Gift Giving Guides (Borrowed Guest Posts)

Being only two weekends away from Christmas, I'm sure many of us are looking to wrap up our holiday gift shopping (or perhaps just begin!) this weekend. If you're in that group, let me introduce you to the lovely Katie Clark.

This past August Katie traded in her days navigating the world of intergovernmental affairs in four inch heels, for full-time motherhood to Thomas and Keds. Since 2009, Katie has penned the lifestyle and design blog, Horizontal Stripes, which began as a portal to document her life while living in the wild west (Edmonton, Alberta) with a man she moved in with after spending only 17 days together (her now husband, Greg). The blog has become an outlet for sharing design inspiration and life milestones. When Katie isn't singing made up songs to her three month old son, she can be found walking around her neighbourhood, Georgestown, eating empanadas and pecan tarts at The Rocket Bakery, and watching reality tv (Mob Wives and The Real Housewives of NYC are current favourites)... Oh and wearing horizontal stripes.

Katie and I met through a mutual contact by way of us all having babies around the same time and I immediately took up reading her blog. She recently ran an AWESOME post titled Toy Roadmap where she detailed an assortment of toys suited to babies from three months through to three years of age. If you are looking for unique and useful ideas for gifts for a baby or toddler in your life this Christmas, look no more. Follow her roadmap and you'll be sure to find something they'll love. As Katie, momma to Thomas, says:

...I do continually look forward to Thomas' increasing ability to interact with and experience his world. I'm a strong believer that before institutionalized learning begins in Kindergarten, children learn most effectively through play. For this reason, I'm very motivated to continually introduce age appropriate toys to our son to stimulate his play experiences. If curious, here's our family's road map for Thomas' play for his first three years.

Here are a few of my favourite highlights on the Toy Roadmap:

You can head on over to Horizontal Stripes for the full post and ideas a plenty. While there, you can also check out her many other holiday gift guides for all the people in your life including:

Your M-I-L Who Single-Handedly Keeps Canada Post in Business and Calls Your Baby Chicklet

Gifts For Your Friend Who Introduced You to the Delicious Rebar Cookbook and Whose Travels Give You Wanderlust

Gifts for Your Mother Who Cooks You Delicious Meals and Sweets Every Sunday and Emails Every Day to Check In

Gifts for Your Friend Who Is More Likable Than Mary Tyler Moore and Who is Expecting Her First Child in February

Gifts For Your Brother Who Makes the Most Delicious BBQ and Announced He Wanted to Teach His Nephew to Play Baseball Upon Learning You Were Expecting

Gifts for Your Friend Who Makes Hot Pink Lipstick Look Good and Who is Known to Leave Brownies on Your Stoop to Make You Smile

Gifts for Your Grandma Who Marks Her Cookies with a Cross Before Baking and Who Loved the Monarchy Even Before Kate Came Along

Gifts for Your Husband Who Loves Modern Design and Skips His Morning Coffee so He can Cuddle With Your Baby

Thanks Katie for letting me share this gift-giving goodness with my readers!