Loving the Happy Blankie - papasan cushion combo!

A few weeks ago, I won a raffle at an Appel & Frank Babes and Babies Shopping Event. So exciting! I rarely win these kinds of things. I was even more excited when I brought home the raffle prize…a Happy Blankie (size large). Haven’t heard of the Happy Blankie? Well, keep reading…

The brainchild of a 7 year old David Holdridge, the Happy Blankie combines two kiddo faves: a stuffed animal and a blanket. Different from Zoobies, the Happy Blankie definitely leans much more towards the blanket part of the equation…but with a super cute animal face. We won “Tumble the Happy Bear” and have been using it as a (super soft!) play mat. Incidentally, it is a PERFECT fit for the Pier 1 Papasan Cushion we bought for our 4 month old to play on (she outgrew her Boppy Newborn Lounger already!). And she totally digs the set-up. So much so that she took a 2 hour nap on Tumble’s face the first day we set it up.

As an added bonus, if you purchase a Happy Blankie, an identical blanket is given to a child in a hospital, orphanage, or distressed situation around the world (ONE to Love, ONE to Share is the core philosophy of Happy Blankie).  And YOU get to choose where you want the second blanket donated by visiting the Happy Blankie website, entering the ID# that comes with each purchased blanket, and selecting your giving destination. We chose the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester, NY.

By the way, what a neat parent-child activity…reading about various giving destinations and choosing one to receive an identical blanket?!?

Fuzzy Wuzzy wuzn’t fuzzy was he?  No sirree!  He is made from 100% recycled plastic PET bottles!  How cool is that?!  I love these stuffed animals by Mary Meyer.  Not only are they adorable, but they are soft, cuddly and help teach a valuable lesson to your child.  Check out Mary Meyer’s Fuzz that Wuzz line here.

These cuties help reduce the number of bottles by 10 for each stuffed animal.  Did you realize that 51 billion bottles go into landfills annually, that is 12 million an hour!  It will take 700 years before these bottles even begin to decompose. And while 10 bottles may seem like a drop in the bucket, every single drop counts.  Think of it this way, if you saved one bottle a day, by the end of the year, you’d have 36 stuffed animals – there isn’t a kid I know that wouldn’t save their bottles.

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