Welcome to The Mint Chip Mama blog! A fun, lighthearted parenting, lifestyle and travel blog for families on Long Island & the Tri-State area. Fun things we do at home, local hikes, new products, art projects, & giveaways.
Dear John (Deere): For Your Budding Little Landscape Architect!
The perfect gift for your little landscape architect!
I have the quintessential little boy. Trucks, trains, fire trucks, police cars, construction “vehicles”, tractors, boats, wheels, dirt. All rolled into a smiling three and a half year old.
Last year, on a day when we had nothing scheduled, I brought him to a John Deere store to simply look around. He was in heaven. He even insisted on bringing home one of their product catalogs so I could read it to him at night as his bedtime story.
Tomy’s Lawn and Garden Set
You can imagine how fast I agreed to review TOMY‘s new Lawn & Garden Set (complete with a retractable cord trimmer, trowel and mini hand rake).
It was the perfect new toy for my wannabe little landscape architect!
As expected, before I finished taking it out of the box it was out of my hands. The perfect size for a three year old, he immediately got to work getting the weeds out of my living room carpet.
Let’s Take It Outside To Try
As we moved the party outside, he went to town. Having watched our gardener trim the lawn earlier in the day, he knew just what to do.
With it’s easy to pull cord, he got the popping beads to make a great, authentic noise so he could trim to his heart’s desire.
Lightweight and easy to hold even for the littlest gardener, he maneuvered around with ease feeling like a big boy.
We’re a big gardening family so he was also excited to have his own hand rake to use and wanted to get to work right away.
But by far, his favorite thing was pretending to be the “park man”. With that said, my son’s favorite part of a park is the gardening tools cart. He likes to just stand there, look at it, point and name them. Sometimes the nice workers will let him sit in the cart and pretend he is driving it.
Now he can be his own park man. If I could say this went on for hours it would not be an understatement. As you can see from his new outfit, days even!
If you have a little one who also loves to garden, is a little landscape architect, or is equally enthralled by the “park man” you should definitely check out the John Deere Lawn & Garden Set by Tomy.
Stacey Gish Wallenstein created The Mint Chip Mama blog in 2013 to share her love and passion for giving children meaningful life experiences and helping moms like her navigate the challenges and benefits of raising children in the New York metropolitan area.
Before becoming a full-time mom in 2010, Stacey spent the better part of the preceding decade as a high-end customer relationship management (CRM) professional for some of the most well-known brands in the hotel, luxury, fashion, and beauty industries, such as Harrah’s Entertainment, Chanel and Christian Dior, Inc. She managed customer loyalty programs for thousands of clients around the country and created social media strategies for a span of industries including healthcare services, restaurants, consumer packaged goods, specialty foods, local attractions and retail locations.
After 13 wonderful years in Manhattan (the last three of which spent as a city mom), Stacey and her husband moved to Long Island in 2014, where they now reside with their three children (13, 10, and 7). There, she is a founding member of her local Parenting Center, which provides classes and coordinates events designed to educate and inform parents while fostering an environment of support and friendship within the community.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, Stacey has been active in the New York area alumni organization for nearly twenty years, serving as a board member on the school’s University of Michigan Alumni Club of New York City. She also holds a Masters in Psychology from The New School in New York City.
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4 thoughts on “Dear John (Deere): For Your Budding Little Landscape Architect!”
I’m thinking of buying one of these. but I’m not sure if it’s solid. Have you been there a lot of time has broken place?
My son has used this toy for a year and still loves it! It’s held up great.