Goodbye For Now

Hey y'all,
     It's Ashleigh. I'm sorry to say, but I don't think that I'll be posting anymore on this blog. I've been thinking about this for a while, and I just haven't wanted to do anything with my AGs. All of my dolls except for Taylor are going to be stored at my grandparents' house for now; they're just taking up a lot of space in my room. I know that some of you will be upset, but I'd rather not post about something that my heart's not in. I WILL be leaving this blog up for you to come back to, if you want to read a post or something. And who knows? Maybe someday I'll start posting again, once I start feeling like doing something with my dolls; right now just isn't working out. If you have any questions, you can feel free to leave a comment or email me (you can find the email address on the "contact us" page) and I'll do my best to get back to you. 
I hope that you understand,
Ashleigh

Taking a Break.

Hey guys, it's Ashleigh.
     I'm not sure why, but lately I just haven't wanted to do anything with this blog. I don't think that I'm leaving permanently or anything without letting you know first, but I am taking a break for a while. I've started an Instagram account for the dolls called AG. Ashleigh where I'll post nicer pictures of them. A few of my dolls may be getting their names changed as well. I'd love it if you'd give the account a follow :) There aren't any posts yet, I'll work on that when I actually feel like taking pictures of them. Anyways, I guess that that's it. 

Ashleigh

Camp's Almost Over!!!

Hey guys! It's Natalie!
     Well, Camp's almost over... This is the last week for campers, and then we leave on Saturday. We thought that it would be fun to share some of the pictures that we took while we were at camp this year, so here you go! There's not a lot (like I said before, we got almost no free time), but I hope that you'll like them anyway. 

We are posing by the cabinet of crafty goodness here... That's where we put a lot of the stuff that we made over the summer.

Taylor came to visit!

     Did you notice that Saige has a cast on her arm in these pictures? She broke her arm last week on a double dog dare from a camper to climb the tallest tree in camp. She fell off before she even got ten feet into the air. You can't decline a double dog dare without sounding like a wimp! Oh, Saige... 
     Have you noticed anything else about these pictures? They were taken with an actual  camera!!!!!!! Almost every single picture on this blog was taken with the cruddiest laptop camera ever produced.... Eew. That's right readers! Our photos will (mostly) be of a much higher quality from now on! You may have noticed this in our craft last week :)

Well I guess that's it... We might not update again until we get home, so this may be our last post from Camp Little Lake this year! 
Goodbye!
Green Bean
Sparky

Craft Time With Natalie and Saige!!!!- Easy Magnets

WAAAA HOOOO!!!!
     We've finally gotten around to making a craft post!!! This time, we're making some easy magnets like the ones that we made with our campers a few days ago.

Materials:

• Mod Podge or clear glue
• Scrapbooking paper or old magazines
• A paintbrush
• Scissors
• Clear rocks
• Crafting Magnets
• Hot glue gun and sticks- Make sure that you have adult supervision!!!

1. Paint a layer of Mod Podge onto the flat side of the clear rock with a paintbrush.

2. Press the Mod Podged side of the rock onto the decorated side of your scrapbooking paper or magazine. Make sure that it's stuck really well! Let it dry completely.

3. Cut the excess paper from around the rock.

4. Paint another layer of Mod Podge onto the back of the rock, over the paper. This will help the paper stick a little bit better and it will create a seal. Let it dry completely.

5. Hot glue the magnet to the back of the rock. You're finished!

     We hope that you enjoyed this craft! Did you notice that we actually used a camera? Hahaha... Let us know if you can tell a difference in photo quality please!

Saige

Natalie

Ashleigh's Off To Camp!

Hey guys, it's Emily!
     I just wanted to let you all know that Ashleigh will be at camp this whole week, so if you leave a comment or something on here, It won't be visible until next Saturday or Sunday:) We just wanted to let you know that so you don't think that we ignored/deleted your comment. All comments left on this blog need to be moderated by Ashleigh before they are visible on the blog:)

Emily

P.S.- Don't forget to put a vote in our poll off to the right! It would really help Ashleigh decide:)

What IS a Reborn Doll?

UPDATE: You can vote for Lucas's middle name in the poll off to the right side of the blog!
Hey guys, it's Ashleigh.
     I decided to make a quick post explaining what a reborn doll is! A reborn doll is an extremely lifelike doll that is painted and assembled to resemble a real baby.  A reborn doll starts off as a blank vinyl kit. This kit is then painted in many thin layers to create a realistic skin tone. Each layer of paint is set into the vinyl by baking it. The kit below is mine; it is the Twin B kit by Bonnie Brown. He isn't painted yet, I'm going to send him off to an artist in a few months when I've saved up enough money.  I've assembled it because I wanted to see how big he would be when he's finished:)

He's so detailed. And tiny. He's like 17 inches!

