My little girl goes through stages of loving and loathing bath time. So I’m always on the lookout for new bath toys/products to make bath time more appealing.

A few weeks ago I discovered Dino Eggs – fizzy bath balls with a small dinosaur toy inside that hatches when placed in the bath water. I thought one of these Dino Eggs might be enticing enough for my little girl to really want to take a bath. It worked like a charm.

The bath ball not only provided a small new toy for bath time, it provided entertainment as we both watch as the fizz continued until the dinosaur was hatched. There are several different colors of Dino Eggs – each with a different dinosaur that is displayed on the front of the packaging. The toys are 2D and maybe an inch in length. It was a little disappointing it wasn’t more to the toy but nevertheless, Rae enjoyed playing with it. Since then, we have bought three more Dino Eggs and bath time ones again is not so much of a chore but rather fun.

My daughter’s birthday is October 4th and practically everything she wants is something she first saw in a commercial. She’s a little young(she will be four) for most things like Bendaroos but it doesn’t stop her from wanting it. She does want a ‘swimming puppy’ that we figured out was the Rescue Pets Swim to Me puppy.

It’s not only the toy commercials that catch her eye either. She never ate an Oreo cooking until she hear it was Milk’s favorite cookie on a commercial. Milk is her favorite beverage so if Oreo is a friend of milk’s then that is good enough for her. Now if I could only convince her that broccoli is milk’s favorite vegetable and apples are milk’s favorite fruit. She also has told me how Clorox laundry detergent ‘helps your shirt clean off.’

I remember watching commercials as a kid and being disappointed especially with toys that looked so cool on the commercial but just didn’t live up to expectations. It’ll be interesting to see if these commercials that obviously leave an impression on her will translate into her using the products when she is older. She is like a sponge – soaking up information. It makes me even more aware of how important it is to watch TV with her and to monitor her TV time.

Is there anything more fun than playing with play dough? I picked up a Play-Doh Magic Bloom Flower Garden. I thought it’d be fun for my daughter and I could play with the molds with polymer clay. She had a lot of fun creating flowers and I got to test it out with polymer clay. It worked really well with polymer clay, too. Well, the molds did as I didn’t try the actual flower making part with polymer.

The set comes with three containers on Play-Doh. You use the fence mold to make strips of Play-Doh and then roll them together. Then place the rolled Play-Doh in one of the yellow flower makers. Then place it on the green stem and put the pink flower on top of it. Then press down on the pink flower to squeeze the Play-Doh through the slots to create the flower. Use the scissors to shape the flower and then place in the garden.

Playing with play dough made for a fun afternoon for the whole family. I can’t wait to buy more molds and play some more.

When we moved into our home we painted practically every room – except for the little girl’s room. That’s where we were storing a bunch of stuff until we could get it unpacked. Besides, at the time she was sleeping with us anyway so we thought we could hold off on painting. Fast forward two years later and her room still isn’t painted. So after some prep work, it looks like we will be painting this week.

I decided to paint her closet red since we had some left over red paint. Rae loves to play in her closet and since it isn’t very big, we turned it into a play area. One wall is painted with chalkboard paint while another one is cover with a wipe board. We even put up some cork panels to make a place for her to hand her art work.

Now to get the rest of her room painted. It should be really cute once everything is in place.

Raegan has a lot of toys. She is like most kids that when I try to get rid of some of her toys, she suddenly begins to play with them. It’s almost like she knows their days are numbered. Most of the time I get rid of the toys she isn’t playing with so that she has room for all of her current ones.

She plays in her room, the living room, bathroom, kitchen, etc. In fact, if I sit down for longer than a few minutes, I will have toys in my lap. So today I was cleaning up when I noticed a couple of her toys on the table. Here is how she had them posed -

I guess the dinosaur was looking for a light snack and the unicorn was just the right size.

Bath time is always more fun with bubbles. In fact, some evenings it’s the only way to entice the three-year-old to bathe. So when I ran out of bubble bath, I was in a pickle until I could buy some more at the store.

Since I didn’t have any bubble bath, I thought of what I could possibly use around the house instead. When I was a kid, we would use dish washing soap but I didn’t want to go that route since I have it in my head it will dry out her skin. I had some shower gel I had gotten for Christmas so I squeezed a little bit into the tub as it filled with water to see what would happen.

I was impressed by all the bubbles. Hooray! Bath time was saved. Using it this way is great to get rid of half-empty bottles that just seem to be hanging around in the bathroom.

Tomorrow we have a playdate to make reindeer antlers that I think the three-year-old will really enjoy as she has been talking a lot about reindeer lately. So to dress up as one should be a huge hit. It’s being held at lunchtime so we were asked to bring a reindeer inspired treat.

I’m going to do something simple since I have to work in the morning before we go. I have a fresh box of Cheerios and plan to pour them in a bucket. Voia. Reindeer oats.

Apparently some kids leave reindeer food for Santa’s reindeer on Christmas Eve. We never did this. We just leave milk and cookies for the big guy. But I think it’s really sweet to leave food for the reindeer, so I think this is one tradition that we will do with Rae. Here is a ‘recipe’ for reindeer food:

1 cup sugar
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup glitter (that’s a lot of glitter!)

Since we live in the country and have all sorts of animals that pass through the yard, we will be leaving out the glitter. If you want to add color without glitter, try sprinkles.

The little one’s birthday is fast approaching, so I’ve been looking for ideas for presents. She loves to read, so personalized children’s books have really piqued my interest.

I had a personalized book when I was a kid and loved when my mom read it to me. It was great to be the star of my own book. There’s so much variety at Personalized Stories to find just the right story for her to be the star. She loves going to the zoo, so the personalized book Goes to the Zoo is very tempting. Her name will be featured on the front in the title (“Raegan goes to the zoo”) and will also appear on every page. It’s also a learning game since she is challenged to find her name in camouflaged settings.

It’s definitely a great birthday idea or Christmas gift. She would enjoy it now and years to come.

I bought Rae a golf set a few months ago. It naturally broke the day we bought it. I know it wasn’t like buying Cobra golf clubs but still I would have thought that they would have lasted longer than a few hours.

She hasn’t really played with it since we got it. I just knew she would have a lot of fun with it but I was wrong. Next time I will bypass the cheap, plastic $3 set and get her something a little more durable.

My husband created an object for iGoogle that is a countdown until Raegan’s birthday. So, now when I’m on my iGoogle page, I feel a little panic knowing the date is getting closer with every passing second. She will be three and will most likely be more into her birthday this year – meaning it will be way more complicated than last years. There will be guests to invite, games to play, and fun to be had. I need to get started now to make this all happen. Here is some of my preliminary research on birthday party ideas for her third birthday.

Renting a jumper. This might be a bit pricey but I believe she and her guests would have a blast. This is the one activity that she has done when we’ve went to festivals that had kids activities. Since this would be outside, it would have to be a nice day. Better check on cancellation policies before deciding on this option.

Stuffing an animal. I’ve recently become a rep for Stuff n Snuggle since I absolutely adore their product. Rae loves stuffed animals, so I thought it might be fun to stuff an animal in lieu of a party happy for the guests. We stuffed our first one this week, which was a lot of fun. Although I think Rae prefers him without any stuffing. Still, this might be fun to do at a birthday party.

A Pinata. What kid doesn’t enjoy waving a stick wildly in the air in a vain attempt for candy? Some of the store bought ones are really hard to break. Maybe I will feel crafty and attempt to make my own.

That’s about all the options I have thought about thus far. I have a few more months to weigh all of my options. What birthday party ideas for kids have worked well for you?