Can you guess this birthday present?

Have you guessed it yet?

Here are a few hints:

Every little boy (and girl in my opinion) needs one.
It can be made of paper, plastic, wood, metal, fabric...you name it.
This particular "thing" has been known to turn into a ship, an airplane, a cabin in the woods, a hideout, a pirate's hold, and a trillion other imaginables in just a few hours.
When your child is playing with this object, please know that he might not always respond to his given name, but instead answer to names such as "Pirate Parker" or "Captain P."
Warning: if you start to misplace valuables or even not so valuable items, you might want to check here first.
Also, your child may disappear for hours at a time with this entertainment....he might one day even ask to sleep here.

Have you guessed it yet? :)


I don't know who had more fun assembling Parker's first fort...his daddy or Parker himself. It was such a treat for our 3 year old; he even got to stay up late one night this past weekend and help put it up. Though this picture is blurry, I love the story it tells. Parker was very serious in helping his daddy attach all the parts making sure everything was just right. "I big. I do it Daddy. No, no, let me do it. It does (for "goes") like dis."

After the first part of the fort was assembled, Parker wasted no time in running to grab toys to put in his new, very special place. Notice the little man blurred off to the side. ha ha. Out of the 70 something pics I took on this one night, I might have two where he wasn't blurry because he didn't stop moving the whole evening. He was a busy boy on a mission. It truly made my heart sing, though to watch all of this.

I remember growing up and the forts we had: the outdoor treehouse in our backyard that became a spy zone, a house, and a Little House on the Prairie schoolhouse all in one weekend. Or the play tent that Taylor got for Christmas one year that looked just like an outdoor fort, complete with "man's best friend" painted by the main entrance. We would spend hours upon hours in that thing, loading it up with our favorite toys that became real as soon as we stepped into the "fort." Our grandparents also had to have a treehouse for the grandkids to play hide n seek in when we'd all gather for family weekends and holidays. And of course there were the homemade forts built with mom's "old" sheets, the love seat and a few kitchen chairs. More happy memories and creative endeavors evolved from these little spaces. Imaginations became realities, big decisions were made and smiles never left the faces of those who played in the forts on 2068 Ruralia Dr.

I'm excited for our kids to have this too.

This particular construction building set can be found here. What we like about it is that you can make and do so many different things with it. For building: an airplane, a helicopter, a playhouse, a fort, a castle...anything you want basically. It's like a giant erector set! For learning and team building it has multiple uses too. How much fun would this be to set up in your backyard in the summertime and have different challenging activities for your kids and their friends to do?! If you go to the Toobeez website you can check out a variety of videos and examples of ways these sets can be used.

We were blessed to have a friend who gave these to us actually. She works at a children's specialty store in Minneapolis; the store was no longer carrying this particular product and were giving their store models away, so she snagged the giant set for us. (Thank you Jodi!!)

I'm so excited to have this to help us get through those extra long, super messy winter days this year where it is a little too cold for this Southern gal to get outside. :) Mama might just have to jump in and play with the boys on this one...I think girls are still allowed at this point.