Corolle dolls for boys and girls
My son plays with dolls. He’s had a Calin Sky Corolle doll since he was a few months old, purchased when we realized he was army crawling across our house in order to get to my daughter’s dolls and cover them with sloppy, baby kisses. This doll, named Baby Knox, started out as a comfort toy. Baby Knox was something we would give him when he wanted to babble at something and all of our hands were busy, and has slowly evolved into a friendship that surprised us all.
Now, Baby Knox goes everywhere with us. And, what is really cool is that Baby Knox is both a toy and a comfort item that helps soothe him when he gets sad or angry or scared. He’s become a big part of our daily routine and an honorary member of the family.
Gift giving made easy with Uncorked Ventures
More and more of us have friends that are far away these days and I find I’m often sending gift baskets long distances to celebrate weddings, birthdays, and big events. The problem with this is that you usually need to handpick the items yourself, package them in a way that looks beautiful but still ships well, and then pay huge postage fees on top of the cost of the gift itself.
Or, you could go with an Uncorked Ventures gift basket and let them do all the work for you while you accept all the thanks. With collections specifically for chocolate lovers, those who love to cook, and wine lovers, it’s easy to find that perfect set for even the hardest to buy for.
Home sweet Lundby {SMÅLAND Swedish doll’s house review}
I vividly remember when I began to think in miniature. It was one of the many summers I spent with my grandparents in their small town up north. One of our projects that summer was to build a dollhouse for my growing collection of miniatures my grandma and I had collected at swap meets and secondhand stores as well as things we had repurposed around their home that were to scale.
In my mind, my grandpa and I would make a house fit for our treasures, one with intricate details and style that was just like my cousin’s dollhouse my aunt had made from a kit. But, I will never forget when my grandpa and I started to sit down and design my dollhouse and I realized we were making a primitive A-frame house with scrap wood from the garage. My dollhouse would be without doors, windows, or details other than walls.
Don’t get me wrong, I adored the dollhouse we built that summer. It was more than a few steps up from the shelf in my room that had previously housed my miniatures, and it would be perfect for moving a play family into that didn’t mind a little bit of a fixer-upper. I played with that dollhouse for years and did my best to make it feel more homey and inviting by making my own wallpaper and adding realistic accessories.
But, my desire for a real store-bought dollhouse never went away. Even into adulthood, I would look wistfully at dollhouses that were done up to the nines and imagine my childhood dollhouse furniture I had collected filling those big, bright rooms.
In one of those searches, I found Lundby, the Swedish Doll’s House, and it was as if my childhood play family had finally found “home”. I remember bookmarking the site, emailing the link to my husband and asking him how soon was too soon to start buying dollhouses for our baby girl. We both agreed to wait a few years, but I always kept Lundby in the back of my mind.
Last fall, I lost my grandpa after a long battle with illness and I, myself, felt a little lost. My grandpa had been such a strong figure in my life growing up and I wished more than anything that I had held onto that dollhouse we made all those summers ago. I wanted something to help my daughter remember her amazing great grandfather, and wished that they could have bonded over miniatures like we had all those years ago.
So, when a package landed on my porch a few months later with a welcome letter and a “key” to a Lundby Smaland dollhouse, I was beside myself with joy. I knew this was the perfect way to introduce my daughter to the world of miniatures and to provide a link to my past at the same time.
How to host your own upcycling party {Singer VIVO Repair & Create machine}
You know those times when everything in your closet just seems so boring? Whether you haven’t been shopping since you were in high school or your body has changed and you’re still wearing your old clothing, chances are you have a stack of clothes in your closet taking up space that you really don’t want to be wearing anymore.
I know I did, as did my friends, so we decided to get together to make a negative into a very big positive. Instead of going shopping together and blowing a few hundred dollars between us while we updated our wardrobes, we did something a whole lot more fun and cost effective – we upcycled our clothing.
For those not familiar with the term “upcycle”, the basic idea is that you use what you already have and are not using to create something new and fabulous that you would have otherwise had to buy. Think of it as the greener way to recycle.
So, to start my party off, I had all of the guests create two bags full of stuff beforehand – stuff they like but want to make amazing in one bag and stuff they really don’t want any more but can still be used for parts in the second.
Immediately upon walking into the party, they were greeted with two felt bins – one to dump their discards into for everyone to use as material, and one for the clothing they would like to upcycle. Once everyone had arrived, we went through the contents of the first bin together so everyone could see what materials they had to work with.
The saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” comes to mind as digging through the discard bin quickly turned into a clothing swap where everyone grabbed a few new-to-them items. Hey, it's green and resourceful.
But, our purpose wasn't just to swap clothing, we were here to make our clothing awesome, which is why we had this little baby by our side:
Who doesn’t want an Honestly Good meal in just minutes?
This post is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group™ and Lean Cuisine, but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #HonestlyGood #ad http://cmp.ly/3/8vNxcO.
Back when I had a corporate job, I brought lunch almost every single day. Some days lunch was just what I grabbed as I was running out the door, and some days it was leftovers and lovingly made lunches.
But, the days I really looked forward to were my Lean Cuisine hot lunches, which always felt like a special treat. I would find myself craving Lean Cuisine meals and would even *gasp* opt out of restaurant meals in favor of my favorite meal: Lean Cuisine Pizza.
In addition to being delicious, these Lean Cuisine lunches taught me a lot about portion control and the idea of "not hungry" vs. "stuffed". They ended up being a great tool for me back then and even on the days I ended up eating out or we ordered in, I had trained myself to stop eating when I hit the point I wasn't hungry anymore instead of eating everything I was served.
