Kigs Kigurumis Costume Review

Disclosure: I was sent these items to review free of charge from Kigs. All opinions in this post are my own. I did not receive any other compensation for this review. I am including links to each item for your convenience but do not receive anything if you purchase them.

Today I get to share with you a wonderful product. Rizzi from Kigs asked me if I would be interested in reviewing one of their children's costumes. When I saw how cute they were I knew I had to do it. I showed Hazel the choices of all the kids costumes. I figured for her to get full use, I should let her pick. She decided she liked the kangaroo outfit the best because it comes with the baby kangaroo. I liked the blue owl, but I couldn't persuade her. Her second choice was the pink rabbit--not a big surprise there. 

Hazel could not wait for it to arrive. When it finally came she was so excited to try it on. She put it right on and did not want to take it off. She was excited to realize Ducky could fit in the pouch with the baby kangaroo. I got her to take it off to eat dinner so she would not get it dirty. The next night however she insisted on wearing it to the Chinese restaurant for dinner. I had to wash it after that since there was some fried rice in the pouch. She discovered the next day the button to keep the baby in the pouch. Sorry I did not get any pictures with it buttoned in. The first night we discovered the zippered pockets. Something Hazel loves!! You can see the zipper in the picture below.

She has loved this costume. I think I have convinced her to be a kangaroo for the next Halloween which will mean no sewing for me!! The costume is made of fleece and is nice and comfortable and warm. They come in one size for children and they have an adult size as well. The best part of these for Halloween is clothes can be worn underneath them and Hazel could probably even get a jacket if it is cold and have the costume over it. This has been one of the dress up items she has worn the most and kept on the longest. 

A few days later we went to the zoo to see what they call Zoo Lights, and she wanted to wear her kangaroo costume. I let her, but with the snow and mud (since the snow was melting) she got it all dirty, so I washed it again. The tag says to handwash and not to tumble dry, but since it was fleece, I threw it into the washer (without checking the tag) and the drier on low and had no problems either time. It came out beautifully.

Baby Kangaroo is inside the jacket staying warm!

With the ease of wearing it and the obvious comfort since she keeps it on and puts it on herself, I can highly recommend this product. Hazel absolutely loves hers. So stop by and check out Kigs, and you can purchase the children's costumes for $54.99 with free shipping in the U.S. here. 

I would love to know which ones you prefer!! Enjoy!!

Merry Christmas with a few Nativity Crafts

Our Family in "Bethlehem"

Merry Christmas to one and all!! I hope you have a joyous holiday remembering the best gift we ever got was Jesus!!

On that note, here are a couple of Jesus crafts.

This is a simple one with half a walnut shell, peg doll and scrap of felt or fabric. Hazel added a face as well. I need to glue a ribbon on to it so we can hang it on the tree.

This one was inspired by the cinnamon stick manger at Childmade. We changed it a bit. We did not use anything on the back and just glued the sticks to each other. Then we added some "hay" instead of the quote. We used flannel instead of muslin because we had it and we made the gold ring out of a pipe cleaner. Hazel loved working with the cinnamon sticks.

For more Christmas crafts, books and ideas check out:

• Love ornament
• Advent Week 1: Hope
• Advent Week 2: Peace
• Advent Week 3: Joy
• Fruit Christmas Trees (perfect for any Christmas party) 
• Christmas Craft Round-Up
• Multicultural Christmas Books
• Must Read Christmas Books
• Christmas Pinterest Board

Multicultural Christmas Books

I promised last week to share some of the multicultural Christmas books we have been reading and/or have found. Today is the day to share! Now you may be asking why share books about other cultures. First I know I want my daughter to know about other cultures and show respect for all. Second, I think it is important to see books with people besides our own kind. The world is a diverse place and to be a part of it, we need to understand a bit about each other so we can find a way to be at peace with one another.

The books I am sharing I have divided into a few categories. The first is different culture books--they contain more than one culture in each book.

• Santa's North Pole Cookbook by Jeff Guinn is a book with recipes from all over the world. I find food a wonderful way to share cultures with Hazel.
• Three Wise Women by Mary Hoffman is one of my favorite Christmas books. It is about three women who see the star and follow it. They do not know how long they walk, but they know they must follow the star. They meet and walk together and find the stable with Joseph and Mary. Each finds a gift to give the baby. One woman brings bread she was baking, one tells stories and the third has only her young son, but he reaches out to the baby and shows love.
• Elijah's Angel by Michael J. Rosen is a story told by a young Jewish boy about his neighbor and friend, Elijah. Elijah is an elderly black man and a barber and woodcarver. As their friendship grows from visits after school, Elijah gives his young friend a Christmas angel he has carved. The Jewish boy is afraid to show the angel to his parents, but he loves it and his parents give him a way to accept a Christian gift and still be Jewish.

Now the groups are divided mostly by race. The largest group of books I found include Hispanic people. We have not found time to read all of these thus far, but I wanted to share them for you. I will give brief summaries and/or thoughts on the ones we have read.

•  A Doll for Navidades by Esmerelda Santiago is a wonderful story about Three Kings' Day and a young girl hoping for a doll. Her younger sister is also hoping for a doll. The younger one gets the doll they both want and the older girl must learn to deal with getting something else. It was a wonderful introduction for us to Three Kings' Day and the three kings instead of Santa Claus.
• Federico and the Magi's Gift by Beatriz Vidal is another story about Three Kings' Day. A young boy is afraid he will get nothing for Three Kings' Day since he was reprimanded for doing something wrong that day. It is his story about waiting for the Three Wisemen to bring the gifts.
• Carlos, Light the Farolito by Jean Ciavonne
• Nine Days to Christmas: A Story of Mexico by Marie Hall Ets and Aurora Labastida
• Mimi's Parranda by Lydia M. Gil
• La Noche Buena: A Christmas Story by Antionio Sacre is told by a young girl who is spending Christmas with her Cuban American father and his family in Miami for the first time. She discovers why her father describes Christmas Eve as the best night of the year.
• Grandma's Gift by Eric Velasquez is a story about a Puerto Rican boy spending the Christmas vacation with his grandmother. After preparing the Puerto Rican meal, they go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the boy sees for the first time that he wants to become an artist. The grandmother gives him the perfect gift--a set of paints.
• Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto
• The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaula is a wonderful story with a Christmas miracle/mystery in it. It describes the tradition of the Night of Las Posadas through the story. 
• Mama Had to Work on Christmas by Carolyn Marsden
• A Pinata in a Pine Tree by Pat Mora
• When Christmas Feels Like Home by Gretchen Griffith
• Three books on the story of the first poinsettia: each tells the tale of a poor child ashamed to go to mass in Mexico without a gift for Jesus and being told by an angel to bring weeds that become beautiful red flowers.
• Pablo's Christmas by Hugo C. Martin is a story of a young Mexican boy who has to take care of his family when his father leaves to find work in America. Pablo is not sure how he is going to make Christmas happy for his family and especially his young sisters. 

For our Native American Stories, we did not get a chance to read or even find too many at the library. However each of these books share different tribes stories of Christmas. Some are the traditional Christmas story in Native American pictures and others are more modern stories and/or memories of tribe members. Then there are a few that are Christmas songs--two of which are The Huron Carol.  Instead of giving each description I thought I would share this great YouTube video of The Huron Carol.

For our African Descent books, I found nine plus the two from Kenya I shared last year: A Kenyan Christmas by Aunty Kiko and A Kenya Christmas by Tony Johnston. Some of these are about African Americans, some from Africa and one is from Trinidad. One of these books reminded me a of a dear friend with an angel collection. She tended to buy any black angel she found since they were not easy to find here.

For our Asian Christmas books, I found a few picture books and a couple chapter books (the last two). 

• Yoon and the Christmas Mitten by Helen Recorvits tells the tale about a young Korean girl who wants to celebrate Christmas now that she lives in America or at least she wants Mr. Santa Claus to come to her house like he will for the other boys and girls at her school. 
• Tree of Cranes by Allen Say is about a young Japanese boy and his mother preparing for the boy's first Christmas.
• The Stone by Dianne Hofmeyr is a Persian legend about the magi. This is a story that Hazel and I both really enjoyed. Each magi brings a gift for what he thinks the new king will be and when he accepts each gift and gives them a gift of a stone in return they are puzzled, but realize he is all three things: Healer, Ruler and Holy One.
• Mama Bear by Chyng Feng Sun is a story about a young Chinese American girl who wants to find away to buy an expensive teddy bear for herself and her mother for Christmas. Her mother needs to fix the heater and cannot afford to buy it for her. The girl discovers some important lessons throughout the story.

Those are the multicultural Christmas books we are checking out this year. Do you have any to add to the list?



If you are looking for some books about the nativity check out here.

Christmas in Jamaica--Christmas in Different Lands

I joined with a group of Multicultural Kid Blogs to present Christmas in Different Lands. I get the pleasure of presenting Christmas in Jamaica. Last week we made a Jamaican Sweet Potato Pone for Around the World in 12 Dishes. Cooking the Caribbean Way by Cheryl Davidson Kaufman said it was a typical dish for Christmas morning. All the references on-line suggested it being a favorite dessert. For the most part Christmas in Jamaica is similar to Christmas in the United States (and much of the world). They have Santa Claus or Father Christmas. They decorate trees and/or hang lights and exchange gifts. Many places describe it as a non-stop party time. I wanted to find things that made the celebration different from other parts of the world.

Advent Week 4: Love

Before I begin this post's content, I want to share that I just updated my Winter Solstice post with the best book to read!! We did not receive it from the library before the original post. The addition is towards the end of the post. Now onto our Advent post.

This is the fourth week of Advent. We light our final purple candle. As you light each candle you remember how Jesus brought us hope, peace, joy and now love. Some Advent wreaths have a white candle in the middle. This candle is for Christ and is lit either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Now love is such an important theme. There are so many Bible scriptures you can think of to go with love..."...The greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13. We included God Gave Us Love by Lisa Tawn Bergren in our books to read today. I feel this is a perfect book to read to explain the theme.

For those that do not know this series of books, Little Cub learns about God from different people in her family. In this one, she is with her grandfather. They talk about how God wants us to love everyone. They also talk about how there are different kinds of love and the greatest love comes from God. And yes, they mention God sending is only Son to us. 

When we did our clay ornaments last week, we also made some love ones.  We used love rubber stamps to get the words on them. 

The other craft is to make heart ornaments from pipe cleaners and tri-beads. They are very easy. Put the beads in whatever pattern (or no pattern) onto the pipe cleaner. Then bend and twist the ends of the pipe cleaner to make a heart. Now you can add a ribbon or just hang it as we did.

Update on our Advent Calendar Crafts:

Donkey Ornament

Hazel was working on the wisemen today. I did the camel with the wisemen while she made the wisemen. I also glued the stable together for her. I like how they are coming out and think she is doing a wonderful job. We added some white wool to the sheep and the shepherds. Hazel decided the wisemen needed gold and silver and used glitter glue. She has been really enjoying this year's Advent calendar. 

How did you celebrate Advent this year?

For more on our Advent:

• Advent Craft Calendar
• Advent Wreaths
• Advent Week 1: Hope
• Advent Week 2: Peace
• Advent Week 3: Joy
• Advent Calendar Round-Up