I feel like summer just ended and school just started. Yet already it's fall and my daughter is complaining because we haven't figured out our family Halloween costumes. To help you avoid seasonal nagging in your home, we've started overhauling our NYC Kids Halloween Guide, including updating our roundups of pumpkin patches near NYC, on Long Island and in New Jersey, as well as posts about popular Halloween happenings that require advance tickets like the Great Jack o' Lantern Blaze in Historic Hudson Valley and the New York Botanical Garden's Haunted Pumpkin Garden.

Other posts of note: Our Westchester site wrote about the new Mount Kisco drop-in creative spot, Arts Garage, part of the popular go-kart track and bowling alley Grand Prix. Our bloggers in Los Angeles shared ideas for managing your child's food allergies in school and at parties. Meanwhile our Boston site has tips about being a good spectator at your kids' sporting events and 20 ways to ease the pain of flying internationally with a toddler. That info should come in handy if you're inspired to visit Bristol, UK after reading our post about all the fun things to do with kids there.

Feeling lucky this week? Use that mojo to enter to win our current giveaways: a children's art class at the Art Studio on the Upper West Side and a family four-pack to see The Wiggles in concert in Westbury, Long Island. Both giveaways end soon so enter right away.

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

With almost as many restaurants as NYU students, the East Village offers a wide variety of places to eat. The big issue for parents is that many of the eateries aren't traditionally family-friendly. They're pricey with exotic dishes (by kid standards, anyway), and filled with black-clad twenty-somethings who roll their eyes at the very sight of a child.

But as long as you're not expecting high chairs or chicken fingers and fries, there are a lot of great East Village restaurants that welcome families, even though they're not the main clientele. My daughter and I spend a lot of time in the neighborhood and we're big fans of a lot of local eateries, both new and old. And when I say old, I mean it: Some of our top picks, like Indian Row, date back to my childhood. Others, like Yonah Schimmel, my 78-year-old mother remembers going to as a kid!

We finish up our month-long focus on the East Village with a roundup of our 15 favorite places to eat in the area with kids, most of which my family can vouch for personally. You can find more family dining posts in our NYC Kid-Friendly Restaurant Guide.

Just like other Disney properties—errr, princesses before her, Ariel is taking a second swim around the cineplex. However, the current rerelease of The Little Mermaid has a controversial high-tech hook. Subtitled Second Screen Live, it's a two-screen moviegoing experience. You download an app to your iPad that syncs up to the flick and encourages you to engage in a variety of games and activities, from trivia to mazes to sing-alongs.

In parenting circles, the knee-jerk reaction to this concept seems to be overwhelmingly negative. And I get why. As conscientious moms and dads, we're always looking to cut down on our kids' screen time. Also, using mobile devices during movies is pretty much despised by everyone (except for all those rude people who do it! I'm sure you know one or ten). Plus, Second Screen Live is clearly another attempt by Disney to wring even more money out of its already super-lucrative franchises.

But as the mom of an eight-year-old who exclaimed, "That was awesome!" after a recent Little Mermaid Second Screen Live screening, I've got to tell you, I felt the same way. It was like Rocky Horror for families with a digital twist. (As you can see from the photo, my daughter even dressed up.) And since it's very interactive and requires kids to read directions and complete challenges, it's much more stimulating than your average cinema outing.

It's been a high-tech week here at Mommy Poppins NYC. We shared some of our favorite FREE coding websites for kids, rounded up Minecraft clubs in NYC, explored the American Museum of Natural History in a whole new way thanks to the History Hero app and tonight, my daughter and I are off to see the digitally interactive Little Mermaid Second Screen Live.

Lest you think HAL has taken over, we posted about some good old-fashioned analog activities, too, like great places to see autumn leaves in NYC and the top family shows opening this fall. Our regional sites are also chock-full of seasonal fun like fall harvest festivals in Westchester, New Jersey, Connecticut and on Long Island, and family-friendly apple and pumpkin-picking spots throughout the tri-state area.

This weekend brings some of our absolute favorite annual events in NYC, including Maker Faire at the New York Hall of Science and the Queens County Fair. Plus, on Sunday Mommy Poppins is hosting a special eco-themed family cruise on Manhattan by Sail's Clipper City Tall Ship. Enjoy hands-on nature activities, sailor skills, face painting and stunning New York Harbor views. Tickets are selling fast so get yours today.

Here's what else we covered in NYC this week:

In this edition of our biweekly links roundup, we've got the scoop on a brilliant new service aimed at the parents of Lego-obsessed kids, a new high-tech way to apply to kindergarten, the extension of a super-popular family attraction and why audiences will be leaving their iPads on at Disney's rerelease of The Little Mermaid. Plus, some improvements are coming to the South Street Seaport and Randall's Island, and why New York City's latest No. 1 status isn't a compliment.

After less than a week at school, my daughter says she feels like she never left. Not that she's complaining. Going back-to-school means seeing old friends and after-school playground playdates and a break from me constantly demanding, "Go clean your room!" It also means our big back-to-school giveaway is soon coming to a close. There are still a few excellent prizes up for grabs, including boys' and girls' Schwinn bikes, and KRE-O CityVille Invasion building sets from Hasbro. Be sure to enter before they end.

Beyond school, fall brings all kinds of cool seasonal fun like apple picking and harvest celebrations. This week, we added posts about pick-your-own orchards in Westchester and Rockland Counties and organic apple picking in New Jersey to our Farm Guide. We also rounded up a bunch of harvest festivals, pumpkin patches and corn mazes right here in NYC.

Planning your next big family vacation? (Hey, holiday break will be here before you know it.) Our Travel site has a post about the best things to do with kids in Bath, England that will make you want to book your tickets pronto. And of course our regional sites are filled with wonderful day trip destinations like Saugerties in Ulster County, NY, Chester Township, NJ and the Trash Museum in Hartford, CT.

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

We've been working hard on our Classes Guide, updating old posts and adding new ones. Reading about awesome and enriching kids' classes is always fun... until you get to the prices. That's why we're happy to extend these eight great deals to our readers. Save big on classes like golf, art, guitar, animation and more. Act fast! Most of these bargains will be gone before the fall leaves turn brown.

What have you been doing to keep the kids busy these final days of summer break? We here at Mommy Poppins are furiously crossing off items on our summer bucket lists. Yesterday, a few of us got together and spent the day on City Island in the Bronx. Today, we're off to the recently reopened Rockaway Park in Queens. Where do we go for destination inspiration? Mommy Poppins' in-depth NYC Kids Neighborhood Guides. For the past two years, we've been highlighting one neighborhood a month in a series of in-depth posts, and now we've put all of those hyper-local guides together on one jam-packed page. Even if you've lived in NYC all your life, you'll undoubtedly find cool new-to-you things to explore with your family. I sure have!

September has arrived, which means all of our sites have published brand-new Go Lists highlighting the absolute best things to do with kids throughout the month. It's a particularly awesome month for family events in NYC, with lots of our free fall favorites like Fort Tryon Park's Medieval Festival and the Dumbo Arts Festival. But you'll find plenty of great picks in nearby Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut, too, including things you can only do outside the city like apple picking and farm harvest festivals.

The back-to-school season is in full swing and so is our massive back-to-school giveaway. We have already awarded a few of our fabulous prizes but we've got a bunch to go including a $250 gift certificate for Sears Optical, a Disney Junior package, Schwinn bikes and KRE-O CityVille Invasion building sets by Hasbro. All of the giveaways will be over soon so enter now.

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