Whether you only watch the occasional episode of Jeopardy or you’ve got the Game Show Network programmed on your remote, there’s just something exciting about pressing your luck or spinning that wheel.

So come on down! We want you to tell us your favorite game show memories past or present - whether they involve you, a child with an obsession, or anyone you know. Were you an actual contestant, an audience member, or just an armchair fan?

Speaking of armchairs, we’ve teamed up with Oliebollen.com to give you a chance to win an Arm Chair Holiday Shopping Sweep. Shop like a mad woman on the old game show Supermarket Sweep, but do it from the comfort of home!

We’ll draw the name of one lucky blogger who will have just 12 hours to load up their cart with any five different in-stock items at Oliebollen.com! We’ll post the winner’s name (and send an email too) at noon EST on Friday, November 28, and they’ll have until 11:59pm EST to place their order!*

So start mapping your course through the bountiful Oliebollen.com aisles now and be ready to score big when your name is announced!

And even if you aren’t that lucky blogger, Oliebollen.com has another uber cool Arm Chair Holiday Shopping Sweep planned that you and your readers have got to check out:

Each day, from November 28 through December 1, Oliebollen.com will hide 5 totally FREE items around their site. Find them and scoop them up along with at least one other paid item, and those freebies will be yours (while supplies last). Surprise door-buster deals will be sprinkled here and there to add to the fun!

Here’s how to participate:

Write a post on your blog about the game shows you remember well or the ones you still watch. Post anytime this weekend - Today, November 21 to Sunday, November 23 and include links to:

1) http://www.oliebollen.com/holidaysweep08.html
2) http://blog.parentbloggers.com.

Make sure to send your blog post link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and we’ll round them right here - so give your post a creative title!

What can you win?

The fabulous five-item, twelve-hour Arm Chair Holiday Shopping Sweep at Oliebollen.com, of course!

And don’t forget to participate in the all-weekend-long Arm Chair Holiday Shopping Sweep - get familiar with the virtual aisles of Oliebollen.com and get your readers ready to scoop up those freebies!

Check out all the posts below!
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An Insufferable Dork of the Highest Order

Anyone Else Remember Press Your Luck?

Back in Two and Two…

Barker Baby

Ceramic Dalmations, Knee-Hi Exposure on the Boob Tube

Come On Down!

Four Hundred!

Friend or Foe?

Game Show Mania

I Hang With Cool Kids

I’ll Take Blog Blasts for a Thousand, Alex

Making Whoopee

Me and Bob Barker - We Go Way Back

No Whammy, Baby!

Plinko Pleasure

Spin That Wheel!

What’s Your Favorite Game Show?

–

*In-stock items only, no drop ships or special order items allowed. Maximum sweep retail value $400.

A word of caution? Perusing the pages of Amazing Baby, may cause unexpected physical reactions in women (“This book could make even a childless menopausal woman’s ovaries ache.”) as well as some emotional ones. (“When I read Amazing Baby I want to have another baby and I already have five little ones.”)

Kids are not immune to the book’s charms either! Parents may also have “to move Amazing Baby by Desmond Morris to higher shelves” within the home. Case in point? “My kids cannot stop looking at the pictures and cooing, how cute, how cute, was I this cute mommy when I was little?”

Men, women and children are finding that the hardcover, published by Firefly Books, “pulls you in with that absolutely adorable baby on the cover and then tricks you into learning.” But then again, that’s not a bad thing: “My favorite way to learn: important facts next to little chubby cheeks and butts.”

What kind of book could inspire such reactions? One that “takes a look at the incredible biological process of infancy, from gestation to two years old. All topics of infancy are covered, including physical development, bonding and attachment, emotional development, learning, play, and eating.”

Trust our reviewers. Once you open the book? You may find that time progresses at a rapid pace. “it’s even got me–a non-baby person by all accounts–pouring over the pages.”

Amazing Baby’s biggest draw is the visual feast of photographs. There are lots of “close-ups, action shots, pensive shots, amazing baby shots” that celebrate characteristics of babyhood like “clear, smooth baby skin and those bright baby eyes and wide gummy grins.”

