MomReviews

I’ve already bought Kaitlyn all of her Christmas presents, and believe me, she is going to flip out when she sees her “My First Dollhouse” and her “Musical Tea Set” and the Twin Babies baby dolls.

But look what I saw advertised on Nick Jr. today!

Stuffed WonderPets toys! And she LOVES Ming Ming! When she watches WonderPets, she sits on the couch giggling and shaking her head, saying “oh, Ming Ming”. It is so cute!

But my husband is a believer in the Less is More theory when it comes to Christmas presents, and I know he wouldn’t be happy if I bought this for her. My Dad has already bought her a present (another item she will flip out about), maybe her other Grandpa will give her some cash or something that I can use to buy it.

Wouldn’t it look adorable peeking out over the top of her Christmas Stocking though? I want it! Sigh.

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The company behind Kaitlyn’s favorite video, “We Are The Laurie Berkner Band”, is Big Kids Productions. I guess they must have noticed me constantly gushing about how much she likes that DVD, because they sent me a whole pile of DVDs plus a CD in the mail! I had no idea that they had such a diverse catalog, either.

Big Kids Productions has a Mission Statement that I can really support-”Big Kids Productions was founded by an independent children’s video producer with one goal in mind: to make the highest quality non-violent and educational videos available to parents through one convenient source.”

They didn’t ask me to write this blog post, but I just had to share this information with you. Any of these DVDs or the CD would make great stocking stuffers! Included in the package I received were:

The Best of Big Kids CD-This CD has joined the rotation in the CD player in my van. Kaitlyn loves listening to it! Her favorite is Joe McDermott’s “Baby Kangaroo”, in fact, the boys and I love it too! I dare you to listen to “Baby Kangaroo” and not find yourself singing along The 42 minute CD includes these songs:

1. House Party - Dan Zanes
2. Riding My Bike - Imagination Movers
3. Goin’ Down To Mexico (The Monarch Butterfly Song) - Lucas Miller
4. Baby Kangaroo - Joe McDermott
5. Three Blind Mice - Mother Goose Jazz Band
6. I Like Silver, I Like Gold - Ben Rudnick
7. Brontasaurus Got A Sweet Tooth - Justin Roberts
8. Are We There Yet? - Trout Fishing in America
9. Deep In The Jungle - Joe Scruggs
10. The Alphabet Song - Susie Tallman
11. The Couch - Kevin Kammeraad
12. Great Big World - Joe McDermott

I also got these great videos from the Big Kids DVD collection. They have DVDs on a wide variety of topics that are interesting to kids! My set includes:

Potty Power

The Big Rescue

Baby Dance!

Squibs-Science for Growing Brains (I keep thinking Harry Potter though-lol)

Professor Parrot Speaks Spanish

Rock ‘N Learn Spanish

Any of these would make an excellent, and LEAD FREE Christmas gift! Big Kids Productions has about 600 selections to choose from so check out all the great selections at BigKids.com!

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I am in love with the adorable hair clips from Oopsie Dazie! Oopsie Dazie hair clips are unlike any others you have seen online, because each one is individually designed. You select the type of clip (baby gator clips with a “grip” strip) or older kid’s clips, select the ribbon style you want, and then Cindy at Oopsie Dazie chooses a topper to match. It’s very possible that your daughter will be the only person wearing a particular clip!

There are too many choices to show, so go to the Oopsie Dazie site and click on “I wanna order some”. You’ll see all the adorable ribbon choices! And here is the very very best part about ordering clips from Oopsie Dazie-they are so cheap, they are practically free! Each baby clip is only TWO DOLLARS, and each older kid clip is only THREE DOLLARS! You can order a whole bagful at that price! Match a clip to every outfit your daughter has!!

My daughter wears a lot of pink, purple, and orange, so these clips are perfect:

This is not a sponsored post, by the way. I just think these clips are adorable, and an excellent price. So if I can send some traffic their way, I’m happy to do it!

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Kaitlyn got her own personalized CD from Name Your Tune, and she loves it! As soon as I start the van, she starts pointing to the CD player saying “on! On, Mama, on!”. I’m hoping that if she hears her name sung in songs, she will catch on that it is her name, since she now will only refer to herself as “baby”. Ask her what her name is. She pats her chest and says “baby”.

