It’s no secret I’m a huge fan of Target. I buy most of the clothes for my boys from their Shaun White line, and Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Mini line is my favorite for the girls. Check out these cute new tees for fall! A company called Cinammon Sticks made me these custom-stamped stackable rings with the names of everyone in my family. I love them – I haven’t taken them off since I got them. Earlier this year we were invited to a little meet-and-greet with iCarly star Jennette McCurdy.  She . . .

Jafta got a new mohawk helmet this week and he is LOVING IT. It’s made by Raskulls, who make the adorable kids’ helmets in animal shapes (Kembe has their shark helmet and India has the pony version, but Jafta felt he was too big to wear an animal helmet. But this?  He is a fan. I swear he did 20 trips around the block on his skateboard the day he got it, just because he was so excited to show it off. The kids got to try a paddleboarding lesson with Pirate Coast Paddle Company on . . .

Here are a couple discoveries from this week: I’m continuing to love Zulily as a source for quality educational toys and eco-friendly clothes.  Last week I ordered the Smart Tray system from Zulily and the kids are loving it. It’s a self-checking system where kids answer questions related to spelling or math. Very Montessori-esque. (If you aren’t on Zulily yet, click here for an invitation.)   There is a new salon in Orange County called The Lash Spot, and they invited me to come . . .

There are some great items on Zulily right now (invite link here if you need one).  A line of tagless organic clothing at affordable prices! If you have a child with sensory issues,scratchy tags (or the remnants of tags) can be a big issue. I’m excited to find a line that is cute, organic, tagless, AND on sale. They also have a sale on Melissa and Doug products.  This has to be one of my favorite toy lines, because they are predominantly educational or active toys made of . . .

Last week I posted a picture of the kids using some of the Montessori-style products I purchased at Lakeshore, and several people inquired about what they were.  Their favorite by far is this Magnetic Letters set. It’s very similar to the “moveable alphabet” that is used in the Montessori classroom. Now we can buy simple sight word flashcards for each child’s level, which they can then spell out.  We use a magnetic dry-erase board, and the kids use the magnetics letters to spell the . . .

Being a blogger means I am inundated with emails from PR firms asking me if I will “let my readers know” about some amazing product or another. If hi-res images were a currency, I would be a very rich woman.  Most of these emails are addressed to “blogger” and are for products I would never in a million years use, much less recommend. Some of the gems I’ve turned down posting about in the past year have included a bedazzled jar of Vaseline, a Valentine’s Day special edition Madame Alexander . . .