But this book isn’t just a showcase of pretty faces. When Morris wrote this book he packed it with facinating facts. Yet he was careful to keep his reader’s lifestyles in mind: “The book has 9 chapters that are further broken down into one or two page sections that make the book easy to read in tiny time segments. Any parent knows that tiny time segments are often the only time we have for reading.”

Several reviewers throughout the campaign remarked on the author’s tone. “It’s matter-of-fact when discussing anatomical and physiological concepts, and discoveries based on scientific studies.  But it inspires wonderment in the sections on what babies and toddlers can do, and what parents can do to encourage and facilitate development. A second blogger mentioned these same aspects also sharing that she found parts of the tome very moving. “The book is written in a respectful, almost reverent, tone that celebrates the bond between mother and baby. I found myself actually tearing up at times while reading about the (and so the book is aptly named).”

You know how many books on child development can feel all “doom and gloom” with a few hidden agendas thrown in for good measure? Not this one! “It’s not at all preachy or self-righteous or opinionated - it’s “hey, check this out!” or “give this a try!”  Unlike parenting books that advocate the “right” and “wrong” things to do, Amazing Baby is amazing in both its objectivity and its positivity.”

But in addition to the heart-melting photos, there are “velum covered pages that overlay the anatomical inner workings of the fat little babies make me happy as did the ‘A Baby’s Appearance [pg 44-45]‘ section that shows how a baby’s appearance changes as it grows.” Quite a few reviewers were fascinated by the overlays “which show complex internal structures, such as the newborn skull, eye anatomy or brain lobes.”

A lot of our bloggers like to pass along previously reviewed products to their readers. But many have deemed this book a keeper. “I feel like I probably ought to give the book away, since I’m not pregnant (although I do have a child who fits in the category of under two-years-old), but I can’t part with it,” writes one blogger. “Plus, someday there may be another baby in my life who reminds me not to take the amazing development of life for granted.”

Thinking of buying the book? You can also find Amazing Baby on Amazon.

[You're going to want to read this post. All the way to the bottom. Trust us.]

How many of you have your holiday cards already? Raise your hands.

Well, that’s not too surprising. Because as one of our bloggers put it, “I’m just far too lazy to go to the store, pick out a box or two of generic holiday cards, write a pithy letter to accompany them, address them and take them to the post office.” She wasn’t the only one, either. Several of the lucky recipients of cards from Minted.com routinely send cards from Big Lots and the like - if they manage to send them at all.

So it’s no wonder they were awed by the loveliness of Minted.com - both the selection of cards and design options, and the finished products themselves. As one blogger described, Minted is an “online stationery designer known for their artistry, exquisite printing and superb papers.”

The bloggers each selected a set of 25 cards and were free to customize the design as they chose. One blogger enthused: “The possibilities are endless with these cards. If you can dream it, the folks at Minted can make it happen.” Choose flat notes or folded notes, and incorporate the printing format that suits your needs best: “This “yearline” design fit my needs beautifully - as I could write a brief, humorous summary for each of the four pictures…If you prefer the traditional Christmas letter, this format is also offered.”

But the customization doesn’t end there, and that’s where the personalized attention really begins: “My card required the Minted designer to do quite a bit of tweaking; changing the “circle” pictures to “squares” and changing the fonts. She presented me with two versions to pick from. My choice was made, and final edits were sent back. The process was effortless, easy, and fast.” And even if you think you might not need to see a proof, you might want to anyway. One blogger was glad to have a chance to check out her proof: “We used that opportunity to swap out the image with something with more contrast because our photo looked washed out in the card.”

Thanks to the vast range of options, each creation really is one of a kind. This blogger commented: “That’s what I loved most about the ordering process. There were so many opportunities for customization, that I really felt at the end of the “design process”, that this card was mine and unique.”

Minted.com is a new company, and the site is new too, so inevitably a few glitches arose: “I had a lot of page freezing and previewing different designs was a bit tedious because we had to keep scrolling back down the page every time we closed the pop-up windows.” But another blogger noted: “Navigating the site was exceptionally easy and I was impressed that my session didn’t once time-out…no matter how many times I clicked forward and back while looking at designs multiple times.”

What did the bloggers think of the cards when they arrived? “The card itself turned out even better than I hoped. The colors are bright and cheerful and vivid…these are cards that I am going to be very proud to send out to my friends and family,” this blogger wrote. “I promise you, I will be sending these out this year. I can’t wait to put the stamps on them, in fact!”

