In Store Report Target and Walmart-ideas for Holiday gift shopping :)

Hi everyone!  Just wanted to share with you what I've noticed recently in my local Walmart and Target.  Each time I go, there seems to be something new (to me at least, haha) and I can't keep up!  It seemed like when I was a kid, there were so many less choices and we all pretty had the same toys (Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, She-Ra, Barbie, etc.)

Nowadays, I think kids are so overwhelmed by all of the choices.  At least I know my 7 year old is. 

Whenever she "earns 100 stars" on her chore chart, she gets to pick out a new toy and often times she is brought to tears because she can't figure out what to get! 

Anyway, here's a look at a few things we found recently at Target.  There are some good ones and some interesting ones :). 

Honestly Cute "My Sleepy Baby"

Maybe baby is sleepy from spending too much time filling in her eyebrows. 

Honestly creepy.

Cabage Patch Kids "Sitin' Pretty" 

Now these are cute. :) Long gone is the yarn hair of my youth, though.  

Water Babies "Sweet Cuddlers"

Very cute face.  

25 year anniversary, though?  This is the first I've ever heard of these, lol. 

Baby Alive Go "Baby Go Bye-Bye"

These are all the rage in my house.  

I think they look like a cross between a baby and a toad, but my daughters are drooling over them and each have one on their Christmas lists. :}

Cabbage Patch Kids "Baby So Real"

Thing of my nightmares....please don't come to life!

Disney Tsum Tsums Superheros

I would get this just for the bottom guy, heh heh.  >:[

Lots of Tsum Tsums!  

I never got into collecting these.  I just have a couple of the Mickey and Minnies. 

Lalaloopsy Hair Dough.  

I'm curious if this works as good as they want us to think it does. 

 Lalaloopsy Style N' Swap

I can see this being fun for about 5 minutes.  My girls never seemed to jump onto the Lalaloopsy train.  I think the mini's are cute, though. 

This one only has one hair option. $5 less looks like. You want more hair, you better get out the Hair Dough. 

Adventures with Kate Doll

Pumpkin Pie and I both had an involuntary shudder when we saw this one. The show on Netflix is pretty cute, but not so much the doll.

Frozen Fever Toddler Anna

She's pretty cute and I like how her hair is tied up and out of the way.  My girls seem to (finally) be over Frozen, but it seems like there is still a pretty big Frozen section and a lot of Elsa fans still out there.

Little Kingdoms Target exclusive set by Hasbro

This is nothing new. I just think those little snowgi's are so cute. :) 

Baby Elsa. 

Little Button was giving lovey eyes to this one. :) 

Shimmer and Shine Magic Flying Carpet.  

Little Button seemed to be all over this one.  
I've never seen the cartoon, but I guess it's good according to my 4 year old. :)

Playhouse Tent with Puppets 

This seems so good in theory, but I know that my kids would play with this for like 2 seconds. :(

Strawberry Shortcake Retro Rerelease

I'm curious about these little guys.  I loved Strawberry Shortcake growing up, but I don't think we ever had any of the dolls.  Maybe Strawberry herself, but I don't think we had any of her friends.  My friend on the other hand had everything ever produced by SSC and I can remember going to her house and just playing for hours!
I'm curious to know if these have the same exact scent as the vintage 80s ones.

So cute. 

Shopkins still seem to be going strong.
They had several of these Fashion Spree packs at Target. 

I love the little helmet. :)

Now they have big plushie ones as well.  One of my all time favorites is the retro phone!

Shopkins Happy Playsets Room packs

Now these, I'm getting a little obsessed over.  I LOVE dollhouses so now that they have these ones that resemble "decor" and can feel myself wanting to collect these.  I have already collected some of the blind bags and I just can't resist the tiny toothbrushes, TV remotes and cordless phones. :)

So cute. 

I will probably eventually get these, lol. 

More Fashion Sprees..  Love the watch. 

Slumber party! That robe...

Popples

Yikes...I wish they left the Popples back in the 80s.  I used to love them as a child, but these are just not the same. I have to say, the girls liked the show (on Netflix) for a little while, but it was short-lived.

Pixie Prints Tinkerbell

Glad to see the Fairies are still being represented.  

They haven't come out with any new Disney Fairy movies in a while, but I always enjoy watching them with the girls.

Halloween Party Barbie

Here's the Target exclusive Halloween Barbie for 2016. She's ok, but reminds me too much of the Monster High gals.  That pink and black is very Draculaura.  I wish she came with a real broom. I'm usually a sucker for anything seasonal or holiday-ish, but I ended up passing on her.

Chelsea!  

She's pretty cute and the packaging is adorable on this one.  I'm so happy to see her with an actual outfit on and not a molded top.

Miraculous Marinette

I've been seeing these dolls pop up everywhere, but I don't know anything about the character.  The artwork is adorable and the doll is pretty cute! I love the contrast between her dark hair and blue eyes.

This little brat. 

The PowerPuff girls are back as you guys probably know.  I feel like I liked these as a teenager.  I have this memory of having a plush Bubbles doll on my bed.  After googling, I found out that the PP Girls made their cartoon debut in 1998 so my story matches up, lol.  They are just now making a comeback in terms of merchandise.  Last year, Little Button LOVED this cartoon and wanted a PP girls birthday party, but before you really couldn't find anything toy-wise except some overpriced stuff on eBay.

Both of my girls fight over "who gets to be Blossom". 

Bubbles was always my favorite and this is a really cute set.  The whole bedroom scene flips over to become the dad's lab as seen below.
My only problem is how the scale is so far off between Bubbles and her room decor, but I'm sure a little kid could care less.

