Strollerderby : contest

Children's Place Giveaway!

editors — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:21:00 GMT

Shopping for new summer gear? The Children’s Place is offering Babble readers TWO chances to get free summer clothes. First, they're having a contest for one of five super-cute summer ensembles. For details on that, go here. Secondly, you can enter here to win a $200 Children’s Place gift certificate. The economy being what it is and those clothes being as adorable as they are, you can't afford NOT to throw your name in the hat...

Check out the Winner of the Funny Face Contest!

editors — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:03:00 GMT

After all the looking and laughing and laughing some more, our panel of judges picked Dana Randall (that's her munchkin, above) as our big winner of the Funny Face Contest on The Babble Playground. Dana will be going home with the NettoCollection Moderne changing table, a $1,750 value. Whoopee! What do you think someone did to that baby to get this reaction? Dana, please do tell.

Even though Dana is the grand prize winner, we had so many great funny face options it took us an extra long time to choose, so we decided to recognize some of the other finalists in the great Funny Face Contest of '08. These lucky Babble Playground familes will be receiving some consolation prizes from the Babble library. Take a gander at the other winners, after the jump.

Meet the Runners-Up

Alicia's submission:

This left us wondering if perhaps someone left The Shining in the DVD player.

Lizzie's submission:

Excellent use of props.

Lisa's submission:

This would have fit in quite well in my high school yearbook.

You say you want to win fabulous prizes of extraordinary value? If you haven't joined the Playground yet, now is the time. Connect with other families, showcase your brood in photo and video and enter to win more exciting contests coming soon! - April Peveteaux

Best of FameCrawler: Week of June 20th

Whit Honea — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Jennifer Aniston Is A Hater

C-Section For Jamie-Lynn Spears Baby

Ray Allen's Son: A Hard Week

OMG!! Baby # 2 On The Way So Soon?!!

Sienna Miller is Selfish

Sara Evans Wedding Photo

FIRST LOOK: Jessica Alba In Genlux Magazine

Angelina Jolie is One Cool Lady

Kate Beckinsale's Nude Shower Scene

Do You Know These Kids?

9 Celebrity Parents When They Were Children

Jamie Lynn's Family Makes First Statement About New Baby

Giveaway: Win Tickets to "Kung Fu Panda: The IMAX Experience!"

editors — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:01:00 GMT

You know your kids want to see the movie with the kung-fu fighting panda. You know they do. And hey, you deserve a night out, right? So how about this: we'll take your whole family to the movies. Absolutely free. Read on for details!

Thanks to the kind folks at Paramount Pictures, we have 10 sets of 4 tickets to Kung Fu Panda to give to ten lucky readers. You can use them at any date, at any IMAX theater (Yep, they're IMAX tickets. Those ain't cheap!). Just send your full name, mailing address, and the name of your favorite family movie to babblecontest@gmail.com to enter. Winners will picked at random and contacted on the film's opening day, Friday June 6th. Good luck!

Free Wii ... For a Price, That Is

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:24:00 GMT

Want a super cool gift or just want to play some awesome games when the kids go to bed (sharing is overrated)? Well, SD alum Stefania (Citymama) Pomponi-Butler is giving away a free Nintendo Wii game system ... with a catch, of course.

All you have to do is spill the beans on your most embarrassing exercise story, just like Stefania did with her Jazzercize routines. (Ouch.) Check out the details here and then enter away -- you don't even need your own blog. Just a healthy dose of self esteem. (Three Kid Circus has the same contest, so if you want another chance to win, go here.)

Apologies for pimping out the Wii like some character out of Hustle and Flow, but I was so excited to hear about the Wii when it first came out because I thought, "Finally! If kids are going to play video games all day, at least here's a way to get them off their fat asses!" Having played the bowling game and the tennis game, I now know it's not that involved -- but still, gotta be better than nothing.

Caption Contest: Win a Dazzle stroller!

editors — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:40:00 GMT

Think you can write bodice-ripping text? Chronicle Books is betting you can contribute to their new release Porn for New Moms, and will be amply rewarding the best caption that crosses our desks. Go here, then put on your new parent hat and show us what you’ve got and you could win a fabulous Silver Cross Dazzle Stroller and see your work published on Babble.

