Here are a bunch of unique books that would be good for gifts.

The Jon & Jayne Doe series is like an advice guide. They have all different kinds of advice and they write it kind of funny. It might be better for older kids. I liked the one about making friends because it talks about how to talk to people and make new friends and not believing rumors.

Adventures with PawPaw is about a little puppy who travels all over. Our books are France, Costa Rica, and China. They show you little bits about each country, like their food and special landmarks and what the people do. They’re for little kids. And a portion of the money you spend on them goes to children’s charities around the world.

Lookman’s Children of the Sea and Mihte’s Quest and Henri and the Alien are really good books, but they’re very meaty and maybe a little old for us. Maybe 12 and up would be better for these books, but they’re good adventures.

We have some audio books, too: The One and Only Shrek and Brown Bear & Friends are fun to listen to in the car or at home when you’re doing chores or something. Maya really likes the Brown Bear books, so she likes that one better. The One and Only Shrek was really good and different than I thought.

The last one is Picture Yourself Cooking with Kids and it’s good because, besides the good recipes, it has lots of tips about being safe in the kitchen and how to help kids be safe in the kitchen. And we have a free one for you! And we also have a pair of Loud Enough earphones for you! I know they don’t really go with this review, but they sort of do because you could buy the audiobooks and listen to them with your new earphones. We reviewed them before and they’re awesome! One winner, two prizes!

You can enter the contest by leaving a comment, but if you link to us on your blog, facebook, twitter, or message board, and leave the link in the comments section, then you are entered an extra time for every time you link to us. But! You must leave a link to where you linked to us in the comments section or else you will not get the extra entries. This contest will end on Sunday, December 21st at 4:00pm EST.

Lena

We have too many things to tell you about and what if you want to order them off the internet before Christmas? Then we have to tell you a bit about them all at once right now! So here are a bunch of things you should know about. And order today!

Girl Mogul has a lot of cool stuff.

We tried out the Girl Power Self-Esteem Kit, which has Catherine Dee’s The Girls’ Guide to Life book in it. It is a super good book for making strong girls. The kit comes with a journal, pen, pencil, highlighter, and goal notebook. We love this kit! We also talked aboutGirl Mogul’s Conversations to Go conversation starter game in our review here.

Also, Girl Mogul sent Maddie an awesome shirt. It says “Future Leader of the Free World” on it. Maddie’s mom said it faded after one wash, but it’s still cute. They have lots of other cool shirts too.

Manifest Your Magnificence is a bunch of cards that say affirmations like, “I am proud” on them and then you think of something that you’re proud about. It’s really cool. The pictures on the cards are awesome and it comes with a cd of somebody reading the affirmations, too.

Wett-Giggles soap would be a really cute stocking stuffer. They smell good and they have little animals that are really scrub brushes once the soap goes away. The soap is handmade with glycerin, shea butter, and essential oils. Fun!

The Dot Girl’s First Period Kit might be good if you have a girl who is just about to go through puberty.

They’re cute kits with lots of helpful information and products to help with a girl’s first period. And one dollar from every kit you buy goes to The Central Asia Institute, which helps provide schools for girls in remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

If you know someone who appreciates treats, but wants to be healthy, you should get Crispy Cat organic candy bars (mint coconut is my mom’s favorite) and La Vita All Natural Cruncy Cookies for their stocking!

Also, it might be fun to order some very cute and tasty Tennessee T-Cakes and have them sent to somebody special.

Oh, I almost forgot. You have to have band-aids, right? Kids like having cool band-aids, right? You could put Sticker Sisters’ Brave Girl-Aids in your child’s stocking along with some of Sticker Sisters’ other cool things.

There. Lots of ideas for last-minute internet shopping.

Liberty

Maya loves her new Leilani shoes from pediped. They’re cute and comfy! And they’re endorsed by the American Podiatric Medical Association. Ok, Maya doesn’t know that part; she just knows they feel and look fabulous!

And you can feel fabulous when you help pediped meet their goal of raising $100,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation by purchasing select styles between December 17-31.

pediped has lowered the price on select styles and will donate 50% of the sales to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

“We believe in the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the good work it does with children,” said Angela Edgeworth, pediped president. “We are blessed with healthy children and feel compelled to make a difference in these children’s lives. We initially pledged $50,000, but thanks to the generosity of our
consumers, we are confident we can double that. We’ve reduced the price of our shoes, something we never do, as a way to give back to our consumers while benefiting this worthy charity. We hope everyone shares in the spirit of giving this season. Goodness knows people need it now more than ever. We should be thankful every day for what we have.”