Little Woodzeez now has blind bags! (Acorns?).  This is the first I've seen of these and they're pretty cute. I feel like when it comes to the actual figures, I am a die-hard Calico Critters fan, but I really think that Little Woodzeez in general, have amazing accessories and little sets.

Here's who you can get. 

Lori Doll Horse Stables

Wow, I took a lot of photos in Target, ha!
Now onto the Our Generation/Lori world...I just can't even handle how cute all of this stuff is.
In case you also love OG/Lori, Target is currently having a 20% off sale!

Shame on me, I just ordered this.  With Target's OG/Lori sale, it was marked down to $39.99.  I can't resist!  Unfortunately, none of the room sets are available online so I will have to stock up once I actually am back in a Target (hopefully this weekend, haha.)

This kitchen set for the 18 inch dolls is really cute as well.  The girls got the OG diner for Christmas last year and I was so impressed with the quality of it as well as how adorable and detailed the accessories are! I am happy to say that the girls still play with this (mostly Little Button) although she mostly loves to just "take everyone's order" and bring us the doll food. :)

OG now has the larger styling heads.  This head isn't that much bigger then the head that comes on the 18 inch dolls, so I'm just not quite sure...why.

Lori also had a ton of new mini dolls.  Each one is cuter than the next and the little outfits are so, so, so cute. They now include a set of regular girls, ballet girls and horse-back riding girls.

I love this one! 

Adorable.  

Looks like they have another little Asian gal on the left there.  I love the one on the right as well.

Gotta bowl.  

I am definitely in love with almost all of the Retro outfits.  They would be so nice to collect to go along with AG Julie, Melody, MaryEllen, etc...

Some now come with "Read and Play Sets." 

They changed their freckling design to be a bit more subtle.  So subtle, in fact, that you can barely see them in the above photo!

 Little Button had asked for another OG doll for Christmas this year to add to the one she got last year for Christmas and since she loves redheads and I wanted to steal back my Kendra doll, I got her this Noa one instead.
It comes with an extra outfit and a book.  I thought she was so sweet looking.

Ok, now that I've shown you every single toy in Target, (haha) lets move on to Walmart..

Speaking of 18 in dolls, My Life has new deluxe packs that include a doll.  I have always loved the African American face molds that My Life has designed.  I think she's just adorable. If I hadn't already gotten Little Button the OG doll, I would've gotten her this Veterinarian doll.

Our store is FINALLY getting some new Barbie Fashionistas.  These two were my favorites out of the bunch.

Here is Pumpkin Pie holding up the Baby Alive that she is wishing to get from Santa this year. 

(ribbit, lol) 

Also at Walmart, I noticed these Shopkin vinyl figures.  Pretty cute for any of you Shopkin collectors out there.  So far, they seem to be exclusive to Walmart and I think there are about 6 that have come out so far.

Cart really rolls! 

Barbie had a few more sets that I hadn't seen before like this Smoothie Chef set. 

Here's Skipper and Chelsea getting ready to go glam-ping.  

Cute outfits and adorable packaging.  I am also a sucker for camping stuff so these are so tempting.  I've wanted to add a Skipper and Stacie doll to my collection, but I really wish they would make an articulated version!

Another version of Skipper that comes with a tent and bangs. 

I am tempted by this. 

Care Bear Cousins 

The Care Bears released a set of small plushy Cousin's recently and they are really cute. I loved these characters when I was little, but am a little disappointed that they don't have more of the characters.  My favorite ones were Swift Heart Rabbit and Loyal Heart Dog (puppy).

Disney Princess Magic Kingdom Royal Friends Collection

Walmart also had this cute set of Disney Princess friends.
Not loving the minimal eyes, though.  They gave Pascal normal eyes, so not sure what's happening here, haha.

Pumpkin Pie checking out the fake food. :) 

They also had the new giant Skelita doll from Monster High.  I was surprised to see how big she was!

We are finally getting the new Monster High reboots and they have grown on me.  I think Clawdeen, in particular has such an adorable face.

 Now, to wrap this up, we wandered over to the Christmas section (no shock that everything was already set up) and admired all of the beautiful lights and decorations.

The only thing I ended up getting on this trip was the Curvy Barbie Fashionista. :)
Sticking to the budget!

I've already started my Christmas shopping which is a first for me! Last year I had so much anxiety for some reason during the months of November and December so I am hoping to have a much more relaxing and happy holiday season this year.  It's all about making a budget and buying a little as I go and just taking time for myself.

In summary, there are a lot of choice out there for both collector and parents.
One thing I know for sure is that they are really trying to bring all of these 80s toys back and I'm not sure how I feel about that.  I think marketers are probably mostly 80s kids themselves so they know the nostalgia we all feel about toys from our youth and that we will want to buy it for them.  Some stuff I think is working (like Rainbow Brite and Strawberry Shortcake), but other things are falling short to me (Popples, Trolls, Cabbage Patch kids-although some are ok).  Any 80s kids out there that get what I mean?

The other thing is that there are so many battery operated little dolls and animals.  Not shown in these photos are things like Hatchimals, Furr-real Pets and Live Pets as well as the Baby Alive and interactive Cabbage Patch dolls.  The are really focused on that "real interaction" with kids, which I think is both cool and weird.  They all come at a price though making toys anywhere from $30-$100 a piece, which can be difficult on a tight budget.
Kids Christmas lists are getting more expensive!

Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the post and as always, thanks for taking the time to visit my blog.
Have a good week!

xo Farrah