Lots to share this weekend

Rather than one big post this weekend, I have lots of little things I want to share with you:

One of my favorite children's stores, Creative Kidstuff, opened a new store in St. Louis Park in the new Shops at West End. I brought Alex with me to check out the store, as he always begs to visit the Maple Grove location when we are nearby. I love that there are no licensed characters anywhere in the store (Dora, Mickey Mouse, etc.). All of the toys are educational in some way and encourage active and dramatic play, science, crafts and outdoor activities.

They also have lots of toys displayed for children to play with in the store. Alex checked out the Interstar Master Builder Set and intensely played with them for over 20 minutes until I dragged him away and agreed to buy them. He calls them his "connectors." I also found this great bath toy that both my kids are crazy over. The toys at Target and Toys R Us really pale in comparison after you've visited this great store! If you live in the Twin Cities or Des Moines, IA, make sure to include Creative Kidstuff on your holiday shopping must-see list. Those of you from out of state can still shop their great toy selection online!

We love books in our house, so I was very excited to win a kid's book giveaway from Suzi at Pink Vanilla Cupcakes. They were two cute little board books with attached little animals with blankets - My Little Monkey and Little Bear Hugs. Very cute and sweet! Thank you, Suzi!

We finally have a season premiere date for LOST - Tuesday, February 2. I read the announcement over here on Brian's blog called Lost... and Gone Forever. If you are a LOST fan, make sure to check it out, he posts fab recaps after each show with analysis. You all know this is the last season of LOST, right? So sad about that... I love this show!

Land O' Lakes is donating money to food shelves in Minnesota, and you can help too. Visit their Foundation web site and click the button on the top right that says "You Click, We Donate." With each click, they are donating $1 to the food shelves. One click per day. Please go do it now!

Finally, I haven't even started looking online yet for holiday photo cards. Before I had children, my cards would have already been addressed and ready to go out in the mail the day after Thanksgiving. This year my family will be lucky to get something before Christmas is over! I'm sure I'll start with browsing my two faves Shutterfly and Winkflash. How are you doing with your cards and do you have any web sites to recommend? Please share!