The paper itself naturally softens the photos, so another blogger cautioned readers to make sure they sent high-resolution photos: “The photo cards I’m accustomed to seeing are printed on photo paper, while Minted’s cards are on a nice, sturdy card stock.”

This blogger was thrilled not only with her cards - “The cards themselves are absolutely gorgeous. They are sturdy, high-end, and made from 100% post-consumer waste.” - but with the address labels she treated herself to as well: “…frequently such things are so shiny that one cannot use pen without creating a smudgy situation…I am pleased to report that the address labels I received from minted.com have a tiny bit of sheen to them - indicating quality and style - but are primarily matte, and can handle my favorite rather wet black pen. Although it required a bit of drying time, within a few minutes I could wipe my hand across it with no smudge.”

Two bloggers did run into trouble with their orders, but both happily reported that the mistakes were resolved, most definitely to their satisfaction.

The first found that the cards she received were the flat style, vice the folded style she’d ordered: “I could have lived with the flat, but they not only reprinted them but sent them 2-day shipping. Everybody makes mistakes, but it is rare you find a company that is so responsive, with such great customer service.”

The second blogger was the unfortunate victim of a transitional mix-up that resulted in an unusually long delay between placing her order and receiving her cards. As the Minted.com Merchandising Manager personally explained to her:

“We recently switched to a printer who can accommodate printing on thicker (130lb.), eco-friendly paper. Unfortunately the day we posted your order to press was the day we switched to a new system. It seems that your order didn’t post correctly, and neither [Minted] nor the printer realized that it wasn’t placed in the printing queue.”

She’d been so impressed by Minted - “the usability of the site and the beauty of the designs were such a dream” - that even after such an “oops”, the responsiveness of the company just knocked her socks off: “Even though I wasn’t a paying customer, [the Merchandising Manager] still offered to give me more cards or customized address labels on Minted’s dime…Way to save the day, Minted - you can bet I’ll be back next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and…”

It looks like Minted has earned the admiration and loyalty of not only the bloggers whose orders went perfectly smoothly from start to finish, but also the bloggers who ran into a snag or two. Now that’s the sort of company we love, especially when they turn out a “super quality, gorgeous finished product that would impress the pants off people.”

More Minted.com reviews coming up! But if you’re already convinced that you’d like to check out Minted for yourself, hop on over to Krississippi.com - the lovely Krissi is giving away what Minted offered up to her: 100 customized cards! But hurry up - she’s got a deadline of November 25. Gotta beat the holiday rush, you know!

Wed 11/19 - Hot Mom Reviews
Thurs 11/20 - Rookie Moms
Fri 11/21 - The Chunky Purse
Mon 11/24 - Mom to the Screaming Masses
Tues 11/25 - mothergoosemouse
Wed 11/26 - Mother Bumper
Mon 12/1 - Binkytown
Tues 12/2 - Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting
Wed 12/3 - Round-Up Review on PBN

New parents are faced with a long, long to-do list whether their newborn baby is the first or the fifth, and one of the biggest to-do’s is choosing and sending birth announcements. It’s a task that should be fun and easy, and as six of our bloggers discovered, with Magnet Street Baby it really is!

While Magnet Street offers a wide range of stationery products, their magnetic birth announcements were the product that our bloggers got to check out. A few of them admitted that at first, they were skeptical. But across the board, they were thoroughly impressed with the results. As one mother put it, “This is one of the coolest ideas I’ve seen to announce a new baby and I’m hoping it catches on.”

The bloggers were all pleased by the selection and design process. Many of them requested special modifications or font and color substitutions, and the instructions were carried out without a hitch. One mother commented, “I asked if they would add the “proud big brothers” line under the “proud parents”. They were happy to customize it however I wanted. So, not only a great product, but great customer service as well…and that goes a long way!” Another enjoyed herself so much that she created two entire designs: “I had a ton of fun designing the announcement and I was able to personalize my colors and text. It was really easy to do, I mean really easy! I actually made two different designs online and then had a tough time choosing which to get.”