Mine would go something like this: “Oprah called. She bought you a nanny.” - April Peveteaux

Enter to win today!

Let Baby Bring Home The Bacon

Amy S.F. Lutz — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:35:00 GMT

Tired of working your butt off so your kids can have the finer things in life? Well, maybe it's time to sit back and let your kids rake in the big bucks.

At least, that's the premise behind TheCuteKid.com, which claims to be "the world's biggest online child photo and family site." The site offers monthly photo contests, leading up to contention for "TheCuteKid of the Year," a prize that comes with a $25,000 scholarship.

But why not dream big? Casting directors from "Nanny 911" and "Everybody Hates Chris" have used the site to troll for talent. And identical twins Sabrina and Courtney Walsh were just tapped for a national ad campaign with Brawny paper towels after a talent agent saw their pictures on the site.

Which made me think . . . hey, I have twins. They're not identical, but they are pretty cute (that's them in the picture). And it's not like Babble pays me a fortune for all these clever posts. Maybe I should sign Aaron and Gretchen up, let the talent agents come bang down my door.

After all, I'm sure Mary Kate and Ashley's parents don't have any regrets.

Baby Gap Winners: I Got Robbed

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:22:00 GMT

I don't know why Gap had a problem with me. My headshots were great. I totally nailed my callback. I sang. I danced. I poured my heart into this contest. But in the end, I just didn't have the "energy" they wanted. Or the "Youth." Or the "Please, dude, just go away or we're calling the cops because this is a contest for babies." Whatever that means.

The winners seem to have been announced a few weeks ago, but I just crawled out of my shame cave and saw the results at my local Gap. I guess these kids are OK. Mostly adorable. If you want adorable kids to model for your kid clothing line, that is. How passe. (31 is the new 2 for kids clothes in Milan this year.) I suppose I'll always have next year.

Girl Wins Hannah Montana Tickets With Fake Essay

Madeline Holler — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 19:00:00 GMT

I have had countless conversations about Hannah Montana over the past couple of weeks, which is stunning, considering I don't think I had uttered the rather catchy (and fake) name more than once or twice total before that. In any case, all of the discussions involved one or more of these three elements: first-graders (first-graders!); $450 concert tickets (for a fake singer!); mothers living through their daughters (in this day and age!).

Until today, the sickest anecdote came from my aunt-in-law, a second-grade teacher, who told me about a first-grader at her school. The girl's mom shelled out nearly $2,000 for four concert tickets, plus transportation and dinner for the mother-daughter pairs in a limo that was taking them on the four-hour round trip. Did they open the wet bar too? Stand through the sunroof and lift up their Hanna Montana concert tees?

That story got trumped, though, when I came across this: one Texas mother's strategy to get her daughter (a first-grader ... it's always first-graders!) to a sold-out Hanna Montana concert.

The details:

Club Libby Lu, a Chicago-based store that sells clothes, accessories and other crap for young girls (we'll need to table our discussion of THIS particular merchandiser of hooker lifestyle for the pre-breast-budded for another time) sponsored a writing contest. The prize was a makeover at Club Libby Lu, a blonde HM wig and tickets for the Albany, N.Y., concert (where the debt-ridden Disney fans go to hang out with other first-graders and their moms, I presume).

The winning essay began: "My daddy died this year in Iraq." You know where this is going.

The girl's daddy didn't die this year in or out of Iraq. The named father wasn't even listed with the defense department. Instead, like customers leaving Libby Lu, the adoring fans of Hannah Montana, and anyone with a vagina appearing on the Disney Channel, that heart-breaking winning essay was all heavily made up.

Says the mother:

"We did the essay and that's what we did to win," Priscilla Ceballos, the mother, said in an interview with Dallas TV station KDFW. "We did whatever we could do to win."
Charming! Inspiring! A real warm holiday story, plus years of therapy for her humiliated and/or devastated daughter.

