Now that our daughter is starting to crawl, we've started to be more diligent at taking off our shoes at the front door. It means, however, that eyesore clutter of shoes when you first walk in the house, which I hate. My wife's solution is to run to Target or Ikea and get a shoe rack - bleeech! If we had the room, I'd love to have a solution like this coat and shoe hanger wall in a NY penthouse designed by the architect team at Manhattan Produce.

Meanwhile, we still don't have a great solution for our shoes.

Here's some recent top posts from our sister blog, Car & Caboodle - the site all about the family car.

• Run Your Car on Water and Save Big at the Pump?
• Maxi-Cosi Priori Car Seat Review - Relax, Recline, Rest!
• News Roundup: Car Seats, New XUV's, Thrifty SUV's and Hatchback Face Off
• Ali's Picks: Clek Booster Seats - Think Small
• Reviews - Mazda CX-9 and Pontiac Vibe

3-color silkscreened alphabet poster by Decoylab ($40 via Supermarket).

Classy Mommy: Win $100 Gift Card to Toys R Us
To celebrate VeggieTales:‘Lessons from the Sock Drawer’ DVD Release we're giving away....

Clever Parents: Operation Shower Mother’s Day Celebration Kicks Off
The Operation Shower Mother’s Day celebration is officially underway as 50 Marine Corps...

MomFinds: Win a Giant Gift Basket from Neat Solutions
Always on-the-go? You'll love this week's goody basket filled to the brim with fun....

One Chic Mama: You're Jingling, Baby
Hurry - enter to win a mother/daughter set of Cambodian jingle bells anklets from Baby Emi Jewelry.

Suri’s Drinking Habits Becoming “Bottle-Gate”?
Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s daughter, Suri, was spotted sucking on a bottle in NYC earlier this week

The Nest Baby: Book Club -- Porn for New Moms
We love this non-stop laugh fest. Pick up a copy and join our discussion now!

Kimochi Emotion Dolls  |  $55 from Uncommon Goods

Over the last two days we got a lot of traffic from Cookie Magazine and upon investigating, I found out that they named Coochicoos their featured site of the week.  That's too cool.  Thanks Cookie!

After a few weeks of trying out Twitter under the radar, I've finally concluded that using Twitter is a live version of blogrolling.  Following my colleagues and friends through Twitter is a window on who we like and what we're interested in.  So it's finally time to let our readers know - if you like coochicoos, you might like our friends, and if so, follow my Twitter stream here and see my Twitter friend feed.

New to Twitter?  Here's a few tips for newbies and bloggers.

I love the creativity of the box art entries at the Box Doodle Project.  Taking common objects to create something new is a great exercise in possibility and creativity for kids.  As a adult, you'll enjoy these creations too.

Seeing what's happening in other countries is always a chance to break out of our usual patterns and also provide some inspiration.  Here are handmade plushes called Suki Suki's from the Netherlands.

Suki Suki Handmade Plushies at Etsy  |  Suki Suki Website

Sometimes to really get a sense of the landscape, change your perspective and stand up on a chair and look around the room (like Robin Williams did in Seize the Day).  Better yet, walk around the house at night in the dark - I recently discovered if you can tell your house is a mess in the dark, then you really have issues with clutter and too much stuff.

Face it - is this familiar in your household?

Oh my, the stuff. The baby stuff. Everywhere. Means of conveyance, swingy seat, Bumbo, squeaky toys, fuzzy toys, toys for biting and bending, jammies, jackets, socks that do and don’t look like shoes, amusing hats, blankets, books, rattles, pacifiers, cleaning supplies, extra diapers — plus of course, there’s the raw tonnage of stuff belonging to the caretaking adults that has been displaced or disused as a result of the occupying baby’s needs. It is a scene, man, I can assure you.

For me, I'm inspired to purge a lot of our stuff, and begin really asking  "do we need that" before actually buying it.  That's why I avoid going to BabiesRUs because I'm convinced that I don't need half the stuff in that place.  But that's a whole other story.

Start your own clutter war today with Attack of the Giant Baby and It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff.  It's good to know that I'm not alone in this battle.

Our daughter will have her first birthday this July, and we're starting to talk about how to celebrate her first year.  On one hand, it's not a day that she'll ever remember, but it's a family thing that first birthdays are celebrated with big fanfare. 

So today, I'm asking our readers - what's the most special one-year birthday you've attended?

image from pingg

The Little Critters gallery is a collection of illustrations by Canadian illustrators curated by Uppercase.  Cluster a few of these smaller format pieces together to make a nice vignette in your kid's rooms.

Little Critters  |  Starting at $35 at Uppercase

Here's some graphically simple baby announcements and shower invites from Emma Rose Papery in San Francisco, California.

Play classic childhood card games with these vintage card sets from the 1950's. From Slap Jack, Old Maid, and Dr. Quack, I think these game cards might mean more to mom and dad than the kids.

Vintage Matchbox Card Games  |  $38 for set of three at Evie S.

Who else thinks this is the coolest?  Send any artwork or photo to Engrave Your Book, pick a Moleskin notebook, and you'll get back a custom laser-engraved Moleskin journal.  Pre-designed Artist Series journals (selection shown below) are also available, along with volume discounts for five or more Moleskins.

My Moleskin is filled with those easily forgotten baby milestones like my daughter's first time feeding herself a Cheerio, or learning to click her tongue, or her first time sitting up.

link:  Engrave Your Book