At first we were a bit confused as there was white ribbon connecting the head and tail each to the body. I read the tag on one of the animals and it said to remove the fasteners that are used for packaging before giving the toy to your child. We chose to cut the fasteners off of the 2 larger animals. The tag told us they were Vappu the Goldfish and Hokon the Dragon and they were Plaja Pets-Magnetically Mixable Plush.

These animals are so cute. The head and tail are attached to the body with magnets which are sewn into the animal. The magnets are strong enough to hold the animal together but weak enough to allow even a small child to separate the pieces from each other. When we started playing and mixing and matching the animals I was impressed at how long these toys kept the attention of my teenage boys.

I brought Vappu and Hokon with me to church so that my little toy tester Miss A. could check them out for me. Miss A. is 19 months old. I only had to show her once how the pieces come apart and go back together. She played with them for 45 minutes. Mr J., a 7 month old friend of mine cuddled and played with Hokon for quite a while. Even the 17 year old nursery worker had a lot of fun playing with these toys.

From Plaja Pets

The Plaja Pets are soft, colorful and have a Dr Seuss-like characteristic to them. Children from ages 7 mos to 17 years enjoyed playing with them. The only thing I would change with this product would be to make it easier to find where the magnets are. Maybe a colored dot or something, it would especially help the younger children enjoy playing with the toy. The 8″ Plaja Pets retail for $15.99 and the mini pets retail for $7.99.

Since the Plaja pets are mixable, the more you collect the more fun you can have mixing the pieces together. The Plaja Pets website has activities and downloads for your children to have fun with.
These mini Plaja Pets are Tashi the Pig, Yongi the Tiger, Zoco the Parrot and Pingguo the Panda.

You can buy these and other Plaja Pets at Small World Toys
or you can win them here!

This giveaway is open only to residents of the continental US. The prize is the 4 mini Plaja Pets with a retail value of $31.96. This winner will be picked Friday, January 16th at 9:00pm EST.

How to Enter:
1 Entry for visiting the Small World Toys website and then leave me a comment here telling me which Plaja Pet is your favorite. Please leave a valid e-mail address in your comment so that I can reach you if you win.

Bonus Entries: Please leave a separate comment for each category of bonus entry.

3 Entries for Twittering about this giveaway and putting the tweet’s URL in your comment.

3 Entries for Stumbling this giveaway

5 Entries for Blogging about this giveaway with a link to this post. Please post the URL of the blog post in your comment.

5 Entries for following my blog or subscribing to my RSS Feed.

Good Luck!

The post Plaja Pets Review and Giveaway appeared first on The Mom Maven.

There are only two characters in this story. Zeb Morris who is a young, mountain-smart buy and “the woman” who is the narrator and a grandmotherly figure. Zeb gets caught by a winter storm while hiking in the mountains and he comes upon the home of the woman, who takes him in. She spends days telling Zeb the real Christmas story.

The woman tells the Christmas story by starting at Creation. She calls the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil the “Testing Tree”. As she shares with Zeb about the Fall she says, “From the beginning of time, we needed Christmas.” (pg 23) She weaves her story through the Old Testament visiting Noah, Moses, Samuel and Daniel along the way. When she arrives at the birth of Jesus the story is told from the viewpoint of Aaron and Anna, two children who lived in Bethlehem. Zeb doesn’t understand how a baby could save the world so the woman continues the story-fast forwarding to when Aaron and Anna are grown and observing the Passover, and they hear the news of Jesus’ arrest.

Beautifully written and illustrated, One Wintry Night, is the perfect family read-a-loud. Whether you know the Bible or not, you can’t help but be captivated by Mrs Graham’s lovely storytelling. Mr Watson’s hand painted egg tempera illustrations are breathtaking.

The post Christmas Books for Children #2 appeared first on The Mom Maven.