I'm Happy to Report...

...that the excursion to the American Girl store went very, very well.  I didn't hear any whining or demanding, just lots of little girls walking around as if they were in Wonderland. Despite my worries, I have to admit it was rather sweet and I enjoyed it.  Walking past one girl, I heard her exclaim, "It's beautiful!!" I'm not even sure what she was looking at but it made me smile.

All of the kids had a great time (except for maybe Joey, but he still did well).  The party actually started last night when two of Bailey's friends from across the street came to sleep over. The plan was that we'd all get up in the morning and they'd come with us to the store.  The younger sister ended up deciding around 10:30 that she needed to go home, so she did and she came back this morning. We left around 8 for the hour-long drive to the Mall of America, stopping at IHOP for breakfast before we went over. (IHOP is on one side of the MOA, and IKEA is on the other; how awesome is that?) We got to the American Girl store about 20 minutes after it opened, and the three girls and I looked around while Brian and Joey stepped out to the middle of the mall to Nickelodeon Universe, literally 20 yards away. We'd promised Joey a ride (that turned into two rides) since he obviously had no interest in the AG store.  The girls were cute, figuring out how much stuff they could buy with the money they had - we even whipped out a calculator at one point. Bailey ended up going a little over, but we covered her (I'm not totally mean). It's fun to see her so loving her new doll and so proud of herself for having earned so much of what she got, which was the doll, two outfits, a pair of glasses, and a new brush. I hope she feels the sense of accomplishment of having worked for something. She's already planning how she's going to pretend that the new girl is the sister to the one she already has.

As for me, no trip to the Mall of America is complete without a stop at Nordstrom Rack (the Nordstrom outlet store).  They have an incredible shoe rack. For instance, I'm a size 10, and normally at a department store clearance there will be maybe half a row of 10's, maybe a full row if I'm lucky. Here, there are FIVE ROWS of just size 10 - and not only that, but there's only one of each shoe on the rack so there's double the inventory!! It's like a trip through heaven. I had two pair in my hand: a Steve Madden pump in navy and a Born heeled Mary Jane in brown. I loved them both, but for the sake of my marriage I narrowed it down to the navy pump, because I needed that pair more.

After that it was a quick stop at IKEA and then the trip home. Right now Brian & the kids are out sledding with some friends. I think I'll go see how they're doing. There's not much snow on the hill across from our house, which is strange considering we had 2 feet on the ground only a week ago. We had a couple of warm days, though, and it's amazing how fast the snow goes in the well-traveled areas when the temp goes above freezing. I don't think we'll have to worry about melting today, though - it's plenty cold out there!