Cat Junior Crew Fix-It Phillip Review

Our two-year-old son, Braxton, is all about tools and toys. When he watches his dad work around the house he’s constantly trying to play with his tools. He loves playing with my husband's tape measure, hammer, screwdrivers, you name it,  basically any hand tool you can think of. He loves imitating dad.

With Spring here and the weather warming up, we're continuing to fix things up around the house and Braxton loves to help any way he can. We were sent the Cat Junior Crew Fix-It Phillip truck a few weeks ago and it's become one of Braxton's favourite toys to play with. 

The chunky, preschool-friendly Fix-It Phillip is a large 12” vehicle filled with personality and designed to make learning fun and easy for young ones! With the interactive buttons to make the workstation come to life, our son spends hours pretending to build using the hand tools and saw.

The Cat Junior Crew Fix-It Phillip truck helps children develop their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as they interact with the friendly tool pals included. With a magnet safely secured inside the tools, they can be moved around and stored on the magnetic pegboard until they’re needed for action. Each tool has a unique shape and specific purpose which, when matched to its corresponding part on the bench, activates different lights and Kid-Vroom sounds to let your child know they’ve completed the task successfully. Even the large wheels are fully removable for fixing a flat or creating a stationary workplace.

This is an amazing toy for any parent at home who has little ones that love to build and play with cars or who shows interest in helping mom or dad fix things around the house. Our son has been playing with his Fix-It Phillip truck almost every single day since we received it. The interactive lights and sounds keep Braxton intrigued for hours. It’s definitely become one of his favourites toys to play with. 

One of my favourite things about the Cat Junior Crew Fix-It Phillip truck is that when playtime is over, cleanup is a snap; all you have to do is simply place all the tools back onto the pegboard and close up the vehicle for convenient storage. The truck sits nicely on top of Braxton's toy bin so that he can play with it again the next day.

 Cat Junior Crew Fix-It Phillip has retailed at $29.99 CAD and can be purchased at Canadian Tire, Walmart, Toys R Us, and Costco. This would be a great toy for younger kids at home that love to pretend to build and work! Be sure to head to our Instagram stories to see Braxton playing with Fix-It Phillip! 

Disclosure: All opinions are my own. I received the Cat Junior Fix-It Phillip truck at no cost for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received.

Leave a Comment Tags: Product Review, Spring Break, Spring Cleaning, Toys

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Craft Room Design Ideas to Boost Creativity

 Any serious crafters will know that they need to have a craft room that means business! If you are a keen crafter, then it isn’t just the dream; you will actually have so many supplies and materials that you need to store them all somewhere. This kind of hobby does need to have its own dedicated space, and as a bonus, it can be a way to decorate just how you’d like to and have your materials and supplies organized just as you’d like to. As any creative knows, having a blank space for something can be quite alarming, as there are just so many options. So how about trying out some of these craft room ideas? It would be great to hear what you think.

Organized Space
If you are a keen crafter, then you will know that nothing can beat an organized system. If things aren’t organized, it can mean projects take longer as you try to remember what is where and have to look through boxes and boxes of things to get what you need. You could consider custom storage to create space right where you need it. You could also think about getting plenty of storage with drawers so that everything can be in place and labels can be attached so you know exactly what goes where.


Adjustable Shelving
Your current craft loves may be cross-stitch or scrapbooking, but what about in a year’s time? Will you have moved onto another craft? It can be a good idea to prepare your craft area for your different interests, and you can do this by using shelving that is adjustable. Then you can make the spaces wider if needed, to occupy larger boxes, or make the shelving closer together if you need to free up space underneath.


Comfortable Environment
Having a craft room that is comfortable is another important aspect to the design. You want to enjoy your time there, and will no doubt, be spending a number of hours in there too. The table and chairs that you choose play an important part, as well as other aspects like the lighting and the temperature. When you have natural light, as well as lots of bright light from lamps, you will be able to craft in there late into the night without your eyes having to strain. Getting the temperature right is key too, especially in the summer months. That can be why having the number of a 24 hour AC service on-hand can be a good idea, just in case anything needs repairing quickly. Your craft space should look good, but also be comfortable and desirable.


