toys

Pack up those old lego bricks that your kids aren't playing with anymore and send them back to Lego. They'll clean them and give them to kids in need!

How much do you love bears? No matter what your answer, I'm betting it's not as much as one Missouri woman who has amassed a collection of over 40,000.

I think the first time I received a Beanie Baby was from my late Uncle Reggie. He used to run a country store at Lake Malone but he would also go antiquing and look for new fads. I think every Christmas or special occasion, like when I graduated from college, when he was still active with the store, I got a Beanie Baby.

One of the hottest toys last Christmas was the Hatchimal. It's this fuzzy, bird-like creature that hatches, simple enough. However, several customers complained the Hatchimal didn't hatch which lead to a class action lawsuit that was filed in January.  Thank goodness, the Hatchimal Zoey received for her birthday did hatch. Here's the beginning of the process.

Remember Madballs and Popples? If you, like us, managed to successfully block out most of your childhood, the answer is a resounding "no"!

Barbie has some monster-sized competition.

Andre Cassagnes, the man responsible for inventing the venerable Etch A Sketch, a toy that inspired countless children ever since it was introduced in 1960, has died at age 86 in France.

Ever since it was introduced in 1963, the Easy-Bake Oven has been marketed exclusively to girls, leaving aspiring boy chefs out in the cold. But that's about to change thanks to a campaign led by a teen girl on behalf of her four-year-old brother, who loves to cook.

Thirteen year-old McKenna Pope is fighting mad at Hasbro, and this little activist wants some positive changes now. The eighth grader, who hails from Garfield, New Jersey, has started a petition on Change.org asking Hasbro to make their Easy Bake Ovens more gender-neutral.

You can always spot a parent around the holiday season. Their hair is a frazzled mesh of cow licks and stray strands as if it’s been pulled by a crowd of frantic people. Their eyes dart around in all directions desperately seeking something that could suddenly appear at a moment’s notice. They break down and cry during commercials that advertise “the hottest toy of the holiday season.”