And it keeps getting better. Current Wii consoles are shipping with the brand new Wii Plus remote with built-in MotionPlus technology (it used to be a separate, add-on accessory). This new hyper-sensitive remote controls your Wii games with the natural, fluid movement of your hand, without having to think about pressing a button. You get better control with less work. A win-win.

There are also a bunch of recently-released Wii games that will make a perfect pair with a Wii console.

Barbie: Jet, Set & Style: Budding style mavens will jump at the chance to perfect their hair, makeup, nail and fashion skills. Travel around the world with Barbie picking up style tips from Paris and London to Tokoyo and Moscow. Hone your glamor skills to win the ultimate prize – styling Barbie herself for an international fashion show! Rated E (THQ)

Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident: New to Wii for the first time is the exciting hidden object puzzle play of the Mystery Case File series. Scour the island, locate hidden objects and use clues to solve inventive puzzles throughout the game. My kids love the I Spy-style of this game, and while it was too hard for them to play alone, it was a great family game using our collective detective skills and eyesight. Rated E (Nintendo)

Family Game Night 4: Your kids may think that board games are soooo old school, but now you can introduce your kids to your favorites – with a twist! With Family Game Night 4, you’ll be off the couch and laughing as you choose between CONNECT 4 Basketball, YATZHEE! Bowling, SCRABBLE Flash, BOP-IT Boptagon, and SORRY! Sliders. My kids were hooked on YATZHEE! Bowling having just learned how to do both parts separately in the last few months. This was a great game to enjoy as a the whole family! Rated E (EA)

Monster High Ghoul Spirit: If your daughter loves the Monster High dolls, they’ll be of fan of Ghoul Spirit where they can work to become the coolest ghoul in school by making friends, building a reputation, doing all sorts of “creeptastic” activities and more. Select your hair, skin, and outfit to create your own creepy character and do you best to win the ultimate prize – winning the title of Scream Queen. Rated E (THQ)

Wii Play Motion: If you already have a Wii, this is a great introduction to the Wii Plus remote which comes bundled with the game that highlights all of the new remote’s hyper-sensitive capabilities. With 12 mini games to choose from like Jump Park, Skip Skimmer and Treasure Twirl, the games are easy enough for younger kids to play while still offering enough challenge for adults. Rated E 10+ (Nintendo)

Rayman Origins: From the creator of Rayman, Beyond Good & Evil and the Raving Rabbids, comes Rayman Origins. Choose from over 100 characters while you adventure through 12 beautifully drawn worlds and over 60 levels attempting to save their home, the Glade of Dreams, from trouble. Pick up important skills like swimming, diving, slapping and of course the “HairlyCopter” in an attempt save the Glade and defeat the enemy. A fun game for older kids and adults alike. Rated E 10+ (Ubisoft)

Skylanders – Spyro’s Adventure Starter Pack: This unique game comes with three creature action-figures called Skylanders and a “Portal of Power” that syncs with the console and “teleports” the creature into the game. Each Skylander has a different ability or power and remembers its place in the game – even if you use it on a different console. Use your Skylander’s special power to battle Kaos, an evil tyrant, and protect your homeland.  A multiple player function allows you to join forces with a friend or battle head-to-head. Plus you can expand the game by purchasing separate Adventure Packs. And the Skylanders are perfect entertainment on their own. Rated E10+. (Activision)

Add on the new uDraw Tablet from THQ and you can try out these new games.

Pictionary – Ultimate Edition: You know the game, but not like this! Pictionary Ultimate takes drawing to a whole new level. Play regular Pictionary with over 3,000 drawing clues (junior and adult levels) or try out Pictionary Mania with crazy drawing modes like tool confusion, eraser only and rotation frustration where the screen rotates while you’re trying to draw! Plus when you’re done playing, the free draw mode is perfect to hone your skills. Rated E (THQ)

Spongebob Squigglepants: Join Spongebob, his friends and the president of the Spongebob fan club, Patchy the Pirate, in this dizzying adventure of more than 100 fast-paced mini-games and challenges. The games are easy enough for younger kids, but the time limits add an element of challenge for older kids too. You can also draw, paint and color tons of never-before-seen images of Spongebob from the Nickelodeon vaults. A must-have for Spongebob aficionados. Rated E. (THQ)

Disney Princess – Enchanting Storybooks: Budding artists can bring color and life to scenes from their favorite Disney princess movies staring Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Cinderella, Rapunzel and Tiana. With over 100 coloring pages, activities, sticker pages and stories, your little princess will have fun recreating her favorite scenes from her favorites stories. Sadly this one was lost on my boys, but I admit I had fun reliving some of my own Disney memories. Rated E. (THQ)

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Note: MWS was not paid for this review. Samples were provided for the review.

