Top 10 favorite toddler toys

Before I had children I wondered how parents acquired millions of toys.  I knew that you would buy them one at a time and over time end up with some through birthday parties and things like that but I never really thought about where all these toys would go, if my children would play with them or how much I would want to get rid of 99% of them.  Here is a list of the top ten things that I find them reaching for the most. There are other items that are being left off, like books and random stuffed animals that I will cover in another post. I have listed a price from a certain store with each item. This isn’t necessarily the cheapest price or the price that we paid or even the store that we purchased from. A lot of these toys were either gifts or we have had them for some time or I can’t recall the exact place we buy our toys from. I am only listing one place – you can use http://www.google.com for other places that you could buy the item.

1. The first item is the Little People Disney Princess Songs Palace. You can buy this for $38.99 from Target. My sister got this for Isabella for Christmas and she absolutely loves it! It comes disassembled with clear instructions and was relatively easy to put together. It comes with batteries, stickers and 2 princesses (Cinderella and Snow White). You can also buy separate princesses that work with the palace. That link is a common set of them that you can purchase that she also got for Isabella. Once put together, this toy is very sturdy. We regularly keep it on a table in the middle of the toy room so the younger babies can stand around it and still play with it. Silas will usually attempt to pull it off the table onto the floor and several times it has fallen and remained intact. The flags on the top of the castle are attached to larger pieces and so are not in jeopardy of being swallowed, but they do regularly come off of the castle. Isabella uses them as a cup for her play kitchen. They love the elevator and the different pieces that move around. If you put in the batteries there is a noise that is played when the doors open and there are specific noises per each Princess that are made. There don’t appear to be any small parts once assembled that could be presented as a choking hazard. If any pieces come loose, I could see potential for choking but we haven’t had any issues.  As usual use caution when small children play with any toys.   

2. The next toy is made by Circo from Target and is their Medical Care Kit. It is $15.49 at our local Target store. Isabella is enamored with a show on Disney Jr called Doc McStuffins. She is an animated child that plays doctor on her toys and stuffed animals. I saw this kit and knew that it would be perfect for her. It comes in a sturdy clear plastic case. I say that because it can support Silas’s weight of about 23-24lbs. He regularly uses it as a step stool to climb onto the couch. It is a 10 piece set of doctor’s tools including stethoscope, 2 hard casts, 2 soft bandages, syringe, tweezers, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, and a modified otoscope (that thing doctor’s look in your eyes and ears with.) Isabella loves these items and now plays doctor on all of her dolls and stuffed animals. I have to issue a warning on this toy though that with very little force my husband was able to remove the ‘pump’ part from the blood pressure cuff. A small amount of super glue though was able to keep the pump in place and served as a small modification that makes the toy useable by all children in my house. Also, be advised that the thermometer includes a small battery (you can’t easily access so there shouldn’t be any cause for concern that it would be swallowed without removing several screws.) I say that because the battery helps the thermometer make this SUPER annoying beeping sound that happens anytime the child pushes the button on the outside. You might want to consider removing that battery in case you like being driven insane by beeping children’s toys. Also, the tweezers could potentially be seen as a choking hazard if your child puts items into their mouth. Silas regularly does and he could easily swallow those if unsupervised.

        

3. Any parent who has a little girl can vouch for me when I say that we have too many babies around our house. There are naked baby dolls all over our house. We have several Circo brand baby dolls. They are from Target and are less than $10 I think. They come with a single outfit which is a one piece outfit and a shirt. They are easy to remove and put back on for kids. Some of them come with a hat as well. You can also buy separate outfits and accessories for these dolls. We also have an American Girl Bitty Baby. This is a more expensive version of those same dolls. The arms and legs are still a harder plastic type material with a cloth body. It comes with an outfit, a tiny bear and a book for $55. We ordered ours through the actual American Girl website where we also bought another outfit as an accessory as it was on clearance. I would recommend this doll for older children because the doll and accessories are rather expensive. All in all she loves these babies. She sleeps in her crib with most of these babies every night.  Like most toddlers, she prefers the cheap version over the expensive one, so keep that in mind when buying toys, especially dolls.  They will be more interested in the box or the wrapping than the actual toy.   

