Emma's Editorials: Our sister is coming!!!

Hi everyone!  I am sooo excited!  Mama revealed to Charlie and I only a month or so ago that we actually have a middle sister.  Her name is Piper Olivia, and she's 12 years old.  She has long hair that is the same color as mine, but straight like Charlie's.  She has beautiful brown eyes and fair skin like ours.  Mama has been trying to find her for a while now so that we can finally all be together.  Just a few days ago, she finally found Piper!

The great news is that Piper should be arriving sometime in the next week or so.  Charlie and I are so excited to meet her.  It's going to be really hard to wait!  We have a lot of work to do.  First, we need to make some space for her in our little room.  I'd really like to do something special to welcome her too, but I'm not sure what would be good.  Do you guys have any ideas?

Here's a pic Mama showed us of Piper.  Isn't she pretty?

Tess's Tidbits: My New Doll!! :D

I am so excited that I can hardly contain myself!  I've been so eager to share my news with all of you. :)

As any of you who follow Mama's blog already know, Mama was able to order my special edition Samantha doll since Grandmama sent for Emma and Charlie's cousin Ruthie at the same time!  Mama didn't even tell me until the day my Samantha arrived. 

I can't even begin to describe how excited I was to finally get that beautiful box.  Of course, any of you who have received a new AG doll in a box can relate! :)  I just had to take everything in for a few moments before I actually opened her.

Then I opened the box...

...and I couldn't help shrieking with delight!  She was sooo beautiful, and she was finally mine!!

I took just a moment to look at the book that came with her.

But after that, it was all about my beautiful Samantha doll!  She looked even better in my hands than she had in the catalog.

She is absolutely my favorite doll ever!!!  I will always love my Rebecca doll, too, but Sam holds a very special place in my heart. :)

After I opened her, I got dressed up in my matching Samantha dress and asked Mama to take some pics of Sam and I together. :)  Here are a few of my favorites:

It's funny, our dresses aren't that different in real life, but in the pics, they look like they are completely different shades!  We're also not completely matching because I couldn't find my ribbon that looks just like Sam's, and I don't own a pair of white tights.  It was close enough, though. ;) 

Hope you enjoyed the pics!  You can definitely expect more posts with Sam and Rebecca in them. :D

Emma's Editorials: Our Cousin Moves to Town (My First Official Post!) :D

Hi everyone!  It's Emma, filling in for Tess and Maggie.  I had so much fun writing my Christmas post, and I've been talking to Tess about how much I'd love to do more blogging.  It took a while, but Tess finally convinced Maggie to let me have my own posts on here. :D  I'm so excited!  I'm not as good at writing as Tess and Maggie are, but I hope you'll bear with me all the same. :}

For my first official "Emma's Editorials" post, I thought nothing could be better than a special announcement.  Our cousin Ruthie has moved to town!  She's living with Mama's mom (we all call her Grandmama), so we will get to see her a lot!  Charlie and I are so excited!  We didn't even know we had a cousin until Mama told us.  We know how much fun Tess and Hailey have with their cousin Katie, so we're really looking forward to getting to know Ruthie better.  She's really nice.

Here's a pic of the three of us together on the day Ruthie arrived:

On Saturday, we got to go visit Ruthie at Grandmama's house.  In Mama's family, they do the egg hunt and Easter dinner on the Saturday before Easter.  That way, Easter Sunday is all about Jesus, not candy and bunnies.  Plus, most of Mama's family is usually involved in the Easter Cantata at the church, so Easter Sunday is already really crazy without adding anything else. :) 

Charlie and I were so excited to visit Ruthie!  Mama got us all dressed up for the occasion.  Charlie got to continue wearing the dress she'd picked out for Mama's oldest daughter's birthday party.  Since I was more casual, Mama wanted to choose a nice dress for me to wear, too.  I really liked the dress she got for me, but I could have done without the big, pink bow in my hair.  It was a little juvenille for a 14 year old, in my opinion. I didn't want to hurt Mama's feelings, though, so I wore it anyway. 

When we first got to Grandmama's house, we found Ruthie hard at work, dyeing Easter eggs.  She looked so cute in her new Easter dress!  Grandmama had also provided her with a special apron so she wouldn't get the dye on her dress.

Ruthie showed us how to do it.  She put each egg carefully in the cups full of dye, then let them sit long enough for the color to stay.

I was really impressed.  I'd never dyed eggs before. 

Ruthie asked if we wanted to dye eggs too.

Charlie thought it was a great idea, but then I realized that we didn't have any way to protect our clothes (Easter egg dye really stains).  We decided we'd just watch Ruthie instead.

Soon, the last two eggs were ready.  Ruthie took them out, and then we visited and played together for a while so that the eggs could dry.

