Adora 15 inch Bath Babies

This year, for Christmas, I wanted to get the girls each a baby doll.  Little Button has a larger 15 in baby ("Big Baby") which she has loved since she was very small so I thought she would really enjoy something new to add to her little family .  

I am not quite ready to fork over the heftier price of an American Girl Bitty Baby so I thought I would purchase these ones from Adora.

Adora is a smaller doll company based out of Southern California.  I really like their website, which includes their mission, values and goals. 

They support a charity called the "inCourage foundation", which provides gift bags of toys to children that are admitted to pediatric hospitals in their area. 

Having spent some time as a pediatric RN, this really made me feel great about supporting this particular doll company. 

I wasn't able to find specific information about how much is donated or if their is a percentage donated per doll, but nonetheless, I thought these had the cutest faces out of all the babies I had looked at so that was another selling point for me.

(Have you ever walked down the baby isle in Walmart?  Scary.)

On Adora's website, there are dolls listed specifically for each age range.  They have soft dolls for babies under a year old, all the way up to 18 inch fashion dolls more suited for an older child. 

The particular doll that caught my eye were the BathTime Babies. 

Who can resist the cute animal towels!  Genius. 

Unfortunately, I was not impressed by the lack of diversity.

As you can see, there are only Caucasian babies to choose from.

These babies are advertised as 13 in dolls with vinyl heads, arms and legs.  Their bodies are cloth, but made out of a "Quikdri" material that is said to dry in "no time."  Really?  No time?

Cute face.  

The toes have very nice sculpting detail and the chubby little feet are pretty accurate to the rounded foot of a baby that we all love. 

The right and left hand are posed differently, one being an obvious thumb-sucking hand.

Out of the box, you can see she has an orange terry-cloth robe with a hood meant to look like an owl.  There is a pink robe belt and she also came with her own wash cloth, which I forgot to include in the photo.

Underneath the robe, she has a colorful and patterned "swimsuit" cloth body with a section of cloth shaped like a belly button.
Outie.

There's a large seam the runs up her back and inside her body appear to be little beads, similar to what might be inside of a bean bag chair. 

Her eyes close when you lay her flat, which the girls really liked because they could put their babies to bed.

Her thumb also fits easily into her mouth.  Easy enough for a 2 year old to position and remove. 

This particular doll has rich brown "sleepy" eyes with flecks of amber around the pupil.  I was impressed by the depth and detail of her eyes. She also has plastic eyelashes on the top lid only on top of painted lashes on the upper and bottom lash lines.  Her hair is molded and has the faint coloring to suggest she's a brunette.

Glossy nails. 

Does anyone think of the Bee Gees when they look at this? 

This was the other baby we got.  She has blue eyes and is a blonde.  Dressed in her shark robe.  :)

I like the natural lip color and detailed sculpting of her lips.  Her brows are a bit on the crude side, but I doubt too many kids would notice or care.  Mine didn't!

I was happy to see that she was wearing a different patterned "suit" than the other one. 

Unfortunately this baby had a large gap along the back seam, which we didn't notice until she was in the tub and the beads started leaking out!  Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a needle and thread, though.

No babies were hurt in the making of this post.  

This is just creepy. 

Overall the girls have been having a great time with these dolls.  

Now, about that Quikdri thing....

In my experience, it seemed to take a good 24 hours for the cloth body to dry.  I would suggest making sure the doll is draped over something so it can dry completely otherwise it will develop a musty smell.
Not fun!

When not being drowned by my children, the babies can naturally float. :) 

Although my 3 year old loves her baby (and so does the 6 year old) she is still no match for the "Big Baby."

Overall, these dolls are cute and have sweet faces, but I am not sure they are really worth their price tag of nearly $40.  They are smaller than a Bitty Baby or other 15 inch doll which makes them a little less "realistic".  My sister-in-law still has her childhood Bitty Baby and she let the girls borrow her for a little while and they played with that one a lot more.  

The girls enjoy these dolls primary out of the water at this point.  They are very cute and old clementine boxes make perfect bassinets!

Ok, I guess they are really cute. :) xoxo

What do you guys think...did you have a Bitty Baby or think they were a big hit with any little girls in your life?  Did you have baby dolls growing up?  I don't think I did to be honest.  I can only remember having Barbies and stuffed animals.  

I am still thinking about maybe getting Little Button a Bitty Baby for Christmas (or when I end up getting Pumpkin Pie her first American Girl doll...not sure, though!) 

Anyway, thanks so much for stopping by and hope you're having a good week. 

My cough is getting better!! :)

Old School Gloworm Thrifty Throwback Thursday

Hi lovelies!  I wanted to share some quick thrift store finds I picked up recently.  Now that we live in the sticks, I don't get out to the thrift store as often, which I really miss, because there is nothing better than finding a great vintage treasure.  It's just really fun sorting through other people's "crap" ;) 

This particular visit I found 2 nostalgic treasures from the 80s.  One is this cute little glo worm!  I remember having one of these when I was little...just needs a good cleaning and new batteries.  I'm excited to see if it still works. 