Abby

We thought Kyra’s jewelry was so neat! She makes it herself and she’s around our age. And all of the money you pay for Kyra’s Collection jewelry goes to charity, so it’s a great gift for the holidays because it’s pretty and the money you pay will help people! We asked Kyra some questions and she answered them! Here they are:

Liberty: What do you like to do for fun besides making jewelry?

Kyra: I like to run, play soccer, all kinds of art and playing with my pets.
I have a frog, a gecko and a cat.

Liberty: Is it fun making jewelry?

Kyra: yes! It is awesome!

Liberty: What is the hardest thing about making jewelry?

Kyra: Sawing the metal, like I did in the heart design.

Lena: It’s really cool that the money from your jewelry goes to charity (children’s charities, hunger relief, animal charities, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, or Aeromedicos). How
did you choose the charities?

Kyra: My grandmother had ovarian cancer, I love animals, my grandpa flies
with Aeromedicos to mexico, my school used to donate to heifer
organization for hunger and famine, and a friend of mine went to one
of the hole in the wall camps.

Lena: Why did you want to make necklaces and how did you come up with the
designs?

Kyra: I love wearing necklaces, so they are my favorite. I drew the designs
first, then I made them with precious metal clay.

Lena: Did you ever mess up?

Kyra: YES…luckily PMC (precious metal clay) can be used over and over
again, until you fire it. So I go to work on them until they were
just right. The bird was the hardest! My mom soldered on it’s nose.
The plane was tough too!

My school is working on a token collection right now, and we will be
selling the pewter tokens to make money for our school!!!! It’s
pretty cool that my mom makes jewelry for her job…I get to do cool
jewelry a lot. My friends love coming for art days in her studio!

Liberty

P.S. Are you looking for this week’s giveaway? It’s kind of a big one and we’re out of town right now for a funeral (sad), so we’ll get the giveaway posted when we get back in a couple of days.

I like cereal. This cereal tastes good. I made it myself. hi

maya

(That was Maya. She told me what to type and then she typed “hi” and “Maya”)

Thanks to the nice people at MeandGoji.com, Maya got to make her own “custom artisanal cereal.” She chose from a bunch of different organic cereal bases (she chose granola) and then she added organic chocolate-covered cranberries, organic barley, 2 scoops of organic strawberries, and organic almonds!

I don’t like cereal, but I still have to write the review because Maya can’t. My mom is helping me. These are some things she wants me to tell you:

At first I thought it was weird to include cereal in our gift ideas, but it’s not. Look at their Holiday Mix. My mom said to say that that’s way better than a tin of nuts or something. And everybody is trying to be healthier all the time so this would be a good gift.

My mom ate some with organic yogurt and then she wasn’t hungry for hours!

It’s not a very good present for a kid, but a kid could give it to a grown-up. My mom would like it for a present.

The company gives some of its money to Pink Door, which helps breast cancer survivors. Also, the company was started by three friends who care about the environment and being healthy. This is from their site:

eating raw foods means eating things nature intended, the way nature intended. our fruits are not freeze-dried like most store-bought cereals. freeze-drying is a process that damages the nutritional make-up of the fruit, depletes vitamins and kills the taste.

the only foods worthy of our unique cereal capsule are energy packed, nutrient dense whole foods straight from nature, not chemists. our pure and organic ingredients boast health-enhancing weapons, a bullying history of beating down free radicals and invigorating legends of age defying properties. kapow!

we like to think of ourselves as the hottest new hybrid on the road: part cereal, part muesli, part fruit salad…can’t go wrong! most of the foods we offer are raw.

just add [local] milk, [organic] yogurt, [vermont] maple syrup, [raw] honey or eat it plain, as nature intended.

try our raw 5-grain muesli base for a 100% raw feast with healthy living enzymes and untouched vitamins and minerals. it’s like the sushi of cereal! okay, bad analogy…

Go make your own cereal! But first, win a $20 gift certificate to MeandGoji.com! All you have to do is link to us on your blog (or a message board or myspace or facebook or twitter [if you don't have any of those things, we can work something out]) and then leave a comment telling us where you linked to us. That will really help us get the word out about MeandGoji.com. We’ll leave this contest open until Sunday, November 23rd at 4:00pm.

Liberty