Our Family as Peg Dolls - by Little Peg Dolls

I just mentioned in a previous post that we are studying homes this month with Mother Goose Time.  I borrowed a dollhouse and I wanted to find some dolls to play with inside the house.  At first I was going to order a generic doll set through Amazon and then I remembered my friend Crystal who started a little peg doll business called Little Peg Dolls.  I sent her a message asking all sorts of questions and she was kind enough to answer back.

As I was still trying to decide I asked Lachlan what he thought about getting a little doll painted to look like him.  He thought that sounded great and I showed him some pictures from Little Peg Doll's Facebook page.  I said, these ones don't have arms.  You okay with that?  "Yeah" he says, "we'll just be like tomatoes."  Huh?  It took me a second to catch on.  "Oh, like Veggie Tales?"  "Yep!" 

So the decision was made, Lachlan didn't care if they didn't have arms and I was thrilled that the dolls would be a representation of our family. 

Unfortunately for Crystal, I sent her all the little details about my boys so that she could have a bunch of information to choose from when painting the dolls.  Don't worry, she took it well and had fun with it.  Seeing how she has 4 boys of her own, I knew she would get the boy concept well.

I am so excited that they arrived today, I have to share.  Introducing, my family as peg dolls . . .

I told her that Jeff wears a lot of plaid collared shirts.  He actually has that exact shirt, so I don't know if she guessed or got on Facebook and found a picture of him wearing it.  I asked her to make me nice and girly since I am the only girl.  So I have nice long hair, earrings and a necklace.  Oh and the purse is awesome.  It has sunglasses, an OSU flag and a capri sun.  Love it!

I had her put super hero capes on the boys and their letter on the cape.  So there is Lachlan, Peter and Adam all lined up. 

 Lachlan wanted a train on his shirt and his favorite color is red. 

Peter wanted a monster truck on his shirt and his favorite color is green.  I just noticed the monster truck has a P on the door too!

When we got to Adam, my only little blonde, I wasn't sure what to do.  He isn't old enough to tell me what his favorite thing is.  But I do know one thing.  He loves being outside, ALL THE TIME.  So I suddenly realized the typical little boy portrayal would be perfect for him.  Overalls, dirty with patches and a frog in his pocket.  She also put a super hero cape on Adam too, which is awesome.  I can totally see him wearing this outfit someday. 

They all just started going crazy with these things. 

 It looks like the dollhouse isn't big enough. 

 Peter is going up the stairs.

 Adam wanted to join in too! 

 This looks like a serious family discussion.

 Looks like the problem was solved.  Mom and Dad are heading out. 

 Meanwhile, Lachlan was downstairs playing the piano. 

This weekend Jeff and I are going to read our vows to each other with our family present to celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  I was just telling the boys about it so Lachlan wanted to set the Mom and Dad peg doll up like they are "getting married" in the backyard.

 It kind of looks like we are butting in on a little peg doll moment here.  Oh and check out that purse!

We make such a good pair!

As we were sitting down to lunch I said "hmm, I wonder what little Lachlan and little Peter are doing right now? I bet they are hungry.  But they don't have plates or cups or a table." 

That's all it took and Lachlan was ready to design and build a table for our little peg doll family. 

Bible Study Legos

We have started hosting a small Bible Study group in our home on Wednesday nights.  Last night was the second night and our routine improved a bit from the first night we had it here.

After dinner together the two older boys went to the front bedroom to play.  They decided to get out their Legos and create.  They happily and patiently played the whole time.

Here are their creations.

 First Lachlan came out to show us this one.  It is a bank robbers truck. 

 Peter made these robots.  He named them after the Transformers from the Rescue Bots show.  

Bumble bee and Heatwave are the two I remember now.

 Peter also made this boat.

This one is a favorite.  It is a machine that makes Easter eggs and "cash" as he rubs his thumb to his fingers like the international sign for cash.  Who knows where he picked that up. 

I love documenting their Lego creations.  It's fun to see their growth. It also makes it a little less sad when they take them apart to make something new. 

Lachlan's LEGO Combine

This summer, my best friend Kathy took my boys out on the combine while harvesting wheat.  She has offered Lachlan every year, but this is the first year he accepted.  She took them each on about a 30 minute ride.  Just as long as it takes to fill the bin in the back requiring a trip to truck to unload.

Wheat is a pretty cool one to watch.  The combine is fitted with this huge header that cuts the wheat and feeds it into the combine all at once.  As compared to grass fields which are cut first and then combined.  (I hope I got all that right Kathy?)

Kathy gave me a report about the details of the ride and Lachlan couldn't get enough information.  He was asking about every little part and piece.

This morning, Lachlan said he wanted one of those LEGO combines, like at Tuesday's house.  Well it wasn't a LEGO combine it was a Playmobil Harvester and I told him I would add it to his Christmas list.  Next thing I know he disappears into his room to build with LEGOs.

