Saturday, February 26, 2011

CSN Stores Review for the new year!

It's that time again! Time for another review for a great product over at CSN Stores. These guys have been so great to us. Furniture, kitchen items, tech gadgets, small appliances, even one of their swing sets for our kids! So what should we get this time? As always, we're open to suggestions. But I do have a computer component that doesn't work so well anymore and needs to be replaced so this could be good timing for something simple and practical :)

I know, we should get more stuff for the kids and less for us, right? After all, kids are expensive enough as it is so we might as well save the money where it counts! But we also want to maintain a nice diverse selection of items from CSN to make sure we cover all the bases. And a dollar saved is a dollar saved no matter where it is in the budget, right? :)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Review: Crane Cool Mist Humidifiers from CSN Store



Sometimes this dry winter air is just too much to deal with at night. Our daughters started sleeping less and waking up with chapped, even cracked lips. So naturally we needed to get humidifiers for their rooms. But, being kids who are afraid of noisy things and love cute things, they of course had to be kids' humidifiers! The Crane Cool Mist Humidifiers at the CSN Stores caught our attention with their fun animal shapes, and the girls immediately said they wanted to get them, so the choice was easy. It was just a matter of asking each girl which they wanted. The older one wanted the penguin (since her favorite color is blue) and the younger one wanted the dragon (since her favorite color is pink, and red is close enough).

At first I was a little concerned about their water capacity. The humidifier in the master bedroom holds considerably more water and barely lasts through the night. But as it turns out they don't need a whole lot of water. At full capacity, with the dial turned all the way up, they last a couple of nights at least. Must be something about the cool mist instead of the usual warm steam humidifiers that helps them work on less water. But there's certainly no shortage of mist coming out of them throughout the night. From the moment you turn them on, a mist (noticeably cool to the touch) starts pouring out of the unit. For the penguin, it comes out of its mouth. And for the dragon, it comes out of its ears. The girls absolutely love it :)

There's really not much to say about them, they're just humidifiers. But they work. The girls are sleeping better now, and are waking up to better mornings. One odd thing I've noticed is that the control dial is different on the two units. The penguin can be "shut off" by turning it all the way down and clicking into the "off" position. The dragon, however, doesn't seem to have an "off" position on its dial. You can turn it all the way down, but it's still on and still working. So the dragon needs to be unplugged to turn it off. Not really a problem, it's just odd that the controls would be different. But all in all, these humidifiers work very well and fit in great with a child's room decor.

For the price they offer these at, it is well worth it when you need them as they work and are the same price as the plain boring ones.