Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Christmastime (to-be-played-with) Favs

This morning Matt and I played with our Klutz Cat's Cradle that we got for Christmas.



As we were playing, many of the string tricks came back to me. I remembered my mom playing patiently with me as we turned one string creation into another with just a flick of the wrist.

I love Klutz! I love their quality and I love how their games are old-timey. No batteries or cords is a big plus in my book! And my kids love Klutz too! That's why I bought so many Klutz presents for them this year!

Emily and Matt have already made a hot pad apiece with their "Potholders and Other Loopy Projects" loom (another Klutz creation). This is actually the second times we've bought this. It was created with so much that one tine broke. It was sorely missed, so we got it for Christmas again this year. :-)



And
this game
has gotten hours of play at our house since Christmas as well:



I remember my sister having a Spirograph game, and this one is very much like that. So fun! I love playing with it as much as the kids do! :-)

The kids have also loved their new-to-them PS2 along with many games including Guitar Hero. Steve has liked playing these games with them too! :-)

Steve gave me a lava lamp for Christmas this year and I have LOVED it! I've wanted one ever since I was a little girl watching my grandma's. Steve listened to me say that I'd wanted one and remembered. It was exciting Christmas morning to get such a big surprise! We've had it turned on almost every day, watching the "lava" float around in the lamp. It's so relaxing, too.

I bought some blocks for the kids from Walmart that I LOVE! They are wooden blocks from Garanimals that come with their own draw-string cloth bag.





I felt bad that the only blocks they had to play with was Jenga blocks. One size block does not a village make. ;-) Now they can make arches and towers too!

And Play Doh. The kids have loved playing with that even more than I thought they would! (Just between you and me, I got them on sale at a buy-one-get-one-half-off sale. I paid less than $6 for 10 colors!) I think they've played with it every day since Christmas.

Steve's sister gave us an abundance of markers: smelly ones (the good kinds of smells :-) and lots of colors. Emily has loved these the best and has created many masterpieces.

How about you and your family? What has been yours and your kids' favorite to-play-with toys?

4 comments:

  1. We were on the same page this year - Sara got wooden blocks too. I had always thought of them as somewhat of a toddler toy, but they are so much fun!

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  2. I haven't seen the garanimals blocks. How fun. I like they have their own bag.
    I enjoy those spirographs and the cats cradle. We haven't attempted the potholder book yet.
    This Christmas we didn't do many toys. It's hard. My kids are in that in between stage that frankly I don't know what to get them.
    We did pick up Ladder Ball at Walmart after Christmas. We learned about it while in FL. It's a hot game with the RVing over 70 crowd, but it really is fun.
    I'll post about it.
    Do you want my recipe for Playdough. You can make it and it last so much longer than the stuff you buy at the store.
    ♥ Joy

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  3. wooden blocks are great!

    My kids when younger spent years playing with brio train set and made houses with wooden bricks etc. We found a supplier who made cheaper wooden rails that fitted the brio train set range and they used to make sets that went from one room into another.

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  4. We love wooden blocks too. The gnomelets may be 19 and 16, but every time we got to Himself's parents they get out Andy's dads blocks ...yep, 3 generations still playing together with wooden blocks!

    Lego is good too - except over here it was hard to get the plain blocks for a while because they got too commercial and started making specialised kits that only allowed you to make one thing. They've seen the error of their ways and gone back to basics now! Kids can use their imagination again!

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