A father, who does a bit of graphic design himself, was also quite happy: “The ordering process was quite simple. Most of the customizations were done in a standard web form, and there is a space for notes to the designer for more customization…Since I have some experience with graphics, I knew how to communicate the desired shade of green using hex codes, but I’m sure if I had just said “mint green” the designer and I would have sorted out the appropriate shade quickly.” He went on to sum up his positive experience: “The entire process: ordering, customization, proof, shipping (I even got a UPS notification ahead of the delivery), and the final product were fantastic, and admittedly beyond my expectations.”

One mother pointed out how helpful the proof process is for new parents: “Even after you finalize your own creation, the designers will look it over and email you a proof so you can give the final blessing. Such a great service to offer a new (and likely sleep-deprived who could easily misspell their own name at this point) parent.”

Several of the bloggers posted scanned photos of their personal announcements, and one noted, “The scanned magnet doesn’t do the finished product justice.” A few commented that the longevity of the announcement is a definite plus - “I love how they will last longer on our friends and family’s refrigerators because it IS a magnet.” - and one mother noted that it’s a greener alternative to traditional paper announcements: “I think it’s a fantastic, and dare I say, eco-friendly concept that’s not too hard on the wallet. Plus, I love bullying my way onto someone’s refrigerator.”

And not only can they go on the fridge, they go on any magnetized surface, and they’re hardy! “I have a new way to brighten up my kitchen (and the file cabinet above my desk) without having to worry about a paper or light-weight announcement peeling up at the corners or getting smudged by little hands. These babies are built to last!”

This mother summed up her Magnet Street Baby experience quite succinctly:

“I would have paid for these announcements and been happy to do it.

Great quality.

Great design.

Great customer service.

Great product.”

Check out Magnet Street for baby announcements or any other stationery needs!

Want the fun of a pet without the hassle of feeding, brushing, and scooping poop? The Littlest Pet Shop is the place to be! That is, if you’ve got a Nintendo Wii or DS.

These doe-eyed pets are so darned cute that even we adults can’t resist them. Name them, dress them up, and play all sorts of games with your stable of pets that don’t shed or require vet appointments.

Fifteen of our parent bloggers who have either a Wii or DS at home received a copy of the Littlest Pet Shop to play with their kids, and now they’ll let us know just how much they enjoyed it. We mean, how much their kids enjoyed it. Right?

Plus, we’ve got a Boogie SuperStar and Littlest Pet Shop Blog Blast coming up on Friday, 12/5! Details soon!

Tuesday, 11/18 - Chefdruck Reviews (DS)
Wednesday, 11/19 - Lipstick to Crayons (Wii)
Thursday, 11/20 - Little Bird Reviews (DS), White Trash Mom (Wii)
Friday, 11/21 - mothergoosemouse (DS), Slackermama (Wii)
Monday, 11/24 - Karianna (DS), MomReviews (Wii)
Tuesday, 11/25 - Dana Reviews (DS), Lather Rinse Repeat (Wii)
Wednesday, 11/26 - Radioactive Reviews (DS), Midwestern Mommy (Wii), and Mid-Campaign Post on PBN
Monday, 12/1 - Slouching Mom (DS), This Full House (DS)
Tuesday, 12/2 - Mom to the Screaming Masses (DS), Modern Mamma Marvels (Wii)
Wednesday, 12/3 - Mother Bumper (DS), Three Kid Circus (Wii)
Thursday, 12/4 - Mother May I (both DS and Wii)
Friday, 12/5 - Round-Up Review and Blog Blast on PBN

We introduced several of our Wii-owner parent bloggers to Boogie last year, and it was a roaring success. Even those of us who’d never sing karaoke at a bar - no matter how many cocktails we’d consumed - thought Boogie was a ton of fun. Not just for us adults, but for the whole family.

Now Electronic Arts is back with an updated version of Boogie - Boogie SuperStar! There’s still plenty of singing and dancing, but Boogie SuperStar lets you uniquely customize your character into any alter-ego you choose. Plus, there’s a ton of new cool new tracks, multi-player games for up to four people at once, and the ultimate competition - the Boogie Star Show!

Whether we’re playing with our spouse or another couple, or even just entertaining our kids with crazy dance moves and off-key singing (”That was a little pitchy, dawg”), Boogie SuperStar is a great way to get the party started - or keep it going!

Ten of our Wii-owner parent bloggers received a copy of Boogie SuperStar to check out, and now they’ll report back on how they and their families enjoyed it. Check out their reviews - you might catch a few of them on video!

