Well.....that happened

I've received a few messages from people asking me to come back or just checking in with me. You guys are amazing and I so appreciate the concern. I never intended to just vanish for like 10+ months on you. Sorry about that. But things have been very busy in my non-doll life!

I moved twice in two months to two different states. No drama there, we just had to go one place for my husband's training and then on to our new location. Which is amazing! We've always wanted to live where we are now!

So all my dolls were packed up for months and months. I still don't have everything unpacked. And then something else HUGE happened:

Addy's School Suits

Holy crap I can't believe August is already almost over. Where have I been?! Well, let's just say I've had a whole lot going on the past two months. Some of it bad, some of it really good but unfortunately I can't share too much yet. I can tell you that I'm moving! We're not quite sure where to yet, but we do know that it's going to be an entirely different state. So I'm trying to get the house organized and go through things.

Anyway, last time I told you that my brother was visiting. I had a really nice visit with him and now I'm just getting stuff ready to go to Tulsa!! That's right tomorrow I'm visiting my bbf/sister Traci and we are going to an AG store! Super excited! I am going to write at least one blog post on the trip when I get back, but I have a post I want to get up before I go!

Today is all about Addy's School Outfits:

This post has been a long time coming. I've had Addy's new Beforever school set since a month or two after the launch and have been planning it since then! Shall we get started?

One thing that used to come with AG outfits (a long time ago) were these little pamphlets.

They gave a little over summary of the book the outfit was associated with and had a few pictures.

You can kind of read it!

Addy's original school suit was a four piece set. It came with a blouse, jacket, skirt and a medal. I am currently missing the medal. Mostly because I don't want to pay $50 for it on eBay!  I will eventually get it though.

The blouse is white, with poofy sleeves and tight cuffs.

It velcros down the back.

It has a high collar with a bow and pleats down the front.

It also has lace along the collar and cuffs!

The jacket is made of thick, royal blue wool:

Here is the the front and back!

The jacket body is lined with a floral print:

While the sleeves are lined with a darker paisley cloth:

The sleeves, front and back of the jacket are all trimmed with black cord:

I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love this jacket. Every part of it is well done and very high quality. I love the point in the back, I love that the sleeves and body are lined with different fabrics and I REALLY just love the over all color. It's an amazing piece.

The skirt is made of the same blue wool:

It also velcros in the back. (I feel like I say that all the time!)

My favorite part about the skirt?

It's waistband is  lined with the same paisley as the sleeves of the jacket! Such awesome attention to detail.

It has matching cord trim around the bottom edge and the waist:

I especially love the little loop on the pointed waist band!

Here is Addy in everything:

I love how bright the shirt looks next to the royal blue of the jacket and skirt!

Addy looks so polished!

It's truthfully my absolute favorite Addy outfit. And has been since I was little! I don't think the Beforever suit could ever replace this one in my heart BUT it's still really cool so....on to the newer school suit!

Addy's Beforever school suit is also a 4 piece set. It includes a jacket/shirt combo, a skirt and two combs with velvet bows. Here is the jacket/shirt:

It is all once piece and made of a lighter blue than the original. AG calls it sky blue but it has some greenish/greyish undertones to my eyes.

It velcros down the back and is unlined:

Though it does have a support for the bow at the collar!

The sleeves are done very well and do create the illusion that there are two pieces here:

And again the bright white looks nice next to the blue! Addy just looks really good in blue.

Here you can see the peter pan collar of the "shirt," the pointed collar of the jacket, plus all the trim!

This top has a velvet bow at the throat and a velvet ribbon around the waist

It also has a leaf like trim all around the collar of the jacket and the front and bottom.

Here is the skirt:

Unlike everything else in this post; it doesn't velcro!

Instead it has elastic at the waist. It also has matching leaf like trim along the bottom! My only complaint about this skirt is that it has an awful lot of blank space. Especially compared to the older skirt. The top has so much going on that looking at the skirt alone is a bit underwhelming.

However, the bottom of the jacket lays very nicely over the top of the skirt:

The two trims actually lay pretty close together and so the outfit doesn't have that big blank space when on! Which I'm very glad for.

