Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July from Prue and her snuggle bunny!  She chose to take a subtle approach to sporting red, white, and blue today :oD

Lost Packages and Backgrounds and Bears, Oh My!

This is kind of a mishmash post! 

First of all, an update on Margaret the Woodlee (which I just typed as Miranda the Woodlee, WHOOPS!  Guess I'm just excited Miranda is back!).  She is still in Anchorage!  Tracking says she passed through a sorting facility there on June 29th, and again yesterday.  I wonder what she thinks is so interesting about Anchorage?!  Let's hope she makes her way back to Colorado soon so we can get this ironed out.  Poor Prue is not handling all these unknowns very well.

Also, here is the promised photo of Patch and Pie, the Pumpkin bear twins!  I wanted to get some green ribbon for Pie's ears before I shared a photo.  Aren't they darling?  I think I've accepted that they will both be staying, and I'm not exactly sad about it, either :oD

 Now I need a bit more advice.  American Girl just came out with some pretty awesome large cardboard backdrops to use with their dolls.  There is a gala scene, classroom scene, park scene, and winter scene.  I am interested in the latter two.  This is the park scene and this is the winter scene (I promise these are links, can't figure out how to get the font a different color since I use a fancy template).  Of course they would mostly be for use with my American Girl dolls, but I'd love to be able to use them with my tiny dolls.  Do you all think they would work for smaller dolls like Pea and Jessi Lynn, or would the scale look really bizarre?  They are tiny dolls living in a big world so I'm inclined to think it could work, but I don't want them to be barely visible in front of the giant scene (if I want to show the entire backdrop) or have the scene be illegible in closer photos.  What do you all think?

Meandering Margaret

Well, Margaret the Woodlee still is not here!  It sounds like she definitely has an intrepid spirit and REALLY wanted to try out college, because her package ended up being shipped to the university, which turned right around and sent her back to Colorado.  All of this happened on Monday.  Tracking info was not updated until yesterday (almost a week later), and to my surprise, she's only made it as far as Anchorage!  Wonder if she took a riverboat down the old fashioned way or what! 

Prue is pretty worried about Margaret being trapped in that box for who knows how long, but Jessi Lynn reminded her that I ordered some *tasty doll sized goodies* at the same time, so Margaret will have those to eat.  That helped Prue feel a bit better but I think Jessi Lynn is more worried that none of the goodies will make it here!

Let's hope Margaret will meander her way here soon!  And in the mean time, any ideas for how to keep the other dolls' minds off of Margaret's predicament?

Help Me See Reason

This post is about teddy bears, not dolls, but I have a few bears and other stuffed animals I love that will make their appearances on this blog.  As much as I enjoy dolls, I probably love stuffed animals even more.  When it comes to dolls, I'm pretty discerning and only want very specific ones, but with stuffed animals I am much less discriminating!  It is only through sheer force of will that my collection is fairly small, depending on your definition of "small."

I also have a TERRIBLE time parting with stuffed animals.  Dolls I can sell easily if I don't feel connected to them, but not stuffed animals.  I know they aren't real animals, but getting rid of stuffed animals is something I've struggled with since I was a little kid!  We moved a lot so I had to pare down my toys on a regular basis, but my sizable collection of stuffed animals only ever lost some members if my mom sneakily discarded a few.  I still have only a couple of these stuffed animals though, my mom kept her favorites to brighten up her sewing room and ditched the rest.

So, for reasons I won't go into, I inadvertently ended up with two Pumpkin Pal Teddies from Build A Bear.  This is what the bear looks like: click here (sorry, the text on this blog is a pain and does not put links in a different color!)  Super cute, right?  Even cuter in person, too.  The bears are a pretty peach color with adorable pumpkins all over.  I love holidays and bears so this bear really appeals to me.  Anyway, so I ended up with two of these bears.  The plan was to pick the one I liked best and return the other and you can probably see where this is going.

But but but!  I don't want to return either bear!  They're so cute and perfectly pumpkiny, and in spite of being the same type of bear, they have definite differences in their smiles and facial expressions and pumpkin placement.  One looks like a boy and one looks like a girl.  Now I have visions of adorable twin pumpkin bears named Pie (the girl) and Patch (the boy).  I could put green ribbons on Pie's ears to show she's a girl and Patch already has a green bow around his neck.  They could even wear cute little coordinating Halloween costumes when October rolls around.

Rationally I know that keeping both bears is ridiculous, but I really don't know which one I should send back.  I am well aware that this is an extremely silly problem, but I'm stuck on it regardless.  If it helps, I only have 3 Build A Bears (4 of you include both pumpkin bears, which I am not doing yet!) so I don't have a gigantic collection or anything.  Oh and I decided not to include actual photos of the bears in question so people wouldn't be swayed by their cuteness.

What do you all think?

New Doll!

So, our exciting news is that... a doll from Woodlee Junction will be coming here soon!  Woodlee Junction dolls are made by my friend, Wendy, and are little bendy wooden dolls with yarn hair and sweet, simple faces.  I first saw them on the Hittyville Gazette blog and thought how cute they were.  When I found out Wendy made them, I had to get one for myself!  So far she has only made about 40 of them and they're selling great.  If you want your own Woodlee, check out Norm's Dollhouse!  The Woodlees also have their own awesome blog.

