A Doll Tale

When Meggie was born one of the gifts my mom gave me was my well-loved childhood Madame Alexander doll for me to pass down to Meggie. Well, Meggie never really was a doll kind of girl. She preferred playing outside, playing with stuffed animals and playing with toy cars to playing with dolls. It was a tough blow and completely unexpected. 

When Meggie was six we made a special mother-daughter pilgrimage to New York and I took her to the American Girl Place, which if I had gone at her age would have sent me into a complete frenzy, but instead of frantically choosing a doll that looked just like her and begging me for several outfits (like I would have done), she asked for a horse. She had no interest in the dolls - and I had even scheduled a special tea for us where the waiters attach little chairs to the table for your very special doll. She wanted none of it. Let's just say I was disappointed. I insisted that she get a doll and then bought the horse too, because I realized the unfairness of my living vicariously through her. We had tea. All was well. She even played with the doll a bit since we were in New York with her very best friend Clara and Clara was excited to have her new doll and encouraged Meggie to play too. By the end of the trip Meggie was a convert and her doll went everywhere with us, but gradually she was forgotten again. 

Katie was my "transition into doll world" girl. She would play with dolls and quite enjoyed it but was often recruited by Meggie to play animals instead. Taking her to New York to pick out her doll was a bit closer to the experience I had dreamed of with Meggie. We had the tea, Nicky sat with us, all was well.

Josie is the doll queen. Finally. She LOVES dolls. She's dying to get her American Girl doll when we go to NYC for her six-year-old birthday. I can hardly wait, we're both giddy with excitement.

The funny thing is, as Meggie has been more and more surrounded by doll-loving girls she has started playing with them more and really enjoying them. Her doll is named Skylar - Meggie chose her and named her. At the American Girl Place you have the choice of either picking a doll that looks like you, or picking a doll from history that has already been assigned a name and a bit of a story. Meggie picked a doll that came from the "My Twin" group - only she didn't pick a freckle-nosed, curly haired, blue-eyed, red head; she picked an olive-skinned, straight-haired, brown-eyed, brunette. Go figure. 

Katie picked Nicky and she is a doll with a story - she's a cowgirl from Colorado and I think Katie just really liked her outfit. Katie's stylish like that.

So, now we have American Girl doll beds, suitcases, clothes, you name it, and everyone likes to play.  All that to say, the girls were OVER THE MOON when a package arrived from the Parkers in Japan full of belated birthday presents  . .  . this is what they got:

Kimonos for their dolls!!! So cute!! (Yes I know one of them is on backwards) We immediately dressed everyone up - Josie and Ellie still have Bitty Baby but that's ok, the kimonos worked on them too. Such a great gift. Many, many thanks. The dolls are now going to a Halloween party with us in their kimonos as costumes. 

Here are a few pics from the weekend, the girls had their friends Julia and Izzy over for the afternoon and I snapped a few pics of them having lunch.

Meg and Ellie

Julia and Katie
Izzy and Jo
This last one is a pic of Katie doing Nicki's hair, she was out on the porch for ages just thinking up new styles. 

Celebrations

Although I didn't take many photos, Dugald and I had a wonderful anniversary Saturday. We began the day sleeping late and having pancakes for breakfast, the usual Saturday routine. Then Dugald and I headed out for a luncheon in honor of his Aunt Diana's birthday. It was a very nice celebration - many people came in from out of town - and I enjoyed seeing some extended family on the Morrison side who we don't see often enough. I had a famous Kiwi at my table - Sir Michael Hardie-Boys. They split all the couples up so I didn't realize I was sitting with him until Dugald told me after lunch - in my opinion he looks very much like Warren Buffet. Anyway, for you non-Kiwis reading this Sir Michael is the former Governor-General of New Zealand. 

After lunch Dugald and I headed into town to do some shopping, sans children. It was fun just browsing and lingering over coffee and basically acting like grown-ups. I also got a book I wanted to read, some great wool pants on sale for $12, and other various bits of whatnot.  After shopping we saw a movie at my favorite theater here - you can take your wine and nibbles in and it shows art house flicks. We saw a movie called "Frozen River" and though it wasn't very relaxing it was quite good. After that we headed out for a Japanese meal. I've only ever been to Japanese steak houses in America where they cook in front of you on a hibachi style grill, so this was a new experience. I thought of Shannon and Brad and decided Japan had some yummy food, I had fish, miso soup, rice and a yummy salad. Dugald had some sort of tepanaki (sp?) meat dish that he really enjoyed.  Being the old people we are, we headed home after dinner (after texting the babysitter to be sure the children were in bed). 

