It's a Party in the Kitchen

There are times when I feel like I am drowning in an abundance of kid's toys. I know other parents feel the same way and everyone has their own way of dealing with it. I really like the idea of cycling toys in and out of the children's toy rotation. Toys get forgotten about, and then don't get played with but if it is reintroduced a month or two later, it's like having  a new toy all over again. Unfortunately living in an apartment without massive amounts of storage space, this is not something we do around here. There just isn't any holding place for the toys that aren't being used so frequently.

Lately there has been a lot of princess play around here. I know there's nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to steer playtime back to non princess related imaginative play a little bit too.  We have a super cute little play kitchen from Kid Kraft that I wanted to make a little more new and exciting so Moshe and Lily would play with it some more. I bet you thought this post was about toy organization, when really it's about <gasp!> buying more things!

I added some new food items and children sized aprons that both kids were really into it, but I had been on the lookout for a set of play dishes. When I was in Ikea a few weeks back, I went to check out what they have. The dishes they sell for their play kitchen actually comes with the warning that children under eight should not be using them, because they will break like real dishes. Womp womp. Not something I am interested in.  I moved on, and was browsing through the baby section when I found these:

Images from Ikea.com

The Kalas series, are meant to be real tableware to use for your children, but I decided to bring it home as toys. Each pack was $1.99 so for $8 I managed to stock our little play kitchen with service for six kids. I took the knives out of the set, even though they are not sharp at all. I didn't realize how much of a hit these dishes would be. The kids love to set them up, which is awesome practice for setting a real table. They sort them by color, which is great for Lily, because we are still working on learning all of the colors with her. Whenever Lily sets them up she always comes to get me and show me. "Mommy it's a party!" I'm giving myself some extra mom points for getting something that is accidentally educational.

If you have a play kitchen you really need to get yourselves over to Ikea, and grab a set of these dishes. Better yet, they won't break! And even better than that, even though I bought more toys, they don't take any more room up in my little apartment, because they are stored right in the play kitchen.

Anyone here have anything really awesome in their kid's kitchen? Let me know below.
Have a great weekend everyone!