At last the eggs were all dry.  Ruthie put them in a beautiful basket.

Now we could go hide them and do our Easter egg hunt!!  We stopped for a family photo first. (Sorry, we didn't get any pics of our actual egg hunt, but we had a lot of fun!)   Happy Easter, everyone! :)

Maggie's Memos: We're Back! :)

Hi there...did you miss us?  Okay, here's the thing.  First, we had to help Mama get ready for her daughter's party.  Then, the day after that, Mama lost her camera...the one that had ALL of the pics we took for this post (seriously, what is it with humans and losing stuff?).  Finally, yesterday, Mama's mom found the camera (it had been in the trunk of the car...long story there).  But we've been waiting for a chance to do a post since then.  Mama's 3 girls all have ear infections again and that's kind of thrown off the usual routine.  All day yesterday, it was impossible to get to the computer without being spotted. 

So, there you have it.  All that to say...we're finally back and hopefully close to some sort of normalcy! :}  

But you must be wondering about the party! Well, it was a HUGE success.  True to her word, Mama allowed all of us to be there to share the event.  We felt very festive gracing the top of the piano, and we had a great view of everything.  

There were LOTS of little girls, dolls and stuffed animals there...almost too many to count.  And adding sugar to that didn't help (you should have seen how many Oreos some of those girls crammed onto their plates!).    

Mama's aunt and mom even brought their dolls, Kate and Jo.  It was nice to see them again. :)

We got a chance to make a few new friends, as a few of the girls put their dolls on the piano with us.  Overall, though, we just watched, waiting for our chance to go raid the refreshment table! :)

Okay, I'm getting hungry again just looking at these pics!  You'll notice that Mama was decent enough to put both doll and girl-sized snacks out.  Of course, when it comes to Oreos, I think I can manage a regular-sized cookie, thank you very much!  And I have no idea why stupid Blogger uploaded the last pic sideways.  Grrr...it's so frustrating!

Mama's aunt and mom made all of these little blue party hats for each of the dolls and stuffed animals that came.  We even got to try a few on after everyone left (as you'll notice from the pic at the top of this post).

Here are all of our close-ups. ;) We decided that since it was a "Dolly and Me" party, we should bring our favorite dolls or stuffed animals, too.

Emma got the place of honor at the table, of course. Not like Mama plays favorites, or anything.

Katie brought her favorite red teddy bear...hmm...I actually don't know if he has a name! She loves him to death, though. She's really excited Mama got her such a nice big backpack so that from now on he can go with her on her travels.

Tess brought her Rebecca doll. I don't know how much you'll be seeing of Rebecca now that Tess's new Samantha doll is here...but more on that in a later post.

I decided to bring my stuffed unicorn, Fable. I know, I don't strike you as the stuffed purple and white unicorn type, right? Well, with this guy and my pink unicorn Cotton Candy I make an exception. I've had them for as long as I can remember...they're nostalgic. And if you have a problem with that, you can have a nice knuckle sandwich.

Oh, and you may have noticed that everyone else is dressed up, while I'm still in my usual pants and newsboy cap. That's because Mama let us choose what to wear. At first, she was going to dress us up all frilly and everything. I wanted to gag. At the last minute, though, she decided she didn't have enough fancy dresses for everyone, and she wanted to kind of match Emma. Apparently Mama's not into wearing frilly dresses, either. ;)

Charlie chose Buzz Lightyear as her party guest. I don't know that he really counts as a doll OR a stuffed animal, but Tess told me to be nice and not point that out. You'll notice Charlie's actually wearing a dress willingly. That's only because Mama told her it was okay to wear her cowgirl boots and her Buzz Lightyear necklace, too.

Hailey decided to bring her Rapunzel doll (no surprise there). I'm thinking her stuffed Hello Kitty that used to be her favorite is starting to feel pretty left out, though.

Mama's daughter's Josefina got to join us, too. Didn't Mama do a great job with her hair? Not that I'd want to wear mine that way, mind you. Still, I'll give credit where credit is due.

Here are Mama's middle daughter's two dolls:  Leisel and Felicity.  Having a little problem there, Leisel?

 

Check out all of that loot!  I offered to help Mama's daughter open her presents, but she said she'd be just fine.  Hmmph.  Some people just won't accept good help when it's offered.

Overall, it was a great party.  Mama did surprisingly well handling that many little girls.  They did a little craft, had their pictures taken, ate snacks, watched Mama's daughter open her gifts, and then had some playtime together.  I think a big part of the success was having Mama's mom and aunt there.  I'm pretty sure Mama would have been a lot more frazzled handling 12 little girls by herself! :}

Of course, the best part for us was after the party, when we could all relax and finish up the few leftovers (the Oreos were just about GONE).  Dorcas and Josefina were really happy with the party results.  Dorcas got a new dress, and Josefina finally got her Nina doll she's been wanting for a long time.

