How many costumes will your kids be wearing between now and Halloween? My daughter has three outfits prepared for the many Halloween celebrations we'll be attending: Vanellope von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph, Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Michael Jackson for when she goes trick-or-treating on October 31

By now, your calendar and closet are probably as full as ours, but if you're still looking for memorable ways to celebrate, many of NYC's best FREE Halloween events take place this weekend, including the Pumpkin Festival in Central Park, Prospect Park's Haunted Walk and a bunch of kids' costume parades. You can also turn your revelry into a day trip by hitting haunted hayrides and corn mazes on Long Island, trying an off the beaten path Halloween activity in New Jersey or joining our Mommy Poppins Westchester peeps at Ridge Hill in Yonkers on Saturday for HarvestFest 2013. We'll be there with a craft table and we'll be giving out treat bags so kids can hit all the stores for candy and other goodies.

However you decide to mark Halloween this year, we wish you and your family a fun and safe holiday. And we hope the Candy Fairy makes a visit to your home to take away at least some of those sweets! Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

Fall is in full swing and we've got some great seasonal deals for New York City families. Our generous sponsors are offering discounts on a variety of fun kids' activities for all ages and interests, including a live-action stage adaptation of Jim Henson's beloved Dinosaur Train (one of our top fall family theater picks), creative classes at Let's Gogh Art NYC, a holiday photo shoot from c'est beau photo, tickets to Quiet Clock, the Musical and the Zumbini™ music and movement program for tots. Don't wait to take advantage of these great bargains. Deals this good will be gone long before the first snow falls.

We have quite a busy weekend in store here at Mommy Poppins. On Saturday, we're hosting our Halloween Family Cruise on New York Harbor, featuring the wacky antics of Dr. Blood, a costume parade, face painting, nautical skills and tasty treats. Then on Sunday, it's our first-ever Mommy Poppins Night at the New Victory Theater. Enjoy the charming family production Me and My Shadow, a pre-show puppet workshop and a post-show meet and greet with the cast, plus a 20% discount on tickets. There are still tickets available for the sail and the show, so we hope to see you at one of these special events—or both!

Meanwhile, everything's coming up Halloween on all of our sites. This week we rounded up FREE family costume parades in NYC and Westchester; haunted houses in New Jersey and on Long Island; NJ haunted hayrides and fun ideas for non-edible treats to hand out on Halloween.

Our Travel site continued its series on vacationing in the U.K. with a post about things to do with kids in Cornwall, England. Plus we've got a roundup of the ten best hotel chains for families including categories like best value and coolest amenities. And there are still a few hours left to enter our Songs for Seeds preschool music class giveaway.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

The Columbus Day holiday weekend is the big to-do on all of our sites—and probably at your family dinner table, too. Three whole days off! The perfect time to take a family day trip (our Travel site has some great holiday weekend discounts), or go pumpkin picking, or prepare for the Halloween season by hitting a costume swap, making some creepy crafts and putting the absolute best seasonal celebrations in your calendar.

Our Halloween Guides in NYC, New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut are already filled with fearsome fun, from the obvious (best Halloween celebrations, kid-friendly haunted houses, etc.) to the offbeat (NYC cemetery tours, Halloween train rides and amazing outdoor jack-o'-lantern installations). Speaking of unique Halloween events, our Mommy Poppins Halloween Family Cruise is coming up next Saturday, October 19. Hit New York Harbor on Manhattan by Sail's haunted Clipper City Tall Ship with the hilarious Dr. Blood, who'll perform kooky science experiments, creepy magic tricks and lead a kids' costume parade. Other attractions include face painting, nautical skills, incredible views and treats for all. Buy your tickets before they're gone.

Other good things to do today? Enter our soon-to-end Created by Kids art class giveaway and book your tickets to our Mommy Poppins Night at the New Victory Theater next Sunday, October 20—read on for details.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

Update: As of April 2014 the New York State Education Department has decided to cancel its contract with inBloom. It was a hard-won fight!

