Captain America – The Next Kid Thing

Marvel Cross Pens are the Write Gift for Father’s Day

June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

This post is featured in partnership with CROSS Pens.

With Father’s Day just around the corner, gifts for my husband and our dads are up in the air as usual. What do you get a guy who has everything?

Gift cards almost too impersonal for my family. Ties? Meh. Grilling supplies? Got those last year. Books? Still sitting there from the year before.

As a writer, I appreciate quality writing tools, especially pens. Cross Pens, synonymous with style and professionalism, has many different looks and patterns. I love that Cross has pens that can be paired with any personality or passion—even superheroes!

With the recent release of Captain America: Civil War, it’s so fitting that there are Marvel Pens that showcase Captain America’s iconic emblem. Or if you’re Team Ironman, there’s a style that’s fit for the sleek Tony Stark Fan.

Having just watched Captain America: Civil War, and as major Mets fans (catcher David Wright is nicknamed Captain America) it’s safe to say our entire tribe is Team Cap! For Father’s Day, we’ll be gifting my boys’ true hero a very stylish Captain America Cross Pen. The pen, which comes with its own case, is a beautiful shade of blue with a subtle Captain symbol along the side. For us, this is a fun gift for the boys to give dad because we love Marvel, we’ve seen the movie together and our Mets love!

Perfect for the office or playing tic tac toe with the boys, the Marvel line of Cross Pens is an ideal gift for the guy who has it all and appreciates a quality writing tool.

Check out Marvel Cross Pens and all of the other sleek styles if you’re on the hunt for a great gadget for dad or your grads.

Full Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. Thank you for supporting NKT. As always, all opinions on NKT are my own.

Review: Hasbro Captain America Battle Helmet and Dualshot Gauntlet

June 30, 2014June 30, 2014 by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

In a house of boys, it’s all about super heroes all the time. My two guys love playing good guy vs. bad guy. Sometimes, it’s even Marvel vs. DC. Ha!

Nevertheless, we’re all big fans of Marvel heroes, especially Captain America. Since David Wright, one of our favorite baseball players is actually nicknamed Captain America, our Captain America hero gear does a whole lot of double duty.

This spring, my friends at Hasbro sent us over some of the latest in Captain America role play toys. We’ve had a great time checking out the Captain America Battle Helmet and Dualshot Gauntlet. My big guy absolutely loved the new details of these toys, especially the the light up features of the Dualshot Guantlet.

The Battle Helmet features a button-activated light-up visor and a missile-firing projectile rocket launcher that can also be connected to three different points on the helmet via the innovative rail system feature. You can customize the helmet by connecting more gear such as the Recon Rangefinder and Dualshot Guantlet. The helmet uses two AAA batteries and retails for $19.99

The Dualshot Gauntlet is a cool gauntlet device that can worn on a hand and can also shoot missiles. As mentioned, this device can be worn on a hand or can be used as an add-on to the Battle Helmet. The gauntlet uses two AAA batteries and retails for $7.99.

If you’re into Captain America or super heroes like we are, this gear from Hasbro would be a perfect complement to your battle supplies.

Full closure: Samples were provided to facilitate this review. As always, opinions on NKT are my own.

Marvel Super Hero Mashers Combine Construction and Action Figures Toys

March 3, 2014March 3, 2014 by Jen Rabulan-Bertram

For young boys and girls, super heroes personify strength and bravery. So, when toys depict these super heroes and super powers, action figures become an extension of their imagination.

Over the past few years, we’ve become major MAJOR super hero fans. What with Iron Man, Captain America, The Avengers and other Marvel movies on the big screen and eventually making their way to our small screen, it’s super hero all day, every day around here.

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Appropriately enough, Hasbro’s line of Marvel toys are some of our most played-with toys in our house. Marvel Super Hero Mashers, which debuted a few weeks ago, are perhaps among my favorite action figures to date. What sets these super hero action figures apart from the rest? They’re completely customizable!

As action figures promote imagination and creative play, why not customize the super hero and his powers while you’re at it? Well played, Hasbro.

Excited to get a first look at Marvel Mashers, my guys haven’t put them down since they arrived. Marvel Super Hero Mashers combines construction/building with action figures, which is the most popular play pattern for my six year old and his copycat two year old little brother. For review, we received a Marvel Mashers Action Figure Assortment of Hawkeye and an Action Figure Assortment Upgrade of Hulk.

To be able to mash Spidey’s arms with Captain America’s Legs, Iron Man’s torso and Hulk’s other arm most definitely extends his imagination and creative inner story lines and then some.

Not sure about you, but when we were kids, I remember taking apart GI Joes and then trying to reconstruct our own guys. It was endless fun! So, to me, Marvel Mashers is a brilliant concept and past play pattern come true. My six year old is within the target age demographic, and without a surprise, it’s a mega hit for him. Biggie says: “Marvel Mashers is cool because you can make your own guy and mix with another guy, too.”

For a six year old, it was fairly simple to mix and match, but at times, it was difficult for my son to interlock some of the limbs and parts on his own. Nevertheless, once we had the figures put together, it was open-ended superhero play for everyone.We’ve been having fun mixing and mashing our characters, but in my opinion, we had even more fun when we added even more characters’ “parts” to the mix.

I’m such a fan of Marvel Mashers that when I attended last month’s Hasbro cocktail party at Toy Fair, I was beside myself when I saw the Marvel Mashers corner.

I stood there, alongside several of my fellow bloggers, building our own superhero and naming them ourselves. I loved digging into the buckets full of Mashers and making my very own superhero with the absolute best powers. I lovingly named him Captain Wolverman.

Marvel Mashers has made its mark as custom action figures, underscoring this superhero and construction play pattern which is huge for this age bracket. It’s an absolute favorite in my house, and not surprisingly, I will most likely find broken (non Masher) action figures at the hands of my boys who will want to Mash every character they meet from now on.

Full disclosure: I received samples of Hasbro Marvel Mashers to facilitate this review. As always, all opinions are my own.