Another was this adorable Cabbage Patch doll.  She was so cute, I had to grab her.  When I was young, I had a blonde one with pigtails and my sister had a brunette one with braids.  

She was in really good shape, and I am amazed that some of these toys from my childhood (30 years ago!) are still in such a good shape.  The girls were not attracted to her AT ALL, which is funny as these were all the rage back in the 80s.  

Non-toy related, I found this cute and cozy little candle jar with a beautiful winter painting.  Don't you just love seeing something that really strikes a chord in you?  I don't know why, but this scene gave me such good feelings. :)  I'm sure it will look quite cozy with a little tea light in there. 

And lastly, there was this adorable little doll chair (made out of clothes pins?)  Too cute.

I hope you are all having a great week.  I've had ups and downs this week, to be honest.  I've started to practice meditation and have gotten amazing highs from that, but also some stress that is lingering around that I am working through.  I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday!
Have you guys found any sweet thrifty treasures lately?
xo 

Cherries, Candy and Ladders-Thrifty Throwback Thursday

I have a very nice co-worker who asked me if I was interested in some of her daughters old games and toys.  I am not one to ever pass up that offer...it's so fun to rummage through a box of someone else's "trash" to find your own treasures!  Plus, we have a thrift shop that just opened down the road and I figured I could donate them if the girls weren't interested. 

She pulled into work the next day with a trunk full of goodies for me to bring home.  Yay!  There was a box of My Little Ponies (circa 2003ish?), Littlest Pet Shop Critters and Polly Pocket houses, accessories (I think that is what they are..)

Included were some old board games that brought me way back.  I have a twin sister and 2 younger brothers so board games were always big part of our play time.  Hungry Hungry Hippos, Battleship, Trouble, Sorry!, Monopoly (but don't let sis be the banker, lol), and our all time fav, Mouse Trap.
 

Hi Ho! Cherr-O was the first one I opened.  This was originally published in 1960 and is currently by Milton Bradley and the age range is 3 and up. Tried playing this with Pumpkin Pie (age 5) and Little Button (age 2.)  PP got the idea pretty well, but LB knocked over all the cherries each time she tried to spin the wheel :}  This was pretty irritating to PP, lol. 

Cherries making their way on to the spinner.  The cherries are super cute, though. 

Best to put away and bring back out during LB's naps for now!

Next up, we opened Candy Land.   This game was designed in 1945 and is now owned by Hasbro (formally Milton Bradley?) and is also for ages 3 and up.  That was another hit w/ PP.  She loved the colorful board and the simplicity of picking a card and moving her gingerbread man to whatever color block the card showed.

The character cards were quite sought after.  I ended up picking most of them, but slipped the Ice Queen back into the pile and rigged it so PP would pick it as well ;)

LB, once again, fabulously filled her role as the cheeky toddler and knocked everyone's men over each time it was her turn.  Luckily, she was easily distracted by the box of My Little Ponies so we could get on with the game.

This was definitely a hit w/ my 5 yr old.  She was a bit concerned about getting stuck on a black dot, but we managed to avoid this.  ;)  We played until we both won, of course.

Lastly we checked out Chutes and Ladders.  This was also first published in 1943 by Hasbro.
I love the little quote on the bottom of the box.  Cheesy, but true!

Little Button was totally engrossed in the My Little Ponies by now, so it was just Pumpkin Pie and me for this one.  We didn't play for long as J popped his head out onto the patio to announce dinner time (bless him and his Italian culinary skills), but I grabbed a few quick shots.

Loved all the little character kids either happy or sad to be going up or down.

 "The artwork on the board teaches a morality lesson, the squares on the bottom of the ladders show a child doing a good or sensible deed and at the top of the ladder there is an image of the child enjoying the reward. At the top of the chutes, there are pictures of children engaging in mischievous or foolish behavior and the images on the bottom show the child suffering the consequences."  Wikipedia

"foolish behavior"..love it.
Life lessons and fun all in one. 

Overall, it was great to receive these games.  I hope, as the girls get older, to have more game nights.  I try really hard to turn off the iPad (I'm obsessed!) and keep the internet usage to a minimum until after the kiddos are asleep. It's amazing how much they pick up on and want to mimic that behavior. I have no idea what it is going to be like in 10 years when my girls are teenagers...oy vey!  I am cherishing  these days when they are so little, so innocent and so present in these moments of interactive play.

I'm really glad to have been given these old staples for now and I'll be on the hunt for more thrift shop treasures in the days to come.

Hope you all have a good day today!

        What are some of your favorite old games??