The Wii rocks for so many reasons. Though we still don’t have much time to play it, we thoroughly enjoy the moments that we do, and it’s a great way to entertain the entire family when the weather’s crappy. We don’t have many games, but that may change since my recent discovery of Wiiware, a service that allows Wii users to download games and applications specifically designed and developed for the Wii console from the Wiishop channel. Without going to the store. Can I get an Amen?

UK based game developer Zoonami kindly gave us some Wii points to spend on their new Wiiware game, Bonsai Barber. It’s for 1-4 players and is rated E for Everyone-Comic Mischief. For some reason, the name of the game didn’t click for me until we actually played it. And yes, we were actually giving haircuts to foliage. You choose from a selection of tools of the trade – scissors, clippers, paint for fun, water to regrow foliage and more, and cut the “hair” (twigs and leaves) of one of the twelve Bonsai salon customers, which include a shallot, a strawberry, a cactus, a carrot, a banana and more, each with their own interesting personality. If you play daily, you’ll get a new 5 customers each day to test your stylistic skills. Sometimes the customer requests a certain style, or you can choose from over thirty available styles. If you don’t play daily and miss an appointment, you’ll hear about it (on your Wii message board, but if you perform well you may get a gift or a postcard from an exotic destination from a customer who has traveled afar to show off their new do. I’d never let my kids Wii every day and there are no worries about the game being annoying if you don’t.

While my husband and I enjoyed the game for a few minutes, it’s definitely a kids game and our three year old absolutely loved it. It was really fun for us to play as a family, but is not a game you’d sit and play with your adult friends for long. It’s el cheapo – amounts to about ten bucks – and is great fun for all ages so if you have children or grandchildren of the under 10 set, I’d highly recommend it!

Buy your 2000 Wii points card online in Canada or the USA and get shopping!

Win it! You could win one of THREE 2000 Wii points cards or a Wii console courtesy of Zoonami! To enter, leave a comment on this post before noon mst on December 7, 2009. The first number drawn will win the Wii (along with a Wii points card so you can order Bonsai Barber! Those Zoonami folks are so thoughtful…) and the next three will win the points cards. Good luck! (Remember, you can always get extra entries at T.O.P.!)

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

Since we got our Wii & Wii Fit, we haven’t played them nearly as much as we thought we would. In fact, it just might have an embarrassing layer of dust on it. I blame it on having small children who aren’t allowed to touch expensive electronics. However, we recently received a few cool items to go along with our Wii that have brought it back in to our repertoire.

The NERF Sports Pack ($19.99) includes add-ons for Baseball, Golf, and Tennis that are coated in that great & well loved NERF material that protects both your head and your big screen tv. I love that these games actually came with our Wii so we could play with them right away without buying anything else. All of these games are way more fun when you have the right equipment instead of just a Wii-mote. Who knew? The NERF Racing Wheel (only $9.99) makes driving super fun and much safer. It actually inspired me to let the three year old drive, which means we no longer have to wait until after bedtime to break out the games! I would never have played or bought Mario Kart if I didn’t have to try out this wheel, and now it’s my fave!

Energizer Power & Play Wii 4X Charger ($39.99) offers Wii users the ability to charge up to 4 Wii-motes with or without the wrist-strap via conduction technology. If you have more than two remotes, you MUST get one of these! It’s pretty awesome to know you’ll all be able to play together with fully charged remotes any time. It comes with 4 rechargeable battery packs, 4 battery covers and a power cord. If you’ve only got two remotes, check out the very cool Energizer Power & Play Wii Induction Charger ($49.99). It charges 2 Wii-motes at once without removing the silicone jacket or your Wii Motion Plus attachment and comes with 2 rechargeable battery packs, 2 battery covers and a power cord.

Performance Designed Products (PDP) is an industry leader in designing and manufacturing products for all major video game platforms including the Sony PS2, PS3, PSP, Nintendo Wii, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Microsoft XBOX and XBOX 360. The company has been supplying video game accessories to the U.S. market for more than a decade. PDP sells products under a variety of brands, with sales in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and throughout Europe. For more information on PDP and its products, visit www.pdp.com.

