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As I’ve mentioned before, in Florida, it seems like it’s always summer. Spring runs into summer which runs into fall. We have very slight variations in the weather. Our winters are questionable as well. Even my baby girl has noticed: “Is it still summer?” “Yes.” “Man, summer is a looong time!”

That means, that the traditional summer activities reserved for June-August by the rest of the nation, are activities that we can do in Florida the majority of the year. However, for some reason or another, my family reserves beach trips for summer. It’s not that we can’t go other months in the year, since the weather certainly allows it. It’s just something that has become part of our routine – once September comes around, we don’t make any beach trips until the following May or June.

Because of that, our beach trips are what make summer the most memorable for me. That, and maybe the fact that I am from a tropical island and spent much of my early childhood on the sand under palm trees. I love la playa. From the cool wind and water, down to the hot sand and even the sea smell. It’s great to see that love was inherited by my daughter.

I can’t share the palm trees and coconuts with her, since the beaches near us don’t have anything but pure sand for miles and miles. I can, however, share many memories with her: collecting sea shells, swinging under a palm tree in the hamaca, and playing in the water, for example. Since she visited Puerto Rico with us last year, she’s able to remember the beaches in Puerto Rico and relate.

Now, we’re making our own memories by visiting the beach every summer. Since she was only about 6 months old, we’ve made beach trips during the summer. She loves it and can’t get enough of playing on the beach. We may not have many standard summer activities that differentiate the summer from any other season in Florida. Yet, somehow, our family has managed to find something to make summer our own.

This summer, we’ve also had the opportunity to try out some frozen pops courtesy of Popsicle. After tasting the Popsicle® Jolly Rancher™ ice pops, we then tried the new Slow Melt Ice Pops – specifically of the Dora variety, since baby girl is a fan. She loved the different shapes they come in and, of course, tried the pink one first, because what other color is there? These Popsicle Slow Melt pops are meant to last longer (Get it? Slow Melt), which in turn means less mess on your kids’ clothes. This is especially handy when you have a kid like mine who takes for.e.ver to eat her food. No lie, she can sit there for nearly an hour eating the same plate I put in front of her. Of course, with popsicles, she never takes as long, but still eats slower than I would. I did notice that the Dora Slow Melt pop took longer to start melting than I’m used to. So, I guess it works!

Don’t forget that Popsicle is also holding a contest this summer. You can enter the Anything’s Possible With Popsicle Sweepstakes where kids have the chance to win one of three great prizes: dinosaur dig, dolphin dive, or Space Camp®! See more information and official rules on the Popsicle site.

What special summer time memories do you enjoy sharing with your kid(s)?

Disclosure: I am a Popsicle Brand Ambassador through a compensated Mom Bloggers Club member program. This post was written in conjunction with the program, but all opinions and thoughts are original.

There are many new TV shows and movies coming up that are age-appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers. I wanted to share a few that are showing this week you may want to check out.

This Friday, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog opens nationwide. In case you didn’t know, Princess Tiana is Disney’s first African-American heroine.

My baby girl has been anxiously waiting for the movie to open and has been seeing the commercials and trailers for months now. The only way we could help her understand how long she had to wait was to tell her it wouldn’t be out until her birthday. So, now that she knows her birthday is around the corner, when she sees Princess Tiana on TV, in the stores, or wherever, she asks, “That movie comes on my birthday, right?” Guess where we’ll probably be on Friday?

This past Sunday, a new Dora special, Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure, premiered on Nickelodeon. In this episode, Swiper tries to swipe the Christmas star from Dora’s Nochebuena party and winds up on Santa’s naughty list. I love that it’s a Nochebuena party (Christmas Eve), since that is when a majority of Latinos have the family get-together and dinner, not on Christmas day. If you missed it, you can catch it again this Sunday, December 13, at 7 p.m. (ET) on Nick Jr.

Nick Jr. will premiere Signing Time, a music series dedicated to teaching sign language to preschoolers, today, Wednesday, December 9. Signing Time teaches American Sign Language (ASL) vocabulary-building signs that are useful in daily life. This is one of those in-between shows that play throughout the day and I’m told the first one is scheduled for after the 1 pm ET show. I plan to catch a few of these to help baby girl learn some more signs. Ok, really, it’s to help me learn some since she already learns many at school and is often teaching them to me.

Enjoy the shows this week and let me know what you and your kids think after watching them!

We are a tech-heavy household. That’s not to say that we don’t do any hands-on activities, such as crafts, coloring, and puzzles. It’s just that both my husband and I love technology and use it daily. So, it’s only natural that our baby girl will grow up in a technology-filled house and will learn to use it early on.

She already knows how to navigate our iPod touch, knows how to work a computer mouse, and knows many techy words. How many three year olds do you know that have words such as blog and email in their vocabulary?

Mine does.

The latest activity that she likes to do is play on the computer. Since she learned how to use the mouse, she likes to go on “the real computer” (our laptop) and play games online.

Of course, we limit how long she plays at any given time and we’re sitting right next to her when she plays. This way, she can still interact with us as she plays and we can guide and help her if she needs us to.

Where does she go to play online games? Here are some of her favorite places to visit:

• Noggin
• Sesame Street
• PBS Kids
• Nick Jr
• Playhouse Disney

Of particular interest to her are the Dora games and lately Special Agent Oso has been a hit as well.

Does your toddler or preschooler play computer games? What sites do they enjoy? Do they have a favorite game?