Toy Review! Infantino Grow-with-me Activity Gym and Ball Pit

We recently received the Infantino Grow-with-me Activity Gym and Ball Pit as a gift from one of Hubby's uncles. Might I say, coolest toy ever!

picture from Amazon.com

Baby Turtle is 2.5 months old. She fits across the diameter of the play mat perfectly right now. She absolutely loves the hanging sea creatures, especially the red crab and orange fish. We even do tummy time on this mat and she loves to look at the colorful animals printed. Every single time she's played with it so far has resulted in her sleeping out of exhaustion! A guaranteed hour of nap time, leaving me time to run around the house doing chores or relax.

I like this activity mat because of how colorful and full of patterns it is. Baby Turtle is never bored playing with it. There's always a new pattern to look at. Even the animals have different features. The crab has a baby mirror on one side and a tummy pattern on the other. The orange fish has crinkly fins and a textured loop beneath it. The purple octopus doubles as a rattle and has colorful ribbon tentacles. Lastly, the starfish is made of a crinkly material and has a hanging blue plastic star.

I try and rotate the animals so that she's not looking at the same one all the time. She loves grabbing the starfish toy. I wish there was another toy that had a dangling piece for her to grab, so I could put them on both sides of her.

Overall, this play mat is a great toy to have. At this stage (laying down and tummy time) there is plenty for Baby Turtle to look at. I will definitely have to add an update once she can sit and use the ball pit!

Passed out Baby Turtle

Passed out Baby Turtle and Hubby

Book Review! Parent Love Letters

While baby turtle was still baking, hubby and I found these two books at Sam's Club that looked really cute: Love From My Heart To A Precious Little Girl and You're My Little Love Bug! by Heidi R. Werner. The ones we bought are just board books and don't have the music box attached to them.

There are quite a few things that I like about these books.The artwork is really colorful. Right now, baby turtle is 10 weeks old and is starting to notice colors a lot more. When I read this book to her, she loves looking at the pictures. Sometimes I have to wait a pretty minute for her to finish looking at a page! The text is also really simple to read aloud. I can see myself ready this over and over to her as she grows older without getting too tired. (confession: I already know almost half the words already!)

The content is simple and emphasizes a parent's love for their child. Both books end with a tidbit with how your child is a blessing from God. Love from My Heart is about how complete your little girl makes your life. My favorite lines are: "If you weren't my little girl, there'd be a big hole in my heart! A piece would be gone! I just couldn't go on! My heart would be searching for YOU!". (There's also a Love From My Heart book for little boys. If baby turtle 2.0 is a boy, we will definitely get that!!) You're My Little Love Bug! is just a cute book with different ways to give someone a loving pet name. My favorite lines are "You're my ice cream sandwich, my watermelon gum. My soda pop, my lollipop, my yummy yummy yum!". (note: I added commas and periods to show where I would pause and stop if reading this out loud.)

All in all, I highly recommend these two books!