We were all about the new on Mommy Poppins this week. We kicked off a new neighborhood focus for the month, Ridgewood, Queens, we're hosting a new giveaway of a week of cooking camp and we launched our brand-new site Mommy Poppins Westchester. We're particularly excited about that last one since our Westchester readers had been begging for their own site for years. We love giving the people what they want! Now you can find out about the best things to do with kids throughout Westchester County and the Hudson Valley and sign up for the local newsletter.

Over on our Travel site, we rounded up Father's Day family vacation deals to destinations both near (Mystic, Connecticut) and far (the Bahamas). Of course you don't need to leave the city to do something special. Our Summer Fun Guide is filled with fun ideas for Father's Day and beyond, including a bunch of just-added posts like FREE outdoor kids' concerts and performance festivals, and the best new museum exhibits for families.

We made great progress on our Mommy Poppins App as well this week: Our IndieGoGo campaign is almost 30% funded. If we reach our goal the app will be FREE to all so please consider contributing—a donation as small as $2 truly makes a difference and if you give more you get some awesome rewards.

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

Are you ready for June? I know our kids are. Every morning, my second grader excitedly crosses off another day on the calendar as we count down to summer. If you're still trying to figure out what to do with the kids over school break, we just put up a list of high-quality summer camps that still have availability for all ages and interests. If you've got camp covered, then start poking around our Summer Fun Guide. We're still in the process of going over all of our popular seasonal posts from years past, but a lot of the big ones have already been updated like NYC beaches, water playgrounds, free outdoor sports programs for kids, June fairs and festivals and carousels—we even have info on the just reopened B&B Carousell in Coney Island.

Speaking of June, we just posted a brand-new Go NYC List, which highlights the best things to do with kids throughout the month. Many of our FREE annual favorites take place in June, like the Coney Island Mermaid Parade and the Figment arts fest on Governors Island. My family already has both of those marked in our calendar. If you're expecting or have a newborn, you'll want to put this Sunday's Brooklyn Baby Expo in your calendar, too. Hosted by A Child Grows in Brooklyn, the event features seminars, top baby gear, fun for the kids and more. And you can save 15% on tickets by using the discount code MP-BBE2013.

Our New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut sites are also all about summer fun. It's worth checking them out for great day trip and vacation ideas, like western heritage theme park Wild West City in Sussex County and Chatham on Cape Code. Our NYC Family Day Trips and Weekend Getaways Guide and Travel site also have detailed info on hundreds of destinations near and far, including what makes each one special for kids and families.

And if you're feeling lucky, it's almost your last chance to enter to win a children’s birthday party package at the brand-new Fantasy Forest at the Flushing Meadows Carousel—a $500 value. Enter on our Giveaways page. We're also excited to report that our Mommy Poppins App IndieGoGo campaign is at 26%. Help us get to 50% by next week and earn cool rewards for your support.

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

While there are lots of wonderful children's books about New York City, our kids are lucky enough to live here. They don't need to read a book to find out what it's like to play in the street on a snowy day or run amok at the Plaza or visit the Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge.

Yet there are times when flipping through a book about an iconic NYC experience can actually get local children excited for the real thing, like going to an art museum. Recently, Mommy Poppins founder Anna got her nine-year-old psyched for the Gutai exhibit at the Guggenheim by giving him Speeding Down the Spiral: An Artful Adventure, a picture book about visiting the museum that contained a catalog of its permanent collection. He pored over the images and couldn't wait to see the works of art in person.

There are other inspiring kids' books out there about exploring NYC's great art institutions. We're not talking about those general enjoy-the-museum stories that take place at fictitious culture spots. These 10 titles work as primers so your kids will be excited to spend a day at the museum, be it the Met, the Guggenheim or MoMA.

Memorial Day weekend is the talk of the town—and out of town, too. All of our sites have posts about the best things to do over the three-day holiday, whether you opt for a New York City staycation or decide to take a day trip to Connecticut, New Jersey or Long Island. Tri-state area beaches open for the season this weekend, and we've got the scoop on what to expect post-Hurricane Sandy at NYC, Connecticut and Jersey Shores. We also have some great suggestions for day trips, all less than two hours from the city by car. In other words, we've got your entire Memorial Day weekend covered!