4. Our next toy on the list is the Fisher-Price Soothe & Glow Seahorse. You can literally almost buy this toy anywhere. It retails for $14.97 at Walmart. I heard many good reviews about this toy before I had children and so it seemed like a no-brainer when I was pregnant. This seahorse was amusing when she was born and younger baby, but she wasn’t necessarily attached to it. She didn’t really care for it until she moved into her own room. Then it became a part of her night-time comfort routine. We bought a second one for Silas when he was born and he doesn’t care for it. It eventually migrated into Isabella’s crib and it remains there even today. If she doesn’t have both seahorses available to her at all times while sleeping she freaks out. For anyone who is unfamiliar, this is about a foot long plush seahorse that upon pressing the belly plays music and lights up for five minutes. It plays soft music and lullabies. This is an inexpensive toy that lasts a long time that most babies love. I would recommend this to any new parents.

5. Meemaw bought Silas this next toy for his first birthday. It is the Little Tykes Handle Haulers Deluxe Farm Truck. You can buy this from Walmart for $14.99. This is a super neat toy that looks like a big farm truck. The back end of the truck can be let down so the animals can get out. It comes with a cow and a pig. There is a handle in the back of the truck that has a button that, when pressed, plays music and farm sounds. All the kids play with this truck a lot. Silas loves the music that it plays and he runs that truck all over the house. It is durable as well – it has fallen off shelves numerous times and never broken.

6. One of our most used toys is the B. Wheeee-ls! Soft Cars. These are $15.99 from Target. We have two of these cars in our camper and they are super durable. My son plays with these anytime that we go camping. You can easily wipe down or rinse off the outside. They have been stepped on, kicked around, thrown down, etc. These four cars are made of a super soft plastic material that is easy for little hands to grab on to. These are the kind of cars that you can pull back and release and they roll forward on their own. My son absolutely loves these cars and we would definitely repurchase if they carried more of them at our local Target.

7. Next is the Choo Choo Wagon by Step2. This is single-handedly the coolest toy that my parents have. It’s a wagon that has several different compartments for the children to sit in instead of one big area like a normal wagon. You can connect ‘trailers’ to the back for extra seating. The wagon itself can be bought here for $99.99 + shipping with just two separate cars. Each car comes with a built in cup holder, and a bench with a seat belt. The cars are tall enough so the kids are up off the ground but short enough where the kids can easily climb in and out themselves. Each car can hold a max of 50lbs. My kids absolutely love this toy. If we could stand to pull them around for hours at a time they would gladly ride in this the entire time. We take this wagon every time that we go camping and they love being pulled around all day. We get a lot of compliments on this wagon. We have seen several around town with different families and it seems to be very durable.

8. Earlier this year, my mom purchased a plastic rocking dog for her house and after seeing how well both of the kids loved it we decided that we needed to get one for our house. Corry found the Little Tykes Rocking Horse in blue. You can buy it from Walmart for $29.99. My kids absolutely love this rocking horse. It’s low to the ground so they can easily get on and off of it. I would imagine that if they rock too far back that they would be able to flip this over while they were on it, but it would take some effort and with proper supervision you should be able to see this happening. There is a lip on the front and the back that seems to act as a deterrent to being able to flip the horse over. Another warning – both of my kids use the seat as a step to get up on the couch, try to climb on different items around our house, or just to stand up on the horse itself. This can be dangerous if your children are unsteady and they can easily fall and potentially hurt themselves. We have also used this toy both indoors and out and it works just as well on grass as it does on carpet. It’s super lightweight and provides hours of entertainment for any age group.

