pretending…

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before I had children I dreamed of being a mother… I wanted children that could play make-believe.. imagine… pretend. I feel it’s a lost art… a little like letter writing (I still do letters) I feel it could be maybe one of the most important things for children is pretending, imagining, and playing OUTSIDE in nature. This day in age when it comes to toys… if you just run through a store and just throw things into your cart it will be full of characters, buttons, and batteries… but if you focus more on your child’s imaginations and creativity you will give them the best presents of all. and they will thank you for it.

lately I have been listening to our girls play around… it’s been quite chilly here in Florida (don’t make fun) so we have had to have quite a bit of inside play… I hear lots of little make believe stories between the girls. Our oldest comes up with ideas… excitedly.. “Come Cecilia we have to hurry and catch our plane… we are going to visit China… then I see them tucking in their little baskets scarves, blocks (which are sandwiches) and scurry along to their pillow (which is an airplane)! I love it!

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the other day it reached 65 degrees and we went outside for the afternoon… our littlest was snoozing inside… Isabelle was feeding her dollies lunch… on leaf plates… and fed them pasta which was really shells but she didn’t see the shells… to her it was yummy warm pasta that she cooked herself.

I feel so happy that all of my carefully choosing toys for their birthdays and Christmas has paid off… They can imagine beautifully and it is so rewarding to see it come to life. I feel their creative juices exploding…! we don’t have piles of toys but the few toys we do have are really beautiful and I do not mind them all over the house…

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her pan is a frisbee

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so this holiday season we are trying so hard to keep things simple… natural beautiful toys… handmade.. not too many batteries… things that possibly the Elves made… not Disney! 🙂

it’s not that I am against plastic toys… we do have some… but I try to keep things a little minimal so that our girls don’t get overwhelmed and forget how to pretend… toys with so many buttons don’t allow for creativity… they just require a push of a button… how boring… train sets and blocks and simple dolls are so much more fun…