Win it! We’re giving away all FOUR of these great products for the Wii to one T.O.P. reader! To enter, leave a comment on this post before noon mst on August (holy crap! August?) 19, 2009.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

We were fortunate to be offered a free trial to Dreambox Learning K-2 Math , an online math game that adjusts to a child’s math competency as they play. Dreambox Learning K-2 Math aimed at children 5-7 years of age is perfect for my 5 year old daughter who’s in Kindergarten. It features over 350 individual math activities, and there are over a million different paths a child can take and difficulty level progresses as they play along. It’s great that my daughter is able to log in independently and when she starts playing the actual math games (which are cleverly masked as fun games), it’s hard to make her stop! The math problems are presented in different adventure theme parks with pirates, dinosaurs, cute animals or pixies. Kids are motivated to play the math activities because in doing so, they move the story along. They also earn certificates of achievement and coins that can be used to play carnival games. Even if some of the games are a bit slow but they hold her attention and she’s always curious to see what happens after. If she’s struggling, the game presents extra help and a stress reliever (everyone gets tired crunching numbers, right?) by going to the carnival and popping balloons or another similar activity. What’s more, Dreambox Learning tracks the child’s progress and emails progress reports to the parents so I get updates on how she is doing even when I am not there to see it (although I make it a point to be with her as much as possible when she plays). She’s been playing every single day for at least 15 minutes and has made a lot of progress. I can’t believe she has stopped using her fingers in counting and subtracting after using Dreambox for just a week!

I have to be honest, Math is my waterloo and I am afraid I may have passed that to my daughter. I have tried to introduce her to Mathematics at an early age in hopes of overcoming any fear of numbers and eventually teaching her to love Math. With the progress she’s made by using Dreambox, I am confident that she’s got an early start to not only not hating Math but actually enjoying it! Dreambox Learning K-2 Math is highly recommended to parents wanting to have a little boost to their child’s mathematical skills. It is a subscription program that costs from $8 – $13/month. – by Grace

From the time my first baby was born and the nurses hovered over us every 30 minutes taking his temperature and mine, I knew a child’s temperature was kind of a big deal. I also knew that my kid freaked out any time I approached with the evil silver stick – and that was just when I was headed for his armpit. Since I wasn’t about to take an anal temperature, I went for the digital ear thermometer, even though they’re slightly less accurate and not meant for kids under one year of age. I used it happily through two children until I discovered the Temporal Artery Scanner from Exergen. Good people, let me tell you – never spend a penny on another thermometer. I sure won’t. This thing is freaking awesome. Not only is it incredibly fun to use for both the taker and the take-ee (heh), it’s not at all invasive and it’s more accurate than any other thermometer on the market. With a simple scan from the center of the forehead to the hairline at the temple, you’ve got an accurate temp in just seconds.

(Watch this educational video if you want more info. Or just trust me – it’s cool and you want one. So do the people you’ll be buying baby gifts for.)

Check here to see where you can get yours in stores and online. FYI…in Canada, this product is called the AccuCare Temporal Artery Thermometer and it’s sold in Shoppers Drug Mart. (The Shoppers website is horrific so don’t bother looking for it on there. Just head to your local store and pick one up!)

Win it! We’re giving away a Temporal Artery Scanner (the US version, but anyone can win and they’re all the same save the name) to one reader! To enter, leave a comment on this post before midnight mst on September 8/08.

Additional entries available. See contest entry information and rules.

CONTEST CLOSED & WINNER EMAILED

From the time they wean, our babies start to grow further away from us in good ways and in some not so good ways. One of the biggest concerns for many parents comes when their child starts to venture out in the world and isn’t always within arms reach.

Whether it be daycare, field trips, a trip to Grandma’s or just a swimming lesson sans parents, there’s always a risk that something may happen when you’re not there and your child won’t be able to communicate. If your child is taken to emergency and is too young or is otherwise unable to tell the doctors his or her medical history, valuable time may be lost while they try to identify your child and then contact you.

Identity Pal is an all in one USB data storage device that speaks for your child when you can’t be there. It comes pre-loaded with completely customizable software. All you need to do is plug it in to the USB port of any computer and plug in any information you’d like your child to have in the event of an emergency? Contact information and allergies come to mind, but this software is so comprehensive that nothing will be left out. There’s space for legal documents, travel information and more. You can delete and add as necessary and the program is incredibly easy to use.

When a medical professional plugs it in to their computer, it will simply ask them if they own it or if they want to access the information and if they can click a mouse they can access what they need to help your child. The unit is waterproof and shockproof and retails for $50. If you’d rather use your own jumpdrive, you can download the full version of the software for $30 or a very bare bones version for free. I’d suggest hanging one of these on every school aged child’s backpack. Let the
Identity Pal speak when your child cannot.

Win it! We’re giving away an Identity Pal to one lucky TOP reader. To enter, email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com with identity pal in the subject line before midnight MST on March 21, 2008.

