I bought Rae a golf set a few months ago. It naturally broke the day we bought it. I know it wasn’t like buying Cobra golf clubs but still I would have thought that they would have lasted longer than a few hours.

She hasn’t really played with it since we got it. I just knew she would have a lot of fun with it but I was wrong. Next time I will bypass the cheap, plastic $3 set and get her something a little more durable.

My husband created an object for iGoogle that is a countdown until Raegan’s birthday. So, now when I’m on my iGoogle page, I feel a little panic knowing the date is getting closer with every passing second. She will be three and will most likely be more into her birthday this year – meaning it will be way more complicated than last years. There will be guests to invite, games to play, and fun to be had. I need to get started now to make this all happen. Here is some of my preliminary research on birthday party ideas for her third birthday.

Renting a jumper. This might be a bit pricey but I believe she and her guests would have a blast. This is the one activity that she has done when we’ve went to festivals that had kids activities. Since this would be outside, it would have to be a nice day. Better check on cancellation policies before deciding on this option.

Stuffing an animal. I’ve recently become a rep for Stuff n Snuggle since I absolutely adore their product. Rae loves stuffed animals, so I thought it might be fun to stuff an animal in lieu of a party happy for the guests. We stuffed our first one this week, which was a lot of fun. Although I think Rae prefers him without any stuffing. Still, this might be fun to do at a birthday party.

A Pinata. What kid doesn’t enjoy waving a stick wildly in the air in a vain attempt for candy? Some of the store bought ones are really hard to break. Maybe I will feel crafty and attempt to make my own.

That’s about all the options I have thought about thus far. I have a few more months to weigh all of my options. What birthday party ideas for kids have worked well for you?

Last weekend we went to the Natural Science Museum in Mississippi. It was a fun experience but what most impressed me was the preschooler room. It was a room with fun activities just for those five and under. Slides, a tree house, and costumes are all activities that kids enjoy. I’m sure soon enough Rae will go through the dress-up stage.

That’s why I’ve been on the look out for kids costumes. I can imagine the day when she and her friends are playing dress-up in her room. How much fun she will have. BuyCostumes.com not only sells kids costumes but has a great selection at very competitive prices. I’m always disheartened by the costumes that are sold once a year at the local stores since they are over-priced for something that looks cheap and flimsy. I would much rather pay for quality halloween costumes that will last longer than a month.

Buy Costumes not only has kids costumes but adult ones as well. We will be going to the Ren Fest in November, and it would be so much fun to go in costume. Buy Costumes has the perfect outfit for less than $40! At that price it’s very tempting. Also with Rae getting older, she will be into trick or treating this year. How much fun it would be for all of us to go in costume.

Of course, the bargain shopper in me loves the 5 for under $5 deals that Buy Costumes runs Monday – Friday. Each week you can find five different items including costumes that will cost less than $5. What an expensive way to stock up the dress-up closet or get ready for Halloween. Buy Costumes will definitely become my first stop when shopping for costumes because of their great selection and prices.

Raegan has a three ring pool that she seems to enjoy as long as there isn’t too much water in it. I even got in it this week and boy is that water cold. It did, however, make me think of upgrading the pool at least to a size that we could use inflatable boats in. But I doubt Rae would get much enjoyment out of it. Maybe next summer.

Splashing around in the pool was a lot of fun and especially will be really nice it becomes unbearably hot. If the pool was just a little bigger it would be great. Rae does seem to enjoy getting in the pool when I’m in it. If not then she likes to play outside of the pool by dipping out water.

I had thought about enrolling her into swimming lessons since there are some places that take them at 2 1/2 years. I don’t know, though. I worry she might be more scared and have a bad experience. Plus, how much will she actually remember next summer? Will we have to do lessons again? I took lessons for a whole summer when I was around ten. I still remember what I was taught. Besides, lessons seem a little pricey to me. $100 for a week just doesn’t sound like a good deal. Maybe I’m just cheap.

Anyway, hopefully this summer she will get more accustomed to being in the water. In a few weeks we’ll be heading to the beach where I think she will really have a good time.

So, today I went shopping for my 5-year-old niece’s birthday present. Since I’m sure that she has every toy ever created thanks to grandparents who believe she hung the moon, it makes it really hard to buy something with a ‘wow’ factor. Maybe when she’s older I will buy her something like a Rolex President watch. I bet grandma didn’t get her one of those.

After shopping for about 30 minutes and getting tired of chasing Rae around the toy store, I had an epiphany. Why not get her a board game?

