I'm a full-time mummy

I had earlier reviewed 2 apps under the same developer, 'The House That Went On Strike' and 'David and Goliath' and this time when the developer contacted me to request me to review their next app, of course I'm all for it! Without further ado, here goes my feedback...

* Title: House Band
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Entertainment
* Released: Mar 06, 2013
* Version: 1.2
* Size: 42.9 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Jumping Pages Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.

Description from the product page:

"Conduct the characters from “The House that Went on Strike!”  Touch, interact, and create your own band by bringing the appliances from the House to musical life with sounds created by two-time Grammy winner Vernon Reid.  As the House band maestro, make irons, washers, dryers, toasters and blenders come to life using 20 original sound loops and sounds, compiling five tracks at the same time, recording your own voice and emailing musical compositions with the press of a button."

* This entertaining app is a continuation of 'The House That Went On Strike' app and it's nice to see the familiar objects and characters in this app.

* I love the interesting and catchy tunes of the various combinations of sounds you can come up with! Just switch between the family characters, the household appliances and you get different type of tunes and songs!

* A fun and entertaining app to get your child to be creative and appreciate the different type of tunes and effects it can give!

You can purchase the "House Band" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

I mentioned before that we are big fans of "Little Critter" apps and the latest app we reviewed is the "What a Bad Dream". Just in case you missed out on my 3rd pregnancy announcement, I was very interested when I saw the words "Little Critter" and "Little Brother" in the latest Oceanhouse Media's press release in my email inbox, I immediately requested for a review copy. Well, at 2.5 months preggy now, we still can't tell the gender of our baby now, but I would like to see how my kiddos react to this app. Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Just Me and My Little Brother
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Books
* Released: March 11, 2013
* Version: 2.1
* Size: 30.0 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Oceanhouse Media, Inc.
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later.

Description from the product page:

"Little Critter is looking forward to all the fun things he can do with his little brother. They'll go trick-or-treating on Halloween, ride bikes, build a snowman, watch spooky shows on TV, and more. Little Critter is eager to share these exciting experiences with his brother, but he'll have to wait since his baby brother must first learn how to walk!"

* It is engaging and interactive and I love that we can also touch the objects in each page on the screen and the words pop out to tell you what it is!

* I like the storyline where it tells how Little Critter looks forward to doing lots of fun and cool activities with his little brother. As mentioned earlier, I'm currently expecting my 3rd child and although we have no idea of the baby's gender yet, I would like to instill this idea especially to my 4 years old Benjamin that having a baby brother and baby sister again is going to be fun, fun, fun all over again!

* I particularly enjoyed the page below where it shows Little Critter and his little brother sharing a bunk bed together as my hubby and I are considering getting a bunk bed to put in our room, to slowly transition Benjamin out of our bed as we are all still co-sleeping at the moment. So having a bunk bed, maybe Benjamin could sleep on top while I continue to sleep at the lower bed with Alyson and the baby then and at the same time, hubby's King size mattress right next to our bunk bed.

* One thing I don't feel comfortable with is the page below where it shows Little Critter hugging his little brother while watching spooky shows, I'm okay with the idea of spooky shows (monsters are spooky to Benjamin) but the thing that makes me uneasy is the 2 cans on the floor and the messy snacks left on the floor. Not exactly something I would want my kiddos to learn and think it is alright to be messy so as we go through this page, I reminded Benjamin that we should be clean and tidy and make sure we clean up after eating or snacking.

You can purchase the "Just Me and My Little Brother" app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

Last year, I have a wonderful opportunity to review the "Feed The Animals" app and this time, I get to review the latest app which is a fun and educational app called "Alex The Handyman". Anyway, my review as below...

* Title: Alex The Handyman
* Price: $1.99
* Category: Games
* Released: Feb 22, 2013
* Version: 1.0
* Size: 106 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: Anshu Dhanuka
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation), iPod touch (5th generation) and iPad. Requires iOS 5.0 or later. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

Description from the product page:

"The Bear family is having a number of household repair work jobs such as a leaky tap, broken fence, unfinished brick wall and many more. They have called the talented 'Alex The Handyman' to fix these issues for them. Can you help Alex carry out these jobs so that the Bear family can live in peace. Explore the house to view the different rooms. All the rooms have different jobs to be done. Select the right tool for a particular job from the toolbox and learn how a tool operates and sounds."

* I love the illustrations of this app, it is very cute and pleasing to the eyes.

* This is a fun app where you get to figure out what are the appropriate tools to use to fix a household problems! Some of the easy ones such as fire extinguishers and screwdriver are easily solved by my almost 4 years old. The tougher ones such as the hammer and pliers are a bit difficult for my boy as he has never seen any of us in the house using the tools (we try not to use these tools when they are around for their safety actually)

* I like that there is opportunity to educate and remind my kids that these are the tools that we can use to solve and repair something, instead of just throwing away a household item or buying a new one, I'd love to teach my children that we should try to salvage the broken/spoiled objects first before resorting to throwing/buying new one.

* I also like that some of the tasks shown in the app can be related to what we do on almost daily basis such as watering the plants.

* However I feel some of the tasks such as the wire fixing is a bit too tough to do, even for myself. We had to practically try a few times in order to get the wires fixed (joined back) and then using the tape to wrap the wires back.

* In summary, this is a fun app, educational at the same time which I think is good to have. Teaches your child to appreciate your household items and belongings and to salvage and repair first instead of discarding and buying a new one to replace at the first sight of it being broken or spoiled.

You can purchase the "Alex The Handyman " app from the iTunes App Store.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"