Crayola's Big Colorful Birthday Adventure!

To celebrate their 110th birthday, the 8 original crayons are throwing a birthday bash at the new fun-omenal Crayola Experience, the world's only interactive Crayola family attraction. Right now, they're out on a colorful adventure to spread the news, and you're invited to join the fun!

How can you join in on the fun? You can FOLLOW the crayons on their adventure, LEARN more about each color and enter to WIN a trip for 4 to celebrate their birthday and the Grand Opening of the all new Crayola Experience this coming May!

Visit the Crayola Facebook page and click "enter now" for your chance to be first in line when the Crayola Experience reopens. The Crayola Experience, located in the heart of downtown Easton, Pennsylvania, is where the magic of Crayola and color come to life. It’s a place where you’re always encouraged to let your creativity run free, to color outside the lines, and to play, explore, and learn.

The all new Crayola Experience will be opening on May 24, 2013, Memorial Day weekend, with four floors of fun-omenal new interactive exhibits and one-of-a-kind attractions that will bring the magic of color and your child’s creativity to life!

Your family could be the first to experience the fun, along with a three- night, all-expenses paid stay. It's an experience your kids will never forget – and neither will you! The new Crayola Experience features four floors of new interactive exhibits and one-of-a-kind attractions that will bring the magic of color and your child's creativity to life!

Special thanks to Crayola for sending me information on this sweepstakes, and a box of goodies for my kids to enjoy!

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Crayola Chuck Taylors=A Dream Come True + $150 Giveaway! Ends 8/25

Back to school shoe shopping has been the bane of my existence recently. My daughter, who is nine, has some fashion ideas of her own this year and has been whining all summer. You see, she wanted Converse High Tops—but not just any high top. She wanted the ones that go all the way up to your knee. I told her that her father would never allow her to wear knee high sneakers, and certainly not for school. She insisted that they were all she wanted. She asked her father for high tops and he said, ”Sure, every kid should have a pair of All-Stars.” She then got very excited yelling to me that “Daddy said yes!” Well played, daughter of mine!

He got “ the look” as I sent him a picture of the shoes she wanted. After a look at them,he said absolutely not! “I thought she wanted a standard pair of high tops!” She was once again devastated. She even drew me a picture with a note the begged for them. I was not budging though, as those high tops were just a bit too high for my 9 year old.

Then, the greatest thing happened! We received a pair of Crayola Converse All Star’s (Chuck Taylors!) to review from Kid’s Foot Locker! I cannot begin to thank them enough! Not only did they save me from another argument with my daughter, but they also supplied me with a fantastic pair of kicks to kick off the school year.

The Crayola line of shoes by Converse is super cute! The Crayola crayon trademark is all over the shoes, but is also very subtle! Her pair are yellow, and just like a crayon—it says so on the bottom. The shoes come with a fold-able layer that changes to grey for a new look. I have always been a fan of Converse sneakers; I grew up wearing All-Stars in every color and am glad to be passing the tradition to my children. My daughter fell completely in love with her YELLOW (her favorite color) high tops and proclaimed they were, “Just what she always wanted!” She loves that they have Crayola details and thinks they are, “So AWESOME!” The shoes are made extremely well and are very comfortable. Mia is very excited to start the new year with them.

Thank you again Kids Foot Locker for the opportunity to review these fabulous sneakers, but also for saving me from the tantrums of a nine year old.

In celebration of Back to School our friends at Kids Foot Locker are giving us $150 in gift cards to giveaway to ONE lucky reader! Kids Foot Locker Gift Cards can be redeemed online, or in any Foot Locker brand store. This is a great opportunity to get sneakers for the whole family, or at least put a dent in it!

Enter with the RaffleCopter Widget below. Need help? View our Tutorial. Not loading properly, click on the title of this giveaway, to reload the page correctly. Please allow a few moments for the widget to load.

