2010 May » Stop, Drop and Blog

Toy Story Merchandise Spoiler Warning

May 212010

THE Book As I mentioned, I grabbed BigBrother a Toy Story reader as part of his end of school gift. The morning that I purchased it, I stopped in the office and was talking to a co-worker about Toy Story. She’s a mom to three boys so we spend a lot of time discussing Buzz, Woody and their buddies. She told me that she bought a Toy Story 3 coloring book and that thankfully she looked at it before she gave it to the boys.

Because it gave away the story.

I went home and read through the book I got for BigBrother. It was your typical level 2 type reader: short sentences and easy words. I had figured it was like some of the other movie based readers we have in our library; instead of telling the full story of the movie that it either told a sub-story or a completely different story all together. Not this one.

I now know the full story of Toy Story 3. More than the trailer gives away.

But I won’t spoil it for you. Just like I didn’t spoil it for the boys. Because I took it away. BigBrother is mad. I mean, who could blame him? I gave him something he loved twice over: a book about Toy Story. And then I took it back. FireDad supported this venture though he feels equally Scrooge-like. We have made promises to read the book the night we get home from seeing the movie on June 18th. He doesn’t care. He’s mad.

I’m mad, too.

When it comes to the new Toy Story movie, marketers are in heaven. Not only do they know that kids are in love with the movie and characters (and expensive toys) but parents like me have also been in love with the movie for years. We’re equally excited about the next chapter in the toys’ journey. We want to buy the toys. We want to buy the books. And the games. And to catch the movie on opening day. We want to share our love of the movie with our children. And marketers know that. The toys are everywhere right now. Taunting us. And it’s working. I get it. I understand. Really, I do.

But could we leave the spoilers out of it until the movie is released?

Put the rocket ship sprinkler in the store. And the movie editions of Connect 4, Buckaroo, Memory and Operation (!). Please, pretty please, release the Buzz, Woody and Jessie costumes for Mr. Potato Head. If you could drop the price on Buzz and Woody themselves, I’d be thrilled. I think perhaps that bubbles and boogie boards are slight overkill but I’m okay with all of those things. Just stop putting out things with spoilers until after we’ve seen the movie. Pretty please?

Or I may have to make BigBrother and LittleBrother laser you. And nobody wants that, now do they?

Starting Off Our Summer Break

Parenting 13 Responses »

May 202010

Yesterday’s last day of school extravaganza went well. Despite my Mommy Nostalgia that my oldest boy grew so much in one school year, we really had a nice day.

The crafts for BigBrother’s teachers were finished and wrapped in time to be taken to school in the morning. I originally found the craft idea at Living Locurto which linked me to a post at Testosterone Times Three. I got the square shadowbox frames at Walmart ($8) and already had one pack of new crayons so I just grabbed one more pack of 24 count Crayola crayons ($1.31) and a bottle of craft glue ($1.30). I did all of the cutting myself with my big butcher knife. BigBrother helped me with some gluing after I figured out the template. I let them dry overnight. His teachers loved them and they are hanging them in the classroom. I’ll show them again because this Non-Crafty Mom feels pretty darn proud of herself.

Craft!

When BigBrother got home from school, he got to open his presents. I normally do a puzzle and a book but had been wanting to do a game this year as they’re big into board games and the like this year. They’ve been playing Connect 4 at my mother-in-law’s house for the past few months and so I thought I’d grab it for our house seeing as how they love it. My last minute procrastination paid off as when I stopped to pick it up they had the Toy Story 3 version! Now, two weeks ago, they didn’t have that version in the store as I had price checked the game that week. If we had already owned Connect 4, I wouldn’t be buying a new favorite-movie themed one but seeing as how I was buying it anyway, I couldn’t resist! It was a big, big hit. His favorite game and Toy Story? Mommy win.

FTW!

Playing

The book that he got was also of the Toy Story variety and I’ll have a rant about that tomorrow.

We also had rainbow tie-dye cupcakes to celebrate a year of fantastic learning and growth and a kick off to our Super Summer! Instead of making my normal rainbow cake, I decided to make some rainbow cupcakes. I also decided to go with pre-packaged cake mix again due to the last minute nature of everything. I separated the mix into five bowls and LittleBrother helped me color each bowl a different color: red, blue, yellow, green and violet. I put a spoonful of each color in the cupcake wrapper, leaving them uneven and kind of “messy” for my taste. Topped off with red, we put them in the oven. As per usual, I used Wilton icing dye to get the bright colors. Out of the oven they looked perfect.

Out of the Oven

And the boys loved them.

Messy Mouth

Cupcake Mustache

And I sacrificed not one but two in the name of art again.

Cupcake Bokeh

Wrapper Love

Basically, it was a great day for us. In fact, the boys had such a lovely day, despite the rain, that they went straight to sleep and started off our Super Summer on a fabulous note and slept clear until 7:40 this morning. I think that deserves celebration with another cupcake, don’t you agree?

_
Don’t forget to enter my Shirts That Go giveaway! It ends Tuesday!