This is the newest member of our doll family:

I knew she was the one as soon as I saw her and Prue and Jessi Lynn agreed.  All three girls are excited about the arrival of a new friend.  I've never had a doll like a Woodlee before and can't wait to meet her, either.  We have the hunch her name will be Margaret after the Alaskan naturalist Margaret Murie, and we will find out soon enough!

Meet Jessi Lynn and Prue

This blog is supposed to be about my dolls in general, but somehow or other so far it has been exclusively about Pea even though a variety of dolls live at my house!  So I'd like to share a bit about two of my other favorites.

This is Jessi Lynn:

 She is a Little Mo doll and was from the very last batch made.  She was also the last full sized girl purchased.  Very lucky for me because I was taken with her as soon as I saw her picture.  Don't really understand why she wasn't immediately scooped up by someone else, but that's alright with me!  Her original name was Gertie but as soon as she came out of her box, she let me know her name is Jessopa Lynn Thornton and she would like to be known as Jessi Lynn, thank you very much.

I've never met such a prim little doll.  She's about 12 years old so still a little girl, but really wants to be grown up and is very concerned with etiquette and clothes and, most of all, not being perceived as childish.  So far she only has the dress she came in but is dying for more!  Jessi Lynn is a girl who speaks her mind, can be a little stuck in her ways (but can't we all?), and I'm pretty sure could carry on a conversation with a rock.

Jessi Lynn was fascinated with the life sized (to her anyway) statue of the dancing turtle and gnome and conceded to having her picture taken with them:

I don't have any pictures of them meeting, but she and Pea get along okay.  Pea was initially really curious about the new doll, but Jessi Lynn was rather taken aback by her ("But fairies don't exist!") and her dislike of small children unfortunately seems to extend to our little Miss Pea.  So they ignore each other for the most part.  While I'm sure Pea would enjoy having a friend more or less her size, at least they don't hate each other, right?

The other doll I'd like to introduce is Prue:

Prue is an American Girl doll that I picked out in person from the Seattle store.  Her full name is Prudence Tallulah Jane.  Rather long and no last name, but who am I to argue?  She is a very kind girl of about 9 years and has many interests.  She loves animals (especially cats and owls), stuffed animals, and is fascinated with fairies, gnomes, wizards, and the like.  She's also quite imaginative and I often find her lost in thought or engrossed in a book.  Also, surprising since she is a doll and doesn't eat, she's really interested in cooking and baking!

Happily for Pea, Prue has more of a whimsical streak than Jessi Lynn and the two of them took to each other right away.  Pea loves when Prue reads her stories and Prue laughs at all the funny things Pea does, much to her delight.  Prue and Jessi Lynn also get along nicely.  Prue is very sweet and a tiny bit shy, and Jessi Lynn is very much not shy, but after their initial meeting where Jessi Lynn talked Prue's ear off and Prue barely got a word in, they have gotten along well and even become friends.  Whenever I listen in on them, Jessi Lynn still seems to do most of the talking, but it seems to work well for them!

So, that's it for now.  Definitely had to introduce these two special girls today because Jessi Lynn would not tolerate them going unmentioned, but I have some others to introduce as well.  My next post will be about our exciting news!

We're Back!

We are back!  Sorry about the long, loooong break between posts.  Blogging is not my forte, I have a tendency to wander off for long periods :D  Pea and I are doing great though!  Hard to believe she's been here 10 months now.  Living with a tiny fairy took some getting used to, but I have become very attached to her and can't imagine her not being here.  My husband enjoys her company as well.

Summer has FINALLY come to Alaska, and in a big way- it was 90 degrees here for a few days.  Gross in a place where people don't have air conditioning!  That after a very, very long winter where we had snow on the ground well into May.  When summer does arrive though, it's hard to remember winter.  Pea is of course thrilled with the return of summer.  She seemed happy enough tootling around this winter, and spent lots of time snuggling our bunnies, sewing and crocheting, and cooking and baking lots of treats, with the occasional rodeo ride on our cat tossed in for fun and apparently to terrify me. We got said cat in December (which is quite a story all on its own) and he is gentle, but it's still very nerve wracking!  She also somehow or other she even tended an indoor flower garden, which I will share with you later.

I have to wonder what she did during the winters in the botanical garden before she lived with us.  Pea still does not talk, and at this point I would probably drop dead from shock if she did.  How she spent her winters is one of many questions I'd love to ask her, but I just content myself with her company.  And even without talking, she's pretty good at getting her message across.  I could tell from all the staring out the windows at the snow and heavy sighs that she was just as ready for summer as us humans.

I am a bit of a worry wart when it comes to Pea going outside on her own.  While I fully realize she survived to adulthood (I think?  Not sure if she's an adult or what!) without my protection, there are lots of animals around here that would love to gobble her up, so Pea and I have been spending a lot of time outside.  Here are a few pictures from earlier today.

Pea loves the wild rose bush by our house.  The stems are covered in long, slender, very sharp thorns, but she scampers up quick as anything and doesn't get pricked:

Relaxing and looking at the clouds:

She's also very fond of our big rainbow pinwheel, I wonder if all fairies are drawn to bright colors:

The dancing gnome and turtle are just a statue but Pea is endlessly entertained by them.  I think she wishes they were alive so they would play with her:

Well, that's it for now!  Tomorrow or in a couple of days I will post about some of the other dolls that live here.  We also have exciting news to share!