Heading to Grandma's for the holidays?

The biggest challenge I've had with Connor as he gets older is finding toys to occupy him when we travel especially to

the grandparent's house where we stay sometimes a week at a time and he usually doesn't have much to do.

Alex Toys is a frequent stopping point for us when it comes to toy shopping and I've been eyeing the Alex Play Mat for awhile as I've been slowly leaving toys over at my mom's house for Connor to play with but finding a good place to store them is the issue as they are trying to sell their house so the last thing she wants is a toy box in the living room until the house sales. So finding toys that do double duty but be entertaining enough to keep his attention is important. He has recently gotten obsessed with cars and other hand toys so when I saw the play mat I knew we had to have it for going to my parent's house. The Alex Play Mat is of course a classic play mat when flat it features a town scene so kids can drive their cars around town but the part I like most is when they are done it folds up into a nifty little tote that is big enough to hold quite a few toys. I find it very useful for storing our toys at my parents house and when its time to come home and switch out some toys I can just grab the tote and bring it home, refill it and bring it back. At only $15.99 per play mat I am really tempted to buy two more one to keep here and one for his aunt's house where he goes when I'm at school.

We've just started playing with puzzles as well but thus far Connor's puzzles have been wood and they tend to take up a lot of space in his toy storage bin so I knew I had to find something lighter and smaller for using ad the grandparent's house as we are working on very limited storage space. Plus I just don't like to pack a wooden puzzle in our luggage I have enough stuff to carry already. The Touchable Puzzles over at Alex Toys is light, incredibly affordable and really adorable. Each Touchable Puzzles set comes with two puzzles and at $9.99 a set you can't beat the price. The puzzles are made of a textured foam and the pieces are big and brightly colored so its easy to find them if your child is anything like Connor and they end up spreading the pieces all over the floor those bright colors and different textures tend to keep their attention a lot longer as well. We have had these puzzles for a month or so and when we first got them Connor was about 17 months old and thought he was really interested in them he had a tendency to want to bend the puzzles in half which though it doesn't actually hurt them the pieces don't go in as easy when the base of the puzzle is warped so I would have to bend them back and put something heavy on them. It seems though over the last month Connor has hit a developmental milestone and is now really getting the hang of using them instead of just bending them. The age recommendations is 2+ and I believe that's pretty accurate though toddlers past the teething and chewing age will really appreciate the textured pieces long before they are able to put the puzzles together.

If your looking for some great Christmas toy ideas defiantly check out Alex Toys their toys are very reasonably priced and we have been ecstatic with all of the toys we have from them thus far!

I have a set of Touchable Puzzles to give away to one lucky reader!

To enter :

• Leave a comment on this post. Check out Alex Toys and tell me what toy from their collection other than the two I mentioned here you'd love to give someone on your christmas list!
  
• Make sure there is a way for me to contact you - if your email address is not on your profile or you are not a blogger you may leave it in your comment or email it to me directly (angelaandconnor at gmail dot com) We have had to disqualify a lot of potential winners as of late as many people do not have emails available in their profiles or leave anonymous posts without any way to contact you.
• Please US entries only.
• To get extra credit :
• For an extra entry :
• Bloggers - Blog about this contest and leave me the link on your comment, or add me to your sidebar and let me know its there.
• Non Bloggers (or bloggers) subscribe to my mailing list/RSS feed and earn another entry!
• One extra credit per person. Please post your extra credit in a separate post.
• This contest will end Dec 15th at midnight!