Anniversary flowers:

It turns out it was a good thing we got home and got our beauty sleep because Sunday proved quite eventful! Meggie and Katie had yet another rehearsal for Musical Stars and the rest of us headed to church. After Musical Stars we joined our friends the Shephards and headed down to the waterfront for the Diwali Festival, the Indian Festival of Lights. We were surprised to find an incredibly long line to even enter the arena where the festival was taking place. We waited about an hour and a half with six young children . . . here are some pics of the wait:

The security guards were letting people in about 150 at a time. Of course we missed the first batch to be let in and were crushed against the doors to wait for 30 more minutes for the next batch. After about 25 minutes Ellie decided she needed to go to the bathroom. Thankfully we made it and had nice people around us who let us back in line with the rest of our party.  

Once we got in we enjoyed some Bollywood style dancing . . .

Some food. . .

Katie and Josie had their hands decorated with henna . . .





And we absorbed some of the sights, sounds and smells of India. 



It was a fun way to spend the afternoon, despite the wait!

New Quilts from Grandma

As the title suggests, when Grandma visited Wellington last week she brought down new quilts she made for the girls. I can't even begin to describe the excitement level when we got said quilts home - I did many loads of laundry in order to get clean sheets onto the beds before the new quilts. I also washed duvet covers and packed away the duvets, which is no small challenge in this teen-ninesy house! I crammed most of the stuff into a suitcase to leave in the garage until we move to hopefully larger quarters. 

All that to say, the girls LOVE them! It is a great thing for each of them to have something on their beds that reflects a bit of their own personalities and preferences. I was worried, since they are all in the same room, that it might be an overwhelming amount of colors and patterns, but it isn't really, and anyway the girls are so happy that it wouldn't matter if it were!

So, thank you Grandma, from the bottom of our hearts! Your gift of love is much appreciated and enjoyed.

Check out Harry's

We went out to Seatoun again last week for a lovely lunch at Rob and Liz's. Margaret came to Wellington to attend "Grandparent's Day" at Scots College so we went over to see her and to visit Liz's new shop called "Harry's". The shop is named after Rob and Liz's much-loved black lab, along with special edition magnums of wine from their vineyard called by the same name.

The shop is amazing, and of course it is done with Liz's signature style. . . 

We had  a delicious lunch, prepared by Rob, and a lovely afternoon just catching up. The girls love going to Liz's as you will remember from previous posts because she brings out large trunks full of groovy girls and stuffed animals that keep them entertained for hours. 

Grandma also brought down their new bed quilts she made for them from fabric they each got to choose for themselves and I will post those pictures next. 

Ballet Exams

Here are the promised photos of Katie and Josie getting ready for their ballet exams. Josie's was this morning, early this morning, and Katie's was last week. Ballet over here has been a bit different from their studio in Texas, so it's been an adjustment. Over here it's been a lot more about actual ballet and technique, rather than about performance and having fun which was the focus in Texas for their age groups. Both Katie and Josie are good dancers and have a natural sense of rhythm and timing, so they've done quite well despite being the new girls in the class. They've also made special friends, which of course warms my heart. 

Many moons ago when I was a young girl I took ballet in Clearwater, Florida from a lovely New Zealander named Peggy Wallace. Miss Peggy was the best teacher in town and taught us much the same way my girls are being taught by Miss Fiona. When I was at Denys McDouall's funeral I met Andrew's mother (I know this is getting complicated - Andrew is Dugald's boss and Denys' husband) and she used to own a studio with none other than that very same Peggy Wallace who once taught me. How weird is that?? Meggie and Katie were at the funeral too so Mrs. McDouall told them all about their Mommy's ballet teacher and encouraged Katie for her upcoming exams. It IS  a small world after all!

Now for the pictures:

Katie getting her hair done by Miss Fiona

With her special friend Pippa, ready to go into her exam.



With Abbie and Pippa - one more girl went in with them for the testing but she was running too late for me to get a photo.
Checking themselves out in the mirror.
This morning we arrived with Miss Josie and she got her hair done as well, along with her special friend Bella.


Having a look in the mirror.

Josie and Bella


Lucy, Bella and Josie ready to get in there and do their best!
Miss Fiona telling the girls that they were very special because their exam was going to be video taped and made into a training tape for instructors all over the world.
Katie will get her certificate at a later date, her Mommy feels confident she will have done very well. Good job girls!!!