All American Girls

 If you were around the girls at all September through December of last year, you know that all they wanted for Christmas was an American Girl doll.  There was seriously nothing else on the list.  They poured through the catalogs that came in the mail and carefully decided which doll they liked best.

Lily eventually settled on the doll of the year, Kanani, while Madeleine preferred the generic doll that "looks like her."  Luckily Santa got the message, and everyone got the doll they wanted.

Over the years I've seen many pictures on Facebook of other children visiting an American Girl store, usually in NYC.  It looked like fun, but I'm not ready to take on an NYC trip with the girls just yet.  Luckily, there is a store/restaurant in DC so we could include it in a trip while doing other things.  I know how expensive it can be, and this is not something I intend to do very often.  It was a very special treat that the girls have definitely earned this year.

Neither girl knew what to expect really.  While the top floor was interesting to them, it was underneath where the salon was that they actually got excited.

 Here's Lily's doll getting a fishtail braid at the "salon."  All I could think about was the hair braiders telling people what they do for a living and hearing "Yeah, right. You get paid what for braiding doll hair?"

 We enjoyed lunch at the restaurant of course.

 And Madeleine enjoyed getting her picture taken with McKenna.

We bought them the trundle bed, and they used their own money to each get something.  Lily chose the cast/crutches combo, and Madeleine got a table chair like they used at the restaurant along with a tea set.  I also bought them each an outfit.  Madeleine chose the gymnast outfit while Lily actually picked out pajamas for her so she could match her doll.

And maybe the Easter Bunny will bring them some swimsuits.