Plus, we’ve got a Boogie SuperStar and Littlest Pet Shop Blog Blast coming up on Friday, 12/5! Details soon!

Wednesday, 11/19 - Modern Mamma Marvels
Thursday, 11/20 - Hot Mom Reviews
Friday, 11/21 - My Five Little Monkeys, Suburban Obsessions
Monday, 11/24 - SusieJ, Three Kid Circus
Tuesday, 11/25 - Mommy’s Must Haves
Wednesday, 11/26 - The Silent I Speaks and Mid-Campaign Post on PBN
Monday, 12/1 - Just Not Martha, Slackermama
Tuesday, 12/2 - Esmon
Wednesday, 12/3 - My Readable Feast, White Trash Mom
Thursday, 12/4 - Marketing Mommy, This Full House
Friday, 12/5 - Round-Up Review and Blog Blast on PBN

With the toy recalls of last year still fresh in our minds and many of us watching our wallets this holiday season, a handmade holiday just might be the way to go. There’s something heartwarming for both kids and adults alike about giving and receiving a handmade gift.

So tell us about (and show us some pics!) your handmade gifts - the ones you gave, the ones you received, and the ones that you helped your kids make for teachers and grandparents. Which ones did you love, and which ones were destined to reappear at a future white elephant party?

This week, we’ve teamed up with Klutz, creators of activity books and other great stuff for kids ages 3 to 103. With award-winning and bestselling how-to-books, like Window Art, Paper Fashions Fancy and the Encyclopedia of Immaturity, there’s something for everybody!

Check out this special offer from Klutz - free shipping and a free copy of the award-winning Activity Book (a $14.95 value) when you order $50+ via this link. Just click it! And feel free to share it with your readers too - the more, the merrier!

Here’s how to participate:

Write a post on your blog about the handmade gifts you and your kids have given or received. Post anytime this weekend - Today, November 14 to Sunday, November 16 and include links to:

1) http://klutz.com/actpb
2) http://blog.parentbloggers.com.

Make sure to send your blog post link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and we’ll round them right here - so give your post a creative title!

What can you win?

We’ve got three prizes to award at random:

Grand prize - Library of 15 Klutz books ($230 value, pictured above)
First prize - $100 gift certificate to klutz.com
Second prize - $50 gift certificate to klutz.com

Special bonus: The first 10 bloggers to send in their post links will each receive a Klutz Activity book!

NO PRE-SCHEDULED POSTS. You’ve got to publish your post, copy and paste your permalink, and email it to us - anytime after 12:01am ET on Friday, November 14. Placement in the first 10 bloggers will be based on the order in which we receive your emails, not the date/time stamp on your posts.

Check out all the posts:

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A Family History on Tree Branches

A Handmade Charitable Christmas

A Semi-Homemade Christmas

Alcohol Comes Better Disguised

All Hail the Queen of Well Chosen Cheap Gifts!

A Scarf, a Ball, a Doll Blanket

A Very Granola Holiday

Bake It Yourself; I’ll Can It and Wrap It

Best Homemade Gift Ever: Rice Sock

Craft Time with Submommy

Crafty Christmas Cool

Crafty Courtney

DIY Holiday Gifts

Easy Ornaments to Make

The Elf on the Sled

From Hand to Home

Gifts for Teachers

Gifts to My PANK

Glazed Gifts

Good Enough for Grandma and Grandpa

Handmade for the Holidays

Handmade Holiday

Handmade with Love

Homemade Gifts

Homemade in Espana!

Homemade with Love

I’m the Gingerbread Man

It’s That Time of Year Again…

It’s the Thought That Counts

Lofty Ideas: Handmade Gifts

Lovin’ the Homemade Gifts

Make a “Masterpiece” for Christmas

Marshmallow Kits for the Teachers

Playing With String

Repurposing

Sweater Sweating

This Handmade Life

Traditions of JoyFULL Giving

Tutus for You

The Year of the Homemade Gift!
–

Publicize!

Bookmark this on Delicious

Most heartfelt thanks to everyone who posted adorable pictures of their precious children for our Halloween photo contest sponsored by Blurb. As Casey put it, “We should have little kids in costumes ALL. THE. TIME.”

