At Toy Fair this year, we discovered some amazing wooden toys for young toddlers in the Hape booth. Hape is known for their toys made from bamboo. But they also have a line called Educo that uses natural wood and non-toxic paints. We couldn’t resist adding a few of their new products to the site.

Pictured here is the Creative Peg Puzzle, great for ages 18 months and up.  We love the quality of the craftsmanship and the vibrant colors. It develops problem solving and fine motor skills for toddlers. For ages 2 and up, we also offer the beautiful Rainbow Curve Set from Educo (shown below). In addition to being a great play piece for toddlers, it also looks incredible as a stand alone piece of art on a desk or shelf.

April 22nd marks the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.  At GIFT HERO, we are doing our part to be environmentally responsible. We seek out products that are made by companies that use recycled materials, natural wood or organic materials.

We use minimal amounts of recycled paper as packaging to ship our products. No plastic filler or bubble wrap. We also encourage customers to order multiple products by offering free shipping on orders over $75, thereby further reducing packaging waste and providing more energy efficient shipping.

We are particularly proud of our eco-friendly reusable gift bags. Our bags are made from 100% recycled plastic milk jugs (although you would never guess it). Our bags are durable and serve well as gift wrap, shopping bag or storage bag for toys. 

In honor of Earth Day, during the month of April we are automatically giving away free gift bags
 with the purchase of products from our Eco-friendly toy category.

I just love this new product, Eco Stars from Miss Brittany! These adorable, star-shaped crayons are made from 100% recycled crayons. Did you know that there is a National Crayon Recycling Program that has saved 52,000 pounds of crayons from landfills and turned them into recycled crayons? To learn how to send in your crayons and get your child’s school involved, visit the Recycling Program Page.

We also carry Miss Brittany’s line of organic fun dough products, for all of your eco-friendly children’s gift needs.

December is a great time to make donations to organizations that are important to you.  The solication envelopes are piling up on my desk.  In addition to cash donations, one thing I love to do before year end is clean out my closets and donate clothing and gear that Benjamin has grown out of.

I was thrilled to learn that Baby Buggy, an amazing organization that helps New York City’s children in need, is holding a gear drive this weekend.  From December 3-5th, you can donate new and gently used strollers, high chairs, front carriers and bassinets to local families. 

Location: The Caledonia, 16th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues
Times:  Thursday and Friday 10-7, Saturday 10-5*
(*Come with your children on Saturday and make a card to send to a recipient family)

Please consider joining me in supporting this wonderful cause…I will be donating a stroller and a high chair!

We are having a wonderful vacation.  We are at our weekend house enjoying the weather, the beach, the pool, our friends and each other.  We are also trying to take advantage of local “culture.”

Last Wednesday, we went to a performance at Guild Hall in East Hampton (a wonderful theater and museum).  This August, Guild Hall offered several performances for children as part of their KidFest programming.  “Kidfest is a celebration of family programming offered by Guild Hall throughout the year. The mission is to present affordable, relevant and quality arts and cultural programming to a diverse audience of young children and their parents by providing live theater, music, puppetry, spoken word, film, dance, readings, art and educational events that engage, enlighten and educate throughout the year. The wide variety of performances and art projects provide many different art forms, perspectives, and themes that are educational as well as entertaining.” 

The performance we attended was called BAM! Percussion.  The simplest way to describe the show is that it’s like Stomp for kids.  This adorable French Canadian trio, who call themselves the BamBoys, play drums, sing, and make you laugh out loud…all in their own language, Bamspeach.  Benjamin was riveted and enthralled…laughing out loud for the entire hour.  He insisted we buy him a BAM! t-shirt (we happily obliged as the proceeds fully benefit this not for profit group…as they said, they need the money to drive the 9 hours back home to Canada).  He immediately took off the shirt he had on and joyfully wore the BAM! shirt the rest of the night.

BAM! performs all around the world.  Benjamin and I highly recommend you check them out!  Also, if you plan to be out on the East End of LI, I highly recommend you check out Guild Hall and KidFest (and their adult programming is incredible as well…lots of celebrity talent).

Today is the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 and the original moon landing. It’s so interesting to hear people reminisce about where they were and how they felt when the astronauts spoke from the moon. It really was a “giant step.” It’s amazing how much time has passed and how much has changed in those 40 years.

It’s funny, some things never change…which is a good thing. Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd first published the classic book “Goodnight Moon” in 1947. 62 years later, it is still pretty much every young child’s favorite bedtime story. More recently, the amazing game makers at Briarpatch, turned the book into a terrific first game. To play the Goodnight Moon Game, beginning players match identical pictures. With six ways to play, the game adapts for different skill levels. It promotes visual, matching and manual dexterity skills. This was one of the first games Benjamin ever received. It was given to him as a gift from a classmate for his 3rd birthday. We played this together many times as a family.

Now that he’s 5, Benjamin is a few years past the Goodnight Moon book and the game. He still loves to do things together as a family so tonight we are going to watch the news together. I’m excited for Benjamin to see some of the original moon landing footage. James vividly remembers watching it (live) with his parents, when he was 5 too!

I found this wonderful article called Ideas for teaching kids meaning of July Fourth and wanted to share it. We often get caught up in the celebration part of the holiday – barbeques, fireworks, days off from work and red, white and blue popsicles – and tend to forget the meaning behind July 4th and the birth of our country.

Spend some time this weekend talking with your kids about July 4th – what independence and democracy mean, how popsicles are part of celebrating our nation’s birthday, and what type of contribution they might like to make to our country when they grow up. In this day and age, and given what is going on in the world around us, it is especially important to recognize how lucky we are to live in the great US of A. Freedom and independence are the best gift of all.

A few minutes after we left this movie today, my 5 year old daughter said ” Love should be one of the senses.” She continued, “The heart – it feels.”

I was floored because it felt true. Leave it to kids to come up with the things that we adults can never conjure up in our own minds. To embellish a bit on Maya’s 5 year old attempt at a philosophical pronouncement, I think that after seeing UP, and seeing how much the old man loved his wife, Maya concluded that the human heart (LOVE) acts like one of the 5 senses in giving us information that we then use to shape our actions.

So now we have decided that in our our family, LOVE will be one of the senses. Thanks, Maya, for teaching me and opening my eyes to hidden truths. UP with LOVE!

Last night, Josh went to his first ever MLB game – Yankees vs. Rays. He went with a large group of his second grade classmates, as well as his Grandma and Poppy. According to Josh, the most exciting play of the game was Swisher’s two run homer in the fourth.

Josh loves sports and would like to be the next Bob Costas when he grows up. Somehow, I think he fits the part!

Check out the new Yankee Stadium online - it looks amazing! If you can’t get tickets to a game, try a tour of the stadium. The Classic Tour lasts 45 minutes to one hour and includes visits to the New York Yankees Museum, Monument Park and the dugout. Guests will pass through the batting cages and Yankees clubhouse area before ending the tour in the Great Hall near the team store. This is next to do on Josh’s list!

Today I accompanied Maya’s Kindergarten class on a trip to the Museum of Natural History to see the live Butterfly Conservatory. It is a picturesque day here in NYC, and we strolled through Central Park to get there.

The children have been learning about metamorphosis – they have caterpillars in their classroom and are watching them transform into butterflies.

It was so wonderful to watch the children’s faces light up as they watched with delight the colorful butterflies. There are more than 500 live butterflies! Maya and her friend sang a song, accompanied by hand motions, they learned in class about butterflies.

Hurry if you want to check out the Butterfly Conservancy – the exhibit closes after May 25th!