few things are as special to kids as something with their very own name on it. i can tell you, as a kid whose name wasn't often found on magnets sold at various rest stops and souvenir stands, it's a nice feeling to have something personalized just for you.
i love
olliegraphic because they take it even a step further and allow you to create a picture that looks like your special little recipient. the innocence of children (
at least the really young ones) makes it so they don't understand how very easy it is to order things personalized, so it feels somehow fortuitous and amazing that they should end up with a plate chart with their name and likeness.
they make melamine plates and bowls, growth charts, magnets, pocket mirrors, art prints and more that would be such adorable additions to the life of a cute little kid.
SPECIAL NOTE: the ordering deadline for the plates and bowls was november 30th for christmas delivery, but the other products are still available even if you order them now. and bookmark the page for birthdays or late breaking holiday gifts!
i also love
kidlandia's personalized puzzles which use a child's name and specific text with people, places and things from their life to create a whole world. they also make fine art prints, growth charts, placemats and more.
if you find yourself at ikea, first of all i hope you're okay...it can be a bit crazed this time of year...and second of all, you MUST, and i repeat MUST get yourself a
produkt milk frother. thank me later.
but also be sure to go through to the kids' section for these adorable finds and many more you'll see and fall in love with - first cause they're cute, and then cause they're cheap. i love the
leka building blocks which, at $4.99 for the set of four could be a
tiny treasure in itself. i love how they're soft, colorful and cute - a perfect trifecta for kids' gifts.
and the
fabler bed canopy is whimsical and retro-circusy in a fairy tale kind of way. which is to say i deeply love it. i have wonderful visions of a child reading a cozy story underneath this canopy. or of me reading a cozy story underneath this canopy. whichev.
along similar lines but with even more "privacy," we also have the
home sweet play home from land of nod in several color choices and with the option of a coordinating floor cushion. well excuuuuuse me.
my favorite toy store options for kids are
color me a song, the name of which says it all, but here's a little more: "the faster you scribble, the faster the song."
and the
aquadoodle, which has been around for a couple years but is fabulously unmessy but still fostering of creativity.
NOTE: most boxed editions of this come with only one pen, which for multiple-child households could be problematic. luckily, they sell
additional pens and brushes separately.
for most kids, you can't beat the thrill of driving. i can remember go-carts being my favorite activity at day camp and the thrill of going to
safety town on a third grade class trip because WE COULD DRIVE!! more recently, i walked by safety town and i'll say this - "town" is a strong word - it was a miniature sidewalk with 2 foot tall stop signs through which we drove manual carts, but who cared? WE COULD DRIVE!
so with that in mind, i'm a little obsessed with the
radio flyer classic bumper car, because it's just that - classic. i love that it doesn't look like the cars of today because it's a visual throwback to the innocence of children and a simpler time...and cheaper gas prices. and at $49, it doesn't break the bank so you can actually pay for all that gas you need to drive around and do your shopping.
and sometimes you just want a gift for its general cuteness factor, like these
monkey and lion mittens. totally adorbs.
and
pillow pets are undeniably cute as well, don't you think? i have two anecdotes about them that make me smile...first, one of rosie o'donnell's little boys (
or her partner's, can't remember), proudly said "you know how they say on the commerical that over a million pillow pets have been sold? well now every time you hear that, remember that it's a million and one because i have one now." and then there was the thirty year old woman on the bus the other day saying how they're impossibly soft and how she'd love to have one...she quickly remembered to add on "if i were a little kid" but i was on to her, and i don't blame her.
whatever the kids on your list get to open, i really think it's the holiday traditions and the lessons about generosity, hope and love that mean the most...whether they realize it yet or not.
fabler crib image,
all other images from linked sites
few things are as special to kids as something with their very own name on it. i can tell you, as a kid whose name wasn't often found on magnets sold at various rest stops and souvenir stands, it's a nice feeling to have something personalized just for you.
they make melamine plates and bowls, growth charts, magnets, pocket mirrors, art prints and more that would be such adorable additions to the life of a cute little kid.
i also love kidlandia's personalized puzzles which use a child's name and specific text with people, places and things from their life to create a whole world. they also make fine art prints, growth charts, placemats and more.
if you find yourself at ikea, first of all i hope you're okay...it can be a bit crazed this time of year...and second of all, you MUST, and i repeat MUST get yourself a produkt milk frother. thank me later.
