When our son was a toddler, it was ALL. ABOUT. garbage trucks. So much so that I had to share a round up of our favorite garbage books and toys. Now that this little lady has proven rather dog obsessed (we must stop and “awww” at every one we see), she has amassed quite a little canine collection between Christmas, her second birthday paw-ty this month, and Easter.
We have quite the little collection of stuffed dogs, and a handful of battery-operated barkers as well. But I tried to keep this list to items that didn’t seem quite so obvious. Happy gifting your favorite puppy fanatic!
Puffy Sticker Book — instant hit. The puffiness makes these stickers easy for little hands to grab, there are a TON to choose from, and the book is several pages of scenes in which to place them. Would be great for travel/restaurant busy time, too.
Dog Hopper toy — I wouldn’t have considered this but Girlfriend LOVES the farm animal versions of these at our local children’s museum. The price was very reasonable and I’m all for something small-ish we can stash and bring out when we need some energy burning.
DOG book — We were introduced to this author by a friend and have been through two copies of Alphabet it was so well-loved, and also Heads. This book is rhyming and funny and interactive with pulls and flaps.
Good Dog, Carl — I grew up with this book and loved being able to get it in a board book size that’s easy to keep in the carseat or stroller, since the book has very little text and a child can simply look at the illustrations to follow the adventure of a baby and her dog.
Nail Stickers — I really wanted these to work on barely-two toes, but little miss has very shallow/wide toenails for now ha! I’m holding on to these because they are well made and so darling and she’ll grow into them…and I don’t see the nail painting or dog obsession going away for Greer any time soon. (Also, bookmark this site — the best party supplies and a great to way to shop small!)
Dog Suitcase — This sweet little latching bag is perfectly sized for a toddler/preschooler and Greer LOVES tucking in the little dog with his pillow and blanket. Sometimes it’s the simplest pieces that bring on the most play, and this is one of them!
Dog Tattoos — There are a lot of ugly temp tattoos out there haha – I love the simple and sweet illustration style of these, and they last much longer than a sticker or a stamp. Crew and Greer both got one for her party last week and it was days before they began to disappear.
Good Boy, Fergus! — A friend gifted this funny book by the author of the popular No, David! I laughed out loud the first time we read it, it’s the perfect length for a quick bedtime read, and Greer LOVES this and laughs at it regularly.
Handmade Dog Print Bow — I love the versatility of this black/white print, it can go with anything, and I love knowing something is handmade from a small business.
Scribble Scrubbies Dogs — I might not introduce this to a child who hasn’t learned where and where not to color, but Greer has always been very good about sticking to the canvas I give her, so I was willing to give these a try. They’d work for even early grade school though for a child who loves to doodle and design. The markers are (obviously) washable, and Greer loves every step of this activity that keeps her busy for half hours at a time…doodle, scrub, repeat.
Barking Dog on Leash — if one noisy/battery toy is going to make the list, it’s this favorite. The price is right, and what toddler doesn’t love a button to push?
Sort-Em-Up Pups — lots of possibilities based on your child’s readiness level. Sort by color, size, number of spots, and so on. I love that all the pieces pack up neatly inside a dog house and I have yet to purchase a Learning Resources product I’m not thrilled with.
And of course there’s the gift idea of the “real thing”… but for us, we’re just sticking to the above list for now 🙂
I may not get a lot blogged anymore, but Easter baskets are one thing I always love to stop and take the time to share! I find the best gift and gear recommendations from other parents sharing things they’ve found and loved, and I like to put some of that back out into the blogosphere. Bring on Spring and all the bunny business!
First things first…our egg hunt!
We definitely include candy but our kids are surprisingly particular, so we don’t do THAT much. The bunny usually leaves a note that tells us how many eggs we are looking for (so we don’t go crazy for hours searching for eggs that don’t exist!) and it usually just happens to mention which colors are for which kiddo. 😉 Our almost 2yo girl eggs will be filled with these magnetic letters and these light up rings along with some playdoh and bunny grahams. Our 7yo boy eggs will contain these waterproof soccer stickers to cover his water bottles, notebooks, iPad case, etc. and these punch balloons along with some favorite treats.
Greer’s Basket (age 2):
Our dog-obsessed gal is getting a puffy pet store sticker book (the puffy stickers are easy for little hands to handle in our experience) and this Learning Resources Puppy Sorting Toy; some Little Sleepies Spring pajamas (print no longer available); the Usborne Little Children’s Sticker Book; a monogrammed hat from Rey to Z; some WikkiStix; a Frozen projector light (WalMart – not linkable) and some Target dollar spot goodies.
Crew’s Basket (age 7):
Always curious about what WE did as kids, I thought it would be fun to add this Tamagotchi; a magnetic word guessing game (major Wheel of Fortune vibes); a couple pairs of new sleep shorts for Spring; a monogrammed hat from Rey to Z; Kinetic Sand surprise; WiikiStix; a Looper marble spinner (I grabbed the Hoop version), a Who Would Win title (this series is a hit with him right now) and an assortment of snacks and sweets.
Counting down the days over here to Easter, Spring, our gal’s second(!) birthday, and allll the warm weather!
I may not be blogging regularly this year, but I was NOT going to miss sharing our baskets! Playing bunny is an absolute favorite thing about parenting for me, and while Greer was technically born about 45 minutes before Easter last year, and she DID have a basket (see them here!) I am more or less considering this her first actual Easter.
I stole these gold baskets from our office for the second year in a row and attached their wooden name plaques (purchased here) for the occasion. The large plastic bunnies and small carrot eggs came from the dollar store a couple years ago, and I added their monograms to them with my Cricut.
Starting with 6 year old Crew’s basket… this kid loves his sugar, but is very picky about it, so some made its way into his basket, but I focused more on activities (lately, reading is a big one!) and some instant gratification stuff to DO right away. (Linking what I can – some may be affiliate links.)
Greer is about to turn ONE and while I still have a handful of baby and toddler toys to pass down, she already has her own set of interests and always needs clothes 🙂 Links below!
As for our egg hunt, we are doing a light up egg hunt (knowingly set up by Mom and Dad!) on Saturday night, filled with candy. The Sunday morning bunny eggs also have some treats inside, along with these finger puppets in Greer’s eggs and these desert animals in Crew’s (inspired by our upcoming Arizona vacation). Happy basket planning!!!
I certainly haven’t done much blogging in 2020, but between so much stay home time (and thus, some saved dollars) we have certainly made a few purchases this year that have immensely helped make this year a little more bearable.
I love reading lists of others’ tried and true recommendations, and I keep thinking I should share some of our top faves as we’ve been cooking, playing, reading and in general passing the time in 2020. (Full disclosure: In some cases, these are affiliate links, but these are all items we bought ourselves and would buy again!) This got a bit lengthy, so read (or skim!) but consider yourself warned ha!
Homeschooling / Play Purchases
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons All the credit goes to Page for researching this book. We ordered it RIGHT before the Pandemic hit and between suddenlytrying to follow his preschool’s curriculum at home, then welcoming a newborn, it sat on the coffee table for weeks after its arrival, untouched. When I first came back to it, I was admittedly intimidated by what seemed to be a very dry format, the amount of pre-reading/instruction for parents, and the length/duration to complete it. Fast forward to now, and I wish I had started it day one! When you break it down, a lesson has never taken us nearly the twenty minutes as touted, and I would say 1/4 of this book is simply instructions/script for parents to read that is repeated over and over and OVER in each chapter — by the time we were a few days in, Crew and I both very much had the gist of it and I could skim over much of the repetitive instructions and get down to business. We do as many as three lessons on a weekend day and commit to one a day after or before school the rest of the week. While the reward is certainly learning to read, he’s also in it for a new Switch game upon completion. I was so nervous I would teach him “incorrectly” or against how school would do it and confuse him — this book completely eliminated those concerns for me and Crew is really, truly, reading and his confidence and excitement about it is growing by the day.
