Kid Stuff

Hannah-Kate has met 2 of her 3 cousins and will meet the 3rd and oldest cousin in a few weeks.

Nearly every time I am sitting in my living room I end up staring at the Crate and Barrel star step shelving we have on our largest wall. It looks like this...

And we use it as our study area so from top to bottom it was decorated with expensive books and picture frames and decor etc.
And every time I looked at it I thought "We really need to make our home a little more child friendly." And I know Hannah Kate is only 7 weeks old but we will have to do it for her alone eventually and if we want our friends and family to feel comfortable in our home we can't have it be an all "no" zone.

So, I cleared off the bottom few shelves and placed all sorts of fun baskets down there and moved other things out of reach of little ones and picked up some of my favorite universal kid toys from my many years in child care.

We got Stackadoos:

Blocks that stick together with a brush or comb like design... lots of fun! (Jeremy spent several minutes with them the other night.)

My favorite 1st Blocks selection:

 

They are soft and rubbery and they squeak when you squeeze them and they are great first toys because they can just gnaw on them until the figure out how to stack or squeeze them.

We also picked up these really neat toys that are half spheres that you can either stack as funky rounded towers or put together to make a ball, I looked for a picture but I don't know what they are called and I can't rightly describe them in an internet search, but they are really cool.

And all these new things were a hit! Makafui enjoyed playing at Auntie's house the other day! (He met his limit but it was a LOOONG day, Hannah-Kate had a rough night too!)

Here's one of my favorite parts: Because we chose basket storage, the kids can tornado the house with toys and in 5 minutes of walkin' around with a basket or 2 everything is picked up! So quick and easy! And none of these awesome toys needed to have seizure inducing lights on them, high pitched annoying sounds or buttons to keep kids, (and adults!) entertained! I love it! :) These are "Healthy Mind" toys. Exploitative, sensory, developmental, toys, great manipulatives. I know I will find myself playing with them on the floor with Hannah Kate while she lays on her toy mat. :)

A good investment.