Really Great Present

Do you know about I-Spy Bags? There are a ton of them out there on Etsy, and I finally decided that although I could make one, by the time I ran around finding all the items to put into it, it would be cheaper for me to buy one (as well as a lot less hassle). We usually make the presents we give to kids, but couldn't resist getting one of these for our good friend Sophia when we heard she would be traveling THREE times to and from Australia this year, and then for Clara, too. This is the perfect travel toy or item to stick in your bag for a long wait somewhere. You can find some with cute Heather Ross fabrics, etc. (found one with that amazing garden gnome fabric!), but the ones from Chicks and Chickadees are exceptional in terms of quality and content if you ask me. They're made from oil cloth or vinyl-coated fabric so they wipe clean, they are sturdily constructed (click on the photo to enlarge it and see details), come with cute personalized luggage tags reporting their contents, have a perfect amount of fill to make finding the items challenging, and are personalized in content. This one has a little string of alphabet beads inside spelling Sophia's name. There is also a list of items by color so kids can hunt out all the pink items, all the red, etc., and then there is one item listed for each letter of the alphabet! You can give some guidance on those, too--Clara got a princess crown in hers, for example, some jewels, a pink cat, a violin, an art easel...based on interests I'd named with my order. The only way they could be better is if the tag was easily removable so an adult in the front of the car could read the tag aloud while the child in the back searched for items, but that would be easy to modify. So if you're looking for a great preschooler gift, try one of these!