Brand New Items!

Brand new items are coming into Mulberry Toys everyday now! A few of our favorites...

Bilingual Zingo

The original Zingo has been a hit with every kid we know...& now we have it in Spanish! What a great way to practice some basic Spanish vocabulary...Bingo with a Zing (or Bingo con un Zing!).

Sticky Mosaics Riding School

Sticky Mosaics are always popular at Mulberry. Ponies are also very popular. Put the two together...what could be better? Comes with four designs that are sure to please your little horse lover!

Lemon Lion Fuzzy Friends

This cheerful Lion is a great new addition to our baby room! You can't help but smile when you see his bright stripes, polka dots, & happy face. Also check out other new Alex Jr. favorites like the You & Me Mirror, Discovery Car, Lemon Lion Busy Blankie, & Busy Ball!

This Week's Favorites

First...Back Sacks by Crocodile Creek! These are waterproof and great for summer outings to the pool and lake! Back Sacks come in many different colors and designs for both boys and girls...dinosaurs, butterflies, vehicles, planets, & more! Pair with the matching Stainless Steel Water Bottle for a great birthday gift!

Next...Mini Chic Fashion Designer by Shure. Exactly what the young up-&-coming fashion designer needs! I saw this at Toy Fair in New York back in February & wanted it for myself! Includes stencils, paper "fabrics," & tons of ideas! Not only is the Fashion Designer fun, but it also teaches about color theory, careers in the fashion industry, etc.

And last, an old favorite...Lincoln Logs. When it's just too hot to play outside, come in & build a log cabin! Sure to please kids of every age!

Stop by Mulberry Toys & check out these & all of our other favorites!

Mulberry Favorites

Ever feel overwhelmed when you walk into a store & want every single thing there? Well, we're here to help! The sensational staff here at Mulberry will be picking favorite items to tell you about each week!

One of our most recent favorites is the Music Maker by European Expressions.

I love music, & I love to play music, but I despise trying to read music! Therefore, this is the perfect instrument for me! The Music Maker comes with 12 songs, a tuner, a pick, and even some extra wire. By simply slipping a song sheet under the strings, you can easily sound like a world-renown musician. Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch...but I think my family would much rather hear me play the many songs that I have perfected on the Music Maker instead of the one song I have memorized that I can play on the piano!

Next up is Melissa & Doug's Safari Floor Puzzle!

I love the vibrant colors and beautiful African landscape. With zebras, giraffes, elephants, hippos, & more...what could be better? The Safari Floor Puzzle is 100 thick pieces & measures over four feet long!

And last...one of my all-time favorites, Alice the Fairy by David Shannon!

You may remember David Shannon from one of his other favorites like No, David! or How I Became a Pirate. I love all of his books, but Alice the Fairy is my favorite, hands (& fairy wings) down! Shannon tells the story of Alice, a young, spunky fairy. She is only a Temporary Fairy because "you have to pass alot of tests" to be a Permanent Fairy. Though she has not quite mastered the use of her wand, she is excellent with her imagination & manages to complete some very interesting spells!

Hurry over to Mulberry Toys to check out our favorites!

"Mulberry"

Mulberry [muhl-ber-ee]

-verb

1. to decorate with brightly colored paints
2. to add pattern to a previously dull wall (polka dots, stripes, argyle, geometric shapes, retro designs, animal print, etc.)

We’ve mulberried the previously white walls of 235 South Main Street & are ready to throw some birthday parties & cool summer classes!

Check out our summer schedule here & stop by the store to purchase your punch card!

"Hi" From Your Mulberry Summer Intern

As a first-time Mulberry blogger, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Lindsey & I am the lucky girl who gets to intern with these fun people! I’ve worked with Mulberry for awhile, but now I am going to actually get school credit for it! I am a senior at North Georgia College in beautiful Dahlonega, Georgia & will graduate next May with a degree in English with a concentration in Writing & Publication (kind of North Georgia’s version of a Journalism degree).

I look forward to keeping you updated on all of the Mulberry events this summer as we prepare to launch our new addition, Mulberry Too!

We Tweet!

Yep, we're officially members of the twitter community. Our twitter name is MulberryToys....wow what a stretch. Anyway, we're still learning and exploring Twitter's use but so far it's been tons of fun.
Please choose to follow us and you'll get updates on funny things that happen, new items that arrive.

Michelle

MULBERRY TOO!