Released just earlier in November and a great Wii pick for the family this holiday season is Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games.  This game follows the original release of Mario & Sonic at the Olympics.  Obviously this one plays on the upcoming London games and what fun it is!

The add on here is that the city is your playground!  London landmarks mark the background of all of the fun Olympic games.  All of your favorite characters are there like Bowser, Luigi and more.

It’s 4-player optional and I would recommend this as a great party game. $45.99 on Amazon for Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games with free shipping.

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Back again with another hot new holiday toy (and a giveaway!) from LeapFrog. I’ve already written about my love of LeapFrog’s Tag Reading System here and here, and one of the great things about the system is that they keep expanding and adding new products like this – the Tag Solar System Adventure Pack.

Available as a bundle with a Tag pen ($53.98, but on sale for $49.99) or on its own ($13.99), the Solar System Adventure Pack extends your child’s learning to the stars! Literally! Much like the Tag World Map and United States Map, the dual-sided, interactive Solar System Map offers over 40 different out-of-the-world learning activities on the planets, sun, orbits, moon phases, seasons, asteroids and more! It contains the “basics” but also goes beyond to talk about things like the deposed Pluto and other dwarf planets plus a section called “How Do We Know” that tackles questions like life on other planets, and how we know how far away stars are.

In addition to the map itself, the Solar System Adventure Pack also comes with a “Passport to the Stars” sticker book that helps reinforce the learning and is just plain fun for sticker-loving kids. Plus, the stickers interact with the Tag pen!

Some of my favorite features:

- Size: While we own the World and USA Maps as well, the Solar System map folds down to the same size as a traditional Tag book which means it’s easier to bring along and to store with our other Tag books.

- Multiple levels: LeapFrog does such a good job at creating toys that offer multiple levels of play. The Solar System Map offer two levels of content so both my older boys can use it and be challenged.

- Information variety: The entire Tag series does a great job of packing in the information. From facts and data to games and activities, the Solar System map teaches and reinforces the learning through a variety of methods.

GIVEAWAY! LeapFrog is giving away a Solar System Adventure Pack that comes with their latest Tag Reader! To enter, leave a comment below telling us why this would be a hit with your kids. You can earn additional entries by doing any of the following – be sure leave us separate comments to tell us you did! 1) Like LeapFrog or Mommies With Style on Facebook, 2) Follow LeapFrog or MWS on Twitter, 3) Follow me on Twitter! Entries must be received by Saturday, November 26th 11:59pm, PST. One winner will be picked via random.org and notified via email. Sorry, no P.O. boxes. US residents only.

Here is the description from Amazon:

A Moxie Girl always stays true to herself and never gives up on her dreams! The Nintendo DS game focuses on the social and self expression play that girls favor as they explore who they are and can become. Play games, create art, take personality quizzes and discover which of the Girlz you and your friends are most like!

Get Moxie Girlz from Amazon for $16.00. Free shipping with Amazon Prime.

Same price but available supposedly through end of day tomorrow: GameStop.com (in-store and online) is offering the Xbox 360 and Kinect bundle for 299.99 with free shipping.  PLUS, order it by end of day tomorrow and you’ll get a $100 gift card to spend at GameStop on additional games for your new game system!

Remember how hot Pillow Pets were last holiday season? I don’t know about all of your kids, but my kids still sleep with each of theirs every night. For kids who are Pillow Pets fans, there is now Pillow Pets for the Nintendo DS [$16.00 on Amazon].

This game is rated E for everyone and looks adorable.  Players have to visit Dreamland and try and rescue Pillow Pets who have become stuck there.  Once rescued, then can bring them home and adorn their virtual “bedroom” with their pillow pets. Sounds like an all play, right?

Giveaway: One lucky Mommies with Style reader will win a copy of Pillow Pets for the Nintendo DS as well as a plush Pillow Pet!  Retail value on both of these is $39.98.

To enter, leave a comment on this post.

For additional entries:
Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter & follow me on Twitter @WhitneyMWS:

Enter to win a Pillow Pets Nintendo DS game & a plush Pillow Pet via @WhitneyMWS http://bit.ly/aatNRf

3) “Like” Mommies with Style on Facebook (if you already do, comment to let me know!)

