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Christmas in February

As most of you, well, don't know.. my latest obsession is decorating Hannah's Barbie house. It started off as a plywood shell that Grandpa made and I finally started space planning and making purchases for it last month. I had to buy a kitchen set/fridge and bathroom from toys-r-us and I've ordered a pale green sectional couch and pillows from a nice lady in Georgia (It's currently sitting in customs somewhere in Canada). Yay! I've also 3/4 primed the inside rooms. Wow, does plywood ever soak up primer. It's a beautiful house though.. huge and Georgian with palladian windows, archways, and four rooms. I'm adding a wall to create a bathroom between the two bedrooms. Poor Brad has had to sit through months of nightly ipad surfing while I tried to find the best stuff.

Anyway, yesterday I finally opened all the boxes and everything looks better than I thought! I think Hannah is going to love it.

First Post

As this is my first post and Hannah is nearly two, I'm going to have to do some catch-up in the next little while.

We'll start in the middle...

Hannah's latest facination is with Dora the Explorer. I took her to Toys-R-Us today to see if she might like a Dora doll. It turns out she isn't the least bit interested in the dolls.. Dora on her tub toys and potty and books yes... dolls no. You see, Hannah is used to Dora being a slightly chubby toddler, not a slim looking five year old like all the dolls seem to portray. So we'll stick to watching the tv show on the ipad for now.

I did get her a Dora alphabet book with magnetic drawing pad, a small book on colours, a book about the sea (she loves fish) covered in glitter, Barbie bathroom furniture for her house (more on that later), and the thing she screamed for most.. a large plastic shopping cart. It always surprises me that the things she always wants are usually in one of two categories. The first is accessories: purses, necklaces, shoes, wands, hats, headbands, cell phones etc. She always tries to talk into the phones and says "Hi". I have a feeling the accessory facination is going to be costly later. :) The second is books. Books, books, books. She tends to like ones that sparkle, light-up, sing, or have pop-ups/slide-outs/flaps. I think I may have influenced her a bit on those. Last month I found a brightly coloured pop-up book that was also scratch and sniff in a clearance bin and nearly passed out. I always fall for the pop-ups and beautiful illustrations. Not to say that I don't have serious literature as well... I have fairy tales and some other great books that are wonderfully written with rhymes, humour, and appropriately inspirational sentiments.. she just isn't interested in those yet.

I also showed her two Barbie jewelry boxes and thankfully she picked the brighter coloured surf Barbie one that was on sale. The music box plays "You've got a friend" by James Taylor. Very funny... I don't know why but it is... really, it's actually very pretty sounding. I think I was expecting something a little more self-absorbed from a Barbie item. :) "I'm a Barbie Girl" or "California Girls" or something.

Hannah collects music boxes, by that I mean I find them and put them on her shelf. Funny how when you have a girl you tend to get her things that you want! The music boxes she inherited have little ballerinas in them, which she de-skirts and then plucks from their spinning spring perches so those will have to stay shelved for now. This one will be good for all her many plastic necklaces.

More to come later!
Kimberly