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The baby and I did two unusual things two weekends ago: got up early on a Saturday and went to Ross Park Mall. Ross Park Mall is on the other side of town for us and we all know how I feel about sleeping, so you can imagine that whatever pulled me out there must have been pretty cool. The folks at 77kids and TheMotherhood invited me and a few other local blogger-types to see the new store out there, check out their cool winter displays and merchandise, and learn about their charity initiative.

We arrived before the mall even opened, so it was nice and quiet, aside from a few mall-walkers (those folks who powerwalk around the mall early in the morning for their exercise). 77kids launched about two years ago in Robinson and the Ross Park store is pretty new. The store itself was warm and cozily lit, which made it instantly comfortable. The baby made a beeline for the interactive photo booth display so that he could live out his Shaun White fantasies.

After oogling at his photo after it printed, we headed to the outside of the store to see their cool window displays. 77kids took a cue from the downtown department store window displays and had the 77kids birds skating around and skiing. The window is interactive and the kids were invited to race each other’s birds down the hill. I would have taken a picture of the race in action, but I was holding our coats and my coffee and a bagel and a DS and a doughnut. I managed to get a shot after the fact.

I had to stuff his bagel back into his mouth to free up my hands, though.

Back inside the store, we learned about Wish 4 Snow. In stores, customers can add a donation at the register that will go toward children’s hospitals all over the country. Online, you can play the Make a Snowflake Wish game. 77kids’ goal is to get 100,000 snowflakes made for their blizzard by December 14th. If they reach that goal, they will donate an additional $25,000 to children’s hospitals. AND for every snowflake that you make, you’ll be entered to win a $77 gift card to 77kids and a chance at the grand prize: a winter block party for you and 77 guests. You can click the widget over on the right to get to the Wish 4 Snow game. It’s pretty cool. I’ve made a couple snowflakes and they look WAY better than the ones I’ve attempted with scissors and paper, which tend to look like diseased Swiss cheese.

I had to drag the baby away from these huge pillow bean bag things to go look at clothes.

Can’t really say that I blame him, though. They looked extremely comfortable.

He made a beeline for this hat, which I unfortunately can’t find on the 77kids site anymore. I hope it’s not sold out completely!

After donning the hat, he was drawn back to the photobooth to play with the neat little DJ setup that they had. Since his dad’s a DJ, the baby is always trying to play around with records whenever he gets a chance, so he was really into this gadget.

He circled around the store one more time and grabbed some gloves, a pair of jeans, which are awesome because they have that adjustable elastic waist and my toothpick kid needs that, and these cozy pajama pants that reminded us a little of the Abominable Snowman. We’ve been pretty happy with all of these so far and that hat gets so many compliments, it’s ridiculous.

Now, here’s where the cool stuff happens for you. I’m giving away one $50 gift card to 77kids to one of you lovely readers. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post between now and Monday, December 6th. I will choose one winner at random and announce the winner here on Tuesday, December 7th. You could give the gift card as a gift to your favorite kid or parent or stock up on some duds for your shorty. You should also take a minute to go play that Wish 4 Snow game. Do it! It’s for the kids!

(Awkward full disclosure: I’m working with 77kids and The MotherHood on this campaign. For my efforts, they provided me with a 77kids gift card and a small stipend.)

This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2010 at 3:35 pm and is filed under baby, blogs, Pittsburgh. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.