4) Subscribe to my feed or email newsletter and stay on top of all of my daily posts! If you already subscribe, please leave a separate comment letting me know that you are currently a subscriber (thank you!).

* CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED *

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I am thrilled to be working again with LeapFrog this holiday season to bring you some sneak peaks and great giveaways of LeapFrog’s latest releases. Today we’re starting with their hottest new item for the holidays: the LeapPad.

Just like you want an iPad, your kids are going to want to get their hands on a LeapPad. Even better, I have one to giveaway to one lucky MWS reader! Read on…

The LeapPad Explorer Learning Tablet is the newest all-in-one device from LeapFrog. You can play games, draw pictures, read books, hear stories, watch videos and even take your own pictures or movies! My boys have been fans of the Tag Readers and the Leapster Explorer, but the new LeapPad offers the best variety of activities. Here are just a few of the reasons you’ll love the LeapPad.

Variety. Numbers, letters, shapes, words, adding, subtracting, comparing, problem-solving, time, coloring, drawing, measuring, logic, reasoning, patterns, charts, phonics, geography, foreign languages. What can’t you learn on the LeapPad? With a library of over 100 games, ebooks, apps, videos and flashcards, the LeapPad provides an endless supply of learning opportunities.

Durable. LeapFrog makes stuff for kids, and they know how kids treat things. Keep teaching your kids to be careful, but know that the LeapPad comes with a sturdy, yet sleek, outer shell, a scratch resistant screen and 2 stylus pens (though you can use your finger too).

Compatible. One of the big complaints about LeapFrog products in the past is that they kept coming out with great products! Well, that wasn’t the problem as much (Apple seems to have survived this flaw), but that the games you’d buy for one game couldn’t transfer to the new device LeapFrog was coming out with. They heard the complaints and adjusted, and the new LeapPad is compatible with all the Leapster Explorer games – and vice versa. Already own Leapster Explorer games? They’ll work on the new LeapPad. And if you buy games of the LeapPad, you can load them on your Explorer too.

Adaptable. My oldest boys are close enough in age that we have few toys that are clearly for one child or the other, but they are not at the same level academically. With the LeapPad (and many of the the LeapFrog products), you can create different log-ins for each child and set the games for each child’s level. So both my boys can help WALL-E sort trash or explore the ocean floor with Dory on the Pixar Pals game, but can answer questions and do activities set to their specific level.

Snap & Record. While previous LeapFrog products had cameras as an add-on device, the LeapPad comes with a camera and a video recorder built-in. These are fun just by themselves, but add in a few apps like Story Studio which allows you to create your own story and record it or Photo Studio where a simple photo can be stamped or drawn on to create unique final products and the fun is endless. Parents can even share their kid’s creations via Facebook or email.

Follow. I think a lot of parents may not utilize LeapFrog’s Learning Path software, but I highly recommend it. You download it onto your computer and then whenever you plug in your child’s LeapPad to update it, download new games, etc, it will track your child’s progress. Learning Path can show you which activities your child spends the most time on and which they never play, which kinds of questions they get right and which they struggle with, which skills they are learning and which they need work on. I love that while my son is enjoying playing games, reading books and doing activities on the LeapPad, I can get an individual look at different academic skills he’s developing or struggling with.

What’s in the box?

LeapPad Explorer Learning Tablet (with 2GB Storage)

Built-in Camera & Video Recorder

Pet Writing App

Story Studio App*

Art Studio App*

Free App Download*

USB Cable

LeapFrog Connect CD & Quickstart Guide

Extra stylus with tether

2 App Center Download Cards (value of $40 total)

1-year limited warranty

*To download these apps you must install the LeapFrog Connect Application and complete registration.

LeapFrog also sent along two of their new games – Disney Pixar Pals and Pet Pals 2. Pixar Pals has games with the characters of WALL-E, Toy Story and Finding Nemo. My 5-year-old has been loving learning about recycling and the environment with WALL-E while my 3.5-year-old is more enamored with washing, feeding and caring for his pet dog on Pet Pals 2. He thinks he’s playing with a cute computerized puppy; I know he’s learning how to count, add and subtract.

