Has it been a funny spring where you live? Here in Ottawa, winter burst into summer for weeks during and after the March Break, shooting the mercury into the high twenties (celsius, of course.) And then last Monday, we woke up to this: Poor wee tulips. Mother Nature tricked them into popping up a couple …

One of the tasks we have to tackle this spring is cleaning out my youngest boy’s room. Not only does he have four Christmases and four birthdays and four years’ worth of his own toys, he has also inherited all the baby and little boy toys of his two big brothers as well. We’re starting …

We started counting up the number of techno-devices we have in our house the other day: laptops, desktops, hand-held video games, iPods, iPhones, game consoles. I started to cringe when we crept above the three-devices-per-person ratio. My kids come by their love of things with pixelated screens honestly, and there are times when I feel …

A while back, I posted my thoughts on some great gift ideas for the six-years-and-older demographic based on my experiences this year with Fisher-Price Canada. I’m a little later than I wanted to be with this follow-up, but I hope it’s helpful for your holiday buying! If I were to choose any one demographic that …

It’s only in the last year of blogging with Fisher-Price that I realized how many of the toys and product lines we already love come from them. One of my concerns when I first started blogging with the PlayPanel was that the big boys might feel excluded, as in my mind Fisher-Price had the best …

With the last of the leaves of the season finally (mostly) raked up and bagged, I could finally turn my attention to decorating the porch this weekend. I swear, I have as much fun (and take as much time!) decorating the porch as I do the inside of the house. It takes a long time …

When I first started blogging for Fisher-Price, only my littlest boy was invited to the launch photo shoot. I got the impression that maybe there was going to be a big focus on baby and toddler toys during the playpanel campaign, and wondered if maybe some of the toys would be too simplistic for a …

I laughed out loud when I saw that our friends at Fisher-Price had sent us a Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Digital Camera to test-drive. If any family loves cameras, it’s this one! So it seemed a natural to compare my favourite camera, the Nikon D7000, to Lucas’s (and Tristan’s and Simon’s!) new favourite camera. Here’s how they …

One of the reasons I was so excited to be a part of the Fisher-Price Canada playpanel team of bloggers has to do with my deep admiration for Fisher-Price. They don’t just make toys – they make toys that kids love, classic toys that endure and endear for generations. Did you know the classic Fisher-Price …

A lot of my Friday Family Fun posts have talked about ways you can enjoy summer with your kids, whether engaging them or supervising them or taking them out on adventures. But vacation is supposed to be a break for Mom and Dad, too, and sometimes kids need to learn to play on their own …