And your kids are stuck inside.

When spring showers have children bouncing off the walls, cooped up inside, it’s time to get creative.  Listed below are some fun arts and crafts projects to keep them busy and having fun until the sun shines again.

• Beautiful paper insects and flowers will be the talk of the neighborhood when your kids create a butterfly hanging garden
• Build an edible bridge and make it a contest to see whose bridge will stay up the longest or just have fun tearing it down and eating it
• Have your kids draw crazy body parts on index cards and mix them up for the silly creature creator
• Let the sun reflect in the window with a handmade crayon sun-catcher
• If all else fails, pull the cushions off the couch and have an indoor camp-out under a homemade tent

Have your own fail-proof suggestions for indoor imaginations? Share in the comments!

Interested in getting your kids involved in something that benefits themselves and the community? Volunteering is the perfect way to do both.

Listed below are a couple of creative ideas to for your kids to lend a helping hand.

• Bedtime Snack Sacks: Decorate lunch bags and fill them with snacks and a toy for children living in homeless shelters
• Cleanup Coalition: Have your kids gather their friends monthly to help beautify the community by picking up trash, planting flowers, etc. Contact your local parks and recreation office and they can help find projects.
• Charity Birthday Party: Have guests bring old or new toys to be donated to a charity instead of given to the birthday boy or girl

If you’d like more volunteering options, check out www.volunteermatch.com or www.volunteer.gov.

L.A. parents: You’re invited to come by and check us out! You’ll see the new olli special-edition Paul Frank designs and get a sneak peek of our new full back booster oobr (coming to stores this summer). You’ll also have the chance to enter our olli giveaway and take a backless booster home with you!

For full details on the event, click here or follow the Baby & Tween Celebration on Twitter! Hope to see you there!

Sure, getting kids of any age involved with the household chores can be a challenge, but it’s important and provides them with the perfect opportunity to learn what responsibility and hard work means. The trick in getting kids to do their chores without all the hassle, is to make the chores fun, even if it means you have to relax your rules a bit. 

Here are a couple tricks to make your kids wish it was chore time all the time:

• Let your kids pick their favorite CD and sing together
• Give cash rewards by developing play money, designating values to tasks and letting your kids cash in for prizes
• Race to beat the clock or each other
• Make it a game, like “Red Light, Green Light”  where you call out “Green Light” to get the kids to put their toys away as fast as they can and then “Red Light” and they will have to freeze and do something silly
• Create a “Wacky Wheel of Chores”  by dividing tasks into a wheel and letting your kids spin to choose their chore of the week

Organize it all using these free chore chart sites. Your kids are bound to have some fun and learn valuable lessons along the way.

Have your own tips on making chores fun? Share in the comments—we’d love to hear!

This weekend, we’re hitting the road and heading to Boston for the American Baby and Family Expo. Held at the Seaport World Trade Center (get directions here), the show will run Saturday through Sunday (10 am – 5 pm).

Boston parents: You’re invited to come by and check us out! You’ll see the new olli special-edition Paul Frank designs and get a sneak peek of our new full back booster oobr (coming to stores this summer). You’ll also have the chance to enter our olli giveaway and take a backless booster home with you!

For full details on the event, click here. Hope to see you there!

If it’s true that necessity is the mother of invention then invention is the necessity of parents. How would we get by without gadgets? With increasingly busy work and kids’ schedules, you’re looking for the right tools to make your life a little less hectic. Here are a few that help us stay organized, entertain the kids, get food on the table, capture the precious moments and enjoy a little downtime. (Whew!)

The company that revolutionized search is out to change the way we organize with. iGoogle enables parents to integrate email, calendars, photos, documents and gather news from all their favorite outlets in one place. Google calendar can coordinate schedules and share with family members online.

From recipes to shopping guides, there are more than 15,000 “apps” for Apple’s iPhone. At your wits end to keep the kids busy? Try Kidtivities, an app loaded with more than 40 fun, educational activities, including reading, vocabulary-building exercises and crafts.

With cameras small enough to slip in your pocket, like Canon PowerShot A590 IS or Nikon’s Coolpix L18, you’ll never miss the first step. Google Picasa makes it easy to edit photos, share or process photos on sites like Snapfish, Shutterfly and Flickr. The Flip Mino mini camcorder is a practical alternative to the conspicuous standard-sized camcorder, allows for two hours of recorded time and comes in fun colors, too.
 
When you finally have a few minutes of quiet time, pick up where you left off in your novel with the Amazon’s Kindle 2 or Sony Reader. Both devices allow you to store your favorite books and take along your library wherever you go.

Since March is reading month, it’s the perfect time to curl up with your kids and a good book. There are really neat ideas out there on how to get kids excited about reading, as well as how to instill the love of reading into your children’s lives. 

Some of the information you can find, include:

• Lists of popular books for each age
• Downloadable monthly calendars with various reading activities 
• Resources to create a literacy-rich home
• Tips and tricks
• Games, videos, downloadables and other activities on Scholastic’s Family Playground site

There are tons of resources on the web, at your local library and at your children’s school to help you make the most of reading month and open doors to a new, unexplored world for your kids.

Let us know how you get your kids reading.

Valentine’s Day for school-aged kids can be a day to look forward to or a day to dread, especially when young hearts are involved. Before they hit the bus stop with Valentine’s Day cards, candy or treats, be sure to affirm your unconditional love. You can spark the love bug by trying one or more of the following heartfelt activities:

• Make heart-shaped pancakes for a special breakfast
• Put a love note in their lunch box telling your child what you love about them
• Make Valentine’s Day crafts together
• Set a fancy table and cook a Valentine’s Day dinner and/or dessert together
• Write a family love poem and frame it with a family photo

Valentine’s Day trivia
Did you know that Valentine’s Day is the second most popular holiday to give greeting cards? According to Hallmark, more than 188 million cards are exchanged annually on Valentine’s Day.

The holiday break just ended and with kids back in school, it’s already time to start thinking: Spring break. Whether you’re planning for a warm escape or a weekend getaway, there are plenty of options for injecting some fun into the school year.

Family Fun offers a great round-up of Spring travel suggestions—from sun and surf destinations to the great outdoors—while Concierge highlights more luxury-laden trips for the family.

And, if you’re still struggling to plan a getaway that everyone (parents included) will enjoy, simply check out Travel + Leisure’s Top 50 Resorts for Parents and Kids, judged by the best reviewers out there, fellow families.

What are your plans? Share your favorite family travel tips in the comments!

Brown bag or stylish zip cooler, your child needs a healthy lunch to stay fueled during the day. Not sure how your current lunches stack up? Check out the iLunchBox Web site, where nutrition and serving sizes are highlighted.

Make nutrition fun by using the Dairy Council of California’s MyPyramid Match Game, which tests kids’ knowledge of the five food groups online. Or play the MyPyramid Blast Off Game at MyPyramid.gov for real life examples of healthy servings throughout the day.

Our favorite go-tos when packing a lunch?

• Peanut Butter & Raspberry Sandwich
• Turkey Pinwheels
• Take-to-School Taco Bar