Use All Surfaces
Crafting queens can have a large amount of materials to store, and when a project is in full-swing, you can need a lot of space. Make sure that you use all the surfaces that are available in your design. A pegboard or noticeboard could go in a corner of the room to pin things too, as well as the floor being used for storage units. Tabletops can have organizers on, as well as machines like computers or sewing machines. Use all the space that you have and you won’t be short on space.

2 comments Tags: Crafts, DIY, tips

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Spring Break with Elevation Pictures (Digital 3 Movie Giveaway)

 With Spring Break being around the corner and with the new Stay At Home lockdown restrictions in order, we’re still going to be at home for the week while the kids are on a break from school. No surprise there, since we’re still in a worldwide pandemic. So it’s time to start planning out some fun staycation activities we like to do with the kids and one of the main things we love to do is an outdoor movie night. We set up our outdoor screen, projector, blankets, comfy seats, and snacks and watch a movie outdoors. It’s not the same as the big screens in the movie theatre, but hopefully one day in the near future we’ll all be able to enjoy a movie in a theatre again. 

We’ve teamed up with our amazing friends over at Elevation Pictures, once again, to keep your family entertained during the break. Currently, right now you can find a few of their rental titles on sale for 99 cents on Apple TV or on Itunes only until April 13th! We’re offering one of our Canadian readers a chance at winning three family titles to enjoy in the comfort of your home or if you’re like my family, if the weather is nice enough, switch it up with an outdoor movie. 

Enter below for a chance to win all three movies on digital, The Breadwinner, Missing Link & Shaun the Sheep.

Receiving a nomination for Best Animated Feature at the 90th Academy Awards, The Breadwinner tells the story of Parvana, an 11-year-old girl growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. When her father is wrongfully arrested, Parvana disguises herself as a boy in order to support her family. With dauntless perseverance, Parvana draws strength from the stories her father told her and ultimately risks her life to discover if he is still alive. Equal parts thrilling and enchanting, The Breadwinner is a timely and inspiring tale about the transcendent power of stories, and their potential to unite and heal us all.

Mr.  Link is the altogether lovable and hilarious title character in this globe-trotting comedy-adventure.  Hugh  Jackman is  Sir  Lionel  Frost, a  brave and dashing adventurer who considers himself to be the world’s foremost investigator of myths and monsters. The trouble is no one else seems to agree. He sees a  chance to prove himself by traveling to  America’s  Pacific  Northwest to discover the world’s most legendary creature. A living remnant of Man’s primitive ancestry. The Missing Link. 

Zach  Galifianakis is  Mr.  Link: the slightly silly,  surprisingly smart, and soulful beast who Sir  Lionel discovers. As species go, he’s as endangered as they get; he’s possibly the last of his kind, he’s lonely, and he believes that Sir Lionel is the one man alive who can help him. Together they set out on a daring quest around the world to seek out Link’s distant relatives in the fabled valley of Shangri-La. 

Along with the independent and resourceful  Adelina  Fortnight  (Zoe  Saldana),  who possesses the only known map to the group’s secret destination, the unlikely trio embarks on a riotous rollercoaster ride of a journey. On their journey, our fearless explorers encounter more than their fair share of peril, stalked at every turn by dastardly villains seeking to thwart their mission. Through it all, Mr. Link’s disarming charm and good-humored conviction provide the emotional and comedic foundation of this fun-filled family movie.

Shaun's a clever, mischievous sheep who lives with his flock on  Mossy Bottom  Farm,  under the nominal supervision of The Farmer, and Bitzer, a well-meaning but ineffectual sheepdog. Despite Shaun’s best efforts, life on the farm has got into a bit of a  rut,  and  Shaun concocts a  cunning plan --to have a day off. But be careful what you wish for.  Events rapidly escalate out of control and  Shaun’s mischief inadvertently leads to the hapless farmer being taken away from the farm. With the flock’s help, Shaun must leave the farm for the first time and travel into the Big City in order to rescue The Farmer --and failure is not an option. But how will the sheep survive? Can they avoid being recognized as sheep? And thus avoid the clutches of a fearsome animal catcher? In the course of an action-packed adventure, they experience a host of wild, funny mishaps. And Shaun meets a little orphan dog called Slip who makes him realize that having a home and a family is not something to be taken for granted.

