Charlie was a little cuckoo with the excitement of having eight families with kids over for the Mega Bloks party

Recently I had the opportunity to host a Mommy Parties party for some friends and their children featuring Mega Bloks. Mega Bloks sent a big bin of toddler and preschooler blocks for the party guests to play with, and also provided each family that attended a Mega Blok gift pack.

The group that came to my house were the mothers and children of my regular Tuesday morning prayer group on a day when many of our kids had the day off from school, and so I didn’t even have to send a special invitation or do any out of the ordinary planning beyond the usual “it’s my turn to host” straightening up, coffee making and banana bread baking. The kids in attendance loved the vacation day atmosphere and the chance to be “toy testers” of the new big bin of Mega Bloks.

If you think getting some family-friendly products for free and a party kit to host friends sounds awesome, well, you are my kind of gal and we would totally be friends. But also, you can register with MomSelect to be a Mommy Parties host. Anyone can do it, you do not have to have a psycho crazy exhibitionist mommy blogger. And if you are already the type to host playdates at your pad, coordinate MOMS Club outings and the like, I highly recommend throwing a Mommy Party. You’re already super social, and who doesn’t love free swag?

Anyways, at the Mega Bloks party, the little attendees enjoyed playing together with the Maxi System Farm provided by the generous Mega Bloks folks. It has 95 plastic building and farm-themed pieces, and its own big bin for easy organization and clean up. Since I baked the banana bread and vacuumed up the cat hair, Alice gets to keep it. Here’s a picture of her enjoying eating it playing with it.

Each of the families who came were entered to win a raffle prize of a Mega Bloks 52 piece Rescue Center, and everyone went home with either a Jungle Friends or a Garden Friends Maxi Blok set.

I have one each of the Jungle Friends and Garden Friends Maxi Blok sets leftover from the party to give away to two lucky readers! These make for a sweet holiday gift or a super toddler and preschooler item to stash in your birthday gift closet.

To win one Mega Bloks set:

• Leave a comment below mentioning who you would give the set to if you win. Be sure to leave your email address or login via Facebook so I can contact you if you are drawn.
  
• For an extra entry, LIKE A Parent in Silver Spring on Facebook (here)! This is where I distribute the free movie passes and other good stuff. (Leave a comment telling me you “liked” me.)

I’ll randomly draw the two winners on Cyber Monday, November 28. All winners must live in the United States, as I am handling the shipping myself.

Disclosure: My children received a tub of Mega Bloks as thanks for my hosting of this Mommy Party on behalf of Mom Select. My guests received Maxi Blok sets. However, I did this promo not for the toys but because Charlie and Eve think hosting a party with a goodie bag for their guests is the bees’ knees and I was already having a house full of kids, so why not? No other compensation was received. Facebook is in no way responsible for this giveaway.

My son Charlie loves himself some Lego Star Wars Wii, Beyblades, Kung ZhuZhu pets, Bakugans and Pokemon cards.

Notice a theme here? He loves futuristic toys that also provide a challenger-style game he can play with his sister or a buddy.

Which is why the new Mechatars toys are right up his alley. They are remote control robots who complete R/C-powered missions and “battle” each other, and then using the nifty USB port on the toy, you upload the toy’s activity to a parallel online world. The online gaming takes the toy up a notch from just another R/C toy languishing in the basement, gives a purpose to the R/C play and translates the offline activities it into an interactive online computer game, WebKinz style.

Charlie looooves it. To give you a sense of how Mechatars work, here’s the 30 second TV spot (the camera work is much more clear than my home movie attempts).

Charlie likes how Mechatars take the in-person, interactive battle games he loves, combines them with cool R/C remote and offers the online game feature that connects the “work” his robot performed in real life with the robot’s avatar performance online. He likes how in both battle and mission modes, he can select from the remote the weapons his Mechatar will use, “just like in Lego Star Wars Wii.” (And that is high praise from Charlie.)

I like how the gaming online is age-appropriate and safe, while still feeling cool and mature to my son. I also like how the toy provides different ways for Charlie to play. He can play with a friend (we will be getting his sister a Mechatar too so the two can play together), he can take the toy on missions when playing solo, and he can also choose Mechatars.com for his limited computer play time. I also like that at $39.99, this is a deluxe-feeling gift for my kids that is still less than fifty bucks.

I have an EXCLUSIVE Clever Girls Collective coupon code for you guys: MECHMOM gets you 10% off your Mechatar purchase at iloverobots.com, good until 11/30/11.

And one lucky reader will win a Mechatar for his or her child!

How to Win

• Go to www.Mechatars.com and leave a comment on this post below with which Mechatar your child would love and you would like to win! (Note: In order to see the Mechatar toys, visitors to the site need to click on “play now” then “register” but fortunately no information needs to be submitted.)
• The winner will be randomly-drawn from all comments in one week on Sunday 9/25 at midnight.

