When you're shopping for a toy for your child, the best place to go is to ask a bunch of your friends. They'll tell you not just what was fun, or cute, but what really held their child's attention ... of course, that's the basic premise of Epinions anyway (learning from your peers' experience!). So when I needed to find a fun gift for my almost-three year old daughter, I asked my friends -- the kids & family advisors.

"Get a Loving Family doll house..." they urged me. "But my daughter's not really into dolls..." I said, reluctant to dish out 70 bucks on a big pink dollhouse. In the end, though, I heeded to their overwhelming advice... and boy, am I glad I did. Those moms really knew what they were talking about!

The Doll House
This is quite the little dollhouse. First of all, it's fairly big - about two and a half feet wide and almost two feet high, when fully extended. This is a fold-open dollhouse, so when you look at the front of the house, you see a front door, an upstairs balcony, several windows and some shrubbery. Cute, like the front of a real house, but with a bright pink roof.

On the back is where all the action takes place. Unlike some dollhouses that are simply "roofless", this one folds open so that the entire back is open flat. Each room is exposed individually. There are three floors, with separate rooms on each one. On the first floor are a family room with fireplace, a living room/dining room area, and a kitchen. In the kitchen is a built-in refrigerator (doors swing open), microwave (door opens), oven (door opens) and sink with fold-out tray. Very cute, and cozy.

In the living room there is a staircase leading to the upstairs area. Here you find three more rooms - a bathroom, a bedroom area with balcony, and another smaller room which seems to work best as a nursery.

On the top floor is a little attic room (without access, though, we are just left to imagine how they get up there). This is the little girl's room, and is very cute and cozy as well.

Out of Box and Into Your Heart
This comes almost fully assembled. There isn't any tricky assembling required, which was fortunate for us since we were setting this up under the Christmas tree at almost midnight on Christmas eve! What is required, though, is a lot of careful sticker decoration to make all of the windows, appliances, etc. appear real. Fortunately the guides are fairly clear, so this was completed in only a few minutes. Well, more than a few and less time than it took me (my husband and I were racing) to assemble my son's marble maze toy... but that's another story!

You also get some basic furniture with the dollhouse, as well as some basic family people. You get a sofa, swing for the babies (attaches to an archway in the living room), two cribs with little blankets, and your family. Evidently sets vary as to who is included with your dollhouse, because my set (whoops, did I say that? I mean my daughter's set... ahem...) included a mother, father, and two babies. Babies are evidently boy and girl, since they are diaper-color-coded.

Mother is blonde and has a perky smile, but is casually dressed in a sweater and jeans. Her arms and legs bend, and she can pick up baby, rock her, or sit on the sofa. Dad is brunette and also casually attired in a polo shirt, jeans and topsiders (preppy dad, evidently!). He also bends and can pick up baby with a special arm motion. We haven't been too successful with this, but other parents assure me baby isn't supposed to fly through the air when you do this so I have to assume I'm just a little too forceful. Ahem. What can I say? I swear I never did that with a real baby... really.

Playing with the Loving Family and thier house
Creative play is the name of the game here. My little daughter and my six-year-old son both love this house. We have since added several pieces of furniture, and they love to move the pieces around and pretend to be parents, kids, etc. It's interesting for us to see what they emulate, what words they use when they "discipline" the kids (an educational experience!) and what they find especially amusing.

One thing that's interesting to me is that they have never attempted to play with the house from the front - it is totally set up as a back-only home. It might have been nice if there were a way to open it up to two-sided play, but it works well as it is.

When my husband set this up on Christmas eve, he had the Dad tending the two babies while Mom napped on the sofa (much to the amusement of my in-laws, who were visiting). I rearranged it when he wasn't looking, to have Dad kicking back on the sofa, while Mom ran upstairs, rocked a baby, then ran downstairs, and cooked dinner. Ran upstairs, got the baby, ran downstairs, put baby in the swing, got Dad a beer from the fridge, ran upstairs to get the laundry.... in any case, we were amused before the kids even got up and found the dollhouse.

What I like
My kids will both play with this for ten to thirty minutes at a time. They play house, and like to move the furniture around, pretend to be Mommy, etc. It's fun to watch them and I like the fact that they are practicing their manners (I hear my daughter saying excuse me when she knocks over a table, etc.) and having fun. Both of my kids can play on this at one time, or outside around the house. I also have several other family people now and like that my kids don't see "skin color", but rather focus on playing together and the house. It's a nice lesson for all of us, I think.

There are also some cute touches in the furniture (that you add on) which make it real, and fun to play with. Lamps light up, radios ring, beds spring, videos "play" in the vcr, etc... it's very cute, and well thought out.

What You Should Know in Advance
Your purchasing is not done when you buy the dollhouse. You will of course instantly need a bedroom set, bathroom set, family room, the kid's rooms, etc. Plan on spending far more on accessories than you did on the dollhouse!

Secondly, and this may just be me, but I have trouble figuring out where things go. I kept putting the nursery furniture in the parent's bedroom (duh) which I figured out once we had the parent's bedroom set. On the positive side, it's all play, and like a real house, you can arrange it any way you want. Want to put the toilet in the kitchen? Sure, feel free.... but I guarantee you even a three year old will look at you with disdain and move it upstairs with a gentle "no, no, no" chiding. In any case I finally saved the back of one of the accessory packages, which has a great layout of the house with all sorts of furniture in it. So now at least I know how to fit it all in, if I want to!

Finally - and again, this is probably just me - but it seems a little confusing to have both school-aged kids and babies. Our set came with two babies, and in the older sets there are side-by-side siblings. I guess this is so you can have the babies grow up into older kids, but I cannot imagine my daughter tolerating us tossing out the babies so we can have grown up kids. Our solution? We have the daughter upstairs, the two babies in the nursery (and it's crowded with the changing table and two cribs!) and the son sleeps on the sofa. Luckily my daughter has not figured out yet that he doesn't have a bed... but my six year old son already asked. "Hey, where's the little boy's bed?" he queried. "Oh, we haven't bought that yet, he is just camping out on the sofa..." I replied, distracting him then with a full discussion of what kindof bed he thought we ought to buy. The point, of course, is that if you have the little girl in her room and the baby (or babies) in the nursery there is no bedroom left for the little boy. Hmmmm....

Overall Recommendations
I will have to concede that this is, indeed, the best present my daughter has ever received. We have had this since Christmas, and it has received far more playtime than any other item in our house, bar none. My son also likes it, and friends and relatives who come to play are instantly drawn to it. I'm thinking of buying this for my niece for her 7th birthday, as well.

If you have a daughter between the age of 3 and 8, I would highly recommend this as a fun and creative play environment for her. I will add that most boys will love this as well (although I've overheard a few "typical boy" conversations when my son plays, involving gore and blood... sigh...). Unfortunately, the plastic roof is this bright pink and most boys will automatically cringe when they see the color. When my son's friend was over, my son was quick to point out that this was his sister's toy ("It's a GIRL TOY", he said)... of course, both boys played with it for a good thirty minutes.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this toy, with the caveat that a lot of the fun comes from the add-on family, friends and furniture which are all sold separately. As a mom who never really played with dolls, I was surprised at how fun this house is, and how much both of my kids like it. Two thumbs up to Fisher Price for the Loving Family Dollhouse!

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 65
Type of Toy: Playscene