If you haven’t clicked through to admire all of the photos, go do it. Especially if you’re having a rough day and need some smiles. These pictures will absolutely do the trick.

There’s a good reason why it took so long to choose winners - these categories, as well as the grand prize and runner-up, were hotly contested. But after much deliberation, here are our fabulous winners!

Most Creative - Jewelry Box, by Chutes and Ladders

Best Handmade - Australian Spotted Jellyfish Eating a Naked Sole, by The Queen of Shake-Shake

Funniest - The Nursery Droogs (Alex DeLarge, A Clockwork Orange), by Her Bad Mother

Cutest Costume, age 3 and up - Whimsical Witch, by Little Princess Chronicles

Cutest Costume, age 2 and under - The Busy Octopus, by Alice’s Adventures Underground

Best Photo - The Most Adorable Dog, by Punk Rock Parents

Grand Prize Runner-Up - My Little Giraffe, by The Dana Files

Grand Prize Winner - The Mummy, by On Three, Kids

A HUGE thank you to our celebrity judges, Tracey of Mother May I and Shutter Sisters, Casey of Moosh in Indy, and Aimee of Greeblemonkey. If you’ve spent any time at all on these ladies’ blogs, you know that they know good photography (and have adorable kiddos themselves).

And once again, thank you to everyone who shared their photos and their gorgeous children with us!

——————————

Thanks also to everyone who participated in the Butterball Blog Blast last weekend! Lots of cautionary tales, but lots of great inspiration too. By the way, we’re still waiting on recipes from a few of you. Pony up, folks.

The lucky (because she was randomly drawn, courtesy of random.org) winner of the $150 VISA gift card and all the roasting essentials is Composter Mom with her hilarious tale, The Fabled Fairies of Thanksgiving. Don’t we all wish we had some magical help all year long?

——

Finally, thank you to our new subscribers who joined up in the month of October! Three lucky (again with the random.org) winners will each receive a copy of The White Trash Mom Handbook, so that they might learn to cleverly avoid PTA meetings and bake sales.

For the month of November, we’ve got another great sign-up incentive - two $25 gift certificates to Posh Peacock. Splurge on some stationery for yourself, or get some as a holiday gift for your hard-to-please mother-in-law. She’ll be impressed, trust us.

When you think about an infant’s development and how fast they grow? You realize babies ARE pretty amazing. Desmond Morris thinks so too. In fact, he’s created a book devoted to demystifying babyhood behavior and breakthroughs. Thus far, all of our reviewers have been going “ga-ga” over his recent endeavor, Amazing Baby.

“Hands down the BEST parenting, pregnancy, developmental book I have ever come across.” explains one reviewer. While another reports, “Amazing Baby is an extraordinary book, so rich and full and satisfying you could lose yourself in it for hours.”

Amazing Baby, published by Firefly Books, takes the reader on a “journey that outlines the many stages and milestones babies reach during their first twenty-four months of life. Every inch of the newborn body is detailed, from the skeleton to the defense system, each type of growth and development noted. Eating, sleeping, weaning, walking…it’s all here.”

Many books pertaining to an infant’s development, “focus on what can go wrong, what you can do wrong, and ways you can screw up your baby for life. It’s a little intimidating,” admits one blogger. A second reviewer touched on this issue as well describing Morris’ tone throughout the book as “positive” and adds, “This book, while addressing some tough issues like a defiant toddler, really doesn’t drive home any scare tactics. Instead we’re given positive tips and logical steps to work through issues. How refreshing. I could have used this book when BigBrother was born.”

Suffice to say, readers also complimented the writing style of the zoologist and scholar of human behavior. It’s “written in a narrative that struck me as gentle and soft, far from textbook”. Plus? “His descriptions are vivid and easy to understand, and all of the data he relays is interesting as well as informative.”

Speaking of said data, Morris makes the reader privy to fascinating facts: “Did you know that during the nine months between conception and birth, a baby’s weight increases a staggering 3,000 million times? Did you know that a female fetus seems to be more reluctant to leave the snug warmth of her mother’s womb than her male counterpart?” The author also addresses the baby’s emotional needs, taking “extra care in explaining the parent/baby bonding process as well as all the of the other factors that play into making your child’s development a success.” 