There are a lot of games for this age group like Chutes and Ladders, Hi-Ho Cherry Oh, and What’s in Ned’s Head? I was all set to get What’s in Ned’s Head? but then I noticed the price – $23. I had picked up this game second hand, so I know it would be enjoyed by the kids but also know it probably won’t last that long as poor Ned can’t take much abuse. So, I moved on down the aisle.

Toss Across caught my attention. I loved this game as a kid and deemed it the perfect gift. And at $15 wasn’t a bad deal either. Toss Across is a plastic Tic Tac Toe board that players throw bean bags at to try to turn the board pieces to either and X or 0. The first player with 3 in a row wins the game.

I think I have bought this game before for a birthday present but really believe it was for a nephew. At least I hope so. What a birthday faux pas that will be – buying the same gift previously given.

Our local playdate group was planning to do colored bubbles at a recent gathering. Raegan loves bubbles, so I hated we missed it. Since we couldn’t make it, I decided that we could do colored bubbles at home. A quick Google search came up with the magic formula for colored bubbles:

Bubble solution
powdered tempera paint

Voila! That’s it. So, I bought some bubbles and couldn’t find powdered tempera paint. I just bought the regular kind and hoped that it would work, too. I first place the bubble solution in a jar and then added some paint:

I then stirred like crazy because the paint just didn’t want to mix in with the bubble solution. The next day we headed out to test it. Raegan, of course, took charge of it and promptly spilled it on the ground. This was taken right before the incident:

So, I went back inside and do it again. This time I added more paint since I was rushing to get it done. I just squeezed the paint bottle over the solution. Probably about a teaspoon or more of paint plopped into the jar. I then put the lid on the jar and shook it vigorously for a few seconds. The color was a darker red and mixed a lot better.

Now it was time for the test. I decided to use Raegan’s bubble blowing machine so I could get some pictures of the bubbles. They had a light tint to them. You might can see the red drop of paint that is at the bottom of the bubble. This has me thinking that maybe the powder paint is a better way to go:

I will probably try the colored bubbles experiment again when I find the powder tempera paint, which might be a craft store purchase.

Within the past month, Raegan has become very smitten with Barney, the purple dinosaur. She can watch the same episodes over and over. Even if she doesn’t watch it, she likes to have it on as ‘white noise.’

I knew that this day would come that she would discover the charm of Barney as most kids in our family have went through loving the purple dinosaur. Hopefully we can survive it with our sanity. Today my husband came home singing a Barney song! We watch it all day, dream about it at night. There is no escape from Barney.

My child officially has her first favorite outfit. It’s a pair of Elmo pajamas that she hates to take off. At first I was surprised she would even wear them since they are kind of a snug fit as she doesn’t seem to like tight clothing. I guess two-year-olds are full of surprises.

For Christmas I need to find her an Elmo outfit since I can offer it when we need to take off the PJs. It might be hard to find as baby clothes are too small but kid clothing is way too big. I love her at this age but finding clothing that fits has become quite challenging.

At least I can be thankful that Elmo is still quite popular, so hopefully I can find something for her even if it is a little big. Thank goodness her Grandma sews.

The Marine Toys for Tots is a great charity that collects new, unwrapped toys from October through December. They collect toys until December 22nd. There are several drop-off places like Toys R Us that you can leave donated toys at. You can also make a cash donation at Toys R Us. In fact, if you shop there this season, you might be asked if you’d like to give. It’s really easy to give $1, $5, $10, or more at the time of checkout. There is also another interesting way to help out the Toys for Tots program that I recently learned about.

If you drink Coca Cola, then you can help out the program. All it will take is saving those red caps on your Coke product. Enter the code at My Coke Rewards.com and then donate those points to the Toys for Tots. Coca-Cola is giving away $100,000 in gifts but will give Toys for Tots the donated points to get additional toys. So far, they have had donated almost 2 1/2 million points!

It’s a great way to give that will only take a little of your time to put in codes. You will have to register for the My Coke Rewards website, and you can put up to 10 codes in a day.

Usually after devouring Halloween candy for a week, I feel tempted to buy hydroxycut or some other diet supplement to help lose all the weight I’ve gained. This year, though, I’ve taken a different approach to Halloween treats.

Some examples of treats I will be handing out this year include chocolate covered pretzels, Teddy Grahams, Ritz Crackers, and mini granola bars. I also might even pass out individual popcorn bags. Kids just want loot from your home, and Moms will appreciate the thoughtfulness of better, smarter Halloween treats.