It's always so great when children's toys are not only great toys (encouraging kids to create, learn and be imaginative), but also when they look so good you'd rather display it on a shelf in the living room than hide it at the bottom of the toy box. The Dream Car, designed by Mike Mak for Huzi, ...

Last week, Courtney and her family were visiting us in Amsterdam, and we had such a lovely time. Eight children, who have known each other all of their life, together in one house. You can imagine the amount of fun we all had! Ivy and Ava are one year apart, but these girls are the ...

Admittedly, I've spent the past year (blissfully) in a bit of a dark hole when it comes to discovering new toys. During our travels, our kids have gotten used to playing with what they can find around them -- sticks, stones, ropes, etc. And to be honest, apart from the girls missing their tutus and ...

It was Casper's birthday a few weeks ago, and sweet Annie from Brimful gave him the cutest present: these darling Pet Blocks by Cubelings, that are both building blocks and cute play characters. Casper is totally into blocks these days -- he loves stacking them and building all sorts of structures and houses, and then he ...

One of my favourite gift shops in Amsterdam is called Klevering, and it is conveniently located right across the street from our dentist. So every time we have 'survived' a dentist visit, I treat my kids (and myself!) to a little present from across the street -- a good excuse! At our last visit to ...

I popped into Eenymeeny yesterday to pick up a few craft/activity books for the kids (we have a 9-hour daytime flight on Friday!) and this Tortustick game was out on display. Marlow immediately sat down and started playing with it, and to my amazement she actually sat still for a good 45 seconds. : ) I ended ...

I grew up with Tinker Toys, but probably wouldn't have thought to introduce them to my younger children (yet). However, Joseph found them while I was rummaging through a box of items in storage, and I am so happy he did because this has quickly grown into one of our favourite activities! Tinker Toys can ...

We met the lovely Allie at our last ShopUp event in Brooklyn, NY and we fell head over heels in love with her beautiful toy shop Rose & Rex. The shop offers the most elegant toys, all carefully selected not only for their heirloom qualities and sustainable, toxic free materials, but mostly to promote imaginative play and encourage the development of skill building, ...

Esther and I met Jennifer Murphy from the Polka Dot Club last year in NYC and fell in love with her handmade bears. We both ordered one for our children and I have since bought a couple bears as special gifts for new babies. I am an enormous fan of her work - everything she ...

Last week we joined our friends on holiday in Cornwall. We rented a cute flat overlooking the sea and spent our days exploring different sections of the coastline and our evenings back at home, cooking dinner, playing games and watching the sun set over the sea. Our six kids played so well together, coming up with ...

Do you sometimes play memory games with your children? And do you win? I honestly have trouble beating my kids! I remember that as a child, I loved playing Memory with adults, because I could actually beat them. I wonder, is it true that children have a better (short term) memory than grown-ups? Anyway, I ...

kidO magnatabs is an ingenious toy that works with little metal beads which are permanently sealed in the plastic magnatab base and a magnetic pen that brings the beads to the surface once you draw over the base. The geometric creations simply erase with your finger once you're done. It's incredibly simple, but it's the kind of ...