But what’s really captivated bloggers has been Morris’ stunning photographs – ones that “transform this from simply a parenting reference to a work of art.” Even two of our junior reviewers found the babies utterly adoreable. The mom of the young boys also adds, “Both of my kids attempted, on several occasions, to kiss the photos of the adorable babies. Luckily I had dry washcloths near by so that the book wasn’t ruined.”

And there’s lots of photos of different babies throughout: “Related to the photography is another of my favorite points: the diversity of the children represented in the photography. Gorgeous!”

Morris’ visual feast for the eyes, “is beautifully laid out, with full page photographs of babies filling every other page. Some pages have a thin overlay page over a picture, with the overlay showing drawings of the inside the baby’s body, and the photo underneath providing the outline of the body to place it in context.” This blogger, a nursing student, continues, adding: “I really loved these - there were ones showing the muscles of a baby, the parts of the brain and eye, the bones, and the lymphatic system.” She wasn’t the only one: “My favorite part is the overlays,” concurs another blogger. “ There are several full color tracing paper overlays that lay on top of a photograph showing, for example, how the skeleton of a baby looks.  It appeals to the science geek/nurse in me.”

Many of our bloggers give away already-reviewed products to their readers. But you may not find too many copies of Amazing Baby up for grabs! “I don’t think you have to be a parent just to enjoy Amazing Baby; after all, we all started out this way. This book would make a great gift, especially to a set of new parents – I was considering passing it on to a friend of mine who recently had her first child, but I must admit, I’m not sure that I want to part with it.” A second blogger also expressed this dilemma. She wrote, “In the end, I decided I’ll have to share it - I can’t think of a better way to introduce to my friend the way in which science and nature are about to work in perfect harmony to produce pure magic in her life.”

A reviewer, pregnant with her fourth child, poses an interesting idea: “it would be so nice if all pediatricians and OBGYN offices had it in their waiting rooms (it would have made the wait so much nicer during all of my prenatal visits!”

We’ve still got more bloggers eagerly awaiting to weigh in on the Amazing Baby. Stay tuned!

Today - Cool Zebras
Thursday, 11/13 - Taste Like Crazy
Friday, 11/14 - mothergoosemouse
Monday, 11/17 - Creature Bug
Tuesday, 11/18 - Ovolina
Wednesday, 11/19 - Mother May I

A campaign wrap-up post is scheduled for Thursday, November 20.

With the toy recalls of last year still fresh in our minds and many of us watching our wallets this holiday season, a handmade holiday just might be the way to go. There’s something heartwarming for both kids and adults alike about giving and receiving a handmade gift.

So tell us about (and show us some pics!) your handmade gifts - the ones you gave, the ones you received, and the ones that you helped your kids make for teachers and grandparents. Which ones did you love, and which ones were destined to reappear at a future white elephant party?

This week, we’ve teamed up with Klutz, creators of activity books and other great stuff for kids ages 3 to 103. With award-winning and bestselling how-to-books, like Window Art, Paper Fashions Fancy and the Encyclopedia of Immaturity, there’s something for everybody!

Check out this special offer from Klutz - free shipping and a free copy of the award-winning Activity Book (a $14.95 value) when you order $50+ via this link. Just click it! And feel free to share it with your readers too - the more, the merrier!

Here’s how to participate:

Write a post on your blog about the handmade gifts you and your kids have given or received. Post anytime this weekend - Friday, November 14 to Sunday, November 16 and include links to:

1) http://klutz.com/actpb
2) http://blog.parentbloggers.com.

Make sure to send your blog post link to parentbloggers@gmail.com and we’ll round them here at PBN - so give your post a creative title!

What can you win?

We’ve got three prizes to award at random:

Grand prize - Library of 15 Klutz books ($230 value, pictured above)
First prize - $100 gift certificate to klutz.com
Second prize - $50 gift certificate to klutz.com

Special bonus: The first 10 bloggers to send in their post links will each receive a Klutz Activity book!

NO PRE-SCHEDULED POSTS. You’ve got to publish your post, copy and paste your permalink, and email it to us - anytime after 12:01am ET on Friday, November 14. Placement in the first 10 bloggers will be based on the order in which we receive your emails, not the date/time stamp on your posts.

We’re looking forward to your posts!

Publicize!

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