I promised you some exciting news and I've made you wait long enough. I've been busy scaping dried paint off my elbows and asking myself why I wore my best jeans when I knew I'd be painting. So yes, we're back at it. I thought I'd washed out my last brush and put the rollers away forever, or at least a year, but progress can't be stopped. Michelle and I are in the process of "Mulberrying up" our newest project, a class/event/party facility called Mulberry Too. We can hardly wait for you to see it and hope you'll be able to join us for our Open House scheduled for the last week in April. I have to say it looks FABULOUS! We've learned a lot about decorative painting so if you want help let us know. (Of course, one thing we've learned is that it's tedious and time-consuming so be sure to bring your checkbook when you come to talk to us about painting for you because we'll probably charge about a million dollars, and trust me, that's a bargain!) So anyway, "the boys," as Michelle calls our husbands, are putting down floor this weekend and we have strict instructions to have all the painting finished by Friday at midnight. If you want to help, drop by Mulberry Too, located in the back of the Morgan County Citizen building. You can't miss us...the door is blue! Check your e-mail for the latest on our Mulberry Summer Program and call us when you're ready to plan the most fantastic, over-the-top, blowout party ever!

Home Again, Home Again

Now that we're back in the beautiful state of Georgia, the real work of ToyFair begins. We have more orders to make, more catalogs to peruse, and boxes to open as they arrive. Michelle is especially talented at displaying all the great toys that come into Mulberry. Yep, it's a good thing I'm not in charge of that. It would probably look more like a Sam's Club and not the hip and happening place that it is.

Well, here's a little secret, or at least a teaser about a secret. Something big is in the works for Mulberry. Stay tuned and be the first to know. As anyone in my family can tell you, I just can't keep a secret, so please don't tempt me. But I can hardly wait to let the cat out of the bag...

Toy Fair 2009

Greetings from New York City! It's so exciting to be in one of the most vibrant cities in the world and we get to call it work! We flew in on Valentine's Day and even though we left our Valentine boys at home we were blessed to take our girls with us. We had a day and a half before the show started to explore and experience the city. If you've never been and you have the opportunity to go, I think everyone should visit "the city," as it's called, at least once. There is so much history here and many wonderful tour guides just waiting to share it all with you.

We had the pleasure of eating at the Stardust Diner, where aspiring Broadway performers entertain throughout your meal, all for the price of dinner. That's really something! Broadway quality entertainment without the expense of the theater. Of course, we hit the theaters, too. We saw Shrek (starring the up-and-coming Broadway legend, Sutton Foster), In the Heights, and Guys and Dolls (with Gilmore Girls' Lauren Graham as Adelaide). Lindsey and I spent an afternoon wondering through the Metropolitan Museum and Central Park. Michelle and Jessie and our right-hand girl, LaChelle, took a bus tour of Manhattan and the surrounding area. We had breakfast with the locals in some really cool diners, getting a taste for a real New York bagel. And we actually managed to show up at the Javits Center for the Toy Fair, too. It must be about a billion square feet of wall-to-wall toy vendors, a toy-seller's Mecca. We can't wait to introduce you to all the new toys we saw. Keep logging onto mulberrytoys.com to see them as they arrive at the store.

ToyFair or Bust!

We're leaving for ToyFair in NYC today. Not with the chickens, but early enough to still have most of the day to play when we get there. We did ToyFair completely wrong last year. Gone is the rookie mindset that we must see every booth and meet every vendor. This year will be ToyFair the Mulberry Way! We'll work and make time for time play. Check back to read all about our adventures in Toyland!

P.S. We know it's Valentine's Day so if you see one of my Valentine's wondering around lost and lonely without me, give him a hug!

Michelle vs. Vanessa

Michelle and I have really gotten into fitness. She's probably more into it than I am though. She told me this morning that she was doing Zumba moves through the local cemetery as she walked her dogs. One of her moves looked kind of like an ostrich to me, but I'm definitely not the expert here. When we go to our Zumba class, I stand in the back, doing my best to be invisible. The other ladies say, "Come on up to the front; no one's looking at you." Yeah, right...I know that's not true because I definitely watch them and let me just say that I'm not the only non-expert there. When the hour class is over, I am covered in sweat with a heart rate that would rival that of an Olympian, and I have been well entertained, mostly by my own antics. (BTW, never heard of Zumba? Check out zumbafitness.com)

We're also crazy for racquetball. Michelle is teaching me. Nothing that requires any athletic skill comes naturally for me. That's probably why she likes to play with me. She told me today that although I lost (again), I'd made a valiant effort. My translation: "No matter how hard you tried, you failed and you'll never amount to anything on the racquetball court." (By the way, I immediately put the word "valiant" in my Book of Favorite Words.)

So I think that we will add a new dimension to our fitness program...one in which I can excel and possibly even win. A spelling bee perhaps...

P.S. Just so you know, Michelle is one of my favorite people in the world and I thank God everyday that she is a part of my life. (Of course, sometimes I thank him while holding a small doll of her likeness and a cushion of pins in my hands.)

Snow Day!

We held our first 2nd Saturday event today, Snow Day! Now as those of you from our neck of the woods well know, we don't see much snow in Madison, Georgia. But we love to read about it and talk about it and even make it. Yes, we made snow and snowballs! Michelle dazzled us with her storytelling abilities, reading my new favorite book, Thomas' Snowsuit by Robert Munsch, author of the beloved Love You Forever. If you haven't read it, you must! You'll laugh out loud when grouchy Thomas ends up wearing his teacher's dress. What mom hasn't battled with her child over what she (or he) refuses to wear! I remember the day my son announced he was no longer wearing anything that included even a hint of purple, and it seems as if 30% of my daughter's clothes made her itch.

We gathered with a capacity crowd and had a great time. The kids even made an edible snowman out of that preschool staple, marshmallows. It's amazing what you can do with a marshmallow! Add some pretzels, a dab of icing here and there, some black gel, a junior mint and somehow you end up with a snowman. Our February 2nd Saturday Love-fest is already full. So if you're interested in March, call now!

Gotta go...it's January and I'm always on a Flurry Watch.

Happy New Year!

I love a new year; it's a clean slate, a field of freshly fallen snow, one with no footprints whatsoever. You find your own path. You don't have to travel the same route you did the last time you found yourself navigating that same field. You have choices, which make that field that you've traveled more times than you can count, totally different from the last time you traveled it. It's time we all put the mistakes of the past behind us; unburden ourselves of the decisions that have weighed us down; release the hurts that we have held close, and FLY. Rise above it all. When you get enough distance between you and all that "stuff," you'll find what everyone else already knew. None of it even matters. Come fly with us in 2009!

The Vocabulary Vixen

Michelle and I share a love for words. We love to write them, speak them, dissect them, and even invent them. When we first opened our office together, we had a chalkboard (Michelle loves an old-fashioned chalkboard) on which we listed interesting words. We never really established what the criteria would be to qualify a word to make it to the board, which we should have. Most of the time we are in complete agreement as to the value of a word. But on occasion, one of us will laud the merits while the other is in total disagreement. It's at such times, that we really need some guidelines. We no longer have the board; now we each have a special book of Words to Remember. One would think that we each would feel the freedom to include any word we choose in our books, but we still critique one another's choices. Now I have to say that Michelle did present us with these books as Christmas gifts, but I'm not sure that means she can just override my decision to include a particular word. I did concede to duly note her opposition to the word "scurry." I, for one, like that word when used in the context in which I used it, which I won't go into here, but I will say it described my daughter Lindsey's movement across the racquetball court. I recognize that scurry has neither as many letters or syllables as Michelle's current favorite word "curmudgeon," but it does have its place on the list. And frankly, if she weren't such a curmudgeon, she'd know it.

If There Had Been a Contest.....

If there had been a window dressing contest this year,I would like to think that our holiday windows would have garnered a wee bit of attention. I can't begin to tell you how many people have commented on how our little penguin choir practice makes them smile each time they pass. Those little guys are so popular that most of them have already been presold with plans for pickup Christmas Eve. We hope our windows, like our bubbles, always bring a smile to your face.

Back to School

After being out of the classroom for a year and a half, I went back today to sub for a teacher friend. I have to admit that 20 years as a classroom teacher under my belt didn't keep me from being a little nervous. I know full-well what subs go through. I've heard the stories from the students and the subs and it's tough on everyone. I had a brief sub experience. It actually came several years into my teaching career. I was unable to start the 90-91 school year because I was on maternity leave, and my class was placed in the capable hands of a certified longterm sub. What I didn't realize was that the students saw her as their teacher. They didn't even know me. So when I started in mid-October, I was basically the sub. I can't count how many times the kids told me, "That's not the way Mrs. So and So does it." I barely knew Mrs. So and So, and I have to tell you, I didn't like her. She had sabotaged me! I know that's a little unfair, but you have to remember, I had a new baby, I was still a little hormone crazy, the students hated me, and I felt perfectly justified in blaming all my problems on Mrs. So and So. Things did not get better. However, heaven finally dealt me a card I could play. In December, 2 months into my prison sentence, I saw an interesting little tidbit on the Atlanta news. A convenience store had been robbed; that's not the interesting part. Get ready...here it is...the clerk being interviewed on TV was none other than expert teacher Mrs. So and So. The next time my class hailed her as the Classroom Queen, I threw that out there at them; their precious one was out of the business. And suddenly, I was back behind the podium, Mrs. So and So was safely out of the way selling lottery tickets, and once again I was Queen!

