Have you heard of Smooshies?

I hadn’t run across these before, but they are so much fun. They’re a make-your-own-monster plush toys that have bodies and parts that can be mixed and matched in innumerable ways. Take a look:

I knew my daughter would love Smooshies, but when ours arrived to review, I didn’t break it out right away. You see, we had a championship swim meet coming up… an ALL-DAY meet, which meant hours to fill between her two events. So, when swim meet day arrived, I snuck the Smooshies in our activities bag and waited for the right moment of desperation to pull it out.

The ALL-DAY swim meet ended up being even longer than planned thanks to a two-hour rain delay… during which we were stuck in a tent with our kids and Kate’s best friend and her family. Four adults. Four kids. Two hours. In a tent. Needless to say, that was the desperate right moment to reveal my secret weapon – Smooshies.

I’d like to point out here that I attempted to video tape their reaction to Smooshies and how much fun they had playing with them, but believe it or not, the inside of a tent during a thunderstorm is apparently not a prime video-taping environment. So unless you want take some Dramamine and watch a grainy, dark video, you’ll have to take my word for it, but they had a ball.

Smooshies are a great way to bring out kids’ creativity… and they don’t even have lights, sounds, or batteries (thank goodness!). You can purchase Smooshies at Joann and Michaels stores. Kits start at $9.99 and additional parts start at $1.99. I know that’s the price range I aim for when I’m buying presents for my kids to give at their friends, and I am definitely going to keep Smooshies in mind the next time they’re attending a birthday party – what a great gift!

So on to the giveaway – you can win your very own Smooshies kit here at Reviewin’ It Up. Here’s how to enter:
1) Leave a comment on this post and tell us what you like about Smooshies.
2) Tweet about the contest and leave a comment letting us know you did so.
3) Subscribe to our feed and leave a comment letting us know you did so (or that you already are a subscriber!)

The contest will end September 3, 2009 and we’ll choose a winner using Random.org. Good luck!