Some of your kids might already be back in school so this is a late review, but if you’re looking for activities to fill the weekend you might want to take a look at KiwiCo’s Activity Crates. We ordered a bunch of them for the summer, to do on the days between the end of school and the start of her summer program. And here’s my honest opinion of them.

It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed kids clothes because I tend to mostly purchase from Hanna Andersson. But lately I’ve noticed that their quality has gone down though the prices are the same (if not higher). And PACT, my other go-to for high quality kids items, are no longer doing kids clothing. So I decided to check out Quince since they’ve really expanded their line of kids clothing in the last year.

It looks like my last kid’s review was almost a year ago so I’m due for one. But honestly nothing has really wowed us these days, except for the Yoto Mini Player, which we got a couple of months ago in anticipation for our two-week long RV trip. We knew this time around we would be driving for 4+ hours and wanted something for our kid to do in the car that doesn’t involve screens (we’re still holding out on screen time in the car). And this Yoto Mini Player was just the thing!

If you’re starting to think about gifts for the kids in your life (I know it’s a tad early), then might I recommend a couple toys that I were gifted by Hahaland and that Emi loves: The Montessori Toddler Busy Book and the Dinosaur Robot/Trucks Toy.

My purchase of this lunch box was influenced by this New York Times review that declared Planetbox the best lunch box for kids. But holy cow, those are some high price points for a lunch box. So is it worth it?

As I mentioned in my March recap, I was gifted a couple toys from new-to-me brand Hahaland. I accepted because I found their large variety of toys to have be both fun and educational. Here are the two items that I picked for Emi

As you can tell by the Christmas tree in the background, this review is a long time coming lol. So unfortunately this particular cookie set that I love love love is no longer available (hopefully they bring it back for Christmas this year). But luckily, commiskids have a couple of new sets out, including a dumpling kit for Lunar New Year that looks especially fun and useful (hello dumpling press—I could definitely use that)!

I don’t buy Emi too many items of clothing because 1) she only wears the same thing all the time and 2) I’m always expecting her to grow out of her clothing quick so I don’t want to buy too many items of the same size. But I have to say, some of my favorite items of clothing I have purchased for her were these two dresses from Hanna Andersson. I didn’t know too much about the brand, but they have a store in my local mall and the cute but simple cotton dresses caught my eye.

Since I wrote a Newborn Essentials post I thought I’d follow it up with an Infant to Toddler one. Of course each child is different so these might not all work for you, but I’ve learned about many of these things from other moms so I hope in general you’ll find them useful for your own infant-fast-growing-into-a-toddler!

As I mentioned in my What I Bought in September post, the one thing I bought for our Airstream trip was this Lotus Travel Crib from Guava. I had purchased a Pack N’ Play like this one for Emi when she was a newborn. And the bassinet function of the Pack N’ Play was useful for her first month of life and we used it a handful of times as an actual travel crib. But once she was able to stand we could no longer use the Pack N’ Play since it’s a tipping risk. So even though the Lotus Travel Crib isn’t cheap (it’s $200+ eek!) we think it’s 100% worth it since we know that Emi couldn’t tip it over, even while leaning her whole 30 pound frame to one side (and even when it was raised on top of cushions like in the photo above taken in the Airstream).