Squeeeee!!

     By the way, I'm naming this reborn Lucas. If you have any middle name suggestions for him, please leave them in the comments! I'm drawing a blank;)

     Once the kit is painted, the doll's hair can be micro-rooted, painted, or there can be no hair at all. Micro-rooting can take days, but the results are well worth it. This picture is of micro-rooted hair.

This is not my picture! All credit goes to the original photographer:)

     Once the doll has hair(or not!), it is assembled and weighted to be as heavy as a real baby. Usually, the doll is assembled to make the head slightly floppy, so that you would have to support its head like with a real baby. The reborn artist will then pack the doll and layette into a box and ship it to its new mommy/daddy. Reborn box packings are usually very fun to open, like a whole bunch of presents! Here's an example-

This is not my picture! All credit for this picture goes to the original photographer:)

Some Key Words
Artist- The person that creates the reborn doll (painting, rooting, assembling, etc.)
Kit- The unpainted vinyl pieces (head, arms, legs, head, and sometimes a tummy plate) that are                  painted by the artist

     Well, I hope that this post helped you understand just a little bit more about what reborns are! If you have any questions at all,ask me in the comments! I'd be happy to answer them!

Ashleigh

P.S.- I JUST got my new laptop, so now I have to find the camera cable and photograph the craft post. I should have it up soon!

A Few Updates

Woah, two posts in one day! This is crazy! I just wanted to let you all know about some of the stuff that's going on.

• I am finishing up the craft! It should be done by the end of this month; and I'll tell you why in a minute. I have all of the instructions written out, I just need to take the pictures and upload them. 
• I am getting a new laptop! This is why I haven't posted anything lately; I've been cleaning out all of the stuff on this laptop that I don't want transferred onto the new one. This is also why I haven't finished the craft. 
• I'm getting another reborn doll! Well, sorta. I only ordered the blank kit (I'll make an explanatory post when it gets here), and I need to save up some money so I can send it off to get painted and stuff. So this reborn will be finished by the beginning of next year. I can't wait!
• Natalie, Saige, and Taylor will get back from Camp Little Lake on August 22nd.
• We only have 6 months to reach our goal of 30 followers! If you like this blog, do us a favor and follow us:) You'll be one of the first to know when we make a new post! 

I'm pretty sure that that's it for now... I'll let you know if anything else happens:)

Ashleigh

A (sorta) Photoshoot!

     Hooray, a photoshoot! Well, not really... Ashleigh took these pictures on a whole bunch of different days, but whatever. I had a day off from crafting today, so I decided to finally post this; it's been finished for a few weeks:P Some of you have been waiting for this for a while.... And some of you didn't say, so we don't know whether or not you'd have liked to see this. Oh well, too late now! Anyway, this is a photoshoot of Piper! Ashleigh's been kinda obsessing over Piper lately (or more than usual, at least... We got some reports about this from Em) so we decided to do something with her. Ashleigh took the pictures, I'm gonna add the captions along with some of the other dolls. 

You may have seen these first two already...

All swaddled up!

Ready to go on an adventure! (or to the store)
I still can't believe that that car seat was only 95 cents!
I wish I was there. I love thrift stores!

SQUEEEE!!
She's so cute here!
And realistic...

She's really chunky ;)

 

Chillin' out
She just needs a pair of sunglasses!

     That's all of the pictures that we have of her right now! I hope that you enjoyed Piper as much as I do:) Let me know what your favorite picture of her is!

Saige

Camp Updates!

Saige here!
     Hey readers! We've been having a lot of fun during counselor training here! The campers are going to arrive in a few days, so I decided to type this out now because I can really only use my laptop when I have time off. Natalie's been a bit more busy than me, so she couldn't type anything right now. She said that she'll post something soon. We don't really get to see Taylor very often, which is kinda annoying, because she works in the kitchen. Sometimes we get to see her at meals, though! Taylor gets one day off every week, so she's hoping that she'll be able to post then. 
     This summer, we are going to make a few(hopefully) craft posts! We are super excited about this! We're finishing our planning for camp right now, so we're too busy to post an entire craft on here... Hopefully we can get something done next week!
Talk to you all soon!
Saige

And Taylor's Counselor Name Is.......

Natalie here! 
     I'm making this post really quickly before we leave for camp, so it's gonna be pretty short. Taylor picked the name Sugar! It was suggested by an anonymous commenter, so we're not 100% sure who it was... Anyway, thanks so much! We'll update you from camp soon.

Natalie

It's Your Last Day To help Taylor Out!