Have you contributed to our IndieGoGo Mommy Poppins App campaign yet? We're in the process of creating an app for all of our sites so you'll have our carefully curated content at your fingertips when you're on the go. For as little as $2 you can ensure that the app will be free to all, and we're offering some cool rewards for more generous contributions. Speaking of apps, we're proud to be partnering with family activity app RedRover, which recently relaunched and now includes Mommy Poppins event picks.

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

We're still basking in a Mother's Day afterglow (that's three generations of my family in the photo) but we're also counting down to Memorial Day weekend. Our Travel site rounded up some excellent getaway deals for the upcoming holiday weekend including destinations that are a short drive from NYC. Our regional sites are full of cool spring day trip ideas like the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, New Jersey, the USS Nautilus and Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut or pick-your-own strawberry farms throughout the Garden State. If you decide to make it a Memorial Day weekend staycation, there's certainly plenty to do in town like the opening day family festival on Governors Island, the debut of the Dinosaur Safari ride at the Bronx Zoo and the start of the Coney Island season.

There's still time to subscribe to our Hamptons and North Fork newsletter and be automatically entered to win fun prizes. We also have another great giveaway going on: Enter to win a week of Summer Adventure Camp: City Edition run by NY City Explorers.

Wish you could enjoy all of our Mommy Poppins recommendations when you're on the go? Well, soon there'll be an app for that. We're readying our Mommy Poppins App for launch but we need your help. We started an IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign so that we can raise enough money to make the app free to all. Contribute to our goal and you'll snag some cool swag and, of course, get the benefit of using the app once it debuts in June. We believe that Mommy Poppins is more than just a website, it's a community. This app is a way for us all to collaborate on something really cool.

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

Even though Hurricane Sandy may seem so long ago, many communities are still recovering from all the damage done. One of the hardest hit areas in NYC is one of our favorite places to play in the summer: Coney Island in Brooklyn.

While the Parks Department says the beach will be ready to welcome swimmers and sunbathers come Memorial Day weekend, many other Coney Island attractions like the New York Aquarium are struggling to open for the season, and some iconic events like the annual Mermaid Parade may not happen at all without support from fans. We've got up-to-date info on what to expect when you visit Coney Island this summer, and how you can help the People's Playground bounce back.

Mother's Day is the big subject on all of our sites this week. In NYC, we've got Mother's Day brunch suggestions and fun family activities on Sunday and even a few ideas about how to celebrate the holiday without the kids. Since my mother and my mother-in-law live in the city and we always end up at their respective homes, I often forget that Mother's Day is about me, too. This year I'm going to make sure I enjoy myself—and I hope all you moms out there do the same!

We launched two great giveaways this week on the NYC site. First up, we're giving away 100 tickets to the massive New York Baby Show on Saturday, May 18-Sunday May 19 in Midtown West. Right now the odds are pretty good to win! And if you're planning on visiting Long Island's East End this summer, you'll want to check out our brand-new Hamptons and North Fork Family Guide and sign up for our soon-to-launch newsletter. If you subscribe to our Hamptons and North Fork newsletter before Tuesday, May 21, you'll automatically be entered to win one of a host of awesome local prizes, including gift certificates to Dockers Waterside and Studio Art, and tennis lessons at Sportime Quogue.

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

At Mommy Poppins we don't just inspire our readers, we inspire each other! After hearing about our founder Anna's trip to the Guggenheim's Gutai exhibit with her nine-year-old, I decided to take my seven-year-old. That's her in the pic, having a blast literally leaving her mark on a piece called "Please Draw Freely." It's a thought-provoking show that prompted my daughter to start thinking about what constitutes art. Gutai closes next week, so it's your last chance to check it out and enter to win our Guggenheim giveaway.

It's a new month, which means it's time to get out your calendar. Our NYC, New Jersey and Connecticut sites all posted their May Go Lists, highlighting the absolute best things to do with kids throughout the month. With spring kicking into high gear, there are lots of amazing free festivals and fairs, plus Mother's Day is on the horizon. Speaking of the holiday, in addition to our posts about fancy brunch spots and readers' restaurant picks, we came up with five unique Mother's Day brunch ideas in NYC that offer more than just a meal. Meanwhile our Boston site has three easy recipes kids can make for mom on her big day, and our Travel site has Mother's Day getaway deals.

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