Disclosure: I was selected to participate in this #CleverRobot #spon sponsored post series by Clever Girls Collective.

SWAGG is a free mobile app (download here) that lets you shop smarter using your mobile phone. Buy, send or swap SWAGG GIFTS and organize your old school plastic gift cards. For every download of the app between now and Dec. 31, 2010, SWAGG will donate $1 to Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) , up to $125,000.

Clever Girls Collective and SWAGG are sending a pair of movie fans to the Sundance Film Festival! Download the SWAGG app and then visit the Ultimate SWAGG Getaway Sweepstakes site to enter to win a trip for two to the Sundance Film Festival. Entry deadline is January 3, 2011, 11:59pm, PST.

Gifts. Although we should be filled with peace on Earth, goodwill towards men, the reasons for the season, etc., a lot of our waking moments these days are spent scrambling for gifts. Searching for them at 2am online, hinting for them to clueless partners, trying to cajole the coveted presents out of our young kids who simply say “Santa knows” when we ask them what they want.

And then after we finally order or pick up the darn things, there’s cursing when the FedEx guy leaves a “signature required” ticket on our door 2 seconds before we pull into the driveway, wrapping while trying to not get any pet hair on the Scotch tape with a dog in our laps, internally rolling our eyes at the little old lady in the post office line who asks 20 minutes worth of questions about the difference between Priority and Express.

But it’s all worth it right? The chance to tell a family member or friend that we love and appreciate them with a physical token. And even if the gifts we receive aren’t just perfect for our personalities, lives or bodies, hey, they’re still memorable, right?

Here are some of WORST, but still memorable, Christmas gifts I have received in my 35 years:

• an XXL Pepto-pink sweatshirt with a psychotic looking teddy bear on the front
• peanut brittle that broke off a bracket on my braces
• a two-years expired package of instant guacamole mix
• sparkly multicolored earrings that turned my earlobes aqua green
• a man’s golf-logo baseball cap (that he proceeded to wear himself)
• a singing bird clock (as seen on TV!)
• a mug that said “Big Mama”
• a book from a boy I hopelessly adored in which the male protagonist realizes he is gay
• a big box of scrapbooking/baby book supplies (oh the guilt!)
• bubble bath that acidly stung in all the wrong places
• toys for my baby and toddler that had been prominently featured in the media as expired and containing lead paint

I know I sound ungrateful now, but I GUARANTEE that in all those cases I wrote a thank you note and was super gracious. (Well, except in the cases where I regularly swapped spit with the gifter — I think the saliva exchange cancels out the need for use of stationery.)

And here are some of the BEST Christmas gifts I have ever received:

• a healthy baby boy born in December (yes, we considered the name Jesus - pronounced with the Spanish inflection - but decided that would be a tad too much)
• not to leave out our other children: a healthy baby girl born right before Easter (this time, Magdalene and Veronica were considered) and a much-hoped for third baby on the way
• visits from my family
• airline tickets to visit family
• the sacrifice of Christmas with one’s own family to spend it with mine
• a five-foot high box stuffed with maternity clothes from my sister (this one is more of a loan but OMG, so awesome!)
• an original oil painting from an up and coming Russian artist
• a luxury leather handbag (when we were saving cash so diligently for a new house that I was adding old blush to Vaseline to mix my own lip gloss)
• two huge Honeybaked hams when we were hosting 30 people for Christmas dinner
• a big Santa in an airplane blow-up for the front yard (from my mom to 2 year old airplane-obsessed Charlie. It’s reverse chic!)
• a Best Buy gift certificate for a new television, secretly wanted, even though I was in a phase where I publicly maligned television
• leather-bound classic novels
• a sapphire necklace
• seven Christmases spent being a mother on Christmas morning

I know, I’m so cheesy. And really lucky.

But I have to say, I’ve been a lot less frantic this last week before Christmas thanks to the SWAGG app on my phone (available for iPhone, Droids and also you can just shop via their website). I’ve been able to quickly order last-minute gifts from local retail stores included in the 3,000 SWAGG merchant partners such as

• 1800Flowers.com (I sent my Grandpa his own mini-Christmas tree with lights!)
• American Apparel (cute maternity tees for expecting sisters in law)
• American Eagle (teen heaven)
• Omaha Steaks (great all-around hostess or family gifts - give the gifts of filets!)
• Crocs (however, I only endorse Crocs for little kids in summer)
• Wet Seal (for iCarly fans)
• Arden B. (I used to shop here. Then I grew hips.)
• Steve Madden (I love these shoes, esp. the heeled booties)
• Live Nation (tickets to concerts and games and performances at the Verizon Center, Lisner, DAR Constitution Hall, you can even get tickets to The Washington Ballet’s Nutcracker at the Warner Theatre through LiveNation on SWAGG)

Learn more about the coolest new app that revolutionizes the whole shopping, gifting, and gift card-organizing experience and Download the SWAGG app to your iPhone or Droid. I was selected for this sponsorship by Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity.