As I had previously blogged, I was heading to Toy Fair 2012 this week for the 109th edition of the incredible industry conference and after covering the event in 2011 (which you can read about HERE), I knew that I would have my photojournalist work ahead of me. With this being the case I decided to break the adventures up into numerous blog chapters that I felt would allow readers an easier digestion of what we saw while at the same time letting every item and company that gets spoken about have a chance to shine. I started my journey in the Press Lounge area and they have Internet access, some coffee and numerous candy dishes for you to load up on energy with and just adjacent to this region was the display of this years winners for the Toy Of The Year awards or the TOTY’s. Since this was not something I focused on last year, I said let’s start off with it this time around so without any further adieu, please check out the Toy Of The Year award winners for 2012.

First up are the Hexbug Nano Hive Habitat (by Innovation Labs Inc.) and Angry Birds “Knock On Wood” Game (by Mattel). I discussed the absolute coolness of the Hexbug line last year and these are amazing little oddities that while creepy to some are really awesome to others. The Hive Habitat lets you pack up and carry your Nano’s around and then play with them wherever you like. There is a bridge and some other field area that has an obstacle course. Angry Birds “Knock On Wood” lets you set up the critters from the addictive video game in real life and test your skills. This game would be dangerous in my house as I have already spent too much time on the video version. Congrats to Innovation Labs Inc. and Mattel for these two great products.