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Best Baby Bags

The Angel's Nest

European babes have been snoozing in these things for years, but they're a relatively new idea for naptime over here. The Angel's Nest is really just a sleeping bag for tots, but there's some deep-sleep thinking behind the concept. The bags are safer and more reliable than tangly, loose bedding, and they're soft as a cloud and impossible to shake off. Denverite Jennifer Zinn so loved one sent to her by a sister in France that she hatched a plan to market her own, in two styles. Through her website, Zinn offers a standard "sleeping bag," for babies still sleeping exclusively on their backs, and a "wearable bag" -- sort of a closed romper with no legs for little ones old enough to roll around. The Nests come in a variety of cushy materials and seasonal weights. Rock-a-bye, baby.

Best Baby Sneakers

Monkey-Toes Shoes

Babies have the sweetest little feet: You could wrap them in a banana peel and they would still look cute. Fortunately, Castle Rock stay-at-home mom and business-minded entrepreneur Jenny Chism devised a more appropriate foot covering for wee ones when she created Monkey-Toes. The tiny sneakers, hand-painted with ladybug, frog, bee and piggy motifs and tied up tight with squiggly shoelaces, can be purchased in sizes from one to ten at selected boutiques or online. Start monkeying around.

Best Shoes for Chinese-American Princesses

Frog Prince Shoes

Louisville mom Terry Hsu-Gander shipped a little piece of China back home after visiting there and adopting two daughters. While picking up her girls, Hsu-Gander found the stylish children's shoes she now imports and sells under the Frog Prince label. She moves most of the merchandise through her website, with the help of a sister living in Shanghai. With feather-soft leather uppers that come in brilliant swathes of contrasting red, black, white, lime green and tangerine, these shoes practically scream "Adorable!" Available in toddler and little girls' sizes up to eleven, the Frogs are comfy and durable, appropriate for both dress and play. "My own kids grow out of them before they wear them out," Hsu-Gander says of her shoes, which stand the test of time, mud, concrete and gravel. What a kick.

Best Clothes for Chinese-American Princesses

Meili & Me

Boulderite Leslie Potter was inspired to create a more durable line of girls' clothing by her adopted Chinese daughter, Meili ("beautiful" in Chinese), who, as a crawler on two hands and two knees, wore out her Chinese silks faster than her mom could button them up. Potter's perky denim-and-print collection blends cultures with style, mating the Mandarin collars and frog fasteners of the traditional Asian chi-pao with all-American jean jackets, tiered ruffle skirts and capris. The ultra-cute play ensembles have been selling like hot egg drop soup since Potter first started stitching them together, and not just to families of Chinese adoptees. Cute is international.

Best Parties for Lil' Girls

Lil' Cuts

There comes a time in many girls' lives when they move from playing with Barbie dolls to wanting to look like one. Lil' Cuts can help with the transition. The salon is specifically designed with kids in mind and features a carousel-esque setup lined with individual video monitors to keep the tiniest tots occupied long enough for a trim. The staff also knows how to keep tweens happy, offering special rates for birthday parties at which the guest of honor and each attendee is coiffed, styled, buffed and pampered to perfection in the store's full-service salon. After all, little girls get bigger every day.

Best Parties for Big and Little Girls

Hot Pots!

Plenty of adults enjoy arts and crafts every bit as much as the younger set. Recognizing this, Hot Pots!, a paint-your-own-pottery studio, has come up with special packages for birthday parties, bridal showers and plain old bonding. Now kids of all ages can indulge their inner Picassos, using cups, saucers, plates, bowls and figurines as their canvas. The staff provides instructions, supervision, advice and all the paint needed to create a mini-masterpiece -- and for birthdays, a commemorative plate signed by all the guests is provided at no additional charge. Color them beautiful.

Best Place to Entertain Yourself After Breaking Your Leg

Swedish Medical Center

Medical emergencies aren't known for being fun, since they're often accompanied by blood, exposed bones, scrambled viscera, agonizing pain and more blood. So credit Swedish Medical Center with providing patients and their loved ones with a high-tech way to keep their minds off more unpleasant matters. Stalls in the emergency section of the hospital are outfitted with computers whose oversized screens and keyboards are mounted on swivel arms that extend over gurneys for easy access. Visitors can use the computers to watch any of 25 or so cable-television channels (the same selections available in regular rooms at Swedish), surf the Internet or play a variety of games. Getting hurt has seldom been so entertaining.

Best Place to Consider Your Karma

Buddhist/Christian Contemplation Hour

Are Jesus and Buddha friends? The supporters of St. Paul's Methodist Church's weekly Christian/Buddhist contemplation hour think so. Every Sunday, the Capitol Hill church hosts a low-key, hour-long service that mates Buddhist and Christian philosophy and practice. The interfaith congregants are a reflection of the neighborhood's eclecticism -- expect aspiring monks in robes and housewives in sweats -- and the program rotates like a prayer wheel. Most weeks, speakers from local temples and churches, including Christian pastors and Tibetan nuns, guide meditations and give talks on everything from right speech to redemption. The services provide an open, casual introduction to both Christian and Eastern practice. Be here now.

Best Salvation With Libations

Church at the Bar, D Note

The second and fourth Tuesday of each month, Arvada's D Note welcomes Church at the Bar. Run by the local and open-minded Connected Life church group, it's the only service in town during which attendees can celebrate the Holy Spirit with spirits and good craft beer. Bar-hoppers thirsty for a few shots of spirituality now have no excuse for skipping church.

Best Place to Buy a Ceremonial Dagger

SpiritWays

The next time you're out shopping for incense, a Balinese tapestry or a dagger to use in magical rituals, try SpiritWays. The East Colfax metaphysical shop has a wicked, double-bladed dagger, or athame, for every price range, starting with a small, economical Egyptian model for $30, complete with scabbard. Check out the Gil Hibben custom design series ($120 to $150) or the particularly ornate Isis Dagger, which at $99 comes with its own wall plaque. Typically, the ceremonies these daggers are designed for don't involve the letting of blood, but make no mistake: They're sharp and, as gun-store owners like to say, "ideally suited for home defense." And you don't need a special permit to own one.

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