American Girl Store!!!!!

We just returned from 8 days out of town. We were all over the place - for a few days, between the 5 of us, we were in 3 different states. Anyway, all back home safe and sound now. We had a great trip - the only part of it that I have pictures of was the big trek to the American Girl store.

I love this company. They are completely overpriced, but it is worth every penny to me because they totally preserve the innocense of little girls.....super hard to find that these days. Marin loves the books, and she is starting to read them on her own now. We've watched 2 of the movies and even Reese can name almost every single historical doll.

We got there before the store even opened - the girls, me, my mom, and my sister in law, Shelley. It was so helpful to have extra help! Marin wanted to celebrate her b-day there, so we did. I don't actually have any pictures of it, but my mom does. They brought her a super cute cake and sang to her and the girls all got party favors. It was fun.

Marin got "Maggie" (a just like me doll) last Christmas. Bennett got Chrissa (girl of the year for this year) for her Birthday. They have other clothes for them, but they both wanted them to wear their "original" outfits to the store. Go figure. The night before we went to the store, Reese looked at me and asked, "I get a doll, too, Mommy?" I just couldn't tell her no. The great thing about the store was that they offer some stuff that you can get there that you can't get online or thru the catalog. Anyway, one of the "deals" they have right now is that you can buy the bitty twins as just singles. This was a bonus for me because I didn't want to just get her a bitty baby, because they don't have hair you can brush, and Reese really wanted to brush hair. So, I bought her a bitty twin (single!) before we went to lunch, so that everyone would have a doll at lunch. I can't even describe Reese's adorable face when she realized that the doll was really her very own.....it was so priceless.

The Bistro is so super cute and the food is very cute and was good. Not great, but good.

Bennett and Chrissa

Reese and Reese. Seriously. We tried to get her to change her mind, but there was no changing it. She wanted to name her doll Reese. So, Reese it is. She was very bothered by her hairstyle (the doll's) and kept asking if we could change it, so after we left, that was one of the first things we did.

Marin and Maggie

The aftermath....we did some damage in that store. I fell for the 6 inch dolls as well - they are so adorable and such a fun way to buy the historical dolls w/o having to actually buy the regular size dolls. So, each girl got one of those, among a few other things :-)

Bennett wanted an outfit to match Chrissa's

Marin wanted the yoga outfit - it is probably one of the most adorable outfits I've ever seen on the child and she loves it. My mom bought the matching doll outfit for Maggie to give to Marin for her b-day (her actual b-day isn't until August!)