Felicity was just plain worn out.

Molly was recovering in shock in the corner, where Mama's youngest daughter had placed her and then promptly forgotten her.  Molly got a lot more traffic down there than we did up on the piano!

Hope you enjoyed the pics...sorry the post was so delayed.  Keep checking back for more posts.  We have several in the works for you. :)

Maggie's Memos: Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!!!

No, it's not "talk like a pirate day" (and besides, that would be "Aaaarrrrr", not "Aaaarrrggghhhh"). ;)  I'm just completely frustrated here.  I hate promising things and then not following through with them.  I know I keep saying that Katie's interview is coming up, and then not doing it.  I do have good excuses, but that still doesn't make me feel better.

First, Katie got sick.  And really, she's been going back and forth for a few weeks now.  Thankfully, none of the rest of us have gotten it yet.  Yesterday, she was finally feeling like herself again.  Those of you who read Mama's blog know this because Katie posed for Mama's post yesterday. 

So now that she's finally better, can I do the interview?  Noooo, because Mama is completely freaking out about her oldest daughter's party this Saturday.  The house is a disaster area.  No, really.  It looks like a toy store exploded in the livingroom and playroom.  I think a laundry store might have exploded in the livingroom, too.  So she's all panicky now, because today she's going to be staying with Papa's grandmother all day, and Friday she's reading to her daughter's first grade class.  That leaves Wednesday and Thursday to clean things up.  Let me tell ya, we could sure use Mary Poppins and her "snap" and "Spoonful of Sugar" song to help us out here.  I tried singing the song when Mama was panicking about the house yesterday.  She didn't take it too well.

So to make a long story short, Mama has now decided that EVERYONE needs to pitch in to help with the cleaning so we can get it done on time.  Seriously?  I mean, what are we, her little servants or something?  Maybe she's getting us mixed up with the elves in "The Elves and the Shoemaker" (I know, I know, they didn't clean the house, but they did help out...and no, we're not as tiny as elves, either.  Sheesh!! So that wasn't the greatest comparison.  Picky, picky!).  All I can say is, if she asks us to clean the bathroom, she's going to have a mini revolution on her hands!

Since we'll be busy with the drudgery of household chores this week, I highly doubt we'll be doing any more posts until after the party.  Let me tell you, though, we'd better get invited to the "Dolly and Me" party after all the work we're going to be putting in to make it happen!

I guess that's about it.  Just wanted to let you know that you probably won't hear from us until next week sometime.  And can I just say, 32 followers in a matter of days?  Wow, you flatter us!  Thanks for being patient.  I'd be sending annoyed comments by now. :}

Have a good week...may you avoid housework like the plague!!!!  Too bad we can't.

Maggie's Memos: Whoo-hoo!!!!! 25 Followers!! :)

Wow, we finally hit 25 followers!  That means we're catching up to Mama (she's up to 52 as of today...it was 53 yesterday, or so she claims).  So Tess and I just wanted to send a big thank you out there to all of our wonderful followers.  We've had a great time sharing our thoughts and opinions.  It's nice to know someone actually cares enough to read them.  :}  

So, Mama talked about her next goal being 100 followers.  I think she needs a nice dose of reality.  But, the goal idea is a nice one.  Tess and I decided maybe we should have a goal too.  We'd be happy to reach 50 followers...that's more than we ever expected.  In fact, last October we were actually thinking about quitting.  We only had 2 or 3 followers, and things were rough.  Now we're so thankful we stuck with it!  This blog has become more successful than we ever dreamed it could be when we were struggling in October. :)  I guess it just goes to show you...don't quit!  You never know what the future may hold. :)

I guess that's about it.  If you're hoping for some super-duper surprise or giveaway or something, tough potatoes.  This is creative as I get after a full weekend.  Oh, Tess is suggesting we post a few pics of Emma and Charlie's day outside yesterday.  I don't know why we should do that, since WE weren't invited and this is a blog about US, but....OUCH!!  Okay, okay Tess.  I'm loading the pics now.  Man, that girl can pinch!!

So without further ado, here are some pics of Emma and Charlie enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, while the rest of us were stuck in our dark, stuffy room.  All I can say is Tess and I had better get some outside time pretty soon, or I'm going to go insane!!!!  I've totally got cabin fever...I might even have to sing the song if I get cooped up much longer.   (You know, from "Muppet Treasure Island"?  Come on, guys.  It's a classic...when you're in the right mood, that is!)

These pics and more will be featured in a future post, at least if Tess has anything to say about it! :}

Katie's interview is still in the works!!!  I know I keep saying this, but I haven't forgotten about it.  Just a matter of getting her completely recovered and editing my post.  Talk to you all soon!