The Kindle Paperwhite looks awesome, has an unbelievable battery life, and is reasonably priced at $119 from Amazon. Some of its coolest features are:

• Patented built-in light evenly illuminates the screen
• Paperwhite has 62% more pixels for unsurpassed resolution
• New fonts – 6 font styles, 8 adjustable sizes
• 8-week battery life, even with the light on!
• Holds up to 1,100 books – take your library wherever you go
• 25% better contrast
• Even in bright sunlight, Paperwhite delivers clear, crisp text and images with no glare

My daughter has the original Kindle and we haven’t forked out the money for the Paperwhite … but the back lit display would be a great feature. We are able to check out library books for the Kindle from our local public library, and have only purchased a handful of books for the Kindle… great money saving tip!

Don’t worry, there’s still time to order things and even get free shipping on thousands of great gifts. Amazon makes it almost too easy to shop for Christmas! For those of you who have the time and energy to deal with the mall, or better yet support locally owned stores, go for it! A lot of the rest of us rely on the ease of internet shopping to keep our holidays fun rather than stressful. Amazon is running a free one day shipping promotion for hundreds of items, but their Free Super Saver Shipping will work through December 18, 2012 with delivery by December 24th.

Shop Amazon – FREE One-Day Shipping on Select Products

If you need a great inexpensive gift for a kid, coworker or friend, you might consider the Imperial Toy Zooma Splat X Smack Shot. This slingshot type toy is inexpensive ($13 and Free Super Saver Shipping from Amazon. The slingshot toy has a target locator and 7 little stretchy shooters that look like they will be a bit hit for kids from age 5-95. I am going to surprise my nephews with these cool little toys for Christmas and think it will provide a lot of hours of good indoor fun when it is too cold and dark out to play.

The toy itself is a bit larger than I originally anticipated… to see a bit more about these cool fun toys, watch this video.

Any other cool toys that fit a broad range of ages that you suggest??

As a parent of 3 active kids (ranging in age from 2-10), I am always searching for gift ideas that get them outside and expending their bundled energy. On the top of my list for them this year is a sturdy and super bouncy pogo stick. After researching, I have decided on the Flybar Foam Master Pogo Stick (Silver/Blue). It gets good reviews on Amazon, but I have found the price fluctuates on Amazon from around $40-$48 with free shipping. I like this particular pogo stick for older kids (recommended age is 9+) because it has a weight range of 80-160 pounds so will stay bouncy for years to come. A cheaper pogo stick we got at Target for $20 has held up pretty well, but the internal spring must be pretty worn out because it doesn’t give the fun bounce that it once did. Like wearing out a puppy, a pogo stick can be a great go-to outdoor toy to get overly active kids to release their energy and be settled enough to keep from bouncing off the walls!
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Kids lunchbox choices are just getting better and better. I don’t have the resources to buy all the new lunch box gear out there, but I wish I did! The latest kids lunchbox kit I discovered on the Walmart website: Smart Planet Collapsible Eco Lunch Box. Features of these colorful silicone lunchboxes include:

• Microwave and dishwasher-safe
• Includes a reusable spork utensil that stores in the lid
• Expand to double the size, push down to collapse and store at half the size

Has 3 inside compartments
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The Klip It Lunch Cube caught my eye the other day while browsing lunchbox gear at our local EarthFare. These colorful cubes contain three lunch compartments: a larger sandwich size compartment that would also work well for pasta salad or other main lunchbox dishes, and 2 smaller compartments great for lunchbox sides. The Klip It lunchbox container is sized so that it would fit well into most insulated lunchboxes.
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If you have a picky eater in your family, you probably worry (like me) about them getting enough nutrition. My son is terrible about liking vegetables, so I overcompensate by having him eat a lot of different fruits, which he enjoys.  Peeled clementine oranges are a favorite lunchbox fruit, but having variety in a kids lunch box is what makes eating it fun and nutritious at the same time.

At home, we rely a lot on making fun scenes out of cut up fruit. From simple smiley faces made of bananas, dried blueberries, and a strawberry for a nose (see picture) to more imaginative scenes that I allow the kids to create on their own, there are hundreds of ways to enjoy creating edible art with fruit. I have found that the fruit intake of my kids increases dramatically when I urge them to “eat the smile” or finish the fruit so we can make a new smiley face.

Granted, you can’t send elaborate fruit scenes in the school lunchbox without them getting rearranged by lunchtime at school, so one fun way to send fruit in the lunchbox is by making fruit kabobs.  Bananas and apples turn brown in lunchboxes after they sit awhile, but other fruits work great and are vibrant and beautiful after several hours, especially if you use an insulated lunchbox. Melons, strawberries, blueberries, and kiwi all do well on fruit kabobs, and will put a smile on your kids faces when they open up their lunchboxes at school. You can also send yogurt to dip the fruit in, as another trick that can make them eat more fruit in their lunchbox.