they've cooled down completely.

Anyway you look at it, pancakes are awesome.

Yes, I accidentally let one get a bit too brown. Oops! Still tasted good, though! You can see some of them have chocolate chips mixed in, others don't. 

Problem is, for the longest time we didn't have a good recipe. We tried recipe after recipe, and we finally stumbled across a winner. Actually, we stumbled across this recipe over a year ago. We've used it multiple times since then, and it's always fabulous. The only reason I never shared it before now is because I kept forgetting to take pictures!

(I apologize in advance for the quality of food pictures on my blog. I only have a cell phone camera to work with right now. I try to make the best of it, though!)

The following recipe was found on Allrecipes.com and is for 4 servings. You can change the number of servings you want on the website and it will do all the adjustments to the ingredients for you, though. I normally double the recipe, but if I'm freezing anything I triple it.

FLUFFY PANCAKES

INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 Milk
• 2T white vinegar
• 1c all-purpose flour
• 2T white sugar
• 1t baking powder
• 1/2t baking soda
• 1/2t salt
• 1 egg
• 2T butter, melted
• cooking spray (or whatever you prefer to grease your pan)

1) Combine milk with vinegar in a medium bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to "sour" (aka: make buttermilk).

2) Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl.

3) Whisk egg and butter into buttermilk/soured milk.

4) Pour the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and whisk until smooth.

Fully mixed batter. Now is the time to mix in any extras like chocolate chips or berries!

5) Heat a large skillet over medium heat and grease. Pour 1/4c of batter onto the skillet, cooking until bubbles appear on the surface. Flip, and brown on other side.

Due to sodium restrictions Bobble has from previous medical issues, we use a sodium-free baking powder to help reduce the sodium content of the pancakes.

I like to use butter to grease my pan before cooking the pancakes, and I like to mix in chocolate chips or berries. I've also become rather fond of adding some cinnamon to the batter or very lightly sprinkling some cinnamon on them as soon as I put the batter in the pan. So yummy!

If you're in need of a pancake recipe, you should definitely give this one a try!

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. The recipe is the Fluffy Pancakes Recipe from AllRecipes.com. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.

Spark of Amber - Baltic Amber Necklace

Baltic amber jewelry has been talked about for a while now, though I'm still surprised when people don't realize the versatility of it. When I was given the opportunity to review an amber necklace from Spark of Amber, I thought it would be a great way to help spread the word about Baltic amber jewelry.

So what IS Baltic Amber jewelry?

"Baltic Amber is a fossilized resin. Euorpeans greatly prize this beautiful stone for its claimed 100% natural anti-inflammatory, pain relieving, and calming properties. The healing oils of the Baltic Amber are said to relieve teething pain, tame baby's irritability, and relieve inflammation in the throat, ear, and stomach." - quoted from Spark of Amber's summary on their beautiful teething necklace "The Midnight".

Note that I quoted that from a teething necklace page. Please know that these teething necklaces are not meant to be chewed on, but rather are named as such due to their potential healing properties. They can help alleviate teething pain and symptoms. They should never be chewed on!

Should a child chew on it, or should it break, each bead is individually knotted so they don't have the opportunity to shove a handful of beads in their mouth.

Spark of Amber offers so much more than just teething necklaces, though. You can get amber necklaces, amber bracelets, hazelwood and amber jewelry, earrings, keychains... they seriously have some options! You can even have a custom mother's bracelet made that has beads that represent children's birthstones. To see all their options, check out the "Browse Products" tab on their page!

Are you looking for something natural to potentially help with attention, focus, or hyper-activity? Check out "The Serenity" necklace as a possibility! Lepidolite and Black Tourmaline beads are added between raw Baltic amber beads to encourage calming. The colour of the beads also makes it completely gender neutral, so it will be great on boys or girls.

All of the amber beads used in Spark of Amber's jewelry are from Lithuania due to their high quality.

Since Bobble is not interested in wearing anything at the moment and Squiggle is ready to remove something after mere minutes, Spark of Amber sent me a necklace for myself. I was sent the lovely Luxury Green Adult Amber Necklace "The Meadow":

It arrived in a cute little bag which was quickly confiscated by Bobble to be used for Lego storage (or something like that). Thankfully, I was able to retrieve the necklace before he made off with it!

The colour varies from each necklace due to the nature of the amber resin, and in the direct sunlight this can still look a bit orange or brown. This is one thing I absolutely adore about the necklace, though! I love how it can appear different in different lighting, and I love how each necklace is completely unique because of this natural variation.

A close-up of the clasp closure

Though my camera focused on my actual fingers instead of the necklace, this gives you the absolute best idea of the exact colour of the specific necklace I got. As I mentioned above, this can look a bit different in various settings, and it will vary from necklace to necklace, bead to bead.

The above was taken in indirect, morning lighting, and below was direct morning light. Neither picture has had colour tweaked or filters applied.

The particular necklace I got was polished, and was longer than I would normally wear. I liked that I could tuck it into my shirt and out of sight of Squiggle, though. She tends to grab and pull on things that she likes (read: everything), and would have tried to yank it right off of me!

You can also find unpolished, or "raw", jewelry from Spark of Amber.

The necklace was very beautiful (as you can see), light weight, easy to put on and take off, and was very comfortable. Anyone that happens to have longer hair or lots of little hairs on their necks has likely felt that horrible pull of a hair while wearing a necklace. That hasn't happened with this necklace. Not a single time. The necklace is very good quality!

I'd like to add this little tidbit on Baltic Amber in general: I've used Baltic amber jewelry on both of my children and myself, and various different brands over the last 5 years. From what I have experienced first hand, the effects of the jewelry differ from each person. Granted this is not medicine, the best way I can think of to liken the differences is to compare to a pain reliever. Some people get a migraine and need 2 children's pain relievers, and another person could have a migraine and take numerous extra-strength pain reliever to get the same effect.

Every person is different.

Bobble didn't have any response to the Baltic amber jewelry he had (positive nor negative). He looked adorable, and that was that.

Squiggle seemed to have lessened irritability when wearing hers.

I started wearing some amber jewelry because I have joint pain and headaches. My headaches decreased in frequency, though I didn't wear amber continuously and cannot really attribute the wearing of it to lack of joint pain or not.

No matter what your reasons for wanting to try Baltic amber jewelry, you will be guaranteed a gorgeous piece of jewelry. That gorgeous jewelry might just help with your child's pain caused by teething or earaches, too. Best of all? NATURALLY.

Don't just go off of what I say, though... try it yourself! Spark of Amber has generously offered one of my readers an item of their choice (up to $30 value)! Enter below for your chance to win! Can't wait to see if you won? Check out their store and get some high-quality Baltic amber jewelry with really fast shipping. They get orders out quickly!

Giveaway is for US/CAN only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff was sent the above product for review. This did not influence my opinion of the product in any way. All opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own. Thoughts of Fluff is not responsible for prize shipment.

Battleship (game review)

We recently added Battleship to our game library, and I have to admit I was excited. I remembered playing as a kid and loving the game, so I figured it would be a great addition to help change up what we play with Bobble. It said ages 7+ on the box, but I figured Bobble would probably catch on well, so why not try?

The game comes with two separate fold-open boards, 5 ships for each board, and more white and red pegs than seems necessary because the boards are hard to close when you have them divided up and in their respective holding areas.

The one thing that instantly comes up as a negative for this game (aside from all the small pieces and having a toddler) is that you can’t really play this comfortably if you aren’t at a table. This might not be a con for you, but we tend to just pull out games and play on the living room floor. This is hard for me to do with Battleship because I’m tall enough that I would see the other person’s set up, so I have to stretch out across the floor to play. Again, might not seem like a negative, but it’s a lot more uncomfortable after a while (and much harder to get up from) now that I’m in my 30s than it was two decades ago!

If you’ve never played Battleship, the premise is quite simple: set up your ships on the horizontal part of the board however you want (so long as it isn’t diagonal), and try to guess where your opponent has set theirs up. The game board is a grid with letters along the Y axis (top-bottom) and numbers along the X axis (left-right). You use red pegs to symbolize hits on the ships, and the white pegs to show misses. You use the upper part of the game board (the grid that your ships aren’t on) to mark your missed and hit calls against your opponent. You only need to mark hits on your actual ships on the bottom part to show you where your opponent has hit a ship.

To play, you call out a coordinate like B3, and the other player will tell you if it was a miss or a hit. If it’s a hit, they will tell you which ship you hit so you know how many places it should be taking up in the area (the carrier, for example, takes up 5 spaces so has 5 places to hit before you sink it). The first person to sink all of their opponent’s ships wins.

This is a much slower game than some of our other games that we’ve reviewed so far, but that’s due to the vast possibilities to call out if you’re really unlucky and can’t seem to find a ship. Alternatively, it could go pretty quickly if you get lucky with your calls.