Boogie Board In tandem with learning to read, we’ve been working on writing and spelling and sight words. Sometimes it just take a fun new “gadget” to get a kiddo interested – and this was it! We actually saw ours being demonstrated at Costco and after Crew begged me for one, we agreed we had to use it every day for some reading/writing practice, as well as all his sketching he likes to do. This is nothing crazy – simply a write-on, click-to-erase tablet. But it’s novel and has been great for the brief last step in each chapter of the book above in which he practices writing a sound/letter.
Giant Desk Pad It was a complete mystery if we would start school in person as scheduled up until the week it ACTUALLY started…so to ease the uncertainty, I bought a couple of things just in case (and truthfully, just in case they STILL may be needed yet this year if we go virtual). Crew likes to do work at our kitchen table, but the seams of the planks in the tabletop create ridges and uneven surfaces for certain work. Enter this desk pad, which is like a giant mousepad, (we got the medium size, 32″ wide) and while it makes for a large, smooth work surface (and rolls up to put away easily) I also love the surface that is clean-up friendly for stickier projects like playdoh, etc. It comes in tons of colors, but I don’t mind looking at the more neutral taupey gray if it sits out for a while.
Math Cubes These were a whim purchase for a mere ten bucks but they have been worth their weight in GOLD. I could never have imagined how much they would get played with, but they are so open-ended. Crew has been a fan of the show NumberBlocks (a show that introduces kids visually to the concepts of counting and adding and subtracting) so these colorful snap-together cubes seemed to mimic that concept to me. I added to cart and thank goodness! He has not only practiced and improved his math, patterns, and more willingly for hours, but he uses them to build, to role-play scenarios of “guys”, and more. This might be the hands-down best surprise purchase of the year.
Easy-to-fly Kites After reading reviews that these were “easy enough for a preschooler to fly” I grabbed them (a two pack) for some socially distanced outside time. It’s not the kind of thing we use day after day, but it’s a fun thing to have in rotation for days when the weather is right and we’ve needed to switch up our walks to the park or the sidewalk chalk. (But also, add ALL the sidewalk chalk to this list – we’ve burned through so much of it!) With minimal practice, we were able to get these successfully up in the air and enjoy them for decently long periods of time — unlike the memories I have of kites in the past! 😉
Cooking Purchases
Camp Chef Smoker and Pizza Oven Attachment One of the BIGGEST highlights of this year has been the emergence of my husband, who’s always liked to cook, as the smoker/fryer/baker master of the year. We had already been talking about replacing our grill with a smoker, and wow was this the year to do it. He has enjoyed joining groups and researching new recipes which we have happily taste tested for him. If you know Page he is the king of researching and reading reviews, so it was after no short amount of time that he settled on the Camp Chef, added the pizza oven attachment and we have used it multiple times per week ever since.
Speaking of pizzas, our cheese grater broke this year and we replaced it with this and while a CHEESE GRATER shouldn’t be life changing, this one kind of is. It shreds right into a measure container with a lid if you wish to store for later, and to cut down on space, the container flips upside down and fits inside the shredder when you store it. Even if it weren’t 2020 I’m pretty sure I’d be a little too excited about this thing.
The Better Breader Page has also been baking — pizza crusts, focaccia, and sourdough loaves are his favorite (he has interjected here to mention to ONLY use King Arthur flour!) And we’ve been enjoying more than our fair share of some fried things (we regret nothing – it’s 2020) including breaded tenderloins (not to brag, but only in Iowa will they be as large as your dinner plate!), copycats of Buffalo Wild Wings recipes, fish tacos, and more. I am never excited to add another thing to store in the kitchen, but this makes battering so much more efficient that I will happily find a spot for it.
Coffee/Espresso/Cappucino Machine And finally, because it’s 2020, the year of the newborn, and as an anniversary gift to ourselves, we invested in this bad boy. Not only will we save on drive through runs, but our mornings have turned pretty. damn. epic.