Natalie here,
     I feel like I've posted a lot about this... But it's important! Today is your last day to suggest some names for Taylor to use at camp for her counselor nickname!!! The original post is HERE, you can leave your suggestions here or at that post. I'll let you know what Taylor ends up choosing tomorrow, before we leave for camp.

Natalie

OUR 50TH POST!!!!!

     WOW!! We've finally posted 50 times (including this post)! I know that that's really not a lot when you consider that there are blogs that post like, three times a day, but it's something :P I don't think that any of us ever thought that we would get this far! I guess that there's really not a lot of other things to say... oh well. Thank you to all of our wonderful readers!

Emily

P.S.- Make sure that you give Taylor a few name suggestions HERE! The deadline is May 29th. We've received some AWESOME suggestions! See if you can come up with something even better!

Taylor Still Needs Your Help!

Hey guys,
     It's Natalie again. We still need some suggestions for Taylor's counselor name!! You can check out the original post HERE. We've received a few really great suggestions, but unfortunately Taylor is not allowed to use her real name in her counselor name (for security reasons, I guess,) and these used her name. You can still help, though! Taylor's thinking that she wants her name to be something cute, maybe something that has to do with working in the kitchen? It doesn't have to be about the kitchen, that's just an idea. The deadline for name suggestions is Friday, May 29th; we leave for Camp Little Lake on the 30th. Just leave your suggestion in a comment, or in our suggestion survey (RIGHT HERE!). Be creative! Counselor names are supposed to be silly :P We'll make a post before we leave for camp telling you what Taylor chose.

Natalie, A.K.A. Green Bean

Looking Back

Greetings from Emily!

     Ashleigh decided that it would be a good idea to look back on what we've accomplished for our blogging resolutions, since we're already almost halfway(!!!!) through the year. HERE'S the original post, if you haven't read it yet. Here's the part that I'm going to focus on today-

"1. Get to 30 followers on Blogger

2. Reach a few thousand more pageviews! We got over 2,400 last year, and we're more popular now       than we were before!
3. Post more often. We really do try to post, but we are CONSTANTLY busy!
4. Start working on "Craft Time With Natalie and Saige!" posts. Seriously. We need to do this.
5. Start a new series of posts. Any ideas would be helpful! We were thinking about doing a short info         post about each non- AG doll. Sound good?
6. Do more on Pinterest!"

     1. Get to 30 followers on Blogger- We haven't reached this goal yet, so keep following guys!

     

    2. Reach a few thousand more pageviews! We got over 2,400 last year, and we're more popular now       than we were before!- Complete! As of right now, we have a little bit over 4,500 pageviews. I wonder how many we can reach by December?

    3. Post more often. We really do try to post, but we are CONSTANTLY busy!- Well, we've tried to follow through with this... Hopefully we can post more in the summer!

    4. Start working on "Craft Time With Natalie and Saige!" posts. Seriously. We need to do this.- Hehehe... Umm... Well... We're going to work on it. Our current goal is to make one craft by the end of the year. 

    5. Start a new series of posts. Any ideas would be helpful! We were thinking about doing a short info         post about each non- AG doll. Sound good?- Hooray! We actually made a post about this! You can check that out HERE. Hopefully we can work on this a little bit more over this half of the year. 

     6. Do more on Pinterest!- This goal really isn't that important to us... We did pin a few things semi-recently though, so I guess that this is complete? 

     Overall, we've completed 3 out of 6 of our goals! Not too bad! The resolution that I want to complete the most is for us to get 30 Blogger followers here. Help us reach our goal! By the way, check out our suggestion survey! You can find it on the page "Help us improve our blog, please!"

Emily

Help Taylor Out!

Natalie here!
     Taylor asked me to help her out with something. Help us decide what her counselor name will be! Every counselor at Camp Little Lake has a funny nickname, and Taylor can't figure out what she wants hers to be! My nickname last year was Green Bean, and Saige's was Sparky. We get called the same thing every year, so we don't have this problem ;) Help us out! Every idea that we've come up with, Taylor had rejected; maybe you can come up with something better? We'll pick from these suggestions (unless we come up with something else here.) Maybe something that has to do with working in the kitchen? We need all of the suggestions by Friday, May 29th, because we leave for camp the next day. Leave your suggestions in the comments, it'll be greatly appreciated! By the way, the camp director doesn't want us to use our real names in the counselor name :)

Thanks for helping us out!
Natalie

Preparing For Camp!

Hey guys! Taylor, Natalie, and Saige here!
     As you may remember, Saige and I were counselors at Camp Little Lake last year.
     We're going to be counselors again this year! We filled and sent out our applications a few weeks ago, but we took pictures to show you what they looked like.

