Shidonni

Shidonni has a great idea.  You can have your child (or you) draw a picture.  Then you can have a stuffed toy made out of it.  I think that this idea is better than the toys you get at Build-a-bear.



[via Gizmodo]

Please, Baby, Please

Please, Baby, Please is a fun book by Spike Lee and his wife.  This book have some great rhymes about how much energy toddlers have.  Our kids like it a lot

Disney Princesses on Ice

This past weekend, I took our oldest daughter to the Disney Princesses On Ice at the HP Pavilion, and she had a blast.  It was great seeing her light up when each of the princesses came out.

But, the show raised some questions for me:

1. All of the princesses tend to go by their name (ie, Ariel, Jasmine, Snow White). Why is Sleeping Beauty known as "Sleeping Beauty"?  Her name is Aurora.


2. Most of the princes have a name. (i.e. Ariel's prince is named Eric; Sleeping Beauty's prince is named Philip; Belle's prince is named Adam)  But why is Snow White's princes is just named "The Prince"?

Rose, White and Blue Parade

This weekend we had a good time at the Rose, White and Blue Parade in the Shasta /Hanchett neighborhood of San Jose.  The parade seems like the type of parade that normally happens in smaller towns.  The kids were able to sit in front and have a clear view of the floats, the classic cars and the other participants.

We will definitely be going next year.

Dressing kids: Dads vs Moms

This post has a pretty funny, but pretty true, graphic describing how dads and moms dress kids

LifeLock

A few months ago one of our family members had their computer taken. This computer had her financial information, and other important information like usernames and passwords. She eventually got the computer back. About a week later, there was $1100 of charges to her PayPal account.

While I was visiting, I set her up with a LifeLock subscription. I also signed my wife and I, and our kids up for a sibscription.   I want to make sure that no one using any of our identies.  LifeLock does a few things for you

• Sets up fraud alerts with the credit reporting agencies, and every 90 days.


• Requests that subscribers names are removed from pre-approved credit offers


• Requests that credit reports are sent every year.


• Helps to contact banks if your wallet is lost or stolen


• Helps to detect identity theft.


• Will hire lawyers if you are ever a victim of identity theft

Most of those things you can do yourself.  I figure that paying LifeLock to do it for you, reduces the the things that I need to keep track of.

Activity Calendar

In this post, I mentioned that I created a calendar where I could put activities around the bay area for families. I have put it on this page to make it easier to find.

If you know of any activities that would be good for families, please feel free to leave a comment.

Jazz Baby

For our daughter's birthday, she was given a great book, Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler.  Our kids love this book.  The kids like rhythm and rhyme in the book.  The illustrations are great in the book.  Our daughter likes to look at the people in the illustrations, and recognize similarities with people in our family.

Also, our son loves to read the book to our daughters too.  I would recommend this book.

Classic Movies

Every once in a while, we have  family movie night.  The kids can stay up a little bit later an watch a movie.   I have been scheduling various children and family movies to be recorded on our DVR.  Our kids have really enjoyed some of the classic movies.  They have really enjoyed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, and Black Stallion.

RoboGames

RoboGames is coming to San Francisco in June.  A few years ago, I went and had a blast.  Maybe this year I will take our son.  I think that he would love it.

[via GeekDad]

[picture by Scott Beale]

Switched to Wordpress

I have switched this blog to WordPress.  Please post a comments if you see any problems with this change

Cars Soundtrack Sale

Amazon is selling the Cars soundtrack
for $1.99.  The kids like this music, when ever they hear songs from the album, even the youngest one says "Lightning McQueen"

[via PC Stuff for the Average Guy!]

One

This week we bought the book One
, by Kathryn Otoshi.  This is a great book that talks about bullies.  The best thing about the book is the beautiful water color illustrations.  I would definitely recommend this book.

