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Favorite Advent Toys That Kids Love

by Carolyn 19 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

Every year when we pull out the Christmas decorations, our kids love these 2 Favorite Advent Toys. I love that every day during December they play with these and it helps them to remember that we are really celebrating the birth of Jesus. The fact that they are only out for one month during the year makes them special.

I love having some kid friendly nativity sets and advent toys around the house at Christmas. These are played with the most every year that I pull them out. Here are some favorite Advent toys that kids love. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Christmas Tips

How to use your Christmas Cards to Decorate

by Carolyn 3 Comments

I don’t know about you but I love receiving Christmas Cards from friends and family. I like seeing the kids growing up. I even like the families that send the letters updating us on everything they have been doing. I don’t send a letter but I do send out a photo card.

After all the time and energy getting the right photo of the kids and selecting the best layout of the card, I didn’t want to just throw our family card into a box to not be seen again. It brings such joy to look at how far we have come as a family.

Here is how to use your Christmas cards to decorate.

How to Decorate with your Christmas Cards

First –  I decided to buy frames and frame our cards. I bought 10 frames at Target so I would be able to use the same frames for several years. I need to go look and see if they still have these and buy some more. Here are some great ones on Amazon.

Second – I had to decide on a size for the cards. I only order 5 x 7 cards now. If you notice close in the picture above, the year before I decided to do this I had used a landscape card so it has a different frame.

Third – We store them with our decorations so every year so these are only out during December.

How to use your Christmas Cards to decorate

My kids love to look at them and it brings back memories of different years. These have become one of my top 3 Christmas decorations.

 

 

Filed Under: Christmas Tips

Top Gifts For 3 Year Olds

by Carolyn 5 Comments

As a mom, I love hearing what gifts moms give to their kids.  This list of Top Gifts for 3 Year Olds comes from our own experience.  Sharing our favorites that are hits longer than a few days is a must! Take a look at our daughter’s favorites from when she was 3 years old.

I have also shared the hits and misses for my boys with  Top Gifts For 7 year old Boys

Toy Review - 3 year old girl toys. A review 1 year later of the toys my 3 year old girl received and which toys were hits and which ones were a miss. This is super helpful to prevent you from wasting money on a toy that won't be played with the next day.

Top Gifts for 3 Year Olds

Below are the gifts our daughter received when she was 3 years old.  We’ve even included our thoughts after she spent time playing with them.  This gives you a good idea of the investment and if it will be worth your money for your particular child.

Loving Family Doll House – This is a huge hit! I can’t recommend this enough. While she didn’t play with it a ton the first couple months, when she hit 3 1/2 and her imaginative play took off this became her favorite toy. She seriously plays with this every single day. We have a few of the accessory packs that you can purchase to go in the house. Hit

Toy Review - Loving Family Dollhouse

Sing Along Microphone – Another huge hit. This is the gift that was her favorite on Christmas Day. It immediately made an impact and she started singing Christmas songs and it really made Christmas morning fun. Hit

Toy Review - Microphone

Sofia the First Royal Family – I thought she would like this because she likes the show but really she never plays with it. Miss

Toy Review - Sofia the First

Alex – My Giant Busy Box – this is a great gift for any preschooler. We did all the crafts and I buy these whenever they go on sale or use a Michael’s coupon to make them a reasonable price. Hit

Toy Review - Alex busy box

Melissa & Doug Stamp Pads – I am glad we have a these but we have 3 sets now and really could survive with 1 or 2 sets. I am going say Hit because we do use them even a year later. Hit

Toy Review - Princess Stamps

Finding the right gifts for 3 year olds is hard.  They are at such a young age for many things, but also deserve to have fun things to play with under the tree or at their birthday.  Think about where they will be in a few months, and remember that sometimes no matter how hard you try, it just won’t be a perfect fit for your child.

More Gift Ideas

Favorite Advent Toys that Kids Love

Top One Player Games That Kids Love

Top Gifts For 7 Year Old Boys

Gifts For Soccer Fans

Like it? Pin it.

Gift guide for 3 year old girls | 3 year old toys | gifts for 3 year olds | #giftguide #3yearold #toys

Gift guide for 3 year old girls | 3 year old toys | gifts for 3 year olds | #giftguide #3yearold #toys

Filed Under: Christmas Tips

Toy Review – Gifts my 7 year old boys actually played with

by Carolyn 4 Comments

Do you love to see what other Mom’s purchase for their kids? I do. It is how I get my best ideas and I thought it would be helpful to hear what my kids have received and what actually was a hit or a flop. I love hearing reviews from other Moms what they think are hits and misses versus just looking through a catalog or watching commercials.