     I got to be a counselor this year too! I'm very excited. The only bad thing is that I have to work in the kitchen; I wanted to work with Natalie and Saige in the craft cabin.
     Hey! At least you got to work there this year, Taylor!
     That's true... I just don't want to wash dishes all day.
     We're packing today, we need to be at the camp on May 30th so we can set up stuff and go through a bit of training. The campers will get there on June 14th. Last year they only gave us a day to set up! 
     I'm glad that they gave us a few weeks to prepare this time. We didn't even finish training last year! It was a bit of a disaster.
     The pool wasn't even filled up by the time that the campers started to arrive. It was chaos!
     Okay, we need to finish packing now. Do you think that this post was too short?
     Nah. There's not a lot to be said. 
     So I guess that we're done!

Thanks for reading!
Taylor, Saige, and Natalie
     

Some More Blogging Tips!

Hey y'all!
     Taylor and I finally came up with our blogging tips! You can read the first post HERE. Here goes nothing!

1. Keep your blog a happy place!

     I think that this tip is pretty self-explanatory... Just try not to post really sad/upsetting stuff on a normally happy blog. There's a chance that you'll upset some of your readers, and you most likely wouldn't want to do that! We usually try to post happy things here on Emily and Friends; that's how a lot of doll blogs are.

2. Try to keep a schedule!

     This schedule doesn't have to be super detailed if you don't want it to be. I recommend that you should try to at least know how often you're going to post something. Some people go super in-depth, like knowing exactly which post that they're going to make months in advance. As you maybe able to tell, we don't do that here (We're working on making a schedule, but with the end of school coming up, it's getting a little tough). 

     I know that these tips weren't as useful as some of the tips in the earlier post, but I hope that you find them to be useful anyway :D

Addie and Taylor

Some Blogging Tips!

Hey guys, Emily here.
     AAAHHH!!! I'm SO SO sorry that we haven't posted in so long! I feel super bad about this.... But I remembered that I wanted to make this post, so I guess that that's good? This post is NOT supposed to be super strict rules, you can just use one tip, or none, or however many you feel like using :P But they are pretty useful.  I had each doll write out one tip that they thought was important for having a fun blog. Let's begin!

1. Don't make false promises!

     This is simple! Don't say that you're going to do something and not do it! (We haven't been super awesome at following this, like with Craft Time With Natalie and Saige! posts :P) Don't promise that you're going to do something like have a giveaway when you reach 100 followers and then not do anything when you reach your goal. All that you're doing is making people upset that they didn't get what you promised them.

2. Don't stop posting without notice!

     This applies to any break- be it a month, or forever- that you take from posting. When I said a month, I meant that more for a blog that normally posts a few times every week. Just make a short post telling people that you're taking a break, and let them know for about how long it'll be. Try your best to be back to posting by the time that you said (read tip #1). If you're going to stop posting forever, then MAKE A POST TELLING PEOPLE THAT!!!!! We've found SO MANY blogs that just suddenly stopped posting and didn't warn their readers. It's kind of upsetting. If you're going to completely remove your blog, make a goodbye post that tells people that you'll be deleting the blog and leave it up for a month or two, then delete the blog. Leaving the post up will give your readers time to stop by the blog and know that they won't be able to visit anymore. If you're going to keep the blog up (which we recommend) then just make a goodbye post and let it be. Make sure that your readers know whether they'll be able to access the blog after you stop posting!

3. Don't use bad language!

     Don't use bad language on your blog! People will probably not return to your blog if you curse a whole bunch. Remember- kids are the main readers of doll blogs! 

4. Don't brag!

      Honestly, nobody wants to hear about how you got 20 AG dolls and all of their accessories for your birthday. Maybe it's just me, but when I hear stuff like that, I start to not like the blog as much. It's fine if you have a lot of dolls, but don't brag about how many you have. Keep in mind that there are a lot of kids that don't have any AG dolls! 

     Addie and Taylor couldn't come up with any tips; if they do, I'll make another post. Tell us your favorite tip!

Thanks for reading!
Emily, Saige, Molly, and Natalie!

Happy Easter!

Hey guys!
     Happy Easter! We hope that you have a wonderful day filled with church, bunnies, and chocolate! Let's just hope that you don't eat it all in one day, like somebody here.... Hey! You said that you wouldn't talk about that! Sorry Saige, too late now! We are really "hopping" to post more this month (Get it? Hopping, like a bunny? I hope you do), so stay tuned for that. That's all for now! Tell us what you got in your Easter basket! (That is, if you celebrate Easter :P)

Emily

An Interview With Taylor

Molly here!
     I hope that you're all still enjoying these interview posts... Let me know if you're getting tired of them :) If you have any questions for Saige, Elizabeth, or Kaya, let me know in the comments! I'll ask them in their interviews. Let's begin!

