Today was the official start of my holiday shopping. Lists have become shorter in the past couple of years, as my family draws one name in an effort to de-materialize the season a bit. For fear of revealing surprises, I can’t say precisely what I purchased; however, my niece is but ten months young, so I felt I had to share this sweet set of alphabet blocks with you:
Old-fashioned wooden blocks
My mother suggested them months ago as the perfect gift for my favorite (and only 
) niece. As you can see, they are colorful, easy to hold and a great way to begin letter recognition. As you cannot see, they are affordable and have French vocabulary on them. I can’t wait for FRH to start using them and share some artsdevivre moments.
The rest of the shopping day cannot be revealed; however, DPE and I had fun browsing through shops like aMuse, where I could hardly resist these keys-for-babies:
Baby friendly keys
. We also wandered through 10,000 Villages and Su Casa, holder of some fabulous Paris wall art that I have not yet managed to hunt down online. I left Fells Point feeling a bit accomplished and knew I was really meant to be productive when I pulled up to the area generic mall and proceeded directly into a parking spot front row, adjacent to the Nordstrom entrance. As I finish this entry, I’m about half way done with my shopping, and looking forward to hunting down the rest of my treasures to share with family, friends and others.