GIVEAWAY

To enter the giveaway, comment below sharing your favourite staycation activity you love to do with your family. You never know, your idea may help other families stay entertained while staying home and being safe. (Please be aware, the digital codes are only valid for Apple TV or Itunes)

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3 comments Tags: digital, Giveaway, March Break, movie, Spring Break

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Spring Break with Asmodee Canada (Review & Giveaway)

With the days in quarantine seeming to be endless, my hubby and I have been making game night a regular occasion. With Spring Break being around the corner, and with the new lockdown restrictions, we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to try out a few new games that caught our eye from our friends over at Asmodee Canada, and we didn’t regret it. We were sent Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers, Catan: The Dice Game, and Spot It! Collector.

Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers is an adventure board game where you and your fellow players work together to build a vast land that includes rivers, lakes, forests, and grasslands. During this process, you collect points for completing areas, hunting animals, and fishing the waters, with the objective being collecting the most points after the last tile is placed.

This game is extremely interesting to us because you’ll never play the same scenario twice, as you place and put each tile down, the lands you form will always be different, making a unique experience every time!

We absolutely love this game. It’s a great mix of strategy and competition, and each turn keeps you on your feet against your opponents. We would absolutely recommend this game to anyone that enjoys a nice family game night. In fact, we played this game with the in-laws and they loved it so much that they ordered it that night, while we were finishing our game up!

For the families and couples out there looking for an exciting dice game, that’s not only fun but quick to play, Catan is the game for you. The version of Catan we had was the miniature dice game, where the object of the game is to collect as many points as you can within 15 turns. Points are granted by building roads, settlements, cities, and knights, and each one carries a different point value through the progression of the game.

Catan is played with 6 dice that have resources on each side of them, and per turn, you can roll 3 times to make certain recipes that build things on the map. It is a game of strategy and risks as going for the hardest recipes will grant you the most points, but falling short will end up with you losing two points.

My husband and I loved this game because it’s one we can fit in at any point of the day. The game only takes around 15 minutes to play, so we can get a few games in before dinner, bed, or when our son is napping. Whilst being a relatively quick game to play, it’s a great strategy game that benefits with a stroke of luck when rolling the dice.

We would absolutely recommend Catan to all of our friends and family, and anyone who is looking for a new and exciting game to throw into game night, or as a break in a busy day. It has definitely become a game night regular in our house.

Ready to test your eyes and your reflexes? Because Spot it! Collector is the game that will put everything you know about quick reactions to the test. We were so excited to give this game a try, and it definitely held up to our expectations.

Spot It! Collector is a game of matching and quick thinking. One of the things we loved about this game is that there are actually 5 different versions of the game to play, so you can play a few then switch, and the game stays upbeat and fresh! Each card has a set of symbols and has one match with every other card in the deck. To quickly describe how to play, I will use the mini-game Tower as an example. Each player is dealt one card face down and the remaining stack is placed face up in the middle. At once, everyone turns their card over and has to find the matching symbol between their card and the tower card, and once you find it, be the quickest to grab that card off the top and add it to your hand. The game keeps going like that until the tower is cleared, and the person with the most cards wins. Each game variant has a similar style, with a different twist to keep it exciting.

This game not only is great for the entire family on game night but can be super fun with friends and some drinks for an adult version! Spot It! Collector has definitely become a regular for when our friends (that were in our social bubble before the latest lockdown) come over for game night, it brings out the competition and the laughs to go along with it. This game is also great for small groups as well, my hubby and I play with just the two of us and have lots of fun with it! We would definitely recommend Spot It! Collector to anyone looking to throw a fast-paced, competitive card game into their party night or family game night.

GIVEAWAY:

I'm excited to team up with Asmodee Canada to offer one of our Canadian readers a chance at winning one of the games we mentioned above. All you need to do is comment below which game you'd love to win and that's it! For more information about the games mentioned and many others, head to Asmodee Canada.

Disclosure: All opinions are my own. I received the above-mentioned games at no cost for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

12 comments Tags: asmodee canada, board games, family game night, Giveaway, March Break, Product Review, Spring Break

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