I'm so happy that you're here!
Thanks! I'm happy to be here too. What kind of questions do you have for me?
Lots of kinds, let's start. How old are you?
Twelve.
What kinds of things interest you?
Fashion, hair, that kind of thing. And outer space. 
What's your favorite TV show? 
Probably Project Runway. It's so cool to see all of the different fashions!
Favorite book?
The Tale of Despereaux. I answered that in the Q&A post! Were you stealing other people's questions?
What, No! That was just a question that I thought up. Let's keep going. If you had to be from another        doll line, which would it be?
Hmm. Hard question. Either Barbie or Animator's Collection. Probably Barbie because of all the              different clothes and accessories!
What's your favorite subject in school?
Science! I love learning about the solar system and outer space. 
Least favorite subject?
Does recess count? I do NOT like sports AT ALL. Or participating in them, anyway. 
That's all that I have here! Do you want to add anything else?
Ooh yeah! Ashleigh wanted to know if you guys would be interested in seeing more stuff about Piper. Stuff like photoshoots and other things. Let me know in the comments or the suggestion survey!

Molly
Taylor

Doll Focus: Piper!

     We've decided to do a new blog series where we go over some basic info about Ashleigh's non-AG dolls! So far we're just calling it "Doll Focus". Maybe later we'll come up with something more fun! It was one of the things that people were asking for in the suggestion survey. We're going to get to the crafts soon!

Piper Amelia

Artist: Virginia Comish

Nursery: Little Dimples Nursery

Weight: 7lb. 12 oz.

Height: About 22 in.

Sculpt: LE Knox by Laura Lee Eagles #333/1400

     I got Piper in November of 2014 for my Christmas/birthday present squished together. She's so cute, I love her! She's so realistic that people think that she's an actual baby! She's a sculpt by Laura Lee Eagles, which means that A LOT of people wanted her. Somehow, I won her eBay auction, and a few weeks later, she came in the mail! She has a few minor flaws, but they're not very hard to overlook, you probably wouldn't be able to notice them if I didn't tell you where they are. She's about the size of a one month old, so she just barely squeezes into newborn clothing; 0-3 months fits her better. Her hair is rooted, and she has a magnetic pacifier. Yay pictures!

We bought this car seat at the thrift store for 95 cents!!! It was practically new!

     Sorry about the lack of pictures... Maybe I'll do a photoshoot with her soon? Would that be something that you guys would like to see? If you have any questions about Piper, feel free to ask in the comments! I'll be happy to answer them :D 

Ashleigh

P.S.- We have 21 followers now!!! We forgot to post when we hit 20 :P

A Q&A For YOU!!

Saige here,
     I really enjoyed this whole Q&A thing that I had going on here these past few weeks, so I decided to do another post! But this is different; the questions will be for YOU, the readers! I gathered one doll related question from each doll that posts here, and your job is to answer them in the comments. You can find which font color goes to which doll in the "Meet the Dolls" page.

     How many AG dolls do you have?

     Who's your favorite Historical Character/ BeForever doll (retired or not)?

     Which AG doll is next on your wishlist?

     Do you have a favorite doll line/company (like AG, Monster High, or Hearts for Hearts)? If so, which one?

     Which BeForever/Historical Character doll do you think that you're most like?

     What names do you really love? Not really a doll related question, but your dolls have names!

     What kind of stuff would you like us to post about? We got a few requests to do more stuff with Piper, does anybody else think that would be cool? What kind of stuff should we do with Piper?  Any suggestions are good!
 
     OK! That's all of the questions that I got! Remember your mission: answer all of these questions in the comments of this post! Have fun!

     Saige

An Interview With Natalie

Molly here, once again!
     Today, I'll be interviewing Natalie! Natalie writes in purple ink. 

How are you today?
Great! How about you?
Pretty good, let's get to the interview!
Okay, let's do that!
What's your favorite color?
Purple, just like my font color here.
What's your favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Practicing hairstyles! I think that I've improved a lot in the past few months.
Cool! When did you first come to live in Maple Meadows with us?
Christmas of 2013. That's why my birthday's on Christmas!
How old are you?
13.
So how do you and Taylor like being the only dolls to have a sister here?
I don't really know about Taylor, but I love it! It's really cool :D
Are you going back to Camp Little Lake to be a counselor again this year?
I sure hope so! I've gotta fill in and mail my registration papers soon, or I won't get a chance to!
Good luck! I hope that you get a spot!
Thanks! I do too!
Alright, that's all the questions that I have. Do you want to add anything else?
Yes. There's a poll on the right side of the blog, so don't forget to vote! And remember to leave any suggestions in our suggestion survey up above!
Bye!
Molly and Natalie

Q&A Time!!

