- American Girl Adventures -

I was never ever into American Girl brand -- or really any dolls -- when I was a kid, but Harper and Scarlett LOVE babies and Barbies and 18" dolls and spend hourssss each week dressing and playing with them!  Our local library also has a collection of American Girl dolls that I frequently allow them to check out to play with at home.  While they have zero grasp on what the actual "American Girl" brand even is, they have always called all of their 18" dolls "American Girls."  Therefore, it was no surprise that they JUMPED at Grammy Resa's proposal of taking a train to the hugeeee American Girl doll store in Chicago this summer!  #BRB while we pack up Dixey and Aqua and all their clothing changes and accessories to hit the road to Grammy and Papa's house...

 ...for a quick slumber party before arriving to a very early train in Carlinville the next morning!

Chugga-chugga-CHOO-CHOOOOO, we're off on a 2-day, 1-night girls' trip!

 Because Chicago, HERE WE COME! 

The train ride [sans carseats and stocked with a special snack car] was a huge hit.  Approx. 4 hours later, we made it to Chicago Union Station ...and then off to our hotel where we landed a room on the 17th floor ... and THEN to the long-awaited American Girl store for a super fun shopping experience!

No one was excited or anything. ;) :) 

Complimentary check-ups for Dixey and Aqua were performed by a "doctor" on staff at the AG Store!

And then it was lunch time at the AG Cafe where there was special service for alllll the girls, even Dixey and Aqua!

On the shopping front, the kids each got to pick out one outfit for their doll and one play setup thing [which, yessss, made my heart skip about 23 or maybe 28 beats, because holy price tags...but I tried to breathe deeply all weekend and stifle my cheap-AF ways so as not to spoil all the once-in-a-lifetime excitement for the kiddos]!

Back at the hotel, they donned their pool garb and FaceTimed Grammy Beeler to show her their new loot!

"Night cap" at It'Sugar who?!

As a side plug: Dixey and Aqua are also better known as Mary of Nazareth and My Guardian Angel, respectively, as they're actually Dolls from Heaven!  I became obsessed with the story of this company after a friend shared about it last year.  They are committed to helping children keep Jesus as the focus of their lives, and their mission is to inspire children to become saints!  Santa obvi love Dolls from Heaven, too, because he delivered two to our house last Christmas, along with the books about each doll.

Sweet dreams, my tiny saint American Girl! #ily

 

The next morning, we packed up our things and checked them with the bellman downstairs before hitting the stores along the Magnificent Mile!  We bought some Garrett's Popcorn for Daddy and Papa, tried on some fancy shoes at Zara, and whaddya know.................

 

...ended up back at Water Tower Place for a little look inside the Lego Store...

 

...but more importantly, more play time at the AG Store!!! #cantgetenough  

Harper decided she did not like the outfit I packed her for day #2 of our trip, so she modified my black tank top with a bobby pin and wore it around the city all day as a dress. LOL.

 

Back at Union Station for our 2:00pm train home, we bumped into some familiar faces!  The kids loved making the trek home with some friends in tow!

The next morning at home, the big kids gave Juliette the bottle, diapers, and wipes that they bought her for her babies + the mini-Reese's pieces treat from It'Sugar! She was thrilled with all her surprise gifts...

 

...and the big kids were thrilled to get their dolls' coffee bar and gymnastics sets out!

Memories for a lifetime followed by FUN FOR HOURS [which made for the easiest Sunday of my life]!  Thanks, Mom, for suggesting and organizing the trip!!! I guess we'll start saving up money now for the day Juliette is old enough to have her inaugural trip to Chicago and visit to the AG Store! ;) :-*

- Piggies + BIRDS! -

When all you want is pigtail braids like your big sisters, and you realize you DO actually have enough hair to have them.....
. . . c u e    t h e    e x c l a m a t i o n    p o i n t s ! ! !

Here's to having ALL the heart-eye emojis for the baby of the family! She has stolen all of our hearts and will probably never give them back! ;) :)

But! All the girls -- even old, boring Mom -- donned their best piggie braids for a family field trip to the Cardinals game!  Daddy scored all-inclusive tickets from work, which is always a win, win, WINNING situation for all...

