Lightning McQueen and Jelly Giraffe

So, as much as I swore up and down (before becoming a parent) that my child would never own any mass-marketed, commercialized, licensed character merchandise, I have given in....to Lightning McQueen! For those of you without children, Lightning is the main character in the "Cars" movie, and Riley is currently obsessed with him. I don't think he even understands the story of the movie, but show him something with Lightning on it, and he wants it, NOW! And this kid has got eyes like a hawk for Lightning merchandise. I can be walking in any store, and all of the sudden hear Riley whining for something. Sure enough, there will be some random product with the "Cars" characters on it- toys, diapers, even soup! Boy, do those marketers know what they're doing or what?

I try to restrain myself, and have only bought a few small Lightning items for him, including one of his favorite possessions, a Lightning pillow. But dang, it can really be hard to resist a two-year-old sometimes! His little eyes light up, and he gets so excited that occasionally I give in. Anyway, obviously, this is the theme for the most current spread in his book...

Then, Noah's latest spread is about his own favorite toy. He has officially chosen his "lovey", a cuddly giraffe that I've named Jelly. Learning from experience with Riley, we've gone ahead and purchased two spares so that we don't run into any disasters when it inevitably gets lost (Riley has three puppy blankies for the same reason!).

For some reason, the more I look at Noah's pages, the more I like them. I really like how the patterns of the underneath papers are coming through. (If you can't see real well here, you can always look at the photos on my Flickr page for larger images.) I'll have to experiment a little more with this....

Hope everyone's having a great week!