Thank you everyone for entering the YoBaby Meals giveaway! I’m so glad to hear that everyone else is just as much a fan as we are! Congrats to Dena for winning the YoBaby giveaway! Enjoy!
Tag: giveaways
Peace, Love and (Build-A-Bear) Hugs
This past weekend, the kid and I found ourselves on Fifth Avenue getting cozy with a bunch of bears. That’s right, bears!
The kid and I attended the “Let’s Talk About Love” Meet and Greet with Jamia Nash at the biggest Build-a-Bear Workshop in the world, which is right on Fifth Avenue in NYC. Like I knew it would, the mere sight of the Build-A-Bear storefront elicited so much excitement from my almost-2 year old. Before we even entered the store, he was signing, more, more, more!
At the event, we briefly met with other NYC/NJ mom bloggers, and said hello to the guest of honor, Jamia Nash. If you’re a huge Young and the Restless fan like me, you might know Jamia as Ana, Tyra’s daughter. If your family is a Jack’s Big Music Show fan, you might know Jamia as the spunky songstress who sang the “Bongo Bird song” when she was about eight years old. It was a pleasure to meet the super sweet Jamia, who was so nice to the kid, even though he really doesn’t “get it” yet. Extremely articulate and well-spoken, Jamia told me a little bit about her experience in singing the Bongo Bird song. If you’d like to hear Jamia’s “Let’s Talk About Love” song, it’s available to download on the site.
Jamia a seasoned performer at only 12 years old, fittingly, was tapped to be a part of Build-A-Bear Workshop’s Love. Hugs. Peace Movement, which encourages kids to give back and be kind. At times like this, we can use all the love, hugs and peace we can get!
In line with the Love. Hugs. Peace, Build-A-Bear Workshop has introduced the Peace & Hugs Bear, which is intended to represent all three elements of the Movement. Like other Build-A-Bear animals, the fuzzy blue bear with peace signs can be stuffed and personalized. There’s even Love. Hugs. Peace bear-sized tees and rhinestone tanks available, which Build-A-Bear Workshop is donating $.25 to Save the Children from the sales.
Build-A-Bear kindly gave us some giftcards to create our own bear. The kid absolutely went nuts in the lower level of this gigantic Build-A-Bear Workshop. The lower level, which has several areas for exclusive parties, in addition to a few bear-stuffing stations, was like heaven for my adventurous toddler. And because the kid is obsessed with stuffed animals and baseball (specifically the NY Mets), naturally, we created a classic bear with a Mets uniform! Coincidentally, Saturday was Build-A-Bear Day at Citifield, the Mets’ new stadium, where Jamia also performed the Star Spangled Banner to kick the game off.
In the end, though frazzled by chasing a very curious toddler around, I enjoyed the bear-making process just as much! From choosing the bear, chasing the kid, to picking his outfit, chasing the kid again, to having him stuffed, to watching the kid pick his heart and finally creating his birth certificate, our experience at the NYC Build-A-Bear Workshop though hectic, was so much fun. I can certainly see why tourists flock to the Fifth Avenue location.
Our bear, lovingly named Buddy, is the kid’s brand new BFF, many thanks to our awesome friends at Build-A-Bear Workshop. And this is just how awesome they are: just in time for theirAugust promotion, Build-A-Bear Workshop generously gave us a $25 giftcard for one lucky NKT reader!
Win it Describe Build-A-Bear’s newest bear and please comment below.
For extra entries, share this post and/or tell me one (or all) of the songs (mentioned above) that Jamia is singing, or has sung.
So the winner can take advantage of Build-A-Bear’s $29.99 August promotion, this giveaway will end August 13! Good luck!
Safe Baby, safe baby 1,2,3…
Even though summer is in full swing and I’ve already raved about one of our favorite sunscreens, I thought I’d share another great sunscreen that I had the chance to try out.
Safe Baby, which is part of Skin by Monica Olsen line, is a paraben-free, waterproof sunscreen with SPF 50. Monica Olsen, a former model, but more importantly, a conscientious mama like many of us, was in search of natural baby products that she liked. Since she couldn’t find anything that she felt comfortable using on her new babe, she decided to create her own line.
Safe Baby contains organic flower extracts, vitamins and doesn’t use any harsh chemicals such as alcohol. Who’d want those nasty, harsh chemicals irritating baby’s skin anyway?
I love the way Safe Baby applies; it’s not too thick or overpowering, like other sunscreens I’ve tried in the past. The scent, at first, I thought was a bit too flowery for my taste, but it dissipated and became a subtle, sweet scent once applied. As a mama with a fair-skinned babe, I like that it’s SPF 50, too. Again, like most natural products, Safe Baby is a bit pricier than I’d like to pay. There are a few ingredients listed that I can’t pronounce, and perhaps because it’s newer, I couldn’t find these products in the Cosmetic Database yet. But after a day in the sun, Safe Baby worked wonderfully and didn’t leave everything greasy or stained.
Safe Baby is worth checking out. It’s a great alternative to the chemical laden sunscreens and good option for a more natural and safe sunscreen. If you’re in the NYC area, SKIN by Monica Olsen is available at Duane Reade. Safe Baby is also available at other stores, as well as online.
