American Girl Open House & Preschool

American Girl opened a store here in Overland Park over Labor Day weekend. MJ and I were so excited to go with my friend Lisa and her daughter, Ksenya, to the open house. There was face painting, balloon artists, give aways, and all the wonder of wandering around an awesome doll store!

We all got up early and arrived at the store at 8:30 am. They were supposed to open the doors at 9 am. We got in line and an employee came out to give out entrance tickets. That was when we discovered that we were in group 4. Group 0 was already in line and each group had 200 people in it!!! So there were 800 people in line ahead of us. We were allowed to go roam the mall. They had digital screens set up all over to display what group was lining up. We checked out the Disney store and had fun playing with all the dress up clothes, going through the stuffed animals, and talking about our favorite Disney characters. The girls rode the carousel and we munched on free bagels. A little over an hour later, we returned to see about how much longer it would be before it was our turn to line up. We were told it would be around 12:45 pm. Four more hours! So, we decided to ditch our mother/daughter dates and head back home. We'll try again next weekend, when hopefully it won't be as crazy busy. Another note, as we were leaving, they were handing out tickets for group 9. So in a little over an hour, another one thousand people came through to get tickets for the open house. Crazy! We gave our group tickets to a family of four who were in group 9. They were excited to get in earlier!  =)

Now, for some big girl news! My baby is now an official preschooler!!!

Anna has been so so excited about starting preschool this fall. She wasn't very happy when her older siblings all went back to school, but she still had to wait. Well, yesterday was her very first day. She was ready before all the other kids were dressed for school! Then she got mad at me because she didn't get dropped off at school with the other kids and had to wait another 45 minutes before her school started. Oh my! The drama!

Once we finally got to school, she was one super happy chick! She went right in, found her name for her Strawberry Shortcake backpack, hung it up, and went off to play. When pick-up time came two hours later, she skipped out of school with a huge smile on her face! I asked her about her first day - and instead of just telling me about it, she made up a song and sang all about the different things they did. It was totally cute! She kept singing things to me on and off as we ran errands together. It was such a fun day.

And Mom is still in shock that her little girl took a huge step towards becoming a big school girl. The years have been flying by way, way too quickly!

Would you like to comment?

Melissa Cunningham said...

You and I have so much in common. My baby started preschool this year too. Can't wait to experience those first time jitters when my book comes out!