Good Reading Purchases
The Home Edit and The Home Edit LIFE For all of these things we’ve added to our home, you know my OCD self has to balance it out with some editing. I’ve been a follower of The Home Edit for years, loved and gifted their first book, of course binged the Netflix show, and recently devoured their second read. Recommend all around — if you’re home anyway, get to cleaning out some drawers and closets. It’s therapeutic, it’s something you can control. “It’s a system!”
With libraries closed and still only doing curbside, I’ve purchased more books than we’ve borrowed. For a starting-to-read Kindergartener, some of our favorite adds these past months have been:
If the S in Moose Comes Loose recommended by a friend, this charming story, with awesome typographical artwork to accompany, is great for early readers to playfully understand how changing a single letter creates a whole new word
Did You Take the B from my Ook? Similar to above, this book plays with dropping a letter from common words to create a silly read, from the creators of the hit title, “The Book with No Pictures”
The Gruffalo also recommended by a friend, after loving Room on the Broom, this same author has a story about a mouse who outsmarts a whole forest of animals
Pick A Pumpkin I try and add a seasonal title every year to our stash of books that only comes out for September/October. This keeps them “fresh” every year and we love the rhyming text and illustrations of this latest addition about a favorite tradition
Tomorrow I’ll Be Brave this was one I bought to read the night before Kindergarten started, but the message rings true for me as an adult. Plus, the typography is downright gorgeous and it’s been fun for the graphic design nerd in me to introduce Crew to the many, many ways you can create the 26 letters of the alphabet.
A Kids Book About Racism these conversations are tricky to begin with, and we are still finding our way to explain all the events of 2020 to our five year old. This book is helping to break down a very big topic.
What Should Danny Do? A choose-your-own-story that explores different good and bad choices, and the outcomes as a result.
As for us personally, we are doing as well as can be expected and we are taking 2020 a day and a week at a time. While we are in school full time, I am always prepared for the numbers to jump and school to close, or at the very least, to be contact traced for exposure and homeschool for a minimum of two weeks at any point. Aside from those unknowns, we are trying to rally around some normal-ish activities, like swim lessons, and upcoming soccer and basketball leagues. We are planning to travel for the first time this year in November, and more than ever, we will be celebrating all the things, including of course all the upcoming holidays! Hoping to share a little more as the season goes on.
One of my very favorite parts of mom-ing is playing Easter Bunny each year. I love anticipating the Spring season and some fresh stuff to play with, I love the bright colors, and frankly, I love an opportunity to stage and arrange a good basket!
This year is double the fun with TWO baskets — and I’m starting early, since there’s a very good chance we could be IN the hospital having this baby come April 12. Just in case, I’m prepping everything ahead of time (I’ve even stuffed the four dozen eggs — army men and gummy bunnies for the win!) so that all my mom would have to do is set it all out (and capture pics for me!).
I swapped Crew’s old basket and borrowed the gold baskets (from Wal Mart a couple years ago) from our office. I’m already feeling the need to keep it even in appearance between the two of them! I bought my carrot eggs at Dollar Tree but found similar ones here (I like when they’re flat on the bottom so they can stand alone) and monogrammed them with my Cricut. The bubble machine and bubbles came from Target and I figured they can be enjoyed by both kiddos.
Is it just me or all the balloon animals on sticks having a moment? There are so many cute kits out there (most recently I spotted them in the Target dollar spot!) but only needing two, I opted to buy a mega pack of balloon sticks (because I WILL find other excuses to do balloon crafts!) and made the ears/bow ties out of cardstock to match their basket color themes. (I’ll have redraw the faces on fresh balloons as Easter gets closer, but this was a good practice run!) The items in each of their baskets are listed below. We aren’t sharing her name yet 😉 but their wooden name plaques are from this shop.
Crankity Brainteaser game | Mega Maze game | boomerang, silly string, misc. from Dollar Tree | refill film packs with sticker frames for the Instax | foam shaving cream (for the tub!) and sidewalk chalk from Target | warm weather pajamas
We wrapped up Crew’s time in the 3-4 preschool room with conferences last night, and one of my favorite bits of feedback to hear was how MUCH this kid loves books. As we make the move up to Pre-K (as in pre-kindergarten, yes, I’m in major denial!) I’ve rounded up some favorite current titles and some that are on the to-read list for the coming summer months!