Finally we have the hair combs!

These are totally my favorite part of this outfit!

They consist of a medium sized, black velvet, bow:

Sewn onto a black plastic comb:

They actually do sit very securely in her hair:

Here I have them sandwiched between two rope braids. I really feel like these add the only thing that the original school suit is missing: something pretty for the hair! I also really like that they aren't just ribbon this time. I think the combs add a little something special to them. It makes them feel higher quality I suppose? Especially since AG has been putting bows on little scruchies lately. Ew.

Here is Addy in everything:

Of course she looks incredible! The lighter blue looks just as nice as the dark blue and I really like the pointy shoulders of the jacket. Again she looks very polished and ready to win that spelling match!

So which one is your favorite?

Honestly I love the original the most, but I really love the new suit too.

Some part of me is sad that the top on the new suit is all on piece. As a girl I love the realism of layering the clothing on my dolls. But I can completely understand how a one piece item is a lot easier for children. I wouldn't say that it takes away from the new suit but I think it does make me realize how special the older one is.

Other than that small gripe I've got nothing bad to say. The old suit was one of my very first purchases when I started collecting and I had to have the new one as soon as I saw it online. I'm very pleased to have both in my collection and I couldn't just choose one if I tried!

One more picture for the road:

I hope you guys enjoyed a look at these two school suits! They are both really awesome pieces and dang it, I will get the medal someday. Addy needs it!

Next time is going to be all about my trip! You know I'm going to take a ton of pictures. Till then!

Red Robin and Arsenal

And then I took like a month off.....Hey everyone :) hope you guys had a great 4th and a great July so far. After taking a little break (It has been a crazy month, my in-laws came to visit and my brother is visiting and we're doing our first 5k) I'm back and happy to be here! So to get us back up and running today, we are going to talk about two new action figures I've acquired lately.

Arsenal from Red Hood and the Outlaws and Red Robin from Teen Titans! Traci over at A Wild Review Appears has already talked about both of these action figures. You can read her review of Arsenal here and Red Robin here. Her reviews are really good and usually I don't like reviewing stuff she's already done (feels redundant) but then I took too many pictures sooooooo here I am!

HAPPY 100th POST!!

And two year blog anniversary!

You know when I started this blog I never thought I would make it three months let alone two years. I didn't think I'd make it five posts and now we're at 100! It totally blows my mind. I've thought long and hard about how I want to celebrate this milestone. It's a pretty big one for me! And I've decided that today we're just going to take a look back at the last two years. Talk about some stats, talk about the dolls, talk about the projects and at the end I will give you guys a chance to win something pretty cool! But we'll get to that in a moment.

Surprise....I Goobered Up!

Yeah...you know I can never do anything important without goofing up somehow LOL!

As I was looking for blog stats to talk about in my 100th post I discovered something. It turns out that I accidentally counted a post I've never published! So this is my actual 99th published post and NEXT time will be 100 where we do our super cool give away. I'm super awesome! And yeah I know that nobody will really care if I'm one off but I care!! Dang it. So for our actual 99th post I'm going to be lame and just talk. If you aren't interested in a post with very few pictures and lots of talking then come back for my next post! I totally understand and the next one will be picture heavy and super fun!

Kit's Chicken Keeping Set and an Exciting Annoucement!

The hubby and I took a little trip to Nashville over Memorial Day weekend and one of the places we went was the Hermitage. The Hermitage is President Andrew Jackson's former home and while I'm not a huge fan of the man; his home and the museum on the grounds are very interesting! They still have his wife's favorite wall paper on the walls of the home and it's in remarkable condition. Speaking of his wife (her name was Rachel) my favorite part was getting to walk in her garden. Here is one of the best pictures I took:

It is a very traditional English square garden and Rachel would walk in it everyday as well as grow herbs for some of her health problems! Another interesting thing about Rachel is that she was very attached to all her fowl and worried about them when she was gone. Which leads us right into what we're talking about today: Kit's Chicken Keeping Set!

Going to the park!

Today I had a chance to hang out with my AGC buddy IGSBeth again! We went to the park and took some awesome pictures.

I brought Grace: