droolicious : top ten

Top Ten Dollhouses from Mc Mansions to Modern Masterpieces (and Dollhouse Giveaway!)

elizabeth leach — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Is she a center hall, Colonial girl, does she drool over Mc Mansions or does she crave a pad in the city? There's a dollhouse to match every little girl's style. And we're giving away the above dollhouse from Spunky Sprout. Let's go house hunting after the jump...

Momall Dollhouse Ray Ray from Spunky Sprout (above photo) is a modern masterpiece. It can be easily disassembled and reassembled in minutes so it’s easy to change your location, location, location! ($274) Modern furniture is sold separately for $96. Details on how to win this masterpiece are at the end of the top ten list.

The Starter House for First Time Owners (above photo) is perfect for the family just starting out. Complete with window boxes and a charming checkerboard kitchen floor. A fox family, mouse family or bunny family is sold separately and so is the furniture. ($89)

The above modern dollhouse is made by Plan Toys. A house for a hip chick. Check out the mod couch and chairs. Colored transparent paneling slide for easy access and the staircase slides, too. ($179, fully furnished, or $59, without the furniture.)

The Raleigh Dollhouse is for the girl who likes a classic, southern style. With four stories, including a finished attic, this is no starter home! Furniture is sold separately and so are the little people. Choose from a white family, an uber preppy family or a black family. ($199)

Casa Rosa from Selecta is a contemporary, wooden house with bright pink and orange accents. What fantastic curb appeal! The Selecta house has ten moveable and exchangeable walls and windows so your child can give her house as many renovations as she wishes. For budding interior designers and architects. ($179.99 including furniture and people)

It’s a good time to buy a Mc Mansion style house because prices have fallen, but you might have trouble getting a mortgage loan! The Step 2 Grand Balcony dollhouse is made of polyethylene and includes furniture. (Was $159.95 and is now $129.95.)

The above glass tower is made from plexiglass panels and is a modern girl's dream house. This is for the child who thinks outside the box. Maybe your little girl wants to invest in more real estate and rent out a few floors? Just purchase more panels and build on to your tower! The Playtower Ding 3- Plexi is available for $338 for two floors and $142 for each additional floor.

Is she a country girl? This Cherry Hill Dollhouse by KidKraft comes complete with wallpaper and country furniture. She'll love going antiquing for those special touches for her new home! ($149.95)

So, your princess wants a house with a lot of imagination? How about one with turrets, a bell tower, a wishing well and drawbridge? The Musical Wooden Fairy Castle includes princess, fairy, wizard and a unicorn. ($226)

The above Chalet Style House is made exclusively for ModernTots. This wooden dollhouse comes in two units and can be rearranged in various ways. Another great choice for the future architect and designer. Furniture is included. ($170)

To win the Momall Dollhouse Ray Ray from Spunky Sprout send an e-mail to babbledesign@gmail.com with "dollhouse" in the subject and tell me your favorite product from Spunky Sprout, besides the dollhouse. I will pick a random winner on Friday, December 19. Good luck!

Ten Best iPhone Apps For Distracting Young Children

Chris Ford — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:02:00 GMT

We've all been there. You're in the grocery store, or doctor's office, or a restaurant and you need a five minute distraction for your toddler. And if you're a dad or mom on-the-go who doesn't keep a spare stuffed animal in their pocket, you're usually relegated to whatever you have handy. If one of those things is an iPhone or an iPod Touch, then you may not realize it or not, but you've got a wealth of toddler distractions just waiting to be explored.

I've combed through the iTunes Application store and tested out what I think are the ten best applications you can use to distract your young child. The emphasis here is on the word "young." I only included things that would be good for pre-school aged kids, which means I didn't pick any games or anything that would have a learning curve. I also didn't pick anything that required your child to shake the iPhone. It's one thing to hand over your $300 telephone to a two year old, it's another to hand it over and encourage them to shake it.

So here they are, in no particular order:

Preschool Adventure ($0.99, 3DAL, LLC.):
Preschool Adventure is one of the few on this list that was written specifically for pre-school aged kids. It's an app that has four smaller activities inside of it: Colors, Shapes, Sounds and Body. With all of them, you touch the screen to make something appear and sound. So for instance, in the colors app, your child touches a splash of a color, and then a sea creature appears saying the name of the color and the name of the creature ("Pink Sea Animone" is, admittedly, kind of a mouthfull for children). I found the app to be very simple but engaging for a pre-schooler, and my two year old loved it.

Bubble Wrap (Free, Orsome Software):
Bubble Wrap is one of those adult time-wasters that can double as a diversion for your kid. The app itself is simple - you just get a field of bubbles like you were holding a sheet of bubble wrap. Then you touch each bubble to make it pop. As soon as you start, there is a timer to see how many you can pop in sixty seconds, but your kids will undoubtedly ignore that and just enjoy popping the bubbles.

Midomi (Free, Melodis Corp.):
Midomi is a distraction for your kids that you'll have to do with them, so it won't buy you any time, but it's cool nonetheless. Midomi is an application that will identify any song it hears, whether it is on the radio, being played live, or your own singing or humming. It's pretty amazing when you first try it, as it's quite adept at figuring out your tuneless humming. My kids and I had loads of fun thinking up songs and singing them into it to see if it could recognize the tune. Even better is listening to some of the songs it thinks you're trying to hum (especially the songs in Japanese).

YouTube (free, with iPhone):
Everyone who has an iPhone has the YouTube application built in, so some may think this one is a cop-out, but in reality it's one of the great diversions on the iPhone. This is how you get the most out of it. Get a free YouTube account, and in your free time (you are reading this after all) go and search for videos you think your kids will love. Mark all of those videos "favorites" and then when you log into YouTube on your iPhone, go right to your favorites and start playing them. I loaded my favorites with videos of Disney songs, and I can get both of my girls (2 and 4 years old) silent for the length of each song.