...and even the Cardinals gave us a winner!  Only part that wasn't winning?  ...Chasing Juliette up and down and up and all around the concrete steps then all through the indoor food stations until one of us just gave up on watching the game and dranking all the free beers to focus on following around our feral child.  J to the K. But for real.

All three kids were thrilled with the unlimited ["free!"] food and drinks -- hot dogs, loaded nachos, cookies, popcorn, and fountain Sprites were of no shortage throughout the day! And the big kids were quite excited about the fireworks at the end of the game [we usually don't make it to the end when we take them!], although Scarlett -- daughter of her Firework King father -- said, "Well, 'dat wasn't 'DAT many fiya-woks!"

All in all, our days was A WIN!   

Let's go, Cards!!! 

- Out of the mouth of babes: VOL XLI -

Juli is still a liiiiittle too little to start providing her own content for "Out of the mouth of babes" posts, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't already looking forward to some very entertaining years of Juliette-isms that are sure to come! Meanwhile today, this gal wasn't about to find herself on the sidelines for the 1.3 minutes of fame behind the lens that her big sisters had!  We like to call this little game the "six snap sesh" -- AKA how many faces/poses can you make in ~1 minute for six quick pics?! 

 Long story short? ...We're in big trouble with this girl!!! *all the heart-eye emojisss*

- Life be better thow... -

Keeping this post short and sweet today, because the pic says it all!  Life is better -- or at least "funny thow" -- with a baby sister in tow. :-* 

- "A person's a person, no matter how small!" -

Alert: #MOMPOST 

I don't make these kinds of posts very often, but today I am so super proud of Harper ...and her creativity ...and her love for Jesus and life ...and her super big heart ...and I just feel like boasting it loud[ly] and proud[ly]!  God broke the mold when he made this girl! <3

After entering a poster into the Respect Life Week art contest at her school, she ended up winning the K-2 category and being awarded a $50 gift card to any place of her choosing.

["A person's a person, no matter how small...and God wants us to love them all!" was her poster!]

She chose a Bath & Body Works gift card [after having a sniff into her cousins' lotion collections recently and discovering that there is a whole huge world of nice-smelling things that exist outside her mom's anti-chemical, anti-fragrance, anti-xenoestrogen ways!!!].  And! Bath & Body Works apparently has a great Black Friday sale where you can buy 3, get 3 free... But! I had to work on Black Friday from 7-11am, plus there are no B&BW stores close to our home... Although!  There is one large stand-alone B&BW store juuuust down the street from my work... AND SO!  Off to work with Momma this girl went!  Our alarm went off at 5:45, and we were up and dressed and ready to hit the ground running at 6:10am!

While I worked, Harper ate breakfast, sipped hot chocolate, read a few chapters of Junie B. Jones, and enjoyed a couple of HOURS [!!] of coveted, uninterrupted screen time [#cringeycringecringe]... And in no time at all, the clock struck 11am and we were outta there...

...and onnnnn to Bath & Body Works!!!  Harper had THE BEST time shopping and spraying/sniffing almost every single scent [at least once, if not twice], and I had the best time watching my big girl shop around and spoil herself with her shiny new gift card.  She also picked out a handful of things for Scarlett, which I thought was so nice of her!  The workers in the place all loved helping her and wanted to pose for a photo at the front door before we left with her loot! 

We escaped quickly after the photo shoot, because #holyheadache after not wearing fragrances for at least a decade and then sniffing ~200 in a matter of an hour, L to the O to the L, zomg.  

Brian was still gone with the little girls when we got home, and so Harper planned and executed a huge scavenger hunt full of little games/activities for Scarlett that ultimately led her to the bathroom where she had a Twisted Peppermint lotion gift waiting.  She wanted to give her one thing as soon as we got home and wrap up everything else for Christmas.

Goshhhhh, this girl and her HUGE HEART... I just know she's going places in life!  Meanwhile, we'll just be over here continuing to #respectlife and #smellgood while doing it!!! :)

Happy Black Friday, friends!