I was impressed with the song quality on the CD. Each CD is sung individually, it’s not just digitally inserting the names into prerecorded songs. The only song on the CD I didn’t recognize is one called “Down By The Park”, but all the rest were familiar. This is a list of the songs you get on the CD:

1. Hello, How Are You?
2. If You’re Happy And You Know It
3. Old MacDonald
4. Oh How I Want to Go
5. Wheels on the Bus
6. Boom Boom, Ain’t It Great To Be YOU!
7. Down By The Park
8. The More We Get Together
9. Head and Shoulders
10. There are Seven Days
11. Rainbow Song
12. ABC Medley
13. I Don’t Want To Live On The Moon
14. Instrumental Lullaby

Kaitlyn loves the ABC Medley, which has all the songs with that same tune-the ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Baa Baa Black Sheep. I like how the ABCs ends with “Kaitlyn knows her ABCs, next time sing along with me.”

Another interesting thing about the Name Your Tune is their commitment to philanthrophy and to not harming the environment. A portion of CD sales is donated to Hear Here, which helps provide hearing aids to hearing impaired children. In addition, founder Candace Alper has made a commitment to reducing the carbon footprint of this CD. From a press release on the website:

Inspired by a desire to make the world a cleaner place for her daughter and other
children, Name Your Tune creator and executive producer, Candace Alper, has taken steps big and small to reduce her company’s environmental footprint. She worked with Zerofootprint, a not-for-profit environmental organization that helps individuals, homes and businesses reduce their effects on the environment, to help offset her own carbon emissions.

Alper pays a monthly fee to Zerofootprint to virtually eliminate the environmental effects of Name Your Tune’s shipping practices. In return, she received stickers to place on all of her
packages, ensuring customers that the shipments have created no footprint. And her offsetting fee goes to help plant trees in British Columbia. “The idea of offsetting is to counterbalance
the environmental effects of your actions to ensure a healthier environment,” Alper says.
Name Your Tune also changed its CD cases. Once encased in a plastic jewel case, Name Your Tune CDs are now housed in a cardboard digipak, using paper that was approved by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC), an international organization promoting responsible management of the world’s forests. The new packs, which are made from recyclable resources, vegetable-based ink and water-based coating, are safe for kids and the planet.

Name Your Tune also changed its shipping packaging. Operating primarily online, the
company ships its made-to-order CDs along with other personalized items around the
globe. They now use recycled and recyclable shipping envelopes instead of bubble wrap,
which were not recyclable and contributed a substantial amount to landfills. “We are
very pleased that we have been able to provide packaging that will end up in the blue bin
instead of the trash can,” Alper says.

Name Your Tune also became the first online retailer to join the “Plastic Ain’t My Bag” campaign. Paul Edney, Director of We Are What We Do, a movement to inspire people to change the world through their daily actions, said, “It’s fantastic to have a retailer who uses very few plastic bags promoting the campaign. There is a bigger message here about societies ‘throw away’ attitude that Candace Alper at Name Your Tune really ‘got’.”

In addition to personalized CDs, the Name Your Tune website also sells other personalized products like wooden stools and coatracks, wall art, blankets, and books. And at $20 each, the CDs are an affordable and fun gift idea for the holidays!

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Look at the adorable sippy cup holders made by LilyBugs! Crystal Kane, founder, CEO, and Mom behind LilyBugs, got the idea when her six month old daughter was fussing in the car, and her bottle was leaking. Crystal wrapped a blanket around the bottle, and found that her daughter was able to hold her own bottle that way. From that experience came her idea to create soft holders shaped like animals that hold a bottle (the wide, nurser kind) or sippy cup. What a great idea! I like this MissFin Bug:

Orders are packaged in a cute matching bag and then shipped USPS first class in a padded envelope within 1 to 2 days. LilyBugs are $10.00 each, but I’m hoping to win one in a contest from Moms Morning Show! Rules for the contest are on this post here-http://momsradionetwork.com/morningshow/contest-win-a-lilybug/

If you’ve never listened to a show on BlogTalkRadio, take a minute some morning at 10:30 EST and listen to Moms Morning Show. They cover all kinds of parenting topics and you can call in to chat, too. I’m listening right now as I type this

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