My Princess Room

Annie's Princess Room

This is a video I made of my princess room. You can see all of my American Girls dolls and their accessories, furniture and other fun things from small to large.

You will see, in order: Rebecca Rubin, my new Bitty Baby, Nanea Mitchell, My American girl doll closet with all their outfits, Luciana Vega and Blaire Wilson.

Rebecca Rubin

Nanea Mitchell

Luciana Vega

Doll Clothes

Blaire Wilson

Blaire Wilson

Girl of the Year - Blaire Wilson 2019

Blaire is a ten-year-old girl who lives on the Pleasant View Farm Bed-and-Breakfast. She is very creative, responsible and hard-working, and is good at improvising solutions to the unique problems that can arise on her farm. She loves her family, even though she often finds her younger brother annoying, and she loves caring for the animals on the farm- such as Penelope the lamb, Dash the goat and Dandelion the Silkie chicken. Her favorite thing to do is to help her Mom cook meals for the guests in the kitchen.

She enjoys spending time on her tablet, to play games or talk to her friends, but she can sometimes get too caught up in it and forget to talk to people in reality. She also can get too focused on her plans, such as when she spent her entire summer planning a wedding and forgetting to spend time with her friends. 

Blaire's love of cooking becomes challenging when she finds out she is lactose intolerant, and will have to go dairy-free for some time. While she and her Mom experiment with dairy substitutes, she finds her allergies embarrassing and doesn't like to bring them up.

Chef. Decorator. Chicken wrangler. Blaire does it all at her family’s restaurant, inn, and farm. In this first book in her series, her recent food sensitivity has made her time in the kitchen—and time with friends—a little tough. But now she has the perfect distraction: a wedding to plan! With her BFF by her side, and a million creative ideas saved on her tablet, Blaire is sure she can make the farm’s first wedding an epic celebration. But between dress disasters, texting mix-ups, and more than one incident with a mischievous goat, Blaire soon learns that wedding planning is a tricky business...and that balancing friendships is even trickier. Can Blaire find a way to make things right, or will this wedding, and her friendship, turn into epic fails? 

Luciana Vega

Luciana Vega - Girl of the Year 2018

Astronaut Rhea Seddon, Luciana and me at the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center

Luciana (nicknamed Luci) is of Chilean descent. She aspires to be the first person to explore Mars, and refers to herself as the "Future First Girl on Mars."

She is very confident in herself and can be impulsive in a lot of her decisions, such as adding a purple streak in her hair to match her best friend Raelyn's and leading the Red Rovers to break the rules in an attempt to find their missing motor module. However, she can sometimes doubt herself due to her plans failing, and often worries about being a good leader and a good older sister. She sometimes has trouble paying attention to other people's feelings and tends to listen more with her head than her heart.

Luci is incredibly creative, sometimes considering herself to be too creative. She loves sketching her ideas. She is also incredibly determined and quite smart, as seen in her taking part in the essay contest to get into Space Camp for several years before finally winning with a paper on space rocks, which she has an interest in. 

Luciana and her family pull into the Space Camp parking lot, as Luci starts to point out all the rockets. Luci has been preparing for Space Camp for weeks, in the hopes that she can become the first astronaut on Mars. She takes her rolling suitcase herself, as astronauts don't need their parents to carry their stuff.

In February 2018 there was a huge Luciana event at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Al.  We got to meet 2 female astronauts. More about that on a future post.

Girls of the year

American Girl - Girls of the Year

American Girl Place - New York, NY

Girls of the year, also knows as limited edition dolls, are dolls and characters only available on a limited basis.Originally they were only available on a year basis but since 2017 (Gabriela McBride) they are now available for two years. They have been available since 2001. There are now 18 Girls of the Year. 

In recent years they have been introduced online and in the stores on New Year's Day. During the first three days of release at American Girl Place locations, various events are held for the Girl of the Year, including activities.

Girls of the Year are always characters that originally are about ten to twelve years old in modern-day America during the year of her release. The character is given a story that expands on her personality, a specific situation she is involved in, relevant social issue, and/or her personal hobbies. This creates an overarching theme for the year which is expanded in the collection.

While the line started modestly, Girls of the Year now have sizable collections including multiple outfits and often one large "fancy" item. Originally the largest item was furniture such as a bed, but nowadays varies into things such as rainforest style huts, bakeries, or faux space habitats, that generally have multiple accessories.

I have 2 girls of the year. I am very very glad I have been able to collect lots of their collections.

Luciana Vega - 2018 

Blaire Wilson - 2019

Rebecca Rubin

Rebecca Rubin - 1914

Rebecca is nicknamed "Beckie" by her family. Her mother and grandparents immigrated from Russia. Rebecca's family is Jewish and maintains a commitment to their heritage. She wants to be an actress like her cousin Max when she grows up. Her family does not approve of her following in Max's footsteps, and they want Rebecca to be a teacher; however, she refuses to take their advice. She wants to appear more grown up than she is, despite the mocking from her older sisters. She is thoughtful and generous. Rebecca often accompanies her father to help work at his shoe store. She likes to crochet and is very good at it. She also has a knack for business and making money, as shown in Meet Rebecca, similar to her father. Due to the fact that Rebecca gets hand-me-downs from her twin sisters, she has two sets of almost all her outfits. She shares them with her cousin Ana.