Here's the kicker for me: the company is reviewing the matter and "considering taking away the girl's tickets." Considering? This isn't a case-closed kind of thing? Oh, and that would also mean the mother -- already far behind the starting line on modeling, for her daughter, honesty, perspective, pride, those kinds of things -- hasn't given the tickets back? Doesn't she ...? Isn't she ...? Can someone please explain this to me?

Wasn't I just saying people are such entitled jackasses?

Say Aww: Baby Halloween Costume Contest Winners

Gwynne Watkins — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:53:00 GMT

The winners are in for the costume contest I co-judged over at Etsy! It's thrilling to see so many creative parents, and tough to pick a winner. But the above costume, Max and Wild Thing, took the grand prize. I'll be posting more about the contest in Droolicious -- in the meantime, second and third place winners are after the jump. Prepare to squeal.

Baby shrimp!

Eric Carle-inspired baby butterfly!

See more (non-baby) contest winners here.

Smarter Than a Preschooler? 'Fraid Not, Loser

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 12:32:00 GMT

Clare's dad has an interesting contest going on -- but you better hurry over to play before he reveals the answer later today.

In short, he poses a simple question: Are you smarter than a preschooler? And then he displays a simple bus puzzle kids can figure out in two seconds flat. Certain unnamed adults? Not so much.

So take a look at the picture, head on over and cast your vote. With any luck, you won't find yourself in a mental shame cycle for a whole day.

Baby Loves Disco Contest: Like Studio 54, But More Diapers and Less Liza

Kelly Mills — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:04:00 GMT

So you think your baby can dance? Stride Rite is holding a Best Little Dancer in America contest. Apparently the Baby Loves Disco train will be stopping in 12 cities in search of the kid with the most funk. I don't think there's a real train, but judging by these sample videos, I don't think there's gonna be too much funk either. Because so far it looks like the bar has been set nice and low. Nobody really seems to be putting their heart into it. And you know what that means: if your kid has even the tiniest bit of rhythm, maybe he or she could be a big winner.

There are two age categories: ages 0-3 (I'm sure the 0-year-olds will have just dazzling footwork) and ages 4-7, with one winner and ten runners-up from each category. Voting is online, so even if you don't feel like making your child compete, you can still tear apart the dance skills of small children from the safety of your computer. And a portion of the proceeds go to charity. The rest go towards gold lame pantsuits and coke for the competitors. Ah, the 70s.

Crafty: Contest Brings Attention to Childhood GERD

Patti — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:02:00 GMT

If your child has a chronic condition that causes them pain, you know how difficult it can be to understand exactly where your kid is coming from when they're in distress. That's why the Pediatric/Adolescent Gastroesophageal Reflux Association and the makers of Prevacid are sponsoring The Art of GERD, an art contest where children ages 3-15 who suffer from gastroesophageal reflux can express through drawing how their disease affects them. The contest sponsors hope that this will lead to better understanding of how children feel when GERD is kicking their little butts, and also give kids a great platform to share their experiences. Scholarship prizes and art supplies will be awarded to the winning entrants.

If your child suffers from GERD, you can check out the contest details here.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Can Send Your Kid To College

Melissa Summers — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:04:00 GMT

As the school year starts I'm facing about 250 days of making peanut butter sandwiches, I'm thinking this is a contest I need to get my daughter into. Jif brand peanut butter is running the Most Creative Peanut Butter Sandwich contest and the award is a $25,000 scholarship fund.

Last year's winner was twelve-year-old Alexandra Yoder of Fort Wayne, Indiana with "Peanut Butter Rolls - Sushi Style," The 'sushi' used pretzel rods for chopsticks and chocolate yogurt for soy sauce. Creative.

The contest is open to children ages 6 to 12, and sandwiches will be judged on the following criteria: creativity, nutritional balance, taste, appearance and ease of preparation. Entries must be postmarked by November 15th and five finalists will eventually compete in a live contest in New York City in March of 2008.

Make sure to check out the past winners from the last four years. Like Shannon's (age 7) "Peanutty Pretty Purse Pita" and Jessica Delaney's (age 12) "Peanutty Wrapple Rolls with Maple Dipping Sauce".

