Pink stroller parade

Today some friends of ours were already planning a trip to the American Girl store and asked if we would like to tag along.  I knew the girls would be excited to go and after staying around home all day yesterday, I felt like an outing might be good for all of us.

Handley had thought she would like to use some of her Christmas money to take her new doll, Grace, to get her ears pierced at the little boutique they have at the store.  When we were talking about this in front of Robby he told her she should save her money and he could pierce Grace's ears.  I was a little worried about him ruining such an expensive doll, but didn't really want to pay the $14 it would take at the store to have them make a hole in her ear and stick in some earrings that we already owned.  Handley quizzed him to be sure he knew what he was doing and then picked out one of the extra pairs of doll earrings to put in.  It looks exactly like her other dolls' ears do, so I guess he did it right! That saved money is burning a hole in her pocket, though. She wanted to use it to buy something else at the store today, but I told them both before we even decided to go that they had just gotten a lot of things for Christmas, we were not buying anything, and that I wanted them to save their money until they really wanted something special. We went with a plan to look at the new accessories and check out the new doll of the year, but that was it.  They were both OK with that, but left there already starting a wish-list for their birthdays.

All four of the girls brought strollers for their dolls and after making our way through a very crowded American Girl, we made a quick stop at another store before getting lunch in the food court.  Sounds easy enough, but you wouldn't believe the parade of pink strollers we were corralling through the mall.  It was so cute and the girls had the best time pushing them around!  After lunch we let them (and their dolls) ride the carousel and topped off all that fun with some ice cream before heading home.

Hudson was such a good sport.  He had fun on the carousel and thoroughly enjoyed his ice cream treat.    He has not been feeling well this week and I have a strong suspicion that his ear infection from before Christmas never really healed.  We are heading back to the doctor tomorrow to see what's up, but getting out today was a nice change of scenery and a good distraction for his otherwise whiny and clingy ways of the past few days.  I sure do love that my little guy wants to be held by me 24/7, but at the same time, I want him feeling better and back to his happy self.

Tonight at bath time I started the water in the bath for Hudson and left him playing in one of the cabinets to tell the girls to get ready for the shower (for at least the 4th time).  Their rooms are directly beside the bathroom where Hudson was so I wasn't gone 10 seconds, but when I returned I found Hudson in the bath, clothes and all, pouring water on himself and splashing around.  When he saw me he kept grunting and acting like he was trying to get his shirt off.  Haha!  I'm sure it felt weird for him to be soaking wet with his clothes on, but I guess he got tired of waiting on me.   All I could do was laugh...and ask Robby to bring me my phone so I could snap a quick picture!