He comes out and announces with pride that he built a combine.  Honestly I was in the middle of making lunch so I didn't pay much attention.  Finally, we were sitting down to lunch and he had it sitting at the table.  When I checked it out, I was floored.  So proud of him.

 Check out that header. 

Forgive me Kathy, I don't know the technical name, but he has the arm that unloads the wheat into the hauling truck.

 He's even got that spinning wheel on the back!

 What do you think Kathy?!?!  Pretty good, right?

AB Seas

AB Seas is a game that came in my Discovery Toys starter kit.  I am a big fan of games that can be played together as a family and I am an even bigger fan of games that teach.  This game is all about learning their ABCs as the name of the game so perfectly hints at.

Since the theme is fishing and the seas, I thought bringing it to the cottage at the beach would be a perfect place to try it out.

There is not a television at the cottage, it's a perfect place we are so blessed to be able to go on a regular basis.  A place where we can connect with each other, with no distractions. 

So the first morning we woke up at the cottage we got out this game and played as we were still in our pajamas.

 The game is pretty simple.  There are 4 cards and 4 magnetic fishing poles.  Inside the box there are fish with metal rings.  Each fish has a letter of the alphabet on it in lowercase form. 

 The 4 cards are double sided.  One side has lowercase letters on it and the other side has the same letters in the uppercase form.

 The youngest child gets to go first.  They use their pole to find a fish and read the letter on it's side.  If they have that letter on their card they place it over that letter.  If they pull out a shark, they throw it back and get to go again.  The goal is to be the first to cover all of the letters on your card.

As with all Discovery Toys, this one is designed to grow with them, by having the two sides to each card.  If they are older children they can use the other side with the uppercase letters.  When they draw a fish that has a lowercase letter they have to pair it correctly with the uppercase letter on the card.

 You can see that Lachlan is still quite tired.  Big yawn here.

 I love games that you can play as a family, especially ones you can play with kids that are quite young.  I struggle with turning the TV on more than I would like.  The other day, all I wanted to do was to turn on a cartoon for the kids and have a little down time.  But instead, I realized the baby was asleep and I should take advantage of the time I had to spend some quality time with my precious big boys instead.  So I pulled this game out, we looked at each other eye to eye and enjoyed each others company.  Added bonus, we were also reinforcing their knowledge of letters!

 So far I have ran into one negative, the box that sits up right and hides the fish inside, easily gets bumped out of place.  When it gets bumped the fish inside slide under its edge and its a bit of a pain to have to keep putting back.  I actually took it off altogether when we played with it again later.  This worked out fine because my boys were peaking anyways.  But another friend of mine said I should just get those little Velcro tabs and put one part on the base and one part on the edge of the shield so they stay together during play.  I thought that was a brilliant idea, I just need to get to the store.

Overall this is a great game.  You can easily use the fishing poles in all sorts of other play scenarios.  They get to learn and pretend to fish, which my boys love.

I am a Discovery Toys Education Consultant, so if you make a purchase through my website, I do get a percentage commission.  However, I do hope to give an honest and straight forward review of all the toys. 

Hydro Launch by Discovery Toys

The Hydro Launch is an awesome summertime toy.  I wish I had something like this as a kid.  In fact, it makes me feel like a kid again.  I think I want to play with this one just as much as the kids.

This thing comes with a launch pad, the yellow base there, which has a hose running from it to the red throttle type controller.  The garden hose get's plugged into the throttle.  The throttle controls the pressure of the water stream coming out of the launch pad.  If you slowly increase the pressure it will rise gently and hover on top of the stream of water.  From there you can decrease the pressure and it will drop.  It will balance on the stream of water for quite sometime and you can move it up and down very easily.  When it is hovering in the air it sprays water all around it and actually works as a pretty good sprinkler.  Lots of fun for the kids to run through as well.

Or you can push the throttle up quickly and launch the thing sky high. 

As you can see this thing can fly.  It looks like it is higher than the peak of our roof in this picture but that is just perspective.  But I can tell you, it is very high.  The stream of water with out the rocket on it, is almost as high as our 7 year old birch tree.

It is best to play with this toy on a level surface, although, on a slight angle the rocket still corrects itself, it just won't balance as high on the stream of water.

The rocket itself is completely hollow.  It's just a light weight and flexible plastic, but it's pretty sturdy.  The tip of the rocket is a foam cone.  It takes a lot of the impact when it falls to the ground.  The foam tip on ours has a split in it.  I am not sure if this is just from wear and tear or if a little one stuck their finger in it.  Even though it has a split, it's holding it's shape and not coming apart.

The rocket is super easy to place on the launch pad.  There is no exact science.  It just sits on top, nothing has to be perfectly lined up for it to work.  If it's sat on top of the launch pad crooked, it corrects itself.  This is nice, because kids of all ages can fully play with this toy. 

