My son celebrated his seventh birthday in July and has been playing with his favorite birthday gifts ever since. I wanted to wait on sharing his favorite gifts until we discovered which ones continued to be played with long after the party was over. After all, the sign of a truly loved toy is one that lasts way past that party!
Ultra Stomp Rocket- My son’s favorite gift of the summer was definitely the stomp rockets that he received. The kids would play for hours with these and would work as a team to gather the rockets and then take turns stomping. The stomp rockets come with a launch pad and four foam rockets. Your child jumps on a little air pad and the air travels through the hose of the air pad all the way through the launch pad, which sends your rockets shooting up. The rockets can travel up to 200 feet in the air depending on how hard you jump.
These rockets get five stars for great entertainment, in fact, adults can’t resist taking a turn jumping with the kids. For durability, I would give the rockets three stars because most of our rockets are already beaten up and torn from abuse from younger children.
The good news is that once you buy the launch pad though, you can buy replacement rockets for another summer of fun! Overall, this is one of our favorite toys of the year and provided hours of entertainment for my kids and their friends! (Pricing- $12.30)
Scribbles: A Really Giant Drawing & Coloring Book- One of our absolute favorite gifts that we got our son was the Scribbles Coloring Book. I had asked around on Twitter for recommendations and this came highly recommended from another parent.
If you want to encourage imagination in your child, this is the best coloring book ever. Instead of having you simply color, each page tells you something that it would like you to draw. One page will tell him that the alligator is angry and have him fill in his face. Other pictures are exactly alike, but may request colors and patterns to make each of the pictures different. My favorite series is a simple line that is drawn and then it asks you to draw different animals all sitting on the pole. It is truly the best drawing book I have ever come across for allowing children to use their own creativity and imagination to fill in and create pictures.
The book is very durable and it is truly giant. My son still has many more pages to do and with the durability factor, I plan to tuck this away with his age on it as a keepsake of his creative talent at this age. Because the child is doing all of the drawing, you could buy the same book again another year and see what different things they come up with. (Suggested Price- $13.59)
Razor A Scooter- When I was little it took me awhile to master riding a bike, but I loved riding on my scooter. It seems my son is a lot like me and this little scooter has been a fantastic investment for our son. It has a little switch to fold the scooter flat and even the handles on it fold down for easy storage. We keep this in the trunk of our car and take it with us when we go to the park for another fun activity to do.
Even though it is compact, it still has a built-in brake and is extremely sturdy and stable. The fold down feature is great for traveling and this can be a fun way to get your children from point A to point B. (Suggested Price- $28.99)
The best part about these three gifts is that I ended up buying all of my son’s birthday gifts for free this year! I have been using Swagbucks ever since April when I did a podcast with Heather, from Freebies 4 Mom, on what a great program Swagbucks is.
I average between 50-100 points each week just by using Swagbucks as my search engine and sharing it with others. To begin earning rewards, all you need to do is use Swagbucks.com as your search engine tool instead of your usual route with Google. It pulls the same results, but when you are surfing, you can earn points just by making it your search engine tool. These points are then deposited into your account and can be redeemed for your rewards.
I put my points towards Amazon gift cards which has been a fantastic way to enjoy a little shopping without dipping into my bank account. Not only has it covered my son’s birthday gifts, but I also have ordered countless books for my Kindle and purchased new exercise DVD’s to keep me motivated and moving.
I rarely use affiliate programs, but can’t recommend Swagbucks enough. If you start now, it is quite possible that you could have a free Christmas in your future! Every little bit helps in this tough economy and the best part is that it is free tool to assist with your shopping needs.
What are your favorite budget-friendly boy gifts? Do you use Swagbucks? What is the best thing you have scored with this free search engine program?
I'm lucky if I even get 1SB a day, how do you get 50-100? What's your secret?
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Ditto what anonymous said about SB, seems like a good idea but they sure add up SLOOOWWW for me too!
On another note, thanks for this post – I rely heavily on the experiences of others to give me good ideas for upcoming holidays and our 7 kids to buy for! Personal recommendations help – thanks!
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I get the 50-100 through searching and then also through the referrals. I rarely refer to it, but it seems that other people sign up under old posts.
Are you using it to search for everything? Even things that you already know where you are going? I think that is also key.
If you have a blog, put a button up and see if that generates extra points for you. That will definitely help. I haven't put a button up yet, but have been thinking about it for some time.
Stacy- Glad you could use the gift ideas!! Those were the best and most loved gifts from his 7th birthday. I hope that helps!!
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I have gotten several great things from swagbucks, airline tickets for 4 from Houston to LA for under $20 OOP, a laptop, a Canon SLR, 2 Nintendo DS….tons of gift cards.
I LOVE swagbucks!
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Our 7-year-olds would have a ball together! I see a Stomp Rocket in Santa's bag!
Andrew still has a hard time riding his bike, more from frustration than skill. The scooter dried up many tears at our house.
He also loves to check out the Ed Emberly thumbprint drawing books from the ibrary if you dare to have an ink pad in your home!
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one of the easiest ways to get swagbucks is just by posting your referral link.
another way is to make swagbucks your home page on all computers. so even if you have other sites, like your own blog, bookmarked you have to go through swagbucks first increasing your chances of earning swagbucks. Always go to swagbucks and type in the URL of where you want to go first, not just for searches
follow them on twitter and facebook as they also give out codes there.
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I have just started using SB and am pleased! That stomp rocket looks like something my boys would looove!
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I love swagbucks! I've ordered a lot of books, cookbooks, 30 Day Shred, amongst other things–and didn't have to pay a dime! These are all things I wanted, but didn't really want to take money away from our debt paydown or my "blow" money. I,also, recommend it highly.
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I've got a lot of my Christmas shopping done already – for free, with Swagbucks. Part of the key is combining the free Swagbucks with Amazon sales — a lof of times they will have certain categories of toys for half price. I don't get a lot of Swagbucks, but I have had the willpower to save all of them for Amazon g.c.'s.
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one thing I forgot to mention is when you cash out for gift cards on swagbucks, like Target for instance, is you should go through Ebates or Upromise or anything like that to also get the rebate on your "FREE" items as well.
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My review of swagbucks is mixed.
On one hand, I have garnered a little over $50(507 swagbucks) worth of gift cards with just a small handful of referrals(I prefer word of mouth and rarely link) in about 8 months.
On the other, I did not download the toolbar. I used to use the search engine regularly and was rewarded with having my account frozen for a period of 3 weeks for "unnatural searching"(it was only after I posted on the blog that I was having trouble that I got results on their compliance department getting back to me. They got back to me on my second attempt but still have yet to explain exactly what unnatural searching is. I have sent email to the department twice as well as posited the question on the blog. I have heard others make this complaint as well.
I now use the search engine in the mornings for a very brief period which usually nets me the one swagbuck. The frozen account left a really sour taste in my mouth(who here likes to be accused of things) even though they did rectify it, particularly when there still is no clear explanation of what unnatural searching is when utilizing their search engine(and I read an account from one girl who had her account frozen and subsequently unfrozen after searching for items for her nursery got called unnatural searching).
The gift ideas are great. My youngest is 10 so alot of these would be right up his alley and I've seen that book at my local Barnes and Noble.
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