Baking and Boxes

It’s been a month since Christmas now, and Blair is enjoying her kitchen. She really likes to make play doh dog food too, but that’s a different obsession for another story on another day. (I’ll have to do a new phase post. I like those! Just reading back over my first phase post already brings back so many memories that I had forgotten. Thank you, blog!) Now back to this post.

The only problem with the kitchen is that she’s so used to having someone to play with her, and I have a hard time getting her to enjoy it on her own! Her parents and grandmamas have spoiled her rotten! I love playing with her, but I certainly think she needs to be able to entertain herself as well.

Milk for your coffee, Andad?

This Kidkraft Large Play Kitchen is just precious. I’m so pleased with it. (I’m sure Molly is much less pleased than I am since she and Josh put it together!) It’s perfect for Blair now (with a little stool to stand to reach the microwave), and it will grow with her for years. It has plenty of storage, and I love that it has a top to put stuff on. She got the four kitchen accessory sets that Kidkraft makes to coordinate with the kitchen, and the top will be perfect for them if the fridge gets full!

We’ve baked lots of wooden cookies, but Blair doesn’t like the toppings with sprinkles. I guess they aren’t neat enough.

Leftovers.

Our house is not big enough for a playroom, so over the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about how to rearrange Blair’s small room to include a play area. We also have toys and her table in the den. I asked for some storage advice and got some good ideas. The storage bins and shelves from the Land of Nod are fantastic, but I didn’t really want to spend that right now. I had another suggestion to check out the Circo Cube shelves at Target, and they were perfect. It so happens they went on sale the day after I decided to get them! Love that!

So I got two sets of 9 cube shelves that have little kid-style boxes to go in the cubes. I love them! The only problem is that I can’t get Blair to leave the bins in the shelves – she wants to take them out, empty them, put a whole bunch of other stuff in them (bows, her favorite clothes, whatever she’s into that day…), and carry them everywhere. I had three in the bathroom one time this week!

Here’s sort of what her room looked like before. These pictures are older, and I swapped the bed and changing table a while back.

And here it is now.

I stored the glider, bookshelf that was falling apart, side table and the little magazine rack I used as a table next to the changing table. I’ve got to get some cute stuff for her walls, and we will be set. I’m pleased with how it turned out and how much space she has in her room. Aren’t the little bins so cute?

They match her bedding well (except the purple, but that’s okay; we had to get purple!) and can go somewhere else if we ever live in another house. (I’ll say when we live in another house because I love my house and my new electricity and all, but we’d love to get out of town at some point!)

That’s about it! Anybody seen anything cute I could put on the walls? My only idea at the moment is to put two art lines from which I could hang stuff. I could start with some prints and change it to art as she gets bigger. Ideas?