Saige here!
     Well, we didn't reach our goal of ten questions, but we were close! We were asked nine questions over the past few days. I'm gonna write the questions in bold, and the answers in normal letters. Here goes!

Q: What is Elizabeth's favorite movie? 
A: She says that she loves Cinderella.

Q: Are you planning to get Grace Thomas?
A: Well, I'd really love to, but I don't think that I'm going to get any more AG dolls. I'm trying to save up my money for another reborn doll, and those cost way more than American Girls. 

Q: What is Kaya's favorite food?
A: Kaya says that she LOVES rotisserie chicken. 

Q: What is Taylor's favorite season?
A: Spring! When it's not too hot and not too cold; and the flowers start to bloom :D


Q: Do you like any other doll brands besides AG? What are they?

A: Yes! I love the Disney Animator's Collection dolls, Ever After High dolls, and Liv dolls. And reborns, but that doesn't really count as a brand :P

Q: What are your favorite blogs?
A: That's a tough one... Probably The Toy Box Philosopher, Doll Diaries (does that count as a blog?), Clarisse's Closet, and Living A Doll's Life.

Q: Have you heard of Playmobil? They're doll-sized for dolls. ;)
A: Yes! Ashleigh's little brother has some Playmobil playsets! 

Q: What are your doll's favorite books?
A: Mine is Hoot. I like the Harry Potter series! Ooh, I like the Baby-Sitters Club! I love The Lightning Thief, in the Percy Jackson series. My favorite is The Tale of Despereaux. I like the Harry Potter series, just like Addie! Elizabeth and Kaya both like Jane Eyre. 

Q: Do you have a favorite hairstyle to do on your dolls?
A: Probably just some plain old braids. They're easy to do, and they look great.

     I really hope that you enjoyed this post! If you ever have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments or in out suggestion survey. We'll write them down and save them for our next Q&A post.

Saige!

Submit Your Q&A Questions By Saturday!

Saige here,
     Remember! Your questions are due on February 28th! That's this Saturday!!! You can leave more questions after Saturday, but they'll be put aside for the next Q&A post (whenever that will be).You can leave them in a comment on THIS post. That post also has the instructions for leaving questions. We'd really like to get at least 10 questions and we have four already. We can do this!

Saige

UPDATE: We now have seven questions! Keep on asking, we only need three more to reach our goal!

Our Blogiversary Photo Shoot

Emily here!
     We have a few outtakes and fun photos from our photoshoot on Wednesday! By the way, sometimes, we post sneak peek photos on our Google+ account! You can follow us, if you'd like :) There's not a whole bunch of pictures, but I thought that you'd enjoy them anyway ;)

     Here's us just chatting while Ashleigh got the camera ready.

     Here's Molly and Addie being BFFs.

      And Addie looking pretty.

     Saige and Emily dancing (we were playing music!)

     Emily and Taylor showing off their dresses.

And Emily alone.

Molly's future profile picture?

     Natalie and Taylor's sister picture.

     Saige looking pretty too :)

     Don't forget to tell us which picture is your favorite! Did you ask any questions for us yet? If you didn't, leave a comment at THIS post, or ask in the suggestion box of our survey (you can find that in the "Help Us Improve Our Blog, Please" tab) by February 28th!

     Thanks for looking!
       Emily

Ashleigh's Early Christmas Present

UPDATE: I only the fixed the pictures in this post! this is not supposed to be a repeated post, but whenever you update a post, it looks like it's new >:P

Natalie here!
     We've been waiting to show you pictures of Ashleigh's early Christmas present for like, a month; but we've only JUST been able to get Picmonkey to work. So anyways, Ashleigh got a new doll! It's not an AG doll, though. She got a reborn doll. In short, reborn dolls are super lifelike dolls that are made to look like and feel like a real baby. Her name is Piper Amelia, and she got here in the middle of November (we were gonna show you!!); she weighs 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and she's 21 inches long. Yay pictures!

     These pictures are kinda weird.... She isn't actually as yellow as these pictures make her look, and the bottom picture makes her have yellow blotches everywhere... But I love these pictures of her anyways :) Piper's so realistic, Ashleigh actually takes her to the store in her baby carrier sometimes, and people think that she's real! It's really funny to see people's faces when I say "Oh, she's a doll"! They get so surprised! OK, that's all for this post! 

Natalie and Ashleigh

One Year Blogiversary!

