Vintage Fisher Price Little People

When I was about the same age as the Captain, my family lived in Indonesia, where my father was working in the Embassy. While we were living there, my parents picked up, (from an American family returning home), a whole bunch of Fisher Price Little People toys. I have the fondest memories of playing with these toys, I especially adored the campervan and was fascinated by the tiny toilet, the beds above the cab and even the little boat. The toys came back to Australia with us and then travelled on to India where we had our next posting. They are still there now presumably. My parents gave them to the children of our servants, I often imagine that their children are playing with them now!



As you can see I have endeavoured to recreate my own childhood for the boys! I have collected, over the last few years, various different vintage play sets. Finding them in all sorts of places, op shops, Church fetes, garage sales and of course, Ebay.


The details in the toys are fantastic. No batteries, yet with handles and levers you can move the baggage carousel or turn the helicopter's propellers.


A fireman going on a camping trip with some mates (and other children of the 1970s... do you remember Lucky the dog? There he is peering out the back of the campervan.)

The baby is filling up the plane with some avgas!

It is extraordinary how many people have catastrophic accidents and serious illnesses in Little People world. Luckily, there is an ambulance, an operating theatre, an X-Ray machine and a lift to move the invalids upstairs to recovery whilst strapped securely in a stretcher.

The baby operating the off shore cargo base.

Hours of play!

The baby no longer...

Despite a few days that looked like this...

My sweet baby boy, who looked like this a few hours after his birth...

and like this on his first birthday...

Looked like this yesterday...
BUT... he is completely toilet trained and all 5 weeks before he turns two! Proud Mama!

A week in Melbourne

Husband had to work in Melbourne for a week so we thought that, as he might miss us, we should join him there! His plans for sleeping in and glamorous evenings out in Melbourne were foiled... instead he had the pleasure of waking up to the boys screaming "hot air balloons" at 6am every morning for a week...

We had a wonderful time in Melbourne though, husband of course had to work during the day so we spent our days exploring and visiting friends and family. Our first morning, after the excitement of the hot air balloons, the Captain asked over and over again, "If I promise to be really, really good will you please take me on a tram?" Thankfully, there was a stop for the free City Circle tram right outside our hotel. We did numerous rounds of the city and the boys never tired of it!

We visited the Melbourne Museum. We had been intending to visit the Titanic Artefact Exhibition as the Captain had seen posters promoting it across Melbourne and was mesmerised as I told him the tragic story of the ship featured in the ads. Then as we were walking towards the Museum he casually asked "So how did they get the ship into the Museum?" Once I explained that the ship was still on the ocean floor (where she had sunk!) and that there were only artefacts from the ship on display, his enthusiasm had waned somewhat. Luckily, the Museum had a marvellous kids section and even better... dinosaurs! They loved it!

Time at Federation Square was spent chasing pigeons...

Mummy wanted to visit the cake supplies shop, so cup cakes had to purchased as the word cake had been said aloud...

The bribery was worth it, the cake shop that I found via Allyson from The Lark was well worth the visit. I stocked up on some gorgeous cup cake cases, icing colours and cup cake toppers, I can't wait till the next birthday party!

The Captain even managed to entertain himself while I enjoyed my coffee...

A wonderful week away!

Mother's Day

This is what my beloved boy made me at pre-school for Mother's Day. A gorgeous card and the most beautiful necklace imaginable!

He was so proud and excited when he gave it to me, I truly can't think of another gift that I would rather of had, than that moment when he presented it to me in bed, beaming with pride and joy.

Blankie wash day...

Yesterday I washed the muslin wraps... aka "blankies" so the little one spent the morning standing under the washing line looking longingly at them all and ensuring that they came to no harm...

He even managed to pull a few off (note to self: blankies need additional pegs to prevent blankie clothes line theft in the future).

I left him standing guard at the line and went inside to do a few things. Whilst pottering about inside the house I could hear his little voice outside saying "fank yuuuu (thank you)" intermittently. Eventually I popped my head out, after wondering idly to myself who he could be thanking and for what, and there he was clutching a little handful of leaves...

My little nature lover was catching leaves as they fell to the ground in the windy weather and then looking up at the trees to say thank you! He even abandoned a blankie (albeit temporarily) for this game!

So far this morning....

I have a horrid head cold at the moment so keeping up with my two whirlwinds of destruction and mayhem has been challenging. Thus OPERATION EXHAUSTION began: Baby was set to work picking up all the fallen camelia flowers (flafla's as he calls them):



Captain was sent on a superhero mission (instructed to jump as high as the sky):

A quick wardrobe change allowed for some home maintenance (cleaning up toys):

Followed by repairs to the volcano (our current Make and Do project, will blog about it shortly):

A quick swim before lunch:

OPERATION EXHAUSION a success: baby asleep, Captain watching a documentary about volcanos, Project Manager about to have a lie down. Hurrah! Please let this afternoon be as straight forward!

Make and Do: The Volcano!!!

Inspired by nature (and a few other clever Mamas who have made these for their broods recently) we built ourselves a volcano. The Captain was put to work ripping up bits of paper for the papier-mache volcano and valley.

We then borrowed a bit of plywood from Daddy's supplies under the house to use as the base of the volcano. An old tin can was used as the volcano crater and some take-away containers helped pad out the rest of the volcano. We used a basic papier-mache recipe of flour and water to construct the rest.

All our hard work completed the volcano was set to dry out in the afternoon sunshine.

We were so proud of ourselves and then disaster, in the form of a very cheeky brushtail possum, struck. Very late at night we heard unusual sounds on our back deck. Ross, sent to investigate, discovered that a possum was eating our beautiful volcano! The culprit was caught on security camera and further invesigations are pending!

In the morning we surveyed the damage to our volcano and decided it was repairable.

Repairs underway:

After another day in the sunshine the volcano was ready to paint:

Finally, it was ready for the Captain to take to Pre-School for show and tell. His pre-school teacher helped him mix the ingredients for the chemical reaction.

The eruption!

Apparently the class loved it!