If you are a girl (and around my age), Rainbow Brite is definitely a character that you remember from your childhood.  I recently learned that there is an entire site devoted to Rainbow Bright and the gang.  It was awesome to introduce my 6 year old to Rainbow Brite and watch her have a ton of fun with it.  Not only does the site have 4 animated episodes on it, there are games, puzzles, coloring pages, etc on it.  You kids can easily get lost for hour in it!  (I know Madison was!).  Even more exciting than the new site is that the newest Rainbow Brite fashion doll collection is now available at Target stores and should be arriving to Toys R Us this month!

Rainbow Brite is a character that you don’t have to worry about your children watching.  She is wholesome, beautiful, and the stories are great for little girls to watch.  I highly recommend checking her out and even picking up a doll (I’m checking right now to see if my local Target has them!).

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If you have kids of various ages, it’s hard to find presents for both of them that are along the same lines as one another.  K’nex has solved that problem for us parents.  They offer product lines for the younger kids and the older ones too (including parents!)

For Will, we have the Sesame Street Neighborhood Collection Building Sets. These are for kids 2-5, and it is perfect for the younger set.  With these sets, you can easily play with your favorite Sesame Street characters be it Elmo, Cookie Monster, and/or Ernie.  Each neighborhood words together too, so you can have a single set or an entire city.  There is the 123 Brownstone Building Set, the police car building set, the ice cream truck building set, and the police station building set.  We tried out the police car building set and Will loved it.  The wheels on the vehicle actually move, so he was able to push this around our living room.  The parts are also very big, so I didn’t have to worry about him putting them in his mouth.  They also made it very easy for him to work with them because of their larger size.  In the set, they also have additional ideas for you to build.  These sets help with hand eye coordination, encourage imaginative play, thinking and problem solving.

For the older kids, there is the 400 piece tub.  This is literally hours and hours of fun.  There are building ideas for 20 different things in here plus whatever your kids can come up with on their own!  The models you can build have a lot of movement that you can do.  The wheels on the car we made worked.  I love that K’nex works with the other brands out there like Lego.  You can take the Legos you may already have and easily incorporate them into this set.  I love toys that are self contained.  I love that the storage tub is small enough to easy fit under your kids bed and small enough to easily be taken on trips.  With a price tag of $20.99, this is a must have for the kid who has everything.

With both of our K’nex items, we are very happy.  My kids have had countless hours of fun, and I can only highly recommend them.

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My family and I are big fans of Eye Can Art kits.  These are great kits for your kids to  make great art projects for the house.  The latest kit we tried out was the Wax Drawing Kit.  I love that each kit comes with everything (and I mean everything) you need.  There is no going around the house hoping you have all the supplies. Not only do they give you enough supplies to make one, you actually get enough supplies to make two!  The Wax Drawing kit was easy enough for a 5 year old to do!  See:

Eye Can Art kits are a great present for the kid who has everything or just likes to create unique pieces of art.  I highly recommend them.

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The award-winning Original Pillow Pets are snuggly plush companions that are a comfortable pillow for television, bedtime or travel time.  They come in two sizes, 11? or 18?, making them a perfect gift for any age child. At an affordable $16.99 or $24.99, they won’t break the holiday budget either.  They are made from the softest, high-quality chenille and are safety tested. There are more than 20 styles of loveable Pillow Pets available to choose from.

My kids chose a penguin one to try out.  I have to admit that this pillow is quite comfortable.  My kids fight over who gets to lay on it.  I love that these are sooo cute too.  You can easily get your kids whatever pillow they like.  One of Madison’s friends recently got one of these for her birthday, and all the girls absolutely loved it! The best thing is that these are so easy to travel with be it in a car or a plane. They don’t take up a lot of room, yet give your child the comfort of home. This should be the must have present for the year!

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Remember all of the coolest toys we played with when we were kids? The Hall Of Fame Toy Pack brings them back for our kids!  My kids love the Slinky and we’ve got a great set of stairs to play with it on!  The yo-yo hasn’t clocked anyone in the head yet even though Madison hasn’t quite figured out how to make the yo-yo work.  However, the silly putty was a huge hit and the kids didn’t need to be told what to do with it.    This is a great throwback for both kids and adults alike!