Jabari Jumps has been on our bookshelf for a while, but it has surfaced again now that swimming season is here, with all its moments of bravery.
Brick was recommended by a fellow blogger, and I love the introductory level to different types of architecture, and the idea that “home” looks different around the world.
Crew is trying so hard to grasp telling time right now, so after flipping through What’s the Time, Clockodile? recently at our local toystore, I’m definitely heading back to pick it up. The clock hands actually move and the book itself is large and well-constructed.
We all love this new addition, Iggy Peck, Architect. The rhyming text is fun and witty, and relays a positive message about following your interests. The companion activity book would be so fun in another year or so!
I’ve seen this title floating around Instagram on some of my favorite book accounts, and I love that A Boy Like You appears to be breaking down the stereotypical “tough guy” approach to what it means to be a boy. Perfectly timed for this phase when Crew is truly developing from a toddler/preschooler to full-blown kiddo.
We are ALL about the Pigeon books (Mo Willems is the best!) so the minute I heard about the latest title, The Pigeon HAS to Go to School, I pre-ordered it pronto. (Releases July 2nd!)
After purchasing The Night Before Christmas by the same author/artist, I had to have America the Beautiful in time for the 4th of July last year. These are, hands down, THE most beautiful pop-up books you will ever see. And a great introduction to the lyrics of the classic patriotic tune.
I’ve been longing to start teaching Crew how to follow a recipe, beyond our simple chopping tasks and our go-to chocolate chip cookies. I love that cooking introduces him to math basics and logic and sequence — but it’s been hard to find a cookbook with recipes that fit the fine motor skills of someone under the age of eight. Enter Kid Chef Junior (their other Kid Chef titles for older kids look awesome, too!) Bring on the summer cooking projects!
And finally, our first read-aloud chapter book! Starting with the ultimate classic, Charlotte’s Web. Everyone says that 4-5 is the sweet spot to begin reading simple chapter books aloud. I’m anxious to see what he thinks of the story!
About once a year, I love to share what Crew is especially into as far as books and toys and activities. I LOVE a good gift guide from others whose kids are a step ahead of us to plan for future gift ideas — or to learn what’s hot in an age group I’m less familiar with and need to buy for. Fresh off of Christmas and a fourth birthday just after, we’ve had a very fun (and frankly, needed!) replenishment of new and more age advanced things to do. I love the variety of things Crew is interested in right now — it made it especially fun to shop for him this year (yes, there was still a garbage truck on the list, but at least it wasn’t ALL trucks!). He received a little of everything – action-based, STEM, literary, artsy, musical. Without further adieu, here are the things that are topping our list right now:
This Hape marble run set was gifted to Crew for his birthday. I later learned you can buy other sets and add on, but for now, this is plenty to play with and you can assemble and reassemble it in a few different configurations. We had one of these (plastic) once upon a time and it wasn’t sturdy enough and thus frustrating. Wood, Hape-quality is the way to go on this one. I have visions of saving it for my grandchildren to come play with someday!
The pricetag on the Osmo Creative Kit gave me pause initially — would he like it enough to justify it? I hadn’t heard from anyone firsthand about it. (Click the link and view the demo video to get the full effect!) This kit works with an iPad or Kindle to interact with your child’s drawings. Crew likes to draw but it’s not how he spends his days on end…until maybe now! He LOVES the interaction piece and the challenge to draw different things. I’m not kidding when I say the first time he sat down with this, because it could be completely self-guided, he logged easily an hour-plus and many hours since then. I love that we’re using the iPad for something OTHER than YouTube (eye roll) and I can actually see his wheels turning and his fine motor skills improving. Part of the price of this kit is the base that allows the tablet to work with these kits; once you have that, the other kits can be ordered WITHOUT a base, bringing the cost down a bit. I definitely would consider this pizza kitthat allows the child to prepare pizza orders and count back change (again! watch the video to see how it works!), in another year or so.
