Toy land, toy land, little girl and boy land

Yesterday Aedan was extremely attached to his matchbox airplane and helicopter, so much that he wanted to go to sleep with one. He has never really been attached to anything (except for mom) and so this was quite funny to me.

Then I got thinking of all the toys I remember having as a kid. I was never a doll person, at least not until my grade school days when every girl was into Strawberry Shortcake or My Lil' Pony. But much earlier than that I remember my dad making us some wooden blocks and then instead of just handing them over to us, he made a treasure hunt for us to find them. When we found them they were not wrapped up but they were set out, built into a fort or a castle with all of our He-Man toys posed for play. (I say our He-Man toys because they were mostly my brother Olivers except for the girl characters, She-Ra and Evil-lynne I think was her name) I think my dad also made a wooden car, perhaps it was more equivalent to a hummer these days.

I also remember my grandma Roxcy would save up empty cereal boxes, egg cartons, milk cartons, etc. and pull out the monopoly money and we would set up our own little grocery store in the back room of her house. That was so fun to us. I find it quite interesting that the toys I remember the most were the ones that were hand made or didn't cost an arm and a leg. That said, I don't plan to make a toy helicopter for Aedan. I don't know if I read it in a recent issue of the Ensign magazine or if it was some idea I saw on some lds oriented website, but there was an article of a family deciding for that Christmas to make each others gifts instead of purchasing them. It so happens that our ward has planned a temple trip to Nauvoo, IL on Aedan's birthday and I got thinking, we could have a Pioneer birthday for him while we are there. The idea of making his gifts like the pioneers seemed fun but a bit overwhelming. If anybody has some ideas that don't require a lot of heavy machinery, let us know!

Here are some purchased toys I remember from my childhood:

They just recently remade this and put them on the market but they sold out super fast. I tried to get one for Aedan for Christmas but they were nowhere to be found. You put the coins in the top and press some buttons and the coin would roll down the little coin slide thing. It was pretty amazing.


Back when we had our Atari, we had the ET game. This one stands out in my mind because we could never figure out how you were supposed to win. Here ET is next to Eliot and the little dot is a Reeses Pieces. The dark patches are wells that we were to avoid. We had several other ET items (plush doll, nightlight...) that I'm sure would all be worth something if we still had them and they were in good condition.

Yes I also went through a rainbow brite stage. I also had a sprite although I think mine was red. I never owned the horse friend of hers and am scarred for life because of it. Ok not really.

Ok Jelly shoes aren't exactly toys but they sure made me feel special. Unfortunately I didn't own more than a pair or two and they broke so easily that they didn't last long.