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NSW, Australia
I'm made it past 50! married for over half my life, have 3 kids all grown and I'm loving this part of my life.I was a nurse in my younger days but an unhealthy dose of rheumatoid arthritis put a damper on my career,so I'm at home with the internet.

Friday, March 23, 2012

My Life in Toys

I haven't done one of these in ages and the shoes, "stuff" , television , movies and food were very popular.

Now with grandbabbies coming my thoughts are turning to toys again.

So today it's My life in toys .




Very early I remember a few toys in a box at the end of my bed. Some squishy squeaky toys like the ones we give the dogs today.




Wooden blocks that had 4 different puzzles.I can still remember the smell of them.



My first Christmas my grandmother gave myself and my cousin Gayle one of these clocks, battery operated, it used to run forward on its little feet. I lost it when I was 4 ,I'd love to replace it so if you see one, let me know or grab it and I'll pay you back.


Every time my mother vacuumed I did too...I remember actually having a huge tantrum because the batteries were flat.


I used to play with a doll much like this one except she didn't have the hat and she had a crew cut.I'm also not so sure she wasn't naked.It was my mums doll from the 1940's and she had given it a trim when she was a child. Sadly one day it went in the bin.




Once we were on our feet and not wobbly, we played outside, the yard was fenced, it was all dirt and later grass ..... there was no sandpit or swings.I thought the hose was a great toy, not so much fun for mum when the yard was dirt and not grass.



My 2nd Christmas I woke up to a dinky



and matching table and chairs, these aren't the same, can't for the life of me find a pic. I did find the same blue and red metal table and chairs at a vintage shop last year but woah! they wanted over $200 for it. ouch.


Around preschool age I discovered dolls. Paper dolls. All the girls in the neighborhood would have an old biscuit tin full of clothes for their cutout dolls. No Barbie's, too expensive,even f I'd been given one by a relative, it would have stayed in the clothes it came in.But the paper dolls, we played for hours, making up stories about what we were dressing them for, cutting out new clothes from the books and swapping the ones were were sick of.


ohhhh my soul for a bride doll. I begged for her. Finally got one......... all she did was sit on the cupboard or the bed, bit of a letdown, and later my sister ripped her head off .


Every year in the late 60's early 70's Xmas day wasn't complete without a large carboard stocking covered in red netting that was full of little plastic toys and weird lollies. One of the things I did play with out of these toys that mostly only lasted the one day was the pick up sticks. Little pin ball machines and sliding squares puzzles also sometimes lasted more than the day .


One Christmas my Uncle Jack introduced me to gambling!!!



My parents liked board games . Dad bought me this one, played it with us kids a few times but then when us kids played on our own he found it too noisy.We weren't allowed to play in our rooms often, but this game was our "in". I bought the same game for my kids, a few of the pieces still turn up from time to time....and yes the noise drove me batty too.



Around the age of 8 , my friend Kerri, was very into craft and so then I was too. So many teapot warmers and hats were made of these long tubes of wool,always in lairy colours.

For my 8th birthday a sewing basket, I put the toys away for a while.Again this one was Kez's idea.She never left craft, I'm only just getting back into it...funny that...we just found each other after 30 years....she's still influencing me !!! If Kerri jumped into the fire would you???? my mother said this a lot.But...she has all the good ideas.






Another thing the young Miss Kerri gave me was a love of good stories, this was the first of quite a few we shared over the years. We were both way ahead in our reading, leaving "Are you my mother?' style books behind really quickly.



This was a great board game,another birthday present.




My sisters and I played this one, but it was so complicated to just join in,so nobody liked it much.It's an expensive game, I bought it for my kids because I remembered it but they didn't like it.A little too slow for them.


ohh so any hours, so many arguments and accusations of cheating.Always the most fun being the banker.Like being the school teacher while playing schools, somehow bossy. Which suited me, apparently I was a bossy kid.

Not many people remember this one, but my sisters and I played this one for hours, I met my husband around the time of playing this one and he got roped in too.wonderful capitalist training here.



My mum bought me this for xmas when I was in my 20's , she was playing at work and thought I might like it.For a while in the 80's everyone I knew played this. I used to play during night duty, in kids ward, never woke the kids up, but we got some complaints from the mums staying over with them. I still have the box somwhere, the kids used to play it with mum when they were small.




In the 80's we bought a you beaut coleco vision tv games console , played it for a while but not really that into it and didn't get another console until the children were grown enough to want a sega master system.





Now my toy is my laptop, facebooking, blogging, reading,arguing with trolls, storing photos,reminding myself things with post it notes...........




Don't forget to enter the giveaway for the Harden Honey and visit my fbpage.

4 comments:

  1. Great memories for you and brought back a lot of them for me. I still have my sewing basket from 1972. It's exactly like yours but pink!! I still use it. I had a "Dance with the Dolly" doll. She was my height and had elastic on the hands and feet so she moved with you. I loved her! We played Life all the time. So much so we broke the spinner and had to replace the game. Good times weren't they? Now kids only know TV and electronic games. Sad.

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  2. I had the bobbin things too! Clue was my favorite as well as the paper dolls. Tony's favorite was Yatzee... we have several versions now.

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  3. I few memories there. We still have a hand held electronic game of Yahtzee. Very handy when waiting around at airports.

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  4. I had so many of the same toys. Paper dolls were my favorite. Oh how I loved wooden block puzzles. I remember playing Pick-Up-Sticks so many times with my brother and sister. I bought most of those games for my girls and they loved them. It is fun to remember!

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