I received a little bit of a discount at the Virgin Hotel in order to facilitate this review, but I'm sold. AJ is sold. Aliceana, our 3 1/2 year old, desperately wants to go back. We've officially found the only hotel we'll ever be staying at when we're in the Windy city. Virgin Hotels are setting the bar for hotel standards remarkably high. I've stayed in a lot of hotels in ...
Because Science Kits. DIY Electro Dough Kit
We’ve been having so much fun with science experiments this year at home. Heck, when we perform science experiments with Aliceana even we learn a thing or two. We ask the good questions, like “How does that work?” “What do you think will happen next?” Some of our experiments bring us right back to our own days of the elementary school science lab, and by that I mean a table ...
That time our dirty door graced the New York Times.
We were thrilled to be featured in the New York Times. We had an interview on Skype, a professional photographer at our house for hours as we played with Aliceana, he probably shot a thousand photos, so many had to be adorable. When I clicked over to the live link. You might as well have heard horror music, the dirty door, not the dirty door. You see, this is the back door, ...
Best Legos for preschoolers (The difference between Duplo, Juniors, and classic Legos)
Hey there, I'm here to help you find the best Lego sets for your kids, specifically which sets we chose for our preschooler, but I'll also include the difference between Lego Duplo, Lego Juniors, and regular Legos. This post contains affiliate links, if you decide to make a purchase I would love if you used them, after all, my daughter just became Lego obsessed. Sets are ...
Top 5 Family Games for Grade School Aged Kids – Looking at you Tweens
Board games have evolved, a lot, since the days of Monopoly and LIFE. We have cooperative games that encourage working together, games that require a bit of math, and so many games that require logic and decision making. They come in all shapes and sizes, they have some of the best themes too. Whatever you're interested in, there's a board game with that theme, I almost ...
Seven Years!
So somehow it's been seven years since this Geek and the Beast started dating. We've been married 4 1/2 years, and we've been parents...and bloggers..for a little over 3 years if you're trying to keep score. A little flashback Friday, and this was almost a year after we had been dating. I'm so lucky to have been able to spend my entire adult life with my best friend ...
Top 3 family board games for preschoolers
Board games have come so far from Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land. You can find games with deep themes and mechanics, and the innovative kid games, well, they're fantastic for learning! Whether that means they're learning how to count, tell the difference between shapes, or hand-eye-coordination. Games are such a beneficial tool in learning. You can teach your children how ...
What do you want to be for Halloween?
What do you want to be for Halloween? It’s a question we started asking Aliceana weeks ago. We talked her through a lot of options, and even took her to one of those overpriced Halloween specialty stores, just to make sure she knew what was out there. She had a few suggestions of her own, a spooky ghost, a knight, or maybe even a firefighter, but we kept circling back to ...
Which Dragon Age: Inquisition DLC is worth getting?
I finally did it. After completing Dragon Age Inquisition, yes even taking out all of the Dragons and finishing every side quest ever. (Except the darn horse race in the Hinterlands, I just can't complete stupid races.) I decided to download the DLC expansions. On a sidenote: The other day I watched AJ play Dragon Age for the first time in months, like so long he forgot the ...
Cheese stuffed brats in a blanket
Game nights are the best kind of nights, whether that means you’re sitting around a table playing a board game or sitting on the couch (and jumping up every two seconds when something good or bad happens) while watching a football game. This past weekend, we did a little bit of both. Saturday was all about playing board games, while Sunday was all about football. Our team won ...
Introduce your kids to Star Wars with the Machete Order.
I consider myself a late blooming geek, I mean the tell tale signs were always there, I would farm in every video game even when resources weren’t a big deal, but hey, I always wanted 99 lives in Crash Bandicoot, and all the apples in Aladdin on Super Nintendo. I even dabbled in Pokemon in grade school, but I traded all my good cards for the cute ones. I’ve always been the ...