Mommies With Style

Remember Linus and his blankie? We love him. We love that he needed a security blanket the way Middle needs his thumb. While none of the kids has attached to a blankie, they do love to pull them up and cuddle.

One such great cuddling blanket is the Classic Dream Blanket by Aden & Anais. Its so-soft fabric is made of a natural, gentle muslin, making it breathable, flexible and very comfortable.

A great baby gift, the dream blanket is available in colorful bright prints. It uses 4 layers of the light muslin fabric, making it plush enough for a true cuddle.

Thanks to Aden & Anais for providing a sample for this review.

At February’s Toy Fair, Disney Online previewed their fabulous World of Cars Online website — free-to-play browser-based, virtual world based on Disney/Pixar’s “Cars”. Since that is my four year old’s favorite movie, he is going to love the features — which are designing your own car, making new friends and playing mini-games. The premise is that Lightning McQueen and his friends are helping new race cars train in Radiator Springs, which is growing due to new businesses opening.

Kids Can:
• Create Their Own Race Car – Pick the body style, color, name and more to make it totally their own. This was cool and kids are going to really enjoy being creative.
• Explore the Road – Drive beyond Radiator Springs to explore Carburetor County. Enjoy backroads racing and adventures with Mater and others!
• Community –  Kids can see when their friends are online and interact with them to create a Cars Community.
• Race and Play –Cars can warm up the road on a variety of tracks to win badges and trophies. They can also play mini-games like Lightning Storm and Ramone’s Paint Blast to earn coins and more!

If you want to upgrade from Free-to-Play to Subscription, you’ll get access to:

o Paint jobs, gear and accessory purchases to customize your Car and home
o A Pro Racing Career and access to exclusive Piston Cup race tracks
o Special Events and Adventures

Bottom Line: Kids are going to really like the World of Cars Online. It offers children a chance to be creative with making their own cars and have adventures driving around Radiator Springs. Best of all, it’s mostly free (if you want to change your car more than once, you’ll have to get a subscription). Parents create an account, and then create sub-accounts for their children. They can monitor their child’s progress on the site.

The site will officially launch later this year – but it’s in Beta now, so take a look!

A few weeks ago I posted about an organization I work with called the Hands & Feet Project, a Haitian orphanage that was cut off from supply routes during the earthquake. Due to the amazing efforts of a few dedicated people, within a few days of the earthquake, what started off as one private plane from Santa Barbara, CA willing to fly supplies directly into the town of Jacmel turned into 10 planes which now has reached nearly 100 planes which have flown in much-needed food, supplies and medical necessities to the Jacmel orphans and people in surrounding villages.

In addition, I wanted to give a HUGE THANKS to a handful of industry companies have stepped up and joined with Hands & Feet Project to donate their time, goods and services.

Green to Grow donated more than $30,000 worth of BPA-free bottles and nipples to the orphanage which included the laborious task of de-packaging over 12,000 products in order to more efficiently send them to Haiti. phil&teds jumped in and donated a handful of travellers, their lightweight, travel cots for the many families in Jacmel who lost their homes as well as a Dash stroller and bassinet for a silent auction we held. aden + anais generously donated dozens of their cotton muslin swaddle blankets and Eureka sent over a collection of tents.

Thanks again to all the individuals and companies who have donated their time and money to the relief efforts in Haiti.

You can learn more about the Hands & Feet Project, get involved or sponsor one of the growing number of orphans at www.handsandfeetproject.org.

Hi, Kate here. For the last two years I’ve been involved with an orphanage in Haiti called the Hands & Feet Children’s Village. Two years ago, the orphanage was ravaged by 4 successive hurricanes that hit Haiti which flooded their buildings and buried their property in 5 feet of rock and debris from flood waters. Fortunately no lives were lost at the orphanage. They were able to clean up, rebuild and construct a retaining wall around the property to prevent future flood damage.

But now the earthquake.

Again, amazingly, all the orphans were safe and their buildings stayed standing, but the town of Jacmel where they are located was decimated. There is extensive loss of life and destruction in the town. Although the orphanage has enough supplies to last for 3-4 weeks, they are being inundated with newly orphaned children and the remainder of the town which is without food, water and medical services. The roads leading to the town have been badly destroyed and no aid has been able to reach Jacmel yet. There is no heavy machinery to be able to clean up debris and the hospital in Jacmel collapsed in the earthquake.

There are many organizations doing good work for Haiti right now, but if you have not yet gotten involved, please consider donating to the Hands & Feet Project which is actively serving and caring for 73 children ranging from 2 months to 9 years old. Various involved parties are in the process of trying to secure supplies and the transportation means necessary to get the supplies into Jacmel. They can use your thoughts, prayers and donations. Visit them at www.hafproject.org.

Julie and I are sitting in the audience of the Martha Show right now! 

More photos to come – Follow our tweets on Twitter to get the play-by-play @mommieswstyle and @justprecious

Edited to add this cute photo of the Philly Mom Bloggers from GirlyMama’s Blog.  Julie’s in the turquoise sweater in the front, I’m second from the left in the lime green sweater:

We opened our Brik-a-Blok buliding toys today. Its definitely a gift for the whole family. See an explanation of the toys and how they work in my vlog. Here’s my original review.

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my tour of the Etnies shoes headquarters. We’re loving these fashionable and super durable/functional skater shoes for all our kids (and me too!). So much so that I wanted to share a coupon with you. Etnies would like to offer you 30% off purchases on their online store. Just use coupon code etnies family

Ahhh… the baby movies. We’re baaaack. Except this time, I have the big boys to tell me what’s hot and what’s not. And, honestly, they’re loving the old Baby Einstein’s (which is why I’m not returning mine for a refund.) We recently found a few new ones DVDs to enjoy as well. And, of course, some new music which is always welcome in our Pilot.

So Smart! Productions and Echo Bridge Home Entertainment released a new DVD series this fall. In the So Smart! Baby’s First Word Stories series, which is aimed at ages 1-3, children and parents watch stories based around the theme word, in the case of the sample we received, House, Pets, Get Dressed. Through the main characters, children are introduced to the theme word, then sentences and a story form around the base word. The DVD smoothly and calmly introduces young children to language, and how words form meaning. Of course, parents are encouraged to watch the DVD with the child and interact throughout.  The kids enjoyed watching this DVD together. The boys “educated” the baby, describing and narrating when the real narrators were quiet.

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Recently, I was on the Vera Bradley site today and noticed they have their adorable reversible belts on sale for $5 – down from $26 each.  You can’t beat that price. 

I’m stocking up – can you say teacher gift?   And getting one of these in the stocking isn’t too shabby of a gift for us Moms… hint, hint Dads!

Although I don’t have a girl, even I can appreciate the coolness of this game for the Nintendo DS for a girl.  Last month I had a lunch with a rep from Ubisoft, the developers of Style Lab’s Jewelry Design.  I was particularly impressed with this game and instantly envisioned my 13-year-old niece playing with it.

The game itself is pretty self-explanatory:  kids can design their own jewelry on this game.  But the unique piece to this game which I think is so neat is that they can then upload their designs to the Ubisoft site and then, via a partner jewelry company, order the pieces they’ve designed.  Each piece is very affordable (think $20 for the more expensive necklaces).  Visit the Jewelry Design site to read more about it and if you have a tween girl to buy for this season, check this one out!

Many thanks to Ubisoft for generously providing samples of several games, including this one, and a Nintendo DSi to test it out on.