9. The next item is the Graco Room Full of Fun Baby Doll Playset in the multi dot pattern. We got this as a gift for Isabella for Christmas to use with her millions of dolls in our house. It comes with a pack-n-play, stroller, high chair, pacifier, teether and toy. You can still buy the same set for $34.99 from Toys R Us. It comes disassembled and requires a bit of finesse to get it assembled, but that seems to be the same with any child’s toy. The pack-n-play is the perfect size for several dolls – ours is now currently being used as storage for the other baby products. Several things that I dislike about this toy – one is that it is very difficult for my children to put Isabella’s dolls into the stroller and the high chair. The holes for the doll’s legs are small and they can’t always get the dolls out once they get them in. The second thing that I dislike is that the high chair will not stay together. The legs are forever coming out of their places and my husband had to end up super gluing them all in place. Same thing with the high chair tray – it comes off super easy and is very difficult for kids to put it back on. This isn’t a gripe, but just a warning – the teether, pacifier and toy are on the smaller side and we had to put them up because they were too small for our other children to play with. With all that being said, my kids love this set. I think that Silas likes it more than Isabella does. He walks the stroller around the house collecting all of his toys in it. They have touched this toy at least once per day every day since we got it for them. This toy is cheaply made but it is definitely worth it for how much they play with it.

10. Last but certainly not least are the various components associated with household items, like a kitchen, vacuum, etc. Who would have known that children love toys that are affiliated with chores so much? My mother made the kids a kitchen (picture on left) from a cabinet that we bought from someone on Craigslist. It was a hit and she did an excellent job! There are a multitude of posts on how to do this on Pinterest as well. With that kitchen, we have had numerous people buy the kids play food, and dishes, and pots and pans for this kitchen. It is awesome and they absolutely love playing with this kitchen. We have since acquired another plastic kitchen that has some different features than the one that my mother made, and they love it. I am not sure of the make or the model of the second kitchen because it was purchased from Craigslist and I don’t want to speculate. We noticed more than a year ago that anytime we vacuumed Isabella would freak out and scream and cry until we were done. We bought her a toy vacuum to hopefully make her more comfortable with the process. She didn’t necessarily care for it when we first brought it home, but now it is a favorite toy of both kids. Silas drags it around all over the house. We bought ours from a toy outlet store for about $30. You can buy one like it here: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3142104 Our kids like this toy because it actually turns on and runs. This was not documented as a feature but it does actually suck dust and small fine items off the floor. Luckily the bucket comes off the front easily and you can fully empty it without an issue. Our last household chore toy that the kids absolutely love is the washer and dryer. This is an older model toy that we bought from Craigslist that comes with an attached washer, dryer and ironing board. The washer and the dryer both have a lid that fully closes and both tubs spin. It is made of a tough plastic material that seems to resist wearing. (insert picture) The kids love that toy and love it especially as a hiding spot for other toys. One of the bonuses is that older kids who come over can play with this group of toys and not feel like they are playing with baby toys.

Hopefully this list is helpful to someone who doesn't have a lot of toys or is a relatively new mom trying to decide what to buy for their child.  I am more than happy to post more in depth reviews on any and/or all of these items. 

What are your child's favorite toys? 

-Sara

Favorite items from Aldi

Before 2012 I shopped at Aldi only a handful of times.  I was never sold on the awesome-ness that was Aldi.  Anytime I shopped there before then I could never find items that I wanted and so I just gave up.  When we moved back to Saginaw we had an Aldi closer to us and so we decided to start shopping there again.  It was magic!  Maybe it's because I was SO tired of spending an incredible amount of money on groceries every month.  Maybe it's because we were starting to have to feed both kids actual meals and not just bites from our plate.  Whatever it was, shopping there was suddenly something that I enjoyed.  I have found a few items that I absolutely love from Aldi and would love to share them with you.  These are in no particular order. 