There's a story I've been following for a while now about the controversy surrounding a company called inBloom. Backed by the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, inBloom stores student data in an online cloud, including grades, test scores, teacher observations about behavior, and even more sensitive information like special education status, family history and disciplinary records. The supposed goal is to help teachers and schools easily track each student's progress, provide more personalized instruction and inspire digital developers to create new and innovative educational tools. However, many parents and education activists across the country are concerned that inBloom violates students' privacy in a big way and that the data may end up being compromised or sold to the highest bidder.

While inBloom is a national venture, as of now only three states plan to use its services, including New York State. It's important to note that out of the original nine states who were interested in inBloom, six have pulled out due to privacy concerns. According to an article in last week's New York Times, the New York State Education Department has already uploaded data for 90% of its charter and public school students, and there is no way for individual districts, schools or families to opt out. But there are things parents can do to voice their concerns and possibly stave off or at least change the scope of inBloom.

The government may be shut down but we here at Mommy Poppins are still hard at work, especially with Halloween on the horizon. (Ah, if only we ran the world.) All of our sites published October Go Lists this week, so you can get a jump on the very best things to do throughout the month in NYC, Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey, Connecitcut and beyond. Most of our sites have jam-packed Halloween Guides, too, which we're in the process of updating. Just this week, we published posts about kid-friendly haunted houses in NYC and Westchester, haunted walks on Long Island, easy-to-make Halloween crafts and where to find costume swaps around the country. And we've got a frightening number of additional Halloween posts on the way.

Of course the biggest news around here is the official launch of our FREE Mommy Poppins App, which is available for download in the iTunes store. Now you can find the best places for kids to learn, create, shop, eat and play indoors and out while on the go in NYC. Don't have an iPhone? Don't worry: We plan to release a version for Android soon, plus we're also working on servicing the other regions our sites cover. So stay tuned.

Finally, this week's giveaway is sure to please young soccer buffs: five family four-packs to see a New York Cosmos home game plus Cosmos backpacks. The giveaway ends soon so enter now.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

Unfortunately, National Costume Swap isn't happening in 2015. My eight-year-old daughter is the Imelda Marcos of costumes. Every Halloween she's invited to a terrifying number of celebrations and she insists on a different outfit for each one. I happen to love dressing up, too, so, I admit, I indulge her. Trouble is, she outgrows her costumes much more quickly than I do mine—we never get more than one Halloween season out of them.

Instead of throwing all of those barely used costumes into the donation bin (or worse, the landfill), we've found a better, eco-friendly option that saves us money and is actually pretty fun: Halloween costume swaps. At these community events, you trade your child's old costumes for new-to-you outfits. My daughter enjoys tearing through tables piled high with outlandish getups, and I love hanging on to my cash.

Costume swaps have really taken off in popularity in recent years as families become ever more frugal and environmentally aware. In fact, there's even an annual National Costume Swap Day! This year's edition officially takes place on Saturday, October 12, but local community organizations across the country hold costume swaps on various dates throughout the month. We've got the scoop on how to find costume swaps in your area and tips on how to host your own.

My daughter and I see a mind-boggling number of kids' shows every year. (One of the exhausting perks of being a Mommy Poppins blogger!) Some are wonderful; others, not so much (those are the shows I don't write about).

While there are lots of New York City theater troupes mounting productions for kids, there's one that consistently stands out: the New Victory Theater. Based in a beautiful and historic Off Broadway house, the nonprofit company produces a full season of eclectic works aimed at families. And when I say families, I mean every single member: I find that I often enjoy the shows as much as my daughter because they're offbeat, thought-provoking and never dumbed down or condescending. But the New Victory is much more than just a place to go see a show. Through a range of interactive educational activities like performance workshops and camps, post-show talk-backs and TXT Marks the Spot (a seriously cool high-tech scavenger hunt after select performances), the organization is raising the next generation of theatergoers and performing artists.

As longtime fans, we here at Mommy Poppins are excited to announce our new partnership with the New Victory Theater, which brings our readers more access to its incredible lineup of shows, ticket discounts and two exclusive special events (stay tuned for details). We begin with a preview of the New Victory 2013-2014 season, including show recommendations for every age and stage, tips on how to save money on tickets, exclusive video from the upcoming productions and details about enriching programs that may be under your radar.