Toy Review - 7 year old Hits and Misses. What to buy 7 year old boys. These are the hits and misses of what my boys received last year.

I even ask my neighbors and Moms of my boys good friends what they are purchasing to get ideas. I definitely spend way too much time researching. Maybe I just need to relax since they never look at me and say, “Wow, you must have spent so much time deciding that this would be the perfect gift for me. Thank you!”. It is more like, rip and tear through the packaging as fast as possible and 5 minute later they ask…”Is that it?” and their Dad and I freak out that they aren’t appreciative.

Let’s get back to the dream…the perfect holiday gifts.

Here is the list of what my 7 year old boys actually played with in 2015. This is what they received last year and my take if it was a hit or a miss. If you click on the name of the item it will send you to my affiliate link.

  1. Connect Four – This game has actually seen the light of day many times versus being in our game closet collecting dust. It is one of my favorite games too so that may be why it comes out a lot since I will actually play it with them. HIT

Connect 4

2. No Stress Chess – never used. I think we got this out to look at it and it has lots of instructions and we never actually played with it. Big Fail

No Stress Chess3. Chopsticks – My boys actually like sushi and were struggling with regular chopsticks so I found these in a magazine and purchased them. These are fun stocking stuffers. The boys love them and use them whenever we have sushi. HIT

Kids Chopsticks4. Spirograph – Used once. This is way more difficult than I remember but maybe I was older when I used it? I love the idea but my boys didn’t seem that into it. I will definitely keep it for my daughter as she like to draw more than the boys. MISS

Spirograph5. Guess Who – another game that I loved as a kid. This one was played with a bunch the first couple months of the year but hasn’t been out of the game closet in a while. Maybe I need to break this out. I like it so would give it a thumbs up. HIT

Guess Who6. Illustory Comic – This is such a great idea but actually starting the book seems scary because you want to make it perfect. It is a fail for us but maybe if I wasn’t such a perfectionist and just let my boys draw and write anything on it it would work for us….deep thinking now…maybe I just let go and let them just do it and maybe it will actually get done. MISS

My Comic Book7. Art Set – for one of my boys this is a big hit. He loves it and gets it out on his own to do some projects. My other boy has never used his once. This was such a steal of a deal for such a nice set that I have no regrets since my daughter will probably love it. HIT

Art Set

I will definitely keep track each year of what I purchase and which gifts are hits. If you haven’t seen it already check out these posts:

Favorite Advent Toys that Kids Love 

Toy Review – Gifts my 3-year-old received last year and what she actually played with

Filed Under: Christmas Tips

8 Tips for Easier Christmas Prep – Finding Great Gifts

by Carolyn 2 Comments

8 tips for easier Christmas Prep

A couple years ago Santa had been requested to only bring educational toys that had been well researched. Everything had a purpose and was going to be used for a long time. Christmas morning came and everything went well and we had a great morning until….we went to their cousins house. Santa had brought not only some educational toys but also tons of plastic junk from Walmart. I could see it from my boys eyes….the cousins house looked amazing compared to ours! I know we should only worry about what happens at our own house and not at others but having a direct comparison in two 5 year old boys eyes was not good. From then on Santa has done 90% well thought out educational toys and then added in a little pizzaz with plastic packaging and wild colors and “just because it looks cool” toys. I consider the toys that are in the wild plastic packaging the “decorating” of the event making it all look festive.

Top 5 Websites for Gift Ideas

I enjoy researching and finding great gifts for my kids that they will actually use. The real reason is that I do not like to waste my money on items they will only use one time or are just pure junk. There are several websites that are great for finding gift ideas. Here are my top 5.

  1. Cool Mom Picks – this website/blog has some great gift guides. I just typed in 8 year old boy into their search area and it pulled up a great list.
  2. Modern Parents Messy Kids – another blog that has gift guides but I like how these gifts are broken down into categories like “best toys for getting out energy inside” and “best toys for construction/building”. I have especially been looking at the guide for toys for quiet time to help my 3 year old play independently.
  3. Fat Brain Toys – this is a guide that usually has the latest toys and is divides by all sorts of ages and categories.
  4. Pinterest – this is a no brainer but I have to mention it in my top 5. You can find just about any sort of list or category here. Everyone is so creative, I like gift guides done by men for men, it is very helpful to get a guys perspective sometimes.
  5. Uncommon Goods – I like this site for gifts for the people who have everything. Great for a gift they have never seen before like animal footprint flip flops or stop motion animation kits.