Hooray!
     Emily and Friends turned one year old on February 12th!!! Sorry that we didn't get to post on the actual day, we may or may not have thought that it was the 28th, not the 12th...... WOW, this year has gone by so quickly! So much amazing stuff has happened here in the past 12 months :D Not only did we get a new member of our doll family, but we now have 17 followers and over 3,100 pageviews. We'd just like to say THANK YOU!!!!! We have had so much fun writing for this blog, and we just want to say THANK YOU AGAIN!!!!
 
 Now our owner wants to say a few words...
     Ashleigh here! I'm actually sort of surprised that my dolls kept this blog running for so long... I really thought that they would forget about it a few weeks after they created it! Anyway, like Emily said above two times, THANK YOU!!! It has to be said multiple times because it's so true! I'm so proud of all of the dolls for doing this! Almost everybody has posted something here, and I hope that they'll all try to post something this year... I'm looking at you, Elizabeth and Kaya. 
     On a less happy note, I just thought that I would put it out there now, but I'm not planning on adding any more American Girl dolls to my collection. I've run out of space in my room, and I don't have anywhere else in my house to store my dolls. I'm also saving up my money for other things, like another reborn doll. I just wanted to tell you that now!

     Back to fun stuff! All of the dolls have decided to say a little something to all of you! You can find the font color guide in the "Meet the Dolls" page, in case you didn't know who was typing :)

     I'm SO SO SO happy that we've been here for a whole year!

     Ditto to Saige! There will be some more interviews here soon... We're re-doing my reporting room, so it might be a while ;)

     Has it really been a year? It sure doesn't seem so! I remember our first post... My hair looked  awful :P And we thought that it would only be the three of us posting! 

     Natalie was right, her hair did look awful there! I'm only kidding, that's just what sisters do! Now that I look at my picture on the "Meet the Dolls"page, I look kinda bad too! Nobody looks amazing there; I should re-take everybody's picture... I guess that that's what I'll be doing this year...

     Even though I haven't done much for this blog, I love it! Thanks so much for being an Emily and Friends reader!

     You've already heard my opinion ;P Elizabeth and Kaya both said thanks, but since they haven't done anything here, they didn't say anything else about this whole thing... But we still included them in this picture :D

It's not the best, some of us didn't focus on the camera; but we had taken so many photos already, we were tired ;)


Thanks so much!
Emily and Friends

P.S.- Don't forget to leave us any questions in the comments of THIS post!!

We're Doing A Q&A Post!

Saige here!
     So I decided that it would be super fun if we had a Q&A post! What do you think? If you have any questions about us, our blog, or really anything else that you'd like to ask us, just ask in the comments! Do you want to know what Taylor's favorite food is? Or Emily's favorite book? Just ask! We'd like to get a lot of questions, so we can do a long-ish post. I'll be in charge of that, but if you have a question for any specific dolls here, just tell me that when you ask. I hope we can answer your questions! Please try to get your questions in by February 28th! I'll be posting the completed Q&A post around March 1st.

Saige :)
P.S.- We have a blog button now! It's on the right side of the page; we used a pretty picture of Taylor. Don't forget to grab it!

A Quick Thing...

Emily here!
     OK, so some of you said that our background and header here are all dark grey/black. It's NOT supposed to be that way. We are trying to work on it, something isn't right... We've been using Shabby Blogs for our background, has anybody else been having trouble with this? We noticed it a little while ago, but we didn't pay much attention. Has this been happening to you? I'd just like to know how many people this is affecting. We're going to go fix it right now; this is just a quick heads up.

Thanks!
Emily

UPDATE: I think that I've fixed it, let me know in the comments! It might take a few seconds for the background to load.

An Interview With Emily

Molly here!
     Yay! The official start to my interview series! Ashleigh and Addie's interviews were just "prequels" I guess.. Emily writes in black ink, I write in orange.