What's the opposite of arachnophobia?

You remember the nursery rhyme...little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, while their male counterparts are made of snips and snails and puppy-dogs' tails. Well, throw that out the window. We've met an adorable little preschooler named Presley who's made of sugar and spice and puppy-dog tails and...spiders! That's right, spiders! She came into Mulberry for the first time a couple of months ago when her precious family moved to Madison, and she immediately fell in love with our remote control tarantula. Everytime she comes in, which is weekly, she has to hold it, to stroke it, to love on it, and then she insists that her dad put it up on a high shelf so that no one else can get it. You see, she just can't risk some other spider-lover coming in and buying it. Now we've sold lots of spiders, but honestly I don't think we've had another customer quite like Presley. She honestly loves the hairy, creepy, crawly little thing! I don't think she even realizes that it actually moves. She loves it because she finds it "cuddly!" Word from Santa is that Presley can expect to find one under her tree on Christmas morning. I hope Mom and Dad video. Since we at Mulberry have been a part of that love story from the beginning, we don't want to miss a thing!

What do we want for Christmas?

Michelle and I are excited about the next few weeks. It's lots of fun seeing friends like you come in and make a fuss over the toys that we picked out just for your family at Christmas. Last February, we went to NYC to Toy Fair and selected many of the toys you'll find in Mulberry Toys today. We searched many catalogs to add even more. Nothing was purchased without you in mind. We want you to love your experience with us. We want shopping at Mulberry to be a part of every special occasion, birthday, and holiday. We want your children to grow up and come back here to introduce their children to their favorite childhood toy store. We want to be your friends, not just two crazy toy women! It's important to us that you recognize how grateful we are for you. We want to be able to keep doing what we've been doing these last 19 months...that's what we want for Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Did you take time to focus on all of your blessings today? Did you find a moment in between all of your other tasks (preparing the feast, cleaning the kitchen, serving the turkey, cleaning the kitchen, organizing a family game, cleaning the kitchen) to focus on all you have to be thankful for? If not, do it now. Maybe this was a tough year for you. Maybe you don't feel very grateful. All the more reason to stop and count your blessings. Here are mine:

1. I am warm and dry. My house is not the largest (or cleanest) on the block, but it is home.
2. I am loved. I have friends and family who let me know that I matter.
3. Even better, I have people that I love. The older I get the more I realize that the capacity to love is an even greater gift than being loved.
4. I am a unique individual. There is no one else out there like me.
5. I have a career that I love. I can hardly wait to go to work everyday!
6. I have a few pounds I'd like to lose. There are people who don't have enough to eat. I obviously have more than I need; for that I am grateful.
7. My life provides plenty of opportunities for me to laugh. Sometimes I laugh with others as they laugh at me. It doesn't matter; laughter is a beautiful gift!
8. Today, I lived.
9. The mistakes I've made are behind me.
10. I have the hope of a bright tomorrow.

Have you been making plans for Thanksgiving? We have to be careful, or we start thinking about Christmas and forget all about it until it's right upon us. I love Thanksgiving...good food, good friends, and lots of family, without any of the stress of the Christmas holiday. We always spend our Thanksgiving holiday with my family. My parents live a couple of hours from me and I don't get to pop in as often as I'd like, so I always look forward to a nice visit. My mother always overdoes it. There's too much food, which she then practically begs us to take back home with us, and I'm happy to oblige. Something happened between my mom's generation and my own. Or perhaps it just happened to me and all the other 40-something mothers out there have it all together in the kitchen. I still kind of flounder around in there. For starters, I wouldn't think about cooking without a recipe. I have a really hard time replicating my childhood favorites unless my mom is standing beside me because she never uses a recipe for anything. If I call her and ask her how much garlic I need, she doesn't know. Just add it until it tastes right. How much flour? Until it looks right. How can I cook with directions like that? What will happen when my mom is no longer doing the turkey and dressing? I guess my sister will have to stop going to her in-laws for Thanksgiving and stay home to fix my dinner. Sounds reasonable to me!