The Miniverse Make It Mini Kitchen by MGA Entertainment

I've always loved miniature food, and have gotten even more interested in this type of thing since Lena moved into the Rainbow High House and started her own series of reviews: Tea With Lena.  After all, if Lena is going to be inviting guests over to her place for a chat and a snack, she's going to need a well-stocked kitchen, right?

Way back in the first Tea With Lena post, Ryleigh left a comment that mentioned MGA's Miniverse food. The Miniverse toys are primarily little surprise ball kits that include everything you need to make a tiny fake food dish.  I was immediately excited about Ryleigh's suggestion, but of course it took me almost nine months to act on it.

I'm happy that I was so slow in pulling this review together, though, because MGA has released several new Miniverse products during the last few months.  The most interesting thing to me is the Make It Mini Kitchen.  I love kitchen-themed toys, and I suspect this particular one will be popular during the holidays.  So, today I'll explore several of the Miniverse options that are currently available, including the kitchen set, and I'll keep my eye on how useful each item might be to Lena and her 1:6 friends.

Lena with a Miniverse Make It pizza.

Mali and Lilli's Boston Adventure

There has been a lot going on in my life recently!  A few weeks ago, in a very spontaneous decision that I might live to regret, I got a job.  I didn't really set out to get a job, I actually just wanted to do some volunteer work at a local no-kill animal shelter.  But that effort somehow translated itself into a part time job.  So my schedule is going to be a bit chaotic for the next few weeks as I get used to this new reality.  I'm optimistic that I can keep the blog going at a fairly normal rate, by writing shorter reviews or perhaps less frequent reviews, but who knows.  I will certainly do my best to make it awesome.

To add to the complexity of life, I also had a four-day trip to Boston planned around this past weekend.  My son and his lovely girlfriend still live in Beantown, and we wanted to go visit them.  I was very excited about the trip, but I didn't really feel like I could miss a weekend of blogging--what with the new constraints on my schedule and everything.

My solution to this problem was to find a small doll or two to bring with me on the trip, and try to take all of the photographs I'd need for a review while I was on vacation.  I also thought I could actually write the whole review while I was away, but that was unrealistic.  So here I am back in New Jersey, grabbing a few hours before work to tell you the tale of two little friends and all of the fun things they did together in Boston:

Little Friends Mali and Lilli by HABA, $11.99 each.

Patron Post: Kidz 'n' Cats Jennet by Sonja Hartmann

One of the interesting things about blogging for a decade is monitoring which dolls have endured that expanse of time and which have been discontinued.  For example, it doesn't surprise me that American Girl is still alive, thriving, and pretty much unchanged from 2013.  And it's great that some smaller 18-inch doll companies, like A Girl for All Time, Carpatina, Maru and Friends, and even My Salon Doll are still making their products.  Other brands have not been as fortunate.  My Twinn dolls, which are close to my heart, were discontinued in 2016--possibly because of widespread eye problems.  The Extra Special Dolls met a similar fate.  But another casualty of the last decade, and one that took me by surprise, was the Kidz n Cats line by Sonja Hartmann.

I've actually written two reviews of Kidz n Cats dolls in the past: a comprehensive review of Evita in 2013, and a shorter look at two Henriettes in 2018.  And I guess we can count the brief review of the mini doll, Annie, too.  In all of those cases, there were a lot of quality issues and design disappointments that prevented me from thoroughly enjoying the dolls.  Frankly, I struggled to see why the brand was so popular.

But then my lovely new patron, Lillian, suggested that I take one more look at the Kidz.  She even suggested a specific doll, Jennet, who happens to be a character that I remember admiring a great deal back when she first came out in 2016.  So, because of some pangs of nostalgia over the loss of the Kidz n Cats brand, and because I cherish my patrons, today I'll be talking about Jennet:

Kidz 'n' Cats Jennet, by Sonja Hartmann (discontinued).