Every year we look forward to January 1st for one reason. It’s like the Super Bowl for doll fans as American Girl debuts their Girl of the Year in store as well as on their website for purchase. And, this year was no exception as they introduced a beautiful new doll that every young girl is excited about.
Readers, meet Grace Thomas, the new Girl of the Year for 2015. 
With dark brown hair with light brown highlights, bright blue eyes, and freckled cheeks, Grace has a certain spark about her. 
I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council. I received a stipend to facilitate my purchase for my review as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation.
My family loves blueberries. Blueberries in baked goods, blueberries in smoothies, blueberries on dessert, or blueberries by the handful… as long as its blueberries, they are happy. In fact, my son {who is a notoriously picky eater} decided a few months ago that he would like his nickname to be “blueberry Bubs” in honor of his favorite berry.
It all started this past summer when we spent a few hours blueberry picking and eating our fill in the field {yes, eating the berries was allowed as long as you were buying some as well}, and we came home with a huge flat of the most amazing blueberries I have ever tried. However, we made the mistake of leaving that flat of blueberries out on the counter and my son basically ended up eating half of our haul by sneaking a handful every time he walked past until we realized it and then we put them away. 
Every year I look forward to the Hammacher Schlemmer holiday gift guide. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Hammacher Schlemmer is America's longest running catalog, and their aim is to offer the Best, the Only, and the Unexpected since 1848. Each year their gift guide is filled with all sorts of new items that range from ultra-practical (The Only Automatic Cordless Tire Inflator) to novelty (The Talking and Dancing Disco Robot) and everything in between.
Are you looking for unique gifts that your recipient won’t ever forget? How about the Personalized Bobblehead, or maybe the 3D Writing Pen? You can shop by recipient or just browse their full guide for unique gifts for everyone on your list. Whether your recipient is incredibly hard to shop for or someone who gives you a specific wish list, you are sure to find the perfect present to wrap up for the holidays. 
Sometimes, this parenting gig can be rough. Lately, there’s been more questioning our decision-making, a lot of talking in rude tones to each other, and a whole lot of days where I fall into bed wondering what kind of craziness I’m in for come January with a new baby.
I was so sick of it, and something needed to be done to avoid all the reprimanding, all the asking over and over again, and all the mornings that end in tears. We needed a system. A system that didn’t involve me having to say the same thing over and over again.
That being said, I’ve tried chore charts in the past and they ended up not working that well for us. Every chore chart I tried ended up needing me to run them more than I would have liked, didn’t work quite right in terms of chores and behavior, and I ended up giving up just to get the big huge board off my wall. Mostly, it was me. 
I received free products in order to host the Disney Kids Preschool Playdate. However, the opinions expressed are my own. 
Sometimes I think preschool playdates are more about moms getting together than they are about kids playing. Sure, we usually go to the park or some other kid-friendly zone for our meet ups, but I think the parents get just as much from these get togethers as the kids do, maybe even more. For this reason, we try to have a playdate at least a few times a year as a great way for kids, and their parents to connect.
This time, though, it was all about the kids. Instead of just a casual get together that left us freezing at the park, we decided to have a Disney Preschool Princess Playdate with a Sofia the First theme to celebrate some fall birthdays as well as have a good excuse to get together.
Since my last post was about giving thanks for all the wonderful things in our lives, I thought it fitting to also feature #GivingTuesday, a day dedicated to giving back. The idea of Giving Tuesday is a simple one: you simply find a cause and find a way to give. Whether it be time, energy, money, supplies, donations, just give whatever you can.
For us, we like to give back numerous times a year, not just this one day every year, but I never turn down a good opportunity to teach the kids about helping our neighbors, our community, and making the world a better place, so Giving Tuesday seemed like the perfect opportunity. And, this time of year there are so many ways you can involve the kids, so in honor of #GivingTuesday, I thought I would share ideas to get kids involved in giving.
It's been quite a few years since I've done a thankful post, so I thought I would write another in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday. Sometimes it's more important to rave about the wonderful people and things in my life instead of a product or service I love, so I thought a new updated post was in order.
This post is brought to you by Kwilt and The Motherhood. All opinions are my own. 
I have a problem; I take far too many photos.
It used to be vacation pictures, pictures of hubby and I on our many adventures, and snaps of my awesome nieces and nephews, but now I’m in deep as my collection has only become more massive since becoming a mom. To make things even worse, I have a hard time deleting these pictures I take off of anything for fear they will all be lost, so I fill up SD cards, full computer hard drives, stacks of CDs filled with pictures, free cloud services, as well as external hard drives.
With well over 200,000 digital photos scattered across these separate storage devices, I am fighting a constant battle to keep all my image files safe, but still accessible. I can’t even count the number of times I have gone to show someone a picture or look for something specific and realized I had no idea where that special image was stored so securely. Let me tell you, it was quite the system.
It wasn’t until Kwilt asked the question Why not have your pictures all in one place? that got me thinking about how easy life would be if I could actually find my pictures when I wanted to see them. It seems like such an easy thing, but, really up until now it hasn’t been.
Oh, packing. Packing is usually my most dreaded part of traveling, especially now that I have young children I need to pack for and must anticipate all that they might possibly need in the length of time we will be away. But, this fall I was able to pack and make a difference when traveling to Beaches Turks & Caicos with Pack for a Purpose and that made packing fun and rewarding. 
As someone who is on the go a lot with kiddos, one of the main things I get asked about from friends, family, and readers is about essential gear for family travel. And while my “essentials” list has changed based on the ages of my children, there are a few things that never change. One of those things is the prevalence of tech gadgets. It’s true that tech gadgets can change your life dramatically and make life easier, especially when traveling, but there are also some huge downfalls.
One major concern is being weighed down with technology instead of making life easier. When we’re talking DSLRs, laptops, smartphones, tablets, action cams, and more as well as all the accessories and gear that go along with all those tech accessories, you can easily fill up a suitcase – and that’s before you pack any toiletries, clothing, or footwear.
So, I always say that when traveling, less truly is more. If you can go without a full laptop simply by packing a small add-on keyboard to your tablet, you are going to be a whole lot happier when packing, lugging your tech bag through airports and onto airplanes, and going through airport security – especially when you’re also corralling kids. By pairing your tablet with lightweight accessories and gadgets as well as apps to make your tablet function like a laptop, you can truly ditch the extra weight and end up with a versatile go-to device for everything from reading by the pool to editing work documents.
For this reason I love the Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition that is an ideal tablet for kids but also packed with features to make it perfect for adults, too. A few weeks ago my son got to play with one of these awesome tablets at the TravelingMom-Techlicious Holiday Tech and Travel Show in Seattle #TNTSeattle and he was so sad to say goodbye to it when the time came. Amazon saved the day {and month, and year} by sending us home with one of our own to play with and both kids were quickly smitten.