These remote control bumper cars have been a HUGE hit. More than just an RC car, when one hits the others side button just right, the driver goes flying, to Crew’s giggling delight. They are a bit hard to control for a four year old, but it doesn’t seem to matter, because with two going at once, it’s chaos anyway 🙂
Crew had spotted this piano mat many times over in the Target toy aisle (he loved the beats created by pressing the buttons, but it was still in the box, so he didn’t even understand the extent of what it did) It has been a big hit from both a music standpoint and a winter indoors energy-burner! I notice the price on this on Amazon fluctuates — so check both spots! There are tons of games to play on this mat, from prancing around and tapping out a song, to make silly noises, to creating different beats, or just chasing around hopscotch-style while different music notes light up.
The Instax Mini in our house actually belongs to me (polaroids make great party favors at get-togethers!) but as I’m trying to cultivate some interest in photography with Crew, I’ve been letting him carry it around more and more, and the price point isn’t much more than other “kids cameras” on the market. It’s awesome for making photography tactile at this age and it creates some instant gratification to have a physical picture to look at that he made himself. He quickly understood the idea that the film is not unlimited like digital photography, so he’s learning to stop and think about what he wants to take a picture of, and he understands that when the 10 pictures run out, they’re gone. I’m rationing the film with him but already thinking ahead to Easter basket and future stockings — packs of film would be something he’d get VERY excited about!
Crew was SO INTO The Story Orchestra Nutcracker (featuring, of course, Tchaikovsky’s work) over Christmastime that I had to buy another title to get us past the season, so I went with Four Seasons in One Day (featuring the work of Vivaldi). The little snippets of famous classical music are just the right length for his attention span, and the interactive buttons keep it even more engaging. He loves to to pick out his favorites exclaiming that they sound scary or spooky or silly. There’s only one other title in this series so far, but I’m hoping they create more! We LOVE books and some of the newest additions that have received rave reviews areKnock Knock, The Smallest Girl in the Smallest Grade, Cookies! (the latest in a fun interactive cooking series we’re big fans of), and 3, 2, 1 Blast Off (a fantastic book about the solar system that doesn’t get too wordy or technical like most, for the littlest outer space enthusiasts).
Happy gifting — four is already shaping up to be SUCH a fun age!
Post may contain affiliate links, but all opinions are my own.
Just give me alllll the fall reads — I’m not sure who is more excited for the season, me or my mini!
Our current list of must-reads:
The Scariest Book Everhas the boldest, most “popping” illustrations that are so fun to look at. This was a big hit last year when he was only two, but loves it all over again this year at three, and it’s funny for the adults reading it, as well.
Gilbert the Ghost I’ll admit, is better loved by Crew than by me. But it’s not too spooky and gets at the moral of being inclusive.
No Such Thing is probably my favorite of this list — from the beginning the character doesn’t believe in ghosts and explains away all the weird things happening, only to find out maybe there IS such a thing, in the end.
How To Make Friends with A Ghostis a little wordy yet for Crew, so I shorten it as I read. He laughs out loud out the antics of befriending a ghost, and I love the idea that your ghost is “with you” from your youngest to your oldest days.
Thankfulis obviously a good read with the message of gratitude — I haven’t found many “Thanksgiving” books but of them, this is my favorite.
The Little Children’s Halloween Activity Bookis sure to keep Crew busy when we need a time-filler (restaurants, road trip, etc) and it’s nice to have something fresh in the mix, and relevant to the season. Always love Usborne’s activity items!
Vampirina Ballerina is one we checked out from the library to test run. I thought it was adorable, but based around a girl’s love of ballet, it didn’t hold Crew’s interest. I’d definitely recommend it for the girls, though!
Stumpkin is one I stumbled on at the bookstore the other day and will be going back to pick up. I’d never heard of it, but at first flip through, I love the story sentiments around the idea of being “perfect”.
Ghosts is another on our wish list — I try to add a new title or two each year, and this will likely be one of them!
