Every year since I’ve been blogging, I’ve been publishing holiday gift guides to help you wade through the endless products available on store shelves and online to find the very best items for your friends and loved ones. Every year after I publish the guides, I think it might be my last however, your positive…
Lifestyle
Alexandra Rain Friends to the Rescue App: Positive Messaging for Young Fashionistas (w. giveaway)
One of the most challenging parts of parenting is teaching important values in a way that isn’t preachy or makes you sound like a broken record. As a parent, I’m always trying to find ways to instill values like kindness and confidence in my almost tween daughter and draw on a variety of strategies to…
5 Ways to Protect Your Home from Holiday Crime
Every year around the holidays, crime spikes as homes are left vacant while families travel and high value items purchased as gifts are likely to be found in homes in addition to jewelry and household electronics. Even though November has just started, it’s important to begin preparing your home early. What do you need to…
Supporting Santa Barbara Food Bank with Toyota Women’s Influencer Network
When I first visited Toyota Headquarters in Torrance, California earlier this year I heard how the company was devoted to supporting charitable efforts in local communities and recently had the pleasure of shopping and delivering much needed items to a food bank in Santa Barbara during a recent trip with fellow Toyota Women’s Influencer Network…
Non-Candy Treats for Class Halloween Treat Bags
With the winds from Hurricane Sandy increasing as the day goes on, we’re not sure if school will be open on Wednesday after being closed for two days and if Halloween parties will occur or even if it will be safe to trick or treat in our neighborhood. We’re being optimistic about our class Halloween…
Digital Preparedness: 7 Tech Savvy Ways to Brace for Severe Storms
Up and down the East Coast we’re bracing for Frankenstorm, a multi-day superstorm storm whose winds will stretch for miles and churn up high tides. Compared to this summer’s Derecho where we lost power for 5 days and internet for longer, we’re bracing for the worst since it’s a given that our DC Metro neighborhood…
eBay Memory: Our Daughter’s Beloved Gund Bear
Parents whose children fall in love with a particular toy know to immediately run out and purchase duplicates “just in case.” But what do you do when that special toy is no longer available in retail or online stores? eBay. When Little Miss Techie was a baby, she fell in love with a stuffed Gund…
Age Appropriate Gift Ideas from ASTRA (w. holiday toy giveaway worth $150!)
It’s not even Halloween and already retailers are getting a jump on the holiday shopping season. Each day our mailbox has been full of catalogs while weekly circulars and online sites list deals for the season’s hot toys. It’s sometimes hard to resist the deals in favor of choosing a toy for it’s longevity, open-ended…
How Social Media Impacts Holiday Shoppers (infograph)
If you crowdsource about gift ideas through Twitter, share a purchase via Facebook, or look to favorite bloggers for their recommendations on the must-have items for the holidays, you’re relying on social media to help guide your purchase decisions. Exactly how much does social media impact what you buy over the holidays? Clever Girls Collective has pulled…
WDW Fantasyland: Imagineers Provide Sneak Peek at New Magic Kingdom Expansion
Disney fans eagerly awaiting the opening of the new Fantasyland section of The Magic Kingdom on December 6 have the opportunity to learn how science, technology, engineering, math, and art contributed to the park’s largest expansion in history through the work of the Imagineers thanks to YouTube videos that can be watched before a trip…
