The Vancouver Island Baby Fair e-newsletter is coming on Thursday, Dec. 9 – if you’re not already subscribed, do it now! We’ll have an exclusive giveaway of this Kemby Sidekick DiaperBag Carrier from Cat and Fiddle Kids!

Cat & Fiddle Kids has everything your organic, earth-friendly child needs, and something for Mom too. You will find their products are specially chosen from reputable manufacturers and represent the leading edge of safety, innovation and style.

Pop by their spacious store at 735 Cloverdale Ave. (between Douglas St. and Blanshard St.) to do a little Christmas shopping, plus you can check out their website and join them on Facebook for updates!

The Kemby Sidekick DiaperBag Carrier: With all the organizational elements you expect in a well-made diaper bag – plus innovative features to simplify your outings – the Sidekick is a must-have for families on the go and is gorgeous too! To enter to win, you have to be signed up for our e-Newsletter Inside the Pea Pod, so be sure to sign up now (you can also sign up over in the right-hand column of this blog)!

It’s back! Our most popular e-Newsletter giveaway ever is back this week… the Strider running bike from West Coast Strider Sales!

As always, this giveaway is exclusive to people who receive our e-Newsletter – a monthly inside scoop on the Vancouver Island Baby Fair –  you can be the first to know about Baby Fair announcements and we always have a giveaway to offer to subscribers only.

In recent issues, we’ve given away subscriptions to Chirp magazine and a $50 gift certificate to Abby Sprouts…

In our next e-Newsletter going out the morning of Friday, Sept. 10, we’re giving away one of these cool West Coast Strider Bikes! To sign up, fill out the form over in the right-hand column of the blog, or visit our e-Newsletter sign-up page.

Strider Running Bike

Skip the tricycle and the training wheels!
Strider running bikes are two wheeled bikes designed to allow your child to teach themselves to balance on two wheels, without the interference of pedals or chains. Weighing only 6.9 lbs and with a seat that lowers to just 11″ from the ground, children as young as 12 months up to 5 years (50 lbs) can easily handle the Strider running bike and gain the confidence they need to balance on two wheels. Stand back and watch as they teach themselves to balance. You will be amazed!  Strider running bikes come in six vibrant colors: Red, Blue, Green, Pink, Orange and Yellow.

Your preschooler can come try out a West Coast Strider bike in the Kids Corner at the upcoming Vancouver Island Baby Fair, September 25 & 26, 2010 at Pearkes Rec Centre in Victoria, but in the meantime, check out their website for full details on these great bikes!

One of the coolest things we’ve discovered lately as parents of a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old is a magazine made just for them – Chirp! Chirp is a magazine especially for 3-6 year-olds.

Our 6-year-old just loves reading and devours his copy of Chirp every month when it arrives in the mail. Our family likes it so much, we wanted to share!

In our August e-Newsletter (coming to an inbox near you on Friday!) we’re giving away 5 Owlkids prize packages – each one includes a 6-issue subscription to Chirp, sample magazines, activity pages, a poster map of Canada, stickers, bookmarks, and a t-shirt (approx $35 value)!

If you don’t already subscribe to our e-Newsletter, sign up now to get in on the action! Only current subscribers of the Inside the Pea Pod e-Newsletter will be eligible to win. You can fill out the form in the right-hand column here on the blog, or follow this link.

More about Chirp

Chirp is a unique magazine for children ages 3 to 6. Designed for preschoolers and beginner readers, each issue is bursting with puzzles, crafts, games, rhymes and read-out-loud stories. Chirp is a perfect way to introduce your children to the joy of reading and learning!

Readers will enjoy every issue jam-packed with:

• Well-loved Robbie & Emily stories and Chirp comic strip
• Age-appropriate puzzles, connect-the-dots, mazes and simple board games in Puzzles and Fun
• Special Chirp cut-out for readers to make and play with
• Chirp Crafts, even the littlest hands can master
• Fascinating facts about animals in Amazing Animal
• Original fiction and artwork by well-loved children’s authors and illustrators in Rhyme Time and Let’s Read
• Hilariously funny jokes in Laugh with Chirp

We are very excited to announce our upcoming giveaway in the next issue of our monthly e-newsletter going out May 5th!

Skip the tricycle and the training wheels!
Strider running bikes are two wheeled bikes designed to allow your child to teach themselves to balance on two wheels, without the interference of pedals or chains. Weighing only 6.9 lbs and with a seat that lowers to just 11″ from the ground, children as young as 12 months up to 5 years (50 lbs) can easily handle the Strider running bike and gain the confidence they need to balance on two wheels. Stand back and watch as they teach themselves to balance. You will be amazed!  Strider running bikes come in six vibrant colors: Red, Blue, Green, Pink, Orange and Yellow.

Your preschooler can come try out a West Coast Strider bike in the Kids Corner at the upcoming Vancouver Island Baby Fair, June 5 & 6 in Nanaimo but in the meantime, check out their website for full details on these great bikes!

Just in time for summer, we will be giving away one West Coast Strider bike in the colour of the winner’s choice in the May issue of our e-newsletter, “Inside the Pea Pod” so subscribe today (right hand side of our blog) for your chance to win!

If you’re a regular at the Vancouver Island Baby Fair website, you might notice a change today – we’ve decided to get a little deeper into the blogosphere! Our previous blog was more of a news feed with alerts about upcoming Baby Fair events, prize giveaways in our e-Newsletter, and so on. That information will continue, but we plan to bring you much more with this new, expanded format.

Inside the Pea Pod will take you inside the Vancouver Island Baby Fair and the family that brings you this annual event. In addition to news and information about the Baby Fair, we’ll also bring you the personal side of things – work/family balance, the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, parenting information, our community involvement, recipes, product reviews, and much more.

This blog is written by Vancouver Island Baby Fair producer Shirley Broback and her sidekick/co-producer/husband Mike Lowe. The couple are raising their 3-year-old girl and 6-year-old boy in Victoria, British Columbia, and bringing you the Vancouver Island Baby Fairs annually in Victoria and Nanaimo, B.C.