Scribble (Free, Zintin Software):
This one is kind of self-explanatory. Scribble is a simple app that lets you draw on the iPhone screen. You can choose colors and draw whatever you can manage to get on the screen. Better than drawing though, I've found it good for quick games of tic tac toe or getting my four year old to practice writing her name.

Vehicles ($0.99, iFRizzo.com):
I don't have boys, but this one is clearly for those of you with little XYs running around. Vehicles is a soundboard of all the cars, trucks and plane sounds they could fit onto one screen of the iPhone. The sounds themselves (cars, police cars, fire trucks, airplanes etc.) are about two or three seconds in length depending on which one you choose and can be played over each other for a true sounds-of-the-city symphony.

Koi Pond ($0.99, The Blimp Pilots):
This app is deceptively simple but mesmerizing to adults and children just the same. When you launch Koi Pond, you get a screen with Koi fish swimming underwater, with tranquil outdoor sounds playing in the background. When you touch the screen, the app makes it look like you are touching the water they are swimming in. This naturally makes the fish swim away, so you have to wait until they unwittingly swim again into your view. There are lilly pads to move around and food to feed them too (when you shake the iPhone food appears - thereby breaking my "no shake" rule) which makes them swim back into view more quickly. I know, it sounds really simple and boring, but both of my girls were fighting over the iPhone for a half hour the other day so they could see the fish.

Rulla (Free, LIngon i Korg Software Creations):
This one is a little odd, but kind of fun for a toddler who is learning to read. Rulla (terrible name) is a simple app that makes a message crawl across your iPhone screen, kind of like a news ticker. I think the original intention was to have a way club kids could shoot a message to each other across the dance floor, but my kids loved thinking up funny messages to "make the phone say." It started with their names and ended up with "Daddy is a kitty cat."

Color Tilt ($0.99, IMAK Creations):
This one is kind of like Scribble, but is way cooler. It's an app that lets you draw by bringing your finger across the screen, but the color you're drawing in is determined by which way you are tilting the iPhone. It's a great use of the iPhone's capabilities, making any scribble look cool. And quite frankly, scribbling is about all you're going to get out of a two year old anyway.

Bubbles (Free, Hog Bay Software):
Bubbles isn't the same as Bubble Wrap, although it may seem like it. Instead of a static page of bubbles, with this app you draw your finger across a blank screen to create the bubbles. Then, as they fall down the screen you pop them with your finger. Simple, but interesting enough to stop a toddler crying in a shopping cart, believe me.

Photos (free, with iPhone):
Photos might be the eleventh suggestion, but everyone gets it with an iPhone (or any iPod for that matter), but in some ways I saved the best for last. The Photos app is the one slam dunk that my kids always want to use. Looking at pictures of themselves, friends and family always quiets them down, and it's gotten to the point that when my two year old sees me with my phone she asks to look at pictures. The trick to it though is to load it up with pictures you've been taking with your regular digital camera, not the iPhone. The pictures will look better and you'll always have more of them.

So there they are. If you have any suggestions or great finds yourself, please let us know in the comments below and happy distracting!

Start Your Child Off Left or Right? (Top 10 Election-Themed Clothes and Giveaway)

elizabeth leach — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

I tried to be impartial when choosing the top ten election-themed clothing for kids. There’s a lot of choices out there – some silly, some serious, some a little angry. I’m not sure if it’s this race that people feel especially passionate about or if every election year brings scores of election themed clothing for tots. So, exercise your right to dress your kid the way you want!

Starting with my favorite… (and the rest is in no particular order because I am being impartial.)

1. The top photo is a onesie from Savy Tot. (2024... how futuristic sounding.) Available as a onesie for 0-12 months in white, pink, and blue. ($22) Available as a t-shirt for 18-24 months in brown. ($24)

2. The above t-shirt is also from Savy Tot. A little subtle. Could be a double entendre or just another dirty diaper. Available as a onesie for 0-12 months in white, pink, and blue. ($22) Available as a t-shirt for 18-24 months in brown ($24.)

3. Freedom of speech is expressed very nicely on this little number. Fill in the Bubble is available for 6 months to 4 years and comes in white, blue, pink, and yellow. ($16.99)

4. Sheep are funny. They just are. Sizes for 6 months to 4 years and comes in white, pink, blue, and yellow. ($10.99) Baaa it here.

5. This onesie has crafty style. It could be just a cute elephant and not a political statement. Polkadot Republican onesie comes in sizes 3-24 months. ($18)

6. Making hope cutesie. Hope-opotamus t-shirt comes in kids small, medium, and large and in royal blue, navy, red, and black. ($21.99)

7. Dwess up your weepublican baby in this weely cute weepublican bib. ($8.99)

8. It's important to love your daddy even if he has different political views than you. Especially since he still feeds you. Daddy's a Republican Infant Bodysuit comes in sizes for 6 months to 2 years and comes in the baby colors - pink, blue, and white. ($12.99)

9. This onesie can be made for a Republican or Democrat, with the elephant in the front and donkey in the back or vice versa. Young Republican or Young Democrat comes in sizes for sizes 0 - 18 months ($10.00)

10. And last but not least the most important vote goes to... the person who makes all the real decisions... Mommy! Mother's Day 2008 Election onesie comes in sizes for 6-24 months. ($22.95)

Giveaway: To win your own "Don't Blame Me - I can't vote until 2024" onesie from Savy Tot, email babblecontest@gmail.com. You can just say "Hi, I want the onesie" or you can tell us who you're voting for. The onesie is pink, long-sleeved, and in size 0-6 months.