The hardest part of this game with Bobble was getting him to remember to mark his hits and misses on his board. He would remember to mark the ships that we hit of his, but he’d just get so excited if he hit a ship that he’d bounce for a minute and then forget to peg. On the other hand, he’d get frustrated if he didn’t hit and complain for a second before the next person went, and still forget to peg.

After the first few times of playing with him, he got really good at “seeing” the board. At first he was just guessing and it was a shot in the dark. If he had a hit at B3, the next call he made might be H8. He wasn’t understanding the game to where he could visualize the hit means there is another spot right near there that would also be part of the boat. To help with this, hubby took a board (after a game ended) and left all the pegs on it. He showed him the hit and then nothing around it, then held up the boat that he hit to his upper board to show him that it would fill spaces immediately around there.

It helped, because now Bobble is really good and wins a lot. I’d be irritated with how good he got so quickly, but I’m too proud to really be legitimately upset.

Squiggle wanting to play... she tried, anyway!

This is a great game for encouraging strategizing and helping to learn a bit of rudimentary geometry skills (coordinates, anyone?). No reading is required for this game (if you can teach the child the rules), but they will need to know numbers, letters, and be able to memorize the name of the ships to tell you which one they sunk. (Admittedly, I never remember what they are called… I tend to say, “You hit the 3-holed one!”) Just make sure you have a bit of time to play, as it can go on quite a bit. If your child is younger, like Bobble, I would recommend playing with another adult (or older child) on their side to make sure they are not moving ships around or missing pegs their first few times they play. Definitely a game worth having in your collection, though!

They also make a travel version, though I honestly cannot see any car ride ever being smooth enough to make those little pegs (or ships) not get lost in or under seats… regardless of the person’s age. Hit a pothole or something and boom. Pegs would likely rain everywhere! (My husband says he never had an issue, but he also used the travel version to take places and then play there, not in the car.) There is also an electronic version, but I was hoping the electronic version would involve a red light showing where you got hit (or got a hit) when you touch the square on the grid, thus eliminating the pegs. The reality of it is that it makes sounds, but you still have pegs. I guess I'll just stick to the original, then!

You can buy Battleship for between $12 and $16 at most retail stores.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Hasbro did not sponsor this post in any way. The game was received as a gift from a friend.

Hoot Owl Hoot! (game review)

Another great cooperative game is Hoot Owl Hoot! by Peaceable Kingdom. This game involves more strategizing than Count Your Chickens! does, and the way the game is set up encourages the players to work together.

Like Count Your Chickens!, Hoot Owl Hoot! has the instructions printed on the inside of the box lid. Not only does this prevent you from losing them, but it saves trees, too!

 

The game comes with the game board, a pile of cards with different coloured circles or suns on them, a sun token, and 6 owl tokens. 

To set up the game, you shuffle all the cards and deal three to each player. You place your owls on the start spots (number of owls played with vary depending on the difficulty level you want), and the sun token on the sun start spot. The goal of the game is to get all the baby owls back to the nest before sunrise.

While you can hold your cards in your hand, it is suggested to leave them face up for everyone to see so you can work together to plan the best plays to get the owls back in the nest. 

When it is your turn, you pick which colour you want to play from the 3 cards in your hand. If you have a sun card, you have no choice but to play that card and move the sun token one spot over to the right), then draw a new card. If you are playing a colour, you can move any owl of your choice to the next circle with that colour. If you are playing a green card and there is an owl on the next two green spots, you would play on the first available green spot (so you’d skip a lot of spots). If there are no more spots of that colour available, the owl gets to move into the nest. This is the sort of thing that makes this game all the more fun when working as a team, and precisely why everyone being able to see the other players’ cards is beneficial.

A yellow card was played allowing the owl on the Start 4 spot to move a good distance to the next unoccupied yellow circle.

Another yellow card was played and an owl from the Start 2 position was moved 3 yellow circles because the first two were occupied.

When all the owls make it to the nest, you win. If the sun gets all the way to the far right spot (aka: if the sun rises) first, the game is over. The beginner level is only played with owls on the first 3 start spots, the intermediate level is with owls on the first 4 spots, and the challenge level is with all 6 owls in play.

Hoot Owl Hoot! is recommended for ages 4 and up, up to 4 players, and should last about 15 minutes from start to finish. No reading is required for game play (provided someone can read to explain the rules at first). Great game for colour recognition and cooperative strategizing.

You can purchase Hoot Owl Hoot! for approximately $16 at select retail stores like Target (they carry Peaceable Kingdom games), or online at Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: Thoughts of Fluff is responsible for the content of this post. Hoot Owl Hoot! was purchased by me and all opinions are my own and may differ from those of your own.