The Less Than Great. I’ve always been impressed with LeapFrog’s products, but the LeapPad truly is my favorite to-date. The two things I’m less than thrilled about are  the battery life and the price of the game cartridges. The LeapPad requires 4 AA batteries and it eats through them pretty fast. You can purchase a separate AC adapter if you know you’ll be using it at home a lot, but since we always bring these in the car on long trips, the battery life can become an issue. As for buying additional content, most of the apps you can download about $5-$10, but the game cartridges are $24.99. My kids aren’t into true video games yet, so maybe this is cheap in comparison, but this was higher than I was hoping for.

The LeapPad retails for $99 and you can buy it individually at places like Amazon, but I recommend buying one of the bundles through LeapFrog.com. You’re going to want additional games and activities and the LeapFrog’s Store offers a number of different money-saving bundles to suit your needs – Reading & Writing, Reading & Math, Ultimate Boys Bundle, and bundles with $40 in app downloads. Definitely worth it.

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WIN! Here’s your chance to win a brand new LeapFrog LeapPad of your very own along with Disney Pixar Pals, Pet Pals 2 and $20 in download credits. To enter, tell us in a comment below what feature you’re looking forward to the most on the LeapPad. You can earn one additional entry for each of the following – leave a comment below to let us know you did: (1) follow LeapFrog on Facebook or (2)  Twitter, (3) tweet about the contest using the hashtag #LeapPad, (4) follow MWS on Facebook or (5) follow me on Twitter. Entries must be received by Saturday, November 5th, 11:59pm PST. One winner will be picked via random.org and notified via email. Sorry, no P.O. boxes. US residents only.

So under the tree this holiday season will be the latest Kirby installment for the Wii – Kirby’s Return to Dream Land.  It releases on October 24th and you can get it on Amazon for $49.99. It looks like a ton of fun – up to 4 players and it’s rated E for everyone so it’s sure to be a great family game.    

Also for other Kirby fans – here’s a neat little news tidbit related to Nintendo and Halloween:

Nintendo is partnering with the Starlight Children’s Foundation to sponsor Starlight Fun Centers in select hospitals around the country to demonstrate the power of helping others with some inspiration from Kirby and his new Super Abilities.

Kids are encouraged to find their inner Super Ability and explain how they would use it to help others or make the world a better place by downloading and filling out the Kirby coloring sheet and submitting it to Nintendo. Nintendo and Scholastic will post select submissions to a virtual gallery on the Nintendo site, and some submissions will be featured at a special Oct. 27 unveiling at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach in Long Beach, Calif., to celebrate Nintendo’s sponsorship of the Starlight Fun Center. For added inspiration, kids can visit The Stacks and take a “What’s Your Super Ability?” quiz. Participants can answer questions to determine which of the Super Abilities featured in Kirby’s Return to Dream Land would suit them best.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Nintendo for providing me with a review copy of Kirby’s Return to Dream Land to facilitate this review.

My boys share a family computer that it’s in the kitchen.  They plan all sorts of social games like Club Penguin and Animal Jam.  As they get older, they interact more with other kids and other players with short messages and a “friending system.”  But it’s quite basic and it’s no Facebook.

I’m no where near ready for my kids to join Facebook or any other social networking platform I’m involved in since they aren’t age appropriate.  Enter Ohanarama.

From the Ohanarama website, “Welcome to Ohanarama, an educational, social game environment for children ages 5–12 and their families, where they can connect, learn, and play.”

This is a neat little way that you can interact with your kids online — and a fun way for the kids to interact with their grandparents (often hundreds of miles away!)

Here’s a screen shot of a game of chess I played (each of us on our own computers) with my 7-year-old:

Kids create a profile and can play games – many of the games are educational, and playing the games earns you points (that kids can later cash in for things like gift cards to stores like Target!)

It’s free to join.  I’ve already invited extended family members to join – Nate can’t wait to challenge them to one of the many games on Ohanarama!

Disclosure: I was compensated for my time in writing this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Ubisoft’s latest is a Smurf version of it’s Dance Party hit – aptly named, Smurf Dance Party. Players dance along with Papa Smurf and the other characters from the movie to songs from the movie as well as some recent familiar radio hits.

The dance moves are a little easier than the regular Dance Party but are definitely an all-play for the whole family.  (It is the Smurfs, so duh, this should be for kids, right?)

Look how much fun my kids had playing with it with friends the other day.  (Even the non-remote holders were dancing up a storm!)

Get the Smurfs Dance Party for the Wii on Amazon for $29.99 with free shipping.