The official flower girl/ring bearer set

This is gonna be my first in a threeish day series on gifts for other people. First off I thought I'd start with the fun ones, the kids. (If any of the kids in my wedding are looking right now you better turn away. Or at least not be able to read yet).

I am not real big into the various gifts and keepsakes that wedding sites will advertise as the best things to get your flower girl or ring bearer (who wants a book on how to be a flower girl?). Instead I'd rather get them all toys. Who doesn't love toys? And it'll give them something to play with the day of as well.

The tall flower girl I'll show off tomorrow (as she can read and I want to give even more warnings and rent cerberus for the day to keep her away). For the short flower girl we looked high and low to get some ideas.Then we saw this play phone set. If she's anything like her mother she'll be addicted to the phone. And as sad as it is Disney by far had the best option. All the princess have a few different sayings (though all done by the same voice actor so it's kinda weird), and you can call them from the phone as well as leave a recorded message.

I just picture her the day of the wedding running around with a little phone in her hand (hopefully she won't smack her brother with it).To help her feel more like a little princess (or at least enjoy the dress up aspect) I got her a little hair comb. She doesn't have a really poufy dress but this will give her a little sparkle so she'll get to play dress up.

In the end her gift cost about $25. So for the price of a frame and a t-shirt she can wear once, I got her a toy she can play with til it gets broken or thrown into a puddle and some jewelry.

The boys were much easier (if you can't tell, I love looking at toys, they are so much fun to play with and figure out the good and the boring ones). They are about the same age range (one is gonna be 4 the other 3) and they both love trains. (For christmas I got my MOH's boy a thomas train set that had to be assembled and he watched it for hours as it went around and around, even jumping up and getting super excited when it dumped some coal).The first thing I found was a really cool engine (either Thomas or Percy) that has a switch on the back if you flip it to one side when you push the train it makes train noises and if you go faster the noises speed up, the other side plays the Thomas theme song (sure to drive mom nuts).

For an addition we also found some Thomas bubbles. Both of these kids love blowing bubbles (to the point where I was once covered in soap helping one of them) and the engine is actually shaped like a train whistle. Plus if we suddenly decide we want some bubbles, we'll have two toddlers that can help.

These two cool present cost about $18 total for each kid (actually got them on a 50% off toy sale) and as we realized later are actually our wedding colors. So even buying them at full price it's a bit less than an official ring bearer duffle bag, wallet, and frame set.

I just don't see the point of gifts that they can realistically use one day. Instead we went and got them some toys they can play with for a few years (assuming not put in the wood chipper of course) or at least it'll keep them distracted the day of. And the adults can play with them a bit too.