Y! Lil' Kidz Tunes

Our kids like to listen to Kids Place Live on XM Radio, while we are in the car.  At home we have purchased some kids music that we play in their rooms.  The kids have started to get tired of the music that we have (and so have we.)  We play Pandora on our Squeezeboxes, but unfortunately Pandora doesn't have children's music.

I was browsing the radio stations that we have on our Sqeezebox, and I found Y! Lil' Kidz Tunes.  This is one of Yahoo's children's radio stations.  The kids like it, I like it because I don't have to listen to the same songs over and over again.

10 stories behind Dr. Seuss books

This post has some interesting stories behind Dr. Seuss books.

[via Strollerderby]

Qimo

We are thinking about getting our kids a computer to replace the, now, non-functional iBook that they used to use.  Qimo looks interesting for our kids.  Qimo is a Linux distribution that has been customized for kids 3 and older.  The launcher has been customized to have larger icons, and comes preinstalled with games for kids.

You can run Qimo from the CD, so I will probably check it out before installing it.  One thing that I hope to be able to find is a modified browser where I can specify the sites where they can go, and it will ask for a password if attempting to navigate anywhere else.

time lapse video of 9 month old

This is a pretty cool video of a 9 month old playing over 4 hours, compressed to 2 minutes.

 
http://www.youtube.com/v/8vNxjwt2AqY

[via Boing Boing]

New wake up song

Recently, we have been having a hard time with our oldest daughter getting up in the morning.  I had set her radio to start playing a Laurie Berkner album at 7:15am.  For the past week, when I get up to their room to check on them, she is still in her bed. 

Last night, I bought the song "I Like To Move It
" by Will.I.Am from the the Madagascar 2 soundtrack, and I set it to play for her alarm on her Squeezebox Boom
.  At 7:16 she came down stairs, very happy and excited, to let me know that "I Like To Move It" was playing.

I think that this will work for a while.

Rocketship Run

We are fans of Laurie Berkner and the Laurie Berkner Band.  Her music has always been something that we can sing with the kids.  Buzz Buzz and Victor Vito are great albums.  A few months ago, I saw that Laurie Berkner had a new album.  I purchased Rocketship Run
from the Amazon MP3 store.

So far, I don't like this album.  The kids do like it, and keep playing it on their SqueezeBox.  I am not sure what it is about the album th at I don't lik, but I would recommend getting her other albums over this one.

Dog Train

There is a lot of kids music that I can't stand listening to.  For example I don't like Raffi and The Wiggles.  XM Kids, Kids Place Live now, plays songs that parents don't mind listening to.  For a while, they have played the song "I Need a Nap", which is a pretty funny song sung by Kate Winslet and Wierd Al.  Last week the DJ mentioned that that song is on the album "Dog Train"
.  All of the songs on this album were written by Sandra Boynton, who is the author of a lot of the children's books that we have.

I purchased the album from Amazon MP3, and I like it a lot.  The songs are sung by some well known artists.  The kids like the album as well.

RV Vacation

We rented an RV for vacation this year, and we had a great time.  We were going to vist family for the holidays, and we wanted to have a less hectic drive down there.  Normally we would have all piled in the minivan, and driven down in one sitting.  We would have either driven down udring the day, but the kids would get pretty restless, and we would have to deal with that.  Or we would leave when it gets dark, and the kids would sleep the whole way down.  The only problem is that when we got there, the kids would be up, while we would be tired.

We thought that we would rent an RV, and take our time on the trip.  On the way to the Palm Springs area, we spent a night in Big Sur, a couple in Pismo Beach, and a night in Pomono.  This was wonderful, as we were able to play in a river in Big Sur and play on the beach in Pismo Beach with the kids. 

In addition to those stops, we were able to stop at various places along the way.  We stopped in Solvang, which is looks like a Danish village.  Outside of Solvang is a Ostrich farm called Ostrich Land.  Also we stopped at the Dinosaurs in Cabazon, which is was shown in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.