The wonderful thing about brunch is that it embodies a sense of luxury and decadence: Waking up late, lingering over indulgent breakfast foods, and sometimes even drinking before noon! But then there’s brunch in NYC, which often includes waiting ages for a table at crowded and noisy restaurants. That may have been fine when you were childless, but now that you have kids, you're just happy if you can eat some eggs and get home without a meltdown. Hitting a trendy brunch spot and savoring a second cup of coffee is out of the question.

Personally, I’d given up on brunch long ago until a random and fortuitous thing happened. Last fall, I was forced to have breakfast in a hotel and something dawned on me. Hotels are great at breakfast, they are generally kid-friendly and, aside from a few of the famous ones, they never have lines for brunch.

To test my theory, I set out to look for the best hotel brunches with kids in NYC. Over the past six months, I’ve been brunching with my family at hotels all over Manhattan to find out if they really are the special secret I imagined them to be. After months of selfless brunch testing (see the sacrifices I make for you?), the results are in. I’ve discovered some truly off-the-radar brunch spots that you should definitely add to your list. After all, just because you have kids doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the finer things in life—you just need to find the right place to do it.

It's back-to-school time, when parents heave a joint sigh of relief/groan of pain as they send their kids off to be educated for another year. To help you ease back into the new school routine, we're doing a huge giveaway with back-to-school essentials and swag.

We've got some amazing prizes that you and your children will love. Brand-new bikes, a year's supply of school uniforms and vitamins, backpacks, books, school supplies and more. Click on each link to enter that giveaway. You must enter each giveaway separately to be eligible to win that prize.

There are multiple ways to enter. Plus you can share with your friends to earn even more entries, and spread your entries out throughout the giveaway week. Pay attention, though, because each giveaway ends on a different date. Good luck!

While the New York Yankees and Mets get all the hype, going to a major league baseball game can be a major expense not to mention a major pain with kids. To enjoy the fun of America's favorite spectator sport in a more family-friendly format, in-the-know New Yorkers go to see one of our area's many minor league baseball teams.

The Staten Island Yankees are the Short-Season Single-A affiliate of the New York Yankees and their games are incredibly kid-friendly. I recently attended a Staten Island Yankees game with my extended family and it makes for a great day or evening out, and includes a ferry ride, a fun ballgame with lots of action in the stands, and often fireworks or other special events. We continue our month-long focus on Staten Island with an outing at this popular ballpark.