Want Safe Baby for yourself?
Tell me another product in the Skin by Monica Olsen line and comment below!
For extra entries, feel free to share this product via Twitter, Facebook or any other social networking site.
Funky Kidz Cd giveaway winner
Congrats to Stephanie for winning last week’s Music Monday cd giveaway! When you have a chance Steph, can you please email your address to jen [at] nextkidthing [dot] com.
Thank you to everyone for participating in the giveaways and for participating on the site. Becuase of you, I’m able to continue to have FREE giveaways. Well, free to you, but not always for me. As a general reminder, I ship most of these giveways out on my own, with very little resources. I’m just trying to share the great goodies that I get, so, please bear with me on the shipping timeframe. It could take as little as a few days, but as long as several weeks. Thanks so much for understanding!
Giveaway winners
TruKid Sunblock sticks- Brandy, Kim and Melissa, please email your address at jen [at] nextkidthing [dot] com!
Kooky flash drive- Melissa, congrats! Brett, you’ve got some fuzzy slippers coming your way.
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Everyone else, thanks for participating as usual. Also, I’ll announce last week’s cd winner once I post the next Music Monday. Also, I’m busy writing up a slew up articles AND really great giveaways in honor of my trip to BlogHer this week, so stay tuned!!!
Giveaway winners
Congrats to Madonna for winning the Glop and Glam products! Please email me your information so we can get these out to you.
Congrats to Natasha for winning the OnTray! And ditto, send me an email!
Please don’t forget to check out the Kooky USB and Funky Kidz cd giveaways that are going on right now! And of course, be on the look out for even more good stuff!
Getting Funky for Music Monday
Happy Monday, everyone. We had quite an exciting music-filled weekend, and I can’t wait to share all about it. But in honor of yet another fun adventure with NKT in mind, I’m happy to announce another weekly editorial focus. Every Monday will be fittingly dubbed, Music Monday, and will feature music-influenced posts.
To start off the first Music Monday, how about some funky, jazzy kids tunes? I recently had the chance to check out Funky Kidz, which is a musical compilation performed by several artists from New Orleans and features covers of children’s songs. Including classic kiddie songs like “Hokey Pokey” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” the award-winning CD includes musicians include such as Ivan Neville of the Neville Brothers; The Radiators; George Porter Jr. of The Meters; Bonerama, and more.
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EMTEC Kooky USB flash drive
Kooky Klickers, the crazy collectible pens, now have a USB flash drive counterpart. The Kooky USB flash drives by EMTEC come in a range of fun and bold designs, emulating the popular pens that have sold millions since they hit the market. The unique pens, known for their springy hair and often worn with a lanyard, have been a big hit with school-aged kids, especially tweens and teens.
At 2 gb, the Kooky USB flash drive can hold homework, projects, photos and other media. Just like the pens, the USB drive features its own take of the crazy hair and funky faces. An interesting change from colorless USB drives, the Kooky USB flash drive is just as portable as the Kooky Klickers, and even has a place where it can be added to a key chain or lanyard.
OnTray: next best thing to an extra set of hands
While shopping, some kids get bored, some get hungry and some just want what they can’t have. So, for those of us who try to get in and out of stores as fast as possible to minimize the chance of a public meltdown, an extra set of hands would be a big help.
And that’s where the OnTray would come in handy. The OnTray is the brainchild of Laura Hamrick, a mom who spent a harried grocery shopping trip handing out snacks one-by-one to her three small boys, while trying to look through coupons and fill the cart. We’ve all been there.
Hamrick then devised a way to occupy her little guys with a small tray that would easily snap on and off, allowing her to shop and multi-task a bit easier. The award-winning snap-on tray can also can be used to hold coupons, keys and cell phones, making it a helpful gadget for multi-tasking parents. On the safety front, OnTray is manufactured in the U.S. of FDA-approved plastic, BPA-free and it meets all new requirements of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
If you’re like us and consider your stroller the shopping cart and a second “vehicle” I discovered that the OnTray is a great alternative to those snack trap cups! The OnTray snaps onto stroller handlebars, allowing toddlers to access snacks and toys easily.
LeapFrog Text and Learn giveaway winner
Thank you everyone for entering the LeapFrog Text and Learn giveaway! This giveaway yielded our biggest response yet, so thank you for participating. Congrats to Natasha for winning the Text and Learn!
Just a few housekeeping notes, for the extra entries, please don’t forget to comment for each additional entry. For this giveaway, I manually added the extra entries for the stories. I don’t mind, but I can’t promise I”ll do that in the future. As for shipping, I will always consolidate my trips to the post office, so those of you who are waiting for your giveaways, they’re coming! I don’t have a set timeline or anything, but I aspire to get these out within a few weeks. I appreciate your patience. Those waiting for giveaways that are to be shipped directly from the companies, those shipments tend to take longer, as a general rule of thumb. Patience is a virtue. I’m just extending some giveaway goodness, and as they say, good things come to those who read NKT 
(and to those who wait, too.)