1. Milk - when Aldi first opened in our area they offered their milk at an amazing price.  I don't remember exactly but I want to say that it was like $.99 a gallon or something crazy like that.  It has gone up from that price but it seems to still be a deal compared to Walmart and Albertsons which are our two closest grocery stores.  Having three kids under 3 at our house almost full time we go through a lot of milk.  I like buying milk from Aldi also because in our store they advertise that their milk does not have any growth hormones in it, which is important to us for our children. 
2. Produce - Aldi is highly known for their inexpensive, good quality produce, if for nothing else.  When we first started going there to shop they had pineapples for $.99.  I learned how to cut up a whole pineapple on a $.99 pineapple from Aldi and now I love them that way.  We go through a lot of produce with the kids because they love bananas, carrots, squash, and any fruit, so we buy a lot of produce when we go there and I like that it's inexpensive.  Now, granted, this is not organic or local but it's usually fresh and ready to eat that day.  They run specials when fruit is in season like strawberries, and peppers and we tend to stock up during those times.  The last time they had peppers on sale, I bought like 20 of them and Corry roasted them on the grill and now we have fire roasted peppers in our freezer for different recipes that we make. 
3. Spices - for some people this might not work but Aldi sells spices in HUGE containers.  This is very helpful for us because we go through several spices, like garlic powder and seasoning salt and I hate to spend a ton of money on the little jars from the regular grocery stores.  They are probably double the size that you can find at other stores and probably half the price.  Awesome!  
4. Canned vegetables and fruits - we go through a lot of corn, peas, green beans, mandarin oranges and fruit cocktail.  Our kids love fruits and vegetables and I don't want to stifle that by not being able to feed them because they are too expensive at some other stores.  I like that you can buy those cans at Aldi for less than $1 a piece. 

There are a number of other items that we always buy but they are more specific to our store and I don't know if they would have them everywhere.  These are standard items that would be there at any Aldi that you go to and you can always find them no matter what time of the year.  I like that throughout the year you can find different items at Aldi that match the season that you are in.  They have neat items during Christmas that you can use as gifts, like pots and pans, crock pots, etc. that are of good quality.  We bought a dutch oven a few years ago and it is one of my favorite pieces in my kitchen. 

What are your favorite Aldi buys? 

Favorite Baby Products

When I first got pregnant with Isabella I was overwhelmed by all of the baby items on the market. There were swings, and bouncers, jungle gyms and floor mats. How did you know which one to buy? Which opinion do you listen to – the woman who says her kids never used anything and it wasn’t worth the money or the woman who said her kid cried day and night unless they were in a swing? There are more options and research out there than you know what to do with.

I was personally overwhelmed because I didn’t want to waste money and I knew that, at that time, baby products as a whole didn’t have a high resale value. I didn’t want to buy an item for $100 and only get $10 with it when I sold it even if my child did not use it. I knew that we needed some items like a crib, a stroller and a car seat but the rest was up in the air.

Luckily Corry and I are not picky parents at all when it comes to some of the baby gear. I didn’t care if all of our items matched or were even gender specific. I knew that we were going to have another child after Isabella and so I didn’t want to have to repurchase a whole new set of items if the second baby ended up being male. We are also very lucky that we live in a rather large metropolis that participates very heavily in the consignment sale scene. We bought a lot of different items, including clothing at consignment sales.

Below is a list of my favorite baby products, where we bought them and some general ideas about each one of them. I am definitely not saying that this is an end all be all list of the items that you need for a baby – this is just a list of items that worked well for us and our opinions on each one. I will touch on baby toys, nursery furniture, and baby fashion in separate blogs.

Moby wrap
Ahh the Moby wrap. There is nothing else like the feeling that you first get when you open up the fabric pouch for the Moby and like 9 million feet of fabric rolls out onto the floor. For me, it was sheer panic. How am I ever going to figure this thing out? What if I can’t figure out how to tie this wrap correctly? Luckily with the help of thousands of videos on YouTube I was able to get it tied on correctly.

Our kids loved the Moby wrap. Well, Isabella loved it. Silas tolerated it for a few months but didn’t care for it nearly as much as Isabella. She would sleep in it our entire shopping trips in the store. I started wearing her in the wrap after the ‘stranger putting her finger in Isabella’s mouth thing’ see post HERE. She got more attention when I wore her than she ever got in her car seat but I had total control over how much access people had. I quickly realized that people were a lot less likely to touch your baby if you were wearing them than if they were just hanging out in a car seat. Silas was a much larger baby and so I wasn’t able to carry him in it for as long and he has always been headstrong so carrying him in a wrap has always been a battle of wills. He prefers the Ergo. Well, now he prefers to walk, but he used to prefer the Ergo.

