"Saving" my son's old Matchbox cars from his Disney's Pixar Car's OBSESSION!

Before Toby, our ALMOST 3 year old (waaaah please stop growing up) was born, my husband, our almost 10 year old (sigh) daughter Shayleigh and I would look forward to and get excited over normal (I think) things. That is until Toby came along...

Toby is completely, 100% head over heels for anything and everything that has to do with Disney Pixar Cars/Car's 2.  Since the first time he saw the movie's, not even a year ago, Mater and McQueen have been his best friends...he pushed Thomas and Friends aside (right after he got EVERY Thomas play set made at his Thomas themed 2nd birthday party) and he hasn't looked back.  From the time he got his first die-cast (metal looking/hard) car and we saw how ecstatic it made him, it wasn't long before our whole family became obsessed with Cars too.  

Now, I'm not saying that we're obsessed with the cars themselves, our obsession is based solely on finding a new character that he doesn't have, and seeing the excitement in his eyes when we give it to him.

Before I got to this "obsessed" state, I had to accept the fact that the collection of Thomas and Friends toys were OUT along with every other toy other than his Car's. At the beginning I assumed this Car's obsession would dwindle over time....I was wrong! So when I accepted that his first "love" was here for the long haul, I started to go through the piles of all the other toys that weren't being played with. I donated 2 big trash bags full of all the toys he had outgrown (no more kids for us) and I put 3 big Tupperware bins full of toys to be "rotated" in the basement. 

For some reason, when i was going through Toby's "non Car's cars" I couldn't help but think of Woody & his friends in Toy Story!!!  I know it's strange (and to a non-parent [probably even some parents] I probably sounded really silly) but I felt really bad for those little cars and trucks. I just kept picturing them talking to each other, all stressed out and sad, every time I left the room..."Boy do I wish Toby would play with us" or "I hope we don't get thrown away!"...I tried, but I couldn't put them in a box so I held on to the hope that all our money (and our family/friend's money) was spent on car toys for our boy, wouldn't be put to waste. 

Now, Norm and I have been parents for almost 10 years but for some reason Shayleigh's toys were different...maybe because the things she was into didn't stem from a movie.

After a lot of trying to sneak different toys into his Car's case (with no success), I came up with an idea, AND IT WORKED!!!:

Toby's old "sad" cars that haven't gotten played with in EVER... 
 

are now fun again!!!

I super glued different sizes of googly eyes (bought at Michael's) onto ALL of his "random" cars/trucks/planes, gave each a name and wrote it on the bottom of each with a black sharpie...he loved it!!! I am so glad that all it took was some glue and googly eyes to help all of his cars out of their depression ;)! When Toby saw them lined up, he didn't just see eyes glued on, he saw new "friends" for him and his Disney Car's

If you have the same "problem" and want to save your son's (or daughter's) old or new (poor things) matchboxes/no name cars/trucks/trains etc. here are 2 tips so you don't have your child coming back telling you that an eye fell off:

Toby was so happy & he really thought his "new" cars lived in Radiator Springs!!!

1.) When you get the googly eyes make sure you look and see if they are self stick "sticker" eyes...I didn't realize that one pack of the eyes I bought were peel back and stick (convenient and smart? yes and yes but not for this purpose) so after a couple weeks some of the eyes kept falling off with a white spot in the space where the eye was glued. After re-gluing about 45 eyes I made the connection. Even though they are "stick on" I would still use glue to be sure you don't have a melt down...or 20 .

2.) Use Super-Glue and not just Elmer's glue.