infusion galore

Not only had I sent a list of toys and craft things I was hoping my mom could help us bring when she came for the holidays, I had done the same with my sister and brother-in-law who live in the States. When they arrived, they had a suitcase each filled just with stuff for us. It was like it was Christmas or something! (harharhar)

From Tromsø we got:

• two kids' baking sets (with rolling pins the girls use daily in their play dough play)
• tooth picks (that we can make constructions with using small balls of play dough as the joints...and sure they sell tooth picks around here, but it was cheap in the store my mom was already helping us pick other stuff up from)
• flannel bed sets
• a set of 12 toy cars
• a toy train set (that can be used with the BRIO and IKEA sets we already have)
• two dust-pan sets (so the girls can help sweep up the rice, for example, when they play it all over the kitchen floor)
• and then an awesome duplo set that wasn't on the list but that my mom picked up for the girls because she knows an awesome thing when she sees it...and knows what the girls love (and what we love for them)

[a portion of the combined loot]

I am pretty sure there was more, but can't remember all the goodness right this minute.

From the US we got (again, that I remember off the top of my head):

• two sets of 64 crayons and one set of 8 jumbo crayons (uber expensive here in Norway)
• popsicle sticks (plain and colored) for craft activities
• red glass pebbles
• cream of tartar (for our home-made play dough recipes)
• four packets of kool-aid (also for a home-made play dough recipe)
• a HUGE bag of baking soda (also extremely expensive here in Norway), for lots of science/art activities
• lots and lots of glitter
• wooden alphabet and number blocks
• this cool color coded 'tangram' thing with five boards with different pictures on each...super perfect for Leona right now 

[Leona's tangram train]

• a bag of purple feathers (from my sister's co-worker - because you can never have enough feathers)
• awesome magical water pearls (also from my sister's co-worker...she has young kids and knows where the good dollar stores are, so helped pick up some stuff)
• the most amazing pop-up dinosaur book e.v.e.r. (a surprise gift from my sister and brother-in-law) 

Needless to say we are installing the rotation method with the toys, as this infusion to our toy-inventory was substantial, to say the least. So good for winter sucky-weather nowhere-to-go days.


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