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Get Your Color On- With Kids Foot Locker, Converse and Crayola

Don't miss your opportunity to enter to win an awesome prize pack, loaded with everything you need for back to school, and more! Contest ends on July 31st. Enter on the Kids Foot Locker Facebook page, here.

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Lafayette Puzzle Factory + Crayola= Super Fun for Kids! (And Educational, too!)

As a mom of a gifted child, I am always struggling to find toys that engage my son. It's hard to find the perfect balance of fun and educational, and many of the toys on the market are either 'fun' OR 'educational' no matter how hard the manufacturers try to hit both marks, I've found very few that have succeeded skillfully. Until now.

Over the summer I was introduced to the brand new Crayola Chalkboard USA Floor Puzzle. Manufactured by the Lafayette Puzzle Factory, this colorful floor puzzle is perfect for kids of any age to help assemble, although it's marked ages 6+. The 48 large pieces are perfect for little hands and young puzzle enthusiasts, but make for a very large puzzle. At 2'x3', it's perfect on the play room floor.

The kids loved that they could doodle all over it, and we loved the fact that it provides an excellent opportunity to have fun (while learning the names of the states, locations of the states, and distance between various locations), and get excited about learning about the USA!


The entire surface of this puzzle can be written on with chalk, although some of the colors are better than others. My only "con" with this item is that it only comes with one piece of chalk, so as soon as the kids opened it, they started arguing about who's chalk it was. Thankfully, we use a lot of sidewalk chalk, so I grabbed another colored piece, and we were good to go.

My husband and son enjoyed playing "Guess the State" and then we, (READ: My Husband and I) got into a very competitive round of who could name the most states from across the room. Then it continued to how many state capitals we could name. (I won that, hands down!) Abbie loved learning that Idaho makes potatoes, that Vermont is where we get our syrup from, and that Indiana is where the Lafayette Puzzle Factory is! Alex loved pointing out all of the different states that we have family in, and measuring the distance between them. Since then, he's started memorizing the capitals, and has even engaged in some pretend play with his sister (pretending he's a teacher, but still, pretending!), which is totally not his norm.

We had so much fun playing with this during the overly-rainy-summer, and still do! Very rarely do we have a puzzle last for longer than a week or two in our house, but this one has survived our super-hard-testers, (and our disorganized lives), which is why it has earned our "MUST HAVES" badge.

The Crayola Chalkboard Floor Puzzle is available with three different backgrounds, Playground Fun, Space Zone, and USA Map. The Playground Fun and Space Zone puzzles look as though they have less room to doodle on, but still look fun to play with overall. The Crayola Chalkboard Floor Puzzle has also received the 2010 Puzzle of The Year award from Creative Child Magazine.

I could see all three of these puzzles, (but more-so the map of the USA), being used in classrooms all over the world. Home schoolers or moms on the go could still get great pleasure over watching kids get excited about learning about their country, and have a blast expressing themselves artistically as well. You should start to see these products on the shelves of your local Toys R Us this fall.

Our new friends at Lafayette Puzzle Factory have offered one Chalkboard Floor Puzzle as a prize to one lucky 4BabyAndMom reader!


This giveaway is open to residents of the US. This giveaway will end on September 19, 2010 at 11:59pm EST. The winner will be chosen using Random.org, and all winner information will be posted on our WINNERS PAGE and on this post. Please include a valid email address in your comment. If we cannot find a way to contact you we will not, we will choose another winner. We do try to email all winners, but due to the volume of giveaways offered on our site, delays can be expected. If you catch your name before we email you, please feel free to contact us first. :) Any unclaimed prizes will be redrawn accordingly and at the discretion of 4BabyAndMom. This product was provided to me at no cost by the Lafayette Puzzle Factory. As always, what you have read is strictly the opinion of 4BabyAndMom. Your opinions may differ.


CONGRATULATIONS!

Please refer to the WINNERS POST for more information on how to claim your prize.

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