Julie and Kit

Recently the girls have been very much into their American Girl dolls. Annabel has Kit Kitteredge, and Gaby has Julie Allbright.

Over the last week they have made a habit of dressing the dolls in the morning, then changing them into their Jammies at night and putting them to bed beside them. The also bring them along with them pretty much everywhere they can. They are even prone to melting down when they are forced to leave them behind.

I've had to make some rules. They are allowed in the car for the ride to school, but not in school. Gaby has taken to seat-belting Julie into her car seat when she gets out of the car to go to pre-school in the mornings.

On Thursday I had to go to LA for the day. I left the house at 4:45am and didn't get back until about 8:30p. When I arrived at the car in the airport parking lot, I noticed Kit and Julie were belted in to the car seats in the back. When I got home, I brought them in and put them in bed with the girls so they could have them in the morning.

When I saw them in the morning, they were already playing with the dolls.

"Hey guys, did you see that I put your dolls down to sleep with you last night?"

"Yeah, daddy" Gabby said. "But you forgot to change them into their jammies!"

Why don't I think of these things?

Gaby's First Ballet Recital

A few weeks back Gaby had her first ballet recital. She has been going to Saturday morning ballet classes for about a month now, and this was her first opportunity to perform on stage. She thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience. I think she had about 30 minutes of hair makeup and wardrobe with Kristin, about 10 minutes on stage and then about 30 minutes of flowers, pictures and partying afterwords.

Here is a selection of pictures from her ballet classes and from the actual event.



And here is some video, so you can see her in motion.