Toy Review: Little People® Happy Sounds Home™

08/30/2013

Written by Stephanie Fazio, www.lealoulemonade.blogspot.com

Before I had kids, I was one of those pre-moms who thought she’d only have wooden toys for her kids. I still like wooden toys, but now that I have a couple kids, I know it’s inevitable that a few (or 50) of the plastic counterparts will make their way into the house. And I’m fine with that. The kids love them. They keep them busy. Mommy is happy.

When Karen asked me to review the Little People® Happy Sounds Home™ I wasn’t sure if my 2.5-year-old would be interested and I thought my one-year-old might be too young to understand what it was, but I decided to check it out anyway.

The box was dropped off at my house, but I didn’t have any intentions of opening it until the next day since it was 4 p.m. and close to dinner.  But then I looked over from the kitchen and saw this:

I didn’t set up this picture. I just plopped the box down and went back to making dinner. But the kids saw it of course and, like little magnets, went over and started petting the box like it was a brand new kitten.

“Mommy what is this?” My son yelled.

“It’s a new toy – we’ll play with it later, ok?”

“I wanna play with it now!” (Insert high-pitch scream of agreement from the one-year-old)

“Ok, let’s open it up and see what this is all about.”

And that’s where the mommy-who’s-in-the-middle-of-making-dinner-friendly part of this toy excursion came into play: there were no plastic bags tear open (there may have been a tiny one for a few screws), and there were very few things to put together. I just pulled the house out of the box practically whole; screwed the ‘yard’ to the bottom of the house, put in a pin to hold the front door in place and voila! It was ready to be played with, and I could go back to making dinner.

The kids loved it and even wanted to bring it to the cottage that weekend. As the name of the house suggests, it plays sounds (and they’re not even that annoying—insert high-fives here). Every room has a song associated with it (my son now sings the ‘yummy cake song’ that plays in the kitchen). There’s a mommy, daddy and baby; a car and dinner table, along with some signs that flip around to show whether it’s night or day. There’s even a toilet that flushes (hopefully this will come in handy now that I’m in the thick of potty training).

Overall it’s pretty cute. It reminds me of my old Fisher Price house I had in the ’80s, but this one is cooler because it has sounds – and happy ones at that :). It’s been a couple of weeks since we got the house and the kids are still playing with it, so I say it’s a keeper.