With Alice’s fourth birthday on the horizon I have started thinking about the inevitable presents although will admit I am seriously stumped, she has so much. Instead of the latest Hathimal craze (or whatever it is now) we’ve found we are being drawn to classics from our own childhood. Oh how I wish I had kept everything as some of these toys are seriously pricey on Ebay!! Looking through the girl’s toy cupboards it seems we have a penchant for toys from our past so in the name of nostalgia today’s post is all about just that.

Luckily it seems you can still buy quite a few of my favourites but they just aren’t as good as the classics from my youth!! Our nostalgic obsession started after Edd bought Molly all the Fisher Price classics when she was born. The phone and plastic staking rings were firm favourites and the Tomy Turtle still shares bathtime now!

First things first Alice is obsessed with Sylvanian Families so she definitely takes after her mum on that count. I loved them and luckily my mum kept my Gypsy Caravan and my sister still has the Barge. Sadly the bakery and copious other items got sold in a village hall jumble sale when I wanted a few pennies to spend in Our Price and Clockhouse when I hit twelve! You can still buy Sylvanians so we have a good collection with everything from a treehouse to cars but are probably going to add to them with a few small bits this birthday.

Next up My Little Ponies are a firm favourite in our house but the new ones are nowhere near as cute as the ones from my childhood. Plus where has Cotton Candy gone?! I had the most amazing My Little Pony nursery which I thought I’d try and get for Alice but quickly reconsidered when I saw it was £80 on Ebay. Gutted as she would love it.

We also bought Molly a Brio Train when she was young and it was exactly the same as I remembered my own set to be. I love that nothing had really changed with it. I think we will be adding to the set as Alice spends hours building tracks and zooming the trains around.

Luckily you can still get some of the classic board games and now the girls are a bit older they love sitting down to a game of Guess Who or Operation. Whilst discussing this post we also realised we all REALLY wanted the Dream Phone game with phone in the middle. You know, the one for calling dodgy 80’s boys like Jason and Tony from whilst on your girly sleepover? Not quite for a four year old but still so good. We are buying one for our next RMLtd meeting.

The girls both love drawing and I was excited to see a version of Spirograph as I wondered through the vast toy store the other day. However, it seems nothing got the team as inspired as Fashion Wheel. I was always so jealous of my sister’s one.

Did anyone else have Keepers or Sweet Secrets? They were my absolute favourite. I also reckon Molly would be obsessed with Polly Pockets but they are so ruddy expensive to track down!

We have already been stocking the garden with a touch of nostalgia after Edd purchased swing ball last year. Becky also reminded me of those balls with the planet type rings around the outside that you jumped on but we have no idea what they were called!

I was lucky that my mum did keep some of our toys and the girls have had hours of fun playing with the Fisher Price zoo, circus train and hospital with all the little peg people. It’s made me wonder if I should be keeping hold of any of the girls toys? Will Happyland be one of those coveted happy childhood toys that the girls will remember in years to come or will it be that lovely bright and noisy Toot Toot trains and animals? Do you have any childhood favourites that you want to share with your children and do you think you would hold on to theirs?