On the inside where the water meets the rocket there is a ridged surface.  I think that's what makes the rocket spin when it's hovering.  There is definitely a lot of engineering that went into this toy to make it work so well.

Some things to be aware of.  The pressure of the water coming out of that launch pad is pretty intense.  If a child was leaning over it while another child turned it on, I would think it could be pretty painful to the eyes.  The other danger is the rocket falling on a child as it comes down.  This has happened a couple of times to new users.  There was no significant injury, just a bit scared, and they quickly moved on.  Once everyone knows how this thing works and has had some time with it, it hasn't been a problem.  It falls with in a pretty small radius, and it's easy enough to be out of it's way.  The wind does play a factor in where it falls.  Once you know the direction the rocket lands, you can make sure the throttle is not in that direction, and then everyone can be safe.

I have been moving the location of the Hydro Launch around a bit because it does do a good job of watering.  We don't have a sprinkler system, so the Hydro Launch might just help keep our grass green this year.  I would recommend playing with it on grass.  If you set it up on pavement or gravel, the rocket would get a lot more beat up upon landing.

The only major problem you are going to run into is how to take turns because everyone is going to want to play.  I have been letting each child go twice in a row before their turn is over.  I might even bump that up to three next time we get it out.  If they only get to do it once, then by he next time they get a turn, they have forgotten the feel of the throttle and the effects their movement has on the rocket.  When they get to go a few times in a row, they can really enjoy experimenting with it, while at the same time learning all about the laws of physics. 

Busy Farm by Discovery Toys

I've been trying to get out the new Discovery Toys one by one.  When you get a giant box of new toys, it's hard not just to pull them out and play with them all at once.  But I thought I would get more play out of each toy if we played with them individually.  I really want to watch the reaction of my children with each toy so I can write about it here.

On this day, I pulled out two new toys.  One that Peter chose and one that Lachlan chose.  Peter picked out the Busy Farm, and boy was I impressed.

I call this one preschool in a box.

First you can see, it includes, this big bag of farm animals.  There are 6 different kinds of animals and they each come in all of the colors.

Along with the animals, it comes with these awesome cards that are double sided.  They ask you to do all sorts of different things.  Like finish a pattern, find the animal that's different, put the animal, on, in, over or under.  All the things little ones learn in preschool.

 The one above asks, which one is different?  Place a cow on the one that is different.

This one is a pattern for them to finish and the other one here asks where these things come from.  So he set the cow on the glass of milk.

 This one asks you to put a cow in the green triangle and a pig in the brown rectangle.  So they are learning colors and shapes.

 As you can see, he loved it, so we just kept going.  I just kept laying out the cards and he happily played along.

 Until he decided to be a stinker.  I would read the directions and he would choose to do the opposite.  So I decided to beat him at his own game.  I told him, okay, I will do it.  The directions say to put the pig in the rectangle.  I picked up a pig, put him next to the rectangle and threw my hands in the air celebrating.  I did it, I did it!

He looked at me and smiled, no that's next to it.  Then he would pick it up and put it in the rectangle.

You can see him correcting me here.

 Well look at that.  In correcting me, not only did he better learn the concept of in but also next to.

You can see us all playing together.  Even Adam joined in.  He loved being included in the fun and laid there watching them very contently.  It was such a fun family time together, with the television off.

As you can see, Peter gives it a thumbs up..

What I am enjoying most about all the toys we have tried out so far is that they are "kid powered".  This is the goal of all Discovery Toys.  They want the kids to have to do the work, to use their imagination and to learn and grow as they play.  You don't just press a button and let the toy do the work.

This toy, is amazing.  But for the most part, to take advantage of the cards, someone who can read has to play along.  This can be a pro and con.  Of course it is always nice to spend some good quality time with your children, but there are times you need them to play alone.  However, some of the cards they could probably figure out the instructions on their own.  Like the pattern cards or which ones different.  Even the ones that ask you to place an animal next to or to the left of they could play with on their own, they just might not do what the instructions ask.  You could look over their shoulder at what they are doing and ask them where they placed the animal and in that way, they would still be learning.  But they can also just play with the animals.

These little farm animals in and of themselves were captivating for both the boys.  They got out our barn and used them as the baby animals at the farm.  They have played with them for days now.  In fact, they had to go to time out for a bit because they didn't want to share.  So they will come back out again soon.

Lachlan really liked lining them up inside the little box they came in.  He had a hard time figuring out how the box open and closed so he ended up ripping a part of the box.  The box has a nice little handle on it so that it can be stored away as it came.  With a little tape we were able to fix it up.  Hopefully, it will hold up.

There is a similar set to this one but with bugs instead of farm animals.  It's called Busy Bugs .

If you want to buy this or any other Discovery Toys please visit my website here.  Of course I do get some commission on sales, but that doesn't mean I won't be honest.  I just like to do all I can to help support my amazing family.  Thanks so much!