But, while my days of corporate office life are behind me now, and these days I work from home right next to a fully stocked kitchen, I feel like I need Lean Cuisine meals more than ever. Sitting next to kitchen with a full refrigerator and pantry tricks you into thinking that you will prepare gourmet lunches every afternoon and that you will be able to eat better than ever before, but that hasn’t been the case for me. Instead, I find I’m more rushed than ever with two kids, a job, and a website to run, so lunches for me almost always take a back seat.
This typically means that I skip breakfast most days, graze throughout lunch, and then am starving when dinner rolls around. Even though I’ve made an effort to make healthy choices, I haven’t eaten foods that fill me up enough or feel like a meal. This means I tend to snack in the afternoon and eat more at dinner, which takes a toll after a working at home for 5 years now.
When I heard about the Lean Cuisine Honestly Good meals debuting this year, I decided I needed to make Lean Cuisine part of my weekly meal plan again. With gourmet choices such as Plum Ginger Grain-Crusted Fish and Pomegranate Chicken, I knew I had found a great solution for enjoying a hot lunch in my busy day.
DIY: transform your wagon into an awesome fire truck
My little guy can’t wait to grow up and fight fires and drive fire trucks. On his 3rd birthday he came running in as soon as he woke up and asked if he was old enough to be a firefighter yet, clearly thinking that 3 just had to be grown up enough to fight fires.
Although I can’t do anything about the fact that he’s still got a decade and a half before we can pursue his dream of firefighting, I can encourage him to imagine himself as a firefighting hero every day of his childhood. With the Get Real Gear Jr Fire Fighter costume from Aeromax paired with what is quite possibly the coolest kid’s ride ever, we are well on our way to helping the kids play hero whenever they want.
Hello, Step2 “Fire Wagon”!
Introducing the new VTech InnoTab 3S Wi-Fi Learning Tablet
With the start of school a few weeks ago, my daughter has been thirsting for knowledge. She’s always been a curious kid and very interested in how things work, but this newfound love of learning is unlike anything I ever imagined.
She literally bounds out of bed each day excited to learn, she has trouble falling asleep at night because she’s so excited about what she will learn the next day, and she is constantly looking for things to challenge her new skills. All of this is awesome – really awesome – but it’s also exhausting. Sometimes I want to just “do”, not “teach” as I do, but I hate to discourage someone who is clearly craving lessons.
For this reason, I love that I can give her 30 minutes of tech time with her new VTech InnoTab 3S that arrived last week and it gives me a half hour of alone time to get things done. Instead of interrupting me every few seconds with “how do you spell ___?” or “what sound does ____ make?”, I love that when her VTech time is done she comes running back telling me something new she learned – all on her own.
Aeromax Get Real Gear for Halloween and beyond
In our house, we take our dress up very seriously. We don’t merely have dress up time; all play time these days is done in costume. On any given day you will find the kids dressed as princesses, cowboys, knights, dragons, fairies, and doctors to go along with whatever they are playing with.
Our love of dress up lead us to fall in love with a company called Aeromax that makes the most realistic dress up gear anywhere. The kids have never been drawn to the fake costumes with plastic and overdone jewels – they want stuff that they can put on and be able to truly imagine themselves as a scientist in a lab, a police officer keeping the neighborhood safe, or a pilot flying a cargo plane full of toys.
With Aeromax Toys, pretend play has never been more realistic because even though their gear is designed for kids, this stuff is anything but child’s play. Seriously, just look at these costumes from their Get Real Gear line!
We’re talking flashing sirens, metal buckles, sewn-on patches, real buttons and snaps, and reinforced fabrics and details that look like miniature versions of the real deal stuff. For over 15 years Aeromax has been sparking imaginations with dress up clothing and gear from baby on up to adult and has received every top toy industry award.
With Halloween on the horizon, now more than ever we are thinking about costumes. But, with how much my kids love dress up year-round, I never consider shopping for Halloween at stores that carry traditional costumes. You know the kind, the ones that are made of those awful polyester fabrics and are designed to self-destruct before you even make it around the block trick or treating and with accessories so flimsy they end up being held together by tape before the big day even rolls around.
No, that won’t do at all. Our dress up gear needs to last throughout dozens of playtimes, so we need high quality stuff that’s built to be played in. Thank goodness Aeromax knows that dress up isn’t just for October 31st and has plenty of high quality gear that is made to be loved. And, trust me when I say that the gear that just arrived from Aeromax is very, very loved.
We received the Jr. Fire Fighter costume in tan, the Jr. Astronaut costume in white and then helmets for both costumes, and to say they were well received would be a vast understatement. Since my daughter is obsessed with space travel and my son is convinced he is almost old enough to fight fires, these costumes really couldn’t have been any better suited to my kids.
Do you have your wagon ready for Halloween?
When you think Halloween, do you think wagons? We sure do! Wagons are the ride of choice here in Washington, and even better if that wagon has a canopy with…
Corolle dolls, at home and on the go
My kids are absolutely crazy into dolls. This means that we do a lot of pretend play here at home. But, where most people think of dolls as an indoor toy that consists mostly of snuggling, rocking, and feeding, we treat our dolls like we do our real babies, and we take them everywhere with us.
This started when my son was under a year old and refused to sleep without his special Corolle Calin baby doll. We couldn’t very well let one child bring a doll and not the other, so we’ve now embraced the fact that wherever we go, we will need a suitcase for our dolls, too. And, our Corolle dolls have been all over the world with us.
I love that they adore their babies enough to take them out into the world with us as it shows the love that they have for their dolls is stronger than just a mere toy. And I also love that it opens up ways to make playing with babies active and makes even more ways for realistic pretend play.
Here are some tips to make traveling with littles easier with dolls: