Ramble On

After the fourth day in a row of ALL three of my kids getting out the pots and giant steel bowls sitting them on the floor of the kitchen and spinning in them (yes even the 7-year-old) I went ahead and cashed in my Oompa points and bought three of these.

I've been reading about them for a couple of months now but never thought I could justify the cost, after all there are plenty of pots and giant bowls to spin in but the baby is making me nervous trying to pick everything up and I keep having visions of her dropping heavy pots on her toes so I caved.

I also did a little tiny of bit of xmas shopping in the past couple of days and finally figured out what I'm getting my dad (yay!) so now the only shopping that is left are hub's family and I'm not doing that this year (we'll see how that works out). I put it entirely in his hands and gave him a budget. Now, I have to be honest and say that I did already get gifts for his Mom, his Grandma, and his Step-Mother. All that's left is his dad, sisters, and their husbands he should be able to take care of them with little to no trouble (meaning gift cards).

in the country by jayamaree on Polyvore.com

I bought this game with my 4 year old in mind. We play a lot of games and not very many of them are for her age group that would keep the whole family entertained. My 7-year-old will not play Candy Land, it's boring to him and hungry hungry hippo is way too loud and those marbles go everywhere so I had to find something else.

I've had In The Country in mind for quite some time and when I went to oompa.com to order some Easter gifts I added this game to my cart as well. I felt it was a little pricey ($34.99) but thought I'd try it out anyway.

So far we've played it seven times in a period of three days. Needless to say we love it, all of us, even my husband found it entertaining. First of all the board is a puzzle which gives the game another entertaining element. My daughter loved to put it together and now says that it's her job (since it's her game) to put the puzzle board together eat time. The cardboard it's printed on is very heavy and seems like it will stand up to years of use.

Now actual game play, you move in "tractor spaces" genius! The tractors are round disks of cardboard which you place on the board between your figure and where you want to go, you move your figure the length of these pieces. I'm not sure my explanation makes sense but it allows the freedom to move around the entire space of the board. I think it's brilliant!

The game pieces are real wood and heavy, even the dice. The cow is probably my favorite piece that along with the small loaves of bread. I have to be careful because I know these will disappear into my daughter's room if given the opportunity so we've been very careful to pack it up completely after each round of game play (the bags of "wheat" are actually little bean bags, sooo cute, and nice to squish!).

The game changes each time as well, which a bunch of different recipe-goal cards (not just the apple pie recipe which is in the discription). I'm sure this game will see many many more uses in our household. It's so much fun to play and the pieces are all so sweet. I'm so glad I took a chance on this game!

I placed an order with A Toy Garden yesterday, in the afternoon. I want to say shortly before dinner time (6 o'clock at our house) and I got an email notification today that it had been shipped.

Holy wow that was quick!

I've been visiting this site since last October and just got around to ordering some goodies now. Most of it will be put away until some-other-day (of course I say that now but I have a really hard time hiding things from my kids, especially when I'm super excited about them!) but the rainbow silk is for my 6-month-old's Easter basket.

*squee* this will be my first, official, play silk. Yes my family is a play-silk virgin and I am super excited to see this and the rest of the goodies coming out way. I just hope I can hide them from the kids for a while.

More when the stuff shows!