Fun Friday

These two sweet boys were playing so nicely together in the princess tent that I just had to take a picture. Awww

Playroom Tour (Kid Photographer)

Sweet Son took all of the photos in this post. These are, according to him, the best parts of the playroom.

The Game Shelf

You can see three floor puzzles (farm, fire truck, and Lorax), a sequencing game, a position game, the SomeBody game, a shape game, and CandyLand. The Somebody Board Game has been a favorite since we got it. It has 4 sheets that look like bodies and 4 sheets of removable stickers covering many organs. There are a couple of different sets of cards and multiple ways to play. 

Train Table

The frustrating part of this is the table is used for storage rather than the storage bins underneath. Then he builds tracks on the floor.

Play Kitchen

Both of my kids love to pretend to cook even more than they like to really cook.

Playtime in Rome

We had planned on it taking us 3 full days to see everything in Rome. We ended up seeing everything we wanted and had a day left over. We did some quick research and found a local playground/park. The best part? This is an indoor/outdoor playground. It was free (we tried to pay and they wouldn't let us) and not crowded on a weekday.

This room had a play kitchen and other pretend type toys. There was also a large bookshelf with many different levels of books for kids to read. Granted, with only 2 exceptions, they were in Italian, but that's to be expected.

This room had tables that were chalkboards and many different colors of chalk around to draw with.

This was the favorite room for our kids. It was large (and had amazing ceilings). It was filled with cushions and pillows. Kids took off their shoes and rearranged the room multiple ways. Here my kids were in the process of making a path from the "couch" to the "lake" that they could walk on.

We did share the space with a few children, but I didn't take any photos of them. A couple of the kids were even bilingual English/Italian. It was nice to be able to talk to other parents about living in multiple countries.

 

This was part of the outdoor playground. These houses were just the right size though deciding which child got which house quickly became an argument. Luckily, a couple of Italian children came over and said something I couldn't hear and it was settled. I love how kids who don't speak the same language can work things out so easily.

 

Wooden sheep were also popular with my kids. I just thought they were cute.

This is where most of the kids spent their time playing. The tractor with a trailer was crowded the entire time we were there.

This was my favorite part of the playground. It took the kids a minute to figure out how it works, but once they did they loved the whistling playground.

Setting up a Playroom

We are lucky enough to live in a house with a room we designated as the playroom. Our real estate agent called it a formal dining room, but we need a playroom much more than a 2nd dining room. For the first few months this room consisted of very little. We placed a large classroom carpet on the floor which immediately made it feel like a playroom.  These carpets can be very expensive, but I actually won this one in a contest so it was free. We placed their toys on the floor and on the Ikea bookshelf. We turned the shelf on its side so it was 2 squares tall and 4 squares wide. This allowed the kids to reach everything on the shelves, but not on the top.

Carpet and Ikea shelf

Next I found someone selling their toy box and knew I wanted it. We still have the sign that says it was made by "grandpa Trent" proudly displayed. It's a conversation starter if nothing else!

ABC toy box in corner

I spent a lot of time looking for the perfect bookcase. I knew what I wanted and was having trouble finding it. I did find one being sold by a family that was moving and picked it up. This was all that we had in the room for a long time. It gave the babies lots of room to roll, crawl, and safely explore.

Perfect bookcase :)

Then it was time for the big sale. There is a kids furniture and toy company near us that has a huge warehouse sale once a year. Everything is 50-80% off retail. This is high quality wood furniture and they had many things I wanted. This is not a sale for wimps. No kids allowed, stand in line for hours, and parents literally fighting to get what they want. There were a couple of things I would have liked, but was not willing to get in a physical fight so we went without. Still, we did great. We got 8 things for less than the cost of one of the larger items retail. Otherwise, we wouldn't have any of the wonderful things you see in our photos.

 Truck table in top right corner

 Dress up station, toy box, and kitchen

Close up of dress up station

Ikea shelf, book shelf, and giant doll hosue

We changed the arrangement of the room multiple times. I drove my husband crazy with all of my requirements for arranging the room. Here's a short list of some requirements - The dress up clothes needed to go next to the kitchen so it would be the "dramatic play" area. The furniture that would have toys dumped from them and played with on the floor couldn't go near each other. This would include the ikea shelf, bookshelf, and kitchen in our room. By keeping these separate, it slightly reduces the mess and all of the toys don't end up in a giant pile. Everything needed to be secured so the kids couldn't pull it over on themselves. No furniture they could climb on could be near the baby gate so they wouldn't climb over. Our playroom doesn't have a door, so this was extremely important. Here's the layout we ended up with:

This gave the kids things to pull up on around the outside and plenty of room to learn to walk in the middle. The table did not have chairs at it, they were put away for when they were old enough to use them safely. This was a great set up until just after the kids were a year and a half. That change will have to wait for another post though!