Rebecca Rubin wiki

Rebecca loves to be the center of attention or "in the spotlight," often being a little envious of her siblings for getting more attention than she does. In Meet Rebecca she wants to be allowed to light the Sabbath candles instead of her sisters, who always received praise for looking and acting grown-up. In Rebecca to the Rescue, she's envious because her brother gets lots of attention leading up to his Bar Mitzvah. Rebecca also loves to make people laugh. She is described as being lively with a dramatic flair

Rebecca struggles with trying to fit in with mainstream American culture and maintain her commitment to her culture and religious beliefs as well. This is most evident in Candlelight for Rebecca - her family doesn't celebrate Christmas, but pressure from others about celebrating the holiday ma!es her feel out of place. Rebecca wants to be liked and praised and dislikes being talked about negatively. In Rebecca and Ana, Rebecca was embarrassed by her cousin Ana after her classmates at school teased her. Rebecca has shown herself to be courageous and have natural talent.

Nanea Mitchell

Nanea Mitchell 

Kula Gardens - Maui, Hawaii

Nanea Mitchell, is a Hawaiian girl growing up on the island of Oahu in 1941. Nanea's story explores what life was like for islanders in the weeks leading up to and the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the U.S.'s entry into World War Two. In bringing this significant period in history to life for girls today, Nanea's story illuminates how the courage, patriotism, and aloha spirit of the Hawaiian people inspired a nation at war and shows how one girl can make a meaningful difference in the face of big change.  

"We hope Nanea's powerful story of resilience, responsibility to others, and contributing for the common good—or kokua, as it's known in Hawaii—will resonate with girls and show them they have the power within to face the obstacles that come their way."  AG President.

Nanea Mitchell Books

Nine-year-old Nanea may be the youngest in her family, but she still wants to "dip her paddle in" and be useful. She knows she's grown-up enough to help in her grandparents' market. But before she can prove that she's ready for more responsibility, the unthinkable happens: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, the naval base where her father works, and America is at war! With friends and family missing, and rumors of more attacks to come, Nanea worries―will life ever be the same again?

As a historical character, Nanea's story includes the events and challenges of the residents of Hawaii in the 1940s There is so much to learn about the island culture, world history and how the events  affected everyone.

Nanea has an amazing set of accessories. The biggest is "Pono's Market" which is her grandparent's store.  I'll show you a lot more about them in a future post.

Aloha from Nanea

                

Be Forever Dolls

BeForever was the rebranding of the Historical line of American Girl, relaunched and released by American Girl in 2014.

The Historical Characters at the BeForever relaunch.

The rebranding was done to refresh the line and make the historical characters relevant to a new generation of the target audience. Methods include tying the characters to the ways that girls have remained the same through history and had the same feelings and ideas, and to market the characters as companions or friends to the target audience instead of tied solely to their own personal eras. 

I love the historical dolls. Their stories are so interesting. The also have an amazing collection of accessories, outfits, furniture and other things from their time periods.

I have two BeForever dolls:

Nanea Mitchell - 1941. Representing the WWII era from the Pearl Harbor bombing and America's official entry into the war.     Nanea's Collection

Rebecca Rubin - representing early 20th Century immigration to America from Eastern Europe and events leading to World War I.  Rebecca's Collection

"At its heart, our BeForever line is about building a bridge of understanding, helping girls today see the interconnectedness—the feelings, experiences, hopes, and dreams—that exists between themselves and girls from long ago," says Katy Dickson, president of American Girl. 

My American Girl Dolls

This blog is all about my love of the American Girl Dolls. The dolls I own, the dolls I am interested in, my adventures with my American Girl dolls, and all my interests.

American Girl is an American line of 18-inch (46 cm) dolls released in 1986 by Pleasant Company. The dolls portray eight- to twelve-year-old girls of a variety of ethnicities, time periods of origin, faiths, and social classes. They are sold with accompanying books told from the viewpoint of the girls. Originally the stories focused on various periods of American history, but were expanded in 1995 to include characters and stories from contemporary life. Aside from the original American Girl dolls, the buyer also has the option to purchase dolls that look like themselves. The options for the line of Truly Me dolls include eye color, face mold, skin color, hair texture, and hair length. A variety of related clothing and accessories is also available. A service for ordering a bespoke doll with features and clothing specified by the owner, dubbed Create Your Own, has also been introduced in 2017.

American Girl Dolls Wiki

Here I am at the American Girl store holding Blaire Wilson. She is the Girl of the Year for 2019.

The next few blog posts will be introducing my American Girl dolls