Land's End Contest: Summertime Christmas?

Kelly Mills — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 20:39:00 GMT

Mmmm, summer. When it's nice and warm outside, perfect for swimming, outings to the park, and...Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice art contests?

Well, it may be July, but the deadline for the contest is August 10, so get on it. Kids age twelve and under can enter the Holiday Art Contest from Land's End. First place gets a $500 gift card from said company. Maybe the children could put on the down jackets just to get in the mood. At least that'll probably keep them quiet for a while.

Why am I all of the sudden feeling panicked about getting my shopping done?

LEGO Creativity Awards: You Might Win

Kelly Mills — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 13:02:00 GMT

Ooooh, I love a contest. LEGO is sponsoring their first annual Creativity Awards, where ten kids will win $5000 towards future creative endeavors. To enter, just submit an essay for a child between the ages of 6 and 13 detailing how they have been creative at home, at school, or in the community, and how it made them feel. "This essay contest encourages children to think of creativity as more than just practicing art or music; it is also about taking a new approach to everyday challenges." You have until September 17, 2007 to enter.

Hey, $5000 can go a long way towards funding your budding artist or engineer. Give it a shot.

Arctic Circle Movie/Strollerderby T-Shirt Giveaway!

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:01:00 GMT

Hey, everyone! It's our very first contest! And to win all you have to do is comment! Strollerderby, in partnership with the new environmentally-friendly nature film Arctic Tale, is giving away 20 movie T-shirts to folks who share one thing they are doing to help protect the environment in the comments below. Winners will be selected at random and we'll announce them in a separate post on Monday the 16th (along with a round-up of your tips!) so be sure to check back to see if you've won!

Arctic Tale is an epic adventure that explores the vast world of the Great North. The film follows the walrus, Seela, and the polar bear Nanu, on their journey from birth to adolescence to maturity and parenthood in the frozen Arctic wilderness. Once a perpetual winter wonderland of snow and ice, the walrus and the polar bear are losing their beautiful icebound world as it melts from underneath them. Artic Tale is brought to you by National Geographic Films, the people who brought you March of the Penguins and Paramount Classics, the studio that brought you An Inconvenient Truth. The film is narrated by Queen Latifah and opens in selected cities on July 25.

Check out the Artic Tale site for previews and cool downloads, then get to commenting! Just one environmentally-friendly tip will get you a soft, comfy T-shirt, the perfect summer beach cover-up. Contest ends Sunday, July 15 at midnight.

Note: Please be sure your Babble profile includes a URL where we can contact you.

Design a Cool Kiddie T; Win Fab-O Prizes

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 18:07:00 GMT

Tired of ironic onsies? Fed up with princess garb? Sick of baby prostitute clothes? If you've ever had a desire to design the perfect kid T-shirt, here's your chance. And the best part? You don't even have to spend time and money on arts college.

Anyone can do it.

Ultra-cool Small Paul and Black Wagon have joined up for a design-your-own-T-shirt contest that could make you famous and your kid the talk of the playground.

The winning T-shirt design will go be available for sale online, while you get five free ones for friends and family -- on top of $200 in bragging rights, I mean shopping sprees.

But please, no princesses or anything written across the backside. That's just tacky.

Get Your Crank On: "Man Candy" Style

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:48:00 GMT

As much as I enjoy people mocking my tender, plump man boobs, this is a contest I think I'll sit out, because Man Candy I am not. But that doesn't mean I won't be judging and drooling over the photos every other day.

Our very own Crank Mama Rachael is hosting quite possibly the best. web. contest. ever -- an ode to Man Candy, sweet, delicious daddy goodness. Go here for the rules, but it's really quite simple. Get a very cool T-shirt, put it on your man and submit the photo. Twelve of the web's best looking dads will receive special prizes, besides, of course, the ego-inflating ability to say "I am one of the web's hottest dozen dads."

You have until Labor Day to get it done. And if I can find the time to work my man boobs down to an A-cup, I may just change my mind and enter.