Get up to two additional entries into this contest!

1. Blog about this contest using one of the top three images found here.

2. Email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com with identity pal in the subject line and the direct link to your post (not to your main page, and in a separate email from your other entry).

AND/OR

Subscribe to our RSS feed. Send an additional email to let us know that you did this for your extra entry. Be sure to leave a valid email address so we can confirm your new subscription.

Maximum three entries total per person.

Contest Closed

By our TOP Tech Reviewer, and his budget conscious wife who fell in love with this product and ended up writing the review since she had hardly allowed him to touch it!

Is anyone out there like me in that you have thousands of great digital pics of your kids and very few actually printed? Once in a while we remember to order a few special ones bit it would sure be nice to be able to print one anytime without driving across the city to Costco to pick them up.

The last time I printed my own pictures I owned an old inkjet with $60 ink cartridges and the images had some lovely streaks and a few strange marks on them. Not really framing quality.

From now on, though, I’ll be printing with the Kodak EasyShare 5300 All In One. It’s the bomb! First of all, it’s only $200 which is rather amazing for something that not only prints awesome quality photos but also scans and copies. The ink cartridges are only $15 for colour and $10 for black ~ I do believe that’s the least I’ve ever paid for a cartridge of any kind. The box comes equipped with everything you’ll need. Even the ink cartridges and paper samples are included.

With the Kodak name behind a product, you can be fairly certain that you’re going to get good quality prints, but this printer did a seriously impressive job in about 30 seconds for a 4×6 print. My favourite part is still the cost. It cost me next to nothing to print a bunch of pictures and it happened right in my basement.

A scanner is easy to come by, but I didn’t realize how nice it was to have a functional photocopier in your home. It was great to copy recipes for friends, make copies of the kids’ schoolwork that I wanted to keep but were too messy to save the originals and so much more. It’s so easy to use that the kids can scan their own artwork and digitally enhance it to print for their memory books or to make into cards for the grandparents.

All in all, a great product at an even greater price!

It’s somebody’s lucky day because we’ve got one to give away! To enter to win your own Kodak EasyShare 5300 All In One, email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com before midnight tonight (10/22/07) with KODAK in the subject line and tell us what kind of project you’d like to use the printer for that uses at least 2 of the 3 functions. Congratulations Laurie!

Another awesome Mobi product from Zoom Distribution has entered the ranks of the TOP favourites.

The Digital Duck bath thermometer, available in Canada from Zoom’s retailers, has redeemed the bath thermometer industry once and for all.

You know those annoying temperature strips attached to a variety of goofy plastic things that float in the tub and change colour (kind of) according to the temperature of the water?

Well, do yourself a favour and throw them out. When you do, be sure to get yourself a Digital Duck. This thing rocks. Really.

The web footed base suctions to the edge of the tub unobtrusively. At bath time, just lift the duck from the base and pop him into the water. He’ll power on automatically, quack beep to let you know he’s working, and then within just a few seconds you’ll have an accurate water temperature to 0.1 of a degree. The Digital Duck alarms if the water is too cold or too hot, and the word ‘bath’ flashes above the temperature reading when it’s just right. Move the duck around the tub before baby gets in – it takes only a second to let you know about a dangerous hot spot. Leave it in there and it’ll warn you when the water gets too cold for comfort (if the baby doesn’t do it first!). The floating waterproof design means if doubles as a bath toy.

Temperature strips begone. The Digital Duck bath thermometer from Zoom Distribution is here to stay.

Two lucky TOP readers will win their own Digital Duck bath thermometer courtesy of Zoom Distribution. Email theopinionatedparent[at]gmail[dot]com with Duck in the subject header and tell us…Mobi makes 3 other thermometer products. Name one. Contest closes @ midnight MST on 3/30/07. Congratulations Betty M!

Through the fog of the newborn phase and into toddlerhood, many parents (me, anyway) have a hard time remembering even the most basic of tasks. Forgetting to eat and drink is common during new parenthood. Sooner or later, we all remember and it’s not such a big deal. Those basic baby care tasks are often just as hard to keep track of but are a much bigger issue if you forget. There were times when I wished I had a portable brain unaffected by the crazy hormones and sleep deprivation.

The Itzbeen baby care timer from Coast Innovations is one baby gadget I wish had entered the market before my son was born and one I’ll be using for any newborns in my future without a doubt. Invented by new parent Greg Sheldon and his wife when they had trouble remember how long it had been between feeding and changes, the Itzbeen’s function far surpasses it’s small price of $25. What do we love about it? Everything!