It's so exciting to finally interview you!
Well, thank you very much! I'm quite flattered that you chose to interview me first for this series, Molly.
You're the owner of this blog, of course I'd interview you first!
What questions do you have for me?
Oh, right. Questions.... Let me just grab them... Okay, let's start.
Go ahead.
What other names did you have in mind for Emily and Friends?
Well, it's been so long, I can't seem to remember any! I think that I just always liked Emily and Friends.
What's your favorite post?
Hmm. Let me think about that for a moment. Oh! Probably Natalie's photostory about when she and Saige returned home from camp. (You can find that HERE)
I like that one! Now for some questions about you! Where did you used to live before you moved to Maple Meadows?
Oh, I lived in London, just like in my books!
How cool! I'd love to go to London someday! Oh wait, I have more blogging questions. What kind of stuff would you like to do with the blog this year? 
Do you mean, like, my goals for the blog? Or stuff that I actually want to do?
Either works; but let's start with goals.
My main goal is for us to reach 30 followers by the end of the year! I know that we can, we already have 16 (Now 17!)! P.S.- thanks to all of you!
How about what you want to do with the blog?
I want to post more often, and I'm pretty sure that Nat, Saige, Taylor, and Addie want to do that too, I know that Addie's working on writing a story! I think that she's going to post a little bit each month or week.
Will Addie's story be a photostory?
No, I don't think so. She said that she isn't really interested in photography, so I'm guessing not.
What kind of posts are coming up soon?
Pretty soon we should have a photoshoot up, I'm not sure when, though.
Ooh! That sounds exciting! Would you like to add anything else? I'm done with my questions.
I don't think so. Oh, but be sure to check out a little tweak that we added to our photos! We added that cool "Pin It" button over all of them. You just have to hover your mouse over the picture that you want to pin, and a button should come up in one of the top corners.
How cool! Alright, I think that we're all done here!
Bye!
Bye! Have a fantastic week!
Molly and Emily

P.S.- We've noticed that our background is taking a really long time to load properly. I don't know if that's been happening to anybody else, but we're working on that anyways!

Thoughts About Grace Thomas, Pinterest, and New Year's Resolutions

Ashleigh here!
     First off, happy New Year!!! It's so hard to believe that it's 2015 already. I remember Isabelle being released like it was yesterday... OK, so I'm going to start with the Pinterest/ resolutions stuff first. We just noticed that you can actually pin our posts to your Pinterest account! If you look right underneath this post, on the line directly beneath the time that we posted this, you'll see a little bar with buttons that you can click to share our posts on multiple social media websites!!!! Let me rephrase that confusing sentence. If you click on one of the little buttons underneath this post, you can share it on the social media website of your choosing (Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, etc).  So, we want to ask you to do us a BIG, HUGE FAVOR..... Spread the word about our blog! Part of our New Year's resolutions is that we'd really like to get 30 followers by the end of this year, and you could help us do that :D Tell your friends! Tell your siblings! Tell your followers on wherever you have followers! If you have an Instagram (we don't... but still) you could post about us there (I'm not quite sure how to use Instagram. If I misstated anything about it, I'm sorry!). You could pin us on Pinterest! Really anything that you'd like to do. Help us reach our goal, please! That brings me to another point.....
     

     Our New Year's resolutions! These are blogging resolutions; things that we'd like to accomplish here on Emily and Friends. 
1. Get to 30 followers on Blogger
2. Reach a few thousand more pageviews! We got over 2,400 last year, and we're more popular now       than we were before!
3. Post more often. We really do try to post, but we are CONSTANTLY busy!
4. Start working on "Craft Time With Natalie and Saige!" posts. Seriously. We need to do this.
5. Start a new series of posts. Any ideas would be helpful! We were thinking about doing a short info         post about each non- AG doll. Sound good?
6. Do more on Pinterest! We pinned a lot of stuff yesterday, you can go and check it out HERE.
    And yet another point.....

     My thoughts about Grace Thomas, Girl of the Year 2015! -Remember, these are all MY opinions. It's totally OK if you disagree with them- In short, I love her. But there is more about that for me to elaborate on now, so here goes! 
     I first saw leaked photos of Grace a few weeks before January, and I really wasn't impressed. The lighting in the photos was off, and it made her look like she had orange skin and purple lips. Then came January 1st. I saw the photos of her, and I fell in love! The side bangs! Dark hair! Freckles! Josefina face mold! Her shoes! Aaaah! I need her. I. NEED. GRACE. THOMAS. So I looked at all of her stuff; clothing, furniture, the works. 

     Clothing: Adorable! Her clothes are actually stylish! Like something that I would totally wear; unlike most of Isabelle's clothing.... Anyways, there are two clothing articles in Grace's collection that I really want. Her Travel Coat and her City Outfit.

Grace's City Outfit

Grace's Travel Coat

Furniture: Ahahaha. $500 for a doll bakery? I literally laughed out loud when I saw the price. It's cute and all, but it's not THAT cute. Grace also has a Bistro Set that comes with a table and a chair and some other stuff that you'd put on a table. Then there's her Pastry cart, which is cute. Expensive, but cute. I can see taking some fun photos with that.

$500 doll bakery. Why?

Grace's Bistro Set

Grace's Pastry Cart

Accessories: Yay French Bulldog! I Like the mixer in the baking set, but it's too expensive if I just really like one thing in the whole set.  I do like her travel set, though!

Grace's Travel Set

Grace's Baking Set

Grace's French Bulldog

     This post has been way too long. Maybe I should have cut it in half. Oh well, too late now!

Happy New Year!

Ashleigh