- Juliette meets her SISTAS! -

As elaborated on in the last post, I spent plenty of time during the third trimester boo-hoo'ing that Harper and Scarlett would not be able to come inside the hospital and meet the brand new baby while we were admitted there [thank youuuu, COVID, for shattering my dreams of a picture-perfect introduction].  Since they were the all-important big sisters, we definitely wanted them be the first to hear the news of the new baby's arrival AS WELL AS be the first ones to find out if they had a baby brother or a baby sister!  Should we wait the full 3 days until we're discharged home and tell them the gender in person?!  ...While that was Harper's vote for how this should all go down, Brian and I agreed that the rest of our families and friends would be going crazy with not knowing the gender/name/other deets for several days post-birth.  ...And/or if some of the news leaked onto social media from my co-workers who were clocked in and well aware of everything going on with our labor/delivery/BABY GIRL, we certainly did not want a slip up of our family seeing a comment or photo on Facebook before we had a chance to announce personally.  So!  I decided it would be best to wrap up these two newborn dolls that Harper and Scarlett used for the pregnancy announcement [one boy doll and one girl doll - HOW CONVENIENT!] and labeled them "BOX 1" and "BOX 2."  Then, after opening the boy or girl box, they would be able to call their grandmas and grandpas and share the news with anyone and everyone!

When Grammy Resa picked the girls up from school on Tuesday afternoon, they immediately called us to hear the good news!  They were so excited to hear that they FaceTimed while still en route to the house, so of course we had to wait until they walked inside where the wrapped boxes were.  Meanwhile, Juliette was chillin' in my arms like, "Come on, hurry up and get inside to the boxes so Mom can flip the FaceTime camera and show you my cute face and HUGE BOW!" :)

Upon opening BOX 2 and seeing their pink baby doll inside, both of them were jumping up and down and so excited to have a LITTLE SISSY!  We have some video footage of their reactions that Brian took of my phone screen [again, so weird!! But better than nothing!], and they enjoyed seeing Juliette many more times via FaceTime while we were admitted.

After hospital discharge on Thursday afternoon, we arranged to pick up the girls about an hour early from school as a surprise and special treat for them [but also partially out of convenience so we could collect all our offspring in one swoop and then be nestled in at home together as a family of 5 for the rest of the evening!].  I have the most adorable video of Brian walking them to the van and them laying eyes on Juliette in her car seat for the first time.  Ahhhhh, it was truly love at first sight...

...and the love did not die down after we made it home, either!  We had them wash their hands and change their school clothes before holding the baby, but they didn't complain because their BEST BIG SISTER shirts from Grammy were washed and waiting on a hanger!

Three beautiful girls to love...my heart was a puddle seeing them all together for the first time!

After dinner, we made some popcorn and turned on a movie so we could all relax and enjoy our newest addition!

The latter portion of the evening consisted of lots of arguing/whining about whose turn it was to hold "'da baby" and ended up with Scarlett crying herself to sleep in Brian's arms because she couldn't hold "Ju-wee-ette" while I was nursing her............... :s  It became immediately obvious that this little gal would never be hurting for love or attention!

The very next day, we had to take Juliette to the pediatrician for her newborn follow-up [what could really happen in the less-than-24-hour window when the hospital pediatrician saw her and our primary pediatrician needed to see her!? NO ONE KNOWS.].  Scarlett was the proudest big sis and made sure to stay close to the baby at all times during her assessment!

When we left, Scarlett wondered if "we should go get a tweat [treat] since Ju-wee-ette was so good for 'da docta'?" L to the O to the L.

As evidenced by all of the photos here, Juliette easily made her way into all of our hearts and never seemed to have trouble finding her way into someone's arms! 

 

Over the weekend, we gave her her first sponge bath and hair wash...

...which was huge entertainment for the older girls! :D

And then, right back to snuggles [all night annnnnd all day]!!!

Juliette, you fit in so perfectly to our family, and YOU ARE SO LOVED!!! <3