and the fabler bed canopy is whimsical and retro-circusy in a fairy tale kind of way. which is to say i deeply love it. i have wonderful visions of a child reading a cozy story underneath this canopy. or of me reading a cozy story underneath this canopy. whichev.
and the aquadoodle, which has been around for a couple years but is fabulously unmessy but still fostering of creativity. 
for most kids, you can't beat the thrill of driving. i can remember go-carts being my favorite activity at day camp and the thrill of going to safety town on a third grade class trip because WE COULD DRIVE!! more recently, i walked by safety town and i'll say this - "town" is a strong word - it was a miniature sidewalk with 2 foot tall stop signs through which we drove manual carts, but who cared? WE COULD DRIVE!
so with that in mind, i'm a little obsessed with the radio flyer classic bumper car, because it's just that - classic. i love that it doesn't look like the cars of today because it's a visual throwback to the innocence of children and a simpler time...and cheaper gas prices. and at $49, it doesn't break the bank so you can actually pay for all that gas you need to drive around and do your shopping.
and pillow pets are undeniably cute as well, don't you think? i have two anecdotes about them that make me smile...first, one of rosie o'donnell's little boys (or her partner's, can't remember), proudly said "you know how they say on the commerical that over a million pillow pets have been sold? well now every time you hear that, remember that it's a million and one because i have one now." and then there was the thirty year old woman on the bus the other day saying how they're impossibly soft and how she'd love to have one...she quickly remembered to add on "if i were a little kid" but i was on to her, and i don't blame her. 
with baby gifts, it's always hard to decide (at least for me) which route to go - sweet and cute or functional? and then i discovered aden + anais's muslin swaddles, which are both. these impossibly soft and cozy blankets are so lightweight and natural feeling that they stopped me dead in my tracks when i was visiting with a new mommy and her baby last summer. add to that adorable prints and color schemes and before you know it, you want one of each set. for you! forget the baby!
these come in four-packs, two-packs and singles and in addition to the classic collection, they also have an organic collection, a bamboo collection, and a cozy collection, which is double layers of muslin for the colder months.
i recently told a mom-to-be about these, and when i saw her after the baby was born, she told me she has 24 of them and that she and her husband constantly marvel at their softness and comfort. DONE.
buy buy baby carries slightly different variations on the sets of four for less than the aden+anais webiste, so they're worth checking out, though i think the website itself has the cutest prints.
since the baby shower i threw a few weeks ago, i've had baby gifts on the brain, and one of my all-time favorites comes to mind. it's called the 100 good wishes quilt from red envelope and it's one of the nicest baby gifts i've found. it's inspired by a chinese tradition and is meant to symbolize the energy, good fortune and loving wishes of the gift givers. isn't that lovely?
silk-screened in a cozy font onto soft quilts in pink or blue are all the wishes you'd bestow on any life, at any age (i love that they include "uniqueness!") and it can be customized with the baby's name and birthdate as well. i adore this idea...isn't it sweet?
all photos from red envelope 
well, as promised, i wanted to share the pictures from the work baby shower i planned. the shower was yesterday, and it was a big success. the theme was chocolate, since the mommy and daddy to be refer to the baby as "baby chocolat."
of course, a conference room always looks like a conference room, but i tried to pay close attention to the details in my control and hope the officey vibe would disappear (or that the chocolate fumes would make people hallucinate and not see the glaringly officey things about the room). i think at first, when i told my planning crew i wanted to cover the built-in bookshelves with ivory tablecloths, they thought i was a little nutty, but it worked and i think helped the room to feel more festive and less like a meeting.
because we weren't going overboard with the catering (4pm parties always result in lots of leftovers), we made sure everything was chocolatey. in keeping with the chocolate theme, we had a mini candy bar in pink takeout containers and sprinkled the table with chocolate chips. right before everyone arrived, we poured cups of chocolate milk and regular milk, replete with hot pink straws all tilting to the same side. i find that details like that take only seconds, but make a huge difference with how it all looks.
as discussed, we did my favorite baby thing of all-time, the clothesline, full of clothes in pinks, greens, orange and yellow -- fun and cute, but not too girly (the mom-to-be isn't into overly girly things). these pictures look depressingly conference room-esque, but it looked better in person and you can see how random bookshelves would have been a real buzz kill behind the clothesline. i think the balloons loose on the ceiling helped to create a festive feel as well.
and we started a little library for baby chocolat with some of the classics.
now all that's left to do is meet baby chocolat!
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