Best Family Gifts and Products

3D printed dragon eggs - the smaller ones are pretty reasonably priced when you buy them in bulk.

Special pencils, like mechanical pencils, push pencils, scented pencils, or those pencils that write in multi-color. (But I could mostly do without regular pencils - we have so many I don't think we'll ever get through using them all!)

Mini animal or dinosaur figurines.

I love giving out Crayola's Bold & Bright Construction Paper Crayons for Halloween classroom favors. I often see them at Dollar Tree, and they come in a black box to fit the "Halloween" theme. We use these crayons at home constantly to make homemade birthday cards for friends with our construction paper (regular crayons just don't show up well on darker construction paper)!

A nice neutral-colored hoodie with minimal or no branding on it.

LED strip lights for his room.

My high school guy and his friends like to gift each other snacks, either a big assortment as the main gift or as an add-on component. Nerds gummy clusters are a favorite.

A portable JBL speaker.

Legos. I love that these work well for a wide range of ages and interests, from chunky Duplo bricks to intricate sets in a variety of pieces and difficulty levels. Plus, the many themed sets allows you to personalize for the birthday kids special interests. Minecraft legos, Star Wars legos, Harry Potter legos, Lego Friends...so many possibilities, you can really never go wrong!

Puzzles are fun gifts for kids of all ages. From Rubix cubes (or specialty speed cubes for the more experienced cubers!) to jigsaw puzzles, they are fun gifts that are likely to get a lot of use over time, and which can be customized by age/difficulty level. We've liked Ravensburger puzzles for years, but have also recently discovered the fun puzzles from the Magic Puzzle Company, which are great for more experienced jigsaw puzzlers ready for lots of pieces!

A gift card to a local treat place: donut shop, ice cream, boba, etc.

Arts and crafts supplies like crayons, markers, drawing pads, coloring books and craft kits.

Pura vida bracelets are popular with the girls at our middle school, and they make a great gift because you can't really have too many.

Gift cards to Starbucks or boba places.

Spa/bath gifts like shower steamers, sheet masks, bath bombs, bubble bath.

Most of my daughter's friends like to get Sephora products. The most popular brands seem to be Summer Fridays, LANEIGE, and Sol de Janeiro, and they all make products that don't feel too grown-up.

Blankets, quilts. Used swaddling blankets only.

I bought peepee teepees and used one once. Receiving blankets. Used maybe once or twice. Baby nail file! As much as I have to admit it...just get clippers and suck up the fear of cutting their nails. The files don’t work very well.

Pee guards. I didn’t use these with my first boy but decided to give them a try with my second. Only used it the one time!! It totally got in the way when trying to change him and I needed to take it off to wipe him anyway. Better to just move as quickly as possible, and use the diaper itself as a guard if necessary, to avoid the pee in the face!

I bought a big pack of Dr. Brown’s bottles that I still haven’t opened. I wanted to stock up in case breastfeeding didn’t stick, but should’ve waited to see what we’d actually need. We got 6 or 7 free bottles by signing up for various registries which is more than enough for my newborn, and allows us to test out different brands to see which he prefers. Same experience with pacifiers…don’t stock up until you know which brand your baby prefers. Babylist allows you to buy sample packs of bottles, pacifiers and swaddles which I highly recommend.

We do BTS shopping at Target. I buy the Gift Cards when they are on sale for 20% off and save my 5% birthday coupon for it!

For basic school supply items that you end up needing to repurchase every year, buy in bulk and keep the extra on hand to draw from in the future. Costco often has great deals on post-its, pens, notebooks, etc during back to school time.

I bought my son a Nike backpack two years ago and it is still going strong. It has a front pocket which is great for little items and side pockets for a water bottle. He loves it!

Our Pottery Barn bags were great, and seem to be a popular choice at our elementary school. We never had a chance to wear them out, but they definitely were in good shape after 2-3 years (when grandma wanted to get new ones!). Fun designs and personalization available, too. I wouldn't recommend getting the smallest size (as we did in Kindergarten), as kids outgrow them quickly and they really will last a long time.

I bought my son a Land's End backpack (on clearance!) when he started first grade. This kid is not gentle with his things at all, but his Land End backpack made it through 8th grade before retiring. It was still in pretty great shape to tell you the truth, but we upgraded to a larger backpack for all his high school books.

I agree with Pottery Barn. That's where we bought ours. We have also had good luck with Justice.