We recently wrote about the Battery Park City as a nice place to spend a day indoors., with lots of different activities amenities. Well, here's a nice addition to this little outing: there's a big, brand new Barnes & Noble bookstore just about a block away at 270 Greenwich Street (the entrance is actually on Warren).

Our Custom Made for Kids personalized children's book giveaway is over, and what a great response we got. Not only did we have lots of responses, but each commenter told us their favorite thing to do in NYC with kids. The list is filled with some wonderful gems. After the jump, our contest winner and Mommy Poppins Readers' Top 25 Things to Do with Kids in NYC.

Having a grown up meal out in a restaurant isn't really a luxury. It can be a survival tactic for stressed out parents who have virtually forgotten that they share anything in common besides the DNA of their children and their inability to get The Wonder Pets theme song out of their head. But figuring out the whole babysitter thing can make going out to eat more a chore than a treat.

So when Brian Kaplan, founder of Parent Play, told me they were starting Drop and Dine it sounded like a great idea. Drop and Dine lets parents eat in peace and quiet in a nice restaurant while their children are entertained and fed just steps away in the private party room of the same restaurant.

The Museum of American Finance just opened last weekend in Lower Manhattan. Mommy Poppins and co. went to check it out and see if it was cool for kids. Watch our video post to find out. The Museum of American Finance is located at 48 Wall Street and is open Tuesday to Saturday 10am-4pm. Admission: $8 for adults, $5 for students and seniors, free for children under age 7.

Find more must-see exhibits in our Museum Guide.

It's finally gotten cold and the days seem to be getting longer - literally and figuratively. So we've collected all our indoor fun and outdoor winter activity posts and organized them on one easy-to-navigate page: The Mommy Poppins Winter Fun Guide

We'll be updating it with our new posts as we write them so check back whenever you need a hot activity for fun in the cold.

We've picked out the most interesting, most free and most fabulous  events for this weekend.

Cranium, the innovative non-competitive game company, has just released a new line of games aimed at preschoolers. Cranium Bloom games seem to be designed to guide parents in educational interactive play with their children.

I have to admit, I was skeptical when I ordered my Custom Made for Kids personalized book. We had received a personalized book before, and, while my daughter loved it, I ended up having to hide it because it was so very painful to read. It was the dumbest story I had ever read and the illustrations were embarrassingly bad.

So I was overjoyed to discover that The First Adventures of Incredible You, is a huge leap over any other personalized book I've ever seen. What I like most about these personalized children's books is that you get to fill in not just your child's name, but over a dozen personal pieces of information about your child, so the book is really personal and a great memento of this special time.