Swing
Our sister bought us our swing for Isabella. We put her in it for the first time when she was about a month or so old and she seemed kind of ‘eh’ about it. She didn’t particularly hate it or love it. She would sleep in it sometimes but it definitely wasn’t guaranteed to make her go to sleep like some babies. She learned to love it a lot more once Silas got here. She was WAY too big for it at that point and I think that she just wanted in it because there was a new baby in it. She did the same thing with the bouncer and the Moses basket.

We used the same swing for Silas and Addison but they much preferred the swings that moved side to side instead of just front to back. They would sleep for hours in the swings everyday and for awhile that was the only way that we could get Silas to sleep at night was to put him in the swing.

I would definitely recommend a good swing that you can plug into the wall because constantly having to load batteries into a swing gets annoying. I wish that we could just go back to the old school crank style swings, but the newer ones are nice that have music. Isabella liked the music to calm her down but Silas hated it. To each his own, I suppose.

Mobile
Mobiles are expensive for what they are. I mean, realistically it’s a music box with a plastic arm with a few small stuffed toys attached to it. We bought one from either a consignment sale or craigslist; I can’t recall. Isabella never cared for the moving parts, but she has LOVED the music box part and still uses it everyday to put herself to sleep. Silas and Addison absolutely loved the moving parts especially during diaper changes when it was difficult to keep them entertained. It didn’t really matter which model it was; this was definitely a good buy, as long as you can get one used.

Car Seat
We have used several car seats since Isabella was born. When we were pregnant with her we decided to use the Chicco stroller and car seat travel system. It had a nice material that wiped off easily and wasn’t particularly heavy without an infant inside. The stroller folded down easily and had lots of space for accessories, purses, diaper bags, etc. It was heavily used by us and has been heavily used by sister for Addison since she was born and still is in very good condition. The convertible car seat that we got after we stopped using the infant carrier was good for the time. It wasn’t my favorite because it had such high sides and was difficult to get Isabella in and out of it without banging either her head or her legs on either the seat or the top of the car. We were in a minor car accident when Isabella was a few months old, so we got a new seat. We decided to go with the Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL. We absolutely adore this seat. I will touch on our car seat requirements in another video, but I will say that a higher rear facing weight was definitely one of our top requirements. The Sunshine Kids car seat can rear face up to 45lbs. It has a seat cover that easily comes off and cleans nicely. It also allows for three car seats to fit in a standard car backseat. We loved it so much that we bought another one for Silas. Now the brand is Diono but it’s the same basic seat. It is expensive but there are deals to be found out there and when it comes down to it, this is one thing that is totally worth spending the money on. What is more important that your child’s safety?

Stroller
Corry made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t a fan of double strollers. Either they were too wide to be able to fit through most doors or aisles, or they were so long it was like driving a limo. I first heard about the Britax B-Ready on YouTube and thought that it looked neat. I figured that I could never get Corry to go for it for two reasons: 1) because it is a bit expensive ($499.00 for just the stroller without any accessories and without the second seat, and 2) because of the odd look to the stroller itself.

I took him by BuyBuyBaby one day when we were pregnant with Silas and he fell in love with it. He didn’t care for the cost but we found out that Britax runs a semi-annual sale that allows you to buy a stroller and get a second item for free. We knew that we would need a new infant seat so we decided to go for it.

We absolutely love this stroller. We get comments and compliments on our stroller every time we go out in public. It folds down the same size as our singleton stroller. It is heavy with both seats, but that is expected with a double stroller. A lot of people think that the lower seat is disadvantaged because they wouldn’t be able to see, but we find it to be totally the opposite. Isabella loves being in the bottom seat because she can easily get in and out of it with little help and she can still interact with her environment.

Muslin Blankets
When I first saw these blankets, I thought that it was just a gimmick. They are marketed as having the ability to better regulate baby’s temperature because there is breathability with the fabric. My husband flipped out because of the cost of the blankets. They are about $30-$40 for four blankets which seems crazy but they are awesome. It is easy to swaddle your babies with these blankets and they are super soft which is helpful with young babies. Silas still sleeps with one of these blankets as a ‘blankie’ every day. He would carry it around like Linus everywhere if we would allow him.


This is our basic list of our favorite baby items. We love all of these items and still use some of them even today. What are your favorite baby items?

-Sara