Ugly Baby Clothes Contest: I Could Be a Winner

Kelly Mills — Tue, 01 May 2007 15:04:00 GMT

I never win anything. Lotteries, spelling bees, raffles, monopoly: I’m a number one loooooser. Even in contests where everybody wins a prize, I somehow get disqualified for body checking or other rule violation.

Maybe that’s why I’m extra excited about the Ugly Baby Clothes contest. The contest started when Carly from Durham Region Baby posted a photo of this Panda monstrosity. Now the gates are open, and we can all submit the frilliest, dump truck-iest, primary color-iest, Disney princess-iest concoction we received as a shower gift and weakly said, “Oh, how, um, sweet of you…”

There are prizes to be had, and you can even enter something you or one of your family members wore as a child for consideration by the judges. Enter as many times as you like, so look through your photo albums and Goodwill giveaway bags and see what scary treasures lurk there.

But just to warn you, I am so submitting the giant lace tiered dress with the puffy sleeves and matching bloomers I got from a coworker who may have secretly hated my guts. Finally, I have a shot at winning the gold. C’mon people, let’s throw down!

Beauty Pageant Monsters Exploit Their Parents

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:47:00 GMT

These kids should be ashamed of themselves. It's just sickening what they're doing to their parents -- not to mention their coaches, they hair and makeup artists, their singing and dancing instructors and their, I'm not joking, fake teeth makers. The list goes on and on -- these kids simply don't care who they exploit for fame and glory.

I was channel surfing last night and noticed that VH1 had pre-empted a documentary called "Little Beauties" -- a ~~love letter to pedophiles everywhere~~ "light-hearted" documentary of an "American tradition:" beauty pageants -- for some show about kid stars and their creepy parents. I can see why. I did a little digging (read: google search) into "Little Beauties" and found that these girls are just out of control. No wonder VH1 ran something in its place. These girls have no shame.

"They're gorgeous, they're talented, they're six-years old and with the helping hand of eager moms, determined pageant coaches, fabulous spray tan artists and "flipper" (fake teeth) makers, not to mention a couple of Pixie Sticks for energy, these girls are taking the stage at pageants all over the Southeast U.S." That's what the promo said. Six years old. I can just imagine these 6-year-old girls waking up their parents at the crack of dawn to practice important childhood activities like poise and "world peace."

Something has to be done. These pint-sized dictator-divas have to be stopped, otherwise they are going to turn their perfectly normal parents into over-bearing "pageant moms." And we all know how that turned out for poor Patricia Ramsey.

Play Babble's Laughing Baby Contest and Win Free Crap!

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:22:00 GMT

Babble is running a contest. Come join the fun! We all think our own children have the cutest laugh out of any baby that ever lived. Now you have the opportunity to prove you are the only one who isn't lying. As an added bonus, we've made it easy to enter:

1. Upload your video to YouTube and title it "Babble.com Laughing Baby Contest." Please also write "Babble.com Laughing Baby Contest" for the description.

2. Once you have successfully uploaded your video to YouTube, email the link to video@babble.com with Laughing Baby Contest" as the subject.

The videos have to be less than one minute long and your baby has to be younger than two. There are some fantastic prizes from Skip Hop, so be sure to get your entries in my February 28th.

You guys are so lucky that my kids are 2 1/2 or we would be a lock. Huh, I guess we all really do think we have the cutest kids.

Babble Giveaway: Dragonology Gift Set

babbling — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 23:28:00 GMT

Happy new year, Strollerderby readers! And what better way to start off the new year than with dragons? (This is Gwynne, by the way. Associate editor of Babble. Hi.) The folks at Candlewick Press have sent us a gift set full of dragon-themed goodness, including three books in the bestselling Dragonology series and the first-ever Dragonology young adult novel. And we're giving these very attractive, rather heavy books to one lucky winner. To enter, e-mail me with 1) your name 2) your mailing address, and 3) the name of your favorite dragon, and the reason you love it. Best answer receives a Dragonology gift set for their favorite aspiring dragonologist.

You have until Monday, January 8th to enter. Good luck!