You buy all sorts of toys to fill the nursery while prepping for baby, then they start to grow and you find yourself wondering which toys are right for them and for which developmental milestones . Those long aisles full of very brightly…
Since most of the mail I get in my own mailbox is junk or bills, I'd love to see my kids playing mail carrier and delivering me something really special using Miss Pretty Pretty's colorful felt mail bag . Perhaps delivered to this cute p…
Whether you call it Autism Awareness or Autism Acceptance like one of my good friends, April is a great month to learn more about autism and how to make our world more supportive to those families living with it. That's one reason we've …
Since we're always saying that moms are superheroes, it makes perfect sense to actually turn her into one this Mother's Day. That's why we're doing backflips, and possibly leaping tall buildings in a single bound, over a new company that…
I just love when parents get fired up about not being able to find the kinds of off-the-beaten-path things their girls are interested in. Because really, that just inspires entrepreneurs to come up with such things and now we all get to …
Vroom vroom! That's the sound of one very happy 21-month-old zooming around in my living room on the Piki Piki from Gallo and Spence Toys , a great new bike-trike hybrid for toddlers and preschoolers. And with my own toddler (and soon-to…
If Spring Break or Easter has you heading out by plane, train, or automobile, you may be wondering how to keep your kids happily occupied beyond the iPad, as you travel from Point A to Point B. And since we all know how hard it is to hea…
Between school parties and Easter baskets from their grandparents, my kids will be coming home with chocolate bunnies and cream-filled eggs to last us till the Fourth of July. So I've been looking for some extra special Easter basket gif…
This is the time we start thinking Easter for you all, and as always, we love finding special little treats for the Easter baskets that aren't necessarily your typical drugstore-shelf chocolate bunny. So I think this Easter Bunny paintin…
When papier-mâché animal heads began popping up on blogs a few years ago, I wasn't completely sold on the trend of faux taxidermy as children's decor. Sure, they were a million times less creepy than the real deal, but they didn't seem p…
With daylight savings coming up, I know I'm not the only one itching to open up windows and start spring cleaning the house from top to bottom. So I decided to try out the popular Konmari method of organization from the book by Japanese …
We've seen some pretty spectacular kids' toys made out of cardboard, from those beautifully designed cardboard food truck playhouses we recently shared, to pirate ships and toy castles . And now we're loving the cardboard furniture from …
We've seen lots of awesome cardboard playhouses over the years, from European village squares to castles to pirate ships. We even featured OTO's gorgeously designed ice cream truck playhouse when it was a mere Indiegogo fundraising campa…
I've always loved the Chinese Zodiac and not just because I'm a Chinese American. I am fascinated by the history of the signs and their meanings. So with the Chinese New Year just a couple of days away, we thought it would be fun to roun…
Ever in search for more colorful playthings to brighten up the dreary northeast weather, I am so happy to discover Laughing Crickets , an Etsy shop creating the most beautiful, bright, happy-making handmade toys for kids, with a focus on…
Keeping the playroom clean is a regular battle at our house, and I'm ready for a truce. But when I start to get sick of the mess, I usually turn to storage bins as my go-to method for keeping clutter to a minimum. It's a system that's ea…
As I'm looking around the web for ideas for a little token Valentine's Gift for my kids, I came across this adorable wooden stacking heart blocks toy from Natural Family Shop on Amazon and yes, I heart it. It comes with 8 natural, beauti…
It's pretty easy to find a teddy bear that my kids will love. Cute and stuffed? Check. But finding one that I love for them is a bit trickier. Bears for Humanity is a winner for all of us. My favorite thing about Bears for Humanity is th…
I've purchased six Expedit storage units from IKEA for our three-child house, so you can imagine my shock when I discovered that they were no longer selling what I consider their most versatile, affordable, and useful storage solution fo…
I am always a little proud of myself when I help my kids with a difficult LEGO design, or find just the piece they've been searching for in our big bin, but my accomplishments pale in comparison to what one dedicated mom in Seattle did w…
I've been cleaning up and paring down lately, and that includes some of the wooden blocks my kids got as gifts when they were young. So I started thinking about upcycled wooden blocks craft ideas that might breathe some new life into the…
I'm always happy to introduce you to beautifully-curated independent web boutiques and here's one more new one that's caught my attention since its launch just a few weeks ago. Mini Life is an exquisite children's lifestyle boutique pack…
Like many parents I know, I have never been a fan of the pouty-lipped, heavy-lidded, overly-made-up Bratz line of dolls. But after I saw what this mother-daughter team has been doing to "rescue" the discarded toys, I was totally charmed …
My three-year-old son brings artwork home from nursery school by the armful -- if you consider a couple of paint drops on construction paper to be art, that is. Every so often, however, he creates something that actually resembles a pers…