The holiday season is a great time to get creative with your culinary delights. Especially if you have kids in the house (or even just kids at heart!), creating cute little treats for parties, family dinners or just as afternoon snacks can be a great way to get everyone in the spirit of the holdiay. If you are looking for easy ways to add fun to your finger foods, check out these great food craft sites for some ideas and inspiration:

• Disney’s FamilyFun.com has some of the best ideas on the web for cute crafts and fun food creations. I love their Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas ideas, but they even have some great everyday tips for creating an extra fun family meal.
• The ever-stylish Martha Stewart also offers excellent food craft ideas, including some charming adult ideas better suited for cocktail parties than some of the more cutesy recipes found elsewhere online.
• The Crafty Crow is a great craft site for kids that offers a wealth of ideas for parents looking to spend some quality time with their children in a creative setting. This ingenious site is responsible for the super creepy shrunken apple heads below! Yikes!
• If your family loves M&Ms, Snickers and Milky Way bars, then Red and Yellow’s Bright Ideas is the site for you! Run by the Mars corporation, this site has adorable edible crafts for you and your family to create out of common candy items.
• Another great creative resource for parents is FreeKidsCrafts.com. Not all of these crafts are edible, but they all have to do with food, fun and spending time together as a family!

My cousin’s baby girl is turning 1 in a few days. When searching for a gift for her, I had a surprisingly difficult time. For one thing, she’s too small for big kids toys and too big for infant things. After scouring the Internet for a week, I finally found some unique gifts for her and maybe for the soon-to-be 1 year old in your life.

1. These adorable T-shirts from Etsy: Happyfamily are perfect for the birthday boy or girl!

2. This adorable hand-knitted hat is perfect for the little monkey in your life. Monkey hat and fruit rattles from Cocoa Crayon.

3. Soft and cuddly for any baby, this little monkey cuddling mat from RedEnvelope is a gift for all ages.

Almost every little girl has had fun with make believe tea parties. Why not celebrate her birthday this year with a real afternoon tea party? Look for ideas on this week’s tea themed inspiration board.

“My Very First Tea Party” by Michal Sparks is a fun picture book and makes a great gift to give to the birthday girl and her guests. The fabric tea set by Pottery Barn adds pretty decor to the party and the pink tea cup and dessert set can be used for all their sweet treats.

Kara’s cupcakes makes pretty sweet treats with mini and regular sizes in flavors Sweet Vanilla and Coconut. Flutter tea for one is filled with dainty butterflies perfect for tea time. Invite guests to the tea party with Tea Time Birthday Party Invitations.

A gift basket is a thoughtful and easy way to give a birthday or shower gift. The only downside? Gift baskets can cost a lot, running up to $200 a pop! But, there are some great ones out there that are much more affordable as well. Here are a few that I love, including one for baby and one for the new mom:

The Little Seed is a celebrity haven for eco-friendly baby and children’s specialty boutique items. It was started by Soleil Moon Frye and Paige Goldberg Tolmach. Here is their cute (if a bit pricey at $200!) Little Toddler Gift Basket.

This Basket of Wisdom by Martha Stewart has everything the new mom will need such as a thermometer, booties, and tea and candy for her.

I was babysitting an 18 month-old a few nights ago, and was shocked to see that she absolutely adores taking a bath! I honestly could not get her out of the tub. And here I thought babies always squealed and squirmed their way through bath time!

I think she loves it so much because she has some really cool bathtub toys to play with. In my family, bath paints have always been all the rage. You can buy some great ones from Avon (they even list the ingredients online if you kids have allergies!), or make your own using this recipe from Family Education.

But this little splish splasher preferred to stick Rub a Dub ABC letters all over the bathtub instead of painting it. She could even say all of the letter’s sounds! I was impressed.

If you are looking for tips on making bath time more enjoyable for you and your kids, check out Love to Know’s section of inexpensive activities that are perfect for soaking in the tub. You can also try one of these fun ideas:

• Play a story on tape.
• Read poetry aloud.
• Have your kids make up stories about what their floating toys are doing.
• Review all of the fun things you did together that day.
• Give your little ones cups, bowls, and ladles from the kitchen to play with.

