With the kids out of school and the days so much longer, I've been trying to make summer extra fun for them, which means extending bedtimes way past their normal time and heading out for nighttime adventures. Seriously, there are so many…
During the summer I usually let my kids stay up late, but we ditch the screens and play board games together instead. So, each year I keep my eye on the Spiel des Jahres award-winning board games to find the best new board games that are…
Of all the toys that have passed through the hands of my three kids over the past dozen or so years, there is no question that LEGO bricks have been the most enduring and versatile. From their first little plastic bucket of mixed bricks,…
I was one of those parents who insisted that I'd raise the kind of kids who would play fun, screen-free car games on our family road trips, or perhaps watching the world whiz by while asking intelligent questions about all the sites and …
Now that my kids are old enough to play "real" games -- you know, the ones where I don't have to let them win -- I love finding new clever and fun options for when we all gather around the table to play. So I was really excited to learn …
Ready for Easter? We weren't either until we started searching the web for ideas, and got excited when we found so many totally adorable bunny gifts for Easter out there! And there's no chocolate, Peeps, or jelly beans in this bunch -- n…
Kudos to my sister-in-law who scored with arguably the biggest hit of all the gifts this holiday season, Telestrations . Or actually, credit may go to my 9-year-old niece who saw it in a store and said, "hey, that looks fun" which was th…
When you think back to the best toys of the year (and other playful gifts for kids) you probably think about tech, tablets, and things that require cords and batteries. And yet there's so much more, from wonderful board games, to handmad…
This is a sponsored message from Flare Play Kids love video games, but understandably, parents can justify the gaming time better when kids are actually playing something educational. That's where Flare Play comes in to make everyone hap…
This is a sponsored message from SimplyFun board games With Thanksgiving break coming up this week and Hanukkah and Christmas not far behind, it's a great time to be thinking about getting a few family game nights on the calendar. You pr…
We've got a strong competitive gene in my family, which means when we all get together, we like to hang around the dinner table playing board games. The kids get in on the action too, but that doesn't mean we're relegated to playing kidd…
Our kids are usually pretty clear about what they want for their big gifts for Christmas, so I often have the most fun thinking about those smaller gifts that are total surprises for our kids. So, we wanted to share one of our favorite a…
It's about this time every year that we need to ramp up our efforts to get our homes organized and looking awesome for holiday guests. It's like, what the heck happened to all that spring cleaning I did six months ago? Yeah, well, welcom…
Two of my kids have now outgrown some of my own favorite childhood board games like Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders -- classic versions only, please. (And yes, I admit I do like Candy Land. Don't ask why.) My kids are now into the kind…
Hey, wait a minute. Is that you, August? How did you get here so fast? I know I'm not the only one who feels like this. Wasn't it April just yesterday? Instead of trying to wrap our collective heads around the theory of relativity, let's…
Yes, wishing Monopoly money were real may be the biggest cliché, but close behind it is wishing you had more of the fake kind. At least if you're like us and somehow manage to lose it over the years. So I'm not sure why I never considere…
If your aim is to get the kids to spend as much time in the pool as possible before summer ends, we've got you covered with 10 of the coolest, most creative pool games for toddlers to teens. Not only are these ideas a whole lot of fun, b…
We're all about helping you with summer boredom busters for kids this week. First, there's that awesome giant coloring poster for indoor creativity when the weather gets icky. But when the sun is shining and you need one more trick up yo…
It may take special talent and years of study to compose music for a symphony, but we've discovered a fun shortcut with Think Fun's new Compose Yourself , a creative, musical card game which lets kids 6 and up -- and even adult neophytes…
We are so excited for summer, if you haven't been able to tell from our posts lately. Swimming all day. Staying up late to play outside way past bedtime. Kids sleeping in late. (Ha, we wish.) It's a laid-back schedule that's so perfect f…
If you read Cool Mom Tech, you may be aware of my daughters' obsession with Minecraft. We even created Minecraft games we can play when the screens are off . So I can only imagine how thrilled they'd be to decorate their room with the cu…
Whether you call it Autism Awareness or Autism Acceptance like one of my good friends, April is a great month to learn more about autism and how to make our world more supportive to those families living with it. That's one reason we've …
Between school parties and Easter baskets from their grandparents, my kids will be coming home with chocolate bunnies and cream-filled eggs to last us till the Fourth of July. So I've been looking for some extra special Easter basket gif…
Anyone who’s dealt with a picky kid (and who hasn’t?) knows that feeding a picky eater is the opposite of fun. And I've found two new parenting resources—one a book, the other a game—which aim to change that. Both were developed by moms …