My tip for ordering online. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL CYBER MONDAY!! I made a big mistake last year and made my list and sat and waited an extra 2 weeks to try and get the deals that it seemed everyone else had found in previous years. When I went to order that Monday quite a few of my “must-have” gifts were sold out. I almost had a stroke…here I had made my decisions and lists a few weeks prior and just sat and waited and now the items were gone! Plus my other items were not any lower in price. Never again.

Do you have any places I should look at to get ideas for gifts? I’d love to check them out.

Filed Under: Christmas Tips

How to Stop your Wreath from Scratching your Front Door

by Carolyn 3 Comments

This year is the first year I have hung anything on my front door. As my kids have gotten a little older, I have started working to make my front porch pretty. First I added flowers, then this past summer I attended a painting party at a friends house where you paint a front door decoration. Next thing I knew I was buying a hook for over the door and my door really looked great….

Front Door Wreath

Until…..

Dreaded scratches in the paint!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Christmas Tips, Decorating

8 Tips for Easier Christmas Prep: Master List

by Carolyn 4 Comments

8 tips for easier Christmas Prep

Tip #2 – Don’t make any purchase for the kids without making the Master List

My Christmas prep completely changed a few years ago when I realized I had 2 kids and needed to try and make things at least look equal and now with 3 kids it is even trickier. We still sorta lump most of the boys gifts together since they mainly ask for big tickets sports gifts (ex. basketball goals, soccer goals, etc) but there are definitely individual gifts as well. I had been trying FlyLady’s house cleaning system for a while and when her lists came out at Christmas it was perfect for me.

Instead of random purchases all fall and then ending up with 8 gifts for one kid and 1 for another and just scrambling the week before buying random things, I first transfer all my ideas I have stored on my phone to the lists. Then I can see where I need to edit and save some ideas for birthdays or need to start brainstorming to come up with some additional gifts.

Here is a picture of my list for the boys from last year. I did not purchase everything on the list, this is a place to put everything you think may be a good idea so you can then edit and add items. I only purchased the items with checkmarks.

Holiday-Master-List

 

And from 2013.

Holiday-Master-List-2013

 

I have lists for Britton too and I also have a page for all other people on our list.

All my lists are saved each year so I can go back and look at what they received. It is almost like a memory for a baby book. 🙂 I have the lists back to 2011 and the toys were so cute and much less expensive back then. I am planning to go back through these lists and give a recap for Hits and Misses of toys so you can benefit from our experience with the toys.

Next week with 8 Tips for Easier Christmas Prep, I’ll talk about my big mistake of waiting until Cyber Monday last year to make my purchases. I’d love to hear if you use Master Lists?

 

 

 

Filed Under: Christmas Tips

8 Tips for Easier Christmas Prep

by Carolyn 1 Comment

8 tips for easier Christmas Prep

One of the reasons I love the blog and Pinterest world is the great organizing tips and motivation. One of the few things that I have started to master is the prep for Christmas. We travel via plane for Christmas so once we started having kids the need to prepare ahead of time for shipping presents became very evident so I needed to learn to get my act together weeks in advance. I thought I would start a weekly series called ‘8 Tips for Easier Christmas Prep’ to share the few things I have learned.

This first week lets talk about what we can do all year round. I use an app named Errands but there are several apps around where you can keep lists. Do not use the Notes app already on your phone! I learned that lesson when I dropped my phone in my margarita…yes, that really happened. 🙂 If you don’t use an offline app then all your notes will be gone if your phone is damaged.

Fennell-Seeds-errands

During the year I keep various lists on my phone labeled,

Gifts ideas for Boys

Gift ideas for Britton

Gift ideas for Matt

Gift ideas for Others

And whenever I see or hear of something that I think would be a good gift I write a quick note in my list so hopefully by the end of the year I have some ideas for every person on my list.

Next week I will talk about making the big final lists before any orders are placed.

Do you have any tips for gathering gift ideas for others on your list?

Filed Under: Christmas Tips

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Welcome to Fennell Seeds. I am Carolyn Fennell and I have twin boys and a little girl. Do you feel like you are struggling to keep up with your house, life and all the little things? Let's figure out short cuts and helpful tips together. Welcome! Read more...

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