Last week Brandi highlighted the hottest new clothes for your kids in her post “Back-2-School Fashion,” but an official back-to-school shopping spree wouldn’t be complete without a trip down the school supplies aisle! Get your kids excited about their return to the classroom with these fun finds for the ultimate in back-to-school cool!

Backpacks: Fun prints are here to stay! Kids keep going crazy for these unique designs. Find the perfect printed backpacks to make your kids go bonkers, and they’ll be clamoring to get on the school bus come Monday!

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Binders: As your kids get older, teachers may not send home specific instructions about the supplies they need in class. Make sure your kids are prepared with cute binders, plenty of notebook paper, colorful dividers and several sharpened pencils.

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Textbook covers: Protect your kids textbooks in a fun and funky new way. These bright textbook covers change color when you touch them! Finally, a way to make sure your kids won’t be able to keep their hands off their books.

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Lunchboxes: Brown bags are soooo last season–not to mention they aren’t great for the environment. This year, posh, personalized lunchboxes are all the rage!

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Accessories: Stock up on supplies like markers, colored pencils, glue, tape, scissors, calculators and more at stores with Back-to-School sales, like Wal-Mart or Staples. Target also has a great collection of fun and fashionable gear, including these bright pencil boxes.

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Gifts for Teachers: Personalized thank you notes and other stationery make great back-to-school gifts for deserving teachers.

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With the 2008 Summer Olympics beginning next week, now is the perfect time to teach your kids all about the cherished tradition, the history of the games and all the fun sports they may not already know about. You could even find Beijing on a world map together, look up kid-friendly articles about the Olympics in National Geographic Kids or create some homemade flags and streamers to wave while you watch the games at home.

To really get in the spirit of the games, throw a Summer Olympics Party! You can easily transform these patriotic summer party invitations to reflect your Olympic theme. Then, set up fun relay races for kids and parents alike, and hand out ribbons and homemade medals to all the participants. Head over to the park and try pairing classic games like three-legged races, marshmallow eating contests and limbo with traditional track and field contests like the long jump, a Frisbee shot put toss and a team relay race.

By highlighting the fun of Olympic sports, the history of the games and the amazing way that athletes from all over the world come together for one spectacular event, you might just inspire your little ones to run, jump or shot put for the stars!

You don’t have to plan a big family road trip to give your kids some excitement this summer. There are plenty of local attractions offering exhilarating family experiences that are the perfect way to spend a mini-vacation, birthday party or just a fun afternoon.

From zoos to amusement parks to various kinds of dinner theater, browse the web on sites like Local Attractions to check out what your city has to offer. Be sure to look for upcoming events as well–even if your kids have been to the local zoo every year for school field trips, they probably have never experienced the thrill of a zoo sleepover or the fun of watching “Zoovies” on the lawn!

And, if you don’t plan to leave town for a family vacation this summer, you can still have a fun  getaway by staying the night at a local hotel. Live it up by staying up late, watching movies, ordering room service and eating ice cream in bed! Then make sure you soak up the sun poolside–some hotels even have awesome waterslides and playgrounds!

Another great option for family fun this summer is dinner theater. In my hometown, we always spent the summers picnicking at Moonlight Amphitheater, an outdoor theater offering world-class musicals all season long. There’s also the ever popular Medieval Times, which not only gives you the chance to cheer for your favorite knight, but to eat with your hands too!

With all of this family fun at your fingertips, there’s no need to leave home this summer for a walk on the wild side with lions, waterslides and knights (oh my!).

I love anything that’s free! That’s why I was ecstatic when I received an email from Amazon.com saying that FamilyFun Magazine by Disney was offering a free Island Party Planner. Just go to Amazon.com type in FamilyFun magazine and click on the Island Party Planner link for a free download. It has cool ideas for a hot island party such as how to make a South Seas birthday cake, palm tree decoration and delicious island foods. Check it out and if you’re then inspired to create your own island themed party, take a look at some of the cool ocean themed party invitation Tiny Prints has. I think this ocean inspired party invitation would go perfectly well with any island party!