Saying Goodbye to a Great Man

This last weekend was incredibly rough as we all prepared to say goodbye to a truly wonderful man and an amazing grandpa/great-grandpa.  While I don't do many personal posts here…

The Children’s Place holiday 2012 preview NYC event

We love The Children’s Place and are very lucky to be surrounded by numerous store locations so we can pop in frequently to see what’s new for the season.  But, this year I got a bit of a sneak peak of the holiday line while in BlogHer and it was adorable. 

The Children’s Place holiday preview was one of the many NYC events hosted by the amazing Nicole Feliciano of Momtrends.  The event took place in the heart of midtown at the historic Bryant Park Hotel and just a short walk from the BlogHer convention. 

Children's Place Bloggers
Liz from A Nut in a Nutshell, Xenia from Thanks, Mail Carrier, and me. We were THERE! TOGETHER!

Coming in from a hot and humid day on the streets of New York, when we arrived on the Momtrends suite level, it made it immediately feel a few dozen degrees cooler.  With “snow” drifts and winter clothing meeting us at the door, it was as if we stepped right inside a large snowglobe full of cute – with an amazing view of the city.

Zutano Introduces ZUTANOBLUE at Target NYC event

Baby clothing sure has come a long way in the past 20 years.  When I was a tot, there was pastel pink or blue or, if you didn’t know whether you were expecting a boy or girl, you got muted yellow and green.  But now baby clothing comes in every color of the rainbow and in styles I can’t help but swoon over. 

It would be hard to pinpoint exactly when the switch to fashionably fun children’s wear happened, but my guess it was right around the time Zutano hit the market and turned the pastel baby clothing market on its head.  Just look at some of these adorable goodies from their collection.  Feel free to swoon, I’ll wait. 

Zutano Clothing
Almost makes me want another little one.  Almost.

Thanks to the combined efforts of Momtrends and Project Nursery, I recently spent some time with the wonderful people behind the Zutano brand at BlogHer and was amazed at how nice and personable they all are.    

We met up at the famous FAO Schwarz in NYC and had a delicious catered dinner from Tacombi.  While we ate, we learned a little bit about the company, why it started, and what its vision was – in the beginning and looking forward.  We even got to see the Zutano bicycle that founder Michael Belenky used to hand-deliver orders from all over the city.

5 New Disney Releases on Blu-ray: Mice, Dogs, Cats, Tigger, and History – Oh My!

My family has a long tradition with Disney movies.  Always the first to see them in the theatres, then snatching them up as soon as they were released for home viewing, we’ve watched and enjoyed them all.  Having amassed a huge collection of Disney movies myself on VHS, they were basically the only reason I still owned a VCR in the early 2000s, and why I held out from going to DVD for so long.

But, then when Blu-ray was introduced a few years ago, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to upgrade some of those old VHS tapes that were virtually unwatchable after years of kids handling them.  Not only was it time to trash the VHS, it was time to get a better film format that wouldn’t break down with wear and show its age.

And, I think I made a great choice on when to start my upgrade process because the quality of Blu-ray is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.   Rewatching old movies restored in Blu-ray quality is like watching them for the first time ever with all the color and vibrancy of the original drawings. 

I have been eagerly awaiting the release of all of my favorites on Blu-ray and making a point to collect them all while I can to replace their worn out VHS.  I was thrilled when I heard the announcement that 5 titles would be released on August 21st and even more excited when I heard that 3 of them were ones that I had loved growing up. 

On August 21st, 5 new movies are finally going to be viewed in high definition Blu-ray: THE RESCUERS: 35th Anniversary Ed & THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER – 2 Movie Collection, THE ARISTOCATS: Special Edition, LADY AND THE TRAMP II: Scamp's Adventure – Special Edition, POCAHONTAS & POCAHONTAS II: Journey to a New World – 2 Movie Collection and THE TIGGER MOVIE: Bounce-a-RRRific Special Edition. 

As you can see, there's a little something for everyone in the new Blu-ray releases.  Which are you most excited about?


New to Blu

Back to school with Lands’ End and Momtrends NYC event

Night
Recently, I went back to school with 200+ bloggers while at BlogHer.  While we did load buses, take class pictures, and get report cards, this was a very different kind of school than you’re used to.  For one, this school was co-run by two of our favorite brands, Lands' End and Momtrends, and passing grades meant you got an adorable backpack to take home.

Liz, Xenia, Leanne
As usual, I got straight As.  But this time I can give some credit to the instructors who all did a wonderful job of teaching their “course” and for their very, very lax grading system that seemed to be mostly based off of attendance.