Whether you and your children are going to the neighborhood park for a morning outing or to any number of National Parks, bring along a compass and a magnifying glass to enhance the experience.

These nifty gadgets can be clipped to a backpack or carried in the pocket. Your little explorer will be enthralled with how a rock or a twig look under the lens and can’t wait to show you what he/she will find next!

When I was pregnant with my son, his father’s family kept mentioning how twins run in the family. My sister-in-law gave birth to twins the year before, so I took the threat seriously. My answer was always the same: If I have twins, don’t bother bringing me home from the hospital.

I know there are plenty of families of twins and triplets and beyond, and it’s really cool. But can you imagine eight? Of course, it might be like anything colder than 10 degrees where it’s just cold and you plow through. And, everyone knows, families aren’t asked what they can handle, they just do it. That’s why families are so wonderful and important, in whatever form they take.

All the babies born Tuesday are breathing on their own and doing well, and are only the second set of octuplets born in the U.S. I love the end about the mother starting to pump milk. I very much hope she has a chance to do anything else in the next year.

Having a Super Bowl party? If your kids are anything like mine, the build-up excitement is really fun, but once everyone sits down to watch the game, they get really bored really fast.

Melissa & Doug has a couple of cute products for kids too young to throw around a real football (and, if you’re somewhere too cold to play outside, they’re easier on the furniture and knickknacks): Fill and Spill Sports Bag and Sports Balls in a Mesh Bag.

If you’d like the kids gathered round the table, one great activity is decorating cookies or cupcakes in team colors. The Cardinals and the Steelers are playing this year and their colors are red and white (Cardinals), and yellow and black (Steelers). Black’s kind of an icky deal for frosting though, so white and yellow, with cut up black licorice or sprinkle accents is just as good.

Both the team logos are pretty simple this year, so older kids might like trying to put the team logos on cookies. Painting the logos or key game scenes is also a fun activity.

Knowing some fun facts about the teams will also help kids take a more lasting interest. For instance, the Cardinals have been a team for more than 100 years (though not always in Arizona). In my son’s case, that’s older than great-grandma! And they’ve never been to a Super Bowl, but the Steelers have won four.

For more trivia, games and funny mascot videos, the NFL has a kids page.

Just a quick note to celebrate our biggest shipment ever here at KangarooBoo (Justin just informed me there are even photos of this momentous occasion. You can tell by my hat how cold it is here today)! It’s cool to be getting our jump on the holiday season, but it also means I have a ton of work today.

I just unloaded Boon products because I know people were waiting for them — especially the Bath Goods.

We also got Haba and Melissa & Doug products, which I’ll be unloading later today.

The tires on my dolly are already flat from the weight!

Easter is early this year.

Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20). This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people once used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar.

Based on the above information, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22) that is rare.

Here’s the interesting information. This year is the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here are the facts:

1. The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).
2. The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than this year!

The facts above was emailed to me, and I thought I’d share.

Happy Easter everyone!

Apartment Therapy Nursery recently had a completely new design and layout and is now known as ohdeedoh. They are also currently doing a Holiday Gift Bag giveaway where you can win free stuff from their favorite stores just by leaving a comment. A new contest is posted every day till the end of the week I think. They started last week. So